Dutch Golden Age - Social Structure

Social Structure

In the Netherlands one's social status in the 17th century was largely determined by income. Social classes existed but in a new way. The landed nobility had relatively little importance since they lived in the more underdeveloped inland provinces and it was the merchant class that dominated Dutch society. The clergy did not have much worldly influence either: the Roman Catholic Church had been more or less suppressed since the onset of the Eighty Years' War with Spain. The new Protestant movement was divided, although exercising social control in many areas to an even greater extent than under the Catholic Church.

This is not to say that aristocrats were without social status. To the contrary, it meant rather that wealthy merchants bought themselves into the nobility by becoming landowners and acquiring a coat of arms and a seal. Aristocrats also mixed with members of 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.

After aristocrats and patricians came the affluent middle class, consisting of Protestant ministers, lawyers, physicians, small merchants, industrialists and clerks of large state institutions. Lower status was attributed to farmers, craft and tradesmen, shopkeepers, and government bureaucrats. Below that stood skilled laborers, maids, servants, sailors, and other persons employed in the service industry.

At the bottom of the pyramid were 'paupers': impoverished peasants, many of whom tried their luck in a city as a beggar or day laborer. It should be noted that the people of the Netherlands rebelling against Philip II gave themselves the nickname "De Geuzen", which corresponds to the French word "gueux" (beggar).

Because of the importance of wealth in defining social status, divisions between classes were less sharply defined and social mobility was much greater than elsewhere. Calvinism, which preaches humility as an important virtue, also tended to diminish the importance of social differences. These tendencies have proved remarkably persistent: modern Dutch society, though much more secularized, is still considered by many to be remarkably egalitarian. Despite less income inequality than in other European countries, the difference between a dockworker's one-room hovel and a great merchant's mansion in Amsterdam was so obvious as to require no commentary.

Workers and laborers were generally paid better than in most of Europe and enjoyed relatively high living standards, although they also had higher than normal taxes. Farmers produced mainly cash crops for a nation that needed large amounts of foodstuffs to support its urban and seafaring population, and prospered as a result.