Trade,Transport,and Storage in Amsterdam Inns (1450–1800)

Definition and Quantity

Despite their significance in the early modern period, little is known about the history of Amsterdam inns. Some information is presented in meticulous case studies ³ and a handful of general publications about public drinking houses. In 1929, Johan Huizinga pleaded for a cultural history of everyday subjects like the “road, the market and the inn.” ⁴ Inspired by Huizinga, the legal historian B.H.D. Hermesdorf wrote a cultural history of the medieval inn in the Low Countries, ⁵ but this study, published in 1957, was largely based on static judicial sources in the Southern Netherlands. Nineteen years later, G.H. Jansen published an elaborate sociological study about public drinking houses all over the world: from hospitality in biblical times to recent fieldwork in a neighborhood pub in Utrecht. Unfortunately, Jansen’s description of early modern inns in the Netherlands does not shed any new light on the subject. ⁶ In the two final decades of the twentieth century, thorough studies on public drinking houses were published. Peter Clarke wrote a social history of the English alehouse (1200–1830), while Thomas Brennan published his pioneering study on the taverns of eighteenth-century Paris. ⁷ Based on research in judicial archival sources, Brennan revised the negative image of the early modern catering industry: inns were no “école de mass du crime,” ⁸ like Muchembled contended, but offered a public stage for all sorts of social interaction between a wide range of civilians. Brennan’s path was followed by Kümin and Tlusty, who studied public drinking houses in the Swiss Confederation (Bern) and Germany (Augsburg and Bayern). ⁹ Kümin concludes that inns functioned as “great facilitators” where visitors with different backgrounds could eat, drink, and spend the night, as well as meet and do business. Innkeepers played an important mediating role in transport and trade and commonly belonged to the upper classes of society. ¹⁰

Partly thanks to Kümin and Tlusty, the early modern public drinking house is now a popular subject among contemporary scholars from different disciplines. Local studies have been written for large parts of Europe and North America, but the inns of the cities in early modern Holland remain largely terra incognita. This can partly be due to methodological problems: the abounding variety of public drinking houses troubles the sight. To limit the subject, a useful definition should be established. Following the basic idea of Kümin, ¹¹ we define the inn (herberg in Dutch) as “a public house whose master regularly sells alcoholic drinks, meals and lodging to members of the public.” This definition excludes other public houses like taverns (taveernen) and beer and wine cellars, as well as lodgments (logementen) and soup-kitchens (gaarkeukens) where travelers could only sleep or eat. Some inns also offered storage space for merchandise of guests, while others merely offered lodging and a modest meal. The emphasis of this study is on the first category, because these hostels were specially intended for businessmen. Most innkeepers (waarden or herbergiers) of these hostels originated from the same country as their guests, like the Hanseatic commercial agents who dominated the Baltic trade in sixteenth-century Amsterdam. After discussing their role in the organization of trade, we will look at the services provided by the inns and innkeepers during the economic boom in the seventeenth century. Finally we will consider a small group of distinguished inns where public sales of specialized products took place.

In absence of direct evidence, the number of early modern Amsterdam inns is difficult to detect. For England, there is a census of all public drinking houses, drawn up in 1577 in connection with the musters, but such a record seems to be absent in Dutch war records. Neither are there admission records of early modern innkeepers, as exist for the city of Groningen ¹² and in the state archives of Bern and Bavaria, used by Kümin. However, since 1597, Amsterdam innkeepers did have to obtain admission from the town government before they could establish a drinking house. Each quarter, they had to extend this permit by paying a fee to the Spinhouse, a new house of correction for female delinquents. The amount of this contribution related to the kind of drinks they sold: innkeepers who only served wine paid ten stivers quarterly, while serving beer would cost five stivers and selling tobacco ten stivers. ¹³ So an innkeeper who served all of these products to his customers had to pay a yearly contribution of 100 stivers (5 guilder). Almost ¹⁴ no records with names of contributors are preserved, but it is possible to calculate a minimum number of public drinking houses. Between 1660 and 1701, the annual revenues were an average of around 5,000 guilder (100,000 stivers), ¹⁵ so Amsterdam counted a minimum of one thousand public drinking houses in the period 1660–1701. This number is obscured by the fact that many tavern keepers refused to pay these fees. The actual number must have been higher, which is confirmed by an anonymous source in 1662. He estimated there were five thousand inns, taverns, and tobacco shops in the city—a quarter of the total in Holland. ¹⁶

