Francesco Guicciardini: House of Anjou in Naples: Joanna I

Francesco Guicciardini does give some space in his narration to the prior history of Naples, the claims on it by the French and, eventually, a few of the royal advisor's names of those working with and around the young French King Charles VIII in the early 1490's. Looking to show the many possible motivations for the French invasion of Italy in 1494, Guicciardini gives a sweeping but still informative view of the previous history of French claims and their interests on the ancient city.

This look back into the farther past shows a great deal about this Italian author, his choices, his assumptions, but he does this with only spare comments, and only now and then. The broad lines of what Guicciardini tells us in his narration comes down to us intact, and informed, with 220 years summed up clearly in just a few pages. Still the biases, as we may see them, from Guicciardini, nearly leap off the page.

Charles of Anjou first took and then was granted control of Naples, much of south Italy and Sicily in 1262 by his brother, French King Louis IX (St Louis) and the pope. This period was also fraught with much war and intrigue all over Europe, perhaps most spectacularly culminating in the Sicilian Vespers. This subject is probably best told in English in the book by that title, The Sicilian Vespers, by Steven Runciman.

The title of investiture granted to those ruling these lands became part of the legacy kept within the House of Anjou. Charles I of Anjou and Naples gave the title to his son, Charles II. When he died he gave it to his son Roberto, who had a son, Charles, called duke of Calabria. But this Charles died, and when Roberto grew old, he willed the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, as these lands were then called, to his granddaughter, Joanna.

Queen Joanna ruled Naples for nearly forty years, was Countess of Provence, called princess of Achaea, Jerusalem and Sicily, and supported the French papacy at Avignon. At the age of seven in 1333, she was named Duchess of Calabria, and betrothed the next year, to her cousin Andrew who was also in the Hungarian line of House of Anjou. She may have loved him, but he didn't last long. Kept out of King Robert's will, he was set upon by different forces until he fell. Many years after his death and other captains, and husbands, having come and gone over the years, it was forces driven by a claim by the Hungarians who finally captured her and her husband, Otto. She had been careful, she had sought support and gained it from the French Kings of her time, John II and in turn Charles V, of the Valois line.

The wiki for Charles of Durrazzo, the man who would replace her, by act of pope Urban VI, has the effrontery to say that she was obsessed with him 'throughout her life'. But she had spent nearly the whole time in power - nearly fifty years - defending her lands in south Italy from the popes in Rome. A glowing picture of her court and reputation for advancing public health and granting benefices, her great personal piety and associations with notable contemporary mystics and saints like Catherine of Siena is to be found on wikipedia today. She was also Queen of Naples at the time that the bubonic plague struck Italy.

Guicciardini, has a very different view of this heir and her reign. He admits her lineage leading in a direct line back to the original Charles of Anjou and Naples, but says as little as possible about her.

"Giovanna for her Weakne∫se, and Di∫∫olute Cour∫e of Life, was very much de∫pi∫ed, and the de∫cendants of Charles the Fir∫t by Charles the Second (who left ∫everal children) endeavoured to dethrone her. The Queen, to procure A∫∫i∫tance, adopted for her Son Lewis Duke of Anjou brother to that King Charles, whom the French thought proper to di∫tingui∫h by the name Sage...". [book i, p. 36]

Guicciardini gives neither source nor explanation for his claim here of 'Weakness', or a 'Dissolute Course of Life ' in this Joanna. Further he puts the actions for and against her coming from her own family as she was also descended from both Charles I and Charles II, like her cousins that Guicciardini lists by name only in a different context: Charles Durazzo. This Lewis above is that second Louis Duke of Anjou that came and tried to take Naples from Charles Durazzo after he ordered Joanna's assassination in 1382. This Charles Durazzo, once an ambassador in the wars between Venice and Croatia, was second cousin to Joanna in the same Anjou line from Charles II. He was the man picked by pope Urban VI to rule in Naples. And so he would remain, for a time. Joanna's body was brought back to Naples, shown in public and then thrown into a deep well at Santa Chiara Church, in Naples.

