Real Inequality in the Early Modern Low

Countries: the City of ‘s-Hertogenbosch

1500-1660

Jord Hanus

Abstract This paper studies the welfare effects of economic growth in the early modern Low

Countries. It applies the recently developed concept of ‘real inequality’ to a case

study of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century ‘s-Hertogenbosch in the Southern

Netherlands and demonstrates, by incorporating relative price movements, that

specific (and in this case stagnant) nominal income inequality trajectories may

disguise underlying shifts in real inequality that are influenced by socially biased

relative prices. The analysis is then extended to include changes in demography

and household size, which reveals a second important limitation in the study of

long-term economic inequality. In contrast to the stagnation and eventual decline

in nominal inequality seen in ‘s-Hertogenbosch during the long sixteenth century

(1500-1650), this broadened concept of ‘augmented’ real inequality in fact suggests

the occurrence of a significant upturn during the first half of the sixteenth century.

Furthermore, while nominal inequality had decreased, real inequality appears to

have been higher by the middle of the seventeenth century than it had been around

1500. The study of global and/or long-term inequality, in particular, would benefit

greatly from a proper social, economic and historical contextualization of these

trends, not least in terms of the social biases in relative prices and household

composition.

Keywords

Inequality, economic and social change, urban history, early modern history, Low

Countries

[2]

Real Inequality in the Early Modern Low

Countries: the City of ‘s-Hertogenbosch

1500-16601

Jord Hanus2

The study of inequality lies at the heart of economic history. It is relevant to

debates on economic growth and development, the perennial question of regional

inequality and the Great Divergence of the West from the rest of the world, as well

as the convergence debate in economics.3 It is also a pertinent reference point for

the upsurge in interest in the historical roots of global inequality.4 Additionally, at

the micro-level of households and individuals, historians and economists continue

to refine our understanding of the distribution of income and wealth within

societies. This is an important topic, for it addresses the social consequences (and

one of the main engines, simultaneously) of economic development. Questioning the

(re)distributive effects of growth has been a key issue for social scientists since the

days of Smith, Malthus and Marx, but this field has gained particular momentum

during the last few decades thanks to the work of Simon Kuznets in the 1960s.5

1 This paper benefited from insightful comments made by conference participants at the

Economic History Society Conference (Cambridge, 2011) and the Ninth European Historical

Economics Society Conference (Dublin, 2011), as well as the perceptive criticism and

constructive suggestions provided by three anonymous referees. The final version was

proofread by Linguapolis, University of Antwerp. 2 Postdoctoral Fellow of the Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO), Centre for Urban

History, University of Antwerp. Contact address: jord.hanus@ua.ac.be. 3 Recent contributions include Allen et al., ‘Wages’; Broadberry and Gupta, ‘The early

modern Great Divergence’. 4 Bourguignon and Morisson, ‘Inequality’; Milanovic, The haves. 5 A review in Kaelble and Thomas, ‘Introduction’; see also the recent report by Stiglitz, Sen

and Fitoussi, Mismeasuring our lives.

[3]

In recent years, significant contributions have been made by historians, and three

issues are of particular interest with regard to pre-industrial Europe6. First, Jan

Luiten van Zanden conceived of an early modern super Kuznets curve, whereby – in

line with Kuznets’ original contribution – a first phase of economic expansion

(specifically capitalist development) would widen income and wealth differentials.

The downswing in inequality predicted by Kuznets for matured economies would

follow only in the twentieth century.7 However, it has recently been shown that

rising (wealth) inequality also occurred in economically stagnant regions in early

modern Europe, casting doubt on the reliability of the narrow causal links

established between pre-industrial efflorescence and inequality.8 Second, evidence

has been sought and found in resources other than probate inventories and isolated

fiscal registers, notably worth assessments carried out by witnesses in criminal

courts.9 Third, a number of important conceptual tools have been introduced that

may transform the way inequality is habitually perceived and studied. Branko

Milanovic, Peter Lindert and Jeffrey Williamson developed the inequality

possibility frontier as a way of accounting for average income when assessing

inequality trends and levels 10 , and in addition, Philip Hoffman et al. have

highlighted the need to address socially biased price developments in early modern

Europe. Since prices for staples increased much substantially than prices for

luxuries - consumer goods for the poor thus becoming proportionally more

expensive than those for the rich - the early modern rise in real inequality was

actually more pronounced than nominal inequality trends would suggest.

6 Ground-breaking research on nineteenth- and twentieth-century inequality includes

Piketty, ‘The Kuznets’ curve’; Atkinson, Piketty and Saez, ‘Top incomes’. 7 Van Zanden, ‘Tracing the beginning’. 8 Alfani, ‘Wealth inequalities’. Ongoing research by Jaime Reis et al. on early modern

Portugal traces the same preliminary contours. 9 Shephard and Spicksley, ‘Worth’; also Baer, ‘Stuart London’. 10 Milanovic, Lindert and Williamson, ‘Pre-industrial inequality’.

