Antwerp was not just another North Sea port in the 16th century, although it was as filthy, violent, drunken, liable to sudden fires and plague-ridden as all the others. It had spies, dealers, doctors, the first art dealers, the best publishers — the exchange that was a model for all Europe. Even its rivals acknowledged it as the hub of the whole world of trade and European knowledge.

It was even more to the Jews who passed through, long before Antwerp was the diamond city. It was the place to organise escape from the Portuguese Inquisition on the hard road out to Salonika and Istanbul. It was the headquarters of the House of Mendes, the largest merchant and banking operation in Europe, and the astonishing woman at its head, Dona Gracia, who faced down kings and empires to insist on the right to be a Jew. The Antwerp connection even started a campaign to remake Israel — on the island of Cyprus.

To be rich, Antwerp had to be open to every kind of heretic. The Portuguese in the spice trade were “new Christians”, only nominally converted from Judaism, and the metals business depended on assorted German Lutherans and there were Anabaptists everywhere. But Antwerp answered to the Hapsburg Emperor in Madrid and his armies, to Charles V, author of the “eternal edict against heresy.”

Luckily, the Emperor liked to wage hot war, which meant he needed Antwerp’s money. He couldn’t disturb the town too much. All things became possible in such a hustling confusion of a town. Nobody was surprised by foreigners coming and going; women who had never left the city still spoke five or six languages fluently because they needed them. Everybody was some kind of stranger.

Antwerp was simply too preoccupied to look into people’s souls, and that saved lives.

Dona Gracia’s husband, Francisco, was the grandest of Lisbon merchants; his brother Diogo ran the spice business from Antwerp. Diogo had “a very large family” in his city palace, so newcomers were not obvious. He had the right to his own chaplain and his own chapel where, unseen, a young girl dressed all in white “in the manner of Jewish priests” sang the psalms.

He did so well that the Emperor found it profitable in 1532 to have him arrested and his warehouses sealed. It was a careless move. Letters arrived almost at once from Henry VIII in England, from the King of Portugal and the Queen who was the Emperor’s sister. Arresting Diogo meant freezing and maybe ruining many traders and whole trades. He might be a heretic, but he was essential.

The city of Antwerp defended him carefully. Its lawyers said the case required theologians; but if it went to a church court, the Emperor would not get the spoils. The Emperor stalled. The Portuguese sent their consul in Antwerp on a hard ride to the court in Brussels — the “most Christian king” of Portugal defending a man still know by his Jewish name, Benveniste. Diogo was bought out of jail.

Francisco died a few years later, leaving Dona Gracia with half the House of Mendes just as the Inquisition was coming to Portugal and the law was changed to allow rumour as evidence. “New Christians” now needed a licence to leave the country. They could take nothing with them. The Portuguese King wanted to marry off Francisco’s daughter “with the fortune left to her by her father.”

Dona Gracia had to get out. Diogo sent a ship from Antwerp to bring her first to England, with time to check the Emperor’s mood, and then to Antwerp. Money was moved by letters of credit on Antwerp. She did not mean to settle but that edgy voyage helped form schemes to help others to escape. She helped organise the 16th century equivalent of the “underground railway” to free American slaves.

The refugees came into ports like Middelburg and made their way to Antwerp. They had written instructions and one copy survives. Leaving early in the morning for Cologne, they took a boat up the Rhine and slept on board to avoid attention, before crossing over Lake Lucerne for their ride over the Alps. Husbands and wives were told to hire horses from the same farm because the animals like to move as a family. Nobody was to wear a fancy hat because that would put prices up.

Antwerp went on protecting its settled Jews in an almost cheeky way. The Emperor sent a marshal to hunt heretics and the city arrested him for infringing city privileges. Dr Boisot followed from the Privy Council and summoned town officials for six in the morning. The Margrave said he had a fever and the others saw no need to start so early. At seven, Dr Boisot was still waiting. The officials said they wanted to wait for daylight so as not to alarm the population. Dr Boisot’s targets, meanwhile, had faded out of sight.

Then Diogo died and made Dona Gracia his executor, which left her in control of the whole House of Mendes, the debts of kings and emperors, the trade from the Indies. He also left her the problem of his reputation. If he was truly a Jew, even though his daughter had been christened, his estate was forfeit to the Crown. The charge against a dead man was almost impossible to disprove. Dona Gracia did what anyone would do; she bought her way out, a gift to the imperial court of 40,000 ducats in return for a “pardon” for the whole family.

Her reward was a summons from the governor of the Spanish Netherlands, Mary of Hungary, who wanted to discuss the marriage of Dona Gracia’s daughter Ana to some nondescript aristo. Dona Gracia said she wasn’t well enough to travel, but when she did go she told Mary she’d rather see her daughter drowned.

Mary made officials even tougher on the refugees still arriving from Portugal. Gracia organised papers for travel but stayed in Antwerp half a year, sheltering the newcomers. Then she let it be known she wanted to take the waters at Aachen, since she was a martyr to stomach pain. It seemed quite unremarkable when she packed up her household and sent trunks on ahead. She never came back.

She found safety at last in the European quarter of Istanbul. Back in Antwerp, the Hapsburgs spent two acrimonious years discussing with her nephew Joseph Naçi what goods could follow her. Money and trade trumped the great war on heresy.

Joseph Naçi was now in Istanbul, where he was the “European prince” to the Ottomans, the “great Jew” to Europeans, and the provider of strong drink to the Selim, the unlovely son of the great Suleiman.

The drink gave him influence. The Ottomans offered to help Antwerp in the revolt against the Spanish, but Naçi wanted more: a city and a territory for the Jews, maybe Naxos but better yet, Cyprus. He liked the idea of taking Cyprus from the Venetians who had snubbed his idea of a new land of Israel.

It never happened, of course. But it was possible, an unlikely consequence of the chain from Portugal to the East by way of Antwerp. The city could unsettle the world.



Antwerp: The Glory Years, by Michael Pye, is published by Allen Lane (£25)