ABSTRACT
The city of Antwerp lies on the river Scheldt in the central part of the early modern Netherlands, in what is today part of northern Belgium. Already by 1519, Luther's works were being translated into Dutch, and circulating among the Antwerp population. Much of the reforming spirit in Antwerp can be specifically attributed to the work of a monastery of Reformed Augustinians there that was active, heterodox, and extremely popular. Its prior, Jacobus Praepositus, had studied with Luther in Wittenberg, and began preaching Lutheran ideas in Antwerp as early as 1519. Again the central authorities intervened, this time arresting all of the friars, imprisoning them in Vilvoorde, just outside Brussels, and placing van Zutphen under house arrest in Antwerp. But when he arrived there, the Margrave of Antwerp arrested him and imprisoned him in a room in St. Michael's cloister.
