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Partners in marriage and business? Guilds and the family economy in urban food markets in the Dutch Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2008

DANIELLE VAN DEN HEUVEL
DANIELLE VAN DEN HEUVEL
Affiliation:
Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
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Abstract

This article examines spousal cooperation in the early modern Dutch food markets. It shows that although husband and wife business partnerships were very common in market-based retailing, great differences existed in the way spouses worked together. Most urban retail trades were guild-organized and the guilds therefore had a significant influence on the family economy. Guild policy was, however, very flexible and responded to local economic circumstances. It appears that the size and the organization of the markets were crucial in shaping the roles of the men and women who held stalls. Processes of commercialization generally benefited independent female entrepreneurship over the more traditional husband and wife partnerships.

Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 23 , Special Issue 2: SPECIAL ISSUE: PARTNERS IN BUSINESS? SPOUSAL COOPERATION IN TRADES IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND AND THE DUTCH REPUBLIC , August 2008 , pp. 217 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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References

ENDNOTES

1 Classics in this field are Alice Clark's Working life of women in the seventeenth century (London, 1919) and Ivy Pinchbeck's Women workers in the industrial revolution 1750–1850 (London, 1930). Others include Louise Tilly and Joan Scott, Women, work and family (New York, 1978), Merry E. Wiesner, Working women in Renaissance Germany (New Jersey, 1986) and Martha Howell, Women, production and patriarchy in late medieval cities (Chicago, 1986).

2 See the remarks by Knotter, Ad in his article ‘Problems of the family economy: peasant economy, domestic production and labour markets in pre-industrial Europe’, Economic and Social History in the Netherlands 6 (1994)Google Scholar.

3 See Margaret Hunt, The middling sort: commerce, gender, and the family in England 1680–1780 (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1996), Susanne Schötz, Handelsfrauen in Leipzig: zur Geschichte von Arbeit und Geslecht in der Neuzeit (Cologne, 2004), Nicola Phillips, Women in business 1700–1850 (Woodbridge, 2006) and Laura van Aert, ‘Tot leven of overleven? Winkelhouden in crisistijd: de Antwerpse meerseniers, ca. 1648–ca. 1748’ (unpublished D. Phil. thesis, University of Antwerp, 2007).

4 Although stallholders cannot be regarded as part of the urban poor, since the trade generally required certain investment costs such as guild membership and the lease of a stall, they were generally less wealthy than shopkeepers. For more information on the wealth of stallholders in the Dutch Republic see Danielle van den Heuvel, Women and entrepreneurship: female traders in the Northern Netherlands c. 1580–1815 (Amsterdam, 2007), 88–91.

5 Andrej Karpinski, ‘The woman in the marketplace: the scale of feminization of retail trade in Polish towns in the second half of the 16th and 17th century’, in Simonetta Cavaciocchi ed., La donna nell'economia, secc. XIII – XVIII (Florence, 1990), 283–92, esp. p. 292; Maryanne Kowaleski, ‘Women's work in a market town: Exeter in the late fourteenth century’, in B. A. Hanawalt ed., Women and work in preindustrial Europe (Bloomington, 1986) 145–66, esp. p. 156; and Sheilagh Ogilvie, A bitter living: women, markets, and social capital in early modern Germany (Oxford, 2003), 169. Another reason may be, of course, that the evidence is lacking.

6 Stegeman, Jannie, ‘Scheveningse visverkoopsters ca. 1600–1900’, Holland 21 (1991), 38–53Google Scholar; Harmsen, Kristine and Hubers, Helene, ‘En zij verkocht de vis: visverkoopsters in Utrecht en Antwerpen van de veertiende tot en met de zeventiende eeuw’, Dinamiek 8 (1991), 29–40Google Scholar; Ariadne Schmidt, Overleven na de dood: weduwen in Leiden in de Gouden Eeuw (Amsterdam, 2001), 129–31.

