ABSTRACT
During Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck’s lifetime (1562-1621), Amsterdam expanded to become not only the wealthiest city in the world, but a hub of international and intercultural activity. It harboured Protestant refugees from England, France and the southern provinces of the Low Countries, and Jewish refugees from the Iberian Peninsula. Economically it was a booming trade centre, dealing extensively with Germany via Hanseatic shipping routes. It was permeable to the politics of its neighbouring provinces to the south, ruled by Catholic Spain, and to demographic shifts that resulted from the ongoing hostilities of the Eighty Years’ War. One can easily imagine, therefore, that the combined socio-religious, mercantile and political effervescence of this rapidly expanding metropolis demanded a high degree of adaptability on the part of its citizens.1
