Pioneering in Penology: The Amsterdam Houses of Correction in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries [Reprint 2016 ed.] 9781512806397

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
Illustrations
I. Punishments in Old Amsterdam
II. The Wellsprings of Reform
III. Plans and Proposals
IV. The Rasphuis and Its Administration
V. The Prisoners
VI. The Labor Program
VII. Welfare and Discipline
VIII. The Rasphuis and Its Visitors
IX. The “Private” Section
X. The Spinhuis
XI. The Imitators
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

PIONEERING IN PENOLOGY

PIONEERING IN THE AMSTERDAM HOUSES OF CORRECTION IN THE SIXTEENTH SEVENTEENTH

AND

CENTURIES

By THORSTEN

SELLIN

Philadelphia University o f Pennsylvania Press

Copyright 1944 U N I V E R S I T Y OF P E N N S Y L V A N I A

Manufactured

PRESS

in the United States of America

Published in Great Britain, India, and Pakistan by the Oxford University Press London, Bombay, and Karachi

To AMY

PREFACE IN the story of punishment, the institutions described in this monograph hold a significant place, yet their role in shaping the history of prisons has not hitherto been explored by any American or English historian of institutions. In vain do we look for even a mention of them in works like George Ives' A History of Penal Methods or in the older pioneer writings of E. C. and F. H. Wines. With one or two exceptions, even the many textbooks of criminology published in the United States in the last two decades ignore them. This is understandable when we consider that except for brief and cursory references in rather inaccessible Continental works of the eighteenth century, the "rediscovery" of the Amsterdam houses of correction did not occur until 1898, when Robert von Hippel published his splendid article about them in the Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft. Hippel established once for all the contribution of the Dutch municipalities of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries to the rise of correctional imprisonment. It is largely to Hippel's study, which came to the author's notice nearly twenty years ago, that he owes an abiding interest in the history of punishment. M a n y scholars abroad were equally inspired by it, and a number of monographic studies of local German penal institutions by Hippel's own students at Göttingen resulted from it. Hallema's excellent researches into the history of the Dutch houses of correction might never have been made without the stimulus of Hippel's investigations. Were it not for the wealth of new data uncovered in the last forty years and the absence of any adequate description of the Amsterdam houses of correction in the English language, this monograph might appear to be a mere threshing of old straw. T h e reasons just offered are believed sufficient justification, however, for writing their story anew. It has been a pleasant

PREFACE task even though the author has been unable to do full justice to it. Perhaps everyone who attempts to seize a portion of the pulsating life of a past era feels the same disappointment. Nevertheless, this monograph is presented in the hope that it will prove of interest to penologists at least and will demonstrate that the history of punishment is well worth exploration. T. S. Philadelphia, April 1944

CONTENTS Chapter PREFACE I. II.

Page viii

P U N I S H M E N T S IN OLD A M S T E R D A M

1

T H E WELLSPRINGS OF R E F O R M

9

III.

PLANS AND PROPOSALS

23

IV.

T H E RASPHUIS AND ITS A D M I N I S T R A T I O N

31

T H E PRISONERS

41

T H E LABOR PROGRAM

49

W E L F A R E AND DISCIPLINE

61

T H E RASPHUIS AND ITS VISITORS

76

T H E " P R I V A T E " SECTION

80

T H E SPINHUIS

87

V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI.

T H E IMITATORS

102

BIBLIOGRAPHY

111

INDEX

121

ILLUSTRATIONS

ENTRANCE T O T H E RASPHUIS IN 1783 From Fouquet's Nieuwe Atlas . . .

Facing page 32

COURTYARD OF T H E RASPHUIS IN 1614 From Historie van de wonderlijcke mirakelen . . .

33

COURTYARD OF T H E RASPHUIS IN 1611 From Pontanus' Historische beschrijvinghe . . .

68

COURTYARD OF T H E RASPHUIS IN 1694 From Commelin's Bescbryvinge van Amsterdam

69

A T E A M OF RASPERS AT WORK From Dapper's Historische beschryving

86 . . .

T H E SPINHUIS IN 1783 From Fouquet's Nieuwe Atlas . . .

87

COURTYARD OF T H E SPINHUIS IN 1783 From Fouquet's Nieuwe Atlas . . .

94

WORKROOM OF T H E SPINHUIS IN 1783 From Fouquet's Nieuwe Atlas . . .

95

-Ο^Ξ)1 e^SL

PUNISHMENTS IN OLD AMSTERDAM As the sixteenth century rolled to its close, the corner of northwest Europe occupied by the United Provinces of the Netherlands was witnessing the rise of a merchant commonwealth which was for a while to dominate the markets of the world and give lasting contributions to the arts of living. In the largest of its cities, Amsterdam—by modern standards a relatively small community—the farsighted burghers established two institutions which became the models for countries f a r and near. They were houses of correction, or tuchthuisen, one for men commonly referred to as the rasphuis and one for women known as the spinbuis. Created to meet a pressing social problem, they were based on a penal philosophy which bore the stamp of Renaissance and Reformation alike. They were concrete symbols of a gathering revolt against the sanguinary and dishonoring penalties of the past, and while from the point of view of modern penology they were modest and timid rebels against tradition, there was a magnificence about them which is often attached to the work of pioneers. The great empire of Charles V included the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands. Of these, the southern provinces were the more important during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. They were the proud possessors of the greatest market and banking centers of the contemporary world, Bruges and Antwerp. In their towns and villages flourished the textile industries which were largely responsible for their wealth. T h e spread of Calvinism, especially in the northern provinces, 1

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PIONEERING IN PENOLOGY

coupled with a movement for self-government, in which the merchant towns played a dominant part, finally grew into a revolt which at first seemed likely to result in independence for all the provinces. The repressive measures taken by Philip II and the punitive occupation of the country by the Duke of Alva interrupted this trend. The northern provinces rallied under William of Orange and succeeded in establishing themselves as a federation with a republican form of government through the Union of Utrecht in 1579. But the southern provinces were lost. Years of brutal repression, the sack of Antwerp, the impoverishment of town and country alike, broke the rebellion. From Bruges and Antwerp, merchants, brokers, and bankers moved northward, and the cities and towns of the seven northern provinces blossomed. The golden age of Amsterdam was dawning. In a few decades it was to become the center of trade on the Continent, the owner of thousands of ships plying the five oceans in search for wares, the home of capitalists and industrious burghers, great artists patronized by the rich, and great thinkers like Spinoza, who found the city a congenial place for a philosopher because their mad rush for wealth caused its citizens to ignore him completely, leaving him in peace with his books. The sudden prosperity of Amsterdam was reflected in its growth of population, its surburban expansion, its architectural embellishments, its patrician homes. It became Antwerp's successor as "the flower of the North," and visitors marveled at its beautiful buildings, its quaint customs, its spotless cleanliness, its sturdy people, and its bustling life. The criminal law which had governed Amsterdam before it achieved its freedom from Spanish domination was as harsh as the times. Corporal and capital punishments were frequent, and judicial torture was an integral part of the court procedure. Jacobus Koning 1 has drawn the best picture of these penalties and practices. The administration of justice was in the hands of a scbout, or 1 Geschiedkundige aanteekeningen betrekkelijk de lijfstraffelijke regtsoefening te Amsterdam; voornamelijk in de jestiende eeuw. Except where otherwise indicated, the data in the next few pages are summarized from the first ninety-five pages of this work.

P U N I S H M E N T S IN A M S T E R D A M

3

high bailiff, assisted by a deputy and an adequate number of constables, and of seven schepenen, or magistrates, whose n u m ber was raised to nine in 1560. Those charged with crime were held in the St. Olof's Gate, commonly called the Boeijen, i. e., the chains. If the offender did not voluntarily confess his crime, he was subjected to torture. Koning cites the case of an A n a b a p t i s t tortured in 1571. T h e offender, he says, . . . was blindfolded, his hands were tied together and he was pulled up [by a rope] and left suspended . . . undressed and severely beaten with rods. . . . He was then conducted to the rack . . . and beaten with rods, urine was poured into his mouth and burning candles held under his armpits. He was then stripped naked, his shirt was tied about his loins, and he was again strung up by the hands, with weights attached to his feet. . . . Everybody left the room and when they returned after a while they told him derisively that if he did not want to give any names [of his accomplices] they would continue to torture him all day. . . . Shortly he had been so maltreated that he could not walk but had to be carried on a chair. 2

T h e torture was applied in a room adjoining the court c h a m b e r and was occasionally repeated. After 1578, Koning f o u n d no evidence t h a t a prisoner was subjected to it more t h a n once, b u t it was not abolished in the N e t h e r l a n d s until 1798, though it h a d apparently almost disappeared long before t h a t time. 3 T h e p u n i s h m e n t s of the guilty were of a variety of kinds. T h e lash was a common penalty f o r both men and women, y o u n g or old. As a rule, the whipping occurred on the scaffold which stood in front of the city hall, the public executioner officiating or in his absence one of the constables. In 1578 and 1586, records were found of boys being whipped indoors, p r o b a b l y because of their youth. Occasionally the whippings occurred elsewhere. In 1540 one offender was whipped in the school on the " N e w Side" in the presence of the scholars, and in 1570 one was similarly punished in the o r p h a n a g e before the assembled children. Those who h a d 2

Ibid., p. 14, based on Van Braght's Martelaers Spiegel der Doopigejinden. P. Van Heijnsbergen, De Pijnbank in de Nederlanden, p. 144. In 1796, a prisoner was ordered to be tortured, but he confessed before it was applied. Koning, op. cit., p. 17. 8

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transgressed the ordinances governing transients in the shelters or "bayerds" attached to the hospitals were usually whipped inside these shelters.4 Branding was also a common penalty. Sometimes the mark was seared on forehead, cheek, or shoulder, sometimes a glowing iron was pulled across the naked body. 5 Mutilating punishments were far from rare. The last record of anyone losing an ear was dated 1650. As late as 1617 a man was sentenced to have his eyes pierced. Numerous instances of nose-slitting occurred, and as late as 1730 this penalty was still in use. Piercing the tongue with a hot iron was the punishment established by an ordinance of 1517 for slander against the government or the nobles or for spreading bad or false tidings. A case was reported as late as 1708. Now and then a thumb or an arm would be removed. The last case in Amsterdam of the cutting off of a thumb occurred in 1748, but in 1773 the instructions prepared for the public ex4 G. Hellinga, "Een en ander over Bayerds in het algemeen en over dien van het Amsterdamsche St. Pieters-Gasthuis in't bijzonder," Jaarb. v. h. Genootschap A mstelodamum, 23:93-104, 1926. These shelters for poor travelers or residents were as old as the hospitals. Some were open all year, others during the winter only. Usually no one was allowed more than three days' lodging or was permitted to return for a certain period. It was the transgression of these rules which led to the offender's being sentenced to whipping by the magistrates. T h e common usage of referring to such offenders as gasthuisboeven, i. e., hospital criminals, misled Koning (op. cit., p. 33) into believing that hospitals were sometimes used as places of confinement for persons accused of crime or sentenced to imprisonment. T h a t professional beggars found these shelters useful is an established fact. T h e investigation following the arrest of such a beggar in Arnstadt, Germany, in 1592, uncovered the names of some seventy-five persons associated with him who all begged by using forged letters. Many of them had criminal records. Most had "fire-letters," i. e., letters purporting to be issued by some church or municipal officer authorizing them to beg money for some family that had lost its home by fire or for themselves for the same reason, others claimed to be the "poor wives of ministers," "sick," "noble soldiers," or "poor schoolteachers." T h e schoolteachers of three or four named communities and a goldsmith in Magdeburg had forged these letters. Those beggars formed a "guild" and their meeting places were mostly "spitals" in twenty named towns. See Herbert Koch, "Vom mitteldeutschen Jaunertume des 16. Jahrhunderts." Monats, f . Kriminalbiol. und Strajrechtreform, 30:441-45, September 1939. 5 Montague, who witnessed such penalties being imposed in 1696, stated that the brand consisted of three X marks, the arms of Amsterdam, placed between the shoulders, and that the stripes were made with a red-hot sword. Whipping, he wrote, was by large birch branches, the executioner slashing "backwards and forwards" for several minutes. William Montague, The Delights of Holland, or a three months travel about that and the other provinces . . . , pp. 173, 175-78.

PUNISHMENTS IN AMSTERDAM

5

ecutioner of Gelderland still referred to some of these punishments. Capital punishments were either simple or aggravated, i. e., expeditious or prolonged and painful. The ordinary forms of the simple executions were beheading with a sword and hanging. Occasionally men sentenced to the stake for heresy were given the right to die by the sword if they confessed their errors and returned to the arms of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1578 a sentence of hanging imposed on a youthful criminal was changed to beheading "considering the honest character of his parents." As elsewhere, beheading was evidently regarded as a less dishonoring penalty. It was apparently reserved for murderers, while thieves, burglars, and women guilty of any one of these crimes were hanged. There are records of women hanged as late as in 1723, 1725, and 1748. Burning at the stake was apparently not used after 1549, since Koning makes no mention of any later instance. Drowning was at one time a popular form of the death penalty. In 1535 twenty-eight women, bound in sacks, were thrown into the Ij for heresy, and in 1573 twenty-four men were similarly executed. At times the submersion took place in a water barrel on the scaffold. In 1598 a woman was sentenced to that punishment for kidnaping and maltreating a child, and in 1641 this penalty was exacted on a woman who had killed her first-born. Several individuals convicted of sodomy were drowned by submersion in 1730. Koning found no record of a living burial in sixteenth-century Amsterdam, though they had occurred earlier. He found only one record of breaking on the wheel during the sixteenth century, in 1538, but this penalty was occasionally used later. In 1712, for instance, a sixteen-year-old boy was so punished for swindling and wounding. Some of the most cruel punishments were, of course, inflicted on heretics, especially the Anabaptists. In 1535 eleven of these dissenters were executed by having their chests opened and their hearts cut out and thrown in their faces. Their bodies were then beheaded and quartered, and heads and sections put on stakes or hung up on the city gates.

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PIONEERING IN PENOLOGY

T h i s exposure of the corpses of the executed was standard practice and was designed to keep alive in the breasts of all who passed by the dreadful consequences of evil deeds. T h e hanged were either left on the gallows for some time or removed and placed on a wheel raised on a pole, the fate accorded as late as 1724 to a fourteen-year-old boy guilty of theft, fraud, assault, and battery. Those who committed suicide in prison were either exposed by hanging them by the neck in the fork of a tall post, or they were hanged on the gallows by their feet or thrown into a pit under the gallows. Records of such exposures exist even from the second half of the eighteenth century. In 1645 a man who had killed several persons in the house of correction was hanged and his body brought back to the house and hung up as a warning to the other prisoners. Then there were punishments in which physical pain was subordinate to the shame which the offender had to endure by public exposure. T h e petty offender was usually pilloried, i. e., chained or bound by the neck to a post on the scaffold, there to remain for half an hour or an hour, often with a placard on his chest and not infrequently holding in his hands some object symbolic of his offense. Symbolism was carried to an extreme in cases where, due to the youth of the one accused of a serious crime or other circumstances, a simulated beheading took place, the executioner swishing his sword through the air above the head of his client. In such instances, whipping and the like usually followed. The undesirable visitor from some other community or those banished from Amsterdam were now and then drummed out of the city, and when in 1564 a certain woman who had repeatedly been warned of her unseemly intercourse with a respected burgher persisted in her conduct, she was pilloried and afterwards, preceded by a fife and drum corps, escorted to the brothel in Peter Jacob's alley. In 1580 three prostitutes were exposed "on a certain place," water was poured over them, and afterwards they were conducted out of the city. At times the procession led to the church. In 1572 a woman who had prepared meat on a fast day had to walk in the procession on the following Sunday, dressed in a linen garment, flanked by constables and

PUNISHMENTS IN AMSTERDAM

7

carrying a lighted half-pound candle. These perambulatory penalties took other curious forms, such as being paraded through the city carrying the heuk, or wooden cloak 6 or carrying, in a chain hung around the neck, "the stones of the city," a custom known also in Germany and in Sweden.7 While under Spanish dominion, pilgrimages were sometimes imposed as penalties by the Amsterdam magistrates. Rome, Naples, Riga, Reval, Cyprus, Spain, or Portugal were destinations noted in their sentences. In 1578 cases occurred where the East or West Indies were designated as goals. In one of these cases, the offender was banished from Holland until he had made three journeys to the West and one to the East Indies. Banishment from the city of Amsterdam was a very frequent consequence of a conviction for crime. It was widely used both during the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. Often it involved banishment from the province of Holland as well. The court evidently was not concerned over what happened to these offenders, so long as they ceased to burden the city by their presence. Many of the repeated whippings and brandings were due to the breaking of the ban. More effective than mere banishment were the sentences to galley slavery, involving mostly thieves and similar rascals. The nature of this penalty caused its imposition only on "robust and 9 Brereton saw in Delft a "wooden huke, a round hollow piece so narrow as that it is of a fit size for his head to go and to hang on his shoulders. It is about one yard and a half . . . the wearing whereof is enjoined as a punishment . . . upon whores, petty larceners, skippers that exact. It is a great shame and disgrace to them: their faces are open and to be known, their hands held close by their sides and cannot stir; it is very heavy and they moving, it knocks and breaks their shins." Sir William Brereton, Travels in Holland, the United Provinces, England, Scotland and Ireland, ¡634-16Í5, ed. Edward Hawkins, pp. 19-20. In John Howard's The State of the Prisons in England and Wales . . . there is a plate ( N o . 7) which shows the use of this instrument of punishment in Copenhagen. It was there called the Spanish Mantle. 7 See Eberhard Freiherr von Künssberg, Über die Strafe des Steintragens; Sigfrid Wieseigren, Sveriges fängelser och fängvdrd frön äldre tider till vara dagar, p. 143. Künssberg is in error in stating that the carrying of the stones of the city was not found in Sweden. A picture of the "city's stones" is found in Wieselgren (p. 144). He is equally wrong in assuming that the expression "carrying the city's mantle" is a derisive description for "running naked." Quite the contrary. The "mantle" was the wooden cloak referred to in the preceding footnote. It was used in Sweden as punishment for certain female offenders.

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tough fellows," as the magistrates put it in 1534. Sentences were long. Between 1523 and 1578 Koning found terms of six, ten, twenty, twenty-five, and fifty years—and occasionally a life sentence as an alternative to beheading. As late as in 1630 Amsterdam offenders were sentenced to the galleys at Rotterdam. The desire to use the labor of prisoners took other forms as well. The city's fortifications were in 1579 improved with the aid of some prisoners, and in 1584 prisoners engaged in public works in the city could be recognized by the iron collar about their necks. In 1630 some prisoners were transported to Surinam to be used on public-work projects. Finally there was imprisonment. Although this penalty was not in common use during the sixteenth century, it was not completely unknown. It meant confinement in one of four of the gate houses of the city and lasted from fourteen days to a few months. From 1567 to 1572 Koning found but two cases with sentences as long as two and three years respectively. T h e maintenance cost—in 1567, three stivers a day—had to be borne by the prisoner, and the fare was simple; bread and beer, a weak variety generally served to prisoners in many countries. Imprisonment of a most polite type was also used in the case of more worthy citizens. It took the form of house arrest, the offender being ordered to remain in his home and not to leave the house for a certain period of time lest he be willing to face more unpleasant punishment. The loss of the burghership and of the right to exercise a trade were also occasionally employed as penalties. It was on this system of criminal law that the houses of correction were grafted. T h a t they did not displace the older punishments is evident from the facts just summarized, but we shall leave until later the analysis of their functions, and first examine the more immediate reasons for their establishment.

X f e ) II THE WELLSPRINGS OF REFORM T h e Amsterdam houses of correction were created primarily to deal more effectively with petty thieves and professional beggars. They were reformatories, for the first time on the Continent utilizing labor and religious training as corrective instruments. The keen understanding of the problem of punishment which was manifested in the writings of the inventors of these institutions will be discussed later. In this chapter an attempt will be made to sketch briefly the cultural factors which produced these novel penal agencies. Those who have written the history of the sixteenth century are agreed that for various reasons the problem of poverty and vagrancy had reached an acuteness probably never before encountered. Frequent wars devastated many countrysides and ruined many towns, and during the intervals between campaigns, mercenary soldiers, rendered callous by their mode of life and poor by their improvidence, were a danger on streets and highways and a burden to charitable institutions. The gradual migration to the towns, caused by the breakdown of the feudal system and the growth of urban industries, was giving rise to a proletariat, dependent for their livelihood on the sale of their labor, suffering from each unfavorable fluctuation in employment, and from recurring epidemics of plague and pestilence. The importation of bullion from the newly discovered American continent added its share to the problem. A depreciated currency meant an increase in prices not compensated for by a corresponding increase in wages, at least not in northern Europe. While the commodity price index of France rose 119 per 9

1Û

PIONEERING IN PENOLOGY

cent during the century in question, the wage index rose but 38 per cent. The corresponding figures for England were 248 and 89. 1 Wages were often fixed by law far below levels they might have attained under a system of free competition. When Jan Van Hout, whose name will reappear in later pages, read a report on poor relief to the city council of Leiden in 1577, he gave as an important cause of poverty the low wages fixed for workers by the council whose members were all weaver-capitalists. 2 The agencies for giving aid to the poor were themselves in a process of transformation. The charitable foundations, hospitals, and monasteries, which had reached their greatest development during the preceding two or three centuries under the aegis of the Church, were being dissolved or had deteriorated. The municipalities which had haltingly begun to secularize poor relief, especially in the Protestant countries, were finding it difficult to substitute a philosophy of communal responsibility for the older religious sentiments of charity supported by a belief in good works as the highroad to salvation. On the other hand, the promiscuous and decentralized distribution of alms which had characterized the charity of the Church "promoted idleness and supported the existence of those who voluntarily renounced labor." 3 In some regions, farmers and industrial employers actually complained at times that they could not secure an adequate supply of labor because they were unable to offer wages attractive enough to compete with the doles. This is not the place to describe the valiant efforts made to combat the expansion of the class of sturdy rogues, vagabonds, and beggars who, playing on the fears or the sympathies of their fellowmen, panhandled their way through life. That this social problem occupied the attention of rulers and citizens alike is obvious from the number of laws, ordinances, and decrees which aimed at its solution. Its preëminence is reflected in Cervantes' Don Quixote, for in the second part of this classic, published in 1

Shepard B. Clough and Charles W. Cole, Economic History of Europe, p. 129. J. Prinsen, "Armenzorg te Leiden in 1577,"Bijdr. en Mededeel. v. h. Historisch Genootschap, 26: 113-60, 1905; p. 126. 3 Henri Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique, 111, 277. 2

W E L L S P R I N G S OF

REFORM

11

1615, chapter xlix, Sancho Panza, finding himself governor of an "island," said that his first official act would be to clear this island of all manner of filth and rubbish, especially vagabonds, idlers, and sharpers; for I would have you know, friends, that your idle and lazy people in a commonwealth are like drones in a beehive, which devour the honey that the laboring bees gather. . . . He laid several penalties upon those who should sing lewd and immoral songs either by day or by night ; and prohibited the vagrant blind from going about singing their miracles in rhyme unless they could produce unquestionable evidence of their truth. . . . He appointed an overseer of the poor—not to persecute them, but to examine their true claim; for under the disguise of pretended lameness and counterfeit sores, are often found sturdy thieves and hale drunkards.

T h e interesting system of public relief developed in the municipalities of Germany, Belgium, and France, especially in cities like Ypres, Bruges, Strassburg, and Nuremberg, seemed successful in helping the worthy poor, but were not adequate in dealing with the anti-social element among the knights of the road. Even the traditional justice meted out at the whipping post and the pillory failed with this class of gentry, many of whom had developed begging into a fine art, often associated with crimes of fraud and worse. Thoughtful people fully understood also the social dangers facing the poor. Vives, whose De subventionne pauperum ( 1526) stimulated the organization of municipal poor relief as did the work of no other contemporary writer, complained that "when the good feelings of the many are stifled because they have not enough to feed themselves on, some are driven to open brigandage alike in the town and on the roads, while others thieve in secret. And the young women laying aside their modesty, do not attempt to preserve their chastity, but everywhere sell themselves cheap. . . . " 4 T o meet these evils there * F. R. Salter, Some early tracts on poor main parts of Vives' treatise is found in this Margaret M. Sherwood is found in Studies 1917, published by the New York School of

relief, p. 9. T h e translation of the work. A less elegant translation by in Social Work, No. II, February Philanthropy.

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was need for both intelligent relief policies and more successful penal and correctional methods. The community chest, outdoor relief based on investigation of need, and institutions for the care of the sick, the orphaned, and the aged, served to meet the first, while the house of correction was ultimately designed to meet the second of these demands. T o people who look upon correctional imprisonment as an obvious and logical type of penal treatment, the invention of the house of correction seems a perfectly natural event, but if we could place ourselves in the shoes of those who in the sixteenth century were conscientiously striving for effective control of vagrancy and petty criminality, we should realize that these houses were a radical innovation, not unlike the introduction of, let us say, the juvenile court in recent times. In vain do we look in the literature of the first half of the sixteenth century for any hint of their creation. Vives and his contemporaries visualized as a last resort nothing but corporal punishments and banishment for the professional or habitual beggar. But toward the middle of the century the new idea began to make headway. In England it materialized in the establishment of a house of correction in the Bridewell Palace of London in the 1550's, later imitated in many other English towns. Soon afterward it appeared on the Continent, where it was to be given form and substance far beyond the accomplishments, if not of the dreams, of its English protagonists. T h e currents of thought and the social pressures which led to the adoption of correctional imprisonment were many and interacting. T o assign to each its due share is perhaps impossible, but t o a greater or less degree they each contributed to the common end. First in importance was perhaps the revival of learning which brought a knowledge of the classics to the leaders of opinion of all countries. Of special significance in this connection were the writings of Plato. In his Gorgias, Plato maintained that punishment must either aim to reform the offender or induce reform in those who beheld it (525. b. c.), and in his remarkable work on The Laws, written toward the end of a long and eventful life,

WELLSPRINGS OF REFORM

13

he proposed a whole system of punishment in which correctional imprisonment found an important place. Reiterating his earlier theories on the end of punishment, he made specific suggestions of ways and means of achieving these ends. T o the penalties of "death . . . the lash, ignominious postures of sitting or standing, or exposure at sanctuaries on the frontiers, fines" (Book IX, 855), he added imprisonment. This penalty was to be used for theft and assault and battery, for instance, while in the case of "impiety," "imprisonment shall form part of the penalty in all cases." He visualized three prisons, "a common jail in the market place for the majority of cases, for safe custody of the persons of the commonalty; a second attached to the Nocturnal Council and known as the house of correction, and a third in the heart of the country in the most solitary and wildest situation available, and called by some designation suggestive of punishment" (Book X, 908). The "house of correction" was to be used for those "whose fault is due to folly apart from viciousness of temper or disposition," and no one should be committed for a shorter term than five years. During the incarceration in this house, the prisoners were to have no communication with any citizen except with the members of the Nocturnal Council who were to visit them "with a view to admonition and their souls' salvation." When the term expired, the prisoner, if reformed, was to be reinstated in society, but if he was not reformed or later committed a new offense of the same type, he was to be put to death. The central prison for life termers was to be used for those who employed religion as a means of committing frauds, and certain other offenders (Book X, 909). Plato's description of the "Nocturnal Council of Magistrates," the men who were to labor for the reformation of the prisoners in the house of correction, leaves much to be desired. They were to be carefully selected on the basis of character and given a long period of special training, fitting them to be the "State's custodians and preservers" (Book XII, 968). The correctional motif in the administration of justice was also expressed by Seneca, whose essays De ira and De dementia were extremely popular. The great Erasmus drew much of his

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inspiration for his Querela pads from the former of these essays, 5 and Calvin's first published work was a commentary on the latter. Seneca stressed the importance of mild and graduated penalties that would not dishonor the offender. His attitude toward the role of imprisonment foreshadowed the present-day opinion of criminologists in many respects. It was quite appropriate that a verse from one of his dramatic works should be inscribed above the tucbtbuis gate in 1595. By that time classical learning was well established in Holland, and the University of Leiden, founded in 1575, was on its way to become the leading university in northern Europe, having attracted to its principal chairs great scholars from France, Germany, and the Spanish provinces of the Low Countries, many of them seeking a haven from religious persecution. T h e humanistic philosophers were also receiving support from the scientists in their questioning of the methods and assumptions of the criminal law. In his De rerum varietate, Geronimo Cardano was opposing the use of judicial torture, suggesting that better methods of arriving at the truth existed, such as requiring the offender to repeat his story at intervals of time. He also believed that the cause of crime must be sought in an "excess of atrabile humor" and that if imprisonment were used for long periods, this might be dissipated and "the criminal brought to his normal senses." For the punishments of his day he had nothing but scorn. "The heavier the penalties, the more they [the criminals] would continue a course of crime." As for capital punishment, he denied its deterrent value.® Cardano died in 1576. Later, in 1595, Dr. Sebastian Egbertszoon, of whom we shall hear more presently, expressed the belief that "to provide a prisoner with the right treatment and prevent his misconduct in the future, it is necessary to consider what causes brought him" to prison. 7 T h e ineffectiveness of public and severe penalties was becoming quite obvious to those who imposed them and to other 5 Pierre Mesnard, L'essor de la philosophie politique au XVI' siècle, p. 129. • Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, V, 578. 7 A. Hallema, "Merkwaardige voorstellen tot oprichting van het eerste nederlandsche tuchthuis te Amsterdam uit de jaren ± 1589-1595," Jaarboek v. h. Çenootschap Amstelodamum, 25:63-132, 1927.

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15

thoughtful citizens. In spite of the absence of modern identification procedure, the recidivist was often recognized, partly by brands and other disfiguring penalties, no doubt, but also through the inquiries made by the magistrates. In 1617 a woman who was strangled at Amsterdam was found to have been arrested previously twenty-one times—seven times in Amsterdam, three times in Leiden and in Delft, twice in Haarlem, and once in Alkmaar, Middelburg, Dortrecht, Wesop, Enkhuisen, and The Hague. Altogether, she had been exposed on the scaffold eleven times, whipped eight times, branded five times, and her ears cut off. She had been banished for life seven times. 8 During 1603-6, one Amsterdam offender was whipped six times and branded five times; in 1614-16, one was whipped eight times and branded four times; in one year, 1616, one man was four times whipped and thrice branded; while during 1614-18, one had a record of eleven whippings and five brandings. 9 The prisoner who in 1617 had his eyes pierced, recovered the sight in one eye, but within a few years he had been six times whipped and thrice branded. 10 There is no doubt that one of the factors influencing the establishment of the Amsterdam houses of correction was the changes occurring in the economic life of the city. The Low Countries had for a long time been the center of profitable textile industries, especially the weaving and dyeing of cloth. The large export trade in such merchandise was in great measure the foundation of their wealth. The southern provinces of Flanders and Brabant had been most important in this connection, but economic and political forces gradually combined to deprive them of their ascend8 Koning, op. cit., pp. 122-26. The investigation of the court is quoted in full, titira, chap. x. » Koning, op. cit., pp. 30-31. io Ibid., p. 77. An interesting view of the effect of maiming penalties in preventing the reform of the offender is found in the Rules for Judges of Olaus Petri, who sponsored the Protestant Reformation in Sweden. In the twenty-fifth of these rules, still printed in every edition of the statutes of Sweden, he wrote: "As occurs in the case of those who have stolen; they stand on the scaffold, lose their ears and are banished from the community; if such persons go to other lands where no one knows them and wish to reform and conduct themselves well, they are never trusted. T h e punishment is a hindrance to him who is punished and he becomes desperate and worse than before. It might have been better for him to lose his life immediately." Wieselgren, op. cit., p. 20. T h e same could be said about brands placed on some part of the face.

