Dutch Golden Age

The Dutch Golden Age was a period in Dutch history, roughly spanning the 17th century, in which Dutch trade, science, and art were among the most acclaimed in the world.

Social Structure

In the Netherlands the social status in the 17th century was largely determined by income. Social classes existed but in a new way. Aristocracy, or nobility, had sold out most of its privileges to cities, where merchants and their money were dominant. The clergy did not have much worldly influence either: the Catholic Church was more or less suppressed since the onset of the Eighty Years War with Spain (1568-1648). The young Protestant church was divided. This was different from neighbouring countries where social status was still largely determined by birth and would remain so till the French Revolution.

Related Topics:
Aristocracy - Clergy - Catholic Church - Eighty Years War - Spain - 1568 - 1648 - Protestant - French Revolution

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This is not to say that aristocrats were without social status. To the contrary, it meant rather that wealthy merchants bought themselves into nobility by becoming landowners and acquiring a coat of arms and a seal. Also aristocrats mixed with members from other classes in order to be able to support themselves as they saw fit. To this end they married their daughters to wealthy merchants, became traders themselves or took up public or military office to earn a salary. Merchants also started to value public office as a means to greater economic power and prestige. Universities became career pathways to such a public office. Rich merchants and aristocrats sent their sons on a so called Grand Tour ('Great journey') through Europe. Often accompanied by a private scholar, preferably a scientist himself, these young people visited universities in several European countries. This intermixing of patricians and aristocrats was most prominent in the second half of the century.

Related Topics:
Universities - Grand Tour - Europe

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Next to aristocrats and patricians came the affluent middle class, consisting of Protestant ministers, lawyers, physicians, small merchants and industrialists, and clerks of large state institutions.

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Lower status was attributed to small shop owners, specialized workers and craftsmen, administrators, and farmers.

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Below that stood skilled labourers, house attendants and other service personnel.

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At the bottom of the pyramid were 'paupers', what Karl Marx later would call the proletariat: impoverished peasants, many of whom tried their luck in a city as a beggar or day labourer.

Related Topics:
Karl Marx - Proletariat

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Because of the importance of wealth (or the lack of it) in defining someone's social status, divisions between classes were less sharply defined than elsewhere. After all, fortune might change! Calvinism, where humility is preached as an important virtue, also had a lot to do with it. These tendencies have proved remarkably persistent. Modern Dutch society, though much more secularized, is still by many considered remarkably egalitarian.

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