Dutch Republic

The retail of alcohol was so central to the economy and society of the Cape of Good Hope during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that it earned the nickname “tavern of two oceans”. This retail business was organised on the so-called
lease or monopoly ('pacht') system whereby a person paid the authorities for the right to sell a certain type of alcohol for a given period in a specific area. This article traces the intellectual origins of this system of alcohol retail at the Cape during the VOC era. It does so by tracing both the idea of using leases or monopolies, first in the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century, and by investigating the ways in which various products, including alcohol, were leased off in the largest and most significant of the VOC’s colonies, Batavia, during the first half of the seventeenth century. It is demonstrated that the ways in which alcohol retail and other economic activities were organised at the Cape developed out of practices established elsewhere in the seventeenth-century Dutch world, but that the exact nature of the system was adapted to unique local circumstances at the early Cape. As such, this comparative article serves as an illustration that developments at the Cape in such a central sphere as business practices were the product of both global and local forces and influences.

The Theses LVI belong to a series of hitherto unpublished early manuscripts of the Dutch humanist and jurisconsult Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) that were acquired by the University of Leiden in 1864. It is not certain when the Theses were written, but preliminary research on the physical manuscript and the sources cited indicate two possible windows. The first is around 1602-1605, that is roughly at a time when Grotius was also working on his Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty (De Iure Praedae Commentarius). The second dating places the genesis of the manuscrbipt around 1613-1615.
In the context of Grotius’ writings, the Theses LVI assume an important position for several reasons: They raise questions about state formation, the duty of citizens to the state and the right of political resistance in far greater detail than in any other work of the celebrated Dutch humanist. The Theses LVI also feature important reading notes that yield priceless insights into the sources that Grotius directly consulted and their influence on his ideas. The manuscript grants modern scholars a unique glimpse into the working mind of its author. Evidence points not only to the ferocious haste with which Grotius wrote his works, but also the occasional sloppiness of his reading and research habits."""

Boekbijdrage aan Het Grote VOC Boek onder eindredactie van Ron Guleij en Gerrit Knaap, uitgegeven door WBooks (ISBN: 9789462581777), waarin beknopt de bijzondere levensloop van de Aziatische olifanten Hans & Parkie wordt aangehaald. Aan het einde van de achttiende eeuw werden deze dieren door de VOC geschonken aan stadhouder Willem V (1748-1806) en kregen een plekje in zijn befaamde menagerie (dierentuin). Na de inval van het Franse revolutionaire leger belandden ze uiteindelijk als oorlogsbuit in de Parijse Jardin des Plantes. De dieren bereikten tijdens hun leven een ware sterrenstatus. Er werden zelfs muziekstukken voor Hans & Parkie gecomponeerd. Na hun dood bleven wetenschappers, kunstenaars en het grote publiek gefascineerd door de dikhuiden.

"This book offers annotated translations of documents touching on Dutch admiral Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge and his voyage to Asia between 1605 and 1608. These translations are aimed at a contemporary English-speaking Asian readership interested in the early modern history of European trade, warfare and expansion in Southeast Asia with a focus on Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Researchers specialising in early European colonialism, international law, international relations, security studies, and diplomatic history will also find that the documents translated in this volume offer new and unfamiliar perspectives. Materlieff’s business acumen, military and diplomataic prowess as well as his vision of empire all have implications for examining not only European expansion into Southeast Asia, but also into other regions at large, including especially south Asia, Africa and the Americas.
Admiral Matelieff was a director of the Rotterdam Chamber of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) formed in 1602. He was appointed fleet commander on one of the company’s first voyages to Asia. Matelieff’s mission was both commercial and military: he launched a major sea-borne attack on the Portuguese colony of Melaka, arranged for the signing of treaties with the rulers of Johor, Aceh and Ternate, and founded the first Dutch fort on the island of Ternate. His endeavours, however, to open the Chinese market for the Dutch company proved unsuccessful.
Following his return to the Dutch Republic in September 1608, Matelieff penned a series of memorials and letters. In these he advanced recommendations for changing the way the company organized its fleets and conducted business. More importantly he offered  his Dutch contemporaries a vision of empire in Asia. The materials contained in this volume offer important observations of a perceptive analyst who was also determined to grasp the political and economic structures of Asia, and also of inter-state relations in across this vast region. At a time of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, French and English engagement in Southeast Asia, Matelieff sought to critically assess and strategize on the ways in which Europeans were increasingly engaging with Asian polities and their rulers.