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ancy. The war to crush the rising spirit of independence completed their ruin. The campaigns in Flanders and Brabant during the latter part of the sixteenth century which made it possible for Philip II to save the southern provinces for his empire also exhausted their economic resources and pauperized their population. Farms were deserted, anyone who had the means could till the land regardless of ownership, pillaging and banditry were rife. T h e towns suffered as much as did the countryside. At Gramont, in 1581, only a fourth of the houses were standing and five-sixths of the burghers had emigrated. Within the walls of Gemblaux only seventy out of one hundred and seventy houses were occupied, and in the suburbs only twenty-six out of one hundred and fifty-seven. Its church bells had been sold and its altar services pawned. 11 The increased cost of living added to the misery of the people. At Ghent, the poor ransacked the garbage dumps for food, and in the garrisoned cities poorly paid mercenary soldiers lived off the inhabitants and in the winter time used their furniture for fuel. 12 The final blow at Antwerp was the sack of that city in 1576. The recuperative power of the southern provinces was immensely reduced by the emigration of craftsmen and merchants, most of them Protestant refugees. A large number of them went to England or northern Germany, where their skill became an important element in the rise of new industries. Others went into the northern provinces of Holland. Amsterdam in particular gained great profit from this migration. While Antwerp lost nearly half of its inhabitants, declining from 100,000 to about 57,000 in 1645,13 the population of Amsterdam rose from about 27,000 in 1563 14 to from 110,000 to 120,000 in 1631.» « Pirenne, op. cit., IV, 408-9. 12 Pirenne, loc. cit. 1¡ lbid., IV, 435. A very interesting recent study is Frederick A. Norwood's The Reformation Refugees as an Economic Force. 14 J. G. Van Dillen, ed., Bronnen tot de geschiedenis van het bedñjvsleven en het gildewe^en van Amsterdam, I, xvii. 16 André-E. Sayous, "Die grossen Händler und Kapitalisten in Amsterdam gegen Ende des sechzehnten und während des siebzehnten Jahrhunderts," Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, 46:685-709, November 1937 ; 4 7 : 1 1 5 ^ 2 , January 1938; (47: 127).

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17

Amsterdam then inherited, so to speak, much of the glory that had been Antwerp's and became the center for rapidly expanding mercantile enterprises. 16 There was work for everybody capable of working. Vagrancy and professional begging was threatening, however, to reduce the supply of labor as it had done earlier in the southern provinces. Under these circumstances one can understand more easily the willingness of the thrifty burghers of Amsterdam to experiment with labor as a penalty for the shiftless and vagrant gentry of the city who against their will might be made to contribute their share to the economic life of the community and acquire skills which could later be used to the profit of themselves and their masters. 17 The Protestant reformation lent strong religious support both to the desire to utilize profitably the labor of dependent or undesirable citizens and to the demand for reforms in the punishment of petty offenders. The Calvinists honored thrift and business enterprise, and their faith applied a spur to economic development. This influence should not be exaggerated, however. T h e attempts by Max Weber and others to link the rise of Calvinism to the development of merchant and finance capitalism in a causeeffect relationship appears to be unfounded. Modern business and financial structures and methods antedated Calvinism even in the Netherlands, and the expansion of markets, resulting from the explorations of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the exploitation of the North Sea fisheries, and the freedom of religious worship which drew enterprising members of persecuted minority groups from all neighboring countries, greatly stimulated the rise of capitalism in an era when Calvinism happened to establish itself, adding its endorsement to an already well-defined economic trend. 18 16

W. Van Ravesteyn, Jr., Onder^oekingen over de economiscbe en sociale ontwikkeling van Amsterdam gedurende de I6ie en het eerste kwart der 17de eeuw. 17 The best discussion of this motive force in the history of punishment is found in Georg Rusche and Otto Kirchheimer, Punishment and Social Structure. 18 It was many years later that the Swedish philosopher, scientist, and mystic, Emanuel Swedenborg, speculated on why such a "crude" people as the Dutch enjoyed such a grand country and why the Lord, protecting them against misfortune, had made them to rule over all other nations in trade. On one of his

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Calvin does not appear to have concerned himself with criminal law reform, but the opportunity for the common people to read the Holy Writ in the vernacular brought to all literate Christians the realization that nowhere in the Bible was the punishment of theft so severe as in contemporary law. We have the word of Cornells Pieterszoon Hooft, the Amsterdam patrician, that this fact had greatly troubled him and his colleagues and had caused them to seek milder penalties than death, in spite of "the law of the land." 19 Humanitarian influences also played their part in criminal law reform. They have often shown themselves first in connection with the treatment of children. The juvenile delinquent was a problem then as now. Although one is tempted to believe, on the basis of recorded instances, that the criminal law had little regard for the child offender until recent times, this is, of course, an untenable assumption. While young children occasionally were subjected to the most severe and shameful punishments (do we not in the United States even today occasionally sentence children of twelve years of age or slightly older to life imprisonm e n t ? ) , the compassion of adults no doubt found ways and means to mitigate the rigors of the law in most instances. During the late Middle Ages, when private charity, exercised through an increasing number of religious foundations, convents, monasteries, lay associations, guilds, etc., developed in previously unknown proportions, delinquent children were no doubt at times committed to the care of some one of these agencies. At least one of the secular orders, the Alexians, 20 which flourished in the Netherlands and western Germany was in the habit of receiving certain types of juvenile delinquents for care and treatment. It is claimed that there were in the Alexian monasteries so-called visits to Holland, in 1736, he wrote in his diary that the reason was probably the fact that the Dutch lived "in a Republic which seems to please the Lord more than do sovereign kingdoms, for in republics each man thinks himself as good as his neighbors, pays reverence to no man as a duty, and worships God alone, which delights Him." Resebeskrifningar af Emanuel Swedenborg under aren 1710-1739, p. 70. 1B H. A. Enno Van Gelder, ed., Memoriën en Advienen van Cornells Pie ter s ζ. Hooft, pp. 81-82. 20 Georg Ratzinger, Geschichte der kirchlichen Armenpflege, p. 344.

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19

"bettering houses" (V erbeterhuisen ; Besserungshäuser) for delinquent youth. Hallema 21 noted that one existed in the Maastricht house as early as 1487, but it was probably used only for feeble-minded or mentally unsound juveniles. Civil authorities had occasionally recognized the need for special treatment of this age group. In 1496 the magistrates of Amsterdam remitted a fine of two and a half Flemish pounds so that the money could be used "to begin a jail or prison near St. Anthony's Gate where henceforth the children of residents of evil reputation could be placed and kept," 22 and although there is no evidence to show that this plan was ever put into effect, the idea is proof of a special concern for the young offender. This concern was equally evident in a petition directed to King Maximilian, Count of Holland, in 1507, by the burghers of Rotterdam who complained of the number of young rascals, often of good family, who through drinking, gambling, and other mischief were beyond the control of their elders. The King authorized them to imprison such persons "in a safe place, to be prepared by the petitioners and to keep them there until they have been brought to an honest and better state." 23 N o documentary evidence exists to show that any action was taken in pursuance of this authorization. In 1530 the city council of Gouda also entertained a proposal "for the construction by the city of a strong house or place where the disobedient and perverse children and others might be placed for chastisement," and in this instance there is reason to believe that later in the same year "some houses" were adapted to this purpose, 24 but the nature of the treatment and the character of the institution are veiled in the perhaps impenetrable shadow of the past. 21 A. Hallema, " W a a r stonden ten t i j d e der republiek onze gevangenissen?" Tijds. v. Strafr., 41:435-43, 1931; p. 443. See also his In en om de gevangenis . . . , p. 99. 22 J a n Wagenaar, Amsterdam in lyne opkomst . . . . II, 201. 23 W. Bezemer, " H e t T u c h t - en Werkhuis te R o t t e r d a m , " Rotterdamscb Jaarboekje, 6: 149-199, 1899; p. 159. See also Hallema, In en om de gevangenis . . . , pp. 39-80. 24 A. Hallema, " J a n Van Hout's rapporten en adviezen betreffende het A m s t e r d a m s c h e T u c h t h u i s uit de jaren 1597 en "98," Bijdragen en mededeel. v. h. Hist. Genoots., 48: 6&-98, 1927; p. 79.

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Reference has already been made to the houses of correction of England which antedated those of Holland. It would be natural to assume that the latter were imitations of the former. It is amazing that nowhere in the Dutch sources of the earlier period, indeed nowhere in the literature can there be found any intimation of such a dependent relationship! Plancius, one of the earliest writers to describe the Amsterdam tuchthuis said in 1597 t h a t this type of institution "was hitherto unheard of and never before set up in any town." 25 Yet it is difficult to escape the suspicion that the English houses of correction were known to the Hollanders. Historians of the economic life of sixteenth-century England have given ample evidence of its close connections with the lands across the Channel. English merchants were numerous in the staple towns of the Merchant Adventurers Company and traveled extensively throughout the Netherlands. Antwerp, Bruges, and Middelburg were the most important centers of the company, but their agents were scattered far and wide. T h e religious wars and the persecution of heretics had driven numerous craftsmen from the Netherlands to England. "The most important event in the industrial history of the sixteenth century [in England] was the coming of the Dutch and Walloon weavers," says Lipson. T h e cruelty of Alva's administration caused a large exodus of the most skillful and industrious section of the population—and the folly of religious persecution was once more revealed in the most signal fashion. T h e exiles were welcomed by the English Government both as religious refugees and as a valuable accession to the economic resources of the country, for they established . . . a new branch of the woollen industry. T h i s was the manufacture of the finer fabrics known as the "new draperies," m a n y of which were either unknown . . . [in England] or were beyond the skill of English textile workers. 26

Most of these refugees were Dutch or Flemish. They settled in London, Norwich, and half a dozen other English towns. 25 P. Scheltema, Acmstcl's oudbeid, of gedenkwaardigbeden van Amsterdam, II, 12. In this volume, pp. 1-12, Scheltema printed for the first time t h e "Beschrivinge der loflijcke ende w i j t v e r m a e r d e coopstede A e m s t e l r e d a m m e gedaen door Cornelius Plancius in't jaer 1597." 2β E. Lipson, The History of the Woollen and Worsted Industries, p. 21.

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By 1567 there were nearly five thousand refugees in London, of whom about 1,900 went to the Dutch c h u r c h , " and by 1578 there were nearly six thousand at Norwich. 2 8 Indeed, when toward the end of the century a combination of economic conditions in England, which caused the native workers to protest against the competition of the aliens, and the growing prosperity of the United Provinces, which by then had become independent, led the Protestant refugees to return to their homelands, a considerable portion of them no doubt went to Holland where they could continue to worship in the Protestant faith. It is interesting to note that the largest Dutch settlements in England had been in London and Norwich where houses of correction of note existed. The London Bridewell had been inaugurated in 1556 and the one at Norwich in 1565. T h e latter institution appears to have been particularly successful for a great many years, even being commended by the Privy Council. 29 These institutions were, of course, well known to the Protestant refugees. Even if none of them had spent any time in their care, the public collections of funds for their support and the novelty of their treatment must have impressed them. But how much of this knowledge was influential in giving direction to penal reform in Holland must remain speculative. T h e similarity in the administration of the Dutch and English houses of correction, in the kinds of inmates received, in the labor program, and in the basic philosophy has caused at least one scholar, Von Dolsperg, 30 to assume that the English institutions must have been used as models. While there is no categorical manner of disproving this hypothesis—except the absence of any references to such connection in early sources—it should be remembered that once the idea of using labor and religious in27

Norwood, op. cit., p. 13, note. Lipson, op. cit., p. 23. Ε. M. Leonard, The Early History of English Poor Relief, pp. 94, 106. For a more detailed survey of the early English institutions see Austin Van der Slice, "Elizabethan Houses of Correction," Jour, of Crim. Law and Criminology, 27 : 45-67, May-June, 1936. See also Gustav Radbruch, Elegantiae juris criminalis, pp. 38-49, "Die ersten Zuchthäuser und ihr geistesgeschichtlicher Hintergrund." 30 Franz Doleisch von Dolsperg, Die Entstehung der Freiheitsstrafe, pp. 131-35. 28

29

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struction as instruments of penal treatment arose, the translation of this idea into practice did not permit any great variety of means. Many of the features of the English houses of correction —boards of management, the admission of "private" prisoners by petition (such as at Winchester), etc.—were not English inventions at all, but had earlier counterparts on the Continent. Thus the wisdom of the ancients, revived by the humanists, the opinion of scientists, religious scruples, humanitarian sentiments, and the demands of an expanding industrial economy became the wellsprings of reform.

PLANS AND PROPOSALS IT was one of the dissenters and an apostle of freedom of conscience who wrote the first strong appeal for a change in the methods of punishment in current use in Holland—Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert. 1 While imprisoned in the Gevangenpoort at The Hague on account of certain published opinions disliked by the government, Coornhert wrote in 1567 a brief essay on the repression of vagrancy entitled Boeventucht, ofte middelen tot mindering der schadelycke ledighgangers.2 In this essay he decried the failure of the conventional measures to deal with "dangerous vagrants" and urged more effective ones. Not only should periodic censuses of beggars and other undesirables be taken, but the administration of justice should be speeded up, galleys should be built, and public-work projects set up. He proposed that "in ' C o o r n h e r t (1522-90) w a s a many-sided genius. He was "a fine engraver a n d the teacher of Goltzius; a good musician, distinguished m a n of letters, theologian. and enlightened political theorist. He exercised a notable influence in the refinement of t h e D u t c h language . . . a n d on t h e revival of l i t e r a t u r e in t h e Low C o u n t r i e s generally. He w a s t h e first to preach in his writings t h e m o s t liberal religious principles a n d opinions, t h e s a m e ones l a t e r s u p p o r t e d b y Arminius, whose predecessor he m a y be regarded as being." See M . N i j h o f f s Catalogue, No. 285 ( T h e Hague, 1898). In 1572, he was m a d e s e c r e t a r y t o t h e States General of Holland. A c c o r d i n g t o his biographer V a n G u i d e n e r , C o o r n hert had a p r i n t i n g shop a t H a a r l e m in 1561, where he p r i n t e d a m o n g o t h e r things his own translation of Cicero's De officiti, in t h e f o r e w o r d t o which he m a d e the earliest claim t h a t L a u r e n s Coster of H a a r l e m was the i n v e n t o r of printing, thus initiating a c o n t r o v e r s y which has n o t yet subsided. (See Nieuw Nederl. Biog. Woordenboek, Vol. X, cols. 207-15.) F o r C o o r n h e r t ' s role as religious leader, see R u f u s M . Jones, Spiritual Reformers in the 16th and 17th Centuries, chap, vii, " C o o r n h e r t and the Collegiants—A M o v e m e n t f o r Spiritual Religion in Holland." 2 A. Hallema, whose researches i n t o the antiquities of prison life h a v e yielded most i m p o r t a n t d a t a on the h i s t o r y of correctional i m p r i s o n m e n t in Holland, discovered the original m a n u s c r i p t in t h e archives of Leiden a n d published it in an article entitled " H e t o u d s t e o n t w e r p van Dirck Volckertszoon G o o r n h e r t s Boeventucht t e r r u g g e v o n d e n . " See Tijds. v. Nederl. Taal- en Letterkunde, 45: 1-14, 1926.

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24

the middle of each province there should be built a large strong prison with many small cabins [cells] and a roomy place in the center where to each one who knows a trade, material could be given for him to work on and no food given him unless he produced a good day's work. Those who know no trade could tie nets, make pins or spin and do other similar useful but unskilled labor, letting them fast unless they deliver the work." Finally, "in each city should be built a prison suitable for rascals in the city or from near-by villages, where the prisoners can work in the manner already described . . . [or whence they can be sent] chained in pairs to be used in public works in the cities or the countryside, such as driving piles, digging ditches, dredging canals, and other such labor." 3 To keep prisoners from running away or breaking out of the prison, all those who had been guilty of a capital crime should be branded and have their nostrils slit so that they could be hanged whenever caught. Those who had committed less serious offenses and escaped should have their prison terms doubled. The economic motive could not be more clearly demonstrated than in Coornhert's observation that since untutored slaves in Spain were worth from 100 to 200 guilders, the men of Holland most of whom knew a trade must be worth much more alive than dead and should be put to work if they had committed a crime. It should not be difficult to learn how to keep them from running away. It would be a profit to the country to have galleys rowed by prisoners to facilitate travel, drainage workers who reclaimed valuable land, and craftsmen who produced merchandise and could earn five to six stivers a day and would cost but half a stiver to feed. Such a program, said the author, would improve many conditions. Travelers would become as safe on the roads as in church. All lazybones would go to work scared of the threatened galley, while stubborn and wayward children would for the same reason become tractable. 4 The Boeventucht i

was not printed until twenty years later, 5

Tijds. v. Nederl. Taal- en Letterkunde, p. 12. *Ibid., pp. 12-13. β In 1587, by Härmen Muller, Amsterdam. See A. Hallema, "D. V. Coornherts Boeventucht." Groot-Nederlund 26, pt. 2: 89-102, 207-17, 302-11, 421-33, 518-27,

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though its content must have been known to many of Coornhert's friends who were among the leading citizens of the country. It is possible to infer from Coornhert's plan that he advocated the abolition of capital punishments, except for escaping felons. Workhouses for some prisoners, public work for others,® and galley slavery for those who could not suffer the discipline of imprisonment or support the hardships of public labor were to be the remedies. There was no intimation that reformation and training should be an important end of punishment, and the author's approval of branding and other disfiguring penalties prove that he was a child of the times and that reform must always be viewed in a temporally limited perspective. There is evidence to show, however, that the preoccupation with criminal law reform was widespread. On March 17, 1589, the magistrates of Amsterdam, after considering the case of a sixteen-year-old thief and burglar decided to ask for a conference with the burgomasters and the members of the city council or senate "in order to discover and establish some suitable means of maintaining such children of burghers at steady work so that they might be turned from their bad habits and aroused to lead a better life." 7 Many years later Cornells Pieterszoon Hooft, who was a member of the city council forty-two years and served as burgomaster twelve times, an acknowledged leader in the government of Amsterdam and influential far beyond its borders, 8 indicated that the suggestion of the magistrates did not take the council unawares. In an address to the council in 1598, he said: 646-54, 1928. T h e belief that it was a mainspring in the setting up of houses of correction was expressed by J. Dómela Nieuwenhuis in his De straf der afionderlijke opsluiting . . . , pp. 38-39. 6 The use of prisoners on public works was not uncommon at the time in other countries nor in Amsterdam and near-by cities. See chap. i. 7 Quoted by Koning, op. cit., p. 34, from the Confessie-Boek, 1586-89, fol. 140, verso. R. von Hippel erroneously gives the date of this document as 1588 ("Beiträge zur Geschichte der Freiheitsstrafe," Zeits. f . d. ges. Strafrechtswissenschaft. 18 : 419-94, 608-66, 1898), and so does Hallema ("Merkwaardige voorstellen . . . ," p. 63). e J o h a n E. Elias, De Vroedschap van Amsterdam, 1578-1795, I, 147. He was the father of the great poet and historian Pieter Comeliszoon Hooft, who composed the m o t t o placed above the door of the new spinhuis in 1645.

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We all know with what great care you gentlemen are wont to act in criminal and especially in capital cases and how timid you are about sentencing any one to death . . . and that from the very beginning of this government some of you have been greatly troubled and diffident about sentencing thieves to death . . . in spite of the laws of the land and its traditions. . . . The objection of those who are concerned about this penalty has, in my opinion, been founded on the fact that in the Old Testament theft was not punished by death . . . which is worthy of consideration; and I know well that the discussions of such matters which have gone on for years on many occasions, are the principal reason for the founding of the houses of correction in this city in order that without cost to the Republic such delinquents may be confined there unless their crimes should be too extreme.® T h e suggestion of t h e m a g i s t r a t e s was discussed in a council m e e t i n g on J u l y 19, 1589, a n d the following resolution was passed : Whereas, daily many evildoers are arrested in this city, most of them young, and whereas the burghers of this city are of such a mind that the magistrates find difficulties in sentencing these offenders, considering their youth, to corporal or capital punishments, the burgomasters have inquired whether it might not be advisable to establish and provide for a house, where all vagabonds, evildoers, rascals, and the like, could be imprisoned for their punishment, and could be given labor for periods of time which the magistrates found suitable considering their offenses or misdeeds. 10 T h e same y e a r there h a d been a p p o i n t e d to the m a g i s t r a t e s ' bench one J a n Laurenszoon Spiegel, son of a rich m e r c h a n t a n d a patrician m o t h e r . W h e t h e r or not he was commissioned by his fellow m a g i s t r a t e s or t h e council to p r e p a r e a plan for the " h o u s e " referred t o in the a b o v e resolution is not known, b u t it seems p r o b a b l e since his " M e m o r a n d u m on the f o u n d a t i o n of the t u c h t h u i s " m u s t h a v e been written in t h a t year. 1 1 • Van Gelder, op. cit., pp. 81-82. 10 This resolution is quoted by Hippel, op. cit., p. 440, who secured a copy of it from the city archivist of Amsterdam. 11 Spiegel died in January 1590. His memorandum, entitled Bedenking op de groitdvesten vant tucbthuis was unearthed by Hallema a few years ago in the city archives of Leiden. (The archives of the Amsterdam tuchthuis have been lost without trace. They were apparently available to Wagenaar, however, and

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27

Spiegel proposed first of all that the new "house" be set up in the Clarissa Convent, one of many church properties confiscated by the government as a result of the Reformation. Since considerable remodeling would be necessary, funds would have to be provided at first, even though later the house should have to be self-supporting. The remodeling should make it safe against escape as well as suitable for the installation of workshops. The aim of the tuchthuis 12 should be "not sore punishment, but the improvement [ b e t e r i n g e ] and correction of those who do not realize its usefulness to them and would try to avoid it." 13 T h e treatment of its inmates should not make them infamous. It is to this point that Spiegel chiefly addressed himself, but he also observed that treatment should aim to make the prisoners healthy, temperate eaters, used to labor, desirous of holding a good job, capable of standing on their own feet, and God-fearing. T o assure these results, the house would have to be given certain octrois or privileges, sentences to confinement should be given in camera, prisoners should be brought in under cover of darkness, those who conducted them there and the officers of the house would have to take an oath not to reveal the identities of those it is conceivable that they met the fate which overtook the spinhuis archives, which were burned on the eve of the Revolution ca. 1784. See K. R. Gallas, "Vincenzio Gaudio," Jaarboek v. bet Genoots. Amstelodamum, 23: 118-29; p. 127, note.) This and other early documents concerning the foundation of the tuchthuis were brought to Leiden by Jan Van Hout. See Hallema, "Merkwaardige voorstellen . . . ," pp. 67 ff. Saarn, who a few years ago secured a copy of the Spiegel memorandum from the Leiden archives, claims it bore the statement "was gesteh bij de hand van Henric LourijsSpiegel." This presumably was Jan's famous younger brother (1549-1612) who was a great merchant and poet, humanist, and friend of Coornhert. There is no good reason to doubt Hallema's claim, however, since he examined the original manuscript. Hendrick Spiegel, who was a Catholic, was not interested in participation in public administration. He refused all public posts offered to him as member of the patriciate and in 1589 preferred to pay a fine rather than accept the post in the Admiralty to which the city council had appointed him. See Günther Saarn, Quellenstudien lur Geschichte des deutschen Zuchthauswesens bis zur Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, p. 24, note 4; Nieuw Nederl. Biog. Woordenboek, 2: cols. 1350-52, (biography by Prinsen). 12 1 have found no earlier use of this term in the literature. It seems likely that it is a word evolved out of Coornhert's use of the term boeventucht. Tucht means correction, and the term is still found in contemporary Germanic languages. The term "tuchthuis," German Zuchthaus, has in the course of time come to designate a prison for long-term offenders, ι» Hallema, "Merkwaardige voorstellen . . . ," p. 74,

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committed, and no visitors should be allowed. In his desire, therefore, to avoid the attachment of any social stigma or infamy to the persons committed, Spiegel demanded utmost secrecy. Good housing, kind treatment, good food, and good exercise were, of course, necessary. On the last point we find the author to be an advocate of recreation for prisoners as a health measure. On free days or holidays, he believed that the inmates should participate in games, footraces, jumping, etc., perhaps competing for prizes. T h e diet was to furnish the bare necessities of life. Those who violated the rules of discipline should receive only water and a little bread. All the prisoners should work, the obstreperous ones at crude tasks like rasping wood, beating hemp, "turning a wheel," "treading a mill." The willing prisoners should be taught a trade. Spiegel envisioned an institution with highly diversified industries. He specifically mentioned shoemaking and the manufacture of pocketbooks, gloves, and bags; the making of textiles, such as edgings for collars, cloaks, etc., weaving of fustians and worsteds, linen cloth and tapestry, knitting, etc. He also listed woodwork, cane or reed work, and the making of bone objects. T h e manufacture of barrels, chairs, lanterns, and wheels was included, as well as cabinetwork, wood carving, stone cutting or carving, carpentry, sawing wood, locksmith ( ! ) and blacksmith work, glass blowing and basketry. This variety of occupations reflected the great diversity in the home industries of his city. He maintained also that a wage should be paid to the prisoners, from one-eighth to one-fourth of the profit, depending on the industriousness of the prisoner. A careful accounting system would therefore have to be devised. He made n o detailed suggestions concerning the administration of the house except to say that great care should be observed in the choice of regents, wardens, and work supervisors. Spiegel was conscious of the need for preventing escapes, and recognized that the risk was not the same for all prisoners. Those most likely to attempt to break out should be kept in cells, others might be put in chains, while still others could be allowed freedom within the walls. It is not known what reception this memorandum received. Its idealism and its farsighted program which, when measured

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in terms of its age, makes it one of the greatest documents in the history of penology, no doubt impressed those to whom it was addressed. These very qualities seem also to have aroused the caution of the magistrates, for they apparently submitted it for study and comment to the well-known local physician, Dr. Sebastian Egbertszoon. 14 His commentary 15 gives evidence of a sober examination of all of Spiegel's proposals, with many of which he was in full accord. He questioned the value of secrecy which Spiegel stressed so greatly, but agreed that no visitors should be allowed to the house. As for the recreational exercises, he believed the youngest prisoners might profit from them, but that for the rest the daily manual labor was the best of all exercises. He was opposed to the program of games during holidays. After all, law-abiding workmen had little chance to spend their free time in such play and why should prisoners do so? T h e diet should be adjusted to age and needs. T h e labor program evoked no unfavorable comment, except that Dr. Sebastian thought that the prison wage should be fixed not by ordinance but by the regents, who should have the power to change it at will and even to withdraw it, depending on the behavior of the prisoner. He doubted that prisoners should be expected to become proficient in more than one trade, because many of them had limited intelligence, while all needed time to reach perfection in one. T h e industries established should require little investments and yield 14 Dr. Sebastian (1563-1621), son of a wealthy merchant condemned to death for his faith, was to achieve great prominence in the government of the city. On petition of the Surgeons' Guild he was appointed a professor of surgery in Amsterdam in 1595. He served as magistrate during four years within the span of 1593 and 1604, and was a member of the city council 1602-18. In 1606 and in 1608 he was one of the burgomasters, in 1607 comptroller, in 1613-19 city treasurer; and in 1621 director of the orphanage. When he died, he left an estate valued at 206,000 florins. See Elias, op. cit., p. 258. He was never regent of the tuchthuis as stated by Albert Ebeling, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Freiheitsstrafe, p. 64. See also A. Hirsch, ed., Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Aerate aller Zeiten und Völker (2nd ed.), II, 380. In 1603, Aert Pieterszoon painted him at the dissection table surrounded by a large group of bearded gentlemen in ruffs. The picture now hangs in the Rijksmuseum. For a reproduction see A. Bredius et al., Amsterdam in de leventiende eeuw. III, 9, chapter on "Schilderkunst." 15 Instructien nopen toprechten van een tuchthuys-Boeventucht. Undated manuscript found in Leiden archives by Hallema and reviewed in his "Merkwaardige voorstellen. . . ."

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m a x i m u m profits, so t h a t on the one h a n d prisoners could earn their livelihood a f t e r discharge, while on the other the institution could be self-supporting. One trade he thought unsuitable was t h a t of blacksmith, since prisoners might use the opportunity to m a k e knives, hammers, or other i n s t r u m e n t s for use in escaping. T h e work should be done in locked rooms. 1 6 Since "lack of unders t a n d i n g of the shameful character of the act, evil suggestions a n d example . . . laziness and ignorance of a t r a d e " lead t o thievery, prisoners " m u s t be . . . trained in industry so they can become self-supporting, in the meanwhile being removed f r o m seeing and hearing evil." 17 T h e city f a t h e r s accepted Spiegel's suggestion for the location. T h e Clarissa sisters were removed f r o m their commodious convent on the south side of the Heiligen-weg, near the Voetboogs t r a a t , where "they had been practising the Papist religion," and one section of the establishment was remodeled to m a k e it more serviceable as a penal institution. It was completed in April 1595, a n d in February 1596 the first prisoners, twelve in number, were admitted. 1 8 T h i s m a r k e d the opening of w h a t was to become one of the most f a m o u s institutions of its kind on the continent of Europe, an institution which directly or indirectly spurred the developm e n t of correctional imprisonment in northern Europe, but whose influence reached even into the more distant countries of the Mediterranean rim. i · Hallema's assumption that Dr. Sebastian meant separate and solitary cells for each prisoner is entirely unjustified. " Hallema, "Merkwaardige voorstellen . . . ," p. 91. 14 Wagen aar, op. cit., II, 250.