In the second half of the seventeenth century, the population of Amsterdam was around 200,000, so there was a minimum of one public drinking house per 200 inhabitants. According to Kümin a ratio of around 100 inhabitants per establishment was typical in Bern and Bavaria. ¹⁷ In Holland, this was also the ratio in early eighteenth-century Leiden, ¹⁸ while the percentage of inns and taverns in the rural parishes of the Veluwe even surpassed the Amsterdam numbers. ¹⁹ There is another indication of the number of public drinking houses in early seventeenth-century Amsterdam. In a grievance delivered to the States of Holland in 1613, local tax collectors calculated 518 public drinking houses in the city, which again gives a ratio of 1:200, considering the number of 105,000 inhabitants. By next winter, no less than 105 of these taverns and inns had to shut their doors, because they were accused of tax evasion. This lowered the ratio to 1:250. ²⁰ In general, we can state that the Amsterdam catering industry increased considerably in the seventeenth century: the number of public houses at least doubled from 500 to 1000. This rise is in line with the booming economy, strong population growth, and the “communication revolution” triggered by the enhanced spatial mobility. ²¹

After estimating the total numbers of public drinking houses in Amsterdam, we would like to calculate the proportion of inns. A hint is provided by the publisher Jan Claesz ten Hoorn (1643–1714), who wrote a travel guide for the Dutch Republic. In the section about Amsterdam, Ten Hoorn mentions almost 100 inns in 1689, ²² while indicating that there were more located in the neighborhood of the Oude Teertuinen (now: Prins Hendrikkade) and the town-gates. Tracing these public houses and their owners and innkeepers in archival records is a slippery business, though. Inns changed names, moved to other locations or burned down to the ground, their owners could go bankrupt, sell the place, or be forced to close their doors by the local authorities. Compared to other cities in Holland, Amsterdam had a large quantity of inns, which corresponds to its status. For instance, in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, there were only thirteen to sixteen inns in Haarlem. ²³ It should be stressed that the larger inn was only a small part of the total drinking trade. A metropolis like London (700,000 inhabitants) had about 2,500 licensed drinking houses in 1715 but only 150 principal inns engaged in transport trades. ²⁴

Hanseatic Hostels

Commercial activity in Amsterdam inns first comes to light in judicial sources of the fifteenth century. Business transactions and public auctioning took place in these public houses and innkeepers mediated between their foreign guests and the local community. ²⁵ Between 1450 and 1600, archival and literary sources reveal more than sixty Amsterdam inns. Unfortunately, detailed information about ownership and facilities of these houses is often lacking. More is known about a number of specific inns, aimed at traders from the Baltic region. Here they could meet fellow merchants, obtain information about local customs and tariffs, store their goods, and complete financial and commercial transactions. In sixteenth-century Amsterdam, these inns were concentrated in the Warmoesstraat, then the most expensive part of the city. The entry in the busy street attracted visitors while the backyard reached to the waterfront of the Damrak, where barges could anchor (Figure 1). Here new warehouses were built while former breweries, attics, and basements were also made suitable for the storage of merchandise. With an average width of five meters and a maximum depth of thirteen meters, the Warmoesstraat inns were not as impressive as some contemporary examples in England. ²⁶ Nevertheless, certainly in the period before the emergence of isolated warehouses (pakhuizen) around 1540, storing merchandise in Amsterdam hostels was the best option for foreign traders. ²⁷ Moreover, the innkeepers were indispensable sources of support for foreign merchants.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Damrak behind the Warmoesstraat in the 1930s.

Claes Claesz Gaeff (1461–after 1523) was one of the early innkeepers in the Warmoesstraat (current no. 24). Besides his inn, the Gulden Hand, he owned a brewery, next to the Guldehandsteeg (Figure 2). Gaeff was looking after the interests of the merchants from Hamburg, whose brotherhood—Hamburger Broederschap—gathered in his inn. He also contributed to the financing of their altar in the Old Church. The brotherhood played a pivotal role in the network of Hanseatic merchants in the city. After 1513, their yearly dinners were no longer held in the Gulden Hand but in the Poortgen (Warmoesstraat, current no. 75) and later in the hostelry of Joachim Wandelmans, again in the Warmoesstraat. Another noted inn for Germans in the Warmoesstraat was the Witte Hond (current no. 16). ²⁸ Innkeeper Jan Beth (c. 1430–before 1497) acquired considerable wealth and social status. He was elected mayor, the chief post in the town administration, up to nine times. During his diplomatic tours, his wife and three daughters took care of the inn. ²⁹ In the Witte Hond as well as in other hostels, displays showed the local tariffs and customs. Innkeepers were legally obliged to announce these to their foreign guests. ³⁰

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 2.

