Rural Change in the Dutch Province of Drenthe in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries I By J BIELEMAN URING the Republic the state of about :tooo inhabitants, Coevorden even Drenthe extended as far as the fewer. The Landschap had thirty-six par- D modern province of Drenthe does ishes and about ~rSO villages and hamlets, (an area of 266,278 hectares). At that time it most of which had between ten and twenty was more or less a sovereign entity, and a farms. In 163o Drenthe had about 22,0oo member of the confederation of states inhabitants; no more than 8.3 people per which formed the Republic. The Land- km'-. Its population was about r per cent of schap, as it was called, lay in the north-east the Dutch population at that time.'- When of the Netherlands against the German studying aspects of its social-economic border, and was surrounded by Groningen history we always have to keep these to the north, Friesland to the west, and figures in the back of our mind. In Overijssel to the south (see map I). It was a seventeenth-century Drenthe there were rather isolated region, surrounded by vast three main types of settlement- the esdorp blanket bogs. Its geological structure had or open-field settlement, the streekdorp or mainly been formed during the penul- linear settlement (found on the low-lying timate Ice Age when it was covered with land at the edge of the plateau) and the an ice sheet stretching south from Scandi- veenkolonie or fen settlement. This paper is navia. It consisted mainly of a boulder clay concerned mainly with open-field settle- plateau which was later on partly eroded ment, although some contrast with the by melting streams and then covered with linear settlements is made. an infertile layer of sand. During the The main components of the esdorp Holocene, blanket bogs started growing settlements as can be seen on a detail of the and formed an important component of the first topographical map (1851/2) were: natural landscape. I. the open fields or essen, 2. the meadows, In the early seventeenth century the on the silty and peaty soils beside the Landschap must have been an almost empty streams in the eroded parts of the plateau, steppe of heath and blanket bogs over 3. waste-lands. Then of course there were which small villages and hamlets were villages themselves (see map 2). The cadas- scattered like islands in an ocean. It is tral map for 1832 of the hamlets of Garm- important to realize that it was a very inge and Balinge in the parish of Wester- sparsely populated area. There were no bork clearly shows the typical pattern of towns except the small town of Meppel in the open field with its fields and furlongs. the south-west and the fortress of Coevor- The holdings of one farm were spread den in the south-east. Meppel had only evenly over all the fields. This article is an adapted version of a paper given at the Spring Conference of the British Agricultural History Society held from I I " Faber a M (196 5) estimated that the totahmna ber ofinhabitants must to I3 April, 1983. More on this subject will be published as a thesis have been about 1.4 to 1.6 million in 1600. A Faber, H K Rocssingh, called 'Agrarische ontwikkelingcn op de Drentsc zandgronden, B H Slichcr van Bath, A M van dcr Woude and H J van Xantcn, 16oo.--t 9t o. Ecn nicuwe visie op de oude landbouw' (Rural Change 'Population changes and economic development in the in Drcnthe, x6oo-I9/O: a new outlook on 'traditional' agriculture) Netherlands; a historical survey', A A G Bijdral!en, 12, Wageningen, which is in course of preparation. t965, pp 47-x t3. IO5 106 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW ~ "Essen"or open-fields ~ Stream valleys GRONINGEN [~ Peat-moor ;...,' I f," / I , ,,I ~"L 0 10 20 km MAP I Province of Drenthe. The map shows tile most dominant features of the physical landscape of Drenthe. Tile open fields (indicated by black spots) are situated in close relation to the stream valleys. The places mentioned in the text are indicated by number , Garmingc--Balinge 4 Ruinerwold 2 Beilen 5 Nijeveen 3 Peize 6 Rolde RURAL CHANGE IN THE DUTCH PROVINCE OF DRENTHE '1o7 .... ,~'...i",;.:.. "'~+ +"" i: ~.. ::7 ;. : ,:k;?, ...~:.. +L .;~ .... , ,i ~"".ii "~,.:'.. C~~ ," ~, .' i ++: ~>..... ..... ~,... .... +,.i,~++lllt+,.. ' '~Tkt 7i :;;!:i:'.:~:!'~ : t''" ., • ' ~; ."'' " :~ +~:_' L-~L.-.... "...1". ~ • . .--_.~..~?.;.- .,.: --..,,~>++:,, .!;~ !" :,.. I.+--4 ;"::'~'t : ' "~":+"~" i i"( 0 .".:~"., "L ~'..7'? ", . ! "l ~ : ' ~i'-......... ~..,:~: ,.LL: I.I .u.'... J":-'~l " " " "' ,.l " . U :.: <t]7-.r--.:--; : :--:.---- ....... ,_el .-+kiLk+:.~-.~,.-~::-7; ;Wi:7{ .++ t. " i ....... '.""---" +',: - -. ' !. " ;'~'~-.-']:-2-".--~'~ ..... "~ .- ....... ' • . 77"-~..." ..... ,. "• ,. ~. ,. .... • -.++~...'.~. :. ,~ ~.--++ ~.+ ~"~F-.":,<- ....... ~; 7;/+i+,,ii "-+.~ ,-,+~ Z+, O"Cl f i r,~, J #" ~~. 'i'..: .~, ,, # i'll <L; i r /.° i~ .i,+c.