This book accompanies the television series De Gouden Eeuw (The Dutch Golden Age), produced by NTR and VPRO, and the exhibition at Amsterdam Museum.

© 2012 Hans Goedkoop and Kees Zandvliet, p/a Publisher Walburg Pers, Zutphen

www.walburgpers.nl

Illustrations

Front of cover Hendrik Kerstens, Napkin, 2009. Kerstens’ work is reminiscent of early portraits of young women by artists from Flanders and the Northern Netherlands. The decorative elements he uses are as surprising as they are simple: a tea towel, a couple of rolls of toilet paper, a plastic bag.

Back of cover Bartholomeus van der Helst, Daniël Bernard (1626-1714), 1669. Bernard is sitting at his desk catching up with his trading accounts. Behind him on the left is the Zuiderkerk (South Church) of Amsterdam. The inscriptions that refer to the VOC and his purchases of pepper suggest that he visited the annual VOC auctions regularly. Bernard himself traded at European destinations and probably specialised in supplying ‘Eastern goods’, in turn supplied by the VOC.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the 1912 Netherlands Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee as had been decreed by article 17 sub 2 of the Netherlands Copyright Act, the Royal Decree of june, 20th, 1974 (Dutch Statute Book 351), ex article 16b of the Netherlands Copyright Act and further reprorights as had been decreed in Dutch Statute Book 186 (2002).

Design

Ronald Boiten and Irene Mesu, Amersfoort

ISBN 978.90.5730.890.1

e-ISBN 9789462495364

NUR 688

CONTENT

A Golden Age

1The beginning of the Netherlands

ZEELAND AGAINST SPAIN

CORNERSTONE OF THE HOUSE OF ORANGE

2Freedom in Principle and Practice

HUMANIST IN THE VERNACULAR

CLANDESTINE WORSHIP

PURGATORY

3Fighting on a Grand Scale

ORANGE HOUSES

DELFT

PEACE IN A CIGAR BOX

WATER AND BRICKS

4Immigration

POOR ELSJE

5Baltic Trade and Weapons

STEEL AND COPPER TYCOON

THE KREMLIN IN ZAANDAM

6Who is Pulling Strings and When?

DESIGNER OF THE REPUBLIC

COHABITING IN MEDIAEVAL STYLE

7The Creatable Country

SEE YOU LATER ON THE DAM

THE BEAUTY OF URBAN EXPANSION

RULER IN THE POLDER

8The World of the Ship

GEOGRAPHERS TOGETHER

9To the Other Side of the World

MERCHANT AND SOLDIER

10Equal yet Different

PSALM 5:8

BOOKKEEPER OF SOCIETY

11Tidy, Subordinate and Still the Boss

STATE PRINTERS

12Chains in World Trade

TWO WEST-FRISIAN SLAVES

13Everyday Fun

THE COMPANY OF FRANS BANNING COCQ

14Look, Look Again, and See

WITH KNIFE AND BRUSH

15A Caring Society

CALVINISTIC ORPHANS

161672: Beyond Hope

A BRINY HERE

THE MAN THAT HELPED ENGLAND INTO THE SADDLE

17In the Rear View Mirror

VONDEL IN GREEN

Important Dates

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

Illustrations and Charts

A GOLDEN AGE

Asmall world, nothing more than a Dutch parlour, yet the map on the wall shows the Mediterranean Sea, and the globe on the chest shows the Indian Ocean. The rug in the foreground is from the Near East, the man’s kimono from Japan and the man at work is a geographer. His compasses are exploring the world, and, who knows, perhaps even a new world. Painter Johannes Vermeer appears to have modelled him on Anton van Leeuwenhoek, who was also a geographer but first and foremost an avid microbiologist. The world seen in full size and in miniature, and the conquests and discoveries of the era, casually gathered together in a simple room.