This book will be released for sale in Australasia and Europe in June 2014 and available in the Americas after September 2014
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MA Thesis in Maritime History (Faculty of Letters, Lisbon University FLUL, 2014) - revised version

The present thesis Shipwrecks of the “Carreira da Índia” (1595-1623) – Sources
for the Study in Portuguese Maritime History deals with factors which caused losses of
ships of the Carreira da Índia which linked the European metropolis Lisbon with its
Goa based Estado da Índia between 1595 and 1623. Although Portuguese-Asiatic
shipping was formally separated from the Habsburg Empire during the Union of the
Two Iberian Crowns (1580-1640), the European policies of the Spanish Kings,
especially towards the United Provinces and the Netherlands had its influence and
effects on the Portuguese side.
Shipwrecks, either on the outward bound or homeward bound voyages had
occurred for various reasons since the early days of the Carreira da Índia yet the
emergence of the two private European Companies, the Dutch United East India
Company (founded in 1602) and the British East India Company (founded in 1600)
were a new momentum by which’s characteristics of concurrence and struggle for
supremacy of the European-Asiatic spice trade, losses of Portuguese ships were caused
by planned and executed military operations as well.
Focusing on the geographical region of the Mozambique Channel in which the
losses have taken place, the thesis combines a historiographical approach with records
of underwater archaeology analyzing questions related to the political environment and
planed military operations in which shipwrecks have occurred as well as causes of
shipwrecks observing ship building and design modifications and effects related to
economic patterns such as the monetary flows of the Portuguese outward bound
shipping during the period of observation.

Naufragios da Careira da Índia (1595-1623)

a biography of a sculptural group of four statues of the first successieve Stadtholders from the House of Orange in the Dutch Republic, consiting of two versions: the original marble version(1646-49) with was lost in 1945 and a zinc version (19th C) which survived in the Royal Collections in The Hague

This paper will mainly focus on the material culture surrounding the administration of the Lord’s Supper in the Reformed churches of the Dutch Republic. After a brief survey of the ecclesiastical setting for the service and the practical arrangements, it will principally concentrate on communion plate. Whereas the ecclesiastical decrees of the Catholic Church provided detailed stipulations about the appropriate form for liturgical vessels consecrated for the celebration of the mass, for the Reformed such matters were regarded as adiaphora. Nonetheless, communion plate was an important, if not essential, part of the administration of the Lord’s Supper. However, it, generally, tends to be considered only as part of broader studies of early modern silver and pewter ware rather than in its religious context. While Mark Petersen (2001) has drawn attention to the importance and spiritual significance of Puritan silver in New England, there has not been a similar consideration of communion plate in the Reformed Churches in Europe. In the Dutch Republic, silver and pewter beakers were used in a domestic environment as well as being commemorative items, but similar forms were adopted for the administration of the Lord’s Supper. The differences between secular and religious use will be considered, particularly in relation to their decoration and variations in design. Further research might reveal whether these vessels were regarded in a meditative and spiritual form similar to that identified in New England.

Scholar Hadriaan Beverland was banished from Holland in 1679. Why was this humanist exiled from one of the most tolerant parts of Europe in the seventeenth century? This article argues that it was Beverland's singular focus on sexual lust that got him into such great trouble. In his studies, he highlighted the importance of sex in human nature, history, and his own society. Dutch theologians disliked his theology, exegesis, and his use of erudition to mock their authority. His humanist colleagues did not support him either, since Bev-erland threatened the basis of the humanist enterprise by drawing attention to the sexual side of the classical world. And Dutch magistrates were happy to convict the young scholar, because he had insolently accused them of hypocrisy. By restricting sex to marriage, in compliance with Reformed doctrine, secular authorities upheld a sexual morality that was unattainable, Beverland argued, and he proposed honest discussion of the problem of sex. This article shows that by exposing the gap between principle and practice, Beverland highlighted the hypocrisy of a deeply conflicted elite at a precarious time, since the Dutch Golden Age had started disintegrating by the late-seventeenth century. Positioning Bever-land's fate in this context of change, his story and scholarship provide a fresh perspective on the intellectual environment of the Low Countries in this period.