Damrak behind Warmoesstraat 24 and the Guldehandsteeg.

Innkeeper Pieter Lobbe (?–before 1495) of the Drie Kauwen (Warmoesstraat, current no. 34) probably migrated from the Baltic. ³¹ He received rye and resold this on behalf of his Hanseatic clients. Lobbe was not the only foreign innkeeper in Amsterdam who served as an agent. In the 1450–1550 period, the trade of grains, mainly rye, from the Baltic grew exceedingly. Agents from this region took up residence in Amsterdam, which became an important entrepôt for Baltic products. By marrying local women, some Hanseatic merchants obtained citizenship, a status that conferred economic benefits. ³² Assimilation was not too complicated for the immigrants, because the Dutch and German language and culture were quite similar. Still, the career of grain merchant and innkeeper Jacob Lourensz Fick from Gdańsk was extraordinarily prosperous. In Amsterdam, he was an agent for a family from his hometown and other foreign traders. Since 1553, Fick lived in the Warmoesstraat (current no. 139b), where he had a hostelry. His marriage with Katrijn Buyck, a daughter of the powerful mayor Joost Buyck, brought him even more wealth and a diligent hostess. Fick supplied products like rye and beer to the city government. In his hostel, he catered to the local regents and accommodated their noble guests, like the governor of Holland. Fick displayed his wealth in the ownership of a luxurious decorated carriage. ³³

In the period 1550–1578, at least ten other immigrants were innkeepers in the fashionable Warmoesstraat (Figure 3). Most of them should be regarded more as commercial agents than as people working in the catering industry; their clients were their business partners. Considering the dimensions of the houses in the Warmoesstraat, we should not expect more than a dozen guests per inn who probably had to share rooms or even beds. In cities like Bruges in Flanders, Montpellier in France, and Middelburg in Zeeland, many innkeepers also were officially registered as brokers (makelaars). This combination of functions was profitable and innkeepers were among the most prominent citizens of these cities. During the sixteenth century, however, the two occupations grew apart. ³⁴ In Amsterdam, brokerage was forbidden by the local government between 1495 and 1530. It was legalized in 1531 and soon gained great popularity. By 1533, there were more than 200 brokers and besides these official brokers there was a multitude of bunglers. Amsterdam innkeepers also must have functioned as brokers for their guests, because in 1612 this was prohibited, ³⁵ but the sources are silent about this combination of professions.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 3.

The Warmoesstraat is the small street on the left, parallel to the Damrak.

A group of German innkeepers in the Warmoesstraat did work as agents. One of them was Karsten Roeloffs (c. 1480–?), the successor of Pieter Lobbe as innkeeper of the Drie Kauwen. He acted as a representative for merchants from Holstein, Dithmarschen, Gdańsk, and Hamburg and also traded on his own account. Together with innkeepers like Lubbert Nut and Harman int Boot, he was among the chief charterers in 1544 and 1545. The largest exporter, Arent Hudde (1515–1582), was probably born in Kampen (Overijssel), but just like the Germans he combined innkeeping with trading in commission. He was one of the few merchants who owned a ship, besides several houses and storage depots. Hudde’s hostelry, Drie Koningen, was situated in the Warmoesstraat (current no. 56). ³⁶ Another innkeeper-agent, Lubbert Nut (c. 1488–?), had migrated from Bremen. He knew many merchants from this and other German port towns, who sent their merchandise so he could resell it in Amsterdam. Nut obtained citizenship and by 1543 he was one of the wealthiest merchants of the city. His inn, the Rode Helm in the Warmoesstraat (current no. 52), was strategically situated close to the open-air market for grain and salt. ³⁷ Nut’s next-door neighbor (current no. 50), Cornelis Hendricksz Loen (1481–1547), also combined international trading with inn keeping, but he was no immigrant. Thanks to his marriage with a daughter from the ruling Boelen-Heijne family, he was even elected as mayor. ³⁸

