The Arminian Exodus

This wood engraving depicts the forced departure of Remonstrant (Arminian) preachers from the Dutch Republic following their condemnation at the Synod of Dort in 1618–19. The composition shows a procession of clergy and supporters with wagons laden with possessions, fleeing a fortified town while crowds observe. The satirical print employs the visual conventions of early 17th-century German and Dutch broadsheets—detailed narrative scenes with explanatory verses below—to ridicule religious dissidents as exiles. Such illustrated pamphlets, descended from the tradition of Dürer and Cranach, formed a crucial precursor to the sequential storytelling of later graphic satire. This work exemplifies how prints disseminated religious and political propaganda to a semi-literate public through image and doggerel verse.