The Dutch Golden Age (Dutch: Gouden Eeuw Dutch) was a period in the history of the Netherlands, roughly spanning the era from 1581 (birth of the Dutch republic) to 1672 (disaster year), in which Dutch trade, science, military, and art were among the most acclaimed in the world. The first section is characterized by the Eighty Years’ War, which ended in 1648. The Golden Age continued in peacetime during the Dutch Republic until the end of the century.
A prerequisite for that blossoming was the rise of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (republished by Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden) to global maritime and commercial power. Religious freedom in the Netherlands attracted a wide variety of people. They were persecuted in other countries because of their beliefs and fled to the young republic that readily accepted them, which offered freedom of movement and enough work. Writers and scholars came to publish and teach freely; With the establishment of the University of Leiden and the development of the humanities and natural sciences, the country also became an important center of knowledge.
The transition by the Netherlands to becoming the foremost maritime and economic power in the world has been called the “Dutch Miracle” by historian K. W. Swart.
The term “ golden age ” was primarily coined for a hitherto unprecedented blossoming of culture and art. The term is often limited to the countless 17th century painting masterpieces. The social and cultural change of that time is particularly evident here.
Introduction
“It is the name of the Golden Age itself, which is no good. He smells of that aurea aetas of antiquity, that mythological land of milk and honey that we, as schoolboys at Ovid, easily bore us. If our heyday is to have a name, it is called wood and steel, pitch and tar, color and ink, daring and piety, spirit and imagination. ”
– Johan Huizinga
The Dutch Golden Age has been researched and discussed more intensively in the Netherlands for several years. For this purpose, for example, the Amsterdam Centrum voor de Study van de Gouden Eeuw was founded at the University of Amsterdam in 2000, which among other things takes up Huizinga’s work from 1941. Huizinga’s understanding of history was shaped by his studies of linguistics and his enthusiasm for painting. He understood historiography as a pictorial-intuitive mentality and cultural history.
Nevertheless, he emphasized that the golden ageneither suddenly “broke into” the Netherlands nor even the mythical ideal state “an earth that satisfies all food needs without agriculture and a society that lives in complete peace, general carelessness and innocence in the eternal spring” (as Ovid defined the term of the golden age), but brought it was a heyday that was based on hard work that lasted for generations, favorable conditions, diverse conflicts and of course a portion of luck and chance, which lacked any ideal innocence. Almost half of the time was “marked by war and war cries”. Quite a few scientists prefer to speak of one when considering this age, at least in the global economyHegemony.
Huizinga suspects that the concept of the golden age became permanent after the historian Pieter Lodewijk Muller published his book in 1897 with the working title Republiek der Vereenigde Nederlanden in Haar Bloeitijd, ‘The Republic of the United Kingdom in its prime’, at the request of publisher Onze Gouden Eeuw ‘Our golden age’. Through the marriage of the later Emperor Maximilian with the duke’s daughter Mary of Burgundy and their early death the Netherlands came under the rule of the Habsburgs.
At that time, the economic situation was already the sameBurgundian Netherlands cheap; Especially under the rule of Charles V, in addition to agriculture, cattle breeding and fishing, trade and commerce also grew. In addition, the textile sector grew rapidly, and Antwerp became the economic center of the region. Likewise, science and culture experienced a period of great moments, not least thanks to Christoffel Plantijn. At the same time, the era of the Reformation had begun and Charles V and his son and successor Philip II – both devout Catholics – ushered in the Counter-Reformation.
Causes of the Golden Age
In 1568, the Seven Provinces that later signed the Union of Utrecht (Dutch: Unie van Utrecht) started a rebellion against Philip II of Spain that led to the Eighty Years’ War. Before the Low Countries could be completely reconquered, a war between England and Spain, the Anglo-Spanish War of 1585-1604, broke out, forcing Spanish troops to halt their advances and leaving them in control of the important trading cities of Bruges and Ghent, but without control of Antwerp, which was then arguably the most important port in the world. Antwerp fell on 17 August 1585, after a siege, and the division between the Northern and Southern Netherlands (the latter mostly modern Belgium) was established.
The United Provinces (roughly today’s Netherlands) fought on until the Twelve Years’ Truce, which did not end the hostilities. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Eighty Years’ War between the Dutch Republic and Spain and the Thirty Years’ War between other European superpowers, brought the Dutch Republic formal recognition and independence from the Spanish crown.
Conflict with Spain
When Philip II. The Calvinism of heresy declared the northern provinces rebelled under the leadership of William of Orange. The Eighty Years’ War began in 1568 with his attempt to occupy Brabant. In 1579 the seven northern provinces merged to form the Union of Utrecht and in 1581 founded the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, while the southern Catholic provinces – today Belgium and Luxembourg – remained with Spain (see Spanish Netherlands).