The island of Walcheren in the province of Zeeland was the largest Dutch slaving center in the eighteenth century. While the profitability of the slave trade itself was limited, it had important local economic effects. A clue comes from the excellently preserved archive of the largest slave trader: the Middelburgse Commercie Compagnie (MCC). Combining the figures in the MCC archive with some experimental calculations, it is estimated that around 1770 about a tenth of the income earned by inhabitants of Middelburg was connected to the trade in enslaved Africans. For the more specialized and smaller city of Flushing, this figure was likely closer to a third of all income.

This article seeks to emphasise the notion that the Cape settlement of the
VOC period needs to be studied within the context of the Dutch world and
not in isolation. In recent research, empires are seen more as a collection of
nodes than structures of a centre with peripheries. Each node can be part of
several networks, which contribute to the shaping of that node. When applied
to the Cape settlement this concept makes a valuable contribution to our
understanding of Cape society and its residents. The Cape was a complex society
in which several different groups lived together. Each of these experienced
their environment in another manner influenced by the networks they were
part of, and each of these made their own contribution to the shaping of
the Cape settlement. This article focuses on the burgher group and especially
those burghers from the middle and upper layers. These burghers were the
ones who were mostly exposed to the many connections of the Cape with the
Netherlands through for instance religion, education, enterprise, the justice
system, and travel. As a result, they came to regard themselves as burghers of
the United Netherlands who were entitled to all the rights and privileges of
that status. The VOC administration did not agree and argued that all were
subjects of the Company. The position on both sides of the conflict needs to
be referenced to the larger framework of the Dutch world. As such this clash is
a practical example of how the Cape during the Dutch period can only really
be understood as part of a larger context which shows that the Cape, although
perhaps unique and atypical, ultimately was part and parcel of the Dutch
trading empire and its networks.

"The aim of the article is to reconstruct the educational practices at the Nassau court in Leeuwarden (Friesland), based on the example of Johan Willem Friso of Nassau-Dietz. It examines not only the educational programme, but also the tutors involved in the education of Johan Willem Friso, many of whom were Huguenots. The resaons for which the Nassau (and Orange) families chose for a Huguenot tutor are explored in this article.  The educational practices are discussed in light of the changes to interests and position of nobility in the Early Modern period, as well as of the particular position of the Stadtholder in Friesland and Holland. The article is based on correspondence, mostly kept in the Royal House Archives in The Hague."

This article focuses on the close relationship between the university of Leiden (founded in 1575) and the government of the province of Holland, especially in the first few decades years after the university’s foundation.  Over and above these very close connections (which are well known), this paper argues that in its very early years the university of Leiden might in some aspects be seen as a kind of court near the seat of the government, especially with respect to ‘cultural’, ‘networking’ and ‘patronage’ functions fulfilled by royal courts elsewhere, at a time when these were less available at the seat of Holland’s de facto government itself.

Between 1750 and 1830 the Dutch state developed from an oligarchic republic into an enlightened autocratic monarchy via a brief experiment with representative democracy. During this period, there was an ongoing debate about the right to petition. Political actors and opinion-makers addressed the questions to what and to whom this right extended, and what it meant to have such a right. While theorists of the different types of government had sharply contrasting views on the place of the people in the political process, ideas about petitioning, which throughout the period under discussion remained the principal instrument for popular involvement in politics, stayed remarkably stable. Through an investigation of the debate on the right to petition in the crucial transitional phase from the Dutch Republic to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, this article contributes to bridging the divide between petition research of the early modern period and that of the modern era.

