American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS)

Close to the Edge: Criminals and Marginals in Dutch Cities

Author(s): Pieter Spierenburg
Source: Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 31, No. 3, Americas (Spring, 1998), pp. 355-359
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Sponsor: American Society for Eighteenth-
Century Studies (ASECS).
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 FORUM: URBAN CULTURE IN THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY DUTCH REPUBLIC 355

3. See: Gert Oostindie (ed.) Fifty YearsLater;Antislavery,Capitalismand Modernityin the Dutch

Orbit (Pittsburgh:Univ. of PittsburghPress 1996); A. N. Paasman,Reinhart;Nederlandseliteratuuren
slavernijten tijde van de Verlichting(Leiden:Nijhoff, 1984);JohannesMennePostma,The Dutch in the
Atlantic Slave Trade 1600-1815 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniv. Press, 1990); and Neil L. Whitehead,
Lords of the Tiger Spirit; A History of the Caribs in Colonial Venezuela and Guyana 1498-1820 (Dordrecht/
Providence: Foris 1988).

PIETER SPIERENBURG

Close To The Edge: Criminals and Marginals in Dutch Cities

The characteristically Dutch urban culture of the Republican period is to be

found first of all in the western part of the country: the area which today is called the Randstad
and which, as Jan de Vries argues, already formed an integrated urban network in the seventeenth
century.1Consequently, most of the examples in this brief essay will be from that area. Within the
Randstad, Amsterdam was by far the largest city. It is also the one most extensively investigated
with respect to crime and marginality. In addition to Amsterdam, ample information exists about
towns such as Haarlem, Leiden, and Delft. Our principal question is whether this urban culture,
as far as crime and marginality are concerned, had peculiar features, not to be found elsewhere.
Was there a typically Dutch pattern? Since this is a broad question, I will restrict the discussion to
a few themes.
One common characteristic results from the integrated urban network itself.
Interurban mobility was very common, especially among the less settled sections of the lower
classes. Admittedly, German bandits might easily cross the border of one territoryand move to the
next, and it was not uncommon for French beggars to traverse large parts of rural France. How-
ever, moving swiftly from one town to another is a different experience. That is what beggars,
vagrants and criminals in the Netherlands often did, remaining all the while in an urban environ-
ment. The people on the edge were quick to learn new practices and rituals, as is apparent in the
spread of the popular duel, in imitation of the noble duel. Banishment of undesirables often just
meant an exchange of individuals from one urban subculture to another.
When historians of early modern Europe speak of marginal people, they refer
primarily to beggars and vagrants. Prison-workhouses were established in the Dutch Republic
around 1600 to lock up members of this group, along with unruly family members and petty
criminals. It was felt that something should be done about the exchange of undesirable individu-
als. It makes no sense, the Leiden magistrates stated, that we "banish such people upon each
other's necks."2 Because the towns in Holland constituted an integrated urban system, concern
about public order transcended the local level. Around 1600 the magistrates of Amsterdam and
Leiden, and their colleagues in some other towns, wanted to cooperate, instead of diverting their
problems to each other. The supra-local cooperation of urban magistrates aimed to restrict the
interurban mobility of marginals just referred to.3
However, the authorities had only limited success in this. Complaints about
vagabonds and impertinent beggars continued to be heard throughout the Republican period and
after. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, for example, the burgomasters of Haarlem re-
quested advice from the prison regents on how to deal with "foreign" marginals. The regents
recommended strict supervision over all houses which provided lodging. One of the suggestions
was that people staying there with children should be forbidden from going out at night without
them.4This practice of abandoning children, in the expectation that they would be cared for from

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356 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
STUDIES 31 / 3
the public treasury, was of course an international phenomenon, but access to other towns, into
which the parents could quickly disappear, may have encouraged it. Incidentally, the Haarlem
prison regents added that their proposals had already been formulated in the 1670 "neighborhood
order":a clear indication that policies were stricteron paper than they were in actual practice.