The contract concluded when the Utrecht Union was founded gave the northern provinces, among other things, the right to control shipping on the Lower Rhine, which turned out to be very important for their further economic development. In 1585, the Spaniards conquered Antwerp, whereupon the Dutch closed the Scheldt and Antwerp thus took access to the North Sea. This set the course for Amsterdam as a future regional trade center that could quickly leave its rival Antwerp behind.
In 1608 there were peace negotiations with Spain in The Hague, in which England and France also took part. In 1609 a twelve-year ceasefire was agreed.
Sailors and merchants
The foundations of the success of the Dutch economy lay in the Baltic Sea trade, which had been systematically operated from the province of Holland and Amsterdam since the early 15th century and which – despite the siege by the Spaniards – made the provinces a flourishing trading nation. Smaller and faster ships than those of their competitors, which also required less personnel, made the Amsterdam dealers the most flexible of their time. The blossoming of Amsterdam and Holland began at the end of the 16th century.
As early as 1600, considerable investment capital had accumulated in Amsterdam, which was available for new tasks. The first ship expeditions were funded to explore trading opportunities in Asia and America. The Dutch seafarers and merchants were lucky because the Hanseatic League was in decline and the other competitors were distracted by wars and riots elsewhere. The destruction of the Spanish armada is just one exampleby the English in 1588. As the Spaniards continued to concentrate on the English and French as opponents of the war, the Dutch merchant ships ventured further and further out into the sea, opening up new sea routes largely undisturbed and establishing colonies. At that time, however, there were still individual undertakings that initially led to little success.
Conditions and interactions
The economic rise of the small confederation of states of less than two million Dutch, who had no raw materials and was insignificant in agricultural production, to become the leading large and colonial power of the 17th century is a still astonishing and fascinating phenomenon. Sir William Temple, contemporary English ambassador to the Netherlands, identified in his Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands the high population density of the country as a crucial basis for economic success. As a result, all essential goods are expensive; People with property would have to save, those without property would be forced to work hard. The virtues that formed the basis of success grew out of necessity, so to speak.
However, there were also a number of other favorable circumstances without which such an ascent could never have occurred:
Urbanization and political system
The Netherlands of the early 17th century indeed had the highest degree of urbanization and urbanization in Europe and were the most densely populated region in Western Europe. The living environment was largely shaped by the city and non-agricultural activities; almost 50 percent of the population lived in urban areas and only a third were still active in agriculture. But the peasantry and agricultural workers also went through a drastic development. Since the basis of the farming economy was the right of ownership, the farmers owned up to 40 percent of the land used, depending on the province, and were therefore able to freely dispose of its income. Rural income development shows that a 17th century agricultural worker was significantly better off than a free farmer a hundred years earlier.
The confederation was oligarchically shaped, but more democratic than other European countries, politically defensive and characterized by an economic system that was based not on agriculture but on trade and seafaring.
The tax burden on the Dutch population was significantly higher than that of the neighboring countries, up to twice as high as in England and more than three times as high as in France. The state had a broad resource base due to the strong commercialization of the economy, high incomes and the easy availability of capital despite the small population.
Social fabric
In addition to the family background and education, social status in Dutch society was largely determined by wealth and income – unusual in 17th century Europe, where personal status was still predominantly determined by the status code, i.e. by birth.
At the top of society in the Netherlands were nobles and regents, but the aristocracy had largely left the country together with the Spaniards or sold many of their privileges to the cities. Significant Dutch dynasties of the golden century were the Boelens Loen, Hooft, De Graeff, Bicker and Pauw in Amsterdam, the De Witt and Van Slingelandt in Dordrecht, and the Van Foreest in Alkmaar. In principle, each city and province had its own government and laws, and was governed by closely related regents in an oligarchic system.
While the nobility continued to form the politically and socially privileged upper class in the rest of Europe, there was hardly any birth nobility in the Netherlands. Even the clergy had little worldly influence: the Catholic Church was largely oppressed, the young Protestant church divided. So there was no king, no nobility and no clergy herebut together with the citizens of the upper class (rich merchants, shipping companies, bankers, entrepreneurs, high-ranking officers), the regents determined political and social life, followed by a broad middle class of craftsmen, traders, boatmen, smaller civil servants and lower-ranking officers who lived in smaller towns and less important communities already assumed political responsibility. Not least because of the immigration of religiously persecuted people, among them numerous members of the upper class and the educated middle class, writers and scholars, the country had the highest literacy rate in Europe.
At the same time, a strong willingness to donate helped the citizens to cushion the rapid economic development in a socially acceptable manner. Poor kitchens, orphanages, old people’s homes and other social institutions owe their existence to the charity of the citizens. Because of this – of course only rudimentary – social network, the marginalized, the poor and the weak were so well taken care of that unrest, unlike in the rest of Europe, was largely restricted to political or religious issues.