In quick succession after Charles Durazzo - after Louis III, the son of Louis (II) of Anjou mentioned above - came the heirs of Charles Durazzo, both Ladislav and Joanna, in turn. These became sovereign in Naples, carrying the familial and Angevin (House of Anjou) line into the fifteenth century. When Joanna II died in 1435, the line died with her as she had no children. It was this Joanna who had asked to procure Assistance from Alfonso V of Aragon which afterward, began the claims by that house on the Kingdom of Naples. She had left Naples to Rene of Anjou - the brother to Louis III - and it was Rene and Alfonso of Aragon who would spend the next decade fighting over the city's legacy. This Joanna is buried at Santa Annunziata, in Naples.

Guicciardini had little but harsh words for her as well. Rene of Anjou would bestow the unclaimed title of Naples to his son Charles, and he, to the French King Louis XI.

Quotes from The History of Italy, translated and printed by 1763 into English and found online at archive.org.

some news and opinion later june 2014

Big news from the US Supreme Court ruling on privacy and the need for a warrant to search a cellphone today.

MT: US High Court Says Police Need A Warrant For Most Cellphone Searches http://t.co/BGkA4UEWOe :Via @nprnews:
— neditsimple (@neditssimple) June 25, 2014

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The advance of ISIS in Iraq has continued . So has the talk in Washington and in the US media about Iraq and Syria. There was news of another huge bomb in Beirut. Dexter Filkins, now of The New Yorker was on Fresh Air with Terry Gross today giving a view on the state of things there. A long hour.  In addition, a strong case against 'action' and for more humanitarian aid has been put forward by Andrew Bacevich, and in a longer interview with Billl Moyers.
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Human rights advocate Salwa Bugaighis was killed in Libya.
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These men were sentenced to seven years, and one to a ten year term in an Egyptian prison for being journalists.

Journalists in cages. http://t.co/jbZi7hTceH via @mashable & @GettyImages pic.twitter.com/a541xg9Jit
— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) June 23, 2014

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The US 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals just released a document listing the justifications, in legal terms, that were used to kill Americans overseas with drones.

Court releases secret memo providing legal justification for using drones to kill Americans: http://t.co/QSA7PCo7la pic.twitter.com/IN7hMFy6pX
— Cassandra (@CassandraRules) June 23, 2014

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Here's looking at some of the relative US economies in a great series of graphs with the NY Times.
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Was Goldman Sachs implicated in mortgage security failure in 2008?

Goldman Sachs Involved in Fraudulent Activities in Toxic Mortgage-backed Securities http://t.co/ODn3Ki05dS via @grtvnews
— neditsimple (@neditssimple) June 24, 2014

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The 2014 World Cup in Brasil has been threatening to suck the oxygen out of rooms all over the world for a couple weeks now. Much time expended, many views expressed both revolving around the actual games and the people and countries involved, even the stadiums across the country accomodating the games. A nice view on local Brasilians who cheer for other futbol teams, because their ancestors immigrated from Japan, Italy was on npr. 4 min audio
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Horace Silver died a week ago. This may be his most well known song.

Horace Silver 5tet - Song For My Father [1968]: http://t.co/lAxtog1bh4 via @YouTube
— neditsimple (@neditssimple) June 19, 2014

Making the Case For Cortes In Spain; Rebellion In New Spain: May-June 1520

The months of both May and June were fraught with much tumult in Mexico in 1520. Cortes in a stunning reversal of fortunes, had the newly arrived Panfilo de Narvaev captured, and his newly arrived army put to work. He and his army, had been sent by Diego Velazquez, governor of Cuba in order to capture Cortes and put a stop to his efforts. There was the massacre (and the Aztec version of the massacre) of locals by Spanish forces led by Pedro de Alvarado in the great city during a special festivity of Toxcatl, perhaps as early as May 20. The Aztecs said that massacre was started by the Spanish lust for gold. By the end of this month, Cortes returned to the capital but was too late and, today, it is thought, that Moctezuma saw his end (June 30) after a series of uprisings. It is Diaz that says that the great king was stoned to death by his own people.