THE RASPHUIS AND ITS ADMINISTRATION WE shall now visit the tuchthuis for men, observing its arrangements and noting the details of its management, its discipline, and the treatment of its prisoners. T o reconstruct all this as it appeared at any given moment is indeed impossible. Its earliest historian, Pontanus 1 gave only a sketchy description of it, and it was not until Wagenaar's great history in 1765 that we have a fairly detailed picture of the institution. What was it like in the early years while its correctional system was being developed and while it was a unique institution on the continent of Europe? In subsequent pages an attempt will be made to disengage the tangled skein of history of the house of correction and to show its evolution, especially during the first century of its existence. The entrance to the house on the Heiligen-weg consisted of two doorways (see end papers), 2 separated by a small open yard. 1 Johan Isaakszoon Pontanus, whose father was secretary of Count Egmont and later in the service of the Danish government, was a student of medicine, a classical scholar, and historian. He traveled extensively, to Rome and through Germany in 1593, in England in 1596, and between these trips spent three years on the island of Hveen as assistant to T y c h o Brahe, the great Danish astronomer; edited Plato, Seneca, and Apuleius, and finally settled at Harderwijk in 1606 as professor of physics, editing more classics, publishing Latin poems, and writing histories. His Rerum et urbis Amstelodamensium historia was the first ambitious history of Amsterdam. Later, as the court historiographer of Denmark, he wrote a history of that country and also became the historiographer of the province of Gelderland. See S. P. Haak's biography in Nieuw Nederlandscb Biog. Woordenboek, Vol. I, cols. 1417-20. References in this chapter are to the Dutch language edition of Pontanus' history, entitled Historische beschrijiringhe der seer wijt beroemde Coopstadt Amsterdam. 2 Reproduced f r o m Filip von Zesen's Beschreibung der Stadt Amsterdam (Preface dated 1663), between pp. 302 and 303. T h e same plate was used by O. Dapper in his Historische beschryving der Stadt Amsterdam . . . , 1663, betw. 31

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The outer doorway was decorated at an early date with sculptural designs—a bas-relief below the cornice showing a man (later writers claimed that it represented the warden of the institution) driving three teams of lions and tigers, pulling a wagon filled with logwood, emblematic of one of the chief industries within the walls. Topping the gateway was a frieze with a center medallion and the coat of arms of the city, flanked by two lions couchant. 3 Above the lion driver could be read Megara's reply to Lycus from Seneca's Hercules Furens, Act II, verse 435, Virtutis est domare, quae cuncti pavent, i. e., it is valor to subdue that of which everyone goes in dread. 4 Above the inner gateway two more than life-sized figures of half-naked prisoners were shown at the work of rasping logwood, while below the cornice a medallion pictured in bas-relief a weaver at his loom. pp. 424 and 425. Zesen (1619-89), a German, lived most of his life in Amsterdam, but was greatly honored by his land of origin, made a noble, etc., because of his work in fostering German culture and language and in writing moralistic works and novels. See H. Brugmans, in Nieuw Nederl. Biog. Woordenboek, Vol. IV, cols. 1503-5 and especially J. H. Schölte, "Philipp von Zesen," Jaarb. v. h. Genoots. Amstelodamum, 14: 37-143, 1916. 3 These decorations were the work of Hendrick de Keyser (1565-1621), of an emigré family f r o m the southern provinces, who in 1595 was engaged by the burgomasters to become the city's "master sculptor and stone-carver" and who after 1612 was referred to as architect. De Keyser achieved great national fame. His most noted works are the grave monument of William of Orange and the sculptured ornaments of the Amsterdam Exchange, designed by Cornells Danckerts, after both men had visited London in 1607 to study the Royal Exchange there, built by T h o m a s Gresham in 1571. According to Six, the liondriver must have been mounted before 1607. The frieze is typical of the artist's work. T h e statue of a woman, "Castigatio," symbol of correction, with a prisoner in chains on each side, which Wagenaar described as ornamenting the top of the gateway, was placed there sometime between 1691 and 1720. (See illustration, on facing page.) See Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, Allgemeine Lexikon der bildenden Künstler, Vol. XX (erroneously giving the date of his employment by the city as 1594); Hendrick de Keyser and Cornells Danckerts, Architectural moderna of te bouwinge van onsen tyt; Van Dillen, op. cit., I, 521, No. 867; J. Six, "Hendrik de Keyser als Beeldhouwer," Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genoots. te Amsterdam, Jaarverslag . . . , 1910, pp. i-xlvii (on page i photograph of the lion-driver) ; Dr. Elizabeth Neurdenburg, Hendrick de Keyser; W. J. M. Brouwer Ancker, "Het rasphuispoortje te Amsterdam en zijne geschiedenis," De Navorscher, 44: 565-70, 1894; p. 567. * M. Boas ("De spreuk van de Rasphuispoort," Jaarboek v. h. Genoots. Amstelodamum, 15: 121-29, 1917) "discovered" the source of this sentence. As a matter of fact, Gotfr. Hegenitius, who visited the tuchthuis shortly before 1630, noted that the inscription was ex Seneca Tragico. See his Itinerarium frisio-hollandicum, p. 67.

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Passing through the inner gateway, one entered a hallway which gave access to the conference room of the regents, the apartment of the warden, and a small room, which in Wagenaar's time—middle of the eighteenth century—was decorated by two paintings representing meetings of some early board of regents, a type of group picture that the Dutch painters appear to have been called upon to produce so frequently. Wagenaar also mentioned that the hallway exhibited two paintings of fruits by one Ernst Stuven, a former inmate, who on at least two occasions between 1698 and 1702 spent some time in the institution. 5 T h e regent's room was small. As the years went by it was apparently improved in its appearance, for in 1765 there was on one wall a large map with reproductions of the coats of arms of earlier regents, and on the other walls "a large handsome painting" of regents by J a n Maurits Ouinkhard (1688-1772) and a small drawing of four regents. The room faced the entrance yard, and next to it was a still smaller room used between 1607 and 1747 by the women members of the board. There is no indication to show the size of the accommodations provided for the warden. Through a pair of stout doors, separated by a wooden paling, one stepped from the hallway into the courtyard of the house (see illustration, facing page). This yard, enclosed by the building, appears on most illustrations to be very large, but a visitor who a century ago took occasion to estimate its size claimed that it could not have been over fifty by sixty feet. 6 In the surrounding building, rooms of various sizes were devoted to the housing of the inmates or to other purposes. For instance, there were on the ground floor nine cellrooms. On the east side, up a few steps, was 5 Stuven was born in Hamburg ca 1660 and died in Rotterdam, 1712. Known as painter of flowers and still life and as decorator. Studied in Amsterdam from 1675 on and was known to have been there in 1696 and 1697 when he was paid for some work done for the city and for decorating a medical building. In 1702 he lived in Haarlem. See Thieme and Becker, op. cit., Vol. X X X I I . The cause of his imprisonment is not known. e J . Kool, "Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van het vroegere gevangeniswezen," Schat der Gezondbeid, 8: 161-84, 193-208, 1865, at p. 198. Jan Van Hout, who visited the institution in 1597, said the court was about five rods square. Hallema, who claimed that Van Hout used Rhineland rods, estimated the size of the yard therefore at about 350 square meters, which approximates Kool's measurement. See Hallema, "Jan Van Hout's rapporten . . . p. 83.

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a hall used for religious services and known as the "church" or the "school." Under this hall were some cellar rooms. In Wagenaar's time one was used as a dining room by the inmate assistants to the work supervisor, and another, containing four punishment cells with stone slabs for sleeping purposes, served to enforce discipline. He also reported that a room on the ground floor was used to confine mental cases for brief periods, while another was used to segregate those with communicable diseases, and still another on the second floor for a class of prisoners referred to as the "sheep," one for the night watchman, one for the cobbler, and one for the "trusties." 7 On the south side was the weighing room, containing the large scale used by the work supervisor, and above were storage rooms. Above the warden's apartment were six rooms, once used temporarily to house women offenders, 8 and beyond these the weaving loft, originally a bustling place, but in 1765 empty except for the archives of the house, guarded by a locked wooden partition. There were also diverse rooms for the housing of employees. All around the yard, not more than eight feet from the walls, a wooden palisade ran, about twelve feet high. It was erected early in the eighteenth century and is therefore not reproduced in the earlier engravings of the house (see illustration facing page 6 9 ) . In the yard, in front of the weighing room, stood a whipping post, on top of which was a figure of Correction, again in the form of a woman. 9 Altogether, the structure and appearance of the building was impressive, at least to the earlier visitors. Unfortunately the various engravings made before 1750 show such remarkable inconsistencies that one can but conclude that the artists used more than ordinary license in their work. 7 The term "sheep" was a colloquial designation of a person who bid in real estate at a public auction, but could not at the settlement, post any security for payment. Wagenaar, op. cit., II, 254. Some of the special rooms mentioned were not designated to the uses mentioned during the early period of the house, for Van Hout specifically claimed he found no hospital room, but that "sick prisoners were given some comforts in their own places." Hallema, "Jan Van Hout's rapporten . . . ," p. 83. » During the years 1643-45 when the spinhouse was being rebuilt after a fire. 8 Zesen claimed that it represented Justice, carrying a sword in one hand and a scroll in the other. Op. cit., p. 302.

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The Cells: The cellrooms, originally nine, but later numbering eight, including one double-sized room, served as both workrooms and bedrooms. From four to twelve prisoners occupied each room. The largest, according to Kool, 10 were 28 by 1 feet in area and 8 feet high; others were 17 by \Ql/2 feet and some were even smaller. 11 They had plank or mortar floors, the walls were boarded, and each was equipped with a "secret," i. e., a toilet. Grilled glassless windows faced the courtyard from which each room was entered through heavy double doors, the inner of which had a wicket through which food could be passed to the occupants. T h e beds were furnished with a mattress and a bolster of coarse linen filled with straw, a feather pillow in a case, which according to the rules was washed weekly. A white woollen sheet covered the mattress. In summer each bed had one and in winter two coverlets as well. Adult prisoners slept two in a bed ; the boys, three. The rules required each prisoner to keep his bed and his working space clean and orderly. T h e rooms had to be cleaned daily and the night bucket emptied each morning. Clothing could not be thrown helter-skelter on the beds, but had to be hung in place. The prisoner who failed to follow these rules of cleanliness had to go without breakfast for four days, and if he was not led to obedience by such a penalty the regents could go still further "at their discretion." The regents also frowned on any unauthorized use of lights in the cells. If anyone made a light or burned one without the warden's permission, all the prisoners in that cell were placed on half rations and lost their meat ration for two weeks. There is no indication that the cells were heated in cold weather. Administration : The house was administered by a board of regents. Until 1607 this board was composed of four men, but in that year two women were added. They were prominent burghers 12 and burghesses of good name and reputation, served with10

Op. cit., p. 199. Van Hout said six rooms had more than one bed, most of them three or four. See Hallema, "Jan Van Hout's rapporten. . . ," p. 83. 12 The honor attached to this public service was carefully bestowed. Of the three regents appointed in 1595, one, Ysbrand Ben, was a wealthy brewer. 11

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out pay, and were appointed by the burgomasters for life or until they were promoted to a higher position. In the hierarchy of public servants, they ranked just below the regents of the hospital, and according to John Howard their perquisites of office included exemption from the city watch, freedom to enter the city after the closing of the city gates, and a deacon's seat in church. 1 3 T h e women members, who were frequently called the nonresident matrons, were in charge of the food supply, the woolens, and the linens. When this responsibility was placed in the hands of the warden in 1747 they resigned—by that time they were three in number—and no reappointments had been made when Wagenaar published his survey in 1765. T h e board met every week to deal with questions brought up by the warden and the work supervisors. T h a t they possessed and utilized unlimited powers in the management of the institution is evident. T h e y made the decisions "concerning all administrative problems of the house"; they made all rules to be followed in the management or by inmates; they selected the prisoners who served as trusties ; they imposed all disciplinary punishments and determined their nature; they visited every newly committed prisoner to inform him of the rules of the institution; they issued visitor's permits. These functions were specifically mentioned in the earliest rules and regulations. In 1598, according to Wagenaar, the bailiff, the burgomasters, and the magistrates declared the board authorized "to admit and discharge prisoners, to lighten or to make heavier their tasks, to punish them by solitary confinement, removal of food, and member of the city council (1595-1618) and married to a Hooft. Another, Hendrik Buyck, was one of the organizers of an East India trading company in 1592. In 1596, Simon de Rijck was appointed regent. He was a prominent merchant, whose mother was a Hooft, and he was to become one of the original founders of the great Dutch East India Company. He served on the city council from 1627 to his death in 1652 at the age of eighty-seven and left a fortune of some 380,000 florins. In 1599, Pieter de Vlaming, merchant, was appointed. He was a city council member from 1596 to 1628 and served as burgomaster four years and as a magistrate one. These are merely a few examples. T h e turnover among the regents was great in spite of the terms of their appointment, for Wagenaar (op. cit., II, 250) reported twenty-seven appointments in the first twenty-five years of the institution's life. See Elias, op. cit., 1, 217, 223, 379. 13 Howard, op. cit., p. 57, note.

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14

even by whipping with rod or rope." A year earlier, the state authorities, at the request of the burgomasters, had freed the members of the board from all liabilities arising out of the fact that in self-defense they might injure some prisoner so severely that he died from his wounds. Prisoners, it was claimed, were often found in possession of weapons as well as of an unbending temper and a desire to escape the ministrations of the board. T o Americans, who have traditionally used unpaid boards of private citizens for the management of local and state institutions or services, a system still common in all our states, the manner in which the Amsterdam house of correction for men was administered is not at all unfamiliar. It appears to be a natural form of administrative organization in states where libertarian sentiments are strong and where a bureaucracy has not found fertile ground. T h e assumption that the city fathers of Amsterdam borrowed it from England, and more specifically from the organization of the London Bridewell, as suggested by one writer 15 is, of course, untenable, for this administrative device was known long before this time, even in the management of penal institutions. Supervisory personnel: The daily task of operating the house, in accord with the decisions and rules of the regents, was entrusted to a "house father" and his wife, the "house mother," terms which could probably be better translated as warden or màster and matron. The warden was appointed by the burgomasters and received maintenance and lodging. He was forbidden to leave the house overnight except in case of dire necessity and with permission of the regents. If through his negligence or complicity he permitted a prisoner to escape, he lost his position and became liable to severe punishment. He was the only employee of the institution whose salary was paid out of the city treasury. His only other income, specifically mentioned in the regulations, consisted of half of the fees paid by visitors to the house during Kermess Week. As assistants, the warden had one or more work supervisors, « W a g e n a a r , op. cit., II, 251. 15 Doleisch von Dolsperg, op. cit., p. 134.

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referred to in the sources as "correction masters" or "master weavers," etc. T h e earliest regulations mentioned three, two of whom were weavers and the third in charge of the rasping of the wood. In Wagenaar's time there was only one, the weaving shop having been closed for a century at least. T h e supervisors were appointed by the burgomasters, received room and fuel from the house, but furnished their own food. Their duties chiefly consisted of the management of the industries and the training and supervision of the working prisoners, but they also participated in the religious life of the institution and in elementary school instruction. T h e earliest regulations also mentioned a schoolteacher as being a member of the staff. His salary, like that of the supervisors, was to be paid from the income of the house, i. e., by the regents, and he also was to receive partial maintenance in the form of room and fuel. The surgeon {halbier), mentioned in the same regulations, was apparently on call, and the Sunday sermons were presumably preached by a "comforter of the sick," 16 although this is not clearly the case until Wagenaar's survey mentioned it as being current practice. It is possible that during the early years he was also the schoolteacher. T h e warden had maid-servants who took charge of cooking and washing and other domestic work, and when the rasp mill was established in 1656 outside the institution, the board appointed a miller and four workmen to assist him. T h e burgomasters also appointed a bookkeeper for this mill. There seem to have been no other employees with the possible exception of two deputy sheriffs, mentioned by Wagenaar, who assisted in the infliction of disciplinary punishments. T h e y may also have acted as police officers rounding up beggars and others for commit16 There is amazingly little in the sources regarding the administrative and custodial personnel of the house. From this point of view there is more t o be learned from a study of the Utrecht house of correction. See A. Hallema, "Een gevangenisbeeld uit de 17 de eeuw." Themis, 97: 13-48, 1936. T h e "krankentroester," or "comforter of the sick," was a lay preacher and "home missionary" in the Dutch Reformed Church, officiating as minister in congregations not yet supplied with a regular clergyman. See Carl H. W. Sillem, "Der 'krankentroester' in den evangelischen niederländischen Gemeinden des 16. Jahrhunderts." Monats, f . d. ev.-luth. Kircbe im Hamburg, 2: 236-41, 1882.

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ments, a duty laid upon the regents by the city authorities almost from the beginning (1598). Their exact status as employees is not clear from the sources. Much of the maintenance labor in the institution seems to have been performed by inmates. All the employees, with the exception of the warden, were paid by the regents. Including the warden, they were exempt from the payment of all state and city excise taxes on necessities. Clothing: By Wagenaar's time, 17 a prison uniform was in use, each prisoner receiving from the regents a coarse gray frock and trousers, flannel stockings, shoes, and a shirt of half-bleached Flemish linen which was washed weekly. How early this uniform was instituted is not known, but in all probability it was found necessary to employ one almost from the beginning because of the nature of the clientele. Any penal institution dealing largely with beggars and vagrants and desirous of maintaining cleanliness would be forced to destroy the clothes of many an incoming prisoner and supply him with clean wearing apparel. Food: Meals were served three times daily. They were evidently prepared by the warden's maid-servants, and were distributed to room after room by two trusted prisoners, referred to as the waiters. Breakfast consisted, according to regulations, of bread, butter, and cheese; dinner, of peas or grits, alternating, and meat or fish ; supper, of bread, butter, cheese, and beer, served hot in winter. Sundays they received warm meat and a bowl of soup. 18 How ample this fare was is difficult to say. In Wagenaar's time it was likened to ship's rations. He too refers to the noon meal as consisting of peas, tick-beans and grits, states that the weekly meat ration was either salt or smoked meat or pork, that the fish was stockfish and refers to one evening meal a week as consisting of buttermilk with oatmeal or barley, but he fails to give any additional data concerning the daily menu. 19 The beer was usu17

Wagenaar, op. cit., II. 254. Van Hout described the food in 1597 as consisting of "soup and good rye bread, good butter, and good cheese, to each a suitable portion. Sundays and Thursday they get some meat and twice a week some fish. They drink beer at 30 stivers a barrel." Hallema, "Jan Van Hout's rapporten . . . ," p. 84. la No such criticism can be made of John Howard, who gave the week's menu in detail, as it appeared in 1785. Howard, op. cit., p. 59. 18

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ally described as thin or weak beer, as contrasted with "strong" beer or ale. The regents characterized it merely by stating that it cost 30 stivers a barrel and averred that each prisoner received as much as he needed. Wagenaar claims that strong ale was served them at Kermess-time as a special treat. The meals had to be eaten with decorum. The inmates had to eat promptly and to hand out their empty bowls and to refuse to accept food if they were not hungry, to ask for a small portion or to keep the bowl until its contents could be finished. If these rules were violated, the offender was deprived of his breakfast for three days running, and if his cellmates did not identify him to the warden they suffered the same penalty, one and all. And if the prescribed prayers were not recited before and after each meal, the prisoner was deprived of a meal. Bread, butter, or cheese which was not consumed at once had to be returned. Hoarding was punished. If there was dissatisfaction with the food, complaints could be made to the regents. If the waiters had to bear the brunt of the prisoner's ire, the offender was placed on half ration for a week. On Saturday, each prisoner was permitted the rare privilege of buying a stiver's worth of white bread. Financing the house: As early as 1596, an excise tax, the character of which is not given in the sources, was imposed for the support of the house, and the "fines" which the city councilors used to pay for absence or lateness at council meetings were also assigned to the regents, but Wagenaar noted that these sources of income soon became unnecessary. The weaving shops, no doubt, were operated at a profit, and the monopoly of the rasping of the dyewoods must have made the house completely selfsupporting. The visitors' fees added a mite to the income, and there were probably donations as well from charitably inclined persons interested in the work of moral reclamation of youth. Besides, there were some receipts from the fines imposed on weavers who neglected having their cloth inspected by the house. The only regular appropriation from the city treasury was for the salary of the warden.

-Ors

vgSL

THE PRISONERS WE have already noted that the house was established to deal with the young and dissolute incorrigible petty offenders, beggars, vagrants, and thieves, who might be turned into the path of civic virtue through the treatment methods used there. A state document of 1602 noted that the house received "young people who had got on the wrong path and are headed for the gallows, so that they can be saved therefrom and kept at honest labor and a trade in the fear of God" and men "who have wasted their substance and maltreat their wives, and others who listen not to parents, guardians, or friends and claim to be unfit for work." 1 Before the house was created, a survey had disclosed that there were some 3,300 youthful offenders in the city, a considerable number in view of the fact that the whole population had not yet reached the 100,000 mark. 2 J a n Van Hout, whose description of the house is the earliest known, reported that among the inmates were vagrants without visible means of support, persons sentenced to terms of imprisonment by the magistrates; persons who had been publicly branded or whipped and then committed,' and persons committed on petition by friends or relatives because of a dissolute or irregular life.·1 T h e profes1

Casparus Commelin, Bescbryvinge van Amsterdam, I, 507-8, quoting the ordinance of May 11, 1602 of the States General of Holland. 2 Pontanus, op. cit., p. 131. 3 Hippel assumed that this class did not appear in the inmate population until the end of the seventeenth century. * Hallema, "Jan Van Hout's rapporten . . . ," p. 79. Van Hout was a prominent burgher of Leiden and secretary of its city council, who made several trips to Amsterdam to confer with the magistrates and the regents of the tuchthuis about plans for a similar institution at Leiden. His own reports and the copies of certain documents, among them the memoranda by Spiegel and Dr. Sebastian, as well as preliminary drafts of rules of discipline, were discovered by Hallema in the Leiden city archives. They are the most valuable documents we have on the early history of the institution. 41

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sional beggars furnished a sizable contingent. T h e numerous brief case histories of one of the earliest descriptions of the house 6 referred almost exclusively to such individuals who were from twenty to sixty years of age and whose crutches, bandages, straps, trusses, and wooden legs were prominently displayed on the wall of the courtyard near the whipping post as mute evidence of the curative properties of the discipline. The house was used also to punish runaway apprentices. According to a city ordinance of November 11,1597, regulating apprenticeships, a runaway apprentice was for the first offense to be whipped in the tuchthuis in the presence of the inmates and also of his master or mistress should they care to be present. A second or later offense was to be similarly punished, but in addition there would be a term of imprisonment in the tuchthuis on a bread-and-water diet and at whatever labor the magistrates might determine.® The above prisoners were received on sentence by the magistrates—the predominating method of admission. Others were committed by order of the burgomasters, acting on petitions. The latter procedure involved in some cases persons referred to in modern legal terms as "wayward youths" or "incorrigible children," but men could be committed in the same manner for nonsupport, maltreatment of wives, drunkenness, and the like. T h e 5

Historie van de wonderlijcke Mirakelen, die in menichte ghebeurt xijn, ende noch dagelijck ghebeuren, binnen de vermaerde Coop-stadt Aemstelredam: In een plaets ghenaempt het Tucht-huys, gheleghen op de Heylighe-wegh. . . . This rare pamphlet of sixteen pages was published at Amsterdam in 1612 by Marten Gerbrantz and in a French translation the same year by Theodore Johannes at Leiden. Hallema ("Een merkwaardig pamphlet betreffende het Amsterdam Tuchthuis in de 17de eeuw," Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, Avondblad E, Nos. 198-99, October 27-28, 1931, and reprinted as chap, iii in his In en om de gevangenis. . . .), wonders if its author was our friend Dr. Sebastian Egbertszoon. It was a satire on a work of Justus Lipsius, which had appeared in 1604 in Antwerp, celebrating the miraculous cures at the shrine of Our Lady of Halle near Brussels. The anonymous author of the Historie described the equally "miraculous" cures made in the house of correction by "St. Raspinus" (the rasping saw), and "St. Ponus" or "St. Labor" (the labor program). Hippel reproduced much of the revised German translation of 1617 (the first was dated 1613) in his monograph, op. cit., pp. 480-93. See also a rather full summary in Guglielmus Baudartius, Memoryen ofte cort verhael der gedenck-weerdichste so kerckliche ah werltliche gheschiedenissen van Nederland . . . von den jaere ¡60) tot in het jaer 1624, Book 5, pp. 40-42. «Van Dillen, op. cit., pp. 551-53, No. 919.

THE

PRISONERS

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a i m w a s in m a n y i n s t a n c e s t o p r o v i d e an o p p o r t u n i t y t o learn a t r a d e . 7 In 1609, a f e l t m a k e r o f R o t t e r d a m a p p e a l e d t o t h e c o u r t on b e h a l f o f a y o u n g A m s t e r d a m w e a v e r t o h a v e t h e l a t t e r rel e a s e d f r o m t h e t u c h t h u i s . T h e appeal s t a t e d t h a t e i g h t y e a r s e a r l i e r t h e b o y h a d v o l u n t a r i l y , at t h e i n s t a n c e o f his m o t h e r , a n d f o r n o c r i m e , been c o m m i t t e d t o learn a t r a d e in o r d e r t o s u p p o r t t h e f a m i l y . H e w a s now a b l e t o earn his l i v e l i h o o d a n d f u r t h e r m o r e w a s in ill h e a l t h , h a v i n g a h e r n i a , w h i c h w a s g e t t i n g w o r s e b e c a u s e o f t h e " p o o r c o m f o r t s in t h e h o u s e . "

8

S o m e o f t h e prisoners were v e r y y o u n g . In 1 6 2 0 a t h i r t e e n y e a r - o l d b o y w h o had c o m m i t t e d m a n s l a u g h t e r w a s c o m m i t t e d t h e r e " b e c a u s e o f his y o u t h , " h a v i n g first been s y m b o l i c a l l y beh e a d e d o n the scaffold, whipped, and b r a n d e d . In 1637 a t e n y e a r - o l d b o y w a s c o m m i t t e d on s e n t e n c e f o r t h e f t , a n d in 1691 a t w e l v e - y e a r - o l d w a s sent t h e r e f o r b u r g l a r y a n d t h e f t a f t e r p u b lic e x p o s u r e and a w h i p p i n g indoors. 9 T h e t e r m s o f s e n t e n c e s were u s u a l l y definite in length a n d were f r o m a f e w d a y s t o m a n y y e a r s . W h i l e as t h e t i m e w e n t b y o r d i n a n c e s w e r e passed s p e c i f y i n g the length o f t h e i m p r i s o n m e n t f o r c e r t a i n offenses, m o s t s e n t e n c e s c o u l d be i m p o s e d " a t t h e discretion o f t h e m a g i s t r a t e s , "

10

permitting a certain amount of in-

d i v i d u a l i z e d p u n i s h m e n t . D a p p e r noted t h a t " t h o s e w h o b e c a u s e o f t h e i r t h i e v i n g h a v e been p u b l i c l y w h i p p e d and b r a n d e d on the s c a f f o l d a n d for w h i c h o t h e r s h a v e h a d t o p a y f o r with t h e i r lives, 7 Koning, op. cit., p. 34, records such commitments by the magistrates in 1618 and in 1622. » Van Dillen, op. cit., p. 637, No. 1147. 9 Koning, op. cit., p. 29. In 1599 Baron Waldstein, a Bohemian noble, who visited the institution, claimed he found among the prisoners two boys, sentenced to labor. Their parents, he claimed, had been burned at the stake because they had by magic been able to change themselves into wolves and slay people, and that they had taught that art to their children. J. A. F. Orbaan, Bescheiden in Italie omirent nederlandsche kunstenaars en geleerden, I, 175. If the story of the parents' fate is correct, they must have been executed somewhere else than in Amsterdam, where the last execution by this method occurred over half a century earlier. 1 0 For a discussion of the use of arbitrary penalties see J. Dómela Nieuwenhuis, "Lessen uit de arbitraire strafrechtspleging der nederlandsche gewesten in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw," Tijds. v. Strafr., 9: 25-50, 1896. A good study of the character and powers of the Amsterdam judges and public administrators is J. V. Rijpperda Wierdsma's Politie en justitie. Een studie ov(f hollandscben staatsbouw tijdens de republiek:

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have been sent there for two, eight, ten, and even twenty years." 11 William Montague, shortly before 1696, found sentences of the same class of prisoners as long as "from three to five, seven, nine, eleven, and thirty years, and some to perpetuity." 12 It would appear that a house-of-correction sentence was in such instances regarded as a kind of commutation. Most sentences were short, however. The city ordinance of April 15, 1614, against beggars, 13 deploring the large number of sturdy rogues in the city, both residents and transients, who because of lack of employment opportunities or because of laziness were begging, gambling, cheating at cards, drinking, or guilty of other ungodly behavior, penalized begging by six weeks in the house of correction for the first offense, and six months for the second offense, and provided penalties at the discretion of the court for those who sent children out to beg. The housing of beggars was punished by a fine which if not paid was converted to six months in the house of correction, and if anyone resisted the enforcement of the ordinance he was to be fined one hundred Charles guilders, and if unable to pay, was to be sent to the tuchthuis for three months. This ordinance, which touched the largest clientele of the house, suggests that the average term spent there must have been quite short. It demonstrates also that 11 OClfert] D t a p p e r ] , Historische beschryving der stadt Amsterdam . . . , pp. 426-27. Hippel did not have access to Dapper's work and does not mention it. He attributes this quoted statement to Commelin, who copied it from Dapper without acknowledgment. Dapper (1636-89) was a local physician and his history was not only his first work, but the best local history written up to that time. He wrote later a number of books about life in foreign and exotic quarters of the globe—Africa, Asia, the East Indies—which had a great vogue, although he himself never left Amsterdam. (See H. Brugmans' biography in blieuw. Nederl. Biog. Woordenboek, Vol. VII, cols. 354-56.) He wrote so convincingly, however, that Bronislaw Malinowski, in a book just published ( A Scientific Theory of Culture . . . p. 148), cites him as an example of the "effective field-work" done by some of the early ethnographers. Casparus Commelin (1636-93) was the first of the local historians to get permission to use the city archives, and this fact made his history of peculiar value. At first glance it appears to be largely a plagiarism of Dapper and the somewhat later history compiled by Tobias Van Domselaer, Beschryvinge van Amsterdam, haar eerste oorsprong . . . tot 1665. (See Brugmans' biographies of both these men in the work just mentioned, Vol. VI, cols. 324-25, and Vol. V I I I , cols. 40-48.) It appears that Commelin's father wrote several chapters f o r Domselaer's work and that Dapper wrote the section which described the government of the city. All this material was evidently used quite freely by Commelin, however.

1 2 Montague, op. cit., p. 175. « Summarized by Hippel, op. cit., p. 445, note.

