Council+of+Blood+1568

Changes in the demographic structure and reproductive patterns of Europeans: causes and consequences

Council of Blood 1568

The Council of Blood was established in 1568 by the Duke of Alva during the “Revolts of the Netherlands” (1566-1587) to suppress the militant Calvinist minority. The Calvinists that had sacked over thirty churches and libraries as a response to high grain prices levied by the Spanish Crown and in the belief of purifying the Church of false Christian doctrines. As the revolutions spread from Antwerp to all major cities across the Spanish controlled Netherlands; the Spanish Crown which always had been catholic sought to put an end to Protestantism send twenty thousand troops under the command of Duke Alva to crush the Calvinist revolts. Under the Duke the so called “Council of Blood”, killed over fifteen hundred people. The Council of Blood fits into the theme of Changes in the demographic structure and reproductive patterns of Europeans because it killed a very high percentage of the Netherlands population, and partly caused a civil war between protestants and Catholics and between the Spanish Netherlands and Spain that lasted for about nineteen years. This is why a contemporary satirical picture is linked to this theme. It represents the multiple factions fighting or exploiting the Netherlands which are pictured in the form of a cow.

MLA: McKay, John P. __History of Western society__. 7th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.