ABSTRACT
The Dutch province of Groningen and its capital city, also named Groningen, have long been a bit of an oddity within the broader Dutch Republic. This chapter explores the intersection of religious thought, economic decision-making, and secular authority in Groningen during the Dutch Golden Age. It examines three main religious undercurrents that both influenced and justified economic decision-making in Groningen during the Dutch Golden Age. The chapter analyzes the role of religious thought and secular authority in economic decision-making in Groningen's domestic marketplace. The market, in all of its forms, was not a religiously neutral space; rather, it was, in the words of Dave Postles, “socially inhabited,” a place of “social negotiation as well as a place of conflict. In 1665, and again in 1672, the Catholic Bishop of Munster Christoph Bernhard von Galen, whom the Dutch mockingly nicknamed Bommen Berend because of his fondness for artillery tactics, launched two failed military invasions against Groningen.
