Johan_Decavele

Johan Decavele

Johan Decavele

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Johan Decavele (born Tielt, 1943) is a Belgian historian and archivist who worked as head of the Culture Department of the City of Ghent. He has mainly published on the history of Ghent and of the Reformation. He contributed to the Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, Monasticon belge, The Golden Delta of the Low Countries and The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation.

Johan Decavele

Life


Decavele studied history at the University of Leuven and at the Institut für Europäische Geschichte, Abteilung für Abendländische Religionsgeschichte in Mainz. In 1971 he obtained his PhD in history at the KU Leuven. His dissertation earned an award from the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts and was published in two volumes as De dageraad van de Reformatie in Vlaanderen (The dawn of the Reformation in Flanders).[1] With its almost 850 pages, the dissertation is generally regarded as the foundational work for the history of the early Protestant Reformation in the Netherlands,[2] with the use of many hitherto unknown sources.[3] "Decavele’s achievement is considerable. On the basis of new archival information he has radically revised the chronology of the Reformation in Flanders and set this firmly within the contemporary religious and social context".[4]

From 1971, Decavele had a career of almost 35 years at the City of Ghent. The highlight was the organisation of the successful exhibition "Unity and Separation in the Netherlands" in St Peter's Abbey in 1976, on the occasion of the four-hundredth anniversary of the Pacification of Ghent. On his 25th anniversary as the city's archivist, a liber amicorum was published in his honour, Qui valet ingenio, with contributions from 37 colleagues and friends.[5] Beyond his archival and historical contributions, Decavele chaired the Gentse Straatnaamgeving Commission, which played a pivotal role in renaming approximately 600 streets after the 1977 merger. Since 1986 he was also interim director of Cultural Affairs, with breaks in between, until in 2003 he was appointed head of the Department. He put the service back on track. Despite his busy ministry, he continued his scholarly work and became an authority on the Reformation. A chapter from his 2004 book was called by reviewer Henk van Nierop "one of the clearest overview articles of early Dutch Protestantism that I know of".[6] He gave numerous lectures in Flanders and the Netherlands. He was a member of the management boards of the Municipal Concert Hall De Bijloke, the VZW Bescherming comité Campo Santo, the VZW Begijnhof Onze Lieve Vrouw ter Hoyen and the Stichting Cultuurpatrimonium Bisdom Gent. At his farewell on 23 December 2005, he was honoured by family, colleagues and friends, the city council and the entire Ghent cultural sector.

He continued to publish. In addition to the Reformation, for example, in 2010 also about the pawnshops around 1572, when dozens of young people from Piedmont were sent by their parents to Ghent and other Flemish cities to be apprenticed. He continued his series of lectures, including six afternoons of courses for the history department of HOVO University Leiden. In early 2018 an unfortunate eye procedure, resulting in impaired vision, put an end to his scientific work.