This is one aspect of the Dutch seventeenth century that never fails to amaze. Suddenly, this quiet and thus far unremarkable corner of Europe became the hub of everything that was modern and exciting. Luxury goods for the pampered consumer, ships that sailed across the world to the farthest continents, and the scientific exploration of strange new worlds, including the remarkable world that came so miraculously close by when you looked at something ordinary through the lens of a microscope.

The society that evolved in that corner of Europe was also remarkable. It was not a king, but the man in the street who called the shots. Ordinary citizens gained incredible freedom and could even choose as their religion. They tolerated previously unknown numbers of immigrants, some with yet more different religions, and introduced sweeping economic innovations such as the trade in stocks, which has since become such an essential part of our economy – and our economic crises. Modern, that is the word. This book sees the Dutch seventeenth century, the Golden Age, as a gateway for today’s modern times. It was a period in which the Netherlands became a laboratory for participatory research into globalisation, migration, tolerance, consumerism, capitalism and many other things still so applicable to our world today.

Johannes Vermeer, The Geographer, 1669.

1 – The Beginning of the Netherlands

What is the Dutch identity? This question was first raised in the years leading up to the Golden Age.

The idea of a Dutch state existed long before it was a reality; it is an idea that has been taught in Dutch schoolrooms down the centuries. The people of the Seventeen Provinces suffered under the tyrant King Philip II of Spain, and finally decided to cast off the yoke of his oppression. They joined forces under the flag of their founding father, William of Orange, and were prepared to fight a war lasting no less than eight years in order to gain the freedom they rightly deserved. Self-rule. Their own country. The Netherlands.

But where did the idea of establishing a country like the Netherlands come from? What gave the Seven Provinces the idea that they belonged together? What kind of magical sense of unity, what kind of an idée Netherlands was it that the people were prepared to spend eighty years fighting for? The truth is probably that such an idea never existed in the first place. If it did, it did not originate in the Low Countries, and certainly not among the nameless people there. It was, ironically enough, an invention of their accursed oppressors, starting with the father of Philip II, Habsburg Emperor Charles V, in the first half of the sixteenth century. He ruled over a vast empire comprising a patchwork of territories stretching from northwestern and central Europe down to Spain, and resolved to bring the hotchpotch of seventeen provinces that were the Low Countries together under a central authority in order to make them governable. He called them the Spanish Netherlands. This centralisation, however, gave rise to resistance from the seventeen provinces. Cities such as Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp in the south, and Dordrecht, Utrecht and Amsterdam in the north, were governed by well-educated, rich merchants who liked to set their own rules. The people had obtained all manner of rights, from legal matters to taxation, from their lords and counts. Moreover, they discussed matters together in provincial meetings. Being subject to a central authority was the very last thing they wanted and it had to be prevented at all costs. They had the full support of the counts and lords, who were equally reluctant to give up the privileges they had been granted by the emperor.

The local powers began to rebel, against higher taxes, for example, but also increasingly against the idea that a ruler like Charles V represented some God-given power, a God personified by the Church of Rome with all its ubiquitous and infamously corrupt institutions. In addition to improved prosperity, urban self-government was accompanied by an increase in education levels and intellectual curiosity. Educated merchants were no longer prepared for priests to preach to them about God’s will, they began to read the bible for themselves and were often more inspired by the teachings of John Calvin or Martin Luther than the pope.

It was in this frame of mind that the revolt began in the 1550s and 1560s, when the sovereign Charles V made way for his son Philip II, King of Spain. Philip II was a strong advocate of both the Catholic Church and his own, in the eyes of the church ‘God-given’, rights. He turned against the revolt, but in doing so succeeded only in exacerbating it. In 1566, the fuse was lit for what in Dutch history is known as the Beeldenstorm. Religious icons in churches and monasteries were destroyed in a wave of unremitting violence that spread from the south to the north of the Low Countries like a forest fire; once ignited, it continued to smoulder and burn and flare up repeatedly. The religious battle, however, became increasingly political and the battle was an extremely confusing one during its first decades. The rebels had no organised army and, initially, not even a real leader as it was still far from certain whether William of Orange would take that role. William had enjoyed a good Catholic upbringing at the court of Charles V in Brussels in his late youth, and grew to become a leading adviser to Philip II, who sent him on diplomatic missions. He understood the anger that the Spanish king had aroused in the Low Countries and also turned against the king’s centralist government. After all, like all noblemen, he had his own interests to defend. However, it was in his character to seek reconciliation, to strike a happy medium, and so his final decision to support the revolt was made only when the opposition became so strong that there was no happy medium to be found. In 1573, he validated that decision by converting to Protestantism.