Migration of skilled workers to the Dutch Republic
Under the terms of the surrender of Antwerp in 1585, the Protestant population (if unwilling to reconvert) were given four years to settle their affairs before leaving the city and Habsburg territory. Similar arrangements were made in other places. Protestants were especially well-represented among the skilled craftsmen and rich merchants of the port cities of Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp. More moved to the north between 1585 and 1630 than Catholics moved in the other direction, although there were also many of these[clarification needed]. Many of those moving north settled in Amsterdam, transforming what was a small port into one of the most important ports and commercial centres in the world by 1630.
In addition to the mass migration of Protestant natives from the southern Netherlands to the northern Netherlands, there were also influxes of non-native refugees who had previously fled from religious persecution, particularly Sephardi Jews from Portugal and Spain, and later Protestants from France. The Pilgrim Fathers also spent time there before their voyage to the New World.
Protestant work ethic
Economists Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O’Rourke attribute part of the Dutch ascendancy to its Protestant work ethic based on Calvinism, which promoted thrift and education. This contributed to “the lowest interest rates and the highest literacy rates in Europe. The abundance of capital made it possible to maintain an impressive stock of wealth, embodied not only in the large fleet but in the plentiful stocks of an array of commodities that were used to stabilize prices and take advantage of profit opportunities.”
Cheap energy sources
Several other factors also contributed to the flowering of trade, industry, the arts and the sciences in the Netherlands during this time. A necessary condition was a supply of cheap energy from windmills and from peat, easily transported by canal to the cities. The invention of the wind powered sawmill enabled the construction of a massive fleet of ships for worldwide trading and for military defense of the republic’s economic interests.
Birth and wealth of corporate finance
In the 17th century the Dutch – traditionally able seafarers and keen mapmakers – began to trade with the Far East, and as the century wore on, they gained an increasingly dominant position in world trade, a position previously occupied by the Portuguese and Spanish.
In 1602, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) was founded. It was the first-ever multinational corporation, financed by shares that established the first modern stock exchange. The Company received a Dutch monopoly on Asian trade, which it would keep for two centuries, and it became the world’s largest commercial enterprise of the 17th century. Spices were imported in bulk and brought huge profits due to the efforts and risks involved and demand. This is remembered to this day in the Dutch word peperduur, meaning something is very expensive, reflecting the prices of spices at the time. To finance the growing trade within the region, the Bank of Amsterdam was established in 1609, the precursor to, if not the first true central bank.
Although the trade with the Far East was the more famous of the VOC’s exploits, the main source of wealth for the Republic was in fact its trade with the Baltic states and Poland. Called the “Mothertrade” (Dutch: Moedernegotie), the Dutch imported enormous amounts of bulk resources like grain and wood, stockpiling them in Amsterdam so Holland would never lack for basic goods, as well as being able to sell them on for profit. This meant that unlike their main rivals the Republic would not face the dire repercussions of a bad harvest and the starvation it accompanied, instead profiting when this happened in other states (bad harvests were commonplace in France and England in the 17th century, which also contributed to the Republic’s success in that time).
Geography
According to Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O’Rourke, geography favored the Dutch Republic, contributing to its wealth. They write, “The foundations were laid by taking advantage of location, midway between the Bay of Biscay and the Baltic. Seville and Lisbon and the Baltic ports were too far apart for direct trade between the two terminal points, enabling the Dutch to provide profitable intermediation, carrying salt, wine, cloth and later silver, spices, and colonial products eastward while bringing Baltic grains, fish, and naval stores to the west. The Dutch share of European shipping tonnage was enormous, well over half during most of the period of their ascendancy.”
World Trade
The Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC), which was founded in 1602, played an important role. It quickly developed into the largest trading company of the 17th century and built up a Dutch monopoly in Asian trade that it was to hold for two centuries. Their trade routes stretched along the African and Asian coast with bases in Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, Ceylon and South Africa. For the trade with West Africa and America, the Dutch West Indian Company (Geoctroyeerde West-Indian Compagnie (WIC) was founded, which managed the Dutch property Nieuw Nederland in North Americawith the administrative headquarters Nieuw Amsterdam, now New York. Other branches of trade were Baltic Sea trade, trade with Russia and straatvaart, also known as Levantvaart (trade with Italy and Levante, the countries on the east coast of the Mediterranean).
The Amsterdam Exchange Bank was founded in 1609 – the world’s first central bank and one of the first European central banks – and in 1611 the Amsterdam commodity exchange. The exchange bank improved the conditions for trading and promoted payment transactions, which until then had been made more difficult due to the large number of different currencies in circulation. Favorable interest rates, fixed exchange rates and a high willingness to borrow from Dutch banks attracted investors and financiers from all over Europe.
