Samenvatting proefschrift Hester Dibbits

Vertrouwd bezit. Materiële cultuur in Doesburg en Maassluis, 1650-1800. (Nijmegen, SUN, te verschijnen eind 2000)
Familiar possessions Material culture in Doesburg and Maassluis, 1650-1800

This book deals with the relation between group culture and local identity. The small town of Doesburg and the village of Maassluis, both situated in different parts of the Dutch Republic, are the focal point for an analysis of material culture in early modern time. Examining the appropriation of consumer goods, this study takes into consideration the context bound meaning of objects.

Two large digitilised collections of household inventories have provided the main data for this study. For Doesburg more than 200 inventories exist, while for Maassluis the number of inventories reaches up to 300. These probate inventories provide a clear insight, in an almost voyeuristic way, into a private household’s collection of consumer goods. With their help we may search through piles of bed linen, lift matrasses and open doors leading to dimly lit cellars. And more: often notaries added comments to the lists of objects they registered, which at times prove to be quite revealing.

In order to give a rich view on the meaningful ways in which people use consumer goods, other sources are considered of equal importance in this study. The inventories under consideration are studied in conjunction with testaments, law suits concerning theft, egodocuments, visual aids and other sources in which the inhabitants of early modern Doesburg and Maassluis present themselves to us.

Apart from their relatively small size, the agglomorations of Doesburg and Maassluis showed very little resemblance. Doesburg was a country town within the province of Gelderland, not far from the eastern border of the Dutch Republic. A broad middle class of specialized craftsmen and shopkeepers shared the town with town dwelling farmers, some wealthy noblemen and army officers. There was also a garrison of soldiers, which sometimes counted two or even three-thousand men, almost equalling the number of inhabitants. As to religion, the population was also mixed. The large majority was Dutch Reformed, but there were also significant congregations of Roman Catholics and Lutherans. As a member of the Hanseatic League, Doesburg had been a rather prosperous town, but during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the economic situation was far less favourable.

Maassluis, in contrast, was a bustling fishing village, which had rapidly developed into one of the largest and most prosperous villages in the South of Holland, despite short periods of adversity. In the midst of the eighteenth century, Maassluis had about six-thousand inhabitants. Still, Maassluis officially remained a village, consisting for the main part of people whose prosperity was based on the fisheries. In contrast to Doesburg, the population of Maassluis was mainly Dutch Reformed.

In the course of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, both Doesburg and Maassluis witnessed important changes in daily life within their communities: novel pieces of furniture were introduced, more and more households added forks to their collection of spoons and new products from the Far East, coffee, tea, porcelain and chintz for example, were to become part and parcel of daily life for the majority of their inhabitants. Not only were hitherto unknown products introduced, the number of products over all increased: inventories clearly show an increase in the amount of cloth, porcelain and earthenware. Neither in Doesburg nor in Maassluis does the population present itself to us entirely according to our wishes, that is: divided in easily definable, homogeneous socio-cultural groups which can be clearly linked to specific sets of consumer goods. Evidently, differences between social groups should be studied alongside differences within these groups.

In general, cultural behaviour can be labelled as rather eclectic in Doesburg, whilst the Maassluis population seems to have been more culturally unified. There, some choices seem to have been made collectively and actively endorsed by a majority of the villagers, in a conscious effort to distinguish themselves from townspeople. While in Doesburg the use of objects strongly depended on their practical value, in Maassluis certain objects were used in an almost ‘ceremonial’ manner, strengthening the ties that bound the community. The impressive silver headgarments of the Maassluis women are a good case in point. Originally a hardly visible, practical part of the headdress, they developped into impressive ornaments, cultivated as local dress. By means of their material culture, the inhabitants of Maassluis expressed a clear and unequivocal sense of local identity, shared by most members of the community. In Doesburg on the contrary, the sense of local identity seems to have been far less uniform; being a Doesburger was perceived and expressed differently by each and every inhabitant.

In both communities dynamic processes of modernization took place. The introduction of tea and coffee rituals exemplifies this. Not only did this novelty involve a change of daily routine, it also created new modes of sociability. In Maassluis this process established in the private as well as the public sphere a cultivated kind of informal behaviour, which questioned the distinction between, in Erving Goffman’s terminology, back and front stage.