7 Neil McKendrick, John Brewer and J. H. Plumb eds., The birth of a consumer society: the commercialization of eighteenth-century England (Bloomington, 1982); Bruno Blondé, Eugenie Briot, Natacha Coquery and Laura van Aert eds., Retailers and consumer changes in early modern Europe: England, France, Italy and the Low Countries (Tours, 2005).

8 This process is generally referred to as the Industrious Revolution, a concept developed by Jan de Vries; see Jan de Vries, ‘Between purchasing power and the power of goods: understanding the household economy in early modern Europe’ in John Brewer and Roy Porter eds., Consumption and the world of goods (London and New York, 1993), 85–132.

9 Jan de Vries, European urbanization 1500–1800 (London, 1984), 153–4, 169.

10 Jan de Vries and Ad van der Woude, The first modern economy: success, failure, and the perseverance of the Dutch economy, 1500–1815 (Cambridge, 1997); Ogilvie, Bitter living, 9; Schmidt, Ariadne, ‘Vrouwenarbeid in de vroegmoderne tijd in Nederland’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis 2 (2005), 2–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Manon van der Heijden, Huwelijk in Holland: stedelijke rechtspraak en kerkelijke tucht 1550–1700 (Amsterdam, 1998), 224, 230.

12 Kuijpers, Erika, ‘Lezen en schrijven: onderzoek naar het alfabetiseringsniveau in zeventiende-eeuws Amsterdam’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis 23 (1997), 490–522Google Scholar; Margaret Spufford, ‘Literacy, trade and religion in the commercial centres of Europe’, in Karel Davids and Jan Lucassen eds., A miracle mirrored: the Dutch Republic in European perspective (Cambridge, 1995) 229–83.

13 J. C. Streng, Vrijheid, gelijkheid, broederschap en gezelligheid. Het Zwolse Sint Nicolaasgilde tijdens het ancien régime (Hilversum, 2001), 120, note 23.

14 See Anne Laurence, ‘How free were English women in the seventeenth century?’, in Els Kloek, Nicole Teeuwen and Marijke Huisman eds., Women of the Golden Age: an international debate on women in seventeenth-century Holland, England and Italy (Hilversum, 1994) 127–36, esp. pp. 133–4.

15 This was also the case in other Western European countries at the time.

16 Except in the province of Friesland and in the town of 's-Hertogenbosch in the seventeenth century, where the legal status of femme sole trader specifically concerned a shared trade. See Van den Heuvel, Women and entrepreneurship, 64.

17 On shopkeepers' guilds see Danielle van den Heuvel, ‘Weibliche Kaufleute in der Niederländische Republik: Einzelhändlerinnen im 's-Hertogenbosch des 18. Jahrhunderts: eine Fallstudie’, in Mark Häberlein and Christof Jeggle eds., Praktiken des Handels (forthcoming 2008); Streng, Vrijheid, gelijkheid; and Erwin Steegen, Kleinhandel en stedelijke ontwikkeling: het kramersambacht te Maastricht in de vroegmoderne tijd (Hilversum, 2006); on stallholders' guilds see Van den Heuvel, Women and entrepreneurship, Chapter 3.

18 Van den Heuvel, Women and entrepreneurship, Chapters 3 and 4.

19 The reason for this was that on the one hand it created clarity for the vendor and the customer about where they could find each other. On the other hand, separate commodity markets were the result of strict government control, imposed because it was recognized that both meat and fish could spread infectious diseases; Hans Bonke, De kleyne mast van Hollandse coopsteden: stadsontwikkeling in Rotterdam 1572–1795 (Amsterdam, 1996), 149.

20 Jan Orlers, Beschrijvinge der stadt Leyden (Leiden, 1614), 202; Simon van Leeuwen, Korte Besgrijving van het Lugdunum Batavorum, nu Leyden (Leiden, 1672), 77; H. A. van Oerle, Leiden binnen en buiten de stadsvesten: de geschiedenis van de stedebouwkundige ontwikkeling binnen het Leidse rechtsgebied tot aan het einde van de Gouden Eeuw: beschrijving (Leiden, 1975), 420. As far as is known, The Hague was the only city in the Dutch Republic besides Leiden that had a separate offal hall; Leo Noordegraaf, Atlas van Nederlandse marktsteden (Utrecht, Antwerp and Amsterdam, 1985), 37.