The previous year, Cortes had sent a letter and gold and the representatives, Montejo and Puertocarrero, to petition the king in Spain. Along the way they stopped in Cuba, but then made it to Seville in November, 1519. But the king was in Barcelona, raising money for his trip to Germany. These representatives unloaded the treasure to the authorities and then went to Barcelona in January, but the king had left for Burgos. Meanwhile the treasure they had brought back - the gifts of Moctezuma - was held in Seville and had made quite a stir. It was bishop Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca a former conquistador with Columbus and fierce advocate for the governor of Cuba who held some of this treasure. That became a scandal and caused a distance between bishop Fonseca and the Flemish advisers then currently favored around Carlos V.

Montejo and Puertocarrero did gain their audience by March of 1520 with the king, near Valladolid. He was intrigued but listened to Bishop Fonseca and his spokesman Gonzalo de Guzman as well. They characterized Cortes and these men as rebels, usurpers, effectively stealing from under the authority of Governor Velazquez. King Carlos agreed to another audience and this time some of the treasure arrived from Seville. Though some of it as the Cortes partisans avowed, was not brought and used this fact as leverage in their argument against the partisans of bishop Fonseca. The king would not make a definitive claim as for Cortes or the scandal about the treasure, but would not call Cortes a rebel. Then King Carlos sailed off to be crowned emperor Charles V in Germany.

This was good news for the Corets faction. Cortes had not offended the king, and the faction of Velazquez and bishop Fonseca had not shut out their cause. For Fonseca things were not so good. Uprisings by the common people in Burgos, and all over Spain, required his attention. He and governor Velazquez would have to pin their hopes, disappointingly on Narvaez. Panfilo de Narvaez would spend the next couple years imprisoned at Veracruz. It must have seemed a cruel irony to Cortes and his faction, having captured and secured Narvaez only to return to Tenochtitlan and find such tumult in the city. Things had fallen to such a pitch that Cortes and his remaining men were compelled to flee the great city the night Moctezuma was killed.

This draws together and ends the various threads of the story here of the trek Cortes and his men took into the interior of Mexico. There will be occasional looks at the conflict that lasted for the next thirteen months in New Spain, further indications of the will of King Carlos, the effects on the governor in Cuba as well as the career of bishop Fonseca of Burgos and the life of the woman, Malintzin, called Doña Marina.
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culled from pp xxiv-xxvi  in "Cortes, Velazquez and Charles V", the introductory essay by JH Elliott (1971), found in Hernán  Cortés: Letters From Mexico, translated, edited and with a new intro by Anthony Pagden, as a Yale Nota Bene book, Yale University Press, USA 2001

On False Opinions: Niccolo Machiavelli, Discoursi ii, 22

In the second book (of three) of The Discourses (in English) the overall scope is that of the 'expansion' of Rome. Like the first, Machiavelli picks topics from this period of the early Republican period but as he says, focuses on how Rome increased in size and rule. In his preface to this second book he furthers his case on the lessons of history.

"Men always, but not always with good reason, praise bygone days and criticize the present, and so partial are they to the past that they not only admire past ages the knowledge of which has come down to them in written records, but also, when they grow old, what they remember having seen in their youth. And when this view is wrong, as it usually is, there are, I am convinced, various causes to which the mistake may be due.

The first ... is [that] the whole truth about olden times is not grasped, since what redounds to their discredit is often passed over in silence, whereas what is likely to make them appear glorious is pompously recounted in all its details." [p. 265]

Another reason he says is that men have no reason to be afraid of, or envious of, the past. Men hate things due to fear or envy, but the past lacks the incentive to frighten or make men jealous.