T H E PRISONERS

45

a house-of-correction sentence was used for nonpayment of fines and also as an intermediate penalty between fine and corporal punishments, for if anyone was found guilty of begging a third time he was to be whipped and banished, and the latter was the minimum penalty for those guilty a third time of housing beggars. T h e abandonment of children by vagabonding relatives was evidently regarded as too severe a crime for a correctional sentence. Those guilty of this offense were to be promptly whipped and driven out of the city. Occasionally, prisoners were sent to the tuchthuis "until they learned a trade," or until the regents should recommend their discharge. Van Hout found one prisoner in 1597 who had a twelve-year sentence, with a proviso t h a t if the superintendent at the end of eight years certified to his good behavior and the likelihood of his being reformed, the remaining four years would be remitted. 1 4 These are very early illustrations of relatively indeterminate sentences, now a common feature of American criminal law. As a matter of fact, a court procedure developed which made all definite sentences in practice indeterminate. Each J a n u ary, shortly before the city administration went out of office (February 1) the high bailiff and the magistrates, accompanied by a clerk, went to the tuchthuis to hold a session of court. Seated at a table in the "chapel" they had each prisoner in turn brought before them for a hearing. On recommendation of the regents, those who had behaved themselves well—and especially those who had helped to foil escapes, had turned state's evidence, or had otherwise assisted the administration—were granted reductions in the length of their terms, while uncooperative or disobedient prisoners and those who had tried to escape had theirs lengthened. Thus every prisoner had an annual opportunity to have his sentence reviewed and modified, the magistrates performing a function not unlike that of the administrative boards of sentences and paroles which in recent years have sprung up in some of our western states. 1 5 Those who had been committed on 14

Hallema, "Jan Van Hout's rapporten . . . ," p. 80. The date of the introduction of this procedure cannot be fixed with any certainty. Hippel observed that it was not mentioned in the Historie . . . in 1612, nor did he find any reference to it before Commelin described it in 1693. Dr. Sebastian Egbertszoon suggested as early as 1595 the doubling of the term as a penalty for certain offenses against house discipline, but it had probably 15

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petition were apparently discharged whenever the petitioner demanded it. T h e tuchthuis became famous so rapidly t h a t near-by cities which had no similar facilities began to request permission to commit to it some of their offenders. Leiden led the way. Its problems of crime and juvenile delinquency were similar to those of Amsterdam, and its burghers had made vain attempts to stop the malicious mischief of youngsters who seemed to take special delight in throwing stones at the glass windows of churches and private residences. An effort to stop this by putting four or five of the principal offenders on bread and water in the Gravensteen— the old local jail—in 1582 had not been effective. 18 In November 1597, four young burghers had gone on a drunken spree, had broken a number of windows and carried on in a manner "not to be tolerated in a well-run republic." Jan Van Hout had shortly before visited the Amsterdam tuchthuis to study its methods and on J a n u a r y 27, 1598, the Leiden city council appointed a committee of two to make plans for a local house of correction. Two days later the committee, of which Van Hout was a member, went to Amsterdam to confer with the burgomasters about the possibility of placing the above prisoners in the tuchthuis. They were told that such requests from other cities had been refused and that "there was little place in the tuchthuis," but were advised to take the matter up directly with the regents, who acceded to the request after helping the committee to consume the "city's wine," liberally sent by the city fathers to the distinguished visitors at the old hostelry of the Three Moors. 1 7 T w o days later they were back in Leiden, and the magistrates sentenced the two ringleaders to three years imprisonment in the tuchthuis, the last year to be commuted if they behaved themselves well. T h e Leiden authorities bound themselves to pay the Amsterdam renot been put into practice by 1597 since Van Hout made no mention of it in listing the disciplinary punishment found in the institution. We know that it was the regular practice at least as early as the middle of the seventeenth century, since at that time one of the magistrates, Hans Bontemantel, described it fully. See his De Regeeringe van Amsterdam soo in't civiel als crimineel en militaire (1653-1672), ed., G. W. Kernkamp, p. 281. 16 A. Hallema, "Een geruchtmakend vonnis, in 1598 te Leiden gewezen," Tijds. v. Strafr„ 34: 244-70, 1924; p. 247. 17 Ibid., p. 251, and same author's "Jan Van Hout's rapporten . . . ." p. 93.

THE PRISONERS

47

gents one hundred florins a year per inmate for his keep and, in April 1598, the prisoners were admitted to the institution. T h e delay was occasioned by fruitless appeals against the sentence. T h e agreement with Leiden formed a precedent and other cities soon took advantage of it, but the total number of such commitments was probably small, partly because of the limited facilities and partly because houses of correction soon began to be built in all the larger towns in the Netherlands. Koning noted that in 1617 a prisoner from Horn was admitted, in 1640 one from Middelburg, and in 1658 one from Zutphen, 1 8 but these were cases which for some reason came to be mentioned in the court records of Amsterdam. Most of these commitments involved none but the regents of the tuchthuis and the authorities of the jurisdiction from which the prisoner was sent. There are even cases on record where prisoners were committed from distant points in Germany, but they were apparently all private commitments, i. e., by petition. Nevertheless they are indicative of the reputation of the institution. T h e daily population in the house was never very large. Van Hout found between sixty and seventy prisoners there in 1597. A year later the house was said to have room for seventy prisoners, 19 and in 1611 Caspar von Widmarkter found t h a t number there. 20 When the bookkeeper of the Utrecht house of correction visited Amsterdam in 1624, he found fifty raspers and forty weavers there. 2 1 By 1698 the number had risen to 117.22 At the time of John Howard's visit in 1781 there were only between 18

Koning, op. cit., p. 36. Ordnung der fürtrefflichen hoch und weitberümbten KauffStadt Amsterdam in Hollandt, mittelst welcher doselbsten die Bettler genüßlich abgeschaffet und die Armen unterhalten werden. This pamphlet is said to have been printed in 1598. It is cited by Ernst Rosenfeld, "Zur Geschichte der ältesten Zuchthäuser," Zeits. f . d. ges. Strafrechtswissenschaft, 26: 1-18, 1906, who refers to its reprint by Moes in Amsterdamsch Jaarboekje, 1898, pp. 7-12. 20 Itinerarium der Reise von Kassel aus in Engelandt A. 1611 den ¡4. Maji angefangen und den 4. Septembris glücklich volendet. Cited by Rosenfeld, supra., from same source. Widmarkter was the travel-guide of the seventeenyear-old son of the Landgraf of Hesse-Kassel. 21 J. Dómela Nieuwenhuis, "Het Utrechtsche Tuchthuis in het begin der zeventiende eeuw," Tijds. v. Strafr., 14: 147-66, 1902; p. 159. 22 Sir Richard Carnac Temple, ed., The Papers of Thomas Bowrey, 1669~ 1713 p. 42. 18

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fifty and sixty inmates, 23 but there were 124 when Sir John Cansaw the institution in 1806." This number probably taxed the capacity of the house. The relatively small inmate group, especially in the earlier period, indicates rather clearly that correctional imprisonment was sparingly used as a form of punishment and that it was for some time reserved for a small and selected group of offenders. This does not in any way detract from the importance of the tuchthuis movement, but the impression conveyed by scholars like Hippel that it displaced other penalties must be dispelled. An examination of the data summarized from Koning's work shows that corporal and capital punishments persisted a long time and that banishment was equally popular. Furthermore, fines, then as now, remained a common penalty. Koning, after examining the court records of Amsterdam, especially those covering the first few years of the tuchthuis, came to the conclusion that few offenders were committed there. 25 In considering the relatively small daily population it should be remembered that if the terms served were on the average rather short, many times that number passed through the institution during any given year. With the growth of the city, other similar institutions grew up, especially the New Workhouse in 1650, and a juvenile reformatory (Verbeterhuis) in 1694. The former, in particular, came to be used for beggars, vagrants, and drunkards, having a daily population of more than a hundred in 176 5.26 After its enlargement, which had just been completed when John Howard inspected it in 1783, it had about four hundred inmates. 27 The tuchthuis had become too small, and as its original clientele was drained off by the New Workhouse, it retained the prisoners with longer terms, becoming more and more a typical prison for serious offenders. 23

Howard, op. cit., p. 58. Sir John Carr, A tour through Holland, along the right and left banks of the Rhine, to the south of Germany, in the summer and autumn of 1806, p. 299. 25 Koning, op. cit., p. 30. 28 Wagenaar, op. cit., II, 259. 27 Howard, op. cit., p. 61. 24

THE LABOR PROGRAM THE founders of the tuchthuis were firm in their demand that it should be a place where trades were taught and all the inmates would labor. The elaborate proposals of Spiegel were never put into effect for good practical reasons, but from the very beginning the prisoners were set to work. The magistrates always placed in their sentences the order that the prisoners should serve their terms "at labor at the discretion of the regents." 1 Only one group of prisoners was exempted from this requirement. The sons of the rich, who could pay for their own maintenance, were not required to work. Furthermore, they were housed in separate rooms on the second floor of the west wing and could not be seen by anyone. Whether or not they were in solitary confinement, or participated in the religious and educational exercises, is not clear from the sources of information available. It would seem that some of them may actually have been committed on sentences by the magistrates as criminals, 2 but they were probably mostly of the class admitted by order of the burgomasters. T h e first industry established was that of weaving. Weaving had become by that time a prosperous and expanding industry in Amsterdam and other near-by cities, which had profited by the immigration of the craftsmen driven out of the southern Catholic provinces who had brought expert knowledge of newer processes and a labor power which made it possible for Holland to assume leadership in a trade in which the Flemings had for centuries been acknowledged masters. It was one of these refugee master weavers, one Jean or Jan Bontemantel, op. cit., p. 278. 2 Ibid. 1

49

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Parent, who was appointed early in 1598 by the burgomasters as work supervisor of the tuchthuis and given the responsibility of setting up a shop for the weaving of "tripe," i. e., mock-velvet, or velveteen. The agreement with him, dated January 27, 1598, is an interesting document and reads as follows : Points and articles, wherein the burgomasters of this city on the one h a n d and J a n Parent, velveteen weaver [trijpwercker], on t h e other, have agreed and contracted regarding the said Parent's service in the tuchthuis of this city for a period of five years beginning M a y 1 next. 1. First, t h a t the said J a n Parent, his wife, two daughters, and sonin-law shall be bound to set u p and continue f r o m M a y 1 next t h e operation of looms, as the conditions of the house and its labor m a y require and to employ in weaving all persons, y o u n g or old, w h o are already in the house o r shall be there placed, and to instruct and teach t h e m ; also, to promote and honestly direct this labor according t o their best knowledge and ability, and to begin with to place some of his old journeymen at this work in order to get this i n d u s t r y going in a good m a n n e r and to increase the possibility of selling the poor with t h e good product, continuing these j o u r n e y m e n at this work so long as it is necessary and useful t o the house, p a y i n g t h e m their daily wages according to what is proper and out of f u n d s referred to below. 2. And, in order t h a t said industry be better promoted and everything properly supervised at the expense of the city, there shall be prepared before M a y 1, for the use of said P a r e n t and his family, a comfortable dwelling in the said house f r o n t i n g on the street which he can occupy rent-free during the period of his contract. 3. Furthermore, the said J a n Parent, f o r the promotion of said industry, shall be assigned f r o m city f u n d s two hundred Flemish p o u n d s and later more, depending on the requirements of the industry, u p to at the most five h u n d r e d or six hundred such p o u n d s and to use such f u n d s to buy linen and woolen y a r n s which will be needed daily. 4. And, if it should occur, once the industry has been installed, t h a t there is need for more looms than those which at the beginning of this contract have been acquired and delivered on behalf of this city, then shall all such [looms] be paid for by the city; also, out of the profit received f r o m the sales there shall, as well, be paid the [cost o f ] shafts, combs, reeds, shuttles, ropes, shears, a n d all other necessary equipment as well as heat and light t h a t he shall need for the i n d u s t r y

T H E LABOR P R O G R A M

51

or for his family; he shall also pay out of the profits the excise tax on the beer drunk by his family as well as the repairs and maintenance of said looms and other equipment pertaining to them. When this contract goes into effect, an inventory shall be made of all equipment which, for the promotion of the trade, the city or the said J a n Parent has brought in or delivered, and toward the end of the contract period all this equipment shall be put into proper shape out of the said common profits so that each party may get back in perfect condition all equipment which subsequently to the inventory mentioned shall have been placed there; and that of all that may be bought during the contract period out of the profits, two-thirds shall afterwards revert to the city and one-third to the said Jan Parent. 5. T h e said Jan Parent, furthermore, as administrator and director of all this industry and what pertains thereto, shall be bound to make proper records of all that he spends for the purposes heretofore mentioned and also faithfully to preserve all receipts derived from the said industry, all of which he shall be duty bound to dispose of and utilize in the most profitable way, and toward the end of each year, i. e., before the month of May, to make to the regents of the said tuchthuis and to any others whom the burgomasters might find it suitable to designate, a proper accounting of his administration and of what each year might have been found profitable. Over and above the privileges granted above to the said Jan Parent, he shall, in addition, for his own and his family's services receive six hundred guilders of forty Flemish groats, and if it should be found that the profits exceed this amount, then the said tuchthuis shall retain two-thirds of this excess and the said J a n Parent one-third. At first, the money shall be advanced by the city in the manner already mentioned, but toward the end of the contract the said J a n Parent shall refund these advances to the city. 6. And, in order that at the beginning of each year a better view of the accounting may be had, a complete inventory shall be made of the shop, raw material and merchandise and equipment, jointly by the regents and the said Jan Parent and in the presence of any other good people who might be designated by the burgomasters at will. If, one year or another, it should be found that the business is not so advantageous or profitable for the house or the said Jan Parent as was hoped, the burgomaster with the advice of the regents of the said house shall take under consideration whether or not the five-year period of the contract should be shortened. 7. Furthermore, the said J a n Parent and all his family shall during

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their service show proper respect for the regents of the said house and take care that he himself, members of his family, or his old journeymen, whom he is to bring into the house, or anyone else given access to the house with his knowledge or arrangement, shall not bring in anything, little or much, to a prisoner, young or old, or carry out any messages for a prisoner without the consent of the regents, on pain of punishment by the city, the said Jan Parent being held responsible for warning all persons who through him or his family are admitted to the house. And if during the contract period, any misfortune should strike the house, which God forbid, such as fire or theft, the said Jan Parent shall suffer no loss from such an event except what he would have received out of profits. 8. In order faithfully to execute all this, the said Jan Parent hereby pledges himself and all his goods, present and future, non exempted, as do the burgomasters of this city on the other hand pledge the city's goods." Parent's contract might lead one to assume t h a t there was no weaving in the house during the first fifteen months, were it not for the fact that Van Hout found that the weaving of fustians or bombazines was already going on at the time of his visit late in 1597, and probably had been a leading form of labor from the beginning. The enlargement of the facilities and the engagement of a master weaver presaged the use of the house to its full capacity. The regulations issued by the regents before his contract expired indicated that an additional master weaver was soon employed. The industry flourished for many years until the middle of the seventeenth century. Wagenaar found no reference in the minute books of the regents of any master weaver being employed after 1667, and stated that in his time the shops were closed. 4 In fact, Dapper in 1663 reported the weaveries in a bad state. 5 The fate of this industry was a reflection of what was occurring throughout the textile factories of Holland which were all suffering from the effects of the English Navigation Act of 1651 and the subsequent three-year war with England. At any rate, it seems that in the tuchthuis, at least, weaving did not succeed in reestablishing itself for more than a century. »Van Dillen, op. cit., pp. xvii, and 551-53, No. 919. «Wagenaar, op. cit., II, 251, 254. » Dapper, op. cit., p. 428.

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W e have noted t h a t in the early years f u s t i a n s and bombazines were woven. T h e first regulations also mentioned the weaving of velveteen, "doppers," and b u r a t t o s as being labor reserved for y o u t h s " n o t fit for heavy work." An interesting sidelight on the relation of the house to the free weaving industry in A m s t e r d a m is gleaned from an ordinance of J u l y 28, 1599, which suggests t h a t mercantile f r a u d was sufficiently common t o require regulation. T h e ordinance fixed the length, width, and thickness of bombazines and mock-velvets. All weavers of such cloth or of plain and figured cloths of linen or wool y a r n s were required to bring their products to the tuchthuis to be measured and marked, and if they failed to do so they were to be fined twelve stivers for each piece, half of the fine to go to the support of the house. P r e s u m a b l y the master weavers of the tuchthuis were to m a k e the inspections. T h e ordinance said nothing on this point, but fixed the time, two hours in the forenoon and two in the afternoon during which the inspections would be made. 6 T h e industry which proved most i m p o r t a n t and which survived w a r and economic competition was not weaving, but the rasping of dyewoods. T h e dyers of this period were limited to the use of vegetable compounds for coloring matter, and the pigments were extracted largely from hardwood imported f r o m Asia, South and Central America, and the East Indies. T h e r e was a great variety of these woods, although they were all popularly referred to as brazilwood, 7 the generic term for a n u m b e r of varieties of the species Caesalpinia, "soluble" redwood providing a bright red shade. O f t e n the term "yellow wood" was used by the early historians, probably because the brazilwoods when freshly cut and exposed to the air were yellow. Of the m a n y varieties of Caesalpinia used for dyeing purposes, the ones commonly mentioned were F e r n a m b u c o or P e r n a m b u c o wood f r o m Brazil and J a m a i c a (Caesalpinia crista), the brazilwood proper (Caesalpinia brasiliensis) f r o m Brazil; sapanwood (Caesalpinia sappan) f r o m the warmer regions of Asia, and peachwood (Caesalpinia echinata) f r o m Central America and β Van Dillen, op. cit., pp. 573-74, N o . 950. ι For a scholarly treatment of the origins and nature of the "brazilwood" industry consult A. L. Pereira Ferraz. Terra da Ibirapitanga.

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the northern parts of South America. In addition, logwood or campeachy wood (Haematoxylon campechianum) was imported from the Yucatan seaport of Campeche. It remained the most important source of black coloring matter until the introduction of sulphide blacks. 8 Early historians of the tuchthuis also referred to St. Martin wood, probably imported from Mexico, and Viset ( P) wood. The logs had to be "ground," "chipped," or "rasped" before they could be used in the dyeing industry. Grinding pieces of wood between the stones of a mill was one method of reducing the wood to sawdust from which the pigments could be extracted. Another method was chipping it into small slivers or shavings and a third of grating or rasping it. The first was the one used by free industry, the second and especially the third were arduous tasks of manual labor which seemed to the fathers of the tuchthuis to be particularly suitable for the correction of idlers and others who shied from honest labor. T o insure to the house an ample supply of this form of "exercise," the city council passed an ordinance, January 27, 1599, "regarding the rasping of brazilwood," stating that "since experience has taught that the rasping of brazilwood is peculiarly useful as punishment and exercise for those confined at labor in the tuchthuis of this city and since, as the members of the court understand it, the regents of the said tuchthuis have reached an agreement with the people who hitherto have, in this city and its liberties, earned their livelihood at this trade, it is ordered . . . that beginning next May no one in the city or its liberties except the tuchthuis, shall rasp any brazilwood, on penalty of confiscation of all equipment used by the offender." 9 A private citizen trying to evade this ordinance by erecting a mill outside the city's jurisdiction provoked a supporting letter-patent by the States General, which on May 11, 1602, extended the monopoly of the 8 See Arthur George Perkins and Arthur ganic Coloring Matters, pp. 345-46, 362-63, noted in the storage rooms of the tuchthuis others the Evonymtis Europaeus, the Morus Campechianum." Op. cit., p. 299. 8 Van Dillen, op. cit., p. 569, No. 944.

Ernest Everest. The Natural Or379, 381. Sir John Carr in 1806 large piles of dyewoods, "amongst Tinctoria, and the Haematoxylon

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Amsterdam tuchthuis to all Holland and West Friesland with the proviso that if any other towns within these provinces later erected any house of correction, they could enjoy a similar monopoly within their own boundaries. 1 0 T h e miller mentioned received no other compensation than the assurance that if the tuchthuis could not fill the demand for rasped wood, he would be allowed by the regents to supply the balance. Additional ordinances gave further protection to the m o n o p o l y by forbidding dyers to use any dust except that provided by the house, or to have their logs rasped elsewhere. 1 1 In 1656 the regents erected a mill of their own some distance from the house in order to handle wood unsuitable for rasping. 1 2 T h e monopoly granted to the tuchthuis became, as the years went by, a thorn in the side of other towns, for while other municipal houses of correction could receive local monopolies, only the Amsterdam house could export the rasped w o o d to other countries. Rotterdam and Leiden were the chief complainants and, in the former city, private enterprise tried from time to time to evade the law. T h e regents of the tuchthuis finally sought the I0 C o m m e l i n reproduced this o r d i n a n c e in his work previously cited, I, 511-13. In 1628, the provincial t u c h t h u i s of U t r e c h t was given a thirty-six-year monopoly on rasping dyewood within the province of U t r e c h t . J . D ó m e l a Nieuwenhuis. "I let Utrechtsche T u c h t h u i s . . . ," p. 158. In an article on " D e gevangenisarbeid in c o n c u r r e n c e met het particulière bedrijvsleven . . . ," Economisch-Hist. Jaarb., 19: 114-201, 1935, A. Hallema reproduced an agreement between Pieter Janszoon of Z a a n d i j k , the miller mentioned, a n d Ysbrand H e r m a n s z o o n , one of the t u c h t h u i s regents representing t h e board. T h e agreement, limiting t h e miller's activity, was signed April 29, 1602. 11 T h a t it was impossible to p r e v e n t all evasion of these o r d i n a n c e s is seen f r o m a petition by a n u m b e r of Leiden d y e r s in 1677, which incidentally claimed t h a t ground wood was better t h a n t h e rasped and t h a t the latter tended to work o u t of the sacks in the kettles and get mixed u p in the woolen y a r n . T h e y also claimed t h a t rasped wood had t o be boiled longer to give up its p i g m e n t and t h a t even the Amsterdam dyers had their woolens dyed in Leiden, but used rasped wood for their silks. See N. W. P o s t h u m u s , Bronnen tot de geschiedenes van de Leidsche textielnijverheid, V (1651-1702), 734-35, No. 576. 12 T h e r e are c o n t r a d i c t o r y s t a t e m e n t s concerning the time when rasping c a m e t o be introduced as a f o r m of labor. Hippel seemed t o believe t h a t the 1599 ordinance m a r k e d its beginning a n d used this a s s u m p t i o n in his t e n t a t i v e d a t i n g of the first rules and regulations, b u t Van H o u t in 1597 described t h e m e t h o d of rasping used at t h e t i m e of his visit. It p r o b a b l y existed even earlier. It w a s a form of labor specifically suggested by Spiegel even before the house h a d been established.

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aid of the courts, and the suit which lasted f r o m 1672 to 1677 was decided in their favor. 1 3 T h e system of labor used would in m o d e r n terminology be called a contract system. T h e users of the rasped wood purchased it f r o m regents under contracts approved by the burgomasters. U n f o r t u n a t e l y the early years are on this point shrouded in silence, 14 although inferences m a y be d r a w n f r o m the contemp o r a r y situation in other institutions. W a g e n a a r first described the system as it existed in the middle of the eighteenth century. He f o u n d m a n y of the contracts in the record books of the house. T h e last before his history was published was d a t e d in 1763 and provided t h a t the buyer should store his logs in the house, but t h a t on a given date each year his stock should not exceed a certain n u m b e r of thousand pounds of each type of wood. Every year he was to remove the sawdust of half of the poundage stored or lose his privilege of using the facilities of the house in the future. He was to p a y t h i r t y stivers a h u n d r e d pounds of wood rasped, and if it was ground in the mill the charge was to be twenty-four stivers for Viset wood and t w e n t y stivers for all other varieties. Careful accounts were kept by the work supervisors and later also by the miller's bookkeeper. Weekly s t a t e m e n t s were rendered to the regents. T h e employees just mentioned were also the bill collectors each six months. No employee of the house could have wood rasped or ground there or act as a broker. T h e system governing weaving was p r o b a b l y similiar. Arend Van Buchell, well-known official of the East India C o m p a n y , traveler and a n t i q u a r i a n who was a regent of the Utrecht tuchthuis in 1623-33, reported t h a t the weaving of bombazines was handled in his institution under a contract system, t h a t buyers of rasped wood supplied the raw material, and t h a t p a y ment was made either by piece or by day. ir> 13 H a l l e m a , " D e g e v a n g e n i s a r b e i d . . . ," a l r e a d y cited, a n d chap, vi in his In en om de gevangenis. . . . 14 V a n H o u t did r e p o r t t h a t in 1597 t h e house received Yt stivers per p o u n d f o r t h e labor, or stivers per 100 p o u n d s . See H a l l e m a , " J a n V a n H o u t ' s r a p p o r t e n . . . ," p. 8. 15 See J. D ó m e l a Nieuwenhuis, "Met I ' t r e c h t s c h e T u c h t h u i s . . . ," p. 158.

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T h e rasping was done in the cellrooms of the first floor, and in f a i r weather in the c o u r t y a r d . T h e prisoners assigned to this heavy labor were the stoutest ones, who worked in pairs, using a tool which might be described as a multiple crosscut saw, m a d e by placing a n u m b e r of heavy saw blades close together, the teeth of one blade laid next to the spaces between the teeth of its neighbors. Strong handles at each end made it possible to pull this saw back a n d f o r t h across the log placed on a sawbuck or in some kind of vise (see illustrations facing pages 33 and 6 8 ) . At first a twelve-bladed saw was used, 1 6 but as time passed the blades were reduced in n u m b e r to eight, six, or five. 17 T h e saw weighed, according to J o h n Howard, f r o m seventy to eighty pounds 18 and m u s t have been m u c h heavier when it was twelve-bladed. T h e work m u s t therefore have been backbreaking and was so described by m a n y visitors. Even in Howard's time it was said t o cause r u p t u r e s quite f r e q u e n t l y . A rigid t a s k system prevailed in both the weaving and the rasping industries. T h e weavers had to finish ten ells the first week, fifteen the second, and so on, until they reached the maxim u m of thirty-five ells. Each team of raspers had to produce a fixed n u m b e r of p o u n d s of sawdust daily. Van Hout in 1597 reported t h a t the stronger t e a m s had to produce sixty pounds and the weaker ones f o r t y pounds, but the first rules issued somewhat later mentioned only fifty pounds. By t h a t time weaving had been introduced on a larger scale and the old, the young, and the weak did this lighter work. When Sir J o h n C a r r saw the institution in 1806 the task was two hundred instead of three h u n d r e d p o u n d s a week and was said by the warden t o be relatively easy to p e r f o r m by healthy and strong prisoners a f t e r some practice. 1 9 A q u a r t e r of a century earlier it was also two h u n d r e d or three h u n d r e d pounds. 2 0 A f t e r 1656, when the grindSee also G. Brom and L. A. Van Langeraad, eds., Diarium van Arend Van Buchell, pp. lx-lxiv. 18 Hallema, "Jan Van Hout's rapporten . . . ," p. 81. i ' Unidentified Hamburger who visited the house in 1752. See Ebeling, op. cit., pp. 117-18. i" Howard, op. cit., p. 58. ι» Carr, op. cit., p. 298. 2° Howard, op. cit., p. 58.

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ing mill was set up outside the institution, those who chipped wood for grinding had each to produce from two hundred to three hundred pounds daily depending on their physical condition and ability. It was the rasping industry that gave the house the popular name by which it came to be best known, the Rasphouse, a term which was applied to all similar institutions on the Continent and remained in popular usage as synonymous with a workhouse for vagrants and other petty criminals long after the industry itself had disappeared as a form of prison labor. One of the most interesting features of the labor program was the wage paid to the prisoners for their work. Such a wage had been suggested both by Spiegel and Dr. Sebastian. According to the earliest regulations, the raspers received 8yí stivers a day, a bookkeeping transaction, since they were charged this amount "for cost and maintenance." If they were able to rasp more than their allotted task, they were paid a guilder for each extra one hundred pounds. The weavers received a stiver for each ell of finer cloth and half a stiver for coarser material. Each week the work supervisor had to present to the regents a slip for each prisoner showing the amount of work done. He was then given the money for distribution to the prisoners. The full amount earned by each was not returned to him in this manner. The office retained for each rasper two stivers out of each extra guilder earned and one out of each five stivers earned by a weaver. This money constituted a small fund given to the prisoner on his discharge. There is no mention of any wage paid to those engaged in maintenance jobs or other tasks, but we may assume that they were paid too. Trusted prisoners were employed in a variety of ways. The early rules mentioned two who filed the saws, 21 piled the wood and put the dust in bags ready for delivery, 22 one who split or 21 A b r a h a m a Santa Clara mentioned t h a t saws were sharpened after eight hundred pounds had been rasped. Dr. Weissenrieder, " D a s Rasp- oder Zuchthaus. Eine Predigt von A b r a h a m a Santa Clara . . . ," Blätter für Gefängniskunde, 6 5 : 2 2 3 - 2 2 9 , 1934; p. 225. A b r a h a m a Santa Clara was born in 1644 and died in 1709. 22 T h e s e bags were carefully s t a m p e d with the coat of arms of A m s t e r d a m or the initials of the tuchthuis in such a manner as to indicate the c o n t e n t s clearly.

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chipped wood for grinding, and one who helped the house f a t h e r or warden to distribute meals. W a g e n a a r f o u n d two inmate weighers who operated the scale on which the daily production was weighed, one or two who separated the sound chips of wood f r o m the decayed, two who were assistants to the work supervisor, and two who distributed meals, watched the inner gate, a n d alternated as night watchmen. T h e weighers and waiters, he stated, also accompanied the warden on his nightly tour of inspection and removed saws and other implements to the weighing room where they were placed under lock and key. A scullery boy, a cobbler, and two yardsweepers were also a m o n g the trusties a n d at times p r o b a b l y others, when, as W a g e n a a r p u t it, " t h e talents of the prisoners permitted it." W h a t had happened to the highly diversified plan of labor proposed by Spiegel and designed to afford a m a x i m u m of t r a d e t r a i n i n g ? T h e r e is little in early documents or secondary sources to indicate t h a t it was ever developed beyond w h a t has been described above. T h e scant references to other occupations are so a m b i g u o u s 2 3 t h a t Hippel's assumptions on this p o i n t 2 4 appear entirely unjustified. Both the small number of prisoners, the avowed aim of m a k i n g the institution self-supporting, the character of the main industries installed, and the trade knowledge of the supervisory personnel precluded a n y great diversification. As time went on and the regents somewhat reduced the labor task, prisoners completed it earlier and therefore used their spare time to earn some money by overwork. M a n y of them p r o b a b l y rasped some additional pounds of wood, but others preferred to m a n u f a c t u r e objects for sale to visitors, which is a common practice in modern prisons. T h e u n n a m e d gentleman f r o m H a m b u r g in 1752 observed t h a t some of the prisoners had m a d e "boxes for smoking tobacco which are at times right handsome," but added t h a t they asked six or seven guilders for boxes t h a t were hardly worth twenty-four or thirty stivers. 2 5 23 T y p i c a l is Plancius' s t a t e m e n t in 1597 that the prisoners were put to "unbelievable labor and all kinds of manual trades." See P. Scheltema, loc. cit. 24 Hippel, op. cit., pp. 461-62. 28 Ebeling, op. cit., p. 118.

