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Originally published in 1980.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780691616056 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date: | 07/14/2014 |
| Series: | Princeton Legacy Library , #675 |
| Pages: | 328 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d) |
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War and Rural Life in the Early Modern Low Countries
By Myron P. Gutmann
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1980 Princeton University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-05291-5
CHAPTER 1
Magnet for Armies: The Basse-Meuse Under the Ancien Régime
This study of the impact of early modern wars on rural life in the Low Countries has as its subject the region called the Basse-Meuse, which lies between and around the cities of Liège and Maastricht, near the Meuse River. Today, the Basse-Meuse is fully integrated into the modern Netherlands and Belgium, but in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that was not the case. The dominant characteristic of the Basse-Meuse in the ancien régime was its internal diversity. As late as 1789, political control was fragmented and still determined by the accidents and favors of medieval history. We will address questions of politics in greater detail later in this chapter, but this much is certain: the area was wholly a territory of borders, a series of frontiers between great states. In an era when borderlands were subject to the aggressions of ambitious statesmen, the Basse-Meuse became strategically central to the designs of Dutch stadholders and French kings.
Although the region was fragmented politically and divided linguistically (between speakers of Dutch and Walloon French), it was quite uniform in the kind of life it offered its residents. Most of them were Roman Catholics, although Dutch Protestants appeared in Maastricht and some of the villages around it after the Dutch conquest in 1632. And most of them were agricultural workers and farmers, engaged in the various farming tasks found in an area that divided two farming regions, the Hesbaye (large cereal farms) to the west, and the Pays de Herve (small dairy farms) to the east. Despite the emphasis on farming, the region's economy was, for its time, remarkably varied and relatively full of opportunities for work outside agriculture. The problem in defining the Basse-Meuse is not finding an area of sufficient uniformity to study, but rather in drawing the outside lines of such an area. I have chosen here to study the communities near the Meuse River; they are easy to identify and they should be fully representative of a larger region.
I. Background: Government in the Basse-Meuse
The variety which characterized the Basse-Meuse was nowhere more evident than in its political structure, and it is this political structure which caused it to be dragged repeatedly into war. We will first examine that governmental structure before turning to the specific events and conditions that forced the people of the Basse-Meuse to experience so many wars. The basic question we must answer is: who were the sovereigns that divided the responsibility for governing the Basse-Meuse at the beginning of the period we are studying, in 1620? Then we can turn to the meaning of that sovereignty and the reasons why the Basse-Meuse saw so many armies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the fact which makes it so appropriate for a study of war's impact.
The Principality of Liège, which controlled more than half the area, was the dominant sovereign and power in the Basse-Meuse under the ancien régime. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the principality had become something of an anomaly in the Low Countries. First, it was the only significant ecclesiastical principality remaining in the area. Also, within the borders of what are now Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxemburg, it was the only substantial governmental unit not incorporated into either the Dutch Republic or the Spanish Netherlands. Of those portions of the Low Countries which retained some allegiance to the Holy Roman Empire, Liège alone was a member of the administrative Circle of Westphalia; all of the others were members of the Circle of Burgundy. Furthermore, only Liège was formally neutral in international disputes.
Two other sovereigns controlled portions of the Basse-Meuse in 1620 (see Map 1.2). In reality, the King of Spain ruled through two administrative units: one a conglomerate which consisted of the Duchy of Limbourg and the three "Lands Beyond the Meuse," and the other the Duchy of Brabant. The Emperor stood as direct sovereign over several communities and remained in theory the ultimate suzerain over them all. The city of Maastricht was a special case, governed by a "condominium" of Liège and Brabant (Spain), which shared sovereignty and divided administrative and judicial responsibilities. Defense of the city was left in the hands of the Spanish, who maintained a garrison there in the early seventeenth century.
After the settlement of the Thirty Years' War, yet a fourth sovereign entered the picture. The Dutch conquered Maastricht in 1632 and occupied a portion of the Spanish "Lands Beyond the Meuse." The settlement of the war ultimately transferred to them sovereignty over some of the formerly Spanish Basse-Meuse.
What did this sovereignty mean? The various states that controlled the Basse-Meuse were technically in command of the lives of the area's residents. The Princes of the princely states – the Prince of Liège and the King of Spain (usually acting through a governor in Brussels) – or, later, the Estates General of the Dutch Republic (for the new Province of Dutch Limburg) – made laws and administered the higher levels of justice. They consulted with their estates, one representing the Principality of Liège, and others the Spanish "province" of the "Lands Beyond the Meuse" and the Dutch "province" of Limburg, who together with the prince determined taxes. Moreover, the sovereign (Prince or Estates General) had the right to determine foreign policy and otherwise carry on the affairs of government. Since the Principality of Liège was the major sovereign of the Basse-Meuse, we will, to a certain extent, concentrate on the history and experience of that Principality. Still, except for their relations with foreign powers in time of war, there was very little to distinguish between the citizens of one state or another. And, as we will see in later chapters, even in wartime little separated the experience of Spanish subjects, for example, from that of Liège's subjects.