Continuity was a key factor for innkeepers. Clients returned to the same inn when they were satisfied with the services. ³⁹ The turbulent years of reformation, revolt, and economic decline affected the continuity of the Warmoesstraat inns, though. Several hostels closed their doors because the innkeeper was expelled or went bankrupt. In these troublesome times, innkeeping dynasties ⁴⁰ were rare, although there were exceptions. Around 1535, Wessel Vogel (?–1560) was innkeeper in the Sterre (Warmoesstraat, current no. 76), which had been an inn since 1494. His nephew, Jan Ottensz Vogel, followed in his footsteps, until he sold the inn in 1578. ⁴¹ Both the sons of Lubbert Nut and Cornelis Hendricksz Loen succeeded their fathers as innkeeper. Willem Lubbertsz Nut and Claes Boelens “in den Hamburch” were also well-to-do merchants, but despite their obvious status they were excluded from offices in local government. They belonged to the prominent followers of the reformation, who in the 1560s opposed the ruling catholic regents. ⁴² After a period in exile they returned to Amsterdam, but their property had been confiscated. Thanks to the Alteratie, the regime change that took place in Amsterdam on May 26, 1578, Claes Boelens managed to regain his inn and was elected mayor. Willem Lubbertsz Nut’s wife rented his house while he was in exile, but it is unclear whether the hostel lived on. Lodewijck Sonneville (?–1566), an immigrant from Bruges, had established himself in Amsterdam before 1546 as a soap maker, merchant, and innkeeper in the Rooibaars (Warmoesstraat, current no. 68). Sixteen years later, he sold this hostel to rye merchant Claes Overlander, a supporter of the revolt who closed the inn. In 1574, Overlander was expelled from Amsterdam for trading with the enemy and for the possession of seditious literature. ⁴³

Some innkeepers who remained loyal to the Spanish monarch did not return after the regime change in 1578. Jacob Fick had fled the city and probably was in dire straits. His widow, the daughter of one of the deposed regents, was buried in Utrecht, which must have been their new hometown. ⁴⁴ Another innkeeper, Cornelis Louffsz, belonged to the opposite party, the rebels of William of Orange. He had accommodated their leader Brederode in his hostel in 1567, for which hospitality he was banned. Because his belongings were confiscated, we know the innkeeper owned luxurious furniture and several portraits of himself, which was a rare asset in those days. After a period of exile in his native town Gdańsk, Cornelis Louffsz returned victorious as one of the “watergeuzen” who conquered Den Briel in 1572. Orange rewarded his loyalty by appointing him master of artillery of the rebel army. In 1578, he briefly returned to Amsterdam, but shortly after he left permanently to Gdańsk. ⁴⁵ Another adherent of the Dutch revolt, Jacob Jansz Coster, benefited from the coup d’état of 1578. Shortly afterwards, he became innkeeper of the Poortgen. The former innkeeper here, Floris de Ween, had fled the city, probably because of his close ties to the removed town government. ⁴⁶ Coster was not very successful as innkeeper and went bankrupt in 1580, but under new ownership the Poortgen flourished well into the seventeenth century.

The Gulden Hand also survived the outbreak of the revolt, but in 1580 the inn was slightly damaged in a fire. Innkeeper since 1557 was Pieter Wijnholt, an immigrant from Lübeck. He exported a diverse range of goods to Hamburg and Pomerania and imported from England. This diversity suggests he also traded in commission. Clients from Hamburg traditionally knew his hostel, because it had been the center for trade with this city since nearly a century. His second wife, a local woman named Aefgen Gerritsdr, also worked as innkeeper in the Gulden Hand. Trade was not going well for them, because around 1596 the inn was sold at a compulsory sale. A year later, the house burned down during a large fire in the Warmoesstraat. The same fire also incinerated the Drie Kauwen. ⁴⁷