If that weren't enough, Machiavelli furthers the case against false opinions in chapter 22 of this second book of his Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy's History of Rome. After the header quoted here for ch 22, he follows with a couple of examples comparing a Roman situation with an Italian one in the early 1500's. It applies in ways to situations today, as well.

"How frequently men form false opinions has been observed and is still observed by those who happen to be witnesses of their decisions, the which, unless made by men of first-class ability, are very often the reverse of being sound. And because in corrupt republics, especially [*] in untroubled times, men of first-class ability are ousted by the envy and ambitious scheming of others, men fall back on what by a common error is judged to be good, or else by those who are seeking popularity rather than the common good. Such mistakes are discovered afterwards when things go wrong, and recourse is then had of necessity to those who in peaceful times had been, as it were, forgotten.... There sometimes occur also events about which men who have had no great experience of affairs, are easily mistaken, since such happenings have plausible features which make men believe that the outcome in such a case will be what they have persuaded themselves it will be." [p. 344]

* Like the time, he says of his own times, when Francis I, king of France thought he would be able to retake Milan, then guarded by the Swiss.
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quotes and pagination in Niccolo Machiavelli The Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy Edited by Bernard Crick, translated by Leslie J Walker, thrird revision by Brian Richardson, Penguin Books, London, 1970, 2003

Position, Population and Work In The Low Countries, from "The Dutch Republic"

In order to give example for the rigorous organization found in that modern established work covering Dutch history of Jonathan I Israel (and for Oxford), a few brief extracts will suffice. Hitting the main points in a systematic way, the author takes us on a broad view of a place and a time before the great changes. Literally, paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, the ideas are broached, listed, explored and then specific details are provided to illustrate the points made. Structured, systematic exposition can be a trusted introduction in many topics, as long as it is remembered there will always be counter-examples and other aspects that are inevitably left out, usually for space considerations or the sake of clarity.

The text is plain, straighforward, though very broad in scope.This example is taken from the First Part, "The Making of the Republic, 1477-1588", and the sixth chapter is entitled, "Society Before the Revolt". Each section is given its own heading. This one is "The Land, Rural Society, and Agriculture". In these, the first paragraph will be quoted, followed by the first two sentences of the second paragraph, then the first sentence or two of each subsequent paragraph. By itself these 'headers' quoted below, give a solid overview (along with the following section 'Urbanization' which isn't covered here), which led me to this summation the other day. This is how chapter six starts.

"A broad tendency developed, from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries onwards, throughout the Low Countries towards freeing the peasantry from feudal ties and obligations. Land reclamation, and colonization of new areas, in Flanders and Brabant, as well as north of the rivers, together with the high level of urbanization, led the nobility and Church  to offer attractive terms, and free status, in order to coax peasant farmers to work newly cultivated areas (and others to remain on older land) as well as counter the attraction of migration to newly colonized regions of Germany. Thus, at a faster rate than in France or England, it became usual, in the greater part of the Netherlands, north and south to lease lands out to peasant framers, free from seigneurial control, for plain money rents."

"While seigneurial ties dissolved in the south and centre, in the northernmost areas -- Friesland, West Friesland, Groningen -- feudal forms and institutions had never gained any hold. Consequently, by 1500, the larger part of the low Countries was a country in which most of the land was held in fee simple and the bulk of the peasantry was free." [pp. 106]

...

"The whole Netherlands was thus a land of comparatively weak seigneurial control of the land, characterized, especially in the highly urbanized provinces, by a prevailing pattern of short-term leases of farms for money rents."

...

"The Orange-Nassau dynasty owned a considerable territory in northern Brabant, and along the rivers, which was handsomely expanded by William the Silent's first marriage, in 1551, to Anne of Buren, heiress to the sovereign lordships of Buren, Leerdam, IJsselstein, and Cuyck.... But apart from this, [and a couple other examples]... there were scarcely any sizable blocks of land belonging to high nobles in the north."