At the latest after full freedom of trade (international trade, which was no longer restricted by protective tariffs) in the context of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the Dutch dominated world trade. Around 1670, the Republic had about 15,000 ships, five times the English fleet, which was equivalent to a monopoly of transportation at sea. Trade with the colonies in particular brought great wealth to the Netherlands. Spices, pepper, silk and cotton fabrics were imported from Dutch India, Bengal, Ceylon and Malacca. With the west of Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean islandsand Europe mainly traded plantation products such as sugar, tobacco and brazilwood. Later they also started the slave trade, from which they had initially kept their distance. Greed won out over time, because it was a very lucrative business. The Bible was used to justify it: after all, the Africans were the sons and daughters of Ham, who had been cursed by his father Noah, which justified the exploitation of the “freely” available black African labor force (see Hamit theory).
Monopoly on trade with Japan
Amsterdam’s dominant position as a trade center was strengthened in 1640 with a monopoly for the Dutch East India Company (VOC) for trade with Japan through its trading post on Dejima, an island in the bay of Nagasaki. From here the Dutch traded between China and Japan and paid tribute to the shōgun. Until 1854, the Dutch were Japan’s sole window to the western world.
The collection of scientific learning introduced from Europe became known in Japan as Rangaku or Dutch Learning. The Dutch were instrumental in transmitting to Japan some knowledge of the industrial and scientific revolution then occurring in Europe. The Japanese purchased and translated numerous scientific books from the Dutch, obtained from them Western curiosities and manufactures (such as clocks) and received demonstrations of various Western innovations (such as electric phenomena, and the flight of a hot air balloon in the early 19th century). In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Dutch were arguably the most economically wealthy and scientifically advanced of all European nations, which put them in a privileged position to transfer Western knowledge to Japan.
European Great Power
The Dutch also dominated trade between European countries. The Low Countries were favorably positioned at a crossing of east-west and north-south trade routes and connected to a large German hinterland through the Rhine river. Dutch traders shipped wine from France and Portugal to the Baltic lands and returned with grain for countries around the Mediterranean Sea. By the 1680s, an average of nearly 1000 Dutch ships entered the Baltic Sea each year, to trade with markets of the fading Hanseatic League. The Dutch were able to gain control of much of the trade with the nascent English colonies in North America; and after the end of the war with Spain in 1648, Dutch trade with that country also flourished.
Other industries
National industries expanded as well. Shipyards and sugar refineries are prime examples. As more and more land was utilized, partially through transforming lakes into polders such as the Beemster, Schermer and Purmer, local grain production and dairy farming soared.
National consciousness
The outcome of the revolt against Spain, better known as the Eighty Years’ War, fought over religious freedom and economic and political independence, ended in total independence of the reformist northern provinces (see also Dutch Republic), almost certainly would have boosted national morale. Already in 1609 much of this was accomplished, when a temporary truce was signed with Spain, which would last for 12 years.
Social structure
In the Netherlands in the 17th century, social status was largely determined by income. The landed nobility had relatively little importance, since they mostly lived in the more underdeveloped inland provinces, and it was the urban merchant class that dominated Dutch society. The clergy did not have much worldly influence either: the Catholic Church had been more or less suppressed since the onset of the Eighty Years’ War with Spain. The new Protestant movement was divided, although exercising social control in many areas to an even greater extent than under the Catholic Church.
That is not to say that aristocrats were without social status. On the contrary, wealthy merchants bought themselves into the nobility by becoming landowners and acquiring a coat of arms and a seal. Aristocrats also mixed with other classes for financial reasons: they married their daughters to wealthy merchants, became traders themselves or took up public or military office. Merchants also started to value public office as a means to greater economic power and prestige. Universities became career pathways to public office. Rich merchants and aristocrats sent their sons on a so-called Grand Tour through Europe. Often accompanied by a private tutor, preferably a scientist himself, these young people visited universities in several European countries. This intermixing of patricians and aristocrats was most prominent in the second half of the century.
After aristocrats and patricians came the affluent middle class, consisting of Protestant ministers, lawyers, physicians, small merchants, industrialists and clerks of large state institutions. Lower status was attributed to farmers, craft and tradesmen, shopkeepers, and government bureaucrats. Below that stood skilled laborers, maids, servants, sailors, and other persons employed in the service industry. At the bottom of the pyramid were “paupers”: impoverished peasants, many of whom tried their luck in a city as a beggar or day laborer.
Workers and laborers were generally paid better than in most of Europe, and enjoyed relatively high living standards, although they also paid higher than normal taxes. Farmers prospered from mainly cash crops needed to support the urban and seafaring population.
Women’s roles
The central role of women in the 17th-century Dutch household revolved around the home and domestic tasks. In Dutch culture, the home was regarded as a safe-haven from the lack of Christian virtue and immorality of the outside world. Additionally, the home represented a microcosm of the Dutch Republic, in that the smooth running of an ideal household reflected the relative stability and prosperity of the government. The home was an integral part of public life in Dutch society. Public passersby could clearly view the entrance halls of Dutch homes decorated to show off a particular family’s wealth and social standing. The home was also a place for neighbors, friends, and extended family to interact, further cementing its importance in the social lives of 17th-century Dutch burghers.
