Looking for justice: execution spectators and the Revolt in the Low Countries, ca. 1520-1585

This project examines the role of spectators in executions during the Dutch Revolt. The Revolt is known in historiography as a period in which a particularly high number of executions took place. Until now, these executions have been studied mainly on the basis of legal archives, or propaganda: sources that do not allow us to determine how spectators themselves viewed them. Therefore, for this project, over four thousand descriptions of executions in chronicles were analyzed to understand how spectators experienced executions. The research shows how important spectator support was for the success of an execution and that governments had to take the public into account when organizing executions. <br>