The Burgher and the Whore: Prostitution in Early Modern Amsterdam (46 page)

102. 5061-326 f. 178, 21 Aug. 1681.

103. 5061-381 f. 230, 25 Jan. 1724.

104. Jeroen Jeroensz (= H. Sweers),
Den berg Parnas, behelzende eenige vreem- digheden die aldaar, en elders, inzonderheid aan ’t Y, by Apollo en Merkuur zijn voorgevallen
(Amsterdam, 1689), 395-6.

105. 5061-385 f. 153vo, 13 May 1727.

106. 5061-382 f. 76, 31 Aug. 1724.

107. P.
R
. D. Stokvis,‘Blauwboekjes over de verborgenheden van Den Haag, 1828-1853’,
Maatstaf
, 32 (1984), 16-26, at 21. Around this time a new coinage was introduced, the smallest denomination being one cent. See also Noordam, ‘Uit armoede’, 109-11; Paul Griffith, ‘The Structure of Prostitution in Elizabethan London’,
Continuity and Change
, 8 (1993), 39-63, at 47; Judith
R
.Walkowitz,
Prostitution and Victorian Society:Women, Class and the State
(Cambridge, 1980), 24.

108. 5061-400 f. 241, 12 Oct. 1740.

1. De Cock,
   Spreekwoorden
   , p. 235.
   

2. Cited in Böse,
   Had de mensch
   , 136. 111. 5061-398 f. 176vo, 1 May 1739.
   

1. De ongelukkige levensbeschryving
   , 112-13.
   

2. Het Amsterdamsch Hoerdom
   , 52. 114. 5061-314 f. 47vo, 18 Nov. 1661. 115. 5061-347 f. 54, 22 Oct. 1698. 116. 5061-372 f. 242vo, 21 Nov. 1715. 117. 5061-400 f. 40, 8 Mar. 1740. 118. 5061-398 f. 179, 5 May 1739.
   

119. For Leiden see Noordam,‘Uit armoede’, 110. 120. 5061-399 f. 85, 2 Sept. 1739.

121. 5061-400 f. 249, 13 Oct. 1740.

122. 5061-323 f. 134, 11 Mar. 1677.

123. 5061-352 f. 145, 29 Mar. 1703.

124. 5061-330 f. 180, 3 Oct. 1686.

125. 5061-396 f. 59, 23 July 1737.

126. UB Leiden, HS BPL 1325, f. 26 and 149vo. 127. 5061-386 f. 211vo, 7 Oct. 1728.

128. 5061-312 f. 119, 29 Aug. 1658.

129. 5061-388 f. 217vo, 9 Jan. 1731.

1. UB Leiden, HS BPL 1325 f. 26vo; Haks,‘Een wereldbeeld’, 134.
   

2. Haks,
   Huwelijk
   , 70; Groenendijk,
   De nadere Reformatie
   , 83.
   

3. Donald Haks,‘Libertinisme en Nederlands verhalend proza 1650-1700’, in Hekma and
   R
   oodenburg (eds.),
   Soete minne
   , 85-108, at 98; Herman
   R
   oodenburg, ‘“Venus Minsieke Gasthuis”, over seksuele attitudes in de achttiende eeuwse
   R
   epubliek’,
   Documentatieblad Werkgroep Achttiende Eeuw
   , 17 (1985), 119-42, at 128.
   

4. See also Noordam,‘Uit armoede’, 108.
   

5. A
   R
   A Hof van Holland 5498-20, 20 Dec. 1771.
   

6. A
   R
   A Hof van Holland 5540-15, Dec. 1787.
   

7. A
   R
   A Hof van Holland, 5525-8, 8 May 1784. 137. 5061-308 f. 295vo, 11 May 1651.
   

138. 5061-316 f. 128vo, 11 Sept. 1664.

139. 5061-380 f. 165, 1 September 1722.

140. 5061-339 f. 11, 9 April 1693.

141. Noordam,‘Uit armoede’, 108. 142. 5061-383 f. 124, 16 July 1725.

1. Van de Pol,‘Amsterdam Jews’, 181-2.
   

1. Het Amsterdamsch Hoerdom
   , 3. 145. 5061-348 f. 73, 6 Oct. 1699.
   

146.
Het Amsterdamsch Hoerdom
, 185. 147. 5061-318 f. 24vo, 8 Dec. 1667. 148. 5061-386 f. 200vo, 7 Oct. 1728.

1. De Cock,
   Spreekwoorden
   , 235.
   

2. Het Amsterdamsch Hoerdom
   , 119 and 184.
   

151. 5061-347 f. 45, 15 Oct. 1698.

152. 5061-324 f. 117, 13 Aug. 1678.

