Gerrit Verhoeven

FORESHADOWING TOURISM: Looking for modern and obsolete features – or some missing link – in early modern travel behavior (1675–1750)

Abstract Foreshadowing Tourism aims to hone or even to upset our understanding of the genesis of tourism. It has long been assumed that nineteenth-century tourism was rooted in the early modern Grand Tour. However, Netherlandish travel diaries, along with some literature from England, Germany, and France, evidence a missing link in this regard. The late seventeenth century witnessed the coming of divertissante somertogjes (pleasurable summer trips) that were in fact poles apart from a classic Grand Tour. By scrutinizing modern features of this novel form of travel (such as its brief and seasonal timing, and the fact that its main motivations were leisure and cultural interests) and more obsolete traits (such as the lack of recurrence or the relatively exclusivity of such touring parties) I seek to restore these speelreysjes (pleasure trips) to their rightful place within the genealogy of travel and tourism. I will also evaluate the potential effects of a transport (r)evolution, cultural development, and a rise in living standards on early modern travel behavior.

Review of periodical articles

From an empirical perspective, archaeologists and historians face a somewhat peculiar challenge, that is, to understand a past that is no longer with us through the discussion of wide range of objects – buildings, texts, textiles and so on – that are mere relics of that past. This challenge is complicated by what the anthropologist Arjun Appaduraj has famously called ‘the social life of things’. The material remnants of past societies do not survive in a vacuum: instead, these objects are used and re-used in new contexts in which they acquire new meanings, be it as cherished family heirlooms, as stuffy museum objects or as irritating obstacles for project developers. Consequently, these objects are suspended between the past and the present, in the sense that – as Joseph Morsel mordantly put it – ‘a restored castle is essentially a trophy of a new social system, whose might is expressed through the ruins of another social system’. Proceeding from the insight that the original meaning of objects is often clouded by the current context in which they function, historians and archaeologists are increasingly attentive to the question why – and if so, how – some material remnants of the past are re-used whereas others are not.

Calvinist Pilgrimages and Popish Encounters: Religious Identity and Sacred Space on the Dutch Grand Tour (1598–1685)

How did Calvinist travellers behave when they ventured into the lion’s den of Catholicism? Were Protestants on Grand Tour bound to ignore Popish sanctuaries, and – so it seemed – false relics, excessive processions, obscure rituals, and foolish idolatry or superstition? Did they mock or slander French or Italian Catholicism? According to textbook wisdom, these cross-confessional encounters on Grand Tour were seldom warm-hearted. Drawing on well-known travelogues from English Grand Tour travellers these religious contacts are mainly cast in black-and-white. Anglican noblemen and officials were envisaged as merciless critics of Italian Catholicism, seizing every opportunity to denounce the foulest popish defects. Using a body of unpublished travel books from the Netherlands, this paper tries to refine (or reconsider) this traditional conflict hypothesis. Despite profuse anti-popish propaganda in pamphlets, popular songs, and weekly sermons Dutch burghers seemed to behave rather ecumenically on their journey trough France, showing a lively interest, restrained respect or leniency towards Catholic ceremony, sacred objects and Popish sanctuaries. It will be argued that this broad-mindedness was triggered by practical considerations and a strong humanist imperative. Our aim, however, is to take the discussion somewhat further, as Dutch reformed travellers seemed to invent their own sort of pilgrimage in the early seventeenth century. La Rochelle, Charenton, Montauban, Geneva and other ‘hallowed’ places were soon integrated in the Dutch Grand Tour. Commemorating the Wars of Religion and Huguenot martyrdom, or personal religious deepening became part of the journey too.

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.

‘Les pèlerins de la saison sèche': Colonial Tourism in the Belgian Congo, 1945–60

Belgium has often been labelled as a reluctant colonizer in the past. Yet, a meticulous analysis of tourist magazines, guidebooks, brochures, posters, and documentaries on colonial tourism in the Belgian Congo tells a different story. Travel literature was often teeming with pro-empire propaganda that emphasized the primitiveness of the Congo and underscored the civilizing mission. Tourism was, in this respect, not very different from the overtly positive framing of the Belgian colonial rule that was propagated by museums, monuments of colonial heroes, exhibitions, movies and schoolbooks. The aim of this article is to take the argument even further. Most research on colonial tourism is focused on the creation of pro-empire propaganda in tourist magazines and guidebooks, while the actual appropriation of this image by travellers of flesh and blood is often tacitly assumed or – even worse – taken for granted. Interviews with ex-colonials show that the reality was much more subtle, as the overly positive propaganda was not always swallowed hook, line and sinker.