"It is true that inland, in the sandy-soil, more wooded, regions ... one encountered a rural society which approximated more closely to what one found in most of western Europe. Here the pull of the village was stronger, and seigneurial influence greater. But ... research has emphasized, here too rural life was les static and self-contained than was once supposed."  [p. 107; footnoting Bieleman, J., Boeren op het Drentse zand, 1600-1910 (Washington, 1987)]

...

"Most noble land in the north belonged to a relatively large number of middling and lesser nobles and was fragmented into scattered and mostly small holdings."...

"A third of the land in Holland... was owned by town-dwellers." [p 108]

"Although generally, the buying and selling of land was fluid and free from legal restrictions, for reasons of prestige, tradition, and legal status, the nobility  and Church treated land-ownership differently from independent farmers and town-dwellers, being more concerned with the social and seigneurial aspects and less willing to alienate their lands." [p. 109]

...

"Outside Friesland and Groningen... noble status was legally defined and institutionalized."...

"The areas of greatest seigneurial influence were Gelderland, the outlying parts of Brabant, both ... north and south of the main Brabant towns, and in the French-speaking southernmost provinces, particularly east Hainault, Namur, and Luxembourg. The Church too was strongly represented in those areas as well...." [p. 110]

 ...

"But by far the most striking feature of agriculture in Brabant, Flanders, Holland, Zeeland, west Urecht, Friesland and Groningen -- the highly urbanized maritime seaboard -- was its sustained intensity, versatility,  and higher crop yields than were to be found elsewhere in Europe. This was the only part of Europe which had, thus far, experienced a true 'agricultural revolution' and it was one which was already largely complete in Flanders and south Brabant by 1500."

Here is footnoted 'The Problem of the "Agricultural Revolution" in Flanders and in Belgium: Myth or Reality': CV Vandenbroeke and W Vanderpijpen in H van der Wee E van Cauwenberghe (eds.), Productivity and Agricultural Innovation in the Low Countries (1250-1800) (Leuven, 1978).
...

"As the quantity of Baltic grain imported into the Low Countries increased -- and it rose by five times between 1500-1560 -- one might have expected arable farming, at least in the north, to contract, making way for more dairy output. Several dairy products, especially cheese, were valuable export items and there was indeed a considerable growth in production. Yet paradoxically the main shift, even in Friesland, was towards an extension of arable farming, stimulated above all by the growth of the cities and needs of industry in Flanders and Brabant." [p. 111]

But the increase in agricultural production only partly explained the dramatic rise in population.

"A great many seamen and fishermen dwelt in villages rather than towns. The maritime area abounded also in bargemen, peat-diggers, and shipbuilding workers, as well as villagers employed in dike maintennance. In 1514 in south Holland, landless poor active mainly outside of agriculture already constituted a third of the rural population."

Here is footnoted J De Vries, The Dutch Rural Economy in the Golden Age 1500-1700 (New Haven, Conn., 1974).

"Dike drainage, and water regulation techniques in the low-lying zones markedly improved during the sixteenth century. A major factor here was the new windmills and the more systematic use of windmills for drainage." [p. 112]

This statement of improvements is logically followed by a list of the number of great difficulties and failures in the period when floods burst the many dikes.
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pp. 106-12. in Jonathan I Israel; Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, & Fall: 1477 - 1806 : Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998

news: early June 2014

Latest al-Qaeda inspired Sunni group ISIS has taken Mosul - where 500,000 have fled - and by Thursday  it was widely reported advancing on Baghdad. Iraqi government has asked ofr help. Videos, maps and other articles from the NYT at the link.

