Dutch Republic Research Articles

Burgers op het kasteel. Elitedistinctie en representatie onder Hollandse heren buiten de ridderstand in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw

The Dutch Republic offers a remarkable picture of two parallel elites that developed side by side in the early modern period. While in other European countries high officials and merchants were eventually admitted to the peerage, here the knighthoods remained closed, even to the most powerful urban regents. How can we understand this almost hermetic and by European standards unique separation of nobility and patriciate? Why did urban aristocrats with numerous lordships and foreign noble titles copy the culture of an elite to which they never belonged? The answer to these questions is often sought in the misleading distinction between the Dutch, mainly (but not exclusively) Amsterdam merchant gentry with its hundreds of new mansions, and the rural knightly order with its old mansions in the landed provinces. This is a misleading picture. Although after the Dutch Revolt a largely feudal hierarchy of lordships did indeed persist in the countryside outside the walled cities, in the coastal regions most of it was commercialized and appropriated by this feudal-capitalist elite. Although never knighted, but often adorned with foreign titles, ‘burghers’ combined, in competition with each other, in their portraits, houses, and lifestyles an entirely unique style of princely wealth, courtly virtues, merchant spirit, and feudal simplicity.

The quality and the accuracy of codes for terminations of pregnancy for fetal anomalies recorded in hospital databases in three countries in northern Europe.

The number of terminations of pregnancy for fetal anomalies in Europe (TOPFA) has increased over recent decades. Therefore, it is important that TOPFAs, in addition to all other birth outcomes, are included in the surveillance of congenital anomalies and in studies on possible teratogenic risks of pregnancy exposures. The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality and the accuracy of codes identifying TOPFA cases in hospital databases. TOPFA cases recorded in three EUROCAT congenital anomaly registries (Finland, 2010-2014; Funen in Denmark, 2005-2014; and northern Netherlands, 2013-2014) were linked to hospital databases using maternal IDs. A total of 2,114 TOPFA cases over the study period were identified in the registries and 2,096 (99%) of these pregnancies were identified in the hospital databases. An end of pregnancy code was present for 91% of the cases and a code for a congenital anomaly was present for 82% (with some differences across registries). The proportion of TOPFA cases with a code for a specific congenital anomaly was <50% for cases with a structural anomaly (range 0%-50%) and 70% for cases with a chromosomal anomaly. Hospital databases have limited information or codes to identify TOPFAs for specific anomalies and the data are not detailed enough for surveillance of congenital anomalies or for studies analyzing pregnancy exposures and risk of congenital anomalies. However, hospital data may be used to identify the occurrence of a TOPFA to enable more detailed information to be obtained from the medical records.

In Search of Republican Unity

The importance of the Dutch Revolution of the late eighteenth century for political developments in the Northern Netherlands is still contested. Most historians view the period as the starting point of a number of democratic institutions, including elections. Others have pointed out, however, that the nineteenth century shows a remarkable amount of continuity in political practice with the early modern period, and have therefore questioned the impact of political change. Scholarship on the political system during the revolutionary era has paid little attention to the exclusion of a specific group from electoral politics: political opponents of the revolution. The debates on the question of whether Orangists should have access to the ballot were intense in the Northern Netherlands, where a political struggle between Patriots and Orangists had been taking place since the 1780s. Through a consideration of why the Dutch revolutionaries placed such electoral barriers against their political adversaries (mainly Orangists, but for a brief period also moderates and federalists), this essay argues that this period ought to be viewed with its particular revolutionary character in mind, rather than considering it simply as a period that relied on old practices or one that gave birth to new ones.

Supporting the Waldensians

Early modern aid to foreign fellow believers is usually seen as an expression of confessional solidarity, initiated by and through religious networks. By studying four collections organised in the Dutch Republic between 1655 and 1731 in aid of Waldensians persecuted in Savoy, this article argues for a broadening of our perspective on transnational aid beyond the narrow confines of religious solidarity. It investigates the role of the Dutch civil authorities in the provision of transnational aid to foreign Protestants, through an analysis of the decision-making process that followed aid requests, the manner in which charitable collections were organised, and how the resulting proceeds were used. Even if aid was only given to fellow believers, for the Dutch authorities such aid was never merely a question of confessional solidarity: it was first and foremost an instrument of national foreign policy. This adds an important dimension to our understanding of transnational aid to foreign fellow believers.