153.
Het Amsterdamsch Hoerdom
, 248. 154. 5061-344 f. 52, 27 Mar. 1697. 155. 5061-312 f. 61vo, 14 Apr. 1658.

156. 5061-310 f. 250vo, 22 Oct. 1655. Helena Spillebout and her sister figured in semi-pornographic writing of the time.

157. 5061-339 f. 68vo, 18 June 1693.

158. 5061-328 f. 98, 22 Feb. 1684.

159. 5061-344 f. 88vo, 7 June 1697; 5061-344 f. 164vo, 29 Aug. 1697.

160. 5061-360 f. 246vo, 7 Jan. 1710; 5061-361 f. 6, 15 Jan. 1710.

161.
Het Amsterdamsch Hoerdom
, 245.

162. Ibid. 258.

1. Mandeville,
   Fable of the Bees
   , 88.
   

2. De gaven van de milde St. Marten, bestaende in Kluchten, Kodderijen en andre vermakelykheden
   (Amsterdam, 1654), 4.
   

3. Diderot,
   Over Holland
   , 70.
   

4. Paasman,
   Wie will d’r mee
   , 132, trans. by Diane Webb.
   

appendix 1
‌
‌

Contemporary Writers on Amsterdam Music Houses and Prostitution

peter hajstrup, a common sailor from denmark

Travelogues were generally written by members of the elite and the major- ity of Germans who kept accounts of their travels were scholars or clergy- men.This memoir by an ordinary seaman, Peter Hansen Hajstrup, who was in Amsterdam in
1644
to sign up with the VOC, is therefore highly unusual. Hajstrup came from what was then Danish Schleswig Holstein and he wrote in German.The following is translated from Frank Ibold, Jens Jäger, and De- tlev Kraak (eds.),
Das Memorial und Jurenal des Peter Hansen Hajstrup (
1624
–
1672
)
(The Memoir and Journal of Peter Hansen Hajstrup) (Neumünster,
1995
),
65
–
6
.

On
27
August, Sunday, at
7
o’clock in the morning, I and my comrade set out to see the city of Amsterdam, where he was familiar with all the streets, and also walked outside the Hellewegs Gate; there he took us into an inn, in fact a public whorehouse. The landlady soon showed us to a pleasure garden be- hind the house, where my comrade ordered a pint of wine, which was soon brought to us by a madam so finely adorned that many would have thought her a young noblewoman. But when she came to us with the wine she sat down next to my comrade and asked him how it went with him and how he had been all this while; she said that as she saw it he had every reason to thank the dear Lord. Meanwhile she put her hand down his trousers and kept asking how he was furnished there, embracing and kissing him as she did so. Seeing this, I sat as if stricken; I did not know what I should think, since at that time I was still young and inexperienced. But when she went away I said to my comrade, ‘What kind of a place is this? I think you have brought me into a whorehouse.’ At that he answered:‘What else did you have in mind? We want a happy day of it and to have a little fun with these young ladies! Shortly another will come, who is even prettier than she.That will be the one for you.’

I said:‘No, I don’t want to stay here!’ Then the whore came back, bringing, or so she thought, one for me as well.They sat down with us, beginning to kiss and to clap. As I sat still, not turning to look at them, the whore asked me if something was wrong. I said: ‘No!’ Then she started to put her arm around me too, and since I was not used to such things and also not in agreement, I hit her in the face with my fist, so that she fell to the ground next to the table. This caused my comrade to fly into a rage, saying:‘It’s wrong of you to hit a woman.’

I answered: ‘I have hit a wanton whore, and I regard he who chooses to defend her as no better than a rogue. I will not remain in such company!’ So I paid for the wine and left. But when I went back through the Hellewegs Gate I could not find the way to my lodgings; I knew neither the name of my landlady nor the street, so I walked about the city all that day, until in the evening I came upon the old West India House and remembered it, so that I came to my lodgings again; from then on, however, I no longer kept company with my comrade.

thomas penson, an english arms painter

One of the few surviving early modern travel accounts by an ordinary Englishman was written by a painter of coats of arms,Thomas Penson (
1622
– after
1694
). In
1687
he travelled through Holland, the Southern Netherlands, and France, staying in Amsterdam for two months. His journal,
Penson’s Short Progress into Holland, Flanders and France
survives in a neat but clearly much- read manuscript. The following is taken from van Strien,
Touring the Low Countries
,
44
. Penson has just described his visit to the Spin House.