Iraq seems to be fast slipping out of government control http://t.co/npvUtsCIcA pic.twitter.com/qthnyJU9HM
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 12, 2014

UPDATE!!! In a rare move, Iraqi Shi'a leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani called followers to take up arms to protect 'land, honor and holy places', due to the Sunni forces and ISIS taking places in northern Iraq. This happened the week before June 14, 2014, reported by marketwatch.
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World map of sterotypes by Martin Vargic is hilarious, ignorant, and mostly incorrect, but a masterpiece for our times. The link to the full resolution allows close-ups. Here's just one:

I want a print “@Slate: This map of possibly offensive world map of stereotypes is hilarious: http://t.co/3qqKVVtdxL pic.twitter.com/VcE7mKcQfs”
— Anna Masera (@annamasera) June 8, 2014

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The beginning of an overview on 2014 Kansas politics on All In w/ Chris hayes:

First on a series on Kansas politics by the folks at All In w/ @chrislhayes http://t.co/KKzsZwkygj
— neditsimple (@neditssimple) June 12, 2014

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The World Cup in Brazil starts today and Google has a neat page up, showing the many streets in many towns that are painted for the occasion. The games begin today with Brazil playing Croatia. But there is also this.

“@NesterTweets: Protesto EM SÃO PAULO Contra a Copa! Será no Metrô Carrão, 10:00, dia 12/06! pic.twitter.com/B4vMpHEXL6”
— Victor Olivares (@Victorleaks) June 12, 2014

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Seriously funny Do's & Dont's, if you're in the US: Parody on TheDailyShow telling it like it is. 4 minute video link.

Columbus Tries To Stay Adrift: On Second Voyage, May-June 1494

Columbus was lost. He and his ships kept getting stuck in shallows through both May and June. The weather was unhelpful. The Admiral had been sick for over a week and when he recovered, they still did not know where they were, had not found any gold, and had to ask the locals where the best way lay, in order to leave.

On 19 May Columbus said he had been severely ill and had suffered eight sleepless nights. There were many islands. On 20 May he said they counted seventy-one and then many more toward sunset.

"These islands and shallows are very dangerous on account of their numbers, for they appear on all sides, but even more so because of the thick mist which rises every evening and muffles the eastern sky. This mist appears to threaten a heavy hailstorm and is accompanied by severe thunder and lightning, but when the moon rises it all vanishes, partially breaking up in rain and wind." [p. 175]

This happened according to Columbus every night. His son agrees this was so when he toured the area in 1503, during the fourth voyage. On May 22, still on the south side of Cuba, they found Santa Marta, or Cayo Largo del Sur. This lay at the eastern end of what is now the Cannareos Archipelago which stretch eastward leading away from Isla de Juventad. There at what they called Santa Marta, they found a village but no inhabitants. They deduced that the locals ate fish and left.

What was it like for the captain in these days? This quick description might capture much of the farntic sense of busy peril.

"The Admiral was much exhausted by having to steer among all these islands and shallows, for no sooner did he make course for the west than he had to veer either north or south according to the disposition of the channels. Despite all his care and precautions in sounding the bottoms and keeping a look-out in the rigging to observe the depth, the ship very often ran aground, which was unavoidable since there were so many shoals everywhere." [p. 176]

At last they made land and on Cuba in order to take on fresh water. Sailors were sent ashore as scouts and they encountered some locals, described as wearing white and, spectacularly, "All three were as white as ourselves." It's not clear if this refers to the pigment of their skin, or indeed, their clothing. But the Spaniards clothing by this time had to be something less than white, away at sea as long as they had been. But the locals they saw ran away before any further encounter could be made. [p. 177]

Ten leagues farther there were more locals who came out in canoes and offered water and food. Columbus ordered one be 'seized' after these victuals were 'paid for'. They questioned him (who the son says, was 'quite content with this') and he explained that Cuba was an island, and that the king of the western part spoke only to his people through signs. He also said there were many islands there and that the water would be shallow for a great distance.

