The Arminian Exodus

This engraved broadsheet depicts the expulsion of Remonstrant (Arminian) ministers from the Dutch church, a religious and political crisis following the Synod of Dordt. Packed wagons loaded with furniture and possessions stream across a landscape while crowds gather to watch the ministers depart. The composition—combining narrative sequence, caricatured figures, and explanatory verse—descends from Northern European satirical prints that merged visual satire with text. Such broadsheets circulated widely as popular propaganda, establishing methods later refined by Hogarth and Gillray: the crowded scene encoding partisan judgment, the grotesque figures embodying vice or error, printed words anchoring interpretation. This Dutch example shows how engraved satire mobilized public opinion during religious conflict, presaging the political caricature tradition that fed into modern comic visual language.