21 For more on the changing size of the Leiden food markets in the early modern period, see Van den Heuvel, Women and entrepreneurship, 93–6.

22 Among the 35 butchers who were registered in the 1674 tax register no women are to be found; G. J. Peltjens, Leidse lasten: twee belastingkohieren uit 1674 (Leiden, 1995).

23 Interestingly, there are no female butchers listed in the tax registers of 1749. What caused this inconsistency is unknown.

24 See the situations in sixteenth-century Amsterdam and Dordrecht and in seventeenth-century Haarlem; J. G. van Dillen, Bronnen tot de geschiedenis van het bedrijfsleven en gildewezen van Amsterdam (The Hague, 1929), vol. I, 1272, 1269; Quast, Jenneke, ‘Vrouwenarbeid in enkele Nederlandse steden omstreeks 1500’, Jaarboek voor Vrouwengeschiedenis I (1980), 55–7Google Scholar; Gabrielle Dorren, ‘Want noijt gebeurt is dat een vrouw meester is geworden: vrouwen en gilden in zeventiende-eeuws Haarlem’, in Clé Lesger and Leo Noordegraaf eds., Ondernemers en bestuurders: economie en politiek in de Noordelijke Nederlanden in de late middeleeuwen en de vroegmoderne tijd (Amsterdam, 1999), 139–51, esp. pp. 145. In 1613 the situation in Amsterdam had clearly been different: at that time it was accepted by the guild's authorities that wives helped their husbands out in the meat hall; see Van Dillen, Bronnen, vol. II, 55.

25 Schmidt, Overleven, 129.

26 In 1749 8 out of 33 butchers and butchers' journeymen combined the trade with another occupation. Four were also registered as graziers and the other 4 were involved in some sort of retail trade (in tea and coffee, in peat, in tobacco and in dyes). Interestingly, all of them were married and all the butchers with some sort of retail trade also had children. This means that it is not unthinkable that the wife's help was sometimes necessary, either in raising the stock or in the meat hall. See the database based on the Leiden census of 1749 created by the Nederlands Historisch Data Archief (hereafter Leiden census database 1749).

27 In sixteenth-century Amsterdam wives of butchers were also punished by the city government for selling meat from the meat hall. In 1505 15 butchers' wives were caught breaking the rules concerning female activity in the meat hall. See Van Dillen, Bronnen, vol. I, 1302.

28 Regional Archief Leiden (hereafter RAL), Stadsarchief, Part II (hereafter SA II), 1385–1409.

29 RAL, SA II, 78, fol. 189v.

30 Schmidt, Overleven, 129.

31 RAL, SA II, 77–8. These data only concern the seventeenth century; unfortunately the registers for the eighteenth century do not provide data on marital status.

32 In 1622 we find as many as 4 men; in the other years in the dataset we find a maximum of 1 male seller of meat residues per year.

33 RAL, SA II, 77, fol. 261v–217. For more evidence on women in the offal hall whose husbands were not butchers see Schmidt, Overleven, 130.

34 For more on these swings in gender ratios at the vegetable market, see Van den Heuvel, Women and entrepreneurship, 96–9, 103–10.

35 RAL, SA II, 1396; RAL, Doop- trouw- en begraafregisters (hereafter DTB), 12, fol. 088v, fol. 194, DTB 3, fol. 069v, fol. 100v, fol. 121.

36 Leiden census database 1749.

37 Orlers, Beschrijvinge, 197 (in Dutch: ‘… coolen, wortelen, comcommeren, salade, ende allerley moes-cruyden, erten, ende bonen etc.’).

38 Harm Kaal and Jelle van Lottum, ‘Duitsers in de polder: Duitse warmoeziers in Watergraafsmeer in de 18de en 19de eeuw’, Holland 35 (2003), 263–76, esp. p. 272. In the period 1830–1860 the average number of people at work in such businesses was 4 and they consisted of husbands, wives, children and servants. Although Kaal and Van Lottum's calculation of the number of family members employed in the business concerns the nineteenth century we may assume that this also applies to the preceding era.