Orientalist Ambivalence

This article compares the first two Dutch translations of the Qur’an printed in the Dutch Republic: De Arabische Alkoran (1641) published by Barent Adriaensz Berentsma and Mahomets Alkoran (1657) published by Jan Rieuwertsz. It builds upon previous bibliographic research by quantifying the abbreviation of the Surahs in the two editions, identifying the sources of the paratexts, and describing the different strategies for translation. This analysis reveals how different editing choices reflect contradictory ideological attitudes among the publishers and translators involved. These producers of the first Qur’an translations echoed the widespread hostility towards Islam in Western discourses while also highlighting the peaceful nature of Muhammad and the similarities between the Bible and the Qur’an. This ‘Orientalist ambivalence’ not only resonated in local debates about freedom of conscience among Amsterdam Mennonites, but also signalled a more fundamental epistemological uncertainty following the rise of Cartesianism in the Dutch Early Enlightenment.

Popular Song Topics in the Dutch Republic

This article investigates popular topics and topical fluctuations in a diachronic corpus of 43,772 Dutch songs, all written between 1550 and 1750, contained within the Dutch Song Database. Computational methods such as topic modelling are used to analyse the relationship between topical changes and cultural-historical developments. Two cultural trends are used as case studies: the role of Petrarchism, and the articulation of a patriotic identity in early modern Dutch song culture. Furthermore, this data-driven approach reveals how subcategories can be defined within the existing but incomplete genre classification in the song collection. The results obtained contribute to a better understanding of the richness of the Dutch Song Database, and will facilitate the use of the song collection by future users.

Christopher W. Close, State Formation and Shared Sovereignty. The Holy Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic, 1488-1696

Christopher W. Close, State Formation and Shared Sovereignty. The Holy Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic, 1488-1696

Unraveling a 17th-Century North Netherlandish Panel Maker

Abstract The marking and branding of oak panel painting supports is a well-known practice in art-production centers of the Southern Netherlands, such as Antwerp in the 16th and 17th centuries. Conversely, information about the activities and regulations of 17th-century panel makers in the Northern Netherlands is scant and has hitherto never been thoroughly researched. Here, we present our research on a panel maker who sold his products to painters within the Dutch Republic. He stamped his house mark, consisting of two letters ‘M’ above each other and crowned by the cipher ‘4’, into the back of his panels. This mark has been found on panels from several painters active between 1632 and 1648. To narrow down the location of the unknown panel maker’s workshop, the source of the wood and the eventual interrelationships between the boards he used for the panels were investigated. In addition, the painters who painted on his supports were studied. This paper presents a novel dendrochronological examination of eight of his twenty-three known panels, combined with art historical research into the works of his customers. We propose that Rotterdam could have been the location of the panel maker’s workshop, based on the Baltic provenance of the wood of the panels, the painters who used them, and the supply of timber to the Dutch Republic in the first half of the 17th century. Our understanding of the panel maker’s practices in the 17th century is increased by this interdisciplinary attempt to unravel an unknown Dutch panel maker and his practice. To comprehend the complexity of the booming art market of the 17th-century Netherlands, further research into Dutch frame- and panel-makers and their regulations and practices is urgently needed.