How do these Foreigners Blend in? Migration and Integration in Late Eighteenth-Century Antwerp (1715-92)

Abstract Whereas early modern migration history has been traditionally based on citizenship rolls, marriage registers, censuses and myriad other sources, this research explores the value of eyewitness reports before the Antwerp criminal court in the eighteenth century. On the face of things, these proceedings of the hoogere Vierschaer corroborate earlier findings. Due to the economic slump, Antwerp merely drew an endless stream of humble, unskilled labourers from its rural fringe; immigrants who were often relegated to the most menial, dirty and low-paid jobs. Acts of xenophobic violence against these new arrivals, who spoke a (slightly) different language or had different habits, were no exception. Most migrants seemed to have left town after they had saved a penny. Yet, the files of the Vierschaer also shed light on some slow-burn processes of integration, which have been less thoroughly scrutinized in the past. Some migrants blended smoothly into their new environment, by finding a permanent job (mostly as publican, peddler, or unskilled labourer); by mastering new skills (literacy and language); by seizing opportunities for (modest) social rise; or by establishing strong bonds with their new neighbours, friends, colleagues or parishioners. Findings also suggest that this integration process eventually stroke home.

Europe within Reach

In Europe within Reach Gerrit Verhoeven traces some sweeping evolutions in the early modern travel behaviour of Dutch and Flemish elites (1585-1750), as the classical Grand Tour to Italy was slowly but surely overshadowed by other modes of travelling.

‘Le pays où on ne sait pas lire’: Literacy, Numeracy and Human Capital in the Commercial Hub of the Austrian Netherlands (1715–75)

Files of the local criminal court in Antwerp – the Hoogere Vierschaar – are used in this article to assess the evolution of literacy and numeracy in Antwerp. Both forms of human capital are habitually seen as strongly intertwined, yet our evidence shows that they were not always geared to one another. Literacy did not grow significantly in Antwerp during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while it reached its high-water mark in other European towns. Faced by a severe economic crisis, the local government had to trim down free public education in Sunday schools, while private boarding schools (Duytsche scholen) saw their number of pupils fall abruptly as the recession impoverished a wide swath of society. Numeracy, however, followed a different course. Despite the economic crisis, peoples age awareness took a huge leap forward in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries as basic arithmetic skills were bound to a more informal, everyday training. Moreover, this idea, that literacy and numeracy were not always geared to each other is buttressed by marked social and gender variations.

Grondslagen van verandering. Assimilatie en differentiatie van het Antwerpse boekbedrijf in de tweede helft van de zeventiende eeuw

The foundations of change. Integration and diversification in the Antwerp book trade during the second half of the seventeenth century War, ruthless international competition, high import and export duties on books, and unforeseeable changes in the taste of readers all posed a serious threat to the survival of the book trade in the Southern Netherlands during the late seventeenth century. Nevertheless, some Brabantine printers not only survived the crisis they even managed to prosper. This article provides additional insights into the survival strategies adopted at the time based on material from the archives of Balthazar II Moretus’ Officina Plantiniana and the medium-sized publishing house of Hieronymus III Verdussen. Although both entrepreneurs reacted to the crisis by imposing harsh reforms, restructuring, and implementing innovative techniques such as sale on approval, their actual management choices differed greatly. The Officina Plantiniana focused more on the industrial component by opting for large-scale printing. Moretus cut back deliveries to smaller markets and dealers and concentrated on the major booksellers instead as they were able to order in bulk and resell the books to their smaller colleagues which meant that he no longer had to pay for transport and marketing. Moretus also abandoned the inefficient barter system and insisted upon cash payments so that he no longer had to take on books with a limited market value. Verdussen on the other hand followed a completely different path and seemed to renounce printing. He outsourced more and more printing work to jobbing printers in Germany or the United Provinces, thereby externalizing the risk of overstocking or losing out due to a drop in demand. By cultivating a number of advantageous alliances, Verdussen was also able to drastically reduce his custom and transport costs. As the registers of their guild reveals, in order to survive the crisis the majority of publishers in Antwerp chose Verdussen’s course of commercial capitalism as opposed to the industrial approach followed by Moretus.