Iconoclasts Anonymous: why did it take historians so long to identify the image-breakers of 1566

Abstract

This article asks why until the mid-twentieth century both Catholic and Protestant

interpretations of the iconoclasm converged on the anonymising of the iconoclasts

of 1566. It argues that, while a greater availability of sources, better source criticism and international debates helped eventually to give the iconoclasts a face, the main reason why it has took so long for the image-breakers to lose their anonymity was that it was in no one’s interest to identify the culprits. For centuries, Protestants considered the iconoclasm an embarrassment, and preferred to dismiss its perpetrators as ‘rabble’, while Catholics in the Southern Netherlands tended to dismiss them as foreigers, manipulated by the nobility. Their anonymity was lifted through the intervention of German historian Erich Kuttner, whose main thesis was proven wrong, but at last triggered serious research into the identity of the iconoclasts, as well as alternative explanations of their motives.