PUBLIC FINANCE, TRADE AND STATE FORMATION:
THE ARCHIVE OF THE STATES OF HOLLAND, c. 1445-1572
State Archives of South Holland, The Hague
On microfilm
The States and their Archive
The States of Holland were world famous in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as representative of the most powerful province of the Dutch Republic. Their appointed spokesman, the Grand Pensionary or Lands-advocaat was the equal of the chief ministers of the surrounding monarchies. The Dutch Republic and its institutions have received ample scholarly attention for these, among many other reasons. But equally deserving of attention is the period preceding this "takeoff" of the tiny country on the North Sea, when the foundations for later prominence were laid by the States of Holland and the regent representatives of its constituent members: the major cities of the province, including Amsterdam, Haarlem, Leiden, Dordrecht, Delft and Gouda.
The county of Holland in the fifteenth century was under the sovereignty of the Dukes of Burgundy, later transferred to the House of Habsburg through the marriage of Mary of Burgundy to Maximilian of Austria. Their grandson would be the Emperor Charles V, the most powerful ruler of early modern Europe. The constant need for money to pursue dynastic wars in Europe led to many demands for subsidies from the subject provinces, which were usually met in the form of beden (in Dutch) or aides (in French), levies that were collected by the sovereign's officials following various traditional schemes of apportionment.
Financial revolution
In the early sixteenth century, however, Holland in particular experienced a precocious development in the field of public finance. In return for agreeing to various new taxes on income and property, the States of Holland won the right to sell renten, annuities for one or more lives, which served as instruments of public debt to finance the tax payments and subsidies owed to the Habsburg monarch.
Renten became institutionalized in Holland and added to the power of the States. When the break with the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs under Charles V's son Philip II came in the late 1560s and early 1570s, the province was able to stand on its own and finance a long struggle (the Eighty Years War) against the Spanish Monarchy precisely because its financial structure was so robust and it could raise the necessary funds for troops and supplies.
Types of documents
This astonishing financial revolution, and many other subjects, can be followed in the papers preserved from the Archive of the States of Holland up to 1572. The great majority of documents have to do with taxation in its various forms, the renten, trade, including relations with important trading partners such as the cities of the Hanseatic League, and relations with the sovereign. Also included are papers of the first Grand Pensionaries.
Importance of tax rolls
A particularly abundant source in this archive is formed by the many tax rolls (kohieren in Dutch) which provide many sorts of precious information for
— local history
— genealogy
— tax history
— economic history
— social history
Other documents
There are other papers present concerning the local wars against the then-independent ecclesiastical principality of Utrecht in the 1480s and 1490s; accounts of local excises on wine, beer and salt; maritime affairs; justice and water management.
Also available
Indexes to the Archives of the States of Holland, 1524-1795
1. Indexes to the Public Resolutions (1524-1795)
Order no.: M101
Price: € 865
2. Indexes to the Secret Resolutions (1653-1795)
Order no.: M102
Price: € 140
3. Indexes to the resolutions of the Gecommitteerde Raden (executive committee) of the States of Holland in the Zuiderkwartier (1621-1795)
Order no.: M103
Price: € 1,315
Special price complete set (3 parts): € 2,085
(total separately € 2,320)