Marijke Meijer Drees

In July 1647 the Spanish kingdom of Naples was ravaged by a violent tax uprising. This revolt lasted for about nine months and soon became known as ‘the revolt of Masaniello’, so-called after the fisherman who led it for ten days and was then assassinated.¹

The rapid rise and fall of the popular leader Masaniello made a strong impression in and outside Italy. Italian and Spanish eye-witnesses wrote up-to-the-minute narratives, which were soon translated into other languages.² In due course, Masaniello’s actions also inspired poets and playwrights, for instance in the Netherlands. The Amsterdam playwright Thomas Asselijn (who lived from approximately 1620 until 1701), wrote a tragedy titled Op- en ondergang van Mas Anjello, of Napelse beroerte. In 1668 it was printed in Amsterdam, where it was also put on stage.³

Asselijn’s tragedy will be the subject of my chapter. To bring out certain aspects more clearly, I shall compare it with a seventeenth-century German tragedy titled Trauerspiel von dem Neapolitanischen Hauptrebellen Masaniello. Its author, Christian Weise, a Latin school teacher and writer of school dramas, published it in 1683; a year earlier it had been performed, for the benefit of and possibly also by Weise’s students.⁴ But for the moment I shall let Weise’s play rest and focus on Asselijn’s tragedy.

The central theme of Op- en ondergang van Mas Anjello is resistance against tyranny. Within the dramatic tradition of the Netherlands this theme was a very current one. There are, for example, some tragedies by prominent predecessors of Asselijn. Geeraerdt van Velsen, written by P. C. Hooft (and dating from 1613), deals with a conspiracy of aristocrats against their tyrannical sovereign; and Batavische gebroeders, of onderdrukte vrijheid by Vondel (from 1663), takes place just before the Batavian revolt of Claudius Civilis against Roman oppression (in AD 69). In these tragedies both Hooft and Vondel make it unmistakably clear that rebelling against a legitimate government is fundamentally wrong.⁵

The theme of resistance was not new, then. Asselijn’s famous predecessors, however, would not have anything to do with popular uprisings. According to the current prescriptions for tragedy, they had always put on stage so-called reges and principes (highly placed characters) – never ordinary people, let alone ordinary people in revolt. At the very most they mentioned such people, evoking an image that was always in accordance with the one known from the ancient classics: the image of the politically unreliable, mindless and dangerous crowd, the many-headed monster.

Asselijn deviates considerably from these conventions. The subject of his tragedy is indeed a popular revolt. Asselijn actually shows us the resisting people on stage, and – as if all this wasn’t enough already – he even has an eye for positive aspects of the popular revolt. The revolutionaries in his play use apparently legitimate arguments.

From the start of the play Anjello and his followers get free rein to emphasise the defensive character of their actions. As early as in the first act, which is entirely situated in the streets, they state that it is not their aim to attack established and legal structures, but to defend them. As a matter of fact, they want to defend the rights of the people (‘rechten des volks’) against violation. This is only one of the arguments they adduce. Furthermore they make it clear that it is not the sovereign who is to be blamed, but only his greedy advisers.

These arguments must have been familiar to Asselijn’s audience, because they had played an important part in the past of the Netherlands.⁶ The Dutch Revolt against Spain was justified for instance by means of an appeal to the defence of traditional rights and also to shield the sovereign, who was misguided by bad servants (e.g. the detested duke of Alva, who had dared to impose heavy taxes too, as Asselijn himself mentions in the dedication of his play⁷).

Also recognisable was the fact that the Neapolitans appealed to one privilege in particular, the privilege that Ferdinand of Aragon had given them long ago, on the occasion of his inauguration. On this particular privilege they base their right to resist. From the history of the Dutch Revolt a similar privilege was known: the so-called ‘Blijde Inkomste’ (Glorious Entry), which dated from the fourteenth century and was solemnly confirmed by Philip II during his tour of the Netherlands in 1549. The Blijde Inkomste included a clause which implied that one was allowed to refuse obedience to the sovereign if he was not amenable to reason.⁸

In addition to the political arguments the Neapolitans use emotional arguments to justify their case – arguments that were also familiar to the Dutch audience. Thus they present themselves as extremely poor, emaciated slaves and the court is depicted as a breeding place of bloodthirsty tyrants, who deserve a just revenge (‘geregte wraak’). The popular propaganda of the Dutch Revolt – Beggars’ songs, pamphlets and the like – was often composed of emotional black-and-white impressions of this kind.⁹

It is also striking that part of the authorities at the court take the arguments of the people seriously. These authorities, two so-called ‘Verkoorne[n]‌ des volks’ (representatives of the people), mostly argue in favour of the oppressed people. They are supported by the archbishop of Naples, who, being a reasonable arbitrator between the people in the streets and the government at the court, enjoys general confidence. Opposed to the representatives there are two harsh, selfish aristocrats. They want to put down the uprising the hard way and tax the people even more. The political course of the Spanish viceroy of Naples changes gradually. At first he relies on the advice of his aristocratic counsellors, but as the uprising breaks out, he takes more and more notice of the representatives and the archbishop.