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Sir J o h n Carr, a half-century later, found a much greater variety of "little articles in straw, bone, wood, and copper" offered for sale by the prisoners. 2 0

2« Carr, op. cit., p. 298.

VII esSL WELFARE AND DISCIPLINE K O O I , w h o was a physician, inspected the institution in 1844, he was especially s h a r p in his criticism of its regime f r o m the point of view of health. T h i s was mostly because of the f a c t t h a t by t h a t time overcrowding was so bad t h a t as m a n y as t w e n t y or t h i r t y prisoners could be f o u n d in rooms designed f o r one-third of those n u m b e r s . He also complained of the lack of proper ventilation and the darkness of the cellrooms, caused in part by the high board fence outside the cells, which was erected sometime in the early eighteenth century. D u r i n g earlier y e a r s we find no such complaints. E a r l y writers noted t h a t when the pest raged in the city in 1602-3, none in the house fell ill. N o definite s t a t e m e n t concerning the segregation of prisoners with communicable diseases is m a d e by a n y writer before W a g e n a a r , but since this was a practice in hospitals of the sixteenth c e n t u r y it p r o b a b l y occurred in the house of correction f r o m the beginning. On the other h a n d J a n Van H o u t noted t h a t in 1597 sick prisoners were m a d e c o m f o r t a b l e in their respective cellrooms, there being no special hospital room. W h e t h e r or not such a prisoner was deprived of his bed p a r t n e r is not known, b u t even if he was not, it is wise to r e m e m b e r t h a t in c o n t e m p o r a r y hospitals f o r the poor it was not u n c o m m o n to find more t h a n one p a t i e n t occupying each bed. A physician was called t o t h e house whenever he was needed, and his fees were paid by t h e regents. WHEN

Since so m a n y of the i n m a t e s were young, a school was conducted f r o m the beginning. T h i s school, which afforded instruction in reading and writing, met daily in winter " f r o m the t i m e it begins to grow d a r k " until 7 p. M., including Sundays, and also on S u n d a y m o r n i n g s f r o m six t o eight. T h e " c h u r c h " was also 61

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the schoolroom. One of the earliest descriptions of the house 1 suggested that the reason for the instruction was that illiteracy prevented the prisoner from being properly catechized, and this is very creditable. When Rosenroth visited the house in 1663, the boys were, during the school period, held to their benches by a special foot-halter. H i p p e l s assumption that the instruction was given to all prisoners may be valid for the first years, but by 1663 it was no longer the practice. Dapper found then that it did not include any of the raspers, "since it would be a dangerous matter for the work supervisor to be alone with a mass of such lawless and furious people. These are given for their edification the books to read in their cellrooms, and if they cannot read, to have them read aloud by someone else." 2 The books just mentioned and used as textbooks included, according to Dapper, "the most important and edifying epistles of the Apostles, the proverbs of Solomon, and similar books." They had been printed especially for the use of the house at the instance of the city government. 3 The teaching was probably on a very low level and stressed learning by rote the contents of the books mentioned and whatever other information might be necessary to be considered as having mastered the rudiments of religious knowledge. At first "the preacher and schoolmaster" assigned to the house was the teacher, but very soon the work supervisor seems to have taken his place. How long the school lasted as a part of the rasphouse program is not clearly known. Wagenaar made no mention of it in his very detailed survey., stating merely that the work supervisor taught the ablest prisoners to read and write "at times." It is most likely that with the improvement of religious education in the community and especially the gradual removal of the younger prisoners to other institutions, the 1

See Rosenfeld, op. cit., p. 14. Dapper, op. cit., p. 428. 8 The first edition was printed in 1599 by Pieter Gervaerts. The edition of 1635 was entitled, Seecker pLaetsen uyt de Brieven der Apostelen ghenomen oock eenige geheele Brieven te samen ghevoecht ende in forme van een handboecken ghedruckt ten mitte en profyte van den Tuchthuyse binnen Amstelredam opgherecht. Other books may also have been available to the prisoners, but no specific information is available on this point. 2

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need f o r a school of the t y p e m e n t i o n e d d i s a p p e a r e d s o m e t i m e d u r i n g the late seventeenth c e n t u r y . T h e house was o f t e n referred to as one of the city's godshuisen o r i n s t i t u t i o n s of C h r i s t i a n c h a r i t y . C e r t a i n l y e v e r y effort w a s m a d e to give a strong religious cast to the discipline in o r d e r to m a k e the prisoners G o d - f e a r i n g people. T h e i n m a t e s h a d to p r a y m o r n i n g s a n d evenings a n d before a n d a f t e r each meal. S u n d a y m o r n i n g s a n d on religious holidays a sermon w a s preached in t h e " c h u r c h " b y the preacher a l r e a d y m e n t i o n e d , p r o b a b l y a " c o m f o r t e r of the sick" 4 of a local congregation. T h e r e g u l a t i o n s f u r t h e r m o r e required t h a t f r o m one t o t w o o'clock in t h e a f t e r noon of these d a y s a service be held, the raspers being excluded f r o m these sermons a n d exercises as t h e y were f r o m the element a r y school periods. At this service the w o r k supervisor " r e a d s , speaks to, [ a n d ] catechizes these y o u t h s , and h y m n s are sung j u s t as in public Calvinistic churches." 5 T h e y o u t h s h a d t o k n o w t h e " S u n d a y ' s q u e s t i o n s " a n d answer t h e m b y h e a r t . T h e a f t e r n o o n service ended, the y o u t h s e n j o y e d t h e o n l y recreation specifically referred to in the e a r l y rules. F r o m t w o o'clock to d a r k , i. e., until schooltime, t h e y were allowed t h e i r exercitium and could " p l a y with one a n o t h e r . " β V a n H o u t ' s rep o r t in 1597 t o the effect t h a t d u r i n g w o r k d a y s the labor s t o p p e d a b o u t 3 p. m. a n d t h a t a f t e r w a r d s the prisoners were free t o read, write or exercise, would seem to indicate t h a t some o p p o r t u n i t y for p l a y existed on such d a y s as well. The Discipline: T h e regents of the house recognized very e a r l y t h a t t h e life in t h e i n s t i t u t i o n h a d t o be rigidly organized. L i k e m o s t penal a d m i n i s t r a t o r s t o d a y t h e y w a n t e d order a n d o b e d i ence. T h o s e placed in t h e i r charge h a d shown b y their m o d e of life t h a t t h e y needed to learn both a well-regulated b e h a v i o r a n d submission to a u t h o r i t y , b o t h being regarded as m e a n s t o an e n d — a s u b s e q u e n t life of laborious honesty. * Wagenaar gives him this title. 5 Dapper, op. cit., p. 428. 6 Hippel, through an erroneous interpretation, placed this play period earlier in the morning, after the school period. Cf. Hippel, op. cit., p. 464.

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Rules for the government of the prisoners and their conduct were projected soon a f t e r the opening of the house. Hallema found in the Leiden archives a document of this character which he believed was prepared by one of the first regents. Its anonymous a u t h o r had designed the rules in order t h a t the inmates "as they now come to be discharged m a y never depart f r o m the road of virtue on which they have been directed." 7 T h e undated proposal was submitted to the high bailiff, the burgomasters, and the magistrates who a p p a r e n t l y handed it to Dr. Sebastian Egbertszoon, who on N o v e m b e r 21, 1595, submitted a "Plan of the m a n n e r a n d form of the discipline in the House of Correction" ( O n t w e r p vande wyse ende forme des tuchts in den tuchthuyse).8 In this plan Dr. Sebastian saw the aim of the house to be the inculcation of all "Christian and social virtues." T h e treatment, as schematized by Hallema on the basis of the content of the plan, should consist of : A. Teaching the difference between good and evil through 1. speech, a) i. e., in general through religious a n d worldly instruction by the house f a t h e r and the work supervisors: b ) in individual cases through contacts with regents, employees, etc. 2. example, as a result of friendly relations established between prisoners and staff. B, Attracting the prisoners toward the good a n d preventing their doing evil, through 1. Careful supervision which would prevent the violation of rules and would operate through a ) surveillance in general, and b ) at least one member of the staff being present when prisoners worked together. 2. Assured p u n i s h m e n t for violation of disciplinary rules. These rules 7

Hallema, "Merkwaardige voorstellen . . . ," p. 95. Ibid., pp. 95 ff. Günther Saarn (op. cit., pp. 25-26) gives a German translation of this document from a copy secured from the archivist of Leiden. Saarn gives the date of the "Ontwerp" as November 9, 1595. 8

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a) should be revised from time to time, b) read aloud to prisoners every Sunday afternoon at schooltime, and c) enforced by regents and staff. He furthermore gave a rather detailed list of specific rules, the violation of which would entail penalties varying from breadand-water ration for one or more days to rather severe punishments. The list follows: 1. Causing quarrels; lying: bread and water, one day. 2. Cursing; using foul language; refusing to learn; giving food or drink to prisoners under punishment: bread and water, three days. 3. Mild insubordination: bread and water, eight days. 4. Attempting fight; malicious destruction of property, such as clothing, furnishings, etc; refusal to work, first offense: bread and water, fourteen days. 5. Fighting, causing i n j u r y : bread and water, two months. 6. More serious insubordination, accompanied by bad words: confinement in dungeon, one month, on bread and water. 7. Refusal to work, second offense: whipping and one month's confinement in dungeon on bread and water. 8. Insubordination, with physical violence: whipping, and confinement in dungeon for six months on bread and water. 9. Deceitful attempt to break out and escape: whipping, and six months' confinement in dungeon in chains. 10. Same offense, but accompnaied with violence: same penalty as in (9) and the term of imprisonment doubled. 11. Aiding in escapes: same penalty as in (10). 12. Getting out by deceit alone: doubling of term of imprisonment. 13. Refusal to work, third offense: prisoner to be returned to court for punishment. Ν. B. None of the above penalties should excuse the prisoner from labor. There is no indication that Dr. Sebastian's proposal was actually put into effect, for Van Hout stated that on his visit

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there were as yet no official rules for the house, although he noted that disciplinary punishments existed. The "resentful and savage ones" were wearing leg chains and anklets weighing from thirty to eighty pounds, and these chains, restricted food rations, and the lash, "without which, so say the regents, the house could not be run," 9 were in use. Before 1603, specific rules were adopted, however, and while the original documents have been lost, Hippel discovered a copy in the archives of Danzig, where they had been sent at the request of the authorities of that city. 10 There is no doubt that these rules, to which reference has from time to time been made in earlier chapters, were greatly influenced by Dr. Sebastian's "plan," for many of the specific violations and penalties of the latter recurred in the official version. When a prisoner was admitted to the institution he was put in an isolation cell, probably one of those used for disciplinary punishments. A regent visited him there and made him acquainted with the rules of the house. If he was an old cheval de retour he was made to wait longer for this visit. The rules were quite detailed. Some of them have already been mentioned in connection with the description of sanitation and food provisions. Among the others were the following: 1. If anyone "abuses the name of God in curses and oaths or speaks or sings immoral or indecent words, or uses thieves' cant, called 'Peddlers' French,' " he was "punished." 2. Books, letters, or ballads could not be read or sung except those prescribed by the regents. Such material had to be turned over to the supervisor-schoolteacher at inspection. The penalty for a violation of this rule was fixed at loss of meat ration for three weeks. 9

Hallema, " J a n Van H o u t ' s r a p p o r t e n . . . ," p. 83. Hippel gave these rules, p a r t l y verbatim, p a r t l y summarized in his essay already cited, pp. 474-80. His assumption t h a t they were adopted prior t o 1603 rested on the absence of any mention of the "secret house" established t h a t year. It is more difficult t o accept his surmise t h a t they could not have been a d o p t e d before 1599, as his reasoning is inconclusive. T h e y m a y have been adopted any time a f t e r the visit by Van H o u t or, with greater certainty, any time a f t e r the contract with J a n Parent went into effect, i.e., in M a y 1598. 10

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3. Calling anyone improper names, especially the officers, resulted in the loss of half a day's ration the first time. 4. Knives or sharp instruments, fire-lighting equipment, and tobacco could not be in the possession of a prisoner. Smoking was forbidden. Shears used by the weavers had to be left on t h e loom. 5. Betting, gambling, or trading was prohibited. If objects were involved, the supervisors could confiscate them and keep them f o r their own benefit, but if money was involved [which in view of the prison wage policy could easily occur], it should be taken and placed in the "box," i. e., the collection box into which visitors' fees and other contributions were dropped. 1 1 6. Weavers were not allowed to leave their looms or run around a n d m a k e noises in the shop or beg visitors for gifts. 7. Finally, if anyone failed in the performance of his daily task he was punished and in addition had to " m a k e u p " whatever he had failed to complete. W e have noticed that the mildest disciplinary punishments consisted of a reduction in rations, at least for the first offense. T h e rules stated t h a t "when they commit a crime, fight, or do other mischief, they are punished by the regents either by being given a heavier task, or by being for a certain time placed in chains, and they probably also have the term lengthened t h a t they have to spend in the house." There were consequently other and more serious penalties awaiting the unruly prisoner. Refusal to work, for instance, resulted in being placed in the "cellar," i. e., in an isolation cell under the chapel wing and on a bread-andwater diet. While the work supervisor had the power to send such a refractory prisoner into isolation, he had nothing to do with fixing the penalty. Evidently he had to m a k e an immediate report to the regents, one of whom then visited the prisoner, ascertained the facts and assessed a penalty. A n o t h e r punishment threatening "very obstreperous prisoners" was the chain. It was attached to both ankles, was heavy 11

T h i s b o x is seen in the m i d d l e of the courtyard in c o n t e m p o r a r y prints.

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enough to have to be dragged and barely long enough from the place it was fastened so that the prisoner could just reach his work place, his bed, and the toilet. This punishment was suffered in the prisoner's cellroom, therefore, and lasted sometimes weeks or months. Other penalties "at the discretion of the regents" were employed. While the early rules make no mention of their character, ample evidence proves that the whipping post played a leading role as a punishment for more serious breaches of rules, especially attempts to escape, repeated refusal to work, or gross insubordination. Koning noted 13 that on November 13, 1618, some twenty prisoners were whipped for refusal to work, and t h a t a year earlier seven were whipped while thirty-nine others cast lots among themselves to choose four more sufferers. Two methods of whipping were apparently used. T h e offender was either attached to the whipping post in the yard and beaten by a rope, frequently referred to as a "bull's pistle," 14 or he was laid on a bench with his head clamped in a vise and beaten with rods, i. e., large birch branches bound together at one end. 15 This latter form of whipping appears to have been used for younger prisoners. At times, criminals who were not inmates of the house seem to have been brought there by court order to be subjected to corporal punishments in the yard as a deterrent to the inmate population. In some instances they were probably former inmates who had committed some crime in the house or had succeeded in escaping from it and had been brought before the magistrates to receive new sentences. In 1645, a prisoner who had committed several murders in the institution was hanged and his body brought back there for exposure as a warning. 1 0 Wagenaar mentioned another form of disciplinary punishment 12 Van H o u t e s t i m a t e d its weight at 30, 40, a n d even 80 pounds, depending on t h e severity of the offense. Hallema, " J a n Van I lout's r a p p o r t e n . . . ," p. 83. 13 Koning, op. cit., pp. 67-68. 14 Dapper, op. cit., p. 428. Travels through Flanders, Holland, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark . . . w r i t t e n by an English G e n t l e m a n , p. 28. Voyage a n t e d a t e d 1693 when first edition was published. 15 Both f o r m s of whipping and the i n s t r u m e n t s used m a y be seen in the illust r a t i o n s facing pages 33 a n d 68. 18 Koning, op. cit., p. 85.

COURTYARD OF THE RASPHUIS IN 1611

COURTYARD OF THE RASPHUIS IN 1694

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to which n o o t h e r reference h a s been f o u n d in the l i t e r a t u r e , b u t which seems to h a v e been in use in his time. It w a s a y o k e o r collar, " t w o wooden i n s t r u m e n t s which with the widest e n d s placed together resembled a yoke. E a c h piece h a d one large a n d o n e small hole cut along its length. T h e prisoner w a s so placed t h a t t h e c u r v e s of t h e t w o large holes closed a b o u t his neck a n d the t w o small ones a b o u t his arms, which were t h u s held a b o v e his head. T h i s position w a s so p a i n f u l t h a t he w a s rarely placed in it m o r e t h a n once w i t h o u t p r o m i s i n g to r e f o r m . " 17 T h i s description is not very clear. It m a y h a v e been a kind of pillory similar t o the Chinese cangue, o r it m a y h a v e been an a d a p t a t i o n of the Halsgeige, or neck-fiddle, in f r e q u e n t use in G e r m a n y in the late M i d d l e Ages for the p u n i s h m e n t of c o m m o n scolds. 1 8 Finally, a curious d i s c i p l i n a r y p u n i s h m e n t was used, the v e r y existence of which was d o u b t e d by later writers. In 1765, W a g e n a a r said, 1 9 " T h e story is still told t h a t prisoners were also p u t i n t o a w a t e r cellar, w h e r e t h e y h a d t o p u m p d a y a n d night in o r d e r to keep f r o m d r o w n i n g . However, t h e r e is n o such cellar now and in all p r o b a b i l i t y there never was one." A n d , when J o h n H o w a r d w r o t e a b o u t his visits t o the r a s p h o u s e less t h a n t w o decades later, he said t h a t "on c a r e f u l inquiry, I learned t h a t w h a t has been said concerning a cellar in which such transgressors are put to p u m p or drown is a fiction." 2 0 In spite of these d o u b t s and denials the " w a t e r cellar" w a s very m u c h in use d u r i n g t h e first c e n t u r y of the i n s t i t u t i o n ' s life a n d r e m a i n e d a legend long a f t e r H o w a r d ' s time. T h e historians p e r s i s t e n t l y ignored it, b u t to the n u m e r o u s visitors to t h e house it w a s a c o n s t a n t source of astonishment. T h e a u t h o r of the " H i s t o r y of the W o n d e r f u l M i r a c l e s " g a v e the first clear description of t h e " w a t e r cellar" and n o d o u b t a 1T

Wagenaar, op. cit., II, 253. This instrument was made in the outline of a large violin in two parts, hinged at the base, a hole in the center enclosing the head and two holes in the "fingerboard" enclosing the hands. See Künssberg, op. cit., p. 32. In Sweden, it was called the Spanish violin. Wieselgren, op. cit., p. 144, shows a picture of it; an illustration may also be found in A. E. R. Boak, Albert Hyma, and Preston Slosson, The Growth of European Civilisation, Vol. I, facing p. 295. 19 Wagenaar, op. cit., II, 253. See also Hallema, In en ont de gevangems . . . , chap, iv, entitled "De Waterkelder in het Amsterdamsche Tuchthuis." 20 Howard, op. cit., p. 58. 18

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t r u s t w o r t h y one. In one o f the case histories, t r a n s l a t e d b y Hippel f r o m this w o r k , 2 1 it is stated t h a t after all efforts had been m a d e t o c o n q u e r the o b s t i n a c y of a certain prisoner who refused t o w o r k , t h e e x t r e m e p e n a l t y was tried. In the vestibule, or entrance, to the house there is running water, and beside it a room with two pumps, one on the outside and the other on the inside. T h e patient was brought thither so that by pumping he might produce an appetite for St. Pono. Water was pumped into the room first as high as his knees, then as high as his waist, and as he was not yet prepared to give his attention to St. Pono, as high as his armpits, and finally up to his neck when he found that he had been cured of his idleness and, fearing that he wpuld drown, began his devotion to St. Pono by furious pumping until he had emptied the room, when he discovered that his weaknesses had left him and he had to confess his cure. The

Hungarian schoolmaster M a r t i n S z o m b o r who visited

A m s t e r d a m between 1616 and 1619 referred to the " w a t e r h o u s e " used t o t a m e boys who did not w a n t t o work. 2 2 R a w d o n , w h o saw t h e house in 1662, referred to it, 2 3 and when some time l a t e r E d w a r d Brown m a d e a visit there " t h e y told us t h a t some t h a t were c o m m i t t e d to their charge and not to be brought to work b y blows, they placed in a large cistern, and let the water in upon t h e m , placing only a pump by them for relief, whereby they are forced t o labor for their lives."

24

M a x i m i l i e n Misson, passing

through A m s t e r d a m on a j o u r n e y from London to I t a l y in 1688, c l a i m e d t h a t when he saw the rasphouse a youth was at the m o m e n t " i n an obscure cellar, where he was pumping incessantly o r t h e cellar would have been full o f w a t e r in a q u a r t e r of an h o u r and he, therefore, in great d a n g e r . "

23

N o t long afterwards, t h e

" E n g l i s h G e n t l e m a n " referred to it without a n y indication t h a t Hippel, op. cit., 492. In his Europica varietas, published at Kachau in 1620, and reviewed by Rustem Vámbéry in " D a s Amsterdamer Tuchthuis in ungarischer Beleuchtung," Zeitschrift f. d. ges. Straf rechtste., 37: 106-109. 1915-16. 2 S Robert Davies, ed., The Life of Marviaduke Rawdon of York . . . , p. 100. 24 A brief account of some travels in divers parts of Europe . . . through a great part of Germany and the Low Countries . . . , p. 97. 25 Nouveau voyage d'Italie fait en l'année 1688, I, 21-23. 21

22

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26

it had been discontinued. William Montague, in 1696, m e n tioned the "close d a r k vault into which water is let which, if t h e y d o n ' t e m p t y by pumping, will soon drown t h e m , " 2 7 and on J u n e 16, 1698, T h o m a s Bowrey noted t h a t it was used t o discipline those who refused to work. 2 8 An unidentified citizen of H a m b u r g w h o on August 23, 1752, dropped in to see the house, s t a t e d later t h a t the water cellar was the most severe of disciplinary p u n i s h ments, 2 9 and two guidebooks issued shortly t h e r e a f t e r referred to it as an aggravated p u n i s h m e n t which one had recourse to if reduced rations did not succeed in m a k i n g prisoners willing t o work. 3 0 T h e American traveler, E l k a n a h Watson, the originator of the c o u n t y fair, who was in A m s t e r d a m within a y e a r a f t e r H o w a r d ' s last visit, heard of this penalty when he " d r o p p e d in at the rasphouse." 3 1 In 1806, Sir J o h n C a r r was shown a cell "in a corner of the y a r d . . . in which, if the person w h o is confined in it does not incessantly p u m p out the water let into it, he m u s t inevitably be drowned." 3 2 Finally, it is known t h a t this type of disciplinary punishment was copied by the Danzig house of correction in 1630 in the form of a well into which the prisoner was lowered by a rope, and water let in to an a m o u n t depending on the prisoner's height. 3 3 T h e r e is, consequently, no doubt that the water cellar was in use at one time, but the visitors cited failed to indicate when it became a mere object of historical curiosity. " T h e gaoler," said 20

Op. cit., p. 28. Op. cit., p. 175. Sir Richard Carnac T e m p l e , ed. The Papers oj Thomas Bcrwrey, 16691713 . . . , p. 42. 29 See Ebeling, op. cit., p. 118. 3° Le Guide, ou nouvelle description d'Amsterdam . . . , p. 211; Mr. [ R . ] Nugent, The Grand Tour: or a journey through the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and France (3rd ed.), 1, 82. T h e "Lettre d'un m e n d i a n t au public," ca 1764, cited by C h r i s t i a n P a u l t r e in his De la répression de la mendicité et du vagabondage sous l'ancien régime, p. 590, gives a f a n t a s t i c picture, o b v i o u s l y based on hearsay, of the w a t e r cellar, as a deep pit with grave D u t c h m e n s m o k i n g their pipes g a t h e r i n g a r o u n d its edge and m a k i n g bets on the victim's fate. 31 A Tour in Holland in 1784, b y an American, p. 135. See also W j n s l o w C. Watson, ed., Men and Times of the Revolution: or Memoirs of Elkanah Watson, p. 219. 32 Carr, op. cit., pp. 298-99. 33 G ü n t h e r Pietsch, Das Zuchthauswesen Alt-Danpgs, pp. 23, 57. 2T

2S

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Sir J o h n C a r r , " i n f o r m e d me that it had not been used for m a n y y e a r s . " W e must go back an entire century before we discover the reason. In the second edition of his Nouveau voyage, published in 1694, Misson said it had been abandoned, and when Monsieur de Blainville visited the house in J a n u a r y 1705 he learned that " t h e reason was because a scoundrel put into the house of correction, becoming desperate when he found himself condemned t o saw brazilwood as long as he should live . . . chose rather to let the water come in to drown him than to pump t o save himself. Since this accident, this kind of punishment has not been in use, lest some other desperate m a l e f a c t o r should follow such an e x a m p l e . " 3 4 T h i s explains why W a g e n a a r and Howard did not find the " w a t e r c e l l a r " in use, but does not explain their willingness to regard it as pure fiction. N o illustration of the water cellar has been discovered. H a l lema 3 5 believed that he had found one in the work of Cornells Meyer, a Dutch hydraulic engineer, who, while in the service of the V a t i c a n , published a book entitled L'arte di restituire a Roma

la tralasciata navigatione del suo Tevere (Rome, 1683). In Part I I I , Figure 3, Meyer presented a design showing how water could be made an instrument of human justice. T h e i l l u s t r a t i o n — a cross-section—showed two prisoners in separate cells under two prison buildings busily working at pumps, but Hallema's assumption that these prisoners were undergoing a typical Amsterdam " w a t e r c u r e " is entirely unfounded. M e y e r was proposing a form of prison labor, as a m a t t e r of fact. T h e water was to be pumped into cisterns on the roof of the prisons or other near-by buildings, and thence piped into fountains located in near-by public squares. T h e r e was no danger of the prisoners' being drowned if he failed to pump. One prisoner in the illustration was shown attached by a long chain to his bedstead; his cell was therefore meant to be a place of regular confinement and not one of transitory disciplinary punishment. Meyer, it is true, had gained the idea from Amsterdam, but 34

Travels through Holland, Germany, Switzerland, but especially Italy . . . ,

I, 36. 38

In en om de gevangenis . . . . chap. iv.

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had no conception of how the water cure was administered in the tuchthuis. He was under the impression, as stated in the text accompanying the design, that water was somehow or other let into the cellrooms where the prisoners worked, forcing them to become more industrious in their rasping of the wood or suffer the unpleasantness of standing in water. 3 0 The corporal penalties used in the Amsterdam tuchthuis were perhaps all regarded by the prisoners as less severe than the practice of the magistrates of lengthening the term of imprisonment of obstreperous inmates, a practice which featured the annual session held by the court in the house. Finally, if the regents felt that they could no longer deal with the most difficult prisoners, especially those who had tried to escape or had committed deeds of violence in the house, they could turn them over to the mercy of the magistrates at any time. Every effort was made by the regents to exercise surveillance which would prevent breaches of discipline and attempts at escape. Prisoners were frequently—at least every two weeks— shifted to other cells to break up possible conspiracies. Escapes were apparently very rare, and in this respect the house proved much more successful than many of its imitators. The warden did not carry the key to the gate, which was locked behind him whenever he entered the yard, and the outside walls were stout. At the Utrecht tuchthuis, on the other hand, escapes were frequent. In 1625 six escaped. Three years later thirty weavers got out, and in 1632 "almost all escaped" while the supervisor was at a wedding. This experience so discouraged the Utrecht city administration that it closed its institution the following year. 37 The Reformatory Value of the House: The early commentators were agreed that the discipline was fruitful. The deterrent powers of the rasping saw, the curative power of the lash, and the religious and vocational instruction combined, it was said, in reforming those subjected to them. John Howard told the story of 36 It has been impossible to verify trustworthy claims that a "water cellar" like that of the Amsterdam rasphouse once existed in the West Virginia State Prison at Moundsville. 31 J. Dómela Nieuwenhuis, "Het Utrechtsche Tuchthuis . . . ," pp. 164-65.

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an Englishman who had been confined for some time in the rasphouse, probably not during its earlier years. He "was permitted to work at his own trade, shoemaking; and by being constantly kept employed, was quite cured of the vices that were the cause of his confinement. M y informant added, that the prisoner received at his release a surplus of his earnings, which enabled him to set up his trade in London ; where he lived in credit ; and at dinner commonly drank 'Health' to his worthy masters at the rasp-house." 38 N o doubt there were others who equally benefited by the treatment, although there is no longer any possibility of estimating its value. T h e fact that professional begging did not disappear from the city may have been due to the reluctance of the courts to use the tuchthuis type of treatment except in relatively few cases. There is evidence to show that prisoners were subjected to repeated terms in the institution, and occasional references in the literature to crimes committed in the institution or by its recent inmates. In 1665, a twenty-two-year-old man was hanged for theft. He had on many occasions tried to escape. He was brought to the city hall to testify against another prisoner. Profiting from the temporary absence of his guard from the small room next to the courtroom, he broke open and stole some of the contents of a box belonging to the assistant bailiff. He was caught in the act and the judges promptly sentenced him to death, with a statement "that in the case of this prisoner no reformation is to be hoped for, since he deliberately steals and does violence before the eyes of the court and in a place where criminals are punished and which by him should be regarded as a sacred place." 39 From a modern point of view, the tuchthuis regime was not a very suitable one for the rehabilitation of criminals, but reforms must always be measured in terms of conditions out of which they rise. When we adopt this way of looking at the tuchthuis, we can have nothing but a deep admiration for the sturdy faith of the burghers of Amsterdam, whose dissatisfaction with the conventional methods of penal treatment led them to fruitful exae 38

Howard, op. cit., p. 46, note. Quoted by Koning, op. cit., p. 155.

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perimentation. P e r h a p s it would not be amiss to add t h a t the old A m s t e r d a m house of correction, with all its defects, would bear comparison with m a n y a local prison in o u r c o n t e m p o r a r y civilization.

X f e VIII gsQ. THE RASPHUIS AND ITS VISITORS T H E tuchthuis became immediately one of the noteworthy institutions of Amsterdam. Its architectural embellishments were not exceptional, but it represented a new departure in penal treatment and it was generally hoped that it would prove to be a solution to a very old problem. Its labor program and privileges made it an indispensable agency in the economic life of the city. T o begin with, its doors were closed to the public. Promoters of the house, like Spiegel and Dr. Sebastian Egbertszoon, had agreed that no one should be allowed to visit the institution, and this was no doubt prompted by a desire to keep the identity of the inmates from becoming generally known and thereby hinder their social reinstatement after discharge. During the first years this policy was actually pursued, for V a n Hout specifically noted in 1597 that no visitors were allowed. B y the time the first regulations were issued a change had occurred and permits for visiting were being issued against the payment of a nominal fee. T o a people familiar with public spectacles like hangings, brandings, and whippings, the opening of the house of correction to the public probably was welcomed as affording still another diversion. During Kermess Week 1 these visits were quite unrestricted. Anyone with a stiver was admitted, half of that stiver going into the warden's own pocket as one of his perquisites of office. During the rest of the year the regents had to issue permits, and if a party wished to view the house, the exact number in the 1 Kermess Week was the week of the annual fair, and the time when merchants from everywhere gathered in the city to display their wares. After 1531 all the kermesses of the Netherlands were held on the same date, by edict of Charles V, in order to reduce the amount of criminal violence accompanying these fairs and previously much aggravated by the fact that the kermesses of the towns and villages occurred at different times throughout the summer. See Pirenne, op. cit., I l l , 203.