Relocation and Ferry Houses

Tragedies like the 1596 fire and the consequences of the Dutch Revolt shook up the catering industry in the Warmoesstraat. Although hostels were closed and innkeepers left the town, Amsterdam inns remained key elements in the organization of the trade during the Dutch Golden Age, which emerged after the “fall” of Antwerp in 1585. In recent years, historians questioned the picture of Amsterdam as central entrepôt (stapelmarkt) for the European market: the high level of information was a more important condition for the booming economy than the physical presence of merchandise. In practice, only a small portion of the merchandise was actually stored in the city because sales were often based on samples. The central information market and newly founded institutions like the stock exchange and the exchange bank stimulated intermediate trade. ⁴⁸ The “information market-theory” seems contradicted by the strong rise of new merchant warehouses (pakhuizen) in the seventeenth century and the common storage of grain in the barges that unloaded the larger merchant vessels in the Amsterdam harbor. Yet all this storage space was necessary because Amsterdam provided several sorts of markets: domestic markets, the export of Dutch products, and the international transit.

Merchandise was stacked in the newly erected warehouses, which reached a total of 1600 in 1695, but foreign merchants also stored their goods in hostels. For instance, in 1617 a German merchant sold expensive textiles to a number of local traders. At least seventeen pieces of Turkish grogram were stored in the Blanke Ham, a hostel at the Rokin near the Rotterdam ferry (Figure 4). ⁴⁹ The Blanke Ham and other inns around Rokin, Kalverstraat, and Dam all benefited from the large number of traders who visited the new Exchange in a building by Hendrick de Keyser which opened in 1611. The Exchange attracted notaries and other service providers from the neighborhood of Nieuwe Brug and Warmoesstraat to this part of the city, where the town hall was already situated. The importance of the traders for the inns became apparent in 1618. A group of innkeepers near the Exchange complained about the deterioration of their business in the preceding year. Rumors about the plague prevented foreign clients and their local business partners from visiting the public houses. ⁵⁰

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 4.

The Rotterdam ferry (Rotterdammer Veer) at the Rokin on the map of Amsterdam in 1625 by Balthasar Florisz van Berckenrode (ca. 1591–1645).

Besides the relocation to the new financial district, other changes occurred in the seventeenth-century catering industry. A distinct group of Amsterdam inns benefited from the revolutionary improvement of spatial mobility. The new regular ferry-services to almost every town in the Dutch Republic attracted large streams of travelers. Ferry houses (veerhuizen) were strategically situated near the location were the barges arrived and departed, like the Blanke Ham at the Rokin and the Wapen van Stockholm at the Kampersteiger mentioned earlier. As shown, both innkeepers also provided commercial services for their trading guests. More ferry houses were located outside the city though, because travelers saved time and troubles by avoiding a trip over the inner-city canals. At one side of the water of the Overtoom, the ferries to Leiden departed from the Hof van Holland, while at the other side the Wapen van Haarlem, later renamed Bonte Os, functioned as the ferry house for travelers to Aalsmeer (Figure 5). ⁵¹ Early eighteenth-century London inns were also concentrated around the main transport links with the surrounding region, although these were mainly highways used by stagecoaches and carrier services. As “provincial eyes in the capital” these inns functioned as transport and business centers. ⁵²

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 5.

Ferry house the Bonte Os after restoration.

Scarce evidence indicates that the combination innkeeper-agent did not vanish in the seventeenth century. The domination of Hanseatic merchants and their innkeeper-agents ended, since the Dutch started to organize the bulk of Baltic grain exports around the turn of the century. Some newcomers would also rent or buy their own house in Amsterdam. ⁵³ Yet, foreign merchants without a permanent resident in Amsterdam kept relying on innkeepers as trade representatives. At the end of the sixteenth century, Israel Johnson (Jansz) was innkeeper-agent of Englishmen who traded in cloths, timber, and other goods. ⁵⁴ Around 1606, he ran the Beurs van Londen (London Exchange), an inn in the Nes. On behalf of clients from his native country, Johnson advanced fair amounts of money to local merchants. ⁵⁵ In other Dutch cities, the combination innkeeper-agent survived as well. For instance, in the period 1597–1652 the innkeeping family Tatinghof was pivotal in the Enkhuizen ox trade. Innkeeper-agent Pieter Tatinghof received cargo on behalf of the sellers from Holstein or Denmark and provided accommodation for the oxen in stables. He also mediated in selling the cattle at the nearby fair, where he was superintendent, and advanced money and acted as surety to foreign ox traders. ⁵⁶