The physical space of the Dutch home was constructed along gender lines. In the front of the house, the men had control over a small space where they could do their work or conduct business, known as the Voorhis, while women controlled most every other space in the house, such as the kitchens and private family rooms. Although there was a clear separation in spheres of power between husband and wife (the husband had authority in the public realm, the wife in the domestic and private), women in 17th-century Dutch society still enjoyed a wide range of freedoms within their own sphere of control.
Unmarried young women were known to enjoy various freedoms with their lovers and suitors, while married women enjoyed the right to publicly shame their husbands who patronized brothels. Moreover, married women could legally reject the sexual desires of their husbands if there were proof or reason to believe that a sexual encounter would result in the transmission of syphilis or other venereal diseases. Dutch women were also allowed to take communion alongside men, and widows were able to inherit property and maintain control over their finances and husband’s wills.
However, a woman’s sphere of authority still primarily lay in household duties, despite historical evidence showing certain cases of wives maintaining considerable control in family businesses. Manuals written by men instructing women and wives in various aspects of domestic duties proliferated, the most popular being Jacob Cats’ Houwelyck. As evidenced by numerous 17th-century Dutch genre paintings, the most important domestic tasks performed by women included supervising maids, cooking, cleaning, needlework, and spinning.
Unmarried women
As seen in art and literature at the time, unmarried young women were valued for maintaining their modesty and diligence as this time in a woman’s life was regarded to be the most uncertain. From a young age, burgher women were taught various household related duties by their mothers, including reading, so as to prepare them for their lives as housewives. Dutch art at this time shows the idealized situation in which an unmarried young girl ought to conduct herself in situations such as courtship, which commonly included themes relating to gardens or nature, music lessons or parties, needlework, and reading and receiving love letters. However, ideals of the young women espoused by genre painting and Petrarchian poetry did not reflect the reality. Accounts from travelers described the various freedoms young women were provided in the realm of courtship. The prevalence of Calvinist sermons regarding the consequences of leaving young women unsupervised also spoke to a general trend of a lack of parental oversight in the matters of young love.
Married women and mothers
Dutch writers, such as Jacob Cats, held the prevailing public opinion concerning marriage. He and other cultural authorities were influenced by Calvinist ideals that stressed an equality between man and wife, considered companionship a primary reason for marriage, and regarded procreation as a mere consequence of that companionship. However, non-egalitarian ideas still existed regarding women as the weaker sex, and the image of the turtle was commonly used to express the separate spheres and strengths of both genders. In addition to supervising maids, cooking, cleaning, and prating needlework, women were also encouraged to maintain some financial control over domestic affairs, such as going to market and buying their own food.
Maternity and motherhood were highly valued in Dutch culture. Mothers were encouraged to breastfeed their children, as using a wet nurse would prevent a bond from forming between mother and child. The Dutch believed that a mother’s milk came from the blood originally in her womb and that feeding the infant such substances would also reap physiological and health related benefits. Seventeenth-century Dutch society dictated that children should first begin to learn religion at home. Therefore, along with their husbands, women used family meal times to discuss religious topics and to focus on prayer.
Old women and widows
Seventeenth-century Dutch culture maintained contradictory attitudes regarding the elderly, in particular, elderly women. Some Dutch writers idealized old age as a poetic transition from life to death. Others regarded aging as an illness in which one is gradually deteriorating until they reach their final destination, while some lauded the elderly as wise and people who deserve the highest forms of respect. However, treatises on behavior for elderly women and widows stressed not necessarily their inherent wisdom, but that they should maintain piety, practice moderation, and live a relatively secluded life. Unlike other European artistic traditions, Dutch art rarely depicts elderly women as disgusting or grotesque creatures, but rather they are idolized as figures of piety and purity whom the younger generations of women can look up to.
Religion
Calvinism was the state religion in the Dutch Republic, though this does not mean that unity existed. Although the Netherlands was a tolerant nation compared to neighboring states, wealth and social status belonged almost exclusively to Protestants. The cities with a predominantly Catholic background, such as Utrecht and Gouda, did not enjoy the benefits of the Golden Age. As for the Protestant towns, unity of belief was also far from standard. At the beginning of the century bitter controversies between strict Calvinists and more permissive Protestants, known as Remonstrants, split the country. The Remonstrants denied predestination and championed freedom of conscience, while their more dogmatic adversaries (known as Contra-Remonstrants) gained a major victory at the Synod of Dort (1618–19). The variety of sects may well have worked to make religious intolerance impractical.
Renaissance Humanism, of which Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536) was an important advocate, had also gained a firm foothold and was partially responsible for a climate of tolerance.
Tolerance towards Catholics was not so easy to uphold, as religion had played an important part in the Eighty Years’ War of independence against Spain (with political and economic freedom being other important motives). Intolerant inclinations, however, could be overcome by money. Thus Catholics could buy the privilege of holding ceremonies in a conventicle (a house doubling inconspicuously as a church), but public offices were out of the question. Catholics tended to keep to themselves in their own section of each town, even though they were one of the largest single denominations: for example, the Catholic painter Johannes Vermeer lived in the “Papist corner” of the town of Delft. The same applied to Anabaptists and Jews.
