‘The Birds Were in the Net’: Reactions in the Netherlands to News of the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, 1572

This article analyses reactions in the Netherlands to news of the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre in 1572. Although historians have previously studied international reactions to the massacre, they have largely neglected the Netherlands due to the paucity of printed responses to the event in the Low Countries. Through the study of a great number of diaries and chronicles, this article demonstrates how news about the massacre spread rapidly throughout the Netherlands. Chroniclers in the Low Countries reflected on the content and credibility of the horrible news reports from France while writing them down. The ongoing religious wars had made them aware of manipulative strategies that influenced news and its media, including false reports that were spread deliberately by the enemy. This article argues that the study of transnational news reports illuminates contemporary questions on authority and trustworthiness in a rapidly polarizing religious climate.