ABSTRACT
In the Early Modern period, the Low Countries (roughly corresponding to present-day Netherlands and Belgium) were a multilingual hub. In the commercial centres, code-switching and translation from and into multiple languages were the order of the day. In other respects, fundamental shifts occurred. The war that engulfed the area in the second half of the sixteenth century resulted in a territorial division in around 1600. While the Spanish Netherlands in the south were transformed into a bastion of the Counter-Reformation, the Calvinist-dominated Dutch Republic in the north became a global trading empire. Migration, confessional polemics, international publishing and trade, missionary endeavours and the multi-ethnic nature of overseas settlements led to intense translation activity, yet with marked differences between north and south. The essay considers the shifting interactions between translation and multilingualism at the level of society, individuals and texts.