It is quite possible, although difficult to substantiate quantitatively, that the

rich and populous urban region of the Western Netherlands attracted more marginal people than
most other regions of Europe. The conditions which forced some persons into a marginal exist-
ence, on the other hand, were the same everywhere. Disbanded soldiers and people with physical
handicaps were typical beggars in the Dutch Republic as well as its surrounding countries. A
certain Jean-Baptiste de Bauchan, arrested in Amsterdam in May 1749, combined both character-
istics. He lost one hand because of a querelle with a fellow soldier, whereupon he was dismissed
from his duty in the Prince of Orange's Swiss Guard. He got a passport which obliged him to
travel from The Hague to his native Geneva. Instead, from the beginning of Lent, he had tried his
luck in Amsterdam, asking alms from "one or the other respectable man." The wound in his arm
opened again, he claimed, which had obliged him to stay. The Amsterdam court questioned Jean-
Baptiste in particular about an incident on 24 April. He was begging in the Jewish quarter when
he met two sergeants and a lieutenant of his former regiment. He kissed them and proposed that
they drink beer together, but the encounter soon became unfriendly.Apparently,the officers wanted
to bring him in, but "a multitude of boys" prevented them from doing so and obliged them to take
refuge in the Portuguese synagogue. After fifteen minutes, thinking they could leave safely through
another door, they were met by a group of Jews who attacked them. One of the sergeants was able
to flee into a nearby house, but the other and the lieutenant were beaten up and finally rescued by
two schout's (constable's) servants. By then, Jean-Baptiste had left the scene.5
Support from passersby in the street for beggars who threatened to fall into
the hands of beggar catchers or other policemen was an international phenomenon, too. How-
ever, the opportunity for the beleaguered defenders of order to retreat into a synagogue did not
exist everywhere. Was the Jewish community especially keen on defending beggars against the
authorities? I know of no other cases like this. However, the incident may be interpreted as an
example of the solidarity of the poor, since the Jewish quarter was a poor area, the inhabitants
being marginal in a double sense. In view of the attractiveness of the Randstad, it is significant
that one-handed Jean-Baptiste preferred to stay in Holland, rather than undertaking the hazard-
ous journey to his home town, where he would normally be entitled to assistance.
Prostituteswere another marginal group present throughout Europe, but they
were especially numerous in Amsterdam. The metropolitan environment, with its taverns and its
sailors temporarily ashore, provided good opportunities for the trade. Amsterdam had a flourish-
ing prostitution business; that is, economically flourishing, since the city's magistrates were bent
on repressing prostitution from an early date. They did so with varying intensity, largely restrict-
ing themselves to closing brothels upon complaints by neighbors until the early eighteenth cen-
tury. Thereafter they became more determined, but even then judicial prosecution concentrated
on procurers rather than the prostitutes themselves. Although the category of morals offenses in
Amsterdamcriminal trials consisted almost exclusively of prostitution-relatedcases, in other towns
in Holland cases of adultery and fornication accounted for about half of the morals offenses. The
difference reflects the greater presence of and concern about prostitution in the metropolis.
Amsterdam thus resembled other big port towns such as Hamburg, or ad-
ministrative centers like Paris. Indeed, many Amsterdam prostitutes came from Hamburg and
some had already practiced their trade in that town. They formed part of the great wave of immi-
gration from Northern Germany to the Western regions of the Republic in the eighteenth century.
The urban population in Holland had more women than men. Consequently, resident women
often married immigrant men, leaving immigrant women as the losers in the marriage market.
The latter had fewer opportunities in the labor market as well, with domestic service the only
respectable employment that was readily available. Women who opted for prostitution as a means