One possible difference from sovereign to sovereign was law, but while distinct legal customs distinguished the areas of different sovereigns, they were not starkly dissimilar. Nor did laws or borders constitute solid barriers to movement or to interaction among the citizens of the area. Local notaries often practiced under the laws of two or more sovereigns. Residents of Liègeois villages owned or leased land in villages subject to the King of Spain or the Dutch Republic, and actively farmed them. Being all borders, the region became all the more homogenous because the fragmentation of the political process removed governmental actions still farther from the lives of the mass of the people.
While they might appreciate the relative privileges offered by one sovereign over another, at least in terms of low taxes, political neutrality, or an agreeable religion, most citizens of the Basse-Meuse had little to do with sovereigns and central governments. If any government concerned them, it was that of their village or town. Before the reorganization of the 1790's, at the time of the French regime (1794-1815), most of the residents of the Basse-Meuse lived in small-to-medium-sized seigneurial villages. Only two communities, Dalhem and Vise, had their origins in ancien régime towns, with democratic constitutions, independent of a lord's control. Throughout the Basse-Meuse, however, local governments were remarkably uniform in their basic organization, no matter who their sovereign was, or whether they were a constituted town or merely a seigneurial village.
The basic elements of local government in the ancien régime, as in the middle ages or today, were justice and taxes. Not all justice was administered at the local level. There were certain matters that were outside the jurisdiction of local courts, such as capital crimes and a variety of other criminal and civil matters. Such cases were handled by courts of appeal and higher instance, in accordance with the procedures of the larger judicial units established by each region's sovereign. In the seigneurial villages, justice was administered by a local court – usually consisting of seven members – appointed by the seigneur. Similar courts existed in the towns, but their prince appointed the members of the court.
Taxation was more important than justice. All the sovereigns except the Holy Roman Emperor raised taxes from their citizens. These taxes paid for the mechanisms of government administration, of defense and war, and of the princely entourage. Yet nowhere in the Basse-Meuse were taxes expecially high, at least if compared with those levied by France and Spain in the seventeenth century. The Principality of Liège had no army and until the eighteenth century very little government. Even the Spanish Netherlands were not heavily taxed, since they could rely on their formal administrative independence from Spain to withstand such demands. Only the Dutch Republic – a sovereign in the Basse-Meuse after 1660 – was a major military power in the second half of the seventeenth century. That might have called for high taxes, but it seems that the Dutch consciously under-taxed their newly acquired territory to compensate for the devastation of the Thirty Years' War.
Still, some tax revenue had to be raised. Local estates divided the needs of the central government among clergy, nobility, and commons; then each group divided its share among its members, roughly according to wealth. Finally, individual communities divided that burden, together with local needs, among their tax-paying citizens. They collected a variety of taxes, on property, on persons, and on consumption. In Chapter II, I will discuss some of the ways that more extensive taxes were raised to pay for the damage and demands of war.
This group of communities, with their variety of governments, saw armies all too frequently in the turbulent years from 1620 to 1750. Too many things happened in those years to narrate here. Rather, important events, especially those of a military and political nature, are set out in a Chronological Table (Appendix A). To summarize, military action took place in the Basse-Meuse during every major war in the period – the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648, with important action in the Basse-Meuse during 1632-1638); the Dutch War (1672-1679); the War of the League of Augsburg (1688-1697); the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714); and the War of the Austrian Succession (1741-1748, in the Basse-Meuse, 1746-1748). Moreover, the region usually felt even minor wars, such as the Franco-Spanish continuation of the Thirty Years' War (1648-1659), the War of the Devolution (1667-1668), the War of the Reunions (1683-1684), and the War of the Polish Succession (1733-1735).
What brought armies to the Basse-Meuse in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? It was only infrequently to fight battles. The armies of the age met head-on only rarely. Only two battles were fought in the Basse-Meuse itself (Haccourt, 1746, and Laeffelt, 1747), and only three or four within fifty kilometers. Generals preferred sieges and the occupation of fortresses and cities. The City of Liège had two fortresses, and, while it was technically neutral, foreign troops often occupied them during wartime. Maastricht was, as we shall see, even more of a prize. There were four major sieges of Maastricht between 1620 and 1750, each bringing a substantial army into the region to surround the town and prepare the siege.
Far more important than battles or sieges for the people of the Basse-Meuse were the less strategically formal reasons why armies came to visit. First, armies had to travel and the Basse-Meuse was a speedy route for armies travelling both north-south and east-west. Second, while armies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries did not fight in the winter, they no longer disbanded. Rather, at the end of the campaigning season, they attempted to find a place to make a winter camp. Armies in transit and winter camps, rather than battles and sieges, were the real scourge of the people of the Basse-Meuse.
Still, two characteristics of the region distinguished the Basse-Mosan people from others who lived near the line of march. First, the region was rich in both grain and the industrial goods necessary to supply armies. An army that camped near the City of Liège could usually count on being well fed and well equipped for its next campaign. Second, the region had no way to keep armies out. Although the Principality of Liège was nominally neutral, it was no Switzerland. Flat, virtually unarmed, and riven by internal disputes, the Principality could not resist being crossed or occupied, frequently with dire consequences for its finances and its citizens.