Overall, the country was tolerant enough to attract religious refugees from other countries, notably Jewish merchants from Portugal who brought much wealth with them. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in France in 1685 resulted in the immigration of many French Huguenots, many of whom were shopkeepers or scientists. However, some figures, such as the philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), experienced social stigma.
Science
Due to its climate of intellectual tolerance, the Dutch Republic attracted scientists and other thinkers from all over Europe. In particular, the renowned University of Leiden (established in 1575 by the Dutch stadtholder Willem van Oranje as a token of gratitude for Leiden’s fierce resistance against Spain during the Eighty Years’ War) became a gathering place for intellectuals. Jan Amos Comenius, the Czech educator and writer, was known for his theories of education, but also as a pioneer of Czech Protestantism during the 17th century. To escape the Counter-Reformation, he migrated to the Dutch Republic and is buried in Naarden, North Holland.
Comenius accepted the invitation of Laurens de Geer to visit Amsterdam, where he lived the last 14 years of his life (1656–1670). He published his most important works there: 43 volumes in all, about half of his total output. French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes (1596-1650) lived in Holland from 1628 until 1649. He also had his most important works published in Amsterdam and Leiden. Another French-born philosopher, Pierre Bayle, left France in 1681 for the Dutch Republic, where he became a professor of history and philosophy at the Illustrious School of Rotterdam. He lived in Rotterdam until his death in 1706.
As Bertrand Russell noted in his A History of Western Philosophy (1945), “He [Descartes] lived in Holland for twenty years (1629–49), except for a few brief visits to France and one to England, all on business. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Holland in the 17th century, as the one country where there was freedom of speculation. Hobbes had to have his books printed there; Locke took refuge there during the five worst years of reaction in England before 1688; Bayle (of the Dictionary) found it necessary to live there; and Spinoza would hardly have been allowed to do his work in any other country.”
Dutch lawyers were famous for their knowledge of international law of the sea and commercial law. Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) played a leading part in the foundation of international law. He invented the concept of the “Free seas” or Mare liberum, which was fiercely contested by England, the Netherlands’ main rival for domination of world trade. He also formulated laws on conflicts between nations in his book De lure Belli ac pacis (“On the law of war and peace”).
Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) was a famous astronomer, physicist and mathematician. He invented the pendulum clock, which was a major step forward towards exact timekeeping.
Among his contributions to astronomy was his explanation of Saturn’s planetary rings. He also contributed to the field of optics. The most famous Dutch scientist in the area of optics is Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, who was the first to methodically study microscopic life—he was the first person to describe bacteria—thus laying the foundations for the field of microbiology. The “microscopes” were simple magnifiers, not compound microscopes. His skill in grinding lenses (some as small as 1mm in diameter) resulted in a magnification as high as 245x.
Famous Dutch hydraulic engineer Jan Leeghwater (1575–1650) gained important victories in the Netherlands’ eternal battle against the sea. Leeghwater added a considerable amount of land to the republic by converting several large lakes into polders, pumping the water out with windmills.
Again due to the Dutch climate of tolerance, book publishers flourished. Many books on religion, philosophy, and science that might have been deemed controversial abroad were printed in the Netherlands and secretly exported to other countries. Thus during the 17th century, the Dutch Republic became more and more Europe’s publishing house.
Culture
Cultural development in the Low Countries stood out from neighboring countries. With some exceptions (notably Dutch playwright Joost van den Vondel) the Baroque movement did not gain much influence. Its exuberance did not fit the austerity of the largely Calvinistic population. The major force behind new developments was the citizenry, notably in the western provinces: first and foremost in Holland, to a lesser extent Zeeland and Utrecht. Where rich aristocrats often became patrons of art in other countries, because of their comparative absence in the Netherlands this role was played by wealthy merchants and other patricians.
Centres of cultural activity were town militia (Dutch: schutterij) and chambers of rhetoric (rederijkerskamer). The former were created for town defence and policing, but also served as a meeting-place for the well-to-do, who were proud to play a prominent part and paid well to see this preserved for posterity by means of a group portrait. The latter were associations at a city level that fostered literary activities, like poetry, drama and discussions, often through contests. Cities took pride in their associations and promoted them.
In the Dutch Golden Age, the meals of the middle class consisted of a rich variety of dishes. During the 15th century haute cuisine began to emerge, largely limited to the aristocracy, but from the 17th century onward dishes of this kind became available to the wealthy citizens as well. The Dutch Empire enabled spices, sugar, and exotic fruits to be imported to the country. By the late 17th century, tea and coffee consumption were increasing and becoming part of everyday life. Tea was served with sweets, candy or marzipan and cookies. A rich Dutch mealtime of the time contained many extravagant dishes and drinks.
