Transnational networks and radical religion: Johannes Rothe and the construction of prophetic charisma

• Published in: Renaissance studies 2022-02, Vol.36 (1), p.142-162
• Main Author: Sierhuis, Freya
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 17th century; Clergy; Eschatology; Prophecies; Radicalism; Renaissance period; Rothe, Johannes (1628-1702); Transnationalism
• ISSN: 0269-1213; 1477-4658
• DOI: 10.1111/rest.12744

The life of Johannes Rothe (also spelled Rothé, 1628–1702) reads like something out of an adventure novel. Born to wealth and influence in the Amsterdam regent patriciate, he became an itinerant preacher of the end times, travelled across Europe, was imprisoned in England during the First Anglo-Dutch War, and eventually knighted by Charles II. He associated with the educational reformers John Dury, Samuel Hartlib and Jan Amos Comenius as well as a range of prophets, mystics and radicals, and was ultimately institutionalized after an attempt to establish the Kingdom of Christ on earth. Most of what little scholarship there is on Rothe has taken a biographical line, focusing on the life and career of this extraordinary figure. This article builds on this work to explore in more detail Rothe’s millenarian ideas and their expression in the context of the transational networks and historical events in which they developed, and makes fresh claims for their significance. Rothe’s life places him at the centre of a web of connections stretching from the Republic to England, Denmark and northern Germany. For a while, Rothe found adherents among English and Dutch Fifth Monarchists, Behmenists and exponents of Dutch Reformed Pietism. Himself every inch a product of the Dutch regent patriciate, he combined a strong local patriotism with a radical religious agenda that necessarily knew no borders. His millenarianism was fused with a republican political vision that was as international as it was patriotic.