Suchergebnisse

The three bellarmines - or Bartmann jugs - of the German Maritime Museum (DSM) provide information about two very different aspects of shipping. On the one hand they reveal the three important directions taken by Dutch activities in the trade of the jugs of Frechen: The location where the first one (Jug 1 from the Amrum Bank) was found points to trade around the North Sea using coastal ships, and the land in which the second (Jug 2 from Bombay) was used for centuries points to the trading activities with South and Southeast Asia engaged in by the big ships of the Dutch East India Company. The guild-mark on the latter also indicates the third focus of Dutch trade in this context: the presence of Dutch river vessels along the Rhine - the lifeline to the centre of jug production activities. The Dutch constituted, as it were, the cork in the bottleneck of the Rhine, so that everything that entered or left that river passed through their hands. Jug 1 was very probably among the cabin items of a coastal barge captain. On the other hand the function and meaning of the relief designs on the jugs have been deciphered for the first time, and thus serve as an additional historical source for evaluation. The point of departure was the favourable circumstance that Jug 3 bears evidence of the person who commissioned it. This person, who is identifiable by name, was a shipmaster also active as a merchant who functioned as a distributor for Frechen jug-makers. The guild-mark of the shipmaster on the first relief pattern denotes the first profession; the other is revealed by the mark of ownership. Similarly, identified abbreviations of names make it clear that the patterns bearing only trade marks and/or municipal coats of arms refer solely to merchants who acted as distributors and were not cargo shipmasters at the same time. In contrast, potters who worked at their own risk, without contractual obligations to a merchant, decorated their jugs with rosettes and without individual names or marks. The three jugs of the DSM thus provide us with unexpected insights into the forms of organisation employed by the people who made them, transported them by ship and traded in them worldwide, and are consequently highly revealing products of a social class that has otherwise left us with very few objects providing such distinctive information about its daily social conditions. That not only applies to Frechen. The example from Stadtlohn clearly demonstrates that relief designs of a similar type also reveal similar economic structures elsewhere.

The ownership of a copy of Chamberlain's The Accountants Guide or Merchants Bookkeeper, 1686 is traced through six famous owners from 1700 for almost a century. It is now housed in the Boston Athenalum.

Divorce by parliament in the 18th and early 19th centuries was long considered to be the preserve of the wealthy and the upper ranks of society. But while social standing has guided historians' analysis of those who obtained divorce, the standing of those who failed to obtain divorce has been largely overlooked. If rank or status is to serve true analytical purpose, the successful must be set against the failed. Juxtaposing the successes and failures by group across the period reveals that the upper echelons of society were by no means preferred. Even distinctive cases – for instance of multiple failure – were not decided on rank. Status is ultimately shown to be of limited significance. Although the sources are not at all explicit, from the analysis of certain specific cases, it would appear that moral and legal judgments (for example, on collusion) far outweighed any social prejudices.

Abstract449 inventories of deceased Damascenes around 1700 help us to approach a subject which is related to gender studies, since it allows us to compare the economic, social and even cultural domains of feminine and masculine worlds. In this society, the social differences were still signi cant, and women received a patrimony which was clearly inferior to that of men. It consisted of certain items: some real estate, but primarily jewelry and domestic goods. There are few objects that indicate public activities by women and which match men's inventories of this period. Women ruled, with more or less variety and fantasy, the furniture of the house which was used not only for rest and sleep, but also as a venue for receiving guests. 449 inventaires après décès damascènes, vers 1700, aident à aborder un sujet qui s'inscrit dans les gender studies, en permettant la comparaison entre le monde féminin et le monde masculin, dans le domaine économique, social, voire culturel. Dans cette société, où les différences sociales restent déterminantes, les femmes possèdent un patrimoine nettement inférieur à celui des hommes et dont les éléments sont bien particuliers: quelques biens immobiliers, mais avant tout des bijoux et des biens domestiques. Peu d'objets qui ouvrent vers le monde et le temps: les femmes dominent, avec plus ou moins de variété et de fantaisie, l'intérieur textile de la maison destiné aux fonctions du repos, du sommeil, mais aussi de la réception.