~ ............. ++:+ 0 v I +~+P+, r,~. " !~;7,.,., ~ +.,,'. 1 +~,+. ." N ,.;. '~' .. ~ • , ~ %. ,, ,...-2 , .".. -~ . ' 5+:{~+ , . ~ • _ :.-.-...'.,.+,~;-' ~' i "[ • .~'. "I J' i ' " . .~iI .~ "Y.. ..:_,. ~ •:. J • ° i ~ • ...,...~,...,-'..~!~ , , ~, 0 ', ~., ."v';. 'N °..~ .2 +.,,. b,+ '," '~,,+.+.J',f,i.S~ .] i ,. : . J"¢ll~i+'i~ :r 'I ¢+ ... , • ..~ • . %, ~ ~' ,7~;~ '' • \, 108 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW 0 250 500m I BALINGE MAP 3 Small essen (open field)of the hamletsof Balingeand Garmingeaccording to the first cadastral maps (1832). The holdings of each farm are equallyscattered over the open field I shepherd with his flock of sheep on the Until recently there has been very little heath (horned cattle played hardly any role systematic research done on early farming according to the traditional view) and the or on the agricultural economy as a whole continuous rye cultivation based on an on the sandy soils of the Netherlands. intensive system of turf manuring Authors simply contented themselves with (pla~enbemestil~). There was supposed to projecting some of the external aspects of be a stringent division between contin- the late nineteenth- and early twentieth- uously cultivated arable land and pasture. century farming back into former centur- The rural economy of Drenthe was presen- ies. They assumed that what they saw as a ted as an ahnost closed, self-sufficient primitive way of farming had been the subsistence economy hardly related to any same for centuries. Implicitly or explicitly market. Recently however some authors they ignored the existence of dynamism in like Roessingh have queried this traditional the old rural community, and so a picture outlook. -~ Examination of the records in emerged which was in fact no more than a the State Archives in Assen, the province's caricature of the historical truth; a picture present capital, gave us a far more realistic often painted in romantic colours. In the '~ H K Roessingh, 'l)e vcctdling val~ ~5~-6in her k',vartier va~ Vduwe' traditional view of agriculture in Drenthe, (The Cattle Census o( 1526 in the Veluwe Quarter of Gclderland). important features were that of the A A G B(idraqen, 22. Wageningen, 1979, pp 3-57. RURAL CHANGE IN THE DUTCH PROVINCE OF DRENTHE ro9 view on farming and the rural community contemporary notice tells us that a typical as it was in the seventeenth and eighteenth Farm in the early seventeenth century con- centuries. Much of our knowledge of sisted of 32 mudde (r mudde = o.27 ha) of agriculture in that period stems from arable land and twenty-Four cows (includ- sources which were put together for other ing the young cattle). However tax-records than statistical reasons. Nevertheless they show that around I65o only about 22 per have proved to be useful and have helped cent of farms were that size. The records us unveil a far more differentiated, and in also show that remarkable differences many ways, a completely different picture could exist between villages and hamlets in of farming in Drenthe in the past. The one and the same parish. The small farmers research enabled us to solve problems like: were often to be Found in the churchvil- the extent of agricultural land; the size and lages. Those who had hardly any land and number of farms; the ratio between only one or no horse were called keuters or freeholders and tenants; the characteristics cottagers. The shopkeepers and artisans of the farming system; and the relation were also found in these villages. In the between cattle, sheep and field system. satellite-like hamlets around the main vil- In 1642 at the insistence of the States lages the farms were mostly about 32 General of the Republic, the government mudde. They had four horses and were of Drenthe started to make arrangements usually described as een vol bedriy'f, a com- for a new system of taxation based on plete farm. immovables, in addition to existing taxes. Of course not all the farmers were All over the Landschap surveyors were sent freeholders. But herein lay the remarkable out to make records of everyone's prop- character of Drenthe compared to the erty. These records give us a splendid view neighbouring provinces Overijssel and of agricultural land, and the size of the Friesland. Drenthe had comparatively farms in every village and hamlet. By speaking many freeholders. A tax record of studying this material, we were able to 163o shows that in the esdorpen about 55 per calculate that by about I65o Drenthe had cent of the farmers were freeholders. approximately 15,46o ha or 5.8 per cent (Slicher van Bath found that in the arable land. Besides this, there was a adjoining province of Overijssel this was certain amount of land registered as pri- only about IO per cent.) 4 Of the remainder, vately owned meadow land. This was as 7 per cent of the farms were owned by the much as three-quarters of the area of the nobility and 5 per cent by the stewards' arable land.