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 FORUM: URBAN CULTURE IN THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY DUTCH REPUBLIC 357

of living did so in spite of the stigma of dishonor attached to it. They either had no possibility of
getting an honorable job or they expected better earnings. Among themselves, however, prosti-
tutes cherished notions of honor, too. Someone who accepted married men as clients, for example,
was considered more dishonorable than her colleague who did not.6
As practitioners of an illegal trade, prostitutes were not only marginal but
also criminal. Thieves, burglars, robbers, and swindlers were unequivocally engaged in criminal
pursuits. In every European country they were traditional targets of judicial prosecution. Like
prostitution, property crime was associated with the sphere of dishonor. A respectable man took
pride in a reputation of economic stability. Calling him a thief or a schelm (rogue) was a serious
insult. Many of those convicted of property crimes in Dutch cities, men and women, belonged to
the floating population who traversed the urban network. Burglars operated in groups of two to
five. They would gather in a tavern or in the street. Typically, two persons would meet who
already knew each other, introducing others who were previously unacquainted. In groups of
burglars and robbers, men usually played the active roles, with women keeping a watch or selling
the stolen goods afterwards. All these things are not peculiar to Dutch towns. Generally,it may be
said that with respect to property crime, there were no significant differences between the Nether-
lands and other countries.

In the case of banditry, however, the western part of the Republic had some
peculiar characteristics. In this area, urban robber bands operated from time to time, though their
operations often extended into the countryside. The underworld in urban Holland differed not
only from France or Germany, but also from its counterparts in rural parts of the Republic, Gen-
erality-ruled Brabant in particular.For one thing, fluctuations in the size and activity of the Hol-
land bands responded to economic fluctuations and alterations of peace and war. The bands
themselves were networks, largely invisible to the authorities. In contrast, the moors and wood-
lands of Brabant offered safe hiding places, allowing bands a more continuous existence. Mem-
bers of the Holland bands often had a mobile occupation like boatman. Another crucial feature of
the eighteenth-century underworld, especially in Holland, was the increasing cooperation of the
Christian poor with outsiders such as Jews and gypsies.7
The remaining criminal category is that of violent offenses. Of course rob-
bers were often violent too, and even beggars might harass unwilling people. Here we are con-
cerned with violence in "daily life," with enmity, conflicts in taverns, challenges, and insults.
Around 1700 a knife-fighting culture flourished in Amsterdam and probably in other parts of the
Republic. Male honor and ritual were central to this culture. One-on-one combats with a knife
can be termed popular duels, and they may actually have originated in imitation of the official,
aristocratic duel with swords. Rituals and cultural codes partly dictated the course of popular
duels to ensure an equal fight. Everybody might be involved in the preliminaries, but when two
men had actually started a combat, others normally stepped aside. The yell sta vast marked the
beginning of the fight. If, during it, one of the combatants accidentally dropped his knife, the
other often granted him a reprieve to pick it up or, if it was broken, to obtain the knife of an
onlooking friend. The fight was a test of strength and manhood. Normally it would end when
some blood was shed: when one man had cut the other's face, for example, his adversary with-
drew; or when both combatants were satisfied at having given the other party his due. The most
extensively documented fights, however, are cases that got out of hand: when one of the combat-
ants died and his adversary was prosecuted for homicide.
A knife fight on 27 December 1700, resulting in homicide, is a good ex-
ample. The actors were four men, called Jan, Johannes, Dirk, and Frans. Jan had been to a funeral
earlier that day, but in the evening he went to a tavern at the Haarlemmerdyk where he met the
other three. Soon, Johannes and Frans started to quarrel with Dirk. All three went outside and
drew their knives, but Jan followed them to hush them up. In particular, he tried to calm down
Johannes, who was furious at Dirk. Then Dirk left the group. At Frans' insistence, the three of
them went to a tavern at the Lindengracht to take another pot of beer. Along the way, Johannes,