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p a r t y had to be given in this permit, a n d the e n t r a n c e fee, one stiver per person, went into the "house b o x " and ultimately into the treasury of the regents. P r o b a b l y most of the visitors, as in penal institutions of later d a y s and places, were people p a y i n g a call on their imprisoned f r i e n d s or relatives and not just seekers a f t e r sensation. T h e r e is little in the literature on this point, but one r e m a r k of Sir J o h n C a r r (1806) is sufficiently strange to merit a special note as it hinted at a practice of " c o n j u g a l visits" which even in o u r d a y must be counted a m o n g penological novelties. He observed t h a t "I was i n f o r m e d t h a t women w h o are a t t a c h e d to the prisoners are p e r m i t t e d to visit t h e m at stated periods, w i t h o u t a n y restraint, by which one of the great political objects of Holland, the encouragement of p o p u l a t i o n , does not suffer by this wholesome separation of the f a u l t y f r o m the blameless m e m b e r s of society." 2 It was not the A m s t e r d a m e r s alone w h o went to see the rasphouse. If one were to j u d g e f r o m the books of travelers, none w h o spent any time in the city escaped a visit to the institution. Since it is likely t h a t o n l y a very small percentage of the tourists left a n y literary remains, the n u m e r o u s books t h a t refer to such visits offer some index to the i n s t i t u t i o n ' s p o p u l a r i t y . A p p a r e n t l y , whenever a great m a n honored the city with his presence, the proud officials of the council took him on a t o u r of inspection which i n v a r i a b l y included the rasphouse a n d the spinhouse. For instance, when Giorgio Giustiniani, the f o r m e r Venetian A m bassador to E n g l a n d , passed t h r o u g h A m s t e r d a m in 1608, the high bailiff called on him in person and, acting as cicerone, took the A m b a s s a d o r to a v a r i e t y of charitable institutions and to t h e houses of correction. T h e effect m u s t h a v e been very favorable, for while the A m b a s s a d o r barely mentioned the other institutions, he devoted a p a r a g r a p h of his report to the correctional houses. 3 T h e same r o u n d s — t h e hospitals for poor soldiers, f o r paupers, for sick women, f o r the insane, the p o r t and the canals, the two houses of correction—were m a d e in an afternoon before 2

Carr, op. cit., p. 299. P. J. Blok, ed., Relazioni Veneziani. Venetiaansche eeinigde Nederlanden van 1600-1795, p. 15, 3

Berichten over de Ver-

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dinner by another Venetian, Marcantonio Correr, while on his way home in 1611 from an embassy to England. 4 In 1613 the Italian priest and theologian Vincenzo Laurefici visited it. 5 Tomaso Contarini in 1610, and Girolamo Trevisano in 1620, both Venetian ambassadors, also saw the rasphouse.® In the latter year Johan Ernest, the Younger, Duke of Saxony, Giilich, Cleve and Berg, visited the institution also. 7 M a n y others have already been cited in previous pages, and to them should be added John Evelyn, 8 who saw the rasphouse in 1641, the geographer Martin Zeiller; 9 the Swedish physician Urban Hjärne 10 in 1667; the Swedish military engineer and Field Marshal Erik Dahlberg the same year, 11 the Bolognese nobleman Guido de Bovio in 1677,12 and the architect of the new Royal Palace of Stockholm, Nicodemus Tessin, Jr., in 1687.13 No intensive attempt has been made by the author to secure a more nearly complete list. 14 Some visitors at least came because of a professional interest, anxious to observe and learn something about a correctional agency which might be adapted to conditions in their own communities, but most of them were tourists, who were impressed by the spectacular aspects of the institution's program. Few of them noted the details of domestic management or speculated on the « Blok, c f . cit., p. 91. 11 W. Friedensburg, "Des italienischen Priesters und Theologen Vincenzo Laurefici Reise durch Deutschland, die Niederlande und England (1613)," Arch. /. Kulturges., 1: 403-24, 1903; p. 421. • B l o k , op. cit., pp. 39, 135. 7 See Rosenfeld, op. cit., p. 16. 8 The Diary of John Evelyn, ed., William Bray, I, 22. β Topographia Germaniae Inferioris . . . , p. 121. 10 A k e Akerström, "Urban Hjärnes resa till Tyskland och Holland 1667," Lychnos, 1937: 186-211. 11 Kongl. Rádets, GeneraUGuvernörens, Fältmarskalkens m. m. Erik Doblbergs egenhändigt författade dagbok, pp. 192-93. 12 Gisbert Brom, "Een italiaansche reisbeschrijving der Nederlanden (16771678)," Bijdr. en mededeel. v. het Histor. Genoots., 36 : 81-230, 1915. 13 Oswald Sirén, ed., Nicodemus Tessin d. y:s studiere mr i Danmark, Tyskland, Holland, Frankrike och Italien, p. 73. Professor Sirén in a footnote, p. 249, erroneously assumes that Tessin meant the Beguinage, when he referred to his visit to the "Rassbhauss undt Spinnenhauss." 14 Among British visitors were Robert Bargrave, about 1650 (fol. 93. Bodl. Libr. Rawlinson MS. C. 799). J. S. in 1648 (Lansdowne MS 213, no .10, fols. 83, 88), Thomas Penson in 1690 (Harl. MS 3516, fol. 25). There has been no opportunity to consult these sources cited by Temple,

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psychological effects of the program. T h e y were impressed by t h e rasping, the whipping post, and the water cellar. John H o w a r d was, of course, a shining exception. His experience, fixity of purpose, and professional concern gave to his commendation of the rasphouse a particular value. As the years went by, and as the visitors became more sophisticated and urbane, the rasphouse seemed to dwindle. T h e majestic proportions which caused the early engravers to lose their sense of perspective somehow shrank, and the embellishments began t o appear tawdry. Elkanah Watson, the New Englander w h o in 1784 "dropped in" to see a place "so much talked of," agreed t h a t "it is in t r u t h an excellent institution" b u t found "nothing in the building or discipline so very remarkable." 15 And Sir J o h n Carr, two decades later, f o u n d the statues above the entrance gates "insignificant," and t h a t the yard, cncumbered with piles of logwood, afforded but a "miserable pittance of space" to walk in. 1 6 When Professor Van der Aa, the secretary of the International Prison Congress, saw the institution in the 1890's, shortly before it disappeared to make room for a public b a t h and while it was being used as a house of detention by the city, he could see nothing admirable in the building itself. "I f o u n d , " he said, "the premises on the whole f a r f r o m grand, the courtyards, halls, rooms neither high nor large, as the old authors praised t h e m . " 17 " Elkanah Watson, op. cit., p. 132. 18 Carr, op. cit., pp. 297-98. An excellent plate in Fouquet's Nieuwe Atlas portrays the condition described. 17 J. S i m o n V a n der Aa, " T h e early history of prison-reform in Holland," Actes du Congrès pénitentiaire international de Washington, Octobre, 1910, I, 479-95 ; p. 492.

THE "PRIVATE" SECTION THE placement of the "bad children of honest burghers" in the rasphouse, which soon became the receptacle for the professional beggar, the drunk and disorderly, the dead-beat, many of them having been more than once perhaps lashed at the public whipping post, seemed rather incongruous to the very ones who had been among the chief promoters of the establishment. The heterogeneity of the population led them to demand the classification and segregation of various inmate groups. It may come as a surprise to those who look upon "classification" as a recent idea to find that it was not at all an unfamiliar thought to the burghers of old Amsterdam or to prison administrators of even earlier days. When Dr. Sebastian Egbertszoon 1 drafted the outline of regulations for the newly established house, he actually proposed that the prisoners should be divided into three classes. The lowest class was to include those in dungeons because of disciplinary offenses or as a sequel to whipping, 2 and they should have a bread-and-water diet. T h e intermediate class should have better food and be housed in cells, presumably separate and solitary, while the highest class should have the best food and should live and work together. On admission to the institution a prisoner should remain in an isolation cell for ten days, after which period he would "choose" the class he wanted to be in. N o obstreperous prisoner should be transferred to a higher class, nor should prisoners undergoing punishment be allowed to make contacts with other prisoners. This plan of classification was not adopted by the regents, nor 1

Hallema, "Merkwaardige voorstellen . . . ," p. 101. Note, for instance, the penal provisions of the ordinance governing apprentices passed in 1597; see chap. v. 2

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were its details fully elaborated by its author, but the problem continued to occupy attention. When J a n Van Hout visited the rasphouse in 1597 he apparently found no attempt at classification, for he specifically asked the regents if they did not think it would be a good idea to divide the prisoners into two or three classes, definitely segregating the "scandalized," i. e., publicly whipped or branded prisoners from the children of honest burghers. He received the unexpected answer that the former group was much easier to handle, and that the "children" were mostly such as had assaulted their parents or stolen their goods. T h e regents left the impression that there was no danger that these young hoodlums could possibly be contaminated by their association with the other inmates. 3 A few months later, when Van Hout conferred with the regents about the prospective arrangements in the tuchthuis which Leiden was planning to establish, he raised the question whether or not prisoners should be housed in dormitories without attempt at classification, or housed together but separated in three grades or classes. And should they eat in a common dining room, at separate tables, or eat by themselves? At that time the regents approved of the threefold classification system, but suggested that if the Leiden authorities adopted it they should isolate each class from the others, prohibit all transfers from one class to another, make careful rules concerning work-task, discipline, etc., for each class, and have each class of prisoners eat apart in rooms not used for sleeping or working. 4 By 1600 the regents were convinced of the need for removing from the house the younger boys committed on petition. On November 27 of that year, the city council resolved that . . . since the House of Correction built in this c i t y to the honor, use, and great satisfaction of the burghers and inhabitants, is not so arranged that the children of decent people brought there for correction can be segregated from the rascals and m a l e f a c t o r s w h o have been placed there b y court sentence or otherwise; and since it has been made clear that this separation ( t h e cost of which w o u l d range f r o m 5,000 to 6 , 0 0 0 guilders) is regarded as useful and necessary by the 3 Hallema, "Jan V a n Hout's rapporten . . . ," p. 80. « ¡bid., pp. 9 5 - 9 6 .

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regents, the matter has been considered by the council and the decision reached that the separation be made at the earliest opportunity. 5 T o the north of the tuchthuis was a section of the old Clarissa Convent which was evidently available to the regents. T h e necessary alterations were made and in 1603 the children committed on petition by parents or guardians were transferred there. This section which remained under the general management of the regents and warden of the tuchthuis was referred to variously as the "secret," the "separate," the "private," or the "voluntary" house, although, as Bontemantel put it, "the inmates were there against their will." 6 T h e courtyard of the "private" section was reached from the main entrance hall of the tuchthuis through double doors similar to those which gave access to the rasphouse yard. T h e yard was bounded on one side by the wall of the rasphouse and on the opposite side by the wall of the poorhouse which occupied still another wing of the old convent. The buildings on the two remaining sides of the yard were the ones that housed the "children." In one of them there were ten small rooms, five on each floor, and in the opposite one there was a large room with a fireplace on the main floor, two rooms above, and a cellar below with three isolation cells. T h e literature on the house of correction is especially deficient in references to this department of the tuchthuis, and it is difficult therefore to reconstruct the daily life and activities of its inmates. Pontanus claimed that "here were not kept [people] of all different kinds, but primarily those who should be seen by no one. Now and then one could also find there the degenerate and incorrigible children of parents of substance." 7 Caspar von Widmarkter, in 1611, found there, among the children of the "rich people," a prince and a fellow countryman, the son of a Frankfurt m e r c h a n t ; 8 and Giustiniani and Correr, the Venetian ambassadors, observed in 1608 and 1611 respectively that the 5

Quoted by Hippel, op. cit., p. 443. • Bontemantel, op. cit., p. 278. 7 Pontanus, op. cit., p. 133. « Rosenfeld, op. cit., p. 15.

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section housed persons of respectable origin ("più nobili"). 9 T h e youngsters were, according to Wagenaar, called the wittebroodskinderen, i. e., white-bread children. T h e y were committed for indeterminate periods and were released only when the p a r ents or guardians petitioned the court. Van Ramssla, in 1620, claimed that they had to stay there for "life" or for shorter periods until they had ausgeschwermet or calmed down. 1 0 C o m m i t m e n t s had to be on order of court, but all costs of maintenance had to be paid by the parents to the regents. T h e "private section" as a place for the taming of the "black sheep" of good families was celebrated more than once in the d r a m a t i c productions of Amsterdam. In W. D. H o o f t ' s The Prodigal Son Up-to-Date ( 1630), the son is placed in the tuchthuis as a wittebroodskind at a cost of three hundred guilders. And in Pieter Bernagie's The Debauché (1686), the young hero of the piece lands in the Weelderige-Dwang bij Jan-Vaer in de twee Klimmende Leenwen. Here the private section was referred to as "luxurious confinement," Jan-Vaer being presumably the warden at the time and the "two climbing lions" the o r n a m e n t s above the entrance gate. 1 1 T h e private section also served another purpose, as already indicated by Pontanus. Wagenaar noted that "later on persons were frequently committed who had been guilty of sedition, slanderous speeches against the government, the writing or publishing of prohibited publications, and other offenses, when it was thought inadvisable to inflict public corporal penalties on them." 12 An 8 Blok, op. cit., pp. 15, 91. See also A. Hallema, "De 'geldgasten' in het Amsterdamsche Tuchthuis," Nederl. Juristenblad, 9: 105-109, February 17, 1934. 10 Rosenfeld, supra, p. 16. " The plot of Bernagie's play, like that of several others written in Holland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was based on Plautus' celebrated comedy Mostellaria. Ter Gouw believed that this comedy was well liked because with slight modifications it gave such a fitting picture of social life in seventeenth-century Holland—the father who makes lots of money in business, and his wastrel son who spends it in carousing. J. E. Ter Gouw, "De Mostellaria van Plautus en de nederlandsche navolgingen," De Navorscher, 58: 129-70, 278-81, 1909. Pontanus (op. cit., p. 133), when describing the type of boy sent to the private section, noted already in 1611 that nowhere could one find as good a picture of the downward road from virtue to vice as in the soliloquy of Philolaches [in the second scene of the first act] of the Plautian comedy mentioned. 12

Wagenaar, op. cit., 11, 254.

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early example of this type of prisoner was J. Grevius, the Armenian "heretic," who in 1620 was sentenced to life imprisonment, but spent only a year and a half in the house and while there wrote his discourse against torture, Tribunal Ref ormatimi.1S In 1668 Adriaen Koerbach, learned in law and medicine was sentenced to ten years solitary confinement in the private section for writing a very "profane and godless" book entitled A Garden of All Kinds of Charms and another, not printed in full, entitled Light Shining in Dark Places.1* He died there in October 1669.15 In 1766 Vincenzio Gaudio, a Neapolitan, Protestant by conversion, former professor at Göttingen and Giessen and tutor of the children of the Stadthouder, was sentenced to a thirty-year term to be followed by banishment, his crime being the writing of an article which bitterly assailed the clergy and defended Rousseau and the Encyclopedists. 16 Prisoners of this type were not only sentenced upon conviction to definite terms, but their sentences were subject to annual review as in the case of the inmates of the regular house. Hippel cited some data from the middle of the seventeenth century which favored the assumption that the inmates occupied individual cells.17 Much earlier, Van Ramssla (in 1620) had 13 See R. Pallman's biography of Johann Greve in Ersch and Gruber's Allgemeine Eniyclopädie . . . (Leipzig, 1871), XC, 356. 14 Bontemantel, op. cit., p. 279. The inveterate collector and booklover Zacharias Conrad von UfTenbach, who in his extensive travels spent most of his time in book and curio shops and museums, related that on his visit to Amsterdam in 1711 he bought Koerbach's Woordenboek at Braakmann's store and that he was assured that the author had sat in the rasphouse a considerable time for writing it. He said he found some "terrible statements" under the words Bibel, Christus, and Sabbath. See his Merkwürdige Reisen durch Niederlanden, Holland und Engelland, 111, 554. " P . Leendertz, "Adriaen Koerbagh," De Navorscher, 27:489-500, 537-49, 1877. Hallema's claim (In en om de gevangenis . . . . p. 35) that he drowned in the water cellar, described in an earlier chapter, is made without substantiation. 18 K. R. Gallas, op. cit. W. F. N. Oldewelt ("Nadere bijzonderheiden over Vincenzio Gaudio," Jaarb. v. b. Genoots. Amstelodamum, 24: 187-71, 1927) noted that he was probably released prior to 1774, since after that date his name no longer appeared on the list of persons considered annually by the magistrates for modification of sentence. He noted also that Gaudio's belongings were inventoried by the court and his clothing and some of his books sent to him for his use in prison. 17 Hippel, op. cit., p. 456.

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described the ten small rooms mentioned as having each a bed and a small table. 18 Toward the end of the century Commelin claimed that the "children" had individual cells at night and also remained in them during the day if they did not behave well, and that otherwise they played together during the day in the yard. 1 9 Wagenaar stated that serious offenders were kept in solitary confinement at all times in the ten rooms of the one wing and that the "incorrigible boys" and "people of substance" were in the large downstairs room of the other wing. Hippel's assumption that the use of solitary confinement may have been due to a growing realization of its educational value is of course quite unjustified. The fact seems to be that the practice of committing children to the private section was never very common and that, after the establishment of the Verbeterhuis in 1694, its use for incorrigible boys practically disappeared. Solitary confinement was probably never used for these boys except as a disciplinary punishment, but in the case of the "political" criminals it was apparently employed as early as the first decade. They are probably the ones who were placed in the small rooms "as they were not to be seen by anybody," to quote Pontanus. At best, the facilities did not permit many commitments. Wagenaar found only seven persons there in 1765. Since Howard did not even mention it, it had probably been closed before his visits to Amsterdam. The regime of the private section was simple. Hippel's assumption that the boys were probably given vocational training is quite unfounded. Giustiniani found in 1608 that the inmates, "because they do not work," are there at their relatives' expense. 20 Van Ramssla and Martin Zeiller made the same observation in 1620 and 1659 respectively, while Bontemantel expressly mentioned that when maintenance was paid by relatives, the commitments omitted the customary phrase "at labor at the discretion of the regents." 21 Toward the end of the seventeenth cen18 Rosenfeld, op. cit., p. 16. This is no sure evidence of the use of the cell by one person alone, since it was customary in the tuchthuis to have two or three prisoners sleep in one bed. 19 Commelin, op. cit., I, 513. 20 Blok, op. cit., p. 15. 21 Bontemantel, op. cit., p. 278.

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tury, Edward Brown noted that "some citizens, able and rich enough, contrive it so that when their sons are extravagant and masterless, the officers seize upon them and carry them into this house, where they are not forced to any hard labor, but kept in till they see sufficient signs of amending their life." 2 2 T h e housing facilities obviously prevented the installation of any industry. According to Commelin, the boys had their meals in common and were furnished with plenty of heat in winter, which suggests that the large room with the fireplace was by this time used as a common room for these boys during the day. T h e dearth of information about the private section causes the inference that visitors were not generally allowed entrance there. Little is known about the discipline except that there were a few isolation cells under the common room for the temporary confinement of such as had tried to escape or who had done some particular mischief. T h e earliest rules of the tuchthuis were apparently adopted before the section was created, and if the regents did make any special regulations later they have not yet been discovered. T h e inmates were allowed to have books in their rooms, for Van Ramssla saw some on the tables and it has already been observed that some of Gaudio's books were sent to him by the magistrates for his use in the institution. In all probability some provisions were made for the religious training of the nonpolitical inmates. 22

Brown, op. cit., p. 98.

A TEAM OF RASPERS AT WORK

THE SPINHUIS MEN and boys were not the only ones who by their misconduct provoked the inventiveness of the city fathers. Like all cities o f the time, Amsterdam had its prostitutes and its homeless, drunken women, or runaway and incorrigible girls. N o provision was being made by the municipality for their institutional care until 1596, the year the rasphouse began to receive prisoners. T h e r e had not been lacking a charitable interest in vagrant girls, however. Wagenaar claimed t h a t before the opening of the spinhouse they were being sent to the chapel of St. George's Church, or to St. Peter's Hospital, "where some women equipped with spinning wheels, reels, cards, and other tools tried to teach them a suitable trade." 1 When this practice began, and whether they were sent by the courts or by parents, is not stated in the sources available to the author. In 1596, however, the city council at the request of the magistrates and the poor relief authorities debated "whether it would not be desirable to search for a good location for a spinhouse in which young girls and others who are idle or begging could be employed in spinning wool and earn their maintenance." T h e burgomasters were empowered to proceed, especially as some merchants engaged in woolen manufactures had offered good conditions and as the council looked on the whole plan as " a very good and Christian enterprise." 2 T h e burgomasters discussed the possibility of using St. George's Church or the church "in the round Beguinage," but decided finally to make alterations in St. Ursula's Convent, which lay on the east side of the Agterburg W a l l , between the W a a l e n - K e r k s Plain and the Rusland. It was opened for the reception of inmates in ι Wagenaar, op. cit., II, 257. 2 Hippel, op. cit., p. 443.

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1597. In 1643 it burned to the ground and was rebuilt in 1645 in a more beautiful and larger form. In the interval its thirtyfour prisoners were housed in the rasphouse. Almost all the available descriptions were written after the fire, and consequently deal with the reconstructed institution. (See illustration, facing page 87.) The entrance to the spinhouse was on a road which came to be known as the Spinhouse Lane. T h e doorway was of cut stone, and above it was a sculptured group of "Correction," done by De Keyser, a seated woman flanked by two spinning prisoners, one of whom she threatens with a scourge. This was hewn from marble and below it in golden letters were the following lines: "Fear not ! I do not exact vengeance for evil, but compel you to be good. My hand is stern, but my heart is kind." T h e original house had worn another motto which read as follows : "As may be here seen, the Spinhouse has been instituted to lead poor girls, maidens, and women away from begging, idleness and wrong paths; let none fail or regret the lending of a hand here, for who knows what may be in store for himself or his kin?" This, for reasons which will become obvious in later pages of this chapter, did not strike the right note in the opinion of Hendrik de Keyser, who in 1607 was busy on the sculpture just mentioned. He asked Pieter Corneliszoon H o o f t 3 if some better m o t t o could not be found, one expressing more accurately the purpose of the institution at the end of its first ten years of existence, and Hooft then composed the lines first quoted. These were not placed on the house until it had been rebuilt after the fire.4 There were other sculptured ornaments on the new house. On the gable facing the Agterburg Wall was a stone plaque showing three women spinning, sewing, and knitting, and above a door, opening into a bylane in 1754 to serve as a fire escape, was seen a spinning wheel cut in stone. 3

Son of the old burgomaster, Cornells Pieterszoon Hooft, and the greatest of the contemporary Dutch historians as well as a poet of distinction. 4 J. Six, "Hendrik de Keyser als Beeldhouwer," Koninklijk Oudheidhundig Genoots. te Amst. Jaarvenlag . . . 1910, p. xi. This sculptured group was moved in 1788 and put above a door of the New Workhouse; and Hooft's verses, in eighteenth-century spelling, were carved anew under it. See A. W. Weissman, "Het tuchthuis en het spinhuis te Amsterdam," Oud-Holland, 2 6 : 3 5 - 4 0 , 1908; p. 38.

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We shall accompany Wagenaar on his tour of the house in 1765. Inside the entrance door was a gatekeeper's booth and a hallway, where could be seen the doors of the cellar, the kitchen, and the apartment of the provost or warden, as well as the stairs to the rooms of the regents and the large workroom for the inmates. In the hallway hung "a cleverly painted picture" of four regents. T h e regents' rooms were two in number, one used by the women members of the board. T h e room used by the men was neatly arranged. Along the fireplace mantel were the carved coats of arms of many regents, and above the mantel hung an artistic painting of "Correction," a woman handing a bridle to an inmate. There were also five paintings by Boonen, 5 Quinkhard, and others, all depicting groups of regents. The room used by the women regents also paraded coats of arms on the mantelpiece, two large paintings and three small and "pretty pictures," one of an old man, another of a procuress or matchmaker, and a third of a weeping wanton, the two latter being particularly fitting ornaments. T o the east of the hallway one stepped into an oblong courtyard, enclosed by stately buildings. Downstairs, on the north side of the yard, were three vaulted rooms where the inmates slept, and a dining room where they ate at two large tables. In each of the three dormitories there were ten stalls or cubicles. In eight of these cubicles were beds for twenty-four inmates, three in each cubicle sleeping in one bed. In the other two cubicles of each room, frail or old women slept alone. There were accommodations then for seventy-eight persons. T h e dormitories were separated from the yard by a high iron fence. Directly above them was the workroom, which was divided into two parts and • P r o b a b l y Arnold Boonen ( 1669—1729), who "painted more regents than any other painter" according to Thieme-Becker's Allgemeine Lexikon der bildenden Künstler (Vol. IV). He was Quinkhard's teacher. In 1627 the regents complained that Claes Eliaszoon, a painter, had not carried out his agreement to paint them. T h e regents wanted to be painted in their board room, while the painter wanted them to come to his studio where the light was better. Eventually one or the other won the argument, for the picture now hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. See Van Dillen, op. cit., II, 624, No. 1107.

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enclosed by a wooden palisade. In one of the sections the supervising matron had a special seat. This section was the work place for the linen seamstresses, while in another the spinners worked. On the south side of the yard was a gallery resting on eight columns, and above it three "private" rooms and the apartment of the work supervisor and his wife, who were in charge of the labor of the regular inmates. (See illustration, facing page 94.) Administration: At first there were only two male and two female members of the board of regents set up to manage the spinhouse, but soon the number of men on the board was raised to five and then to six and the number of women members doubled. They were appointed in the manner already described in connection with the administration of the rasphouse. The men met every week, the women less frequently, indicating that their responsibilities may have been so assigned that they could be met by individual action. Unfortunately the "instructions" issued March 3, 1599, to the regents for the government of the institution have not been discovered, and the details of administration available for the spinhouse are therefore not clear in many respects. There was a warden and his wife, the "house father" and the "house mother," as they were usually called; and a work supervisor and his wife, as already mentioned. Wagenaar mentioned but one other employee, a visiting preacher, who twice weekly came to the house, once on Sunday mornings for a sermon, and once on Wednesday at noon to catechize the women. The Prisoners: At the very beginning, the spinhouse was a kind of workhouse for the poor, perhaps merely continuing the labors of the ladies of St. George's Church and St. Peter's Hospital. It was also used as a lying-in hospital for poor women. Even persons who lodged in the city were permitted to work there in the daytime and presumably thereby earn the necessities of life. In one very early source of information it was stated that the inmates received from 28 to 40 stivers for each pound of spun yarn. 6 ® Rosenfeld, op. cit., p. 14.

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W a g e n a a r f o u n d t h a t the earliest i n s t r u c t i o n s even g a v e the reg e n t s t h e title of "overseers of t h e poor." T h e s e i n s t r u c t i o n s also p e r m i t t e d t h e admission of " p o o r w o m e n " f r o m o t h e r jurisdictions, b u t o n l y with the a u t h o r i z a t i o n of t h e courts of their place of residence. 7 Soon, however, t h e c h a r a c t e r of the i n m a t e p o p u l a t i o n began to c h a n g e . N o t o n l y did t h e house come to be used as a place f o r t h e p u n i s h m e n t of a d u l t e r o u s w o m e n , b u t it became t h e correctional i n s t i t u t i o n for p r o s t i t u t e s g a t h e r e d in f r o m t h e b r o t h e l s of the city, streetwalkers, professional beggars, a n d women w h o h a d suffered public and s h a m e f u l corporal p u n i s h m e n t s f o r t h e f t s a n d o t h e r offenses and i m m e d i a t e l y t h e r e a f t e r were b r o u g h t t o t h e s p i n h o u s e to serve t e r m s of i m p r i s o n m e n t . It was p r o b a b l y this t r a n s f o r m a t i o n of t h e f u n c t i o n s of the house which t r o u b l e d t h e honest sculptor a n d caused him to suggest t h a t the legend a b o v e t h e e n t r a n c e be a p p r o p r i a t e l y modified. T h e " p r i v a t e " rooms which W a g e n a a r claimed were reserved " f o r women, w h o h a v e been sent to the house by their elders o r f r i e n d s , because of their u n c o n t r o l l e d c o n d u c t , a n d with the a u t h o r i z a t i o n of the c o u r t " 8 suggest t h a t c o m m i t m e n t s on sentence were not t h e only g r o u n d f o r admission. Hippel w a s u n a b l e to find a n y indication when the spinhouse lost its c h a r a c t e r of w o r k h o u s e a n d b e c a m e a penal i n s t i t u t i o n similar to t h e rasphouse, b u t the t r a n s i t i o n m u s t h a v e occurred some t i m e d u r i n g t h e first decade of its existence, in view of t h e reaction of D e Keyser t o t h e original m o t t o a b o v e t h e e n t r a n c e door. A l t h o u g h K o n i n g f o u n d n o reference t o c o m m i t m e n t s in the c o u r t b o o k s of t h e city until 1628, when a fifteen-year-old girl w a s sent t h e r e t o learn a t r a d e , in 1613 he discovered t h a t the m a g i s t r a t e s h a d reduced t h e length of a sentence on t h e i r a n n u a l visit t o t h e i n s t i t u t i o n t o hold a session of court. 9 A n d in 1608 t h e V e n e t i a n a m b a s s a d o r Giorgio G i u s t i n i a n i s t a t e d t h a t t h e house existed f o r "evil w o m e n , w h o are d e t a i n e d t h e r e f o r v a r y ing periods, d e p e n d i n g on t h e i r g u i l t . " 10 7

Wagenaar, op. cit., II, 260. »Ibid., II, 259. B Koning, op. cit., pp. 36-37. 10 Blok, op. cit., p. 15.