Selected works

  • "Katharina van Boetzelaer, een merkwaardige figuur van het protestants verzet tijdens het 'wonderjaar'", Annalen (van de) Vereniging voor de Geschiedenis van het Belgisch Protestantisme, reeks V/5 (Brussels, 1969), pp. 151-171.
  • "Histoire religieuse", in Un quart de siècle de recherche historique, edited by J.A. Van Houtte (Nationaal Belgisch Comité voor Geschiedkundige Wetenschappen, 1970), pp. 387-403.
  • De dageraad van de Reformatie in Vlaanderen (1520-1565), Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België. Klasse der Letteren, XXXVII, 76, dissertation, 1975. Vol. 1: Text, Vol.2: Indices and appendices.
  • Eenheid en Scheiding in de Nederlanden 1555-1585 (with introductions by R.C. Van Caenegem and I. Schöffer), exhibition catalogue, 1976.
  • "Reformatie en begin katholieke restauratie 1555-1586", in: Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, vol. 6 (1979), pp. 166-185, 435-437.
  • "Gand. La ville. Les communautés religieuses", in Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie ecclésiastiques, vol. 19 (1981), col. 1005-1014, 1026-1058.
  • "Het herstel van het calvinisme in Vlaanderen 1577-1579", in Brugge in de Geuzentijd (1982), pp. 9-33.
  • "Historiografie van het zestiende-eeuws protestantisme in België", Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis, 62 (1982), pp. 1-27.[7]
  • Het eind van een rebelse droom. Opstellen over het calvinistisch bewind te Gent (1577-1584) en de terugkeer van de stad onder de gehoorzaamheid van de koning van Spanje (17 september 1584) (with Dirk Coigneau, Herman Vanderlinden, Werner Waterschoot), 1984.[8]
  • "Gent, calvinistisch en republikeins strijdcentrum in de Nederlandse Opstand", in Willem van Oranje 1584-1984 (Koninklijke Academiën van België, 1985), pp. 65-86.
  • Ghent: In Defence of a Rebellious City. History, Art, Culture, editor (Antwerp, Mercatorfonds, 1989): a standard work on the history of Ghent.[9]
  • "Jan Utenhove en de opvoering van het zinnespel te Roborst in 1543", Jaarboek "De Fonteine", 39-40 (1990), pp. 101-116.
  • "Vroege reformatorische bedrijvigheid in de grote Nederlandse steden: Claes van der Elst te Brussel, Antwerpen, Amsterdam, Leiden (1524-1528)", Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis, 70:1 (1990), pp. 13-29.[10]
  • "Brugse en Gentse Mendicanten op de brandstapel in 1578", in Beleid en bestuur. Liber Amicorum Prof. dr. Michel Baelde (1993), pp. 73-93.
  • "Ketters en papisten in het Kortrijkse stadsbestuur (1561-1580)", Handelingen van de Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde te Gent, new series 49 (1995), pp. 223-252.
  • "The Torn Netherlands", in The Golden Delta of the Low Countries, edited by H.C.C. de Schepper et al. (Antwerp, 1996), pp. 139-163, 172-179.
  • "Cassander, Joris"; "Dathenus, Petrus"; "Ghent"; "Heyden, Gaspar van der"; "Titelmans, Pieter"; "Utenhove, Jan", in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, vols. 1-4 (1996).
  • De eerste protestanten in de Lage Landen. Geloof en Heldenmoed (Leuven, Davidsfonds, 2004).
  • "Kerk en geloofsbeleving in Vlaanderen onder druk aan de vooravond van de Reformatietijd (ca. 1500-1566)", Handelingen van het Genootschap voor Geschiedenis te Brugge, 146 (2009), pp. 3-92. (comments on J. Toussaert, Le sentiment religieux en Flandre à la fin du moyen age).
  • De Pacificatie van Gent her(be)dacht, 26e Pacificatielezing in Breda, 2009.
  • "De leenbanken in Gent en andere Vlaamse steden in de zestiende eeuw: een heikele kwestie", in Geschiedenis: zijn werk, zijn leven. Huldeboek René De Herdt, edited by Ann Van Nieuwenhuyse et al. (Ghent, MIAT, 2010), pp. 91-111.
  • Het geheugen van Nederland in Gent (with Herman Balthazar), 2011.
  • "Het waarheidsgehalte in de preken van Broeder Cornelis van Dordrecht in Brugge (1566-1569)", Handelingen van het Genootschap voor Geschiedenis te Brugge, 148 (2011), pp. 1-42; 149 (2012), pp. 363-393.
  • "La place de Guy de Brès dans la Réforme de son époque", in The Belgic Confession at 450, special issue of Analecta Bruxellensia, 15 (2012), pp. 30-40.
  • "Protestantse invloeden in Brugge in het midden van de 16de eeuw. Een internationaal netwerk", Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Kerkgeschiedenis, 16 (2013), pp. 6-23.
  • "Op de calvinistische toer. Het Land van Waas tijdens de overheersing van het revolutionaire Gent, 1578-1583", Handelingen der Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde te Gent, new series 68 (2014), pp. 209-249.
  • "Protestanten in het Land van Waas in de zestiende eeuw", Koninklijke Oudheidkundige Kring van het Land van Waas: Annalen, vol. 119 (2016), pp. 27-92.
  • Jozef Scheerder, Het wonderjaar te Gent, 1566-1567, edited by Johan Decavele and Gustaaf Janssens (Ghent, Academia Press, 2016).[11]
  • Zevenhonderdvijftig jaar begijnenbeweging. Onze-Lieve-Vrouw ter Hoyen in Gent (2016).[12]

References

  1. [1]
    Online on the website of the University Library Ghent
  2. [2]
    Reviewed by A.F. Mellink 1980
  3. [3]
    Evaluation of F.R.J. Knetsch 1979
  4. [4]
    Reviewed by A. Duke
  5. [5]
    Qui valet ingenio: Liber Amicorum aangeboden aan Dr. Johan Decavele, edited by Joris De Zutter, Leen Charles, and André Capiteyn (Ghent, Stichting Mens en Kultuur, 1996)
  6. [6]
    Reviewed by H. van Nierop
  7. [7]
    Available on JSTOR
  8. [8]
    Reviewed by Geoffrey Parker 1987
  9. [9]
    Ghent city anthem
  10. [10]
    Available on JSTOR
  11. [11]
    Het Wonderjaar te Gent
  12. [12]
    Johan Decavele presents his last book: the history of the Small Beguinage in Ghent
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