This encounter may have happened on 10 June, as the son wrote. [p. 178] For these sorts of details we have to believe this information came from Columbus' own notes, as the son says they do, and which are now long since lost. There is no other authority.
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quotes, pagination from: The Four Voyages, Christopher Columbus, edited, translated and with an introduction by JM Cohen, The Penguin Group, London, 1969 

Urbanization In The Low Countries, c. 1500

One benefit of a great history book like Jonathan Israel's Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, & Fall: 1477 - 1806 is its deep organization. One can open to the Table of Contents, run a finger down the page and see just how the tale will proceed. Even more, the same reader can pick a topic, go to its start, and within a few lines, at the beginning of just a few paragraphs, begin to chart the course, the scope of the topic, if not its destination. Sometimes, as here, there are the copious tables, fantastic bibliographic info or other footnotes and apparati, all of which give testament to the prior scolarship that went into the work. The growth of these strategies in what is commonly called 'scholarship' today grew a lot through the 20th century. Centering on provenance of sources, referents themselves, and related materials, they reveal the many chains of communication with previous generations of scholars, as well as among contemporaries. But you often need to be able to read several foreign languages.

This clear, direct form of exposition comes at first, Israel makes plain, from a solid, well-established outline (worked out well in advance) which, for its sake, limits confusing distractions. For it can be seen, once that initial pattern of organization is set, recognized, and a few iterations borne out, the pattern itself makes for easier use, as a result, in teaching the material as well. But while the method is established, useful and predictable, the style, as prose, loses much of its more engaging possibilities. This dryness of exposition is seen also, as an admirable trait, especially in controversies.

What could be controversial about Holland 500 years ago? Plenty. Israel makes a case, borne out by evidence we have, that The Low Countries, as we now call that part of northwest Europe including Holland and Belgium and bits of Northern France, was on its own, a highly urbanized society. This simply means that there was a higher production of goods there, and all of which were generated in literally smaller spaces. Around 1500 there was no clear overarching ruler here. No hegemonic king or any leader or faction, no Duke or Count or Prince, nor any singular or real group of families, or sets of interests, leading any other group in the area, for long. There were some families that were richer and held larger plots of land, but they were usually farther south or east. There were no obvious gigantic merchandise or production facilities run by anybody except for the obvious harbours and ports for shipping concerns, and those for the river estuaries, in their places.

Instead what Israel describes is a great variety of people, close-packed, all busy at playing a part in a job or skill. Many of those skills when all put together in their right places, multiplying the opportunities for production and consumption, for all. This is where a thousand controversies popped up. People of every station began to see their personal share grow and naturally wanted more. The peasants slowly lost feudal or seigneurial ties and slowly gained more rights, if not all privileges in the marketplace. More people became expert at numerous skills and could pass this information on. Including things like printing books. There was just one Catholic Church, of course, but with so many different clerical orders, festivals and the like, a wide range of observance and belief could and did develop.

Still the cities in this time did not increase so much in size due to the physical constraints of land. The limited scope in land, and in particular, its limited uses necessitated restraints on population growth. So villages and towns could fill up but then would soon find limits on habitation. Near 1500 there were probably less than a million inhabitants in what we would call the Low Countries today. Yet they weren't concentrated in any one or handful of cities. There were sixteen towns with 10,000 inhabitants or more, but only a couple with 40,000 or more. Along the way, somehow, they found enough parcels of dredged up land, cut by rivers, held in place by dikes, and lining canals which, turned out to be room enough to do everything.

More got done here than in most places across Europe, rivalled only by north Italy at the time. In addition to foreign shipping concerns, from the ocean and the British Isles and beyond, theer were numerous rivers that emptied here. All year there was produce from all over Europe, deposited here and processed and sent somewhere else. There were as a result also more languages spoken here.