[4]

This article builds on all of these issues. Most importantly, it expands the notion of

real inequality to include demographic change, notably socially biased changes in

household size. This way, a link is formed with inequality research in the social

sciences that tends to centre on individual or adult equivalent inequality.11 In other

words, this paper makes explicit those assumptions that are often left implicit by

historians of equal and unchanging household sizes across (historical) income

distributions. In long-term studies, in particular, these assumptions may seriously

distort our understanding of levels and trends of inequality.

We develop these ideas in relation to the city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, situated in the

heart of the Low Countries, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.12 The

choice for a case study limited to one urban centre can be justified by the amount of

empirical detail necessary to fully incorporate social biases in price trends and

demographic change in any long-term analysis of inequality. In addition, a study of

what could be called augmented real inequality in early modern ‘s-Hertogenbosch

fits seamlessly into wider debates on the social consequences of economic growth

and stagnation in early modern Europe, especially the Low Countries. The

Southern Netherlands (or Southern Low Countries), with ‘s-Hertogenbosch as one

of its mid-sized urban centres, offers an interesting case for study. For example, the

sixteenth-century economic efflorescence in the region was followed by a period of

protracted stagnation and economic traditionalization from the 1570s onwards13,

an economic trajectory that is in line with our general understanding of the

11 Milanovic, The haves; Jenkins and Van Kerm, ‘The measurement’. 12 The early modern Low Countries are considered to have comprised two main regions: the

Northern Netherlands (or Dutch Republic, from the late sixteenth century onwards; the two

terms are used interchangeably in this paper), which equates approximately to the present-

day Netherlands; and the Southern Netherlands (or Spanish, later Austrian, Netherlands),

with the exception of the prince-bishopric of Liège, roughly equivalent to present-day

Belgium. 13 Van der Wee, ‘Industrial dynamics’; Klep, ‘Urban decline’.

[5]

European economy during the long sixteenth century. 14 The sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries thus encompass two differing economic trajectories with

potentially divergent social consequences.

The following sections will summarize these debates and clarify the position of ‘s-

Hertogenbosch in the economic and social histories of the early modern Low

Countries. Special attention will be devoted to recent GDP estimates (Section I) as

well as to general inequality patterns (II). The subsequent sections will address

this paper’s central research aim, namely to provide innovative insights into the

social consequences of growth and stagnation in the early modern Southern

Netherlands, and thus refine our appreciation of the specifics of pre-industrial

growth processes in this region. Section III demonstrates that in the long term, and

in line with recent findings on periods of pre-industrial growth, the long sixteenth

century had no sustained impact on urban living standards, although it is

suggested that the lowest income brackets were in fact (slightly) better off in 1650

than they had been in 1500. Next, in Section IV, the city’s history of augmented

real inequality will be revealed by fully incorporating the social biases of the

period’s demographic trends and relative price movements. The introduction of the

concept of augmented real inequality makes clear that (trends in) nominal

inequality figures are rather misleading when it comes to this particular case

study. Indeed, it will be shown that in both the expansive sixteenth century and in

the stagnant seventeenth century, levels of and trends in nominal income

inequality do not reflect augmented real inequality accurately. To conclude, section

V draws some tentative comparisons with the Dutch Republic, which was in many

ways the antithesis of late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century ‘s-Hertogenbosch,

and a number of other regions in early modern Europe.

14 See for example Duplessis, Transitions.

[6]

I.

Recent research confirms the occurrence of a general rise in inequality during the

early modern period, and this is true for the booming Dutch Republic and England

as well as the stagnant or contracting economies of Italy and Germany. 15 In

addition, for various regions, direct evidence of income and/or wealth inequality

can be supplemented by indirect traces of marked differences between GDP per

capita and real wages – another clear indication of increasing inequality, in

theory. 16 In order to further clarify the links between economic growth and

inequality in the case study at hand, we include a brief sketch of the economic

history of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century ‘s-Hertogenbosch, and the Low

Countries in general. Such a sketch is interesting because while ’s-Hertogenbosch

is situated in the heart of the Low Countries as a whole, it occupies a peculiar

geographic position in both the Southern and Northern Netherlands. As a result,

the political rupture of 1629 - when the city was conquered by Dutch prince

Frederik Hendrik and officially fell to the Dutch Republic after centuries of

Burgundian and Habsburg rule - had but a minor economic impact. Throughout

the long sixteenth century, the urban economy of ‘s-Hertogenbosch maintained a

strong position in the Brabant urban network as well as preserving interesting

connections with Dutch cities downstream of the Meuse, and the Rhineland

economy upstream.17 First and foremost, however, the city benefitted from the

booming economy of the Southern Netherlands, as the following brief overview will

clarify.