School map of the Seventeen Netherlands in 1555.

Antwerp, by Joris Hoefnagel, approx. 1575. Left bank of the River Schelde and the citadel (part of the city ramparts) from where the feudal lord could withstand an urban uprising if need be. This type of aerial view was popular for many years. This example is taken from a city atlas by Frederick de Wit from approximately 1698.

ZEELAND AGAINST SPAIN

During the Middle Ages, lords and nobles were constantly on the move, their courts settling wherever took the governors’ fancy and where food was most abundant. Furniture was adapted to suit a travelling lifestyle. On arrival at a new destination, rooms could be furnished in style within just a few days using wall tapestries, which could be rolled up or out in minutes. For many years, wall tapestries were used by the wealthy as an accessory, until they were replaced by wallpaper in the eighteenth century. They created a striking décor and helped to retain the warmth in rooms heated by hearth fires. They also protected against draughts; they were the predecessors to double glazing and cavity walls. In the sixteenth century, wall tapestries were one of the most expensive items in home décor, used by the wealthy to distinguish themselves from the masses. The main centre of tapestry weaving was Flanders. With the advent of the Eighty Years’ War, however, some weavers moved their studios to the Northern Netherlands. One of the most well-known of these weavers was François Spierincx (1551-1630), who moved from Antwerp to settle in Delft, where he became famous for the colours and finesse of his work.

Spierincx was commissioned in 1593 to make a wall tapestry for the States of Zeeland. Another five tapestries followed, after which Spierincx worked on countless tapestries in collaboration with many other great names. The marine artist Hendrick Vroom from Haarlem created the designs for the tapestries, which depicted sea battles on the waters of Zeeland. The historical painter Carel van Mander, also from Haarlem, drew the last design, which is a portrait of William of Orange. The series was completed in 1604 and ever since has been hung, on special occasions such as royal visits, in the old abbey complex in Middelburg, former seat of the States of Zeeland. The beautifully restored tapestries can now be seen in the Zeeuws Museum in Middelburg.

Together, the six works make an unmistakable political statement. They emphasise the fact that the people of Zeeland took the lead in the battle against the Spaniards, an initiative they had strong arguments for. Bordering Flanders, Zeeland was on the front line of the Southern Netherlands, which was still under Spanish rule, and had control over the Western Scheldt, which was the shipping route to the Port of Antwerp, also still Spanish, and therefore played an essential role in cutting this off to isolate Antwerp. It also occupied border forts. Nevertheless, it was no coincidence that the weaver Spierincx decided to settle a little further north, in Delft. For many Flemish people who fled north, Zeeland turned out to be a stopover on the way to Holland and the Zuiderzee coasts where the economy of the Republic was concentrated. Although the people of Zeeland were staying ahead in the battle, their economy was doing less well.

There was now both a revolt and a leader. Now what? Deposing a ruler, with all his God-given rights, was unprecedented in sixteenth-century Europe. It had simply never been done and until the 1570s, the revolt did not know how to take such a step legitimately. Officially, they continued to recognise Phillip as their ruler, despite being strongly opposed to his regime. The problem with his government lay solely in the hands of his advisers and his soldiers. They were incompetent, did not serve him well and had to be removed; Phillip himself remained out of the equation.