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It is not unlikely that the change occurred in 1604 and that the date of its origin as a penal institution should be fixed in that year instead of in 1596. T h e bases for this assumption are the entries in a contemporary chronicle, the so-called Kronick van Staets which for the year 1595 noted the construction of the " t u c h t h u y s " for men, and for 1603 the establishment of the "nieuwe tuchthuis" adjoining it, "where rich rascals are, but without labor" (the "private" section). T h i s chronicle remained silent on the spinhouse until 1604, when it noted its establishment for "bad women." 11 T h e character of the prisoners and their daily life were described by m a n y visitors to the city, who rarely missed a call at this institution, even if they failed to inspect the rasphouse. In 1641 John Evelyn found it "a kind of bridewell, where incorrigible and lewd women are kept in discipline," 12 and others repeated this description in different words. T h e population soon fell into four distinct classes; drunk and disorderly women; prostitutes; thieves who had been publicly whipped or branded and then imprisoned; and those committed on petition. T h e last group, like those in the "private" section of the rasphouse, were completely segregated from the rest and from each other, and soon the others were also segregated to some extent. Von Rosenroth, who saw the house in 1663, noted that "here, in separate cells, those are corrected who cannot be kept to their duties by parents or husbands. In the congregate imprisonment there are three sections [dormitories] of prisoners; one for the drunks; one for the prostitutes from public brothels; and one for those whipped in public." 13 T h i s classification was to some extent carried through in the workroom, those who had been committed after a public penalty being kept in the one half of the room and the rest in the other, separated by a palisade. T h e sentences were probably rather short on the whole, b u t some of those who had previously been whipped and exposed on 11 A. W. Weissman, op. cit., p. 35. Weissman assumed that the chronicler erred, but this interpretation is not necessarily valid in view of the original character of the institution. 12 The Diary of John Evelyn, p. 22. Ebeling, op. cit., p. 114.

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the scaffold near the city hall had long sentences. Koning (op. cit., p. 37) noted a life sentence imposed in 1633. The Regime: The housing facilities have already been referred to. Meals were served in a common dining room on the ground floor, the fare being much like that offered in the rasphouse. In 1677 Guido de Bovio found that the prisoners were "well treated, eat well and sleep in good beds." 14 Thomas Bowrey, in 1698, claimed that they had "good victuals," 13 and Wagenaar, more than half a century later, reported that meat was served once a week and that otherwise beans, peas, grits, and "what is in season" were given to the inmates. Little is known concerning the discipline. A case noted by Koning 16 indicated that in 1649 the lash was used to punish misbehavior in the institution, and in 1752 the anonymous Hamburger who saw the institution noted that "the one who does not do her task is whipped." 17 Originally, spinning was the dominant industry in the house It was established at a time when weaving was so important an element in the industrial life of the city that a special "Spinningwheel Market" was in operation by the Keizer Canal. But as weaving declined, it became necessary for the regents to turn more and more to sewing of linen goods and to the knitting of nets. Presumably, contract work was done as in the men's house. A German lady who visited the institution in 1765 claimed that the women sewed clothes for the children in the city orphanage, and that one of the paintings of the regents in the board room pictured the women regents cutting patterns for the dresses of the orphans. 1 8 The labor was lightened by occasional readings of a religious character, a lectern being prominently displayed in the illustrations of the large workroom. (See illustration, facing page 95.) Hippel's assumption that the work was performed also in the three vaulted dormitories is no doubt erroneous. κ Gisbert Brom, op. cit., p. 108. " Temple, The Papers of Thomas Bowrey, 1669-1713, p. 39. i® Koning, op. cit., p. 141. " Ebeling, op. cit., p. 118. 18 Ernst Rosenfeld, "Weiteres zur Geschichte der ältesten Zucht-Häuser zu Amsterdam," Zeits. f . d. ges. Strajrechtswiss., 30: 806-808, 1910; p. 807.

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Most of the visitors, who saw the women at work from the vantage point of the six-foot wide corridor which was separated from the rest of the workroom by a high palisade, were impressed by the orderliness, the demure behavior of the inmates, and the neatness of their dress. Peter Mundy, in 1640, reported that "they sit like so many at school very civilly and quietly at their needle, etc., women's exercises, wanting nothing but liberty; many of them better in than out." 19 He saw the institution a few years before the fire. Edward Brown, in 1685, said that some were "very well dressed and fine which was an unexpected sight to me and would sure be more strange to behold in France and England." 20 Thomas Bowrey, who found about eighty women at work in 1698, mentioned among their occupations "spinning, knitting, lace, sewing," and Edward Wright remarked that "the lasses sat very orderly at work," but that in the section where the more serious offenders were working "many of the faces were much out of repair, noses fallen, etc. At our coming away, the governor struck up a psalm, the lasses laid down their work and joined very demurely." 21 John Howard 22 observed that the house was well governed and praised the discipline, although he saw the institution in 1784 when it held practically none but serious offenders, the others having long since been removed to the New Workhouse, whither the rest were removed in 1788 and the house turned to other uses, finally becoming the headquarters of the Amsterdam police, about 1812. T h a t the decorum noted by visitors was not always observed may be seen from the story told by Urban H j ä m e , who in 1667 was in Amsterdam. He was a young Swedish physician who later was to achieve national fame as the man who arrested the spread of the persecution of witches in his homeland. His journey abroad was a professional one, but when he arrived in Amsterdam to visit hospitals, clinics, and laboratories, he was prevailed on to accompany his hosts to the spinhouse which, together with Blaeuw's printing plant, was, he was 19

Temple, The Travels of Peter Mundy, pp. 73-74. 20 Brown, op. cit., p. 98. 21 Edward Wright, Some observations made in travelling Italy, etc. in the years 1720, 1721 and 1722, II, 511-12. « Howard, op. cit., pp. 5£-60,

through

France,

COURTYARD OF THE SPINHUIS IN 1783

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told, the biggest sight of the city. They entered the workroom "where whores and other women of a low kind spun and sewed. One of them, a little prettier than the rest," he wrote in his diary, "came toward me, perhaps at the instigation of the rest and asked me to recall our old love. I was overcome with shyness; 1 had never seen the woman before and I became the object of the immeasurable laughter of everyone about me. She became increasingly rude and insisted t h a t I should not abandon her and my child, but give both food and money to save her from destitution. Finally, I gave her a couple of stivers and went away." 23 After 1654, when the city placed the New Workhouse under the control of the regents of the spinhouse, it is likely that the petty offenders became more and more rare in the latter institution, especially the youthful ones. Beggars were from then on placed in the workhouse which had existed since 1650 in some abandoned warehouses of the old West India Company, and at first had its own board of regents. Accommodations in this workhouse existed for both sexes. Nothing is known concerning the health services in the spinhouse, or of the educational activities. If we are to believe Nugent, the institution had deteriorated considerably by the time of his visit. In 1756 he claimed that . . . the manner of confining them is such, as the end thereby proposed, which should be that of reclaiming them, is not at all answered. For those under whose custody they are, who look like grave and sober matrons, permit gentlemen, for a trifle of money (that Dutch god) to have access to them so as to speak to one another through the grates; on which occasion it is customary for them to entertain their visitors with such abominable discourses and indecent actions, as are shocking to men of any sense or morality.24 23 The diary in manuscript is in the library of the University of Uppsala. See Akerström, op. cit. The German lady who in 1765 saw the spinhouse claimed that at Kermesstime, one day was given over to fun-making, the women dancing in the courtyard. If among the visitors there happened to be any well-dressed man he would be besieged with requests for money, and if he proved ungenerous the women would make him smart under the accusation that he used to be different when on earlier occasions he had visited them in the brothels. Rosenfeld, "Weiteres zur Geschichte . . . ," p. 807. " Nugent, op. cit., I, 81-82.

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Financial support: When the spinhouse was established, the excise taxes on all who ran taverns within the city or its liberties were assigned to the support of the institution. The ordinance in question was passed October 18, 1597. All keepers were ordered to secure quarterly a license from the "overseers of the poor in the spinhouse," whether they wanted to start or to continue their business. The beer tavern keepers were to pay five and the wine tavern keepers ten stivers for this license, the fee to go to the maintenance of the house. In 1626 sellers of brandy were included. In 1600 "the provosts of the spinhouse" were authorized to visit all taverns to inspect licenses, and if they found none, the offender had to pay a double price for it. 25 Soon afterwards, the third or fourth penny of all admission fees to exhibits of curiosities or to theatrical performances in the city was made payable to the house. When the administration of the New Workhouse was merged with that of the spinhouse in 1654, more detailed arrangements were made. Wagenaar reported that in 1655 an ordinance was passed to increase the maintenance income of the two houses. Afterwards, no one . . . could sell or store, in the city, any wine, beer, brandy, or tobacco, or operate an inn without having previously obtained a license from the spinhouse and paid the fee therein noted. Such persons must every three months apply at the spinhouse for renewal of this license t o continue their trades and to pay: for selling wine and beer, and for selling tobacco—often done by the same dealer—twenty-five stivers; for operating an inn and in addition a beer and wine tavern, fifteen stivers (without wine, ten stivers) ; for retailing tobacco, brandy, and ale, ten stivers each. In 1675, retailers of small beer were also included and had to pay ten stivers quarterly. T h e warden was given the right to inspect all houses selling wine, beer, brandy, or tobacco or maintaining an inn. 2 "

Fishing licenses were also issued by the regents, the income retained for the use of the house. Wagenaar noted that the fisherman was given a small copper fish which he could hang on his chest as a token of his rights. « V a n Dillen, op. cit., pp. 550-51, No. 918. ze W a g e n a a r , op. cit., 11, 259.

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T h e institution was m e a n t to be self-supporting, at least a f t e r it lost its character as a workhouse for the poor. T h e r e is one case on record where an a n o n y m o u s burgher gave one t h o u s a n d guilders to the house during the first year of its existence. 2 7 T h e r e is no indication whether or not the "poor w o m e n " had t o p a y f o r their m a i n t e n a n c e , but the prisoners whose keep was not p a i d for by relatives u n d o u b t e d l y had to earn their cost f r o m the beginning. T h e y too were paid for work done above their d a i l y task. P r e s u m a b l y , the same system prevailed as in the rasphouse. G r a d u a l l y the institution became fairly wealthy. Kannegieter recently published some extremely interesting d a t a on this score, covering the four-year period 1675-78. T h e spinhouse then received in income 55,570 florins, while its expenses a m o u n t e d to 24,120 florins. T h e largest item of the income (24,693 florins) came f r o m interest on investments, and the next largest (22,886 florins) f r o m license fees. T h e "house box," i.e., the box i n t o which d o n a t i o n s and entrance fees paid by visitors were dropped, yielded 4,443 florins; the rental from a house owned by the institution brought in 1,023 florins; 1,893 florins were received for the board of the " p r i v a t e " prisoners, while the balance came f r o m miscellaneous sources, such as sale of oxhides and garbage, and the " t h e a t r e t a x . " As for expenses, a few items m a y be of interest, such as food for prisoners, 11,015 florins; food and maintenance for staff, 3,737; salary for apothecary and surgeons, 753; fuel (peat and wood), 1,235; soap, 219; books, paper, and printing of license blanks, 246; repairs, 2,164; pocket money for discharged prisoners, 163; "domestic expenses," 1,348; etc. W e have B o n t e m a n tel's assurance t h a t by 1654 the spinhouse had saved a b o u t seventy t h o u s a n d florins.28 T h e spinhouse was open to the public for visits, p r o b a b l y on the same t e r m s t h a t governed the rasphouse. T h e pride with which t h e local burghers regarded it was great, but whether it was justified or not is difficult to ascertain. Prostitution was a 27

Rosenfeld, "Zur Geschichte . . . ," p. 14. 28 Κ. Ζ. Kannegieter. "De Amsterdamsche godshuisen en kerken tegen het eind der zeventiende eeuw," Jaarb. v. b. Genoots. Amstelodamum, 25: 157-64, 1928; Bontemantel, op. cit., II, 511.

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perennial problem, and Amsterdam enjoyed no high reputation for sobriety in this respect. Visitors to the city often commented on the number and the activity of its houses of assignation, or "music-houses," and at least one, the Frenchman Regnard, said in 1681 that "perhaps there is no town in the world, Paris excepted, where there is so much debauchery, as there is in Amsterdam." 29 T h e spinhouse had then been in existence for some eighty-five years. Considering the fact that Amsterdam was during this century the leading seaport of Europe, the statement just quoted may be credible. The denizens of the music-houses apparently furnished the major portion of the inmate population, even though the criminals proper may have seemed numerous to the casual visitor, who failed to think in terms of the number of persons annually committed to the institution. More than one visitor to Amsterdam felt that, in view of the large number of prostitutes in the city, the few who were sent to the spinhouse were peculiarly unfortunate. Bovio even suggested that it was common knowledge that only those were committed who had no powerful protection, or could not satisfy the greed of the high bailiff, to whom they made an annual payment "here as elsewhere." 30 Koning came to the conclusion that even relatively few women criminals were, as a matter of fact, subjected to the spinhouse treatment. Nothing makes this clearer, nor proves the persistence of older penalties, than the case of T r y n Peters, whose career as a thief ended in 1617 when she was strangled by sentence of the Amsterdam magistrates. Her sentence, found by Koning, is worthy of reproduction here, because of the light it throws on the criminal law enforcement of early seventeenth-century Holland. Tryn Peters . . . born at Bruinsbetel near Hamburg, alias Tryn of Hamburg, now prisoner, who because of the thefts she has committed has been twenty times apprehended in different places and in different ways punished; eight times, and usually because she was pregnant, has stood on the place where evildoers are punished, with a rope about her 29 [Jean Francois] Regnard, "A journey through Flanders, Holland, etc. . . ." in John Pinkerton, ed., A general collection of . . . voyages and travels . . . , I, 131-230; 138. >0 Gisbert Brom, op. cit., p. 108.

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neck and attached to the gallows; four times has been banished f r o m Holland and Westfriesland for life under threat of hanging; five times branded and both her ears cut off by the hangman. First, on November 25, 1606, she was banished f r o m this city and its jurisdiction and one mile beyond all around, for three years under penalty of whipping indoors and the renewal of the ban. Shortly thereafter, at Middelburg and at Dordrecht she was publicly whipped and banished for a certain number of years under threat of a penalty of a severe nature. March 31, 1608, because she was pregnant, she was merely banished for fifty years from the provinces of Holland and Westfriesland, under threat of severe penalty. April 15, the same year, she was at Delft banished for fifty years from the provinces of Holland and Westfriesland under threat of severe penalties. March 14, 1609, she was, in view of her pregnancy, placed on the scaffold before the city hall here, with a rope around her neck and fastened to the gallows, and then banished from Holland and Westfriesland for fifty years, under threat of whipping and branding. J a n u a r y 29, 1610, in this city and because of breaking ban and diverse new thefts, she stood on the scaffold outside city hall with a cord about her neck and fastened t o the gallows, was twice whipped and branded and her banishment prolonged b y twenty-five more years in addition to the fifty. Five days later, at Wesop, she was whipped and banished for thefts and for consorting with notorious thieves and burglars. November 3, same year, at Delft, because she had broken the ban, had been guilty of new t h e f t and had consorted with thieves of both sexes, she was, in view of her pregnancy, placed on the scaffold as a warning to all and banished from Holland and Westfriesland for life under threat of whipping, branding, and the renewal of the ban in question. September 26, next year, at Leiden, in view of her pregnancy, she was exposed on the square before the Gravensteyn, bound to the gallows by a rope about her neck for an hour for all the world to see and then banished f r o m Holland and Westfriesland for life under threat of severe punishment. A few days later she was imprisoned at Enkhuysen, but because she was pregnant she was brought to the house of one of the officers of the high bailiff, to be held there in safekeeping, and about nine days after her delivery, she seized the opportunity to escape and thus to evade punishment. Last of March 1612, also at Leiden, both because she had broken ban and had been found to have been convicted at Leyderdorp . . . she stood before the Gravensteyn with a cord about her neck and fastened to the gallows and was then whipped, branded.

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and banished f r o m Holland a n d Westfriesland for life under threat of death. J u l y 11. same year, at T h e Hague, because of breaking ban and f o r new thefts she was again exposed . . . as before, severely whipped, branded, and banished for the rest of her days f r o m Holland and Westfriesland under threat of hanging. October 14 following, here in the city, she was, for breaking ban, publicly whipped and branded, and f o r new thefts exposed on the scaffold before city hall . . . as before, whereafter the hangman cut off her ears and she was banished for life f r o m Holland and Westfriesland. F e b r u a r y 27, 1613, at Delft, on earnest promises of reformation and because of the good services she had given in promoting the administration of justice and promised to give, she was confined within the city for six years, to stay within the gates for t h a t time and not to leave without the consent of the officers of the law or of the magistrates, under threat of hanging. Next October 16, at Haarlem, in view of her pregnancy she was, because of new thefts, exposed on the scaffold half an hour, head uncovered, with a rope about her neck and then banished f r o m Holland and Westfriesland for life under threat of hanging. J a n u a r y 15, 1614, at Leiden, sentenced for thefts, she was in view of her pregnancy brought to the open place before the Gravensteyn, where evildoers are generally punished, the hangman attaching her by a rope to the gallows high up on a ladder raised against it on which she stood so that justice could be seen, and she was banished from Holland and Westfriesland for life under threat of severe punishment. And afterwards, when she was arrested at Alkmaar, instead of receiving other harsh penalties, which she had no doubt merited, she was brought to the tuchthuis there, where in the hope t h a t she would be reformed she was given a position of trust, so that she was even trusted to go to market. She should have been contented with such conditions, but instead, after two years in the tuchthuis, she returned to her usual thieving and disorderly life, for which she was arrested last J a n u a r y 21 in this city and because she was with child, she was merely exposed on the scaffold with a rope about her neck and attached to the gallows, the penalties which she had merited for three different thefts at Rotterdam and here not being exacted, but expressly, in the sentence read to her, suspended by the magistrates. After all these punishments, the prisoner saw fit to commit several thefts at Haarlem where April 20 last she was arrested and because of her advanced pregnancy merely banished from Holland and Westfriesland for twenty years under threat of severe penalty, perhaps the sack [drowning, bound in a sack]. Yet later, although she knew

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what to expect here from her last sentence, she did not only come here and thereby infringe her ban, but also committed new thefts, as for instance in the New City, where last summer together with a certain accomplice and in broad daylight, she entered a house, the doors of which one had forgotten to shut and stole a woman's skirt, blouse, and jacket, which were found among her things and restored to their owner. This, as being of evil consequences and not to be tolerated by the courts of a city, must be punished. Therefore, the judges, having heard the request and conclusions of the high bailiff and the confession of the prisoner, do now sentence her to be strangled on the scaffold before city hall until she is dead, her body then to be brought to Volewyck and hanged on the gallows until it is decomposed, her goods, if she has any, being confiscated to the profit of the court. . . . 3 l Although the spinhouse a t A m s t e r d a m was in full operation a n d was receiving thieves of her type, T r y n Peters was never sent there, though t h e m a g i s t r a t e s had seven o p p o r t u n i t i e s to do so. Instead, they preferred t h e conventional p u n i s h m e n t s , which were progressively m a d e m o r e and more severe. 1606—Banished f r o m city for three years u n d e r t h r e a t of w h i p p i n g a n d renewal of the ban. 1608—Banished for f i f t y years, under t h r e a t of severe punishment. 1609—Exposed on scaffold; banished f o r fifty years, under t h r e a t of w h i p p i n g and b r a n d i n g . 1610—Exposed on scaffold; banished for seventy-five years, whipped and b r a n d e d . 1612—Exposed on scaffold; b a n i s h e d for life; whipped, b r a n d e d , ears cut off. 1617—Exposed on scaffold; sentence suspended, because of pregnancy. 1617—Strangled. Only once, at A l k m a a r , was she confined to a spinhouse, where she spent two years as a model prisoner. By t h a t time the t r e a t m e n t came too late, f o r she was already a professional criminal. " Koning. op. cit., pp. 122-29; quoted from the Justitie-Boek, October 1616 tot 4 Junij 1619, fol. 75, in the Amsterdam city archives. See also A. Hallema, "Een merkwaardig geval van cumulatie van straffen in 1617." Tijds. v. Strafr., 38: 364-72, 1928.

ü f e x i (ξ^Ω. THE IMITATORS THE story of the rasphouse and the spinhouse of Amsterdam would not be complete without a discussion of their influence on the course of penal reform. Here were institutions representing a strikingly new device for dealing with petty offenders who formerly had been disposed of by a few lashes, a brief stand at the pillory on the public scaffold, branding, mutilation, and finally banishment, which merely served to shift the problem to some other community which in turn contributed m a n y of its own banished criminals to the underworld of Amsterdam. The tuchthuis, as we have seen, became famous very soon both within and without the borders of the land. In the United Provinces, town after town set up similar institutions. T h e Leiden house of correction, thanks to the energetic efforts of Van Hout and his colleagues, was founded in 1598 after several journeys by Van Hout to Amsterdam to confer with the regents of the rasphouse concerning building plans and administrative problems. Leeuwarden in 1598, Groningen in 1601, Franeker in 1608, Haarlem in 1609, Enkhuizen in 1612, Alkmaar and Dordrecht in 1614, Utrecht in 1616, followed suit, and other communities in the course of the century adopted the Amsterdam idea. 1 T h e Spanish provinces of the Low Countries were fully aware of the experiment. Shortly after 1609, the city administration of Antwerp decided to study the houses of the United Provinces. T h e delegation entrusted with this task by some chance never reached Amsterdam. It appears to have landed in Gouda, where plans had been in the making for the establishment of a tuchthuis and where "instructions" and regulations for its management had 1

A. Hallema, "Waar stonden ten tijde der republiek onze gevangenissen?" Tijds. v. Strajr., 41: 436-43, 1931. 102

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been adopted in 1611 and 1612. These documents were copied by the visitors and brought back to Antwerp. Early in 1613 the first regulations for the Antwerp house were issued by the two city council members who had been appointed inspectors of the institution. An ordinance of February 9, 1613, which described the types of offenders to be admitted, listed those committed on sentence by magistrates, beggars and vagabonds, and those committed on petition by relatives or friends. T h e institution was known as the Dwinghuys, or literally a house of force (maison de force) for several decades, but by 1650 the term "tuchthuis" was also in common use. 2 In 1617 the States General of Hainault laid plans for a maison de force, where, according to Pirenne, "individuals deprived of means of subsistence could be imprisoned and compelled to work." 3 In Brussels, the city authorities began in 1623 the construction of a Ducht huis near the Laeken gate for the incarceration of the "lazy poor." 4 It is not clear from these sources, however, whether or not these last-mentioned institutions were to be penal institutions or merely workhouses. T h e rasphuis, which in 1627 was installed in the castle of Gerard le Diable at Ghent, on plans proposed by the architect Francquart, was partly workhouse and partly a house of correction, similar to the Amsterdam house, and became the parent institution of the f a mous house of correction and prison which Vilain ΧIV planned a century and a half later and John Howard made famous by his praise. 5 2 Hallema, "Het Antwerpsche Tuchthuis, een Hollandsche navolging," Antwerpsch Archievenblnd (Reeks 2), 6: 1-26, Jan. 1931 ; pp. 7-8. Gotthold Bohne's assumption that Antwerp may have established a house of correction earlier than Amsterdam is consequently unfounded, as is his theory that corrective imprisonment was well established in the statute laws and practice of the Italian city states of the late middle ages. See his Die Freiheitsstrafe in den italienischen Stadtrechten des 12.-16., Jahrhunderts, II, 229-30. 3 Pirenne, op. cit., IV, 441. * Alex. Henne and Alphonse Wauters, Histoire de la ville de Bruxelles, 11, 56. s L. Stroobant, "Le Rasphuis de Gand. Recherches sur la repression du vagabondage et sur le système pénitentiare établi en Flandre en XVII e et en XVIII e siècle." Annales de la Soc. d'Historié et d'Archéologie de Gand, 3: 191307, 1900. Stroobant did not substantiate his claim that this institution was inspired by Amsterdam, but its very title indicates it. It is known that in 1653 the magistrates wrote to Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Malines for rules and regulations and did receive a copy of the Amsterdam rules, now in the Ghent archives; but their date suggests that they were only the "authorization

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Almost a century ago, Fuesslin recognized that the houses of correction of northern Germany stemmed from the Amsterdam institutions, 8 but it was Hippel's researches which established this fact beyond a doubt. Already in 1601 an institution combining the features of a poorhouse, a workhouse, and a house of correction, or Zuchthaus, was set up in the St. Ann Convent at Lübeck, but because the separation of the idle poor from the misdemeanants did not occur until 1613, Hippel was inclined to give first honors to Bremen, which in 1609 had a Zuchthaus. 7 Its opening date is unknown. As early as 1604 the city council of Bremen had written to Amsterdam for information about the rasphouse, but Grambow doubts that it had got under way much before the rules and regulations were issued on J a n u a r y 26, 1609. After more than a decade of planning, Hamburg set up a house of correction in 1618 and issued rules for its administration on March 8, 1622.8 Strong circumstantial evidence points to its dependence on Amsterdam for inspiration and administrative organization. Such dependence has been completely demonstrated in the case of the Danzig house of correction, established in 1629.® Like Lübeck and Bremen, these were old Hanse towns which had long maintained commercial relations with Amsterdam. It is not to the regents" issued on March 27, 1598, by the Amsterdam magistrates and reprinted in full by Commelin, op. cit., 1, 507-8, and not the rules of which Hippel discovered a copy in the Danzig archives. β J. Fuesslin, Die Einzelhaft nach fremden und sechsjährigen eigenen Erfahrungen im neuer Männer^uchthause in Bruchsal, p. 5. 7 The rules and regulations of the Bremen house were reprinted in Hippel, op. cit., pp. 614-17. See also Erich Wagener, Die Entwicklung der Freiheitsstrafe in Lübeck von der Carolina bis zur Gegenwart, and Otto Grambow, Das Gefängniswesen Bremens. Hippel pointed out that the term "Zuchthaus" made its way into the German language as a literal translation of the Dutch word "tuchthuis." 8 The best source is Ebeling's study, already cited on several occasions. See also A. Streng's earlier work, Geschichte der Gefängnisverwaltung in Hamburg von 1622-1872. ' Hippel made it clear enough, and the argument was clinched by Pietsch, op. cit. Peter Mundy, who visited Danzig in 1642, wrote in his diary: "Here is likewise a Zuchthaus or house of correction, where misgoverned people of both sexes are sett in and putt to worcke, as spinning, weaving, etts. Among the rest an honest Burger sentt thither by his wives complaint, by whome hee had a child every yeare; butt it seemes nott sett in For thatt, but rather for mispending his tyme and meanes in idle company, drincke, etts, which hee would imploy to the Maynetenance off his said wiffe and Children." Temple, The Travels of Peter Mundy . . . . p. 185.

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surprising therefore to find that when they were confronted with the social problems of vagrancy and professional begging, they saw in the Dutch city institutions worthy of emulation. Both indirectly and directly, the Amsterdam houses affected penal reform in Scandinavia. In 1621 Gustavus Adolphus, the king of Sweden, urged that a tuktbus be set up in Stockholm, and three years later his law on begging prescribed the erection of such institutions in all provinces, where an inmate should work to the profit of the house and not be discharged until he had professed reformation and been recommended by the two inspectors, or regents, of the institution. The rules and regulations of the Stockholm tukthus were ready for submission to the king early in 1622, having been prepared by the governor of Stockholm, Gabriel Oxenstjerna, and Lars Skytte, aided by the mayors, the city council, and the magistrates. Two years later a contract was made with a German, Jochim Firbrandt, to be superintendent and requiring him to import—from Hamburg—a work supervisor and assistants. In 1625 some rooms in the monastery on Gray Friar's Island were remodeled for use as a tukthus and small textile manufactures were installed. Firbrandt was not the man for the job, and in 1635 another German, Jochim Rothenhan, was engaged and sent to Hamburg, Lübeck, and Danzig 10 to study their institutions and their regulations. The war on the Continent prevented his going to Danzig, but he visited the other two cities and on his return tried to carry on the work. A new tukthus was built in 1646. Thus, by way of the correctional houses of the north German Hanse towns, the Stockholm house stemmed from Amsterdam. In a statute of 1698 it was designated as a rasp and spinhouse, terms which probably were applied to it by popular consent at a much earlier date 11 and remained in popular usage long after their origin had been lost sight of. It is probably not a pure coincidence that in 1598 D. Cristóbal Perez de Herrera, "proto-medico" of the galleys of Spain, wrote a work 12 on how to deal with vagrants and beggars as well as ι» He would probably have seen sent to Bremen also had not the house of correction there been closed in 1627, not to be reestablished until 1647. " Wieselgren, op. cit., pp. 22-57, 156-57. i2 Discurso del amparo de los legítimos pobres γ reducción de los fingidos y

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with the poor, and suggested the establishment of prisons, or rather "houses of labor," where women offenders could be sent for one, two, three, or ten years, and even for life in case the crime had really merited a death penalty. There they should work at weaving, spinning, and similar occupations. A few years later, in 1608, Mother Magdalena de San Geronimo, founder of the House of Probation of Valladolid, formulated a plan for a women's prison which, according to Cadalso, led to the establishment of the Galera de Mujeres in Madrid in 1611. The Reverend Mother expressed the belief that current methods of dealing with women criminals were ineffective and that there should be established in all cities homes for orphan girls where they could be taught the principles of a virtuous life, since "evil should bé attacked at the beginning," and also a "hospital for the soul" in the nature of a house of correction and labor. 13 Among the attendants of the Venetian ambassadors who visited Amsterdam, 1608-26, the chaplain of the ambassador Giorgio Giorgi, one Francesco Belli, published in 1632 a work 14 in which he not only extolled the various charitable institutions of Amsterdam, but expressed the hope that rasphouses might be introduced into Italy; 15 but it would be hazardous to maintain that the correctional houses of seventeenth-century Holland had any direct effect on prison reform in that country, although it should be remembered that many Italians were, as a result of personal visits to the Dutch institutions, familiar with their program. There is little to be said concerning the relationship of the Dutch houses of correction to the development of penal institutions in England. As we have seen, the British travelers made de la fundación y principio de los albergues destos Reynos, y amparo de la milicia dellos. MS in Bibl. Nac., Madrid (sign. R.-1798) briefly reviewed in Felix Sevilla y Solanos, Historia Penitenciaria Española (La Galera), p. 235. See also L. Lallemand, Histoire de la charité, IV, 16 ff. 13 See Sevilla y Solanos, op. cit., pp. 237-58; F. Cadalso, Instituciones penitenciarias y similares en España, p. 246; Eugenio Cuello Calón, Penologia, p. 135. 14 Osservazioni nel viaggio di F. Belli. 1B Blok, op. cit., p. 230. Even earlier than 1621 there existed at Naples a "house of penitence" for women criminals, but its exact nature is unknown. See M. Beltrani-Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma delle carceri in Italia, p. 359.

