Benjamin J. Kaplan

Cunegonde's Kidnapping captures the interesting story of life on a religious borderland in 18th century Germany and the Netherlands. In a world in which your religion defined who you were, being a religious minority was frequently an awkward situation and having a mixed marriage fraught with challenges. Hendrik and Sara were one such couple, he was a Catholic and she a Calvinist, but her family was wealthier than his. They lived in a Dutch territory dominated by the nearby Catholic city of Aachen. Where the child would be baptized became the origin for a series of religious riots and a trials that would last for several years. Suffice to say Hendrik promised the Catholic priest that he would have his son baptized in that church and his in-laws that he would be baptized Protestant. The end result was that someone sent for his mentally challenged sister Cunegonde from Aachen and she attempted to steal the baby and take him to the Catholic church for baptism, something that was allowed in Aachen but illegal in the Netherlands. When she was arrested, chaos broke loose.

The late 18th century is generally viewed a kind of golden age of toleration in Europe, but Kaplan shows that this was not the case everywhere and many places remained mentally unenlightened through the era of the French Revolution and beyond.

A very, very interesting book for anyone interested in the history of interconfessional relations in Europe, obscure wars, or interesting non-fiction about the 18th century. Highly recommended.… (meer)