But although they have these prisons and useful places for punishing vice, yet there are also in this great city other places, which visibly encourage it. Par- ticularly the Long Cellar, which (I was informed) is tolerated by the States for the use of strangers and travellers, whereunto they may repair and have a woman to live and lie with them, so long as they stay in the country. And they will also tell you they shall be very just to you, taking care of your linen and do whatsoever is necessary to be done for you, as if she were your faithful wife (but trust them who will, for me). I was divers times there, being curious to know the customs of the place and [p.
55
] was directed by a friend in England to a captain of a ship that trades thither, to find him every day upon the Ex- change or at night in the Long Cellar. But I found him on the Exchange daily and he was so kind [as] to go with me and show me some of the customs of the country, which perhaps I had not known but by his acquaintance. But I used it with such prudence as I though might become me, being a stranger there.

I found the women generally very loving to Englishmen and would rather be a companion to them than any others.When I entered this cellar (which is a long place and where they always burn candles), I found divers women

walking about, very neat and clean dressed. So soon as I was set down, there came one of them to me and kissed me saying:‘Mijn Heer ghy sal met mijn slapen de nacht’, that is: [p.
56
] ‘Sir, you shall sleep with me tonight’. I was no sooner set but the servant brought me a rummer of wine, for which (accord- ing to the custom of the place) I presently paid six stuyvers. Then I sat and talked and drank with my lady a little while. Soon after I saw another which walked by me, I thought [her] much handsomer and to be preferred before the first, so I beckoned her and the other soon left me.This also was very free in her embraces and offered me all the kind things I could desire, inviting me home to her lodging, whither I went with her. Where so soon as I came in, her maid filled a large rummer of wine and set by me on the table.We tippled that off and was very merry with singing etc. and had another filled. Nor could I ask anything of her that she did not freely impart to me.And intreated me to stay all night, which I as decently refused as I could, with a [p.
57
] prom- ise to come to her on the morrow, which visit I ever after omitted.Thus, my curiosity led me to tread the serpent’s path, but was not stung, which I must own as a blessing from Heaven since neither importunity nor opportunity was then wanting.

william mountague, a london lawyer

William Mountague also visited the Long Cellar. His description of and reac- tion to prostitution in Amsterdam are typical of a traveller of the upper classes, certainly one who wrote for publication. This account appeared as
The De- lights of Holland, or, a three months travel about that and the other Provinces etc. etc
. (London,
1696
).

[p.
217
] We were carried to their nasty common Bawdy-House, call’d the
Long-Cellar
, (we bid ’em put
Sodom
to it), presently appear’d half a Dozen of plump Punks, ready to be employ’d, desirous to go into a Box by themselves; but we did not like this Kitchen-stuff, so we call’d for a Pint of White Wine, and gave it them, (not drinking a Drop ourselves; for the Wine, and other Licquors in those filthy Houses, is always (like their Women) good for noth- ing).We had a little Liquorish Chat; they knew us to be
English
, and said they like’d our Country-Men best of any [p.
218
] in the World; but we paid six
Stivers
for our Wine, and so took our Leaves of these Ladies.

We were immediately conducted by a Friend to a House of Pleasure, some- thing like; the Sign is, the
Hoff van Holland
, or the Court of
Holland
, and there were, in a Front-Room, below Stairs, a knot of a dozen Women, to be hir’d, but all employ’d, some working, some playing at Cards, etc.We call’d for some Ale, which being brought in Bottles, was something like (tho’ not so good as) our Cock-Ale; we paid six
Stivers
, (which is about a Penny more than an
Eng- lish
Six-pence), and treated the Ladies, who were handsomer, and better dressed than t’other; [p.
219
] however we had nothing more to say to ’em, than a little merry Tattle, so we paid, and move’d off. These Women attend the

Service of the Publick, and, when agreed with, will go where you please, and do with you what you please.These Things are conniv’d at by the Magistrates, who say, ’tis unavoidably necessary, to prevent worse Things,Violations, Rape, etc., they abounding with Strangers,Travellers, and Mariners, long absent from Women. They have many of these houses (as we were informed), between forty and fifty, they generally go under the Name and Shadow of
Musick- Houses
, but we were content with seeing but two, taking their Words for the rest; nor did we hear any Musick there.This [p.
220
]
State
makes an Advantage of these light Ladies, for each for her Admission must pay three pence; by lay- ing out of which she hopes to get more.

bernard mandeville (1670–1733), a dutch-english physician and writer

Mandeville (
1670
–
1733
) fled his native country in
1691
for political reasons. In 1700 he returned to the Republic for serveral months, staying, in his satistical and political writings he regularly presents Holland, in an idealize and exag- gerated form, as an example of rational governmental. Many foreigners ob- served prostitution in Amsterdam with Mandeville’s mainly in Amsterdam.
The Fable of the Bees, or, PrivateVices, Publick Benefits
(
1714
) in mind.The follow- ing extracts from the book are from ‘Remark H’, which discusses virtue, and ‘Remark Q’, which discusses frugality. In both cases, he is referring to Amsterdam.