Delphine Sirks, Fire and Life Insurance in the Dutch Republic. Development and Legal Aspects

TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis

Classical Learning in Britain, France and the Dutch Republic, 1690–1750: Beyond the Ancients and the Moderns, by Floris Verhaart

This is an insightful and wide-ranging study of classical learning between 1690 and 1750. Floris Verhaart focuses on debates revolving around the approach to this learning, particularly the distinction between emphasis on the content (res) and emphasis on the style (verba) of classical texts, and some of their broad implications. His geographical scope is also wide: he discusses examples from, and exchanges between, the Low Countries, France and Britain, thus highlighting the ‘intellectual cross-fertilisation between different countries’. Verhaart juxtaposes the Dutch school of criticism, represented in this study primarily by Pieter Burman and the English scholar Richard Bentley, with the ‘French approach’, represented here by the work of Jean Le Clerc, Anne and André Dacier, Charles Rollin and Conyers Middleton. The former school favoured a philological-linguistic approach to the study of classical texts, while the latter focused more on the moral teachings which could be drawn from classical literature, and was concerned with making the classical tradition more accessible to a wider audience. The author sees this contest as a ‘sub-debate’ that arose from the larger Quarrel between ancients and moderns, and one that, methodologically, can bring more clarity to the topic.

Medici Rule Reimagined: Cosimo iii, the Dutch Republic, and Grand Ducal Aspirations for Seventeenth-Century Tuscany (c. 1667–1723)

Abstract The enticingly modern strain of republicanism that young Prince Cosimo iii de’ Medici (1642–1723) encountered during his two sojourns in the Dutch Republic (1667–1669) proved a forceful means to reimagine Tuscany’s own, administrative past and present. Through comparative analysis of the unpublished travel journal of Medici secretary Apollonio Bassetti (1631–1699) and the diary in verse by court physician Giovanni Andrea Moniglia (1624–1700), we argue that Cosimo iii’s ambitious agenda abroad was influenced predominantly by his desire to implement environmental reform and portray a contrasting socio-political model at home. Cosimo’s own journeys were followed by ongoing transnational exchange, as testified by the court’s efforts to conceptualize a Medici town atlas and cultivate exotic pineapple plants on the Tuscan soil. By importing artefacts and ideas, then, Cosimo iii – just prior to his succession by Gian Gastone (1671–1737), last of the Medici grand dukes – sought to consciously craft the Medici dynasty’s lasting legacy.

Disciplining Otherness in the Tropics

Abstract During the seventeenth century, philanthropy offered the Dutch a self-disciplinary opportunity to expend their globally attained fortunes. As Janus-faced emblems of the wealth and poverty generated by a merchant society, monumentally scaled almshouses, hospices, orphanages, and reformatories in both the Dutch Republic and its colonies commemorated leadership that privileged moderation over extravagance. In Disciplining Otherness in the Tropics: Dutch Philanthropic Sites and the Urbanization of Indonesian Ports, 1640–1730, Sim Hinman Wan considers buildings for organized philanthropy as integral to the Dutch settlement of Batavia and Amboina in Indonesia, arguing that the presence of philanthropic establishments in the peripheral territories of Asian inhabitants served to subject these neighborhoods to colonial power. Dutch builders configured architecture and urban space in these cosmopolitan port cities to reinforce an ethnoculturally determined social hierarchy.

:The Price of Bread: Regulating the Market in the Dutch Republic

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsThe Price of Bread: Regulating the Market in the Dutch Republic. By Jan de Vries. Cambridge Studies in Economic History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xx+516. $44.99 (cloth); $36.00 (Adobe eBook Reader).Luca ClericiLuca ClericiUniversity of Padua Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Modern History Volume 94, Number 4December 2022Families Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/722199 Views: 30Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Failliet in de Republiek

Between 1643 and 1713, many cities in the economic core areas of the Dutch Republic introduced local ordinances concerning desolate boedels, insolvent estates. This article compares the contents of a substantial number of such ordinances and explains these legal innovations as part of broader patterns of institutional change. The introduction of majority compositions in this period substantially improved the chances for economic recovery of insolvent debtors. It also formed a violation of the creditors’ property rights. This article shows how this was compensated for by a much improved and stricter supervision of insolvency procedures and curators by local authorities. It is argued that these legal and institutional developments should be seen as part of an important shift in public mentalities: local authorities all over the early modern Dutch Republic sought to maintain public order and protect the common good by regulating ever more aspects of society.