These three reasons for the attractiveness of the Basse-Meuse and the larger Liègeois region will be the subject of the rest of this chapter. Because it follows from the preceding discussion of sovereignty and government, we will first address the issue of Liège's neutrality and the divisions in the Liègeois state. Then, we will explore geo-political considerations and the question of Maastricht. Finally, we will describe the economy of the Basse-Meuse and show how its relative richness contributed to the region's magnetic lure for the armies of the ancien régime.
II. Liège's Neutrality and the Princes of Liège
Liègeois neutrality originated in the fifteenth century. As Burgundian power grew at the end of the middle ages, Liège resisted attempts to bring it under a Burgundian "protectorate." Only after the sack of Liège by Burgundian troops in 1468 did the city give in. But Charles the Bold died in 1477, and his heirs could not hold Liège.
Relieved of Burgundian domination, the Liègeois Estates and the Prince-Biship declared their neutrality in international disputes. It was a declaration of weakness, designed to remove them from their continuing precarious position between France and Burgundy. Although the King of France and the Burgundian Duke of Brabant finally agreed to respect Liègeois neutrality in 1492, that agreement was by no means definitive. The character of Liègeois neutrality developed over more than a century of difficult tests. It became especially strained during the Netherlands Revolution, when the Principality seemed to stand between an aggressive United Provinces and an angry Spain. The ultimate test of Liègeois neutrality took place in the seventeenth century in a series of wars between the Dutch Republic, France, and the Habsburgs.
The neutrality of the Principality of Liège ought to have prevented the occupation of any Liègeois territory by any foreign army, prevented billeting, and prevented the kind of exactions by contribution that we will describe in Chapter II. Moreover, the mere crossing of Liègeois territory by an army was an abridgment of that neutrality unless the Prince of Liège gave his consent. Even when permission was granted, foreign troops were supposed to reimburse the civilian population fully for all costs and destruction.
Its neutrality born in weakness, the Principality of Liège never had the strength to protect itself. Given its strategic location, the great powers and their generals rarely thought it in their interests to respect Liègeois neutrality. Only force could keep them out. But Liège raised only one army of any significance. In the early 1690's, during the War of the League of Augsburg, she had perhaps 6,000 men under arms, and that was grossly inadequate for protection. The roughly contemporary battle of Neerwinden, fought in 1693, brought together a combined total of 130,000 French and Allied troops. Rural and urban militias, even with the occasional aid of Bavarian armies allied to the Prince of Liège, rarely succeeded in keeping foreign armies away. The all-too-frequent solution was to allow the foreign troops to enter the principality, and to hope they would leave soon.
Diplomacy was an alternative to force, but effective negotiation was frequently impossible. Besides the principality's weakness, there were the clashing interests of the Prince and his citizens. The Bishops of Liège were not only Prince and Bishop of the principality, but all too often allies, agents, and members of the great European families. In the seventeenth century, the principality was almost continuously ruled by a series of younger sons of the Bavarian Wittelsbachs, who usually also held the neighboring and more important archepiscopal electorate of Cologne, and who spent much of their time in Bonn or Cologne. It is not surprising to discover that these Bishops of Liège ignored the interests of their subjects or, worse yet, attempted to use their position to advance personal or dynastic interests. Kings and Emperors courted their favor, attempting to convince the Bishops of Liège to come to their aid, if only by permitting troops to cross through the principality without opposition. The Princes were often persuaded by bribes, promises of advancement for their family, or simply by misplaced feelings of loyalty to the Emperor. In the second half of the seventeenth century, three Liègeois Bishops entered wars, hopelessly compromising their neutrality.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from War and Rural Life in the Early Modern Low Countries by Myron P. Gutmann. Copyright © 1980 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents
- FrontMatter, pg. i
- Table of contents, pg. vii
- List of illustrations - maps - tables - figures, pg. ix
- Abbreviations used in notes and bibliography, pg. xi
- A note on measures and moneys, pg. xii
- Acknowledgments, pg. xv
- Introduction: War and other crises in early modern life, pg. 3
- I. Magnet for Armies: the Basse-Meuse Under the Ancien Régime, pg. 9
- II. “God Preserve us From Living Through Times of War”, pg. 31
- III. The Burden Lightens, pg. 54
- IV. The Farmers: Short-Circuiting Agricultural Production, pg. 75
- V. Prices and the Liégeois Food Supply in Time of War, pg. 111
- VI. The Specter of Depopulation, pg. 133
- VII. The Victims: Death and Military Action, pg. 151
- VIII. The Survivors: Childbearing and Marriage, pg. 174
- IX. The Impact of War in Perspective, pg. 196
- A. A Chronology of Military and Political Events in the Basse- Meuse, pg. 211
- Β. An Index of Extreme Behavior, pg. 231
- C. Index Values for Grain Prices, pg. 233
- D. Correlation Coefficients for Variables Describing Life in the Basse-Meuse, pg. 237
- E. Methods for Correcting Incomplete Parish Register Data, pg. 241
- Notes, pg. 242
- Bibliography, pg. 279
- Index, pg. 304