And yet Asselijn shows a strong aversion to the revolutionaries too. Plundering and destruction, murder and manslaughter, the whole range of calamities is given ample treatment. The third act for example starts with a great fire¹⁰ and in the next scene an army of militant women goes by, equipped with burning torches and faggots, and yelling for revenge.¹¹ These women distinguish themselves from their male colleagues by even greater fervour and brisker actions. By portraying them in this way, Asselijn was probably confirming the expectations of his audience. The behaviour of the women in his play is in line with what is known about Dutch female participants in seventeenth-century uprisings in the province of Holland, the accounts of which have been studied by the historian Rudolf Dekker.¹²

More emphasis, however, is laid on the outrageous behaviour of the leader of the revolt, Mas Anjello. Every now and then he acts extremely harshly and after the viceroy has officially proclaimed him the supreme commander of the people (a ceremonial scene in the fifth act), he loses his senses completely. Thus, Asselijn shows us, history has proved that an ordinary fisherman is not capable of ruling. Anjello’s tyranny in turn provokes resistance: his followers leave him and in the end he is killed – by noblemen. Everyone is relieved and in the last scene the archbishop thanks heaven for what is once again called a just revenge (‘geregte wraak’).

To put it briefly, then, Asselijn shows his audience the shocking outcome of a failing government. Tyranny causes a popular revolt that is basically legitimate, but at the same time reprehensible, since things go from bad to worse. Asselijn wants to warn against this declining spiral, a warning that is meant for political authorities in particular. That is why he makes a member of the moderate faction at the court, a representative of the people, put forward the following conclusion:

Zoo bloeyt en Staat, daar ’t regt der volkren werdt gehandthaaft.

(Thus a State flourishes, if the rights of the people are maintained.)

Apparently Asselijn wants to give a warning against violation of the rights of the people. If the government violates these rights, the State is disrupted and the people themselves rise up, with disastrous consequences. Thus far Asselijn’s tragedy, at least for now.

What impression does the German Weise give of the popular uprising in Naples and what was his message? Compared to Asselijn’s tragedy Weise’s Trauerspiel shows some interesting differences.¹³

To begin with the most remarkable one: Weise does not consider the people as a serious political power with a right to resist. On the contrary, he more or less holds them up to ridicule. A number of the Neapolitans bear names reminiscent of Comedia dell’arte characters (Truffaldino, Poltrone, Buffone, etc.); other names reduce their bearers to a comically meant quality (for instance Bravo and Saldo).¹⁴ All in all Weise presents the people as a motley collection of rather comical characters, who quarrel a lot together, pursuing their own material profit and elevation of status. To a serious justification of the revolt they pay no attention.

Aniello, however, takes an exceptional position. He shows political shrewdness; he refers for instance to ancient rights and succeeds in making the whole court dance to his piping. In these respects he reminds us to some extent of the Mas Anjello of Asselijn’s tragedy, but an important difference is that Weise’s Aniello plays the part of the absolutist bourgeois-tyrant from beginning to end. His appeal to ancient rights is merely a strategy to get absolute power, power that is only built on terror.¹⁵

Weise’s Aniello has no scruples. This unscrupulousness he shares with the faction of selfish aristocrats at the court, a faction that appears in Asselijn’s tragedy, as we have seen, as violators of the rights of the people. In Weise’s play the people’s rights are not discussed at the court. The other, moderate authorities are aristocrats too – except for the archbishop of course, but he supports their policy strongly. In fact, he, too, defends the power of the aristocracy, although he does not sympathise with the ruthless authorities.

The strategy of the moderate faction is to give in temporarily to the demands of the people and their tyrannical leader in order to keep ‘Recht und Macht’ (right and power) in place.¹⁶ These politicians consider the uprising as a passing storm, caused by the wrong, absolutist policy of their colleagues; a storm to which the whole aristocracy has to submit temporarily in order to rise up undamaged afterwards. On these politicians Weise has apparently projected his own political ideal: the so-called ‘Politische Klugheit’, which means an ethically well-founded reason of State. Thanks to the ‘Politische Klugheit’ right and power can be maintained, even in tempestuous times.¹⁷

Obviously Weise rejects the uprising entirely. Looking down on the people of Naples, he identifies himself completely with the faction of the moderate authorities at the court, the politicians who succeed in preserving the power of the aristocracy. This power Weise underlines, but all the same he warns against a danger that threatens the aristocracy from the inside: the danger of absolutism. In Weise’s view absolutism comes down to tyranny¹⁸ and tyranny provokes a storm of protest.

