Review Of" the Dutch Gentry, 1500-1650: Family, Faith, And

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1-1-1988

Review Of "The Dutch Gentry, 1500-1650: Family, Faith, And Fortune" By S. D. Marshall

Robert S. DuPlessis Swarthmore College, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Robert S. DuPlessis. (1988). "Review Of "The Dutch Gentry, 1500-1650: Family, Faith, And Fortune" By S. D. Marshall". American Journal Of Sociology. Volume 93, Issue 4. 993-995. DOI: 10.1086/228845 https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-history/246

This work is brought to you for free by Swarthmore College Libraries' Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Review Author(s): Robert S. DuPlessis Review by: Robert S. DuPlessis Source: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 93, No. 4 (Jan., 1988), pp. 993-995 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2780624 Accessed: 11-06-2015 19:37 UTC

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not the whole story.The problematicrelationship between rules and practicesis notaddressed here or even alluded to, and so we mustalways keep in mind the limitednature of Wolfram'sproject as well as the evidenceshe uses in herconsideration of Englishkinship. We learnmuch about kinshiprules but littleabout how theywere followedor whether theywere followedor who followedthem.

The Dutch Gentry,1500-1650: Family,Faith, and Fortune.By Sherrin D. Marshall. Westport,Conn.: GreenwoodPress, 1987. Pp. xxvii+225. $35.00.

RobertS. DuPlessis SwarthmoreCollege

Despite general agreementabout the nobility'scentrality to the Dutch Revolt, historiansof the early modernNetherlands have slightedthe landed elites. This has probablybeen because the Revolt issued in a bourgeoissociety, study of urban classes has been privileged,and even researchin ruralhistory has attendedmore to the peasantrythan to the aristocracy. Not every neglectedsubject meritsinvestigation, of course, but the considerablelight thrown on otherEuropean societiesby studiesof their nobilitiessuggests the potentialrewards of similarresearch in the Low Countries.Sherrin Marshall's book The Dutch Gentry,1500-1650, en- compassesthree generations of the lessernobility, chiefly in the province of Utrecht,but also includingeveryone married to Utrechters:substantial minoritiesof men and womenfrom adjacent Holland and Gelderland;a sprinklingfrom elsewhere in the Netherlandsand abroad; and some urban patricians.Socially and economicallyanalogous to theEnglish strata fromwhich theirname is borrowed,as membersof the legallydefined nobility,the Dutch gentrydiffered juridically from their commoner counterpartsin Britain.Yet, despitethis status, their political arena was the provincialassembly rather than a nationalparliament. Contendingthat the familyconstituted the principaldeterminant of gentrybehavior, Marshall examinesthe life course and dailyexistence of the class throughthe lens of family.In contrastto scholarswho consider the lineage the primaryemotional, financial, and politicalnexus forthe secondestate, she arguesfor the equal materialand affectivesignificance of what she termsthe "core familyunit," a multigenerationalfamily groupcomprising two sets of grandparents,one set of parents,and the latter'schildren. The firsthalf of the book is informedby scholarshipand debates in familyhistory. The Utrechtgentry, Marshall finds,conformed to the typicalEuropean patternof late marriageand a significantproportion of celibates.On questionsof interpretation,she generallyconcurs with an emergingrevisionist account that modifies the views putforth by scholars