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358 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES 31 /3

still angry because Jan had separated him from Dirk, twice drew his knife at Jan, who said he
should wait until they had reached a place where he could put off his black coat, apparently
meaning that he was unable to fight wearing it. Jan got rid of it in the tavern at the Lindengracht,
but a fight did not ensue immediately. A little later Johannes kicked Jan'sdog, thus causing the pot
of beer, just ordered, to topple. Then Johannes issued the challenge "come, let's go" and went
outside, followed by Jan. It was four o'clock in the morning now. Franswas no longer referredto
in the story; he may or may not have been present during the combat. Jan soon got the upper
hand. He stabbed Johannes in the belly. Johannes fell down, but managed to cut his attacker's
thumb and to stab him in his right arm, where the knife stuck. Jan, however, pulled it out, threw
it away and then stabbed Johannes in his right shoulder. This last act, stabbing an adversary after
throwing away his knife, was actually a breach of the code of fair fighting.8
In Amsterdam the years 1690-1720 were the heyday of the knife-fighting
culture. It disappeared from the city after the 1720s, leaving few traces. Severalconclusions can be
drawn from the chronology. That the popular duel came to the Republic in the first place, despite
the pacification of its elites and the rarity of the official duel within its boundaries, shows again
how easily certain cultural customs reached this center of European traffic. On the other hand, the
popular duel seems to have been practiced as often in rural parts of the Netherlands and abroad.
In this respect, then, the Dutch urban world hardly differed from its surroundings. Great differ-
ences can be observed again in the chronology of the popular duel's demise. In Groningen and
Brabant, honorific knife fights appear to have been common practice until the early nineteenth
century. In Rome they were even fought in the early twentieth.9 This means that change occurred
relatively early in Amsterdam. The urban environment must have been conducive to an eventual
decline of lower-class violence.
In conclusion, we may return to the question whether Holland's urban cul-
ture had peculiar features with respect to crime and marginality. Clearly, those features which
have been identified hardly add up to a "Dutch pattern." Any peculiarity consisted partly in a
specific combination of characteristics and partly in the timing of change. Although the behavior
of most thieves, swindlers, and burglars did not differ significantly from that of their colleagues
elsewhere, the characteristics of robber bands adapted to the urban system. The knife culture
disappeared earlier in Amsterdam than in rural areas, but there are no data available for other
towns in Holland in this respect. Generally, we saw that Amsterdam stood apart from other
Dutch towns (and was akin to other European metropolises) in some respects, such as the promi-
nent presence of prostitutes in the former city. This would seem to suggest that de Vries' idea of
one single Randstad, already existing in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, is less convinc-
ing when we consider crime, marginality, and the culture they formed part of. The idea of a single
Randstad appears to be valid primarily with respect to the policies of the urban authorities: the
system of prison-workhouses was practically an invention of Holland's patrician elite, and these
institutions were established in towns throughout the province.
PIETER SPIERENBURGhas taught history at Erasmus University since 1977.

NOTES

1. Jan de Vries,Theeconomyof Europein an age of crisis, 1600-1750 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniv.

Press, 1976), 154-59.
2. Jan van Hout, "Rapportenen adviezenbetreffendehet Amsterdamsche tuchthuisuit de jaren1597
en '98," ed. A. Hallemain Bijdragenen Mededelingenvan het HistorischGenootschap48 (1927): 6998.
3. PieterSpierenburg,Theprisonexperience.Disciplinaryinstitutionsandtheirinmatesin earlymod-
ern Europe(New Brunswick:RutgersUniv.Press,1991), esp. chapters2 & 4.
4. GA Haarlem, Kast 7-2-3-28 (undated protocol, early 18th century).

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 FORUM: URBAN CULTURE IN THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY DUTCH REPUBLIC 359

5. GA Amsterdam, archive 5061 (Old Judicial Archive; hereafter "R.A."), nr. 408, fo. 222vs, 231vs,
235vs, 238, 241.

6. Lotte van de Pol, Het Amsterdams hoerdom. Prostitutie in de 17e en 18e eeuw (Amsterdam:
Wereldbibliotheek, 1996).
7. Florike Egmond, Underworlds. Organized crime in the Netherlands, 1650-1800 (Cambridge: Pol-
ity Press, 1993).

8. R.A. 349, fo. 246, 250, 262vs, 264vs, 265vs, 273, 277vs, 278.

9. Pieter Spierenburg(ed.), Men and violence. Gender, honor and rituals in modern Europe and America
(Columbus: Ohio State Univ. Press, 1998).

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