Amsterdam innkeepers also kept attracting clients from distinct origins. In the second half of the seventeenth century, the White Heart beyond the Old Church was popular among British merchants. Innkeeper and cook Ambrosius Wood (?–1686), originally a tailor from England, promised his clients a good meal for a reasonable price, but there is no evidence of activity in international trade. ⁵⁷ French merchants would visit hostels like Au Grand Roy de France at the Zeedijk, which was renowned for its cuisine. German merchants in Amsterdam had a wide choice of inns, mostly situated in the harbor district. Internationally acclaimed was the Koning van Zweden in the Warmoesstraat (current no. 46). In the first edition of Der verkleidete Götter-Both Mercurius, a pioneering political magazine published in Neurenberg, the flying reporter disguises himself as a commercial agent and visits this inn, which was recommended in his travel guide (Figure 6). ⁵⁸

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 6.

Cover of Der verkleidete Götter-Both Mercurius, 1674.

Competition: Coffeehouses and Lodging Houses

Amsterdam inns remained important meeting-places for stock traders. Because the opening hours of the Exchange were limited, more deals were closed in nearby hostels. During the Tulipmania of 1636–1637, most of the trade in tulip bulbs took place in public drinking houses, while later in the century share traders crowded the Kalverstraat inns, in the heart of the financial district. Between 1672 and 1678 a trading club, the “Collegie van de Actionisten,” gathered at night in the Plaats Royaal in the Kalverstraat. This concentration of traders made it easier to find business partners and the rich availability of information in the collegie reduced the traders’ search costs. ⁵⁹ These advantages existed into the eighteenth century, when the traders of the “South Sea Bubble” in 1720 assembled in the inns of the Kalverstraat, between Dam and Gapersteeg. It is noteworthy that by then there was a strong hierarchy between and even within these trading places: in the Karsseboom there were separate rooms for common traders and more decent merchants, who were allowed to use the upper floor.

The most exclusive venues of 1720 were the inn Graaf van Holland and Quincampoix, a famous coffeehouse. The emergence of this and other coffeehouses affected the Amsterdam catering business. By 1700, there were at least thirty-two coffeehouses in the city, mainly in the financial district around the Dam square. Following examples in Paris and London, certain houses were fashionably designed and attracted distinguished guests like rich merchants and intellectuals. A part of the trade shifted from inn to coffeehouse. Eager for a slice of the cake, innkeepers started to sell coffee as well, while coffeehouses also sold alcoholic beverages. Envious innkeepers even transformed their business into coffeehouses, so it can be difficult to discern the two. A main distinction with larger inns is that coffeehouses did not offer sleeping accommodation nor storage space. Playing games like backgammon, reading newspapers, smoking a pipe, and discussing politics were typical but not exclusive features of the coffeehouse. ⁶⁰

After the collapse of the South Sea Company in 1720, furious investors attacked Quincampoix in the Kalverstraat. Policemen were able to prevent the crowd from destroying the building, but these riots marked the end of the heydays of the Amsterdam coffeehouses; in 1750, only seventeen remained. Some survivors equipped their houses with a separate room for associations, which was already common for the larger inns. ⁶¹ A majority of the Amsterdam coffeehouses installed billiards to attract more public, while some inns pleased their guests with concerts and lanes for a game of bowls (kolfspel). After 1792, the kolfbanen were in decline and the cheaper billiards emerged as next popular game in Amsterdam inns. ⁶² Other than with coffeehouses, the inns were in competition with logementen and private lodgings. Merchants could also sojourn with family or friends or rent a room in one of the many logementen. In the eighteenth century, a German jurist advised travelers who resided for a long time in Amsterdam to rent a room in one of the canal side houses: this was much cheaper than taking residence in hostels. ⁶³

This competition did not harm the reputation of Amsterdam inns as centers for commercial transactions. Business deals were closed, merchants held their meetings, and innkeepers offered credit, acted as surety, accepted bills of exchange, and sometimes preserved sale contracts for their clients. ⁶⁴ Merchants continued to store commodities in the hostels, although mainly as part of regional and local trade. In 1705, a female merchant from Amsterdam bought a bale of tea from another female trader in a public house. A year later, another trader delivered a bale of cochineal at a Warmoesstraat inn, intended for a businessman from Hamburg. The same year, a merchant from Flensburg received a barrel of currants and some spices from a local seller at his hostelry. Given this petty trade, the storage space of inns must have often been crammed with merchandise. In 1710, a shipmaster from Leeds stored two thousand kilograms of corks in the basement of the Nieuwe Boterton, located in the Oude Teertuinen. A local merchant purchased this merchandise but failed to check the quality. The corks in the core of the pile were wet, so the buyer asked to cancel the deal. Innkeepers also offered transport services for their clients. In 1709, two producers of canvas from Krommenie requested an innkeeper near the Nieuwe Brug to assist them with their trade. He delivered rolls of sailcloth from his inn to the house of a Jewish merchant. ⁶⁵

