Bruno Blondé

In ‘splendid isolation'. A comparative perspective on the historiographies of the ‘material renaissance' and the ‘consumer revolution'

Richard Goldthwaites pioneering work on the material culture of the Italian Renaissance offered many clues for better understanding long-term changes and continuities in European patterns of consumption during the early modern period. Yet the large historiographical body on the subject of the ‘material renaissance’ has largely ignored or rejected these, and has more often than not studied the field in a sort of ‘splendid isolation’. This article presents a review of some of the most important contributions to this field, and attempts to link them to the ongoing debates on early modern consumer change in the social and economic history outside of Italy.

Against the clock: time awareness in early modern Antwerp, 1585–1789

Traditionally a large role has been attributed to the spread of clocks and watches in fostering a ‘modern’ awareness of time. Yet, little research is available that empirically enables signs of growing time awareness to be linked to the distribution of time-keeping devices. In this article both these phenomena are brought together using two independent sets of evidence that permit the hypothesis that clocks and watches contributed to a heightened consciousness of time to be tested. While the ownership of clocks and watches was socially skewed, highly gendered and unevenly distributed over time, time awareness – as exemplified throughout numerous court cases – was essentially none of these.

Road transport productivity in the sixteenth‐century Low Countries: the case of Brabant, 1450–1650†

Though there is a consensus that transport plays a central role in economic development, for the period before the eighteenth century there is a lack of strategic information for assessing the importance of road transport productivity changes in economic development. Transport prices in particular are crucial missing pieces of the puzzle. Sources rarely reveal information that meets the standards of reliable price history. However, it is possible to create a reliable transport price series on the basis of the transport of millstones to ducal mills in Brabant. Assessing the impact of the ‘transport productivity changes’ that can be inferred from this transport price series is a hazardous exercise. Moreover, as Masschaele has observed, land transport prices closely match general agricultural price trends. Land transport was essentially an agricultural service, determined both by cost (especially horse provender) and income effects. Transport price inflation was not demand-led. However, while transport did not impede urbanization and economic growth, conversely, in sixteenth-century Brabant—a highly urbanized region that experienced considerable growth in the volume of land transport—no significant land transport productivity gains were achieved.

Arriving to a Set Table: The Integration of Hot Drinks in the Urban Consumer Culture of the Eighteenth-Century Southern Low Countries

This chapter aims to explore some of the ways in which the rapidly expanding consumption of sugar and hot drinks during the eighteenth century impacted upon the material culture of urban households in the southern Low Countries. The swift and widespread adoption of the domestic consumption of hot drinks, along with a variety of accompanying utensils and consuming practices during this period, has by now become a well-established historical finding. Relative prices and trade patterns have been substantively documented,1 as have the manners in which tea and sugar altered European ways of life, for instance by influencing patterns of domesticity and sociability during the early modern period.2 In many towns of the Southern Netherlands, the introduction of colonial goods transformed the structure and timing of meals, and profoundly influenced existing patterns of sociability.3 Yet, while a lot is known about the social and cultural practices of coffee and tea use, and even more is often suggested, important questions still need to be answered concerning the impact of this impressive shift in consumer tastes upon material cultural and consumer behaviour at large.

Introduction. Selling Textiles in the Eighteenth Century: Perspectives on Consumer and Retail Change

The notion of an eighteenth-century transformation in European material culture, affecting both personal dress and the furnishing of the home, has become an established part of the historiography. Depending on the interests of different historians, it has been variously linked with the manifestation of growing wealth and material comfort amongst ordinary people; the supposed emergence of a ‘consumer society’ driven by fashion and emulation; the growth of colonial trade and the pursuit of the novel or the exotic, and the attempt to construct and communicate individual and collective identities through consumption.1 Textiles, especially imported and European cottons, are often accorded a central role in these processes, being seen as key engines driving change in consumption practices and thus broader shifts in the European and global economy. In the past, emphasis was invariably placed on improvements to the efficiency of production, particularly in terms of powered mechanisation. The key symbol of cotton’s role in modern society was, therefore, the mill. More recently, greater weight has been given to the transformative power of consumer choice, cotton’s agency now being symbolised in chintz curtains or a muslin dress.2

‘According to the Latest and Most Elegant Fashion’: Retailing Textiles and Changes in Supply and Demand in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Antwerp

Although much is already known about the textile industries in early modern Antwerp, less research has been done on consumption and retailing of textiles and clothing.1 In his exemplary study of the tailoring business in the Southern Netherlands, Harald Deceulaer accumulated a great deal of valuable evidence, yet we are still short of a comprehensive overview of textile retailing in general.2 Moreover, a long-term study of changes in the material culture of Antwerp still awaits publication. Therefore, the major goals of this chapter are three. In the absence of sufficient preparatory studies, we will first try to map the changes in the types of textiles being retailed in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Antwerp. This will be done by taking into account both structural supply-side and demand-side changes in textile production and consumption, and by linking these to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century retail practices. Indeed, as a city renowned for producing different sort of textiles, the retailing landscape for textiles in Antwerp cannot be fully understood without taking supply side changes into account. Similarly, alterations in consumer preferences and practices profoundly affected the size, incomes and business strategies of textile retailers. However, the precise relationship between economies of shop-keeping and consumers’ actions still needs further exploration. Hence, the second aim of this chapter is to map the complex interplay between production, consumption and distribution in an era that witnessed rapid and interrelated supply-side and demand-side transformations.