Painting
Dutch Golden Age painting followed many of the tendencies that dominated Baroque art in other parts of Europe, such as Caravaggesque and naturalism, but was the leader in developing the subjects of still life, landscape, and genre painting. Portraiture was also popular, but history painting – traditionally the most-elevated genre – struggled to find buyers. Church art was virtually non-existent, and little sculpture of any kind was produced. While art collecting and painting for the open market was also common elsewhere, art historians point to the growing number of wealthy Dutch middle-class and successful mercantile patrons as driving forces in the popularity of certain pictorial subjects.
This trend, along with the lack of Counter-Reformation church patronage that dominated the arts in Catholic Europe, resulted in the great number of “scenes of everyday life” or genre paintings, and other secular subjects. Landscapes and seascapes, for example, reflect the land reclaimed from the sea and the sources of trade and naval power that mark the Republic’s Golden Age. One subject that is quite characteristic of Dutch Baroque painting is the large group portrait, especially of civic and militia guilds, such as Rembrandt van Rijn’s Night Watch. A special genre of still life was the so-called pronkstilleven (Dutch for ‘ostentatious still life’). This style of ornate still-life painting was developed in the 1640s in Antwerp by Flemish artists such as Frans Snyders, Osias Beert, Adriaen van Utrecht and a whole generation of Dutch Golden Age painters. They painted still lifes that emphasized abundance by depicting a diversity of objects, fruits, flowers and dead game, often together with living people and animals. The style was soon adopted by artists from the Dutch Republic.
Today, the best-known painters of the Dutch Golden Age are the period’s most dominant figure Rembrandt, the Delft master of genre Johannes Vermeer, the innovative landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael, and Frans Hals, who infused new life into portraiture. Some notable artistic styles and trends include Haarlem Mannerism, Utrecht Caravaggism, the School of Delft, the Leiden fijnschilders, and Dutch classicism.
Architecture
Dutch architecture was taken to a new height in the Golden Age. Cities expanded greatly as the economy thrived. New town halls, weighhouses and storehouses were built. Merchants who had made their fortune ordered a new house along one of the many new canals that were dug out in and around many cities (for defense and transport purposes), a house with an ornamented façade that befitted their new status. In the countryside, many new castles and stately homes were built; but most of them have not survived.
Early in the 17th century late Gothic elements still prevailed, combined with Renaissance motives. After a few decades French classicism gained prominence: vertical elements were stressed, less ornamentation was used, and natural stone was preferred above bricks. In the last decades of the century this trend towards sobriety intensified. From around 1670 the most prominent feature of a house front was its entrance, with pillars on each side and possibly a balcony above it, but no further decoration.
Starting at 1595, Reformed churches were commissioned, many of which are still landmarks today.
The most famous Dutch architects of the 17th century were Jacob van Campen, Pieter Post, Pieter Vingbooms, Lieven de Key, and Hendrick de Keyser.
Sculpture
Dutch achievements in sculpture in the 17th century are less prominent than in painting and architecture, and fewer examples were created than in neighbouring countries, partly because of their absence in the interiors of Protestant churches, as objections to the Roman Catholic veneration of statues had been one of the contentious points of the Reformation. Another reason was the comparatively small class of nobles. Sculptures were commissioned for government buildings, private buildings (often adorning house fronts) and the exteriors of churches. There was also a market for grave monuments and portrait busts.
Hendrick de Keyser, who was active at the dawn of the Golden Age, is one of the few prominent home-grown sculptors. In the 1650s and 1660s, the Flemish sculptor Artus I Quellinus, along with his family and followers like Rombout Verhulst, were responsible for the classicizing decorations for the Amsterdam city hall (now the Royal Palace, Amsterdam). This remains the major monument of Dutch Golden Age sculpture.
Literature
The Golden Age was also an important time for developments in literature. Some of the major figures of this period were Gerbrand Bredero, Jacob Cats, Pieter Hooft, and Joost van den Vondel.
During this time, a climate of tolerance developed in comparison to other European states with strict censorship restrictions paving the way for the Dutch to become a powerhouse in the book trade. This transformation is described by modern historians as the ‘Dutch miracle.’ Additionally, the Dutch enjoyed high literacy rates, and Dutch entrepreneurs took advantage of this. As a result, seventeenth century Holland became a great centre for the production of news, Bibles, political pamphlets. Louis Elzevir and his descendants created what is considered one of the most eminent dynasties of the book trade. The House of Elzevir produced pocket editions of classical Latin texts which were scholarly, reliable, and reasonably priced. The Elzevir dynasty died out in 1712 and the ‘Dutch miracle’ waned as international competition caught up to the Dutch book trade.
