The Burgher and the Whore: Prostitution in Early Modern Amsterdam

280 Pages·2011·1.22 MB·English

by  Lotte van de Pol

R R R
THE BU GHE AND THE WHO E
Frontispiece to D’Openhertige Juffrouw, of d’ontdekte geveinsdheid , ii (Leiden, c.1681).
T H E BU R G H E R
AND THE
W H O R E
PROSTITUTION IN EARLY
MODERN AMSTERDAM
LOTTE VAN DE POL
Translated by Liz Waters
1
1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp
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© Lotte van de Pol 2011
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First published 2011
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Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
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ISBN978–0–19–921140–1
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Introduction 1
Prostitution and whoredom 4
The sources 7
About this edition 14
1. ‘Amsterdam is the Academy of Whoredom’:
Prostitutes, Brothels, and Music Houses 18
Prostitutes by type 19
Courtesans and kept women 22
Women and men as organizers 24
Whorehouses 2 7
Music houses 2 9
Urban expansion and the introduction of street-lighting 3 4
Music houses and offi cial policy 36
Violence in music houses 39
The elite turns its back on the music houses 40
2. ‘Whores and scoundrels always talk of their honour’:
Honour, Prostitution, and the Respectable Citizenry 4 3
Criteria of honour 46
Female honour and male honour 48
Honour and disgrace in linguistic usage 49
The ‘theft of honour’ 50
The margins of society 52
Neighbourhood confl icts over prostitution 56
Acceptance of prostitution? 62
The Jonkerstraat and the Ridderstraat 64
3. ‘The caterpillar in a cabbage, the canker in the leg’:
Attitudes to Prostitution, Prostitutes, and Women 6 7
Abhorrence of ‘silent’ whores 69
vi contents
From caring mother to punishing father 70
Syphilis, or the great pox 74
Women as born whores 76
Het Amsterdamsch Hoerdom and D’Openhertige Juffrouw 79
Changes in the eighteenth century 81
The female perspective 86
The male perspective 88
4. ‘The world cannot be governed with a Bible in
the hand’: Prosecution Policies and Their Background 9 1
Legislation 92
The judicial apparatus and legal proceedings 93
Remanding in custody 94
Punishments 95
The Spin House as symbol and reality 97
Prosecution policy in fi gures 102
The municipal authorities and the Reformed Church 1 04
Government and parental authority 107
Some prosecution trends 111
The reasoning behind the policy 112
5. ‘The devil! I must have money for this’: The Dark
Side of Prosecution Policy 116
Pecuniary interest 118
The characters of the bailiff and his men 120
The police and the people 122
Buying off charges of adultery 125
The extortion case of 1739 128
Deputy Bailiff Schravenwaard and the West Frisian
hay-farmer 131
Profi ts and punishments 133
The case of Deputy Bailiff François Spermondt 134
Was the Amsterdam police force corrupt? 137
6. ‘Birds of a Feather Flock Together’: Prostitutes,
Clients, and Seafaring 141
Profi le of prostitutes 142
Work, origins, and migration in context 144
A harlot’s progress 147
Amsterdam’s surplus of women 149
Clients 152
contents vii
Prostitutes and VOC sailors 155
Seafaring 1 58
Sailors’ wives 160
7. ‘Miraculous tricks, to earn a living by idling’:
Sex for Money and Money for Sex 166
Terms of employment in prostitution 169
Debt 171
Clothes 176
Finding customers 182
Negotiations 186
Money for sex 187
Sex for money 191
Earnings 1 95
In conclusion 199
Notes 201
Appendix1. Contemporary Writers on Amsterdam
Music Houses and Prostitution 232
Appendix2. Trials for Prostitution in Amsterdam by Decade, 1650–1749 239
Appendix3. Dutch Currency of the Early Modern Period 240
Bibliography 241
Index 259
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List of Illustrations
Cover: The Prodigal Son (1622). Painting by Gerard van Honthorst
(1592–1656)
page ii: Frontispiece to D’Openhertige Juffrouw, of d’ontdekte geveinsdheid, ii
(Leiden, c.1681)
1. Prince Eugene of Savoy in Madame Thérèse’s brothel on the
Prinsengracht, c.1720. Pen-and-ink drawing by Cornelis Troost
(1696–1750)
2. The Spin House on the corner of the Oudezijds Achterburgwal
and the Spinhuissteeg. From H istorische beschryving der stadt Amsterdam
(1663)
3. Interior of a music house. From L e Putanisme d’Amsterdam, the French
version of Het Amsterdamsch Hoerdom (1681)
4. The interior of the music house De Pijl in the Pijlsteeg, late eighteenth
century
5. A Dutch Abbess and Her Nymphs. Print by Thomas Rowlandson
(1756–1827), 1797.
6. Frontispiece to Le Putanisme d’Amsterdam (1681)
7. The Proposition,1631. Painting by Judith Leyster (1609–60)
8. The workroom in the Spin House. From Tobias van Domselaer,
Beschryvinge van Amsterdam (1665)
9. The workroom in the Spin House, second half of the seventeenth
century. Drawing by Francoys Dancx (? – c .1703)
10. The Regents and Regentesses of the Spin House,(detail). Painting by
Bartholomeus van der Helst (1613–70), c.1650
11. VOC sailor dancing with his sweetheart. Mezzotint by Jacob Gole
(1660–1737) after Cornelis Dusart (1660–1704), c.1700