There were shipbuilders here as well as merchants and market sellers, there was a market for peat which required those many that dug and hauled and processed peat. This peat was then used as a fuel that, for centuries, powered the popular beer breweries, which then could be sold and transported. Varieties of Cheese proliferated even though that comes from milk, which comes from sheep and goats and cattle. But all of these could be found at hand in the area because of local innovations like individual stalls for milking animals.

There were guilds, there were associations of trade and maritime competitions. There were churches and monasteries and layclerics, nunneries and neighborhood associations. There were land reclamation teams, as well as dairy farmers and cheese makers. But there was little if any state involvement. A tithe went to the Church. Neighbors and property owners sluiced canals. All the little towns next to the larger populated cities had different roles to play and continually tried to work things out. Changes were afoot here as well.
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pp. 106-16. in Jonathan I Israel; Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, & Fall: 1477 - 1806 : Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998

On Falseness of Many Grand Designs: Niccolo Machiavelli: Discoursi i, 53

In the 53rd chapter of his Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy, Niccolo Machiavelli [M] asserts a kind of truism. He then spends some time illustrating different sides of this idea through telling other historical examples of it as phenomenon, as he understood them. The idea is that people, big masses of people that he calls the populace, essentially like to believe things if presented well. Even if these may not be true. A story, he says, told while highlighting the projected outcomes of some action, one that can be painted both boldly and aggressively and that also matches what people can be convinced that they desire - like honor and prestige, propety or treasure - is too compelling for people. If told well enough, M says, the populace will be for it. And crucially, this story seemed to stay true for them, regardless of available facts or even previous understanding. But it has to agree with what they think they want.

Machiavelli [M] begins this chapter with reference to the discussion about what to do with Veii. An early rival for early Rome, the nearby kingship of Veii was a chief antagonist for Livy in his History of Rome until their city was taken. The discussion afterwards, as M tells it, foundered on whether half of Rome should go there and settle away from Rome. There was so much rich soil there, but also there would remain fewer people in Rome "... to interfere with its civic proceedings."

"The project seemed to the senate and to wiser folk in Rome to be so futile and so likely to do harm that they openly declared that it would be better to suffer death than to agree to such a plan. The result was that, when the matter came up for discussion, the plebs became so incensed against the senate that there would have been armed conflict and bloodshed, had not the senate been shielded by some citizens of mature age and high repute, and had not the plebs been deterred by the respect it had for them from proceeding further with this impertinence."

It took certain old and respected men that the people had confidence in, to come forward and explain a way or a process or means to get out of certain disasters. But not every era or instance of upheaval gets those sorts of leaders. There are just as often other sorts of men with more selfish ends who know how to tell about happy outcomes.

"...[T]he populace, misled by the false appearance of good, often seeks its own ruin, and, unless it be brought to realize what is bad and what is good for it by someone in whom it has confidence, brings on republics endless dangers and disasters. Again, when by ill chance the populace has no confidence in anyone at all, as soometimes happens owing to its having been deceived in the past either by events or by men, it spells ruin, and necessarily so."

Machiavelli says this was the case for Venice at the beginning of what we call the War of the League of Cambrai against Venice. They didn't know what to do when it seemed everyone was against them.

Machiavelli cites this same dischord between the people and its leaders occurring during the famous Punic Wars against Hannibal and the Carthaginians. The patient but unpopular delaying tactics of the Roman general Fabius Maximus, drained the Carthaginian army and its general Hannibal of much of their formidable strength, as they were ranging up and down the Italian peninsula in the third century BCE. But the populace back in Rome could wait only so long. They sent another general out to engage with Hannibal and were utterly defeated at the battle of Cannae.

In Florence, Machiavelli tells us again, the populace agreed to the bold plan of Ercole Bentivoglio, captain of the Florentimne forces, when he said he could take Pisa. But when that failed, these captains lost all favor despite all they had done before.
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pp 238-42 in Niccolo Machiavelli The Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy Edited by Bernard Crick, translated by Leslie J Walker, thrird revision by Brian Richardson, Penguin Books, London, 1970, 2003