However unclear the perspectives might have been for the revolt, the stirring lyrics to the national anthem still ring loud and clear. Known as the Wilhelmus, the anthem contains fifteen verses that were written in approximately 1570 to the melody of a French satirical song that was even older. It became one of the greatest battle songs of the Dutch Revolt and was sung far and wide in the Low Countries, on land and at sea, on carts and barges, during hunts and from city walls. The message, however, remains remarkably vague. It tells of Wilhelmus van Nassouwe, William of Orange, going into battle with the King of Spain, who he has ‘always honoured’. He is both ‘of German blood’ and French aristocracy, a ‘Prince of Orange’, associated with the French Principality of Orange, and yet vows to remain ‘loyal to the fatherland…until I die’, the fatherland presumably being the Low Countries. But why this is the fatherland, a seemingly united whole, and how that can be recognised, what forms its identity is, remains a mystery.

Portrait of William of Orange, stadtholder and First Noble of Zeeland, flanked by the coats of arms of the six ruling cities of Zeeland. Tapestry by Hendrik de Maecht and his widow Francijntje Obry, 1602-1603, based on a design by Carel van Mander.

Sea battle near Bergen op Zoom, January 1574. The Spanish ships are recognisable by the large red cross on their flags. The ships of Zeeland usually carried flags with orange, white and blue stripes. Tapestry by François Spierincx, 1593, based on a design by Hendrick Vroom. Created for the meeting room of the States of Zeeland.

The Dutch lion fights from the garden of Holland against the Spanish boars, approx. 1580. The garden is surrounded by the flags of the most important cities of Holland. The ships of Zeeland battle at sea against the boars. A Spanish boar is even attacked in the air by birds.

Pietà from the Gertrudisklooster (convent) in Amsterdam. This sculpture was probably buried during the Aliteratie (in English: the Alteration) when Amsterdam rejected Catholicism and joined forces with the rebel provinces in 1578. The faces and hands of the sculpture were broken off before it was thrown into a pit. Photograph of the archaeological dig in 1984. On the right is urban archaeologist Ab Lagerweij. The Pietà is now housed at the Amsterdam Musuem.

CORNERSTONE OF THE HOUSE OF ORANGE

Philips of Marnix, Lord of Saint Aldegonde, might well be regarded as the personal adviser and assistant to the House of Orange. He studied at various universities in the Netherlands, France and Italy, and attended lectures from Calvin in Geneva. Aldegonde’s satire on the Roman Catholic Church in 1569 provided important fuel for the Dutch Revolt. He played a major role in both warfare and organising the political opposition, but the continuing war caused him such mental exhaustion that, after fifteen years of revolt, he made a plea to end the war. His position was similar to that of Erasmus – discerning, liberal and internationally oriented, though at the same time fearful of warfare and fanaticism on both sides. Both Philips of Marnix and Erasmus asked themselves to what degree their arguments in favour of tolerance and their aversion to harsh opinions resulted in a certain detachment. The library was where both men felt most at home, using it as a place to seek refuge from the world.

Filips van Marnix van Sint-Aldegonde at 59 years of age. Engraving, Jacob de Gheyn, 1599.

The fact that the Wilhelmus nevertheless had an enormous uplifting power was therefore not due to the notion of a fatherland, but rather to the idea of the potential father of that land. The song tells about William of Orange in the first person, as if the man himself is speaking, the lyrics placing the singer literally in the position of the leader. The singer and his listeners are William, for the duration of the song at least. They straighten their shoulders, gather under his flag and together experience a sense of belonging that does not require any distinct fatherland image, just a clear-cut image of the enemy that can be driven away in the first person. A tough task, but ‘After this sourness, I will receive from God my Lord the sweetness.’ To battle!

Perhaps that was the start of a national identity in the Low Countries; not from a sense of who belonged, but of who did not belong and who must be driven out at all costs.

The rest was first and foremost a question of improvisation. Once Philip’s rule could no longer be recognised, the leaders of the revolt felt obliged to provide an argument for his deposition. One example was the Act of Abjuration or Plakkaat van Verlatinghe of 1581, the first formal declaration of independence of the northern provinces of the Low Countries, described further on in this book. The main argument was that any ruler was obliged to forfeit his rights if he sought to repress his subjects, and was therefore not only answerable to God, but also to them. It was a reversal of thinking at the time, which would have a great future in the centuries to follow; the founding fathers of the United States of America drew literally on the text of this Act when fighting for their independence.