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known their impressions of these institutions, and occasionally some writer like Bernard Mandeville, 1 8 a Dutch physician residing in London, would call attention to the superiority of the rasp and spinhouses over the British bridewells, but to no effect. T h e local prisons of England remained neglected and f a r behind a large number of institutions on the Continent. T h i s became perfectly obvious upon the publication of John Howard's remarkable State of Prisons, which contained his report on both British and Continental jails and prisons of all types. Howard, who upon his appointment as sheriff of the county of Bedford in 1773 had found the jail in disreputable state, set about to correct these conditions, especially as they affected poor debtors confined there. In his search for better ways of dealing with prisoners he visited detention and penal institutions all over Europe, delving into every aspect of jail construction and administration. He found much t h a t inspired him. Here and there, in Italy, Spain, France, and Belgium, he discovered methods of penal treatment f a r in advance of those current in his own country. He was especially impressed by the Dutch houses of correction, and we have his own words, in a forgotten footnote to his second work, that it was the regime in these houses which inspired the drafters of the Penitentiary Act of 1779. " T h e Act of Parliament for Penitentiary houses was originally founded on the principal regulations of the Dutch rasp-houses and spinhouses'; but has received m a n y alterations and improvements," he stated, and suggested that if such penitentiaries were set up in England, the accounts by Pontanus and Wagenaar of the Amsterdam institutions should be consulted. 1 7 Thus, almost two centuries after the founding of the Amsterdam tuchthuis, that institution and its imitators became the chief inspiration for the greatest prison reformer of all times and his co-workers and brought a late contribution to the development of new penal methods in England and indirectly in the United States. A discussion of the relationship of the Dutch houses of corAn enquiry into the causes of the frequent executions pp. 53-54. i t John Howard, An account of the principal lazarettos p. 229, note.

at

Tyburn

. . . ,

in Europe

. . . ,

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rection to prison reform on the North American continent must, of course, first consider the colony of New Netherlands. While its first inhabitants appear to have been drawn chiefly from refugees from the southern provinces, m a n y of them came originally—or in transit—from towns possessing tuchthuisen— Amsterdam, Leiden, Utrecht, etc. Furthermore, the West India Company which operated the new settlement, managed it through its Amsterdam branch. When the charter of the Company was granted, the States General gave it . . . legislative, executive, and judicial powers [within the colony] stipulating only that they themselves should confirm the appointment of the highest officials and the instructions given them, that the Roman Dutch law of the fatherland should prevail when special laws and ordinances issued by the Company did not meet all needs, and that persons convicted of capital crimes should be sent home with their sentences.18 T h e Dutch law referred to was the "Placards and Ordinances of Holland," and punishments in the colony were therefore entirely in harmony with those prevailing in Old Amsterdam. T h e gallows, the lash, the pillory, the brand, the fine, and banishment were all used on occasion, as was torture for the extraction of confessions, but the rare sentences to labor involved "going at the cart" 19 a form of public work penalty, and imprisonment was discharged at New Amsterdam in the strong rooms of the fort and later in the Stadthuis, or town hall. T h e tuchthuis was never transplanted to our shores. The reason is doubtless the fact t h a t the British conquest came at such an early date that the Dutch colony had not grown large enough in population to support such an institution. New Amsterdam never had more than a few hundred families. 20 Echoes of the tuchthuis are found, however, in the early colonial records. Throughout the colony, the tavern licenses issued by the 18 Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer, History of the City of New York in the Seventeenth Century, I, 42. i® Berthold Fernow, ed.. The Records of New Amsterdam, II, 188. 2 ° In the Dutch East Indies, at Batavia, a spinhouse was established in 1641. See Hallema, In en om de gevangenis . . . , chap, xvii, "Het spinhuis van Batavia."

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magistrates were known as the "spinhouse tickets," and in 1659 a woman resident of New Amsterdam brought an action before the local court for defamation of character, asserting that the defendant had said that the plaintiff "had not well conducted herself at Amsterdam" and "had sat in the 'Spinning-house.' " 22 Most interesting of all is the sentence in 1647 of Michiel Picquet, who had used scandalous language about the DirectorGeneral. Stuyvesant and his council ordered him "transported to Holland on the ship 'Falconer' to serve a term of eighteen years imprisonment in't Rasphuis, the criminal prison of Amsterdam." 23 There have not been wanting claims that when William Penn in 1682 incorporated in his laws for the government of his vast colonial estate of Pennsylvania the provision that all prisons should be workhouses, he drew his inspiration from the Dutch houses of correction, but such claims have never been substantiated. The Quakers of Holland, who migrated to these shores, were probably quite familiar with the tuchthuisen, and some of them may have paid their stiver to see them on Kermess-days. William Penn himself may have seen them, though he is one traveler who failed to mention them in his diary. The Quakers of Pennsylvania seem to have learned about them first through the writings of John Howard. The houses of correction to which Penn referred were therefore in all likelihood those which had sprung up in England in the seventeenth century and even earlier, on the pattern of the London Bridewell. A faint reflection of the Amsterdam institutions is found in the term "bettering house" which came to be used in Philadelphia for the Almshouse and House of Employment set up in 1767.24 This term had somewhat earlier gained currency in England, being a direct translation of the Dutch word Verbeterbuis, which was apparently used in Holland to designate 21 Fernow, op. cit., II, 71. T h e reader will recall that the Amsterdam spinhouse received most of its financial support f r o m license fees paid by tavern keepers. "ibid., I l l , 25-26. 2S J. H. Innes, New Amsterdam and Its People, p. 92. 24 Charles Lawrence, History of the Philadelphia Almshouses and Hospitals, p. 24.

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a house in which persons were confined on petition to the magistrates. W e have already discussed this practice as it was found in both Amsterdam houses of correction. In applying the term "bettering house" to the Philadelphia almshouse, the Quakers of that city were not only departing from its Dutch meaning, but also from English usage. When the Walnut Street jail of Philadelphia after the Revolution was finally restored to the community for its own use, having served during the war to house prisoners of war, one of the industries installed was the rasping of wood. It is most likely that the stimulus in this connection came from Holland through the descriptions of John Howard. It was not an industry common to the British houses of correction, for only one of t h e m — t h a t of Norwich—was known to have employed its prisoners in this manner. 2 5 It is equally difficult t o find any pronounced Dutch influences in the penal methods of the New England colonies, in spite of the fact that the Pilgrims had lived in Holland when its houses of correction were still new social inventions. 211

Howard, The State

of the Prisons

. . . . p. 298.

BIBLIOGRAPHY [Abraham a Santa Clara] "Das Rasp- oder Zuchthaus. Eine Predigt von A b r a h a m a Santa Clara, mitgeteilt von Dr. Weissenrieder," Blätter f . Gefängniskunde, 65: 223-29, 1934. Akerström, Äke. "Urban Hjärnes resa till Tyskland och Holland 1667," Lychnos. Lärdomsbistoriska Samfundets Ärsbok, 1937: 186-211. Baudartius, Guglielmus. Memoryen ofte cort verhael der gedenckweerdichste so kerckliche als werltliche gheschiedenissen van Nederland . . . von den jaere 1603 tot in bet jaer 1624. 2nd. ed. rev., Arnhem, 1624. 2 vols. [Belli, Francesco] Osservazioni nel viaggio di F. Belli. Venezia, 1632. Pp. 189. Beltrani-Scalia, Martino. Sul governo e sulla riforma delle carceri in Italia. Torino, 1867. Pp. 518. Bense, J. F. Anglo-Dutch relations from the earliest times to the death of William the Third. London: Oxford University Press, 1925. Pp. X X , 293. Bezemer, W. "Het tucht- en werkhuis te Rotterdam," Rotterdamsch Jaarboekje, 6: 149-99, 1899. Blainville, M. de. Travels through Holland, Germany, Switzerland, but especially Italy. London, 1757. 3 vols. Blok, P. J., ed. Relazioni veneziani. Venetiaansche berichten over de Vereenigde Nederlanden van 1600-1795. 's-Gravenhage: Nijhoff, 1909. Pp. xxix, 418. Boak, A. E. E., Albert Hyma, and Preston Slosson. The growth of European civilization. 2nd ed. New York: F. S. Crofts, 1941. 2 vols, in one. Boas, M. " D e spreuk van de rasphuispoort," Jaarboek v. h. Genoots. Amstelodamum, 15: 121-29, 1917. Bohne, Gotthold. Die Freiheitsstrafe in den italienischen Stadtrechten des 12.-16. Jahrhunderts. Leipzig: Weicher, 1922-25. 2 vols. Bontemantel, Hans. De regeeringe van Amsterdam soo int civiel ais crimineel en militaire (1653-1672). G. W. Kernkamp, ed. 's-Gravenhage: Nijhoff, 1897. Pp. ccxxxiv, 298. Bredius, Α., et al. Amsterdam in de zeventiende eeuw. 's-Gravenhage: Van Stockum, 1897-1904. 3 vols. Ill

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Brereton, Sir William. Travels in Holland, The United Provinces, England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1634-1635. Ed. by Edward Hawkins. London, 1844. Pp. viii, 205. Brom, Gisbert. "Een italiaansche reisbeschrijving der Nederlanden (1677-1678)," Bijdr. en Mededeel. v. bet Histor. Genoots., 36: 81-230, 1915. Brom, G., and L. A. Van Langeraad, eds. Diariunt van Arend Van Bucbell. Amsterdam, 1907. Pp. xiv, 574. (Werken, Hist. Genoots., Reeks 2, no. 21.) Brouwer Ancker, W. J. M. "Het rasphuispoortje te Amsterdam en zijne geschiedenis," De Navorscher, 44: 565-70, 1894. i—. "Nog eens het rasphuispoortje," De Navorscher, 44: 704-5, 1894. Brown, Edward. A brief account of some travels in divers parts of Europe . . . through a great part of Germany, and the Low Countries . . . 2nd ed. London, 1685. Pp. 222. Cuello Calón, Eugenio. Penología. Madrid: Ed. Reus, 1920. Pp. 355. Carr, Sir John. A tour through Holland, along the right and left banks of the Rhine, to the South of Germany, in the summer and autumn of 1806. London, 1807. Pp. xvi, 468. Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. Adventures of Don Quixote de La Mancha. Clough, Shepard Bancroft, and Charles Woolsey Cole. Economic history of Europe. Boston: D. C. Heath, 1941. Pp. xx, 841. Commelin, Casparus. Beschryvinge van Amsterdam. Amsterdam, 1693. 2 vols. [Dahlberg, Erik] Kongl. Rddets, General-Guvernörens, Fältmarskalkens m. m. Erik Dahlbergs egenhändigt författade Dag-Bok. S. Lundblad, ed. Stockholm, 1823. Pp. iii, 330. D [ a p p e r ] , 0 . Historische beschryving der stadt Amsterdam. . . . Amsterdam, 1663. Pp. 552. Davies, Robert, ed. The Life of Marmaduke Rawdon of York. . . . London, 1863. Pp. xlii, 204. De Bosch Kemper, J. Geschiedkundig onder^oek naar de armoede in ons vaderland. . . . Haarlem, 1851. Pp. xii, 382. De Keyser, Hendrick, and Cornells Danckerts. Architectura moderna, of te bouwinge van onsen tyt. Amsterdam, 1631. Pp. 28 and 48 plates. Doleisch von Dolsperg, Franz. Die Entstehung der Freiheitsstrafe. Breslau: Schleuer, 1928. Pp. 137.

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Hallema, A. "De gevangenisarbeid in concurrence met het particulière bedrijvsleven en de strijd om bet Amsterdamsche tuchthuismonopolie ten tijde der republiek . . . ," Econ.-Hist. Jaarb., 19: 114-201, 1935. . "Een geruchtmakend vonnis, in 1598 te Leiden gewezen," Tijds. v. Strafr. 34: 244-70, 1924. . "Een gevangenisbeeld uit de 17a* eeuw," Themis, 97: 13-48, 1936. . "Een merkwaardig geval van cumulatie van straffen in 1617," Tijds. v. Strafr. 38: 364-72, 1928. . "Het Antwerpsche Tuchthuis, een Hollandsche navolging," Antwerpsch Archievenblad, (Reeks 2), 6: 1-26, Jan. 1931. . "Het oudste ontwerp van Dirck Volckertszoon Coornherts Boeventucht terruggevonden," Tijds. v. Nederl. Τaal- en Letterkunde, 45: 1-14, 1926. . "lets over de inrichting en bouwkundige samenstelling onzer oude gevangenissen," Vragen van den Dag, 41: 675-92, Sept. 1926. . "lets over de verspreide bronnen der geschiedenis van het Utrechtsche tuchthuis in de 17e eeuw in Stads- en Landsarchieven," Nederl. Archievenblad, 33: 178-84, 1925-26. . In en om de gevangenis van vroeger dagen in Nederland en Nederlandsch-Indië. 's-Gravenhage: Gebr. Belinfante [1936]. Pp. 176. . "Jan Van Hout's rapporten en adviezen betreffende het Amsterdamsche tuchthuis uit de jaren 1597 en '98," Bijdr·. en Mededeel v. h. Histor. Genoots., 48: 68-98, 1927. . "Merkwaardige voorstellen tot oprichting van het eerste nederIandsche tuchthuis te Amsterdam uit de jaren ± 1589-1595," Jaarb. v. h. Genoots. Amstelodamum, 25:63-132, 1927. . "Waar stonden ten tijde der republiek onze gevangenissen?" Tijds. v. Strafrecht, 41:436-43, 1931. Reprinted as chap, ii of In en om de gevangenis. . . . Hegenitius, Gotfr. Itinerarium frisio-hollandicum. Lugdunum Batavorum, 1630. Pp. 180. Hellinga, G. "Een en ander over Bayerds in het algemeen en over dien van het Amsterdamsche St. Pieters-Gasthuis in't bijzonder," Jaarb. v. h. Genoots. Amstelodamum, 23: 93-104, 1926. Henne, Alexandre and Alphonse Wauters. Histoire de la ville de Bruxelles. Bruxelles, 1845. 3 vols.

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INDEX Abraham a Santa Clara, 58n. Akerström, Ake, cited, 78, 95 Alva, Duke of, 2, 20 Amsterdam, administration of justice in, 2-3; commercial rise of, 2, 16-17; house of correction for men, see Rasphuis; house of correction for women, see Spinhuis; jails, 3, 8, 19; juvenile delinquency in, 19, 25-26, 41 ; prostitution in, 97-98; vagrancy in, 41 Antwerp Dwinghuys, 103 Apprentices, runaway, punishment of, 42, 80 Apuleius, Lucius, 31 Arminius, Jacobus, 23n. Banishment; see Punishments Bargrave, Robert, 78n. Baudartius, Guglielmus, cited, 42 Beheading, see Capital punishments Belli, Francesco, cited, 106 Beltrani-Scalia, Martino, cited, 106 Ben, Ysbrand, 35n. Bernagie. Pieter, 83 "Bettering houses," American, 109-10; Dutch, 19, 48 Bezemer, W„ cited, 19 Blainville, M. de, on the "water cellar," 72 Blok, P. I., cited, 77, 78, 83, 85, 106 Boak, A. E. R., cited, 69 Board of regents, 35-37, 90 Boas, M., cited, 32 Bohne, Gotthold, cited, 103 Bontemantel, Hans, cited, 46, 49, 82, 84, 95, 97 Boonen, Arnold, 89n. Bovio, Guido de, 78, 93, 98 Bowrey, Thomas, 71, 93, 94 Brahe, Tycho, 31n. Branding; see Corporal punishments Brazilwood; see Dyewood Breaking on the wheel; see Capital punishments Bredius, Α., cited, 29

Brereton, Sir William, on the heuk, 7 Bridewell; see Houses of correction Brom, Gisbert, cited, 57, 78, 93, 98 Brouwer Ancker, W. J. M., cited, 32 Brown, Edward, on the "water cellar," 70; quoted, 86, 94 Brugmans, H., cited, 32, 44 Brussels Ducbthuis, 103 Burial alive; see Capital punishments Burning; see Capital punishments Buyck, Hendrik, 36 Cadalso, F., cited, 106 Calvin, Jean, 14, 18 Capital punishment: beheading, 5, 6; breaking on wheel, 5; burial alive, 5, 43; burning, 5; drowning, 5; exposure of corpse, 5; hanging, 5; opposition to, 14, 25, 26 Cardano, Geronimo, 14 Carr, Sir John, 72; cited, 48, 54, 60, 79; on conjugal visits, 77; on prison labor, 57; on the "water cellar," 71 Cells, 33, 35, 82, 84-85 Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, on vagrancy, 10-11 Charles V, 1, 76 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 23 Classification of prisoners, 80-81 Clough, Shepard B., cited, 10 Cole, Charles W., cited, 10 Commelin, Casparus, 44, 45, 86; cited, 41, 55. 85, 104 Commitment procedure, 41 ff, 81-83 Commutation of sentences, 45 Conjugal visits; see Rasphuis Contarini, Tomaso, 78 Coornhert, Dirck Volckertszoon, 23, 24, 25, 27n.; biography, 23n.; Boeventucbt summarized, 23-24; on the invention of printing, 23n.; on the price of slaves, 24 Corporal punishments: branding, 4, 7, 25; forced labor, 8, 24-25; galley slavery, 7-8, 23-25; mutilation, 4; pillory, 6, 11; whipping, 3-4, 6-7, II

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Correr, Marcantonio, 78, 82 Coster, Laurens, 23n. Crime, cause of, Cardano on, 14; study of, 14; Vives on, II Cuello Calón, Eugenio, cited, 106 Dahlberg, Erik, cited, 78 Danckerts, Cornells, 32 Dapper, Olfert, biography, 44n.; cited, 31, 44. 52, 62, 63, 68; on length of sentences, 43-44 Davies, Robert, cited, 70 Doleisch von Dolsperg, Franz, cited, 21, 37; on English origin of houses of correction, 21-22 Dómela Nieuwenhuis, J., cited, 25, 43, 47, 55, 56, 73 Drowning; see Capital punishments Dyewood, rasping of, in Amsterdam, see Rasphuis industries; in Norwich, 110; in Walnut Street Jail, 110 Ebeling, Albert, cited, 29, 57, 59, 71, 92, 93, 104 Egbertszoon, Sebastian, 14, 30, 41, 42, 45, 58, 64-65, 66, 76, 80; biography, 29; critique of Spiegel's plan, 29-30; plan for disciplinary punishments, 64-66 Egmont, Lamoral, Comte d', 3In. Elias, Johan E„ cited, 25, 29, 36 Eliaszoon, Claes, 89 Erasmus, Desiderius, 13-14 Evelyn, John, cited, 78, 92 Everest, Arthur Ernest, cited, 54 Femow, Berthold, cited, 108, 109 Firbrandt, Jochim, 105 Forced labor; see Corporal punishments Francquart, 103 Friedensburg, W., cited, 78 Fuesslin, J., cited, 104 Gallas, Κ. R., cited, 27, 84 Galley slavery; see Corporal punishments Gaudio, Vincenzio, 84, 86 Gerard le Diable, 103 Giorgi, Giorgio, 106 Giustiniani, Giorgio, 77, 82, 85, 91 Goltzius, Hendrik, 23 Grambow, Otto, cited, 104

Gresham, Thomas, 32 Grevius, J. (Greve, Johann), 84 Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, 105 Haak, S. P., cited, 31 Hallema, Α., viii; cited, 14, 19, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 33, 34, 35 , 38, 39, 41, 42, 45, 46, 55, 56, 57, 64, 66, 68, 69, 72, 80, 81, 83, 84, 101, 102, 103, 108 Handicrafts, 59-60 Hanging; see Capital punishments Hegenitius, Gotfr., cited, 32 Hellinga, G., cited, 4 Henne, Alexandre, cited, 103 Heretics, punishment of, 5 Hermanszoon, Ysbrand, 55n. Hippel, Robert von, viii, 41, 44, 48, 55, 66, 85, 91, 93; cited, 25, 26, 42, 44, 59. 63, 70, 82, 84. 87, 104 Hjärne, Urban, 78, 94; quoted, 95 Hooft, Cornells Pieterszoon, 25, 88n.; on origin of house of correction, 26; on severe punishments, 18, 26 , Pieter Corneliszoon, 25n., 88 , W. D„ 83 Hospitals, 4 Houses of correction: aim, 26ff; Alkmaar, 100, 102; Amsterdam, see Rasphuis, Spinhuis, Verbeterhuis, New Workhouse; Antwerp, 102-3; Bremen, 104; Brussels, 103; Danzig, 104; Dordrecht, 102; Enkhuizen, 102; factors in establishment of, 12-22; Franeker, 102; Ghent, 103; Gouda, 102; Groningen, 102; Haarlem, 102; Hamburg, 104; Italian, 106; Leeuwarden, 102; Leiden, 81, 102, 108; London (Bridewell), 12, 21, 37. 109; Lübeck, 104; Norwich, 21, 110; Pennsylvania, 110; Plato's plan for, 12-13; Hainault, 103; relation of British to Dutch, 20-22, 37, 106-7; Spanish, 105-6; Stockholm, 105; Utrecht, 47, 56, 73, 102, 108; Winchester, 22 Howard, John, 47, 71, 72. 79, 85, 103, 109; cited, 7, 36, 39, 48, 57, 69, 74, 94, 107, 110 Hyma, Albert, cited, 69 Imprisonment; see House of correction; Punishments

INDEX I n d e t e r m i n a t e sentences; see Rasphuis Sentences Innes, J. H „ cited, 109 Ives, George, viii Janszoon, Pieter, 55n. J o h a n Ernest, t h e Younger, D u k e of Saxony, 78 Jones, R u f u s M., cited, 23 Juvenile delinquents, in A m s t e r d a m , 25-26; p u n i s h m e n t of, 19, 42; ref o r m a t o r i e s for, 18 Kannegieter, K. Z., cited, 97 K e r n k a m p , G. W „ cited, 46 Keyser, Hendrick de, 88, 91; biography, 32n. Kirchheimer, Otto, cited, 17 Koch, Herbert, cited, 4 Koerbach, Adriaen, 84 Koning, Jacobus, 98; cited, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 15, 25, 43, 47, 48, 68, 74, 91, 93, 101; on 16th c e n t u r y punishments, 2-8; quoted, 98-101 Kool, J., 61; cited, 33, 35 Künssberg, E b e r h a r d Freiherr von, cited, 7, 69 Lallemand, L., cited, 106 Laurefici, Vincenzo, 78 Lawrence, Charles, cited, 109 Leendertz, P., cited, 84 Leonard, E. M., cited, 21 Lipsius, Justus, 42n. Lipson, E., cited, 21; quoted, 20 Malinowski, Bronislaw, cited, 44 Mandeville, Bernard, cited, 107 Maximilian, C o u n t of Holland, 19 Mesnard, Pierre, cited, 14 Meyer, Cornells, on prison labor, 72 Misson, Maximilien, cited, 70, 72 Montague, William, cited, 4, 44, 71 M u n d y , Peter, 94; quoted, 104n. M u t i l a t i o n ; see Corporal punishments N e u r d e n b u r g , Elizabeth, cited, 32 New A m s t e r d a m , p u n i s h m e n t s in, 108; relationship of, t o Rasphuis, 109 New W o r k h o u s e , 48, 95 Nijhoff, M., cited, 23

123

Norwood, Frederick Α., cited, 16, 21 Nugent, R„ cited, 71; quoted, 95 Oldewelt, W. P. N., cited, 84 Orbaan, J. A. F., cited, 43 Oxenstjerna, Gabriel, 105 Pallman, R„ 84 Parent. J a n ( J e a n ) , 49, 50, 51, 52, 66 Paultre, Christian, cited, 71 Penn, William, 109 Penson, T h o m a s , 78 Pereira Ferraz, A. L., cited, 53 Perez de Herrera, Cristóbal, 105-6 Perkins, A r t h u r George, cited, 54 Peters, T r y n ( T r y n of H a m b u r g ) , 98101 Petri, Olaus, on corporal punishments, I5n. Philip II, 2, 16 Picquet, Michiel, 109 Pieterszoon, Aert, 29n. Pietsch, G ü n t h e r , cited, 71, 104 Pillory; see Corporal punishments Pinkerton, John, cited, 98 Pirenne, Henri, cited, 10, 16, 76, 103 Plancius, Cornelius, 59; on origin of house of correction, 20 Plato, 31 ; on punishment, 12-13 Plautus, T i t u s Maccius, 83 Political prisoners, 83-86 Pontanus, J o h a n Isaakszoon, 107; biography, 31; cited, 41, 83; quoted, 82, 85 P o o r relief, 10-11 Posthumus, Ν. W „ cited, 55n. Poverty, causes of, 9-10 Prinsen, J., cited, 10, 27 Prison r e f o r m e r s ; see Coornhert, Egbertszoon, Howard, Plato, Spiegel (Jan) Prisons: administration, 35-39, 90; diet, 28, 39-40, 93; discipline, 63-73, 93; financing, 40, 96-97; labor, 24, 72; see also Rasphuis industries. Spinhuis; labor contract, 50-52; school, 61-63; wages, 58 Prostitution, cause of, 11 ; in Amsterdam, 97-98 P u n i s h m e n t s : banishment, 6-7; c a r r y ing the "city's stones," 7 ; c a r r y i n g the wooden cloak, 7; correctional aim of, 12-13, 25; death penalty, see

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PIONEERING IN PENOLOGY

Punishments ( C o n t i n u e d ) Capital punishment; deterrent effect of, 24; disciplinary, see Rasphuis, Spinhuis; imprisonment, 8, 19; ineffectiveness of, 14-15, 98-101; loss of civil rights, 8; pilgrimages, 7; reform of. 23 ff; transportation, 8; see also Corporal punishments Quinkhard, Jan Maurits, 33, 89 Radbruch, Gustav, cited, 21 Rasphuis: administration, 35-39; Board of regents, 35-37; cellrooms, 33, 35; conjugal visits, 77; description, 3Iff; disciplinary punishments, 63-73; effect of treatment in, 73-75; fame, 46; financial support, 40; imitators of, 102-10; industries, see Rasphuis industries; medical care, 61 ; prisoners, see Rasphuis prisoners; private section, 80ff; recreation, 63; relations with New Amsterdam, 109; religious training, 62-63; rules and regulations, 63-67; sanitary provisions, 61 ; school, 62; sentences, see Rasphuis sentences; Spiegel's plan for, 27-28; commitments to, 4 Iff; visitors' fees, 77 industries: aim, 29-30, 59; contract system, 50-52, 56; diversified, 28, 58-59; monopoly, 54-56; opposition to, 55-56; rasping, 53ff; wages, 58; weaving, 49-52, 53, 57 prisoners: classification, 80-81; clothing, 39; number, 47-48; political, 83-86; types, 41ff, 80-84; wages, 58 sentences: commutation, 45; definite, 43; judicial review, 45, 73; indeterminate, 45; length, 43-46 Ratzinger, Georg, cited, 18 Rawdon, Marmaduke, 70 Regnard (Jean François), cited, 98 Religious training, 61-63 Rijck, Simon de, 36n. Rijpperda Wierdsma, J. V., cited, 43 Rosenfeld, Ernst, cited, 47, 62, 78, 82, 83, 85, 90, 93. 95. 97 Rosenroth, Christian Knorr von, 62, 92 Rothenhan, Jochim, 105

Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 84 Rusche, Georg, cited, 17 Saarn, Günther, cited, 27, 64 Salter, F. R., cited, 11 San Geronimo, Magdalena de, 106 Sayous, André-E., cited, 16 Scheltema, P., cited, 20, 59 Schölte, J. H„ cited, 32 Seneca, Marcus Annaeus, 13, 31; m o t t o above Spinhuis door by, 32; on punishment, 14 Sevilla y Solanos, Felix, cited, 106 Sherwood, Margaret M., I In. Sillem, Carl H. W„ cited, 38 Siren, Oswald, cited, 78 Six, J., cited, 32, 88 Skytte, Lars, 105 Slosson, Preston, cited, 69 Solitary confinement, 85 Spiegel, Hendrick Laurenszoon, 27n. , Jan Laurenszoon, 26, 29, 30, 41, 49, 55, 59, 76; on prison labor, 28, 58; on purpose of punishment, 27; proposal for correctional institution, 27-28 Spinhuis: administration, 90; description, 88-90; discipline, 93; establishment, 87, 92; financial support, 9697; food, 93; industries, 93-94; length of terms, 72-73; regime, 93-95; types of prisoners, 90, 92, 98; visitors, 9495; wealth, 97 Spinoza, Benedict, 2 Streng, Α., cited, 104 Stroobant, L. cited, 103 Stuven, Ernst, 33 Stuyvesant, Peter, 109 Suicide, exposure of corpse of, 6 Swedenborg, Emanuel, on Dutch prosperity, 17n. Szombor, Martin, 70 Temple, Sir Richard Carnac, 78; cited, 47, 71, 93, 98, 104 T e r Gouw, J. E., cited, 183 Tessin, Jr., Nicodemus, 78 Thorndike, Lynn, cited, 14 Torture, judicial, 2-3 Transportation, see Punishments Trevisâno, Girolamo, 78 Tuchthuis; see Rasphuis; Spinhuis

INDEX Uffenbach, Zacharias cited. 84 Union of Utrecht, 2

Conrad

von,

Vagrancy, causes of, 9-11 ; Cervantes on, 10-11; punishment of, 10-11, 44 Vámbéry, Rustem, cited, 70 Van Braght, cited, 3 Van Buchell, Arend, on prison labor, 56 Van der Aa, J . Simon, quoted, 79 Van der Slice, Austin, cited, 21 Van Dillen. J . G., cited, 16, 32, 42, 52, 53, 54. 89, 96 Van Domselaer, Tobias, cited, 44 Van Gelder, H. A. Enno, cited, 18, 26 Van Guldener, on Coornhert's life, 23 Van Heijnsbergen, P., cited, 3 Van Hout. Jan, 27, 34, 35, 41, 45, 46, 47, 52, 55, 56, 61, 65, 66, 68, 76, 81, 102; on cause of poverty, 10; on prison administration, 81; on prison labor, 57; on prison diet, 39; on size of Rasphuis, 33 Van Langeraad, L. Α., cited, 57 Van Ramssla, J . W. Neymayr, 83, 8485, 86 Van Ravesteyn, Jr., W„ cited, 17 Van Rensselaer, Mrs. Schuyler, quoted, 108 Verbeterhuis, 48, 85 Vilain X I V , 103 Vives, Juan Luis, 12; on cause of crime, 11 Vlaming, Pieter de, 36n.

125

Wagenaar. Jan, 31, 32, 33, 36, 38, 39, 59, 61, 62, 63. 68, 72, 85, 89, 90. 93. 107; cited, 19, 26, 30, 34. 37. 39. 48, 52, 69, 83, 87, 91 ; on prison labor contracts, 56; quoted, 96 Wagener, Erich, cited, 104 Waldstein, Baron, 43 Water cellar, see Rasphuis: disciplinary punishments Watson, Elkanah, cited, 71, 79 Watson, Winslow, cited, 71 Wauters, Alphonse, cited, 103 Weber, Max, 17 Weissenrieder, Dr., cited, 58 Weissman, A. W „ cited, 88, 92 Whipping; see Corporal punishments Widmarkter, Caspar von, 47, 82 Wieseigren, Sigfrid, cited, 7, 15, 69, 105 William of Orange, 2, 32 Wines, E. G . viii , F. H., viii Women offenders; see Spinhuis; Prostitution Workhouses, 96-97, 103 Wright, Edward, quoted, 94 Zeiller, Martin, 85; cited. 78 Zesen, Filip von, biography, cited, 31, 34

31n.;