In addition to local identity, this study also deals with aspects of class and gender in relation to material culture. Especially when gender issues are taken into consideration, the complexity of the field of material culture comes into full focus. In the inventories male and female shirts are categorized separately, just as male and female bibles. But do distinctions like this on paper reflect daily practice Hardly, as male and female items evidently were not shelved separately in people’s wardrobes, nor was a clear-cut division between men’s and women’s clothing always maintained in actual daily use. As far as the cultural domains of literacy and sociability are concerned, the issue of gender cannot be ignored; the high degree of literacy and the new modes of sociability both provided an opportunity for the early modern woman to broaden her cultural horizon. It allowed her to appear from behind her husband and explore her own theological and cultural interests.

As regards the relation between, roughly speaking, the upper and lower classes, the inventories suggest that the upper classes sought to distinguish themselves ostentatiously from the lower classes by means of their collection of tableware and cutlery for special occasions. This applies Doesburg as well as Maassluis. However, it remains hard to judge how and in fact whether these items were actually used in both communities. The argument is put forward that probably the Maassluis elite, in contrast to the Doesburgers, hardly ever used these novelties at all, keeping them in their wardrobes as precious symbols of wealth and modernity.

The analysis of household inventories in combination with other source material, shows an intriguing process of increased differentiation in material culture. From the first quarter of the eighteenth century onwards, this process seems to have accelerated. The Maassluis inventories made up in this period witness the prominence of a group showing a marked interest for anything new. This group, consisting of well-to-do representatives of the middle classes, exerted a strong influence. They appear as a self-confident generation which distinguished itself by their pursuit of innovation. This attitude enabled them to function as catalysts in bringing about a new cultural climate. As the urban ruling classes gradually closed ranks shutting out newcomers, these middle classes adapted the role of pioneers, paving the way for others to climb the social ladder. These newcomers and their followers appropriated innovations according to their own, often locally determined experience, not in imitation of an aristocratic courtmodel. At most such a model may have functioned as a possible frame of reference, a model against which these middle classes could react. As this process further developed, it also brought in its wake a revaluation and cultivation of village life with which they were so familiar. Townspeople who had ‘discovered’ the rural idyll, visited the fishingvillage Maassluis as if it was a curious attraction.

The presence of newcomers was thus effective in a double sense. They can be held partly responsible for dynamic changes in material culture and for gradually urbanizing Maassluis. They also caused confidence and self-consciousness to grow among the Maassluis population as a whole. This self-consciousness can be considered of great importance as a factor of cultural change.

As other towns, Doesburg too suffered social unrest in the early eighteenth century. The old ruling elites and members of the guilds were the main antagonists in the disturbances. Elsewhere in Gelderland conflicts of comparable character had given rise to a process of emancipation. Further research will have to confirm whether this was the case in Doesburg too. By no means can Doesburg be regarded as a culturally backward town. Quite the contrary; in this respect, this study asks for a reassessment of the stereotyped Hollandocentric view of the Dutch Republic. Doesburg and Maassluis both were dynamic communities in their own way.

While homes were stuffed full with household goods in Maassluis, many of the Doesburg inventories reflect a world affected by scarcity. Clothes were mended or put to new purposes over and over again, broken earthenware was glued together again and copper kettles patched. Room for manoeuvring, in an economic sense, was evidently limited. But there is more to this pattern of behaviour: the re-use of household goods and clothing did not only serve an economic purpose, but was also determined by cultural background. Rich families too re-used old bed linen by for example making sheets into shirts. Furthermore, we should not forget that Doesburg as a garrison town was in effect continually ‘occupied’: we have to take into account the presence of large groups of soldiers who made use of goods owned by the Doesburgers. In Doesburg, notions such as ‘privaty property’ and ‘private ground’ must have had a very different ring compared with Maassluis.

In the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the coastal provinces (not harrassed by the plundering troops who demanded board and lodging) witnessed an important change in economic life: an economy based on scarcity evolved into an economy which also allowed for abundance and luxury.

Of course, not every one benefitted equally from this change. However, innovations did create a new world for all, a model which called either for imitation or opposition. Chintzes, painted and polished furniture, mirrors, enamelled pottery and porcelain, silver buckles: to the modern consumer everything should sparkle and shine. The new social structure had provided the necessary condition for a nation-wide introduction to all kinds of novelties, and the changes in the coastal provinces cannot have escaped many Doesburgers.

In the inventories hardly any traces can be found of political interests. We know, however, that the eighteenth century ended in political disturbance. It may be argued that conflicts could rise to such vehemence because a new model for material life had been provided to the people: this model appealed to their imagination and triggered off new wishes which could not be fulfilled immediately. Unsatisfied, many took their recourse to violent means of protest. This time, the battlefield turned out to be not the private home, but the public sphere. In that context new meanings were ascribed to publicly owned goods instead of private possessions. At this point, however, another story begins...

Hester Dibbits