Contribution to the Dutch East India Company Book, edited by Ron Guleij and Gerrit Knaap and published by WBooks (ISBN: 9789462581784), about the remarkable lives of the Ceylonese elephants Hans & Parkie. The animals were brought from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) to the Netherlands at the end of the eighteenth century as a gift from the Dutch East India Company to Stadtholder Willem V (1748-1806). When the French revolutionary army invaded the Republic, it was decided to transfer them to the French Jardin des Plantes (Paris) as spoils of war. After their deaths they were dissected by the famous French naturalist Georges Cuvier (1769-1832).

In Grotius' Annales religion appears almost exclusively as a social and political problem. References (implied or explicit) to religion as a good thing or its positive effects are lacking. This aspect of Grotius' text arises from its equation of 'religion' with 'combative orthodox religion in the post-reformation era'. However it is not credible that this view represents Hugo Grotius' actual opinion of the Christian faith as such. The solution seems rather that the above equation must be a conscious rhetorical strategy designed to strengthen the argument of the AH. Continuing from that conclusion, however, the texts allows us to deduce some views on reason of state and religious policy which do seem to have been actually held by Grotius in this period, or at least to have enjoyed his active interest.
First, that the interference of religious forces with politics constitutes a danger to society; second, that from the perspective of the Lipsian and Tacitist 'morally sound' reason of state, the cases of feigned religious zeal which Grotius ascribes to William the Silent and Elizabeth I are justified by their usefulness to society, or at least excused by an awareness that this is how real politics work. In spite of this reason of state-logic with respect to religion however, Grotius reverts to a normative constitutional interpretation of the revolt when it comes to liberty and the ancient constitution, as it was his purpose to show that the Revolt was about political rights not religion. This article focuses on the reason of state-views in the above. Grotius' position must be understood from his roles serving the States government of Holland. However the States' omission to publish the AH shows that the regents either objected against such views themselves, or were well aware that they were controversial in the eyes of general public opinion.

The Life of Romeyn de Hooghe 1645-1708
Prints, Pamphlets, and Politics in the Dutch Golden Age
by Henk van Nierop

Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Series: Amsterdam Studies in the Dutch Golden Age: https://www.aup.nl/en/series/amsterdam-studies-in-the-dutch-golden-age

Romeyn de Hooghe was the most inventive and prolific etcher of the later Dutch Golden Age. The producer of wide-ranging book illustrations, newsprints, allegories, and satire, he is best known as the chief propaganda artist working for stadtholder and king William III. This study, the first book-length biography of de Hooghe, narrates how his reputation became badly tarnished when he was accused of pornography, fraud, larceny, and atheism. Traditionally regarded as a godless rogue, and more recently as an exponent of the Radical Enlightenment, de Hooghe emerges in this study as a successful entrepreneur, a social climber, and an Orangist spin doctor. A study in seventeenth-century political culture and patronage, focusing on spin and slander, this book explores how artists, politicians, and hacks employed literature and the visual arts in political discourse, and tried to capture their readership with satire, mockery, fun, and laughter.

"... the text surpassed my expectations: it is a truly outstanding and in every way excellent contribution to the history of the Golden Age. ... The author has succeeded in achieving what no one has succeeded in in doing previously - setting out a clear, detailed and convincing, well-supported account of the sometimes seemingly baffling shifts and swerves in De Hooghe's career, fortunes, reputation and political stance." - Jonathan Israel, professor emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

"...offers a fascinating portrait of the etcher, pamphleteer, pornographer, provocateur, freethinker, spy, author, entrepreneur, husband and father, Romeyn de Hooghe. ... The book is also remarkably relevant in this age of international political machinations, propaganda, and the distortion and concealment of information by spin doctors and the media." - Huigen Leeflang, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

In 1773, the British scientist and explorer Joseph Banks (1743-1820) visited the Dutch Republic for a short holiday. By request of his sister Sarah, Banks kept a journal in which he wrote about his experiences in the Republic. These descriptions are remarkably negative about the Dutch, their culture and their scientific knowledge. It also gives a good insight in Banks’s personality. This article tries to answer the question why Banks is having such a bad time in the Dutch Republic. The article contains a short summary of the journal, an account of Banks’s earlier journey to Batavia with James Cook and a comparative analysis of other British travel accounts of the Dutch Republic in the eighteenth century.