:State Formation and Shared Sovereignty: The Holy Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic, 1488–1696

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Pieter de Hooch’s window shutter with the Habsburg Emperor Charles V (1661)

This article deals with Pieter de Hooch’s enigmatic painting Woman holding a basket with beans in a garden of 1661 (Kunstmuseum, Basel), and, more specifically, with the identity of the man depicted on the window shutter of the building in the foreground of the painting. The author argues that this portrait, which was hidden behind a layer of paint for a long time and only uncovered sometime between 1913-1927, represents the Emperor Charles V, whose portrait still decorates many buildings in the Netherlands. It is also argued that the building in the background of the painting can be typified as a ‘hofje’ or almshouse, and that its architecture resembles that of the Leiden Eva van Hoogeveenshofje, built by the architect Arent van ‘s-Gravesande in the 1650s. This suggests that De Hooch did not only paint locations in Delft and Amsterdam, but also in Leiden. The Dutch Republic’s seventeenth-century ‘hofjes’ were renowned, eliciting praise from foreign visitors, not only because of the way the Dutch Calvinist elite took care of the needy but also because of their superb architecture that enhanced the beauty of the Republic’s cities. Interestingly, De Hooch painted a servant girl in the garden of the almshouse, which at first may seem incongruous with an institution intended for the poor. However, as will be shown, residents of almshouses in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic were not as poor as is generally thought. Some were even quite well-off and did indeed keep servants. In fact, some contemporaries even likened the Dutch almshouses to palaces. The portrait of the emperor on the window shutter may thus have criticised this type of ‘poor relief’ and could well have been intended to bring out the resemblance between the ‘hofje’ and an emperor’s palace. The word ‘hofje ‘ after all means ‘small court’. As such an overt criticism is unique in De Hooch’s oeuvre, it may have been the artist himself who blotted the emperor’s portrait out, thus changing the image into a straightforward genre scene. It was precisely this type of scene that was to bring De Hooch some success following his move to Amsterdam in 1660.

Mourning the Prince of Orange

Abstract Anna Lisa Schwartz analyses the rites and expressions surrounding the death and funeral of Prince Willem IV on 22 October 1751. Schwartz’s essay clearly illustrates that the Protestant Reformation did not see an end to lavish funeral ceremonies, funerary decorations, or mourning chapels. Willem died a stadtholder of all seven provinces of the Dutch Republic, a position he had achieved only four years before as the first scion of both branches of the Nassau dynasty (the Frisian and the Orange). Schwartz examines a plethora of visual and literary expressions: the decorations of the mourning hall; the catafalque; and funerary poems, medals, and books, the latter containing both descriptions and etchings of all funeral ceremonies. Tellingly, visual references were made to obsequies of Willem’s predecessors belonging to the Orange branch: its founder, William the Silent; his sons Maurits and Frederik Hendrik; and Willem’s predecessor, the king-stadtholder Willem III.

To Proclaim, to Instruct and to Discipline. The Visuality of Texts in Calvinist Churches in the Dutch Republic

To Proclaim, to Instruct and to Discipline. The Visuality of Texts in Calvinist Churches in the Dutch Republic

Frailty and risk of hospitalization from COVID-19 infection among older adults: evidence from the Dutch Lifelines COVID-19 Cohort study

