ABSTRACT
This essay concerns the textual and social experiences of members of the Calvinist community excluded from the practice of their faith in the Habsburg Netherlands. Their letters, written to exiles in England, describe traumatic experiences as individuals in dire need and express their identity as members of a shared confessional community. The essay argues that these letters, as both objects and texts, produced social identities and constituted feelings, and attempted to mitigate both spiritual and spatial forms of exclusion.