Why was rape such a popular metaphor for war in early modern Dutch theatrical and visual culture? To address this question, this article considers a range of theatrical and visual representations of rape. When serving as a representation of state, the female body was often used to represent abstract processes such as the accumulation of wealth or inimical intrusion. These seemingly opposing processes are conjoined in a late seventeenth‐century Dutch allegorical play that not only features rape as a metaphor for war but also extends this metaphor to raise questions about national integrity and the deleterious effects of wealth accumulation.

Was there such a thing as 'public opinion' before the age of newspapers and party politics? The essays in this collection show that in the Low Countries, at least, there certainly was. In this highly urbanised society, with high literacy rates and good connections, news and public debate could spread fast in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, enabling the growth of powerful opposition movements against the Crown, the creation of the Dutch Republic, and of the distinctive Netherlandish culture of the Golden Age.

This is a summary of my PhD thesis, as defended on 22 June 2018, at the University of Amsterdam.
Supervisors: Joost Jonker and Marjolein 't Hart
Committee: 
Prof. dr. O.C. Gelderblom, Universiteit Utrecht
Dr. C.J. van Bochove, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
Prof. dr. G.H. Janssen, Universiteit van Amsterdam
Prof. dr. R.A.M. Aerts, Universiteit van Amsterdam
Dr. C.M. Lesger, Universiteit van Amsterdam
Prof. dr. J.M.W.G. Lucassen, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Prof. dr. M.G.J. Duijvendak, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

‘Arms Export and Export Control of the Dutch Republic 1585-1621’, in: Robert Beeres, Robert Bertrand, Jeroen Klomp, Job Timmermans en Joop Voetelink red., Compliance and Integrity in International Military Trade, NL Arms Netherlands Annual Review of Military Studies 2021, 289-309

Open Access: https://scholarlypublications.universiteitleiden.nl/handle/1887/3151619

How did early modern Dutch people relate to distant suffering? As charitable relief is as much a thing of the present as it is of the past, the question is still relevant in modern aid campaigns. This dissertation engages with the scholarly debate on early modern solidarity which presupposes that solidarity was confined to one’s own social or religious group. Therefore, aid to foreign fellow believers is commonly explained as religious brotherhood and long-distance solidarity with domestic disaster victims is thought to be absent, especially in the decentralised and particularistic Dutch Republic. This thesis demonstrates, first, that transnational aid to persecuted foreign fellow-believers was not just about confessional brotherhood but also about political interests and, second, it shows that long-distance solidarity with disaster victims was fairly common in the Dutch Republic. By analysing the arguments put forward by the victims in their aid requests, the reasons underlying the decisions of the civil authorities to support of reject these pleas, and the way in which the general public was persuaded to donate, this study reveals the multifaceted character of early modern aid. Furthermore, it provides insight into the emergence of humanitarian argumentation long before the Enlightenments ‘humanitarian revolution’.

Book title: Shopping Spaces and the Urban Landscape in Early Modern Amsterdam, 1550-1850
Author: Clé Lesger
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Series: Amsterdam Studies in the Dutch Golden Age

In this study, the appearance and location of shops in Amsterdam during the early modern period is linked to major changes in the urban economy, the size and socio-spatial distribution of its population, and the structure of the urban grid. Not only is there ample attention for the spatial distribution of shops across the urban landscape, but for the first time it is also accurately charted what the exterior and interior of Amsterdam shops looked like and how they changed in the course of the centuries. Partly as a result of this, it has proved possible to give an impression of the ways in which retailers and customers interacted.

More info: https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789463720625/shopping-spaces-and-the-urban-landscape-in-early-modern-amsterdam-1550-1850