BackgroundFrailty is associated with COVID-19 severity in clinical settings. No general population-based studies on the association between actual frailty status and COVID-19 hospitalization are available.AimsTo investigate the association between frailty and the risk of COVID-19 hospitalization once infected.Methods440 older adults who participated in the Lifelines COVID-19 Cohort study in the Northern Netherlands and reported positive COVID-19 testing results (54.2% women, age 70 ± 4 years in 2021) were included in the analyses. COVID-19 hospitalization status was self-reported. The Groningen Frailty Indicator (GFI) was derived from 15 self-reported questionnaire items related to daily activities, health problems, and psychosocial functioning, with a score ≥ 4 indicating frailty. Both frailty and COVID-19 hospitalization were assessed in the same period. Poisson regression models with robust standard errors were used to analyze the associations between frailty and COVID-19 hospitalization.ResultsOf 440 older adults included, 42 were hospitalized because of COVID-19 infection. After adjusting for sociodemographic and lifestyle factors, a higher risk of COVID-19 hospitalization was observed for frail individuals (risk ratio (RR) [95% CI] 1.97 [1.06–3.67]) compared to those classified as non-frail.DiscussionFrailty was positively associated with COVID-19 hospitalization once infected, independent of sociodemographic and lifestyle factors. Future research on frailty and COVID-19 should consider biomarkers of aging and frailty to understand the pathophysiological mechanisms and manifestations between frailty and COVID-19 outcomes.ConclusionsFrailty was positively associated with the risk of hospitalization among older adults that were infected with COVID-19. Public health strategies for frailty prevention in older adults need to be advocated, as it is helpful to reduce the burden of the healthcare system, particularly during a pandemic like COVID-19.

Politics, Religion and Ideas in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Britain: Essays in Honour of Mark Goldie, ed. Justin Champion, John Coffey, Tim Harris and John Marshall

Few modern scholars deserve a Festschrift more than Mark Goldie. As the fifteen-page bibliography of his writings makes clear, his contribution to Restoration and eighteenth-century studies has been immense, and also highly varied. Although perhaps best known as a commentator on Locke, his work has also touched on Restoration clergymen and informers, the politics of office-holding, the Scottish Enlightenment, theories of religious intolerance, James Harrington, and even the architecture of Churchill College, Cambridge. It seems fitting that someone who has enjoyed a number of fruitful publishing collaborations with colleagues should be celebrated by a volume edited by no fewer than four of his former students, one of whom—Justin Champion—sadly died very shortly after the book’s appearance. Together they provide an eighteen-page introductory tribute discussing the honorand’s role as writer, teacher and mentor. But there seems to be little place for mere sentiment in the pitiless modern world of academic publishing. Is the book worth acquiring and reading in and of itself? The answer is a firm ‘yes’, partly because of the quality of the team of contributors that has been assembled—mostly Goldie’s own former students. More important is the fact that two clusters of essays offer riches for significant groups of scholars: those who are interested in John Locke, and those working on the intellectual culture of pre-modern Scotland. Sami Savonius-Wroth’s discussion of corruption makes a strong case for Locke’s main concern being the future of European civilisation, which was to be safeguarded by pursuing ‘a particular regenerative enterprise’ (p. 144). An appropriately educated ruling class would be ‘galvanised by revelation’ to persevere ‘in the constant struggle to reorder the psyche to a more rational, chastened and regulated, a less erratic and desire-driven, mode of life’ (p. 158). Delphine Soulard’s study of literary journals published in the Dutch Republic demonstrates the extent to which Locke’s ideas were received by Francophone readers. Jean Le Clerc in particular was ‘instrumental in erecting Locke as the epitome of toleration, truth and liberty’ (p. 217)—findings framed to complement Goldie’s own work on Locke’s wider reception in the anglophone world. Geoff Kemp fruitfully links together Locke’s time as a censor at Christ Church in 1664 and his writings against censorship in the 1690s. These are connected and understood through classical understandings of the role of censors in supervising and promoting the character and virtue of the people. Locke was against legislation censoring the press both because it was ‘ecclesiastical’ in its function, designed to shield ‘mother church’, and due to his loathing of the monopolistic oppression perpetrated against scholars by the Stationers’ Company (pp. 173, 176). For his part, John Marshall offers a timely piece linking together support for slavery overseas and forced labour at home in the context of the difficult economic circumstances of the 1690s. Locke’s position on the Board of Trade included support for the expansion of slavery in the Caribbean; his writings in the 1690s recommended ‘suppression’ of ‘begging drones’ who live ‘unnecessarily upon other people’s labour’ and ‘pretend they cannot get work’ (p. 194). Such an outlook fed into the expansion of workhouses in the capital.