The consequence for the revolt was originally that a new leader must be found; a country without a ruler was, at that time, like a dog without a master, practically unheard of. The only example in Europe was the Republic of Venice. But who wanted the Low Countries? Perhaps the English Queen Elizabeth or one of her confidants? The son of the French king, maybe? There was interest from various parties, but they were asked to recognise the freedom for which the revolt had been started, and that was the problem. Perhaps William might have been made Count of Holland and Zeeland, or a more prestigious title still, had he not been murdered by Balthasar Gerards in 1584. Ultimately, the only option remaining was the most unlikely, a country without a king. In 1588, the Northern Provinces became a republic and, in a manner that was yet to be determined, the Seven Provinces would govern themselves.

It is tempting to regard this move as the start of a character trait that would in later years so often be associated with the Netherlands, self-government in a relatively egalitarian society in which it was primarily the urban bourgeoisie that took the lead. Perhaps this is too objective a view. It was certainly a bold idea for the late sixteenth century, when the aristocracy still played a significant role and a direction for the new Netherlands had yet to be determined. The birth of the Dutch Republic was a confusing series of hop-step-jumps, diversions and unintended consequences accompanied by the eternal question of whether anything stable would ever come of it. That, however, was exactly what made it so exciting. It was a new country with a new type of government previously unheard of in Europe. It rejected the absolute power of the King and the Catholic Church, and became a ‘laboratory’ in which to discover what could replace it.

The final verses of the Wilhelmus (Dutch national anthem). Purportedly written by Filips van Marnix van Sint-Aldegonde, ‘excellent poëet’, although the correctness of this attribution to Marnix was later strongly disputed.

Detail of Hoefnagel’s city plan of Antwerp, approx. 1575. The new Town Hall stands at number 24.

2 – Freedom in Principle and in Practice

Right from the start, the Netherlands was a country with a reputation for tolerance and freedom of conscience. The question was, and still is, how far can that freedom go?

It is a well-known fact that the Dutch are reluctant to take orders, and they refuse point blank to be imposed upon. The lyrics to a popular song from the 1990s describe it well, ‘Fifteen million people on a tiny strip of earth; you don’t tell them what to do, you take them for what they are.’ They live in a ‘country of a thousand opinions, ‘a country that won’t be patronised’, in other words ‘a country full of tolerance’, with one exception, ‘except for the neighbours’, because one neighbour’s freedom limits the other’s. Tolerance of all but those who are closest. How do you share freedom?

That same dilemma applied in the Dutch Revolt against Spain. Together with the Spanish king, Catholicism was renounced. It was no longer a universal religion, and citizens of the Low Countries were given the freedom to choose their own faith. Calvinism became the public church of preference. Preachers were convinced that the struggle would eventually be won outright by the ‘best’ religion, which the entire population would then be obliged to follow; a new state religion, just as binding as the old one. So long, freedom!

There was also a centre party, which stood firm in its belief that religious tolerance was preferable to persecution. One of the most prominent thinkers to proclaim this viewpoint was the philosopher Desiderius Erasmus, who was born in the Netherlands as Geert Geertszoon but was a man of European thinking who did not feel bound to one particular country or king. William of Orange also chose tolerance in preference to coercion. In his famous 1564 New Years Eve speech, he said ‘I cannot approve of sovereigns who claim dominion over their subjects’ consciences and deprive them of their freedom of religion and faith.’ At the time, he was referring to Catholic kings, but he was equally condemning of the Protestants’ hunger to dominate. Although William himself opted for Calvinism in 1573, for the Low Countries as a whole he remained an avid propagandist of what was to become known as freedom of conscience.