39 As far as is known, these single women were not related to other market gardeners.

40 RAL, Gilden, 1349.

41 From the 1674 registers of male license-holders at least 9 out of 45 were married, but probably more: in 1581 and in 1749 96 per cent of the male market gardeners were married. See RAL, SA II, 1396, DTB, Leiden tax registers databases 1581 and 1674 and Leiden census database 1749.

42 RAL, SA II, 80, fol. 190–191v.

43 RAL, SA II, 80, fol. 210v–212.

44 Van Oerle, Leiden binnen en buiten de stadsvesten, 321.

45 RAL, SA II, 1402–1409.

46 Orlers, Beschrijvinge, 274.

47 Bonke, Kleyne mast, 151; Schmidt, Overleven, 128. This is also the situation in present-day developing countries; see for instance Hapke, Holly, ‘Petty traders, gender, and development in South Indian fisheries’, Economic Geography 77 (2001), 225–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 RAL, SA II, 1378, fol. 289–290. The men were registered as permit-holders with their full name and their wives without their names, for example, Lambert Jansz and his wife.

49 Leiden tax registers database 1581 and Leiden census database 1749. Compare the situation in eighteenth-century Rotterdam; Bonke, Kleyne mast, 151.

50 Quast, ‘Vrouwenarbeid’, 58.

51 Harmsen and Hubers, ‘En zij verkocht de vis’, 35.

52 Stegeman, ‘Scheveningse visverkoopsters’, 38–53.

53 Piet Lourens and Jan Lucassen, Inwoneraantallen van Nederlandse steden 1300–1800 (Amsterdam, 1997); Dirk Jaap Noordam, ‘Demografische ontwikkelingen’, in R. J. C. van Maanen, Leiden: de geschiedenis van een Hollandse stad, vol. 2: 1574–1795 (Leiden, 2003), 42–53.

54 Y. N. Ypma, Geschiedenis van de Zuiderzeevisserij (Haarlem, 1962), 73–4.

55 Petra J. E. M. van Dam, Vissen in veenmeren: de sluisvisserij op aal tussen Haarlem en Amsterdam en de ecologische transformatie in Rijnland 1440–1530 (Hilversum, 1998), 181–7.

56 Ypma, Zuiderzeevisserij, 73–6.

57 J. Wagenaar, Amsterdam in zijne opkomst, aanwas, geschiedenissen, voorregten, koophandel, gebouwen, kerkenstaat, schoolen, schutteryen, regeeringe (Amsterdam, 1760–1767), vol. II, 419.

58 Stadsarchief Amsterdam (hereafter SAA), Archief van Gilden en Brouwerscollege (hereafter AGB), 1592 and 1593; Wagenaar, Amsterdam in zijne opkomst, vol. II, 433.

59 SAA, AGB, 1591.

60 Hermannus Noordkerk, Handvesten ofte privilegien der stad Amstelredam (Amsterdam, 1748), vol. II, 812.

61 Periods at the market: Jacomijntje Jans (1749–1770), Cornelis de Waal (1749–1769), Antje Visser (1753–1768) and Jan Spijs (1753–1769).

62 In nine cases I am not fully sure of the career length as the first or last recording was in the year in which the administration started or ended, respectively. Nevertheless, in the majority of the four cases where I am sure, the wives had a longer career as stallholder.

63 Schmidt, Overleven, 130–1.

64 See, among others, RAL, Gilden, 1349, 1355 and 1357. The most striking example was the petition by the (male!) guild wardens in 1733 to allow entry into the market gardeners' guild only after a two-year apprenticeship. Moreover, in this petition they also asked that women – apart from widows of market gardeners – be excluded from membership. The city government did not grant these requests, however.

65 For similar changes in guild policies in shopkeeping see Van den Heuvel, Women and entrepreneurship, Chapter 4.

66 One big difference in guild privileges between male and female members was, however, that women could not become members of the guilds' governing bodies.