Auctioning in Inns

Besides offering transport, storage, and financial services, auctioning took place in Amsterdam inns. Auctioning was one of Braudel’s “wheels of commerce,” which facilitated trade in the early modern period. Since the fifteenth century, certain inns were allowed by the town government to host these sales. Even more important than the actual sale was the information about supply and prices, transactions, and the quality of products, which the traders learned during the auctions. ⁶⁶ Only inns at the top of the hierarchy were allowed to organize auctions. Leading the list of inns from publisher Ten Hoorn was the Oudezijds Herenlogement, which happened to be his neighbor across at the Grimburgwal. This was the most prominent inn of the city, renovated around 1647 by architect Philips Vingboons. The town government accommodated their important guests here and in 1653 a British traveler praises it as “the noblest taverne in the world.” ⁶⁷ The walls of the majestic reception hall were draped with gold leather and the floor was covered with a black and white mosaic (Figure 7). Here and in the courtyard auctions were held of valuables, like paintings, curiosities, and goods from East India. Another wing of the building served as an auction for houses, manors, and other real estate. ⁶⁸ The innkeeper made a nice profit with the public sales and accommodation of prominent guests. The first tenant, the German beer merchant Albert ten Brinck, could easily afford the yearly rent of 4,400 guilder, because he presented huge bills for expenses to the town government. ⁶⁹

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 7.

Auctioning at the Oudezijds Herenlogement, engraving from 1774 by Simon Fokke (1712–1784).

In 1657, a second herenlogement was erected, in a former building of the West India Company at the Herenmarkt. The rooms of this Nieuwezijds Herenlogement were decent enough to accommodate high-ranking officials, but the inn was secondary to the Oudezijds Herenlogement. Besides a large hall, there was a public auction room where ships and timber or other goods were sold to the highest bidder. Every compulsory sale of these maritime items had to take place at the Nieuwezijds Herenlogement. The sales were beneficial for the innkeeper because they attracted large quantities of visitors. Auctions took place in the courtyard between six and nine in the evening, so food and drink were in high demand. Better-situated merchants rented a room, from where they could watch the auction and issue a command to bid through their windows. ⁷⁰ Two other classy ‘auction-inns’ were former buildings of the city militia: the Handboogdoelen at the Singel and the Kloveniersdoelen in the Nieuwe Doelenstraat. In the Kloveniersdoelen, precious stones like pearls and diamonds were auctioned, as well as household effects.

Auctions also were held in the Nieuwe Stadsherberg. This was one of three public inns, owned by the city government. These city inns (stadsherbergen) targeted less distinguished clientele than the herenlogementen or doelens. The Nieuwe Stadsherberg, a two-floor wooden building on stakes in the river IJ, was created in 1613. The inn had to lodge travelers who arrived after the port defenses (bomen) were closed. Salt and occasionally vessels were sold on the premises. After the founding of the ferry to Waterland, a new city inn was built in 1662, again on stakes in the IJ. This Nieuwe Stadsherberg eventually surpassed the old one, which was dismantled around 1750. The city treasurers rented the building for a number of years to an innkeeper. A third city inn, also named Nieuwe Stadsherberg, followed in 1688 in the Plantage district. The innkeeper had the exclusive right to vend wine in this new green neighborhood, which lured citizens looking for recreation. No auctions were held in the Plantage inn, because the stone, three-story building was too remote.