William did not entirely get what he wanted; hard viewpoints were often easier to maintain than tolerance in the polarised world of the revolt. Although the Calvinists never made up more than a third of the population, they were the administrative elite of the Low Countries and tried to keep the influence of other religions to a minimum. At the same time, however, William’s views had a tempering effect. Freedom of conscience is mentioned explicitly in constitutional texts of the Republic, such as the Union of Utrecht (1579) and the Act of Abjuration or Plakkaat van Verlatinghe (1581), and it was partly this that prevented the establishment of an official state religion with absolute control. Despite their universal pretentions, the Calvinists never gained complete ascendancy and there was great scope for the provinces to make their own choices with regard to religious dilemmas.

Those regional differences make it difficult to speak of freedom of conscience in the Republic as a whole. In 1597, a stained glass window was unveiled at St John’s Church in Gouda. This ten-metre high showpiece depicts images representing freedom of religion, and suggests that the whole of Holland was in favour of this since it was a gift from the States of Holland. However, not long beforehand, a famous resident of Gouda, scholar and artist Dirck Coornhert, had been forced to flee from Delft because his tolerant views had brought him into conflict with the Calvinist elite. This shows how delicate the balance was, even within a single province, and is what makes it difficult to generalise. It is possible that the stained glass window reflected the specific viewpoint of a single city.

In addition to local opinions and traditions, religious issues were also affected by matters of practical everyday government. Authorities wanted peace and order, as was almost always the case, and that helped temper religious quibbles. In the province of Holland, for example, the Catholic Church was suppressed. Church buildings, monasteries and other property such as farmland were impropriated. The large mediaeval churches in urban centres were stripped of their riches and converted to make them suitable for Calvinist worship. Altars behind which the Catholic priests had stood were replaced with pulpits placed in the middle of the church so that people could surround the preacher to listen to the sermons. In short, life was made difficult for Catholics, although violent and systematic persecution did not happen. Much of the population was still Catholic, in many areas they were even in the majority, and Calvinist governors simply had to accept this. They decided to compromise. Although they were not in favour of Catholic church buildings in public as they posed a threat to the social order, they allowed the Catholics to continue attending them, provided the churches remained out of sight.

Stained glass window at the Sint-Janskerk (Great Church of St John) in Gouda showing Vrijheid van Geweten triomfeert over de Tirannie (The freedom of conscience to triumph over tyranny). Adriaan Gerritszoon de Vrije created the window based on a design by Joachim Wttewael. The glass was placed in the church in 1597. The government is depicted in a war chariot in the role of protector. The scene is surrounded by the coats of arms of the cities of South Holland.

And so began the remarkable concept of the clandestine church or ‘conventicle’, an inconspicuous church that could not be seen from the street but was, in practice, known about by all who wished to know, including the Calvinist governors. They even turned the disadvantage of having a Roman Catholic presence into an advantage by having the Catholics pay for their relative freedom with extra taxes known as recognition taxes. It was their version of give and take. As time went by, they lost their fear of Catholic-inspired opposition to their dominance and became less agitated by the visibility of Catholic churches. Tensions decreased as all the parties involved got used to the situation and learned to live with it.

Fishing for Souls (De Zielenvisserij) by Adriaen van de Venne, 1614. Van de Venne presents a fitting – albeit one-sided – view of the world of Protestants and Catholics. The Protestant world on the left is filled with sunshine, lush trees and happy, praying people. On the right are fat, Catholic priests trying in vain to fish for souls from a rickety boat. The trees on this side are bare and the sky is overcast.

The Calvinists also had to deal with other, Protestant, groups such as the Lutherans, who gathered in some of the cities, although these were considered less of a threat. They gathered in relatively small groups and were considerably fewer in number than the Catholics. Moreover, according to seventeenth century thinking, they were regarded as members of a foreign church. They were allowed greater freedom to be seen in public than were the Catholics, even building a church right in the centre of Amsterdam on the Spui. The exterior was not particularly remarkable, of course, but it was considerably more visible than the Catholic conventicle churches were. The only drawback was that it did not have a tower.

