Position, Population and Work In The Low Countries, from "The Dutch Republic"

In order to give example for the rigorous organization found in that modern established work covering Dutch history of Jonathan I Israel (and for Oxford), a few brief extracts will suffice. Hitting the main points in a systematic way, the author takes us on a broad view of a place and a time before the great changes. Literally, paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, the ideas are broached, listed, explored and then specific details are provided to illustrate the points made. Structured, systematic exposition can be a trusted introduction in many topics, as long as it is remembered there will always be counter-examples and other aspects that are inevitably left out, usually for space considerations or the sake of clarity.

The text is plain, straighforward, though very broad in scope.This example is taken from the First Part, "The Making of the Republic, 1477-1588", and the sixth chapter is entitled, "Society Before the Revolt". Each section is given its own heading. This one is "The Land, Rural Society, and Agriculture". In these, the first paragraph will be quoted, followed by the first two sentences of the second paragraph, then the first sentence or two of each subsequent paragraph. By itself these 'headers' quoted below, give a solid overview (along with the following section 'Urbanization' which isn't covered here), which led me to this summation the other day. This is how chapter six starts.

"A broad tendency developed, from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries onwards, throughout the Low Countries towards freeing the peasantry from feudal ties and obligations. Land reclamation, and colonization of new areas, in Flanders and Brabant, as well as north of the rivers, together with the high level of urbanization, led the nobility and Church  to offer attractive terms, and free status, in order to coax peasant farmers to work newly cultivated areas (and others to remain on older land) as well as counter the attraction of migration to newly colonized regions of Germany. Thus, at a faster rate than in France or England, it became usual, in the greater part of the Netherlands, north and south to lease lands out to peasant framers, free from seigneurial control, for plain money rents."

"While seigneurial ties dissolved in the south and centre, in the northernmost areas -- Friesland, West Friesland, Groningen -- feudal forms and institutions had never gained any hold. Consequently, by 1500, the larger part of the low Countries was a country in which most of the land was held in fee simple and the bulk of the peasantry was free." [pp. 106]

...

"The whole Netherlands was thus a land of comparatively weak seigneurial control of the land, characterized, especially in the highly urbanized provinces, by a prevailing pattern of short-term leases of farms for money rents."

...

"The Orange-Nassau dynasty owned a considerable territory in northern Brabant, and along the rivers, which was handsomely expanded by William the Silent's first marriage, in 1551, to Anne of Buren, heiress to the sovereign lordships of Buren, Leerdam, IJsselstein, and Cuyck.... But apart from this, [and a couple other examples]... there were scarcely any sizable blocks of land belonging to high nobles in the north."

"It is true that inland, in the sandy-soil, more wooded, regions ... one encountered a rural society which approximated more closely to what one found in most of western Europe. Here the pull of the village was stronger, and seigneurial influence greater. But ... research has emphasized, here too rural life was les static and self-contained than was once supposed."  [p. 107; footnoting Bieleman, J., Boeren op het Drentse zand, 1600-1910 (Washington, 1987)]

...

"Most noble land in the north belonged to a relatively large number of middling and lesser nobles and was fragmented into scattered and mostly small holdings."...

"A third of the land in Holland... was owned by town-dwellers." [p 108]

"Although generally, the buying and selling of land was fluid and free from legal restrictions, for reasons of prestige, tradition, and legal status, the nobility  and Church treated land-ownership differently from independent farmers and town-dwellers, being more concerned with the social and seigneurial aspects and less willing to alienate their lands." [p. 109]

...

"Outside Friesland and Groningen... noble status was legally defined and institutionalized."...

"The areas of greatest seigneurial influence were Gelderland, the outlying parts of Brabant, both ... north and south of the main Brabant towns, and in the French-speaking southernmost provinces, particularly east Hainault, Namur, and Luxembourg. The Church too was strongly represented in those areas as well...." [p. 110]

 ...

"But by far the most striking feature of agriculture in Brabant, Flanders, Holland, Zeeland, west Urecht, Friesland and Groningen -- the highly urbanized maritime seaboard -- was its sustained intensity, versatility,  and higher crop yields than were to be found elsewhere in Europe. This was the only part of Europe which had, thus far, experienced a true 'agricultural revolution' and it was one which was already largely complete in Flanders and south Brabant by 1500."

Here is footnoted 'The Problem of the "Agricultural Revolution" in Flanders and in Belgium: Myth or Reality': CV Vandenbroeke and W Vanderpijpen in H van der Wee E van Cauwenberghe (eds.), Productivity and Agricultural Innovation in the Low Countries (1250-1800) (Leuven, 1978).
...

"As the quantity of Baltic grain imported into the Low Countries increased -- and it rose by five times between 1500-1560 -- one might have expected arable farming, at least in the north, to contract, making way for more dairy output. Several dairy products, especially cheese, were valuable export items and there was indeed a considerable growth in production. Yet paradoxically the main shift, even in Friesland, was towards an extension of arable farming, stimulated above all by the growth of the cities and needs of industry in Flanders and Brabant." [p. 111]

But the increase in agricultural production only partly explained the dramatic rise in population.

"A great many seamen and fishermen dwelt in villages rather than towns. The maritime area abounded also in bargemen, peat-diggers, and shipbuilding workers, as well as villagers employed in dike maintennance. In 1514 in south Holland, landless poor active mainly outside of agriculture already constituted a third of the rural population."

Here is footnoted J De Vries, The Dutch Rural Economy in the Golden Age 1500-1700 (New Haven, Conn., 1974).

"Dike drainage, and water regulation techniques in the low-lying zones markedly improved during the sixteenth century. A major factor here was the new windmills and the more systematic use of windmills for drainage." [p. 112]

This statement of improvements is logically followed by a list of the number of great difficulties and failures in the period when floods burst the many dikes.
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pp. 106-12. in Jonathan I Israel; Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, & Fall: 1477 - 1806 : Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998