Asselijn takes a more ambiguous position. To a certain extent his sympathies go out to the people, to their defence of ancient rights against violation. At the same time, however, he makes it perfectly clear that he disapproves of the uprising because of its calamitous consequences. So actually Asselijn, too, chooses the side of the Establishment, but the authorities supported by him are representatives of the people. The other authorities in his play, aristocrats, only look after their own interests; their behaviour is tyrannical, because, by ruthlessly imposing excessive taxes, they violate the people’s rights. We might call Asselijn’s political attitude basically anti-aristocratic, or perhaps even slightly democratic – always keeping in mind of course that the present-day conception of democracy was unthinkable in Asselijn’s days.

Is it possible to elucidate and perhaps even to explain the differences we have considered between the two tragedies about Masaniello?

First, let us consider some other particulars about Weise’s Trauerspiel. It was written in Zittau, a town in the province of Lausitz. During the Thirty Years War Lausitz had become a fief of the electorate of Saxony, but nevertheless it had continued to be a relatively autonomous class-ridden state, where mainly aristocratic big landowners pulled the political strings. But although the Estates (nobility and towns) had been largely successful in maintaining their traditional position, they had to struggle against the growth of absolutism among the contemporary princes (Johann Georg II, III and IV).

Within this structure of power, the Latin school teacher Weise educated his pupils, children of rich citizens, who were for the greater part hoping for a political career. Weise himself has described their expectations: ‘Alle Gelehrte werden nicht Staats-Leute: doch hoffen sie mehrenteils auf Aempter/da sie der Politischen Klugheit bedürffen.’¹⁹ So his pupils, hoping to become politicians, should be taught ‘Politische Klugheit’ in order to protect the existing balance of power in Lausitz. In Weise’s Trauerspiel they are shown how to use this political prudence. But Weise’s play also underlines his objection to ideas of legitimate civilian resistance such as those formerly developed by the so-called Monarchomachs, during the religious wars in sixteenth-century France.

Wenn ein rechtmässiger König in seiner Administration degeneriret

und zum tyrannen wird

so darff man den Unterthanen nich alsobald Recht geben dass sie sich widersetzen mögen.

Denn sonst würde es nimmermehr an Leuten mangeln die an dem Regimente was zu tadeln hätten und ihr muthwilliges Recht gebrauchen könten.²⁰

Weise rejected the theories of the Monarchomachs: in his opinion it was ‘unrecht und absurd’ to permit the people to resist an absolutist or tyrannical government. And it was dangerous, too, because ‘ein Thier mit so viel Kopffen [wurde] allezeit etwas ungereimtes gegen die Obrigkeit einzuwenden haben’.²¹ In this connection he criticised the two actual examples of successful resistance against tyranny, the popular revolts in the Netherlands and England.²²

Asselijn’s tragedy was also written in a class-ridden state, the province of Holland. In Holland, however, political power was held by a rather young aristocracy of civilian regents – the outcome of the Dutch Revolt against Spain. There was a yawning gap between the ordinary Amsterdam citizen Asselijn and the ruling aristocrats. Asselijn made a living in textile-dyeing, and considering what else is known about his (unprosperous) life²³ and about the social stratification of Amsterdam, he may be placed in the middle class of the so-called petty bourgeoisie (‘kleine burgerij’).

In general these citizens felt great respect for their regents, but no matter how obedient they might be, they did harbour a certain grudge against the rich and powerful aristocracy.²⁴ These more or less anti-aristocratic feelings were associated with a strong devotion to the recent past of glorious resistance, when traditional rights and privileges had been ardently defended against the tyranny of Spanish rulers. This attachment to the revolutionary past was displayed especially during years in which the province of Holland was in turmoil (as well as the catastrophic year of 1672, known as ‘het Rampjaar’, there have been many such years²⁵). But such democratic tendencies, as the sentiments of citizens like Asselijn have once been called,²⁶ did not have any revolutionary purpose at all. As these citizens always had something to lose, all things considered they would have nothing to do with popular revolts, because then the lower classes, too, would inevitably assert themselves. These sentiments Asselijn expresses in his tragedy about the revolt of Masaniello.