In his eighteenth-century publication on Amsterdam commerce, ⁷¹ Le Long mentions five more inns where auctions were held with official recognition by the town government, besides the herenlogementen, doelens, and stadsherbergen. Wines and brandy had to be auctioned in the Keizerskroon in the Kalverstraat, while in the Brakke Grond in the Nes, merchandise like dye, coffee, tea, spices, oil, soap, glass, leather, paper, and tobacco was sold. ⁷² The Witte Zwaan at the Nieuwendijk was famous for its timber auctions, the Burcht in the Dijkstraat for tobacco, and the Witte Molen at the Singel for paper and paintings. In other cities, auctioning also took place in hostels, in the Dutch Republic as well as abroad. ⁷³ Amsterdam innkeepers also bought their own supplies of wine and brandy at the auctions in the Keizerskroon, or they sold their stock when they closed down their business. ⁷⁴

Conclusion and Epilogue (1800–1914)

Auctioning as well as the other economic functions in Amsterdam inns survived until the end of the early modern period, around 1800. In this period, the innkeepers adapted to new demands and changing requirements. In the sixteenth century, a group of innkeepers in the Warmoesstraat participated in the emerging international trade: they acted as agents for their Hanseatic clients, as brokers, and some traded on their own behalf. After 1610, the Hanseatic “innkeeper-agents” disappeared from the stage, but innkeepers continued to assist clients in their business. The core of the catering industry relocated to the new financial district around the Dam, where traders and brokers became the regulars. Besides offering storage and transport services, meeting rooms and credit, certain innkeepers mediated between foreign and indigenous merchants. Amsterdam innkeepers strongly benefited from the growing economy, rapid population growth, and the enhanced spatial mobility, which attracted many visitors to the city, including foreign merchants without local agents. Ferry houses were strategically located near the waterways to the region, just like London inns were concentrated near the main land routes. Although there was increasing competition from trendy coffeehouses and cheap lodgings, inns maintained a strong position. With all these services and facilities, they were an indispensable link in the organization of the early modern trade. Equally, inns were important stages for political action. Openly or clandestine, they provided a platform for dissident movements, like the “doelisten” in 1748 and the patriots in the 1780s, as well as for support of the ruling government. Coffeehouses are generally regarded as notorious meeting-places for intellectual and rebellious inhabitants but, as shown, the distinction between inns and coffeehouses was predominantly nominal. For instance, the center of revolutionary activity in 1795, the Wapen van Emden, was an old inn at the Nieuwendijk (Figure 8). The history of the political significance of the Dutch inns has yet to be written. ⁷⁵

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 8.

Revolutionary activities in the Wapen van Emden at the Nieuwendijk, cartoon 1795.

The economic functions of the Amsterdam inns disappeared in the nineteenth century, although it is difficult to determine exactly when. The deterioration of the Dutch economy and the changing of the transport infrastructure stirred up the catering industry. Inns became outmoded and synonymous to “less attractive public houses” ⁷⁶ and facilitators of public drunkenness. To prevent alcohol abuse, the first Licensing Law of 1881 limited the number of public drinking houses and the surviving establishments changed their names to hotel or café. ⁷⁷ Henceforth, businessmen preferred a private club or a grand hotel, like the elegant Hotel Krasnapolsky. This was a large-scale commercial enterprise with 125 beds, not to be compared to the smaller and usually family-run early modern inns. Most likely, the emergence of specialized institutions like restaurants, auction-houses, community and trading halls, office blocks, transport companies, and financial centers overwhelmed the Amsterdam inns. In the nineteenth century, most of the larger inns disappeared, like the Oudezijds Herenlogement, which was demolished in 1874, and the Nieuwe Stadsherberg, which had to make way for the new train station. The Keizerskroon was dismantled in 1890, five years after it lost its function as a hostel. Other inns got a new function, like the Nieuwezijds Herenlogement, which in 1825 turned into a home for orphans and the elderly.

Some larger inns managed to survive a little longer but were transformed to hotels, according to the modern fashion, like the comprehensive and classy Kloveniersdoelen. Another example is the Liesveldse Bijbel in the Warmoesstraat. In 1884, this old inn was expanded, renovated and turned into the Bible Hotel, with more than hundred stylish rooms (Figure 9). The upgrading was too expensive: the building had to be sold to the exploiters of the stock exchange who were searching for a new accommodation. ⁷⁸ In 1914, their new building opened its doors (Beursplein 5). Again businessmen populated the premises of the Warmoesstraat inns, where once their early modern forerunners had traded, talked, ate, drank, and rested.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 9.

Postcard of the Bible Hotel after the renovation of 1884.