Music
The great period of music history in the Netherlands is closely linked to the Dutch School and ends with it at the end of the 16th century. The great forms of music – opera, passion, cantata – could not develop under the dominant influence of the Calvinist church; the music was limited to the needs of bourgeois society. Influences from abroad, above all through composers such as Jean-Baptiste Lully and Johann Sebastian Bach, influenced contemporary music, which did not develop its own style in the Netherlands.
The organ playing played an important role. Making music in families was also a preferred pastime of the 17th century, house music was intensively cultivated, and private music associations called Collegia musica were formed. Common instruments were lute, harpsichord, viol and flute. Many hymnbooks were published, although instrumental music dominated from the mid-17th century.
Lyrical dramas, ballets and operas were performed in the Amsterdam Opera House, which opened in 1638 and were mostly of French and Italian origin. Only Constantijn Huygens, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, organists and composers of oratorios and cantatas, Adriaen Valerius, poet of spiritual and patriotic songs, including the so-called Geusenlieder (Geusen were Dutch freedom fighters against the Spaniards in the 16th century), the carillon player Jacob van Eyck as well as Constantijn Huygens, who has already been discussed as an author and has an estimated 800 pieces of music, was able to acquire a certain, albeit largely forgotten meaning, and to set accents typical of the country.
Decline
The year 1672 is known in the Netherlands as Rampjaar, the catastrophe year. First there was domestic unrest. Two well-known politicians during the governor’s time, the brothers Johan and Cornelis de Witt, were brutally murdered in The Hague. Johan de Witt had tried to appoint Wilhelm III. to prevent the governor, which together with the escalating economic and colonial rivalry between the Netherlands and England led to the second Anglo-Dutch naval war. Under the leadership of de Witt, the Dutch fleet brought heavy defeats to the English. In 1667, Charles II of England accepted the Breda Treatythat ended the war. Just a year later, in 1668, the former opponents of the war allied themselves with Sweden in a triple alliance against France, which had invaded the Spanish Netherlands and was forced to end the Revolutionary War. When the third English-Dutch naval war broke out in 1672 and at the same time Louis XIV of France declared war on the Republic together with Cologne and Münster, the Dutch War broke out.
De Witt was overthrown and lynched with his brother Cornelis in The Hague by a pack of Wilhelm’s supporters; Wilhelm III of Orange was appointed governor. The war was not very successful for England and ended in 1674; the war against France could not be ended until 1678 with the Peace of Nijmegen.
After the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, King James II of England fled to France. Jacob’s daughter Maria was declared queen; together with her husband Wilhelm III. reign, who had been governor, captain general and admiral of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands since 1672 after the fall of Johan de Witts. This effectively united Holland and England in a personal union, and the republic became an integral part of the anti-French coalition under Wilhelm III.
In the course of the couple’s reign, the English parliament, against royal opposition, managed to significantly expand its rights. For example, the Bill of Rights was passed, which enforced the parliamentary responsibility of ministers. The political elite began to coordinate and support economic interests. 1694 became the bank of Englandfounded as the first state bank; parliament guaranteed the coverage of government bonds and thus created trust. State and capital interests began to link up closely. The rise of England also heralded the creeping end of the Dutch Golden Age, even if history cannot be described in such a short way as a thesis of rise, flowering and decay, and the dawn of the 18th century as a time of stagnation rather than decline Netherlands is described.
The situation deteriorated for the first time after 1680 for the Dutch East India Company. In Europe, pepper prices fell while demand for textiles from India, coffee from mocha and tea from China rose at the same time. On the one hand, the company had too little precious metal to buy these products in Asia, which led to constant borrowing; on the other hand, it had dealt with the English competition for these non- monopolized productsto grapple with that which has just become financially strong. The growing costs of overseas trade became an increasing burden for the company, as for the whole country.
Other significant events happened in 1702: the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession and the fatal riding accident of the 52-year-old governor Wilhelm III. Since he left no male heir and no unequivocal successor was determined, the dignity rested and there was a return to the anti-centralist tradition of the city rulers. It was not until 1747 that Wilhelm IV.Governor of all provinces. After the Peace of Utrecht, the regents had taken the view that the Republic should no longer play a leading role in international politics. This decision was actually only a recognition of reality, because due to the disagreement between the states and the complicated governmental system, the republic had had little influence on the international level since 1715.
Of course, financial reasons also played a role. One of the reasons for the poor economic situation was that rich citizens invested their money in neighboring countries and not in their own country. During this time, two other plagues hit the country. The from the Caribbean entrained Schiffsbohrwurm taught at ships and numerous wooden posts on the dikes immense damage. Therefore, there were always floods. At the same time the rinderpest raged, which not only hit the farmers hard, but also brought the export of cheese and butter to a standstill.
The Age of Enlightenment emanating from France finally reached the Netherlands, where the so-called patriots formed to campaign for the modernization and democratization of the ailing republic. The social divide in the country also widened more and more, and the government increasingly estranged itself from its people. Unrest, denunciation of grievances and system criticism of the unlimited rule of the regents spread.