A VERNACULAR HUMANIST

The Amsterdam-born scholar, artist and musician Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert (1522-1590) was forced to move house or to flee a number of times in his life. After the Iconoclastic Fury (known in Dutch as the Beeldenstorm), he was imprisoned in the Gevangenpoort in The Hague before fleeing to Germany. Once back in the Republic, he devoted himself to religion and freedom of expression, which brought him into conflict with Calvinist administrators and preachers. In order to have his books published, he moved from Delft to Gouda, which was little more than a stone’s throw away, but even within the province of Holland, types of freedom differed from city to city. This is how delicate the balance was in 1590, the year of his death.

Coornhert’s international influence was limited, but this made it all the greater in the Republic. He wrote in the Dutch language, making his work accessible to many, and he wrote copiously, partly because he needed so little sleep. He was used to getting up at four o’clock in the morning and working until late in the evening. He even entered into three heated debates on acceptance and tolerance, in public. Those disputes caused such a stir that the Provincial States intervened, but this called Het Haentje (from the street name Heintje Hoeksteeg), or Het Hart (after Jan Hartman). It lost its function as a church at the end of the nineteenth century, but later reopened as a listed museum building. A small attic window provides a view of the Oude Kerk (Old Church), the mediaeval heart of Catholic Amsterdam. Seventeenth-century worshippers must have been disheartened when their church was confiscated. Two hundred years later, however, Catholic emancipation became a reality, and revenge was sweet when architect Adrianus Bleijs built the colossal Church of St Nicholas opposite the Central Station near the end of the Zeedijk. Out of the darkness and into the light.

Cornelis van Haarlem, Dirck Coornhert, approx. 1587.

CLANDESTINE WORSHIP

Many of the Republic’s cities and villages in the seventeenth century were primarily Catholic. This applied almost without question to Brabant and Limburg, but also to cities and villages in the north. One good example is the area between Wassenaar and Haarlem, known today as the Bollenstreek, or ‘flower bulb region’. Together with the old aristocracy, the old religion could stand its ground reasonably well here and the people remained predominately faithful to religious traditions. Villages in the seventeenth century were often arranged like a religious chessboard, one area Catholic, the next strictly reformed, another less so. Cities were faced with the task of assembling and organising people from a wide range of religious denominations within their walls. The practical solution was to accept what was happening relatively inconspicuously in backyards and family parlours. This allowed dozens of clandestine Catholic churches to flourish in Amsterdam; churches that to this day one can still walk past without noticing. Most of them were located in the heart of the mediaeval city, which was traditionally Catholic and a tangled maze of yards and alleyways. One chapel in the Begijnhof on the Spui is still in use today. At the time, there were four other Catholic conventicles in the immediate vicinity.

In 1661, the German-born hosiery dealer and tax collector Jan Hartman (1619-1668) purchased a property close to the harbour on the Oudezijds Voorburgwal. He immediately began to refurbish the house extensively. In the living area, he created a sumptuous reception room with a marble floor and a fireplace supported by four beautiful, twisted marble columns. He set aside the top floor to serve as a clandestine Catholic church, probably with the future of his son in mind, who was studying to become a priest. Several hundred worshippers were able to attend mass there and enjoy the exquisite design of the church and the eighteenth-century altarpieces. Of the four that were made, three have been preserved. The altarpieces could be changed according to the religious ceremony being celebrated; they served as a classical and changing theatre décor.

This Catholic conventicle was given the name Ons’ Lieve Heer op Solder (Our Lord in the Attic), but was sometimes also did not prevent Coornhert’s words contributing towards the dissemination of dissident views and the acceptance of religious diversity. He made a huge step forwards in achieving respect for human individuality.

He was also famous for advocating a humanist approach to criminal justice. He believed that disciplinary action should serve not only as a form of retribution, but also as a first step towards rehabilitation. The rasphuis and spinhuis rehabilitation prisons of the seventeenth century were based on his idea that detainees could be put to work in order to hone their morals and, where possible, to steer them back on the right path.