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like PhilippeAries, Lawrence Stone, and Edward Shorter.If thesegentry are any indication,the early modern family, for all itsundoubted patriar- chal structure,was characterizedby close and lovingparent-child rela- tionships,respect for individuals'wishes, and a balance betweencore familyimperatives and responsibilityto the lineage. Addressingissues in cultural,social, and political history,the final threechapters find that continuity marked the lives of thegentry across a tumultuouscentury and a half.The religionof thegentry remained prac- tical,Erasmian, and politique. Eschewingthe alleged extravagance of its superiors,converting properties to shorterleases, and obtaininggovern- mentaljobs, the majorityheld its own across the long,inflationary 16th century.Though the Revolt enforcedsome geographicmobility, several decades of delayedmarriage, and fewerchildren, only rarely were gentry familiesdecimated or impoverished,property remained substantially in thesame hands,and, in thenew republicanregime, gentry filled the same kindsof positionsas before. Echoing views already currenton the 17thcentury, Marshall insists thata value consensusobtained across classes in the Netherlands,as the principleof reciprocity moderated hierarchic postulates. This observation capturesaspects of Dutch mentality,but the authorascribes too muchto reciprocalvalues, underplayingthe significanceof deferenceand hierar- chy in feudal, patron-client,republican, and personal relations.Simi- larly, while the idea of the core familyunit is a welcome attemptto conceptualizethe links betweennuclear familyand lineage,in factnu- clear familiesreceive the bulk of Marshall's attention-to the neglectof the core's elder generationand the lineage. Though the book contains interestinginformation about widows and widowers,including gender- specificrates of remarriage and acceptedbastardy, overall, this important topicis treatedtoo brieflyand diffusely.And despiteMarshall's recurrent citationof the issue, the situationof women getsabsorbed (once again!) intothat of the family. The Dutch Gentryemploys archival and printedsources as well as literaryevidence. Acknowledgingthat the lattermaterial may not be statisticallytypical, Marshall maintainsthat it neverthelessprovides use- fulinsights into attitudes. One can sympathizewith this position yet wish thatthe author had furtherexplored the ambiguities of prescriptive litera- ture and exiguoussources, since her conclusionsabout such mattersas reciprocity,women's autonomy, and religioussentiments depend heavily on them. The book incorporatesnumerous figures and tables, not all carryingequal convictionor fascination.Photographed apparently di- rectlyfrom computer printout, the figuresare, at times,insufficiently distinct.Regrettably, the materialpresented visually is all too oftendis- cussedin a verysummary or incompletemanner (see, e.g., tables3.2 and 3.3.) Because the gentryshared status, landholding patterns, governmental activities,and oftenlevel ofwealth with the greater nobility, and because bothstrata sat togetherin the provincialstates, focus on the gentrymay 994

This content downloaded from 130.58.65.13 on Thu, 11 Jun 2015 19:37:04 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Book Reviews proveunduly restrictive. In any event,conclusions about the aristocracy based on Utrechtare likelyto need modificationbefore being applied to the southernprovinces (present-day Belgium), in whichthe highernobil- ity were more numerous,wealthy, and influential,and in which the courseof earlymodern history diverged notably even beforethe Revolt. Whetherthey will prove valid for the rest of the modernNetherlands remainsto be seen: work in progresson the nobilityof Holland will facilitatecomparisons with the situationin the dominantnorthern province. Whateverthe resultsof otherinquiries, however, Marshall's case studyfurnishes much empirical material and manysuggestions to ponder for national or internationalsyntheses of the historyof early modern landed elites.

The Decline ofFertility in Europe. Edited by AnsleyJ. Coale and Susan Cotts Watkins. Princeton,N.J.: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1986. Pp. xxii+484. $55.00 (cloth);$14.50 (paper).

AntonioMcDaniel Universityof Chicago

The Decline of Fertilityin Europe representsthe culminationof the PrincetonEuropean FertilityProject, which began in 1963. In theirsum- maryarticle, Ansley J. Coale and Roy Treadway describethe principal purposesof theproject: "to createa detailedquantitative record of fertilityin each of the severalhundred provinces of Europe duringthe period of major decline, and to determinethe social and economicconditions that prevailed when the modernreduction in the rate of childbearing began" (p. 32). Indeed, the quantitativeinformation alone is a great contributionto our understandingof European social history,and the attemptsto analyze the socioeconomicconditions of the period at the beginningof the decline have made a significantcontribution to historical sociology. Coale beginsthe volumeby placingthe decline of European fertilityin the 18thcentury in historicalcontext. The rapid increasein the world's populationstarted at the timethat the IndustrialRevolution was beginning, as newlydeveloped modernscience and more rapid advances in technologycontributed to a continuousexpansion of transportationand tradeand to increasedagricultural productivity, as well as to thedevelop- ment of mechanizedmanufacturing. The peoples of Europe (America included)grew more rapidly in numberthan the rest of the world's popu- lationduring the early phases ofaccelerated growth. Beginning in thelate 19thcentury, the fertilityof the European populationsdeclined, which made it the firstpopulation to returnto moderaterates of increase. In addition,Coale argues,in theintroductory chapter, that the decline in fertilitythat has been almostuniversal in Europe was a changefrom (a) moderatefertility, kept froma veryhigh level by late marriage,perma-

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