15 van Zanden, ‘Tracing the beginning’, Shephard and Spicksley, ‘Worth’; McIntosh, Urban

decline; Friedrichs, Urban Society; Alfani, ‘Wealth inequalities’. 16 Angeles, ‘GDP per capita’. 17 Hanus, Affluence and inequality; Kappelhof, ‘Laverend tussen Mars en Mercurius’;

Blondé, De sociale structuren.

[7]

Figure 1 about here

First, an overview of the quantitative evidence currently available will be useful,

even though the regions’ historical accounts are still in development and therefore

liable to change.18 Figure 2 summarizes the main findings for the Northern and

Southern Netherlands during the long sixteenth century (1500-1650). From a

global perspective (not reported), the GDP per capita estimates generally confirm

the qualitative understanding reached by many historians, as well as the more

recent global evidence on real wages.19 While the rest of early modern Europe in

this period was stable at best, the North Sea area, especially England and the

Northern Netherlands, was expanding rapidly, giving rise to a European little

divergence. The contours of this prosperous North Sea area are somewhat more

difficult to sketch. The Dutch and English heartlands certainly comprised the main

regions of growth, but how far did this development spread? The eastern regions of

the Dutch Republic caught up during the seventeenth century, but how did the

situations in Rhineland or the late medieval forerunners of Flanders, Brabant or

northern France compare to the Dutch miracle? 20 Comprehensive national (or

regional) accounts for the regions immediately surrounding the North Sea area are

not currently available, and it is therefore necessary to employ an alternative

approach. Figure 2 summarizes the main conclusions of the GDP studies and the

results of our own research on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century

‘s-Hertogenbosch. Actual calculations of average income in ‘s-Hertogenbosch will

not be discussed here, but an overview of the sources and methodology used is

provided in the following section and in more detail in the Appendix.21

18 For a more recent picture, see van Zanden, The long road. 19 Allen, ‘The great divergence’; Allen et al., ‘Wages’. 20 de Vries and van der Woude, The first modern economy. 21 Hanus, Affluence and inequality.

[8]

Figure 2 about here

Focusing first on the GDP estimates, the history of the Northern Netherlands is by

now well known and of less concern here.22 After a period of stagnation in the first

half of the sixteenth century, GDP per capita increased by a remarkable 70 per

cent. The intensity of this economic acceleration is unique in early modern history.

In addition, its high-level stabilization in the ensuing centuries (not reported here)

is equally unique, if not uncontested. It could be argued that the sustainable

welfare gains realized in the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries are proof of its economy’s essentially modern character.23

If we compare this with the situation in the Southern Netherlands, the contrast is

immediately apparent. During the first half of the sixteenth century, output and

income rose particularly significantly for pre-industrial standards, fuelled by

Smithian gains from specialization, export profits, human capital accumulation

and process and product innovation,.24 In ‘s-Hertogenbosch, per capita income rose

from 25 fl. in 1502/3 to 30 fl. in 1512/3, and finally to 44 fl. in 1552/3 (see Appendix

for the details of the calculations). In constant prices, deflated to Robert Allen’s

welfare ratios (see below), this period of expansion translates to a more modest rise

in average income: approximately one welfare ratio (WR1) at its onset, to WR1.2 by

the middle of the sixteenth century. Given the economic vagaries of the Antwerp

world market and the metropolis’ dominance of the surrounding regions, this trend

22 A detailed examination can be found in de Vries and van der Woude, The first modern

economy. 23 Ibid.; van Zanden, ‘The “revolt of the early modernists”’. 24 Van der Wee, ‘Structural changes’.

[9]

can be assumed to have peaked in the 1530s.25 At this point, aggregate income in

‘s-Hertogenbosch exceeded Dutch per capita income by some 15-20 per cent.26 As ‘s-

Hertogenbosch held an average position, at best, in the urban hierarchy of the

Southern Netherlands (see below), there can be little doubt, even despite the

current lack of quantitative evidence, that by mid-century the urban centres of the

Southern Netherlands boasted higher incomes than their northern counterparts. In

the second half of the long sixteenth century, however, the fortunes of both North

and South reversed dramatically. Estimated incomes in the Southern Netherlands

stagnated and contracted. The devastating passage of the Spanish troops, the fall

of Antwerp in 1585 and continuous turbulence on the international stage ravaged

the region’s economic structures, and disturbed both international and regional

trade.27 The beginning of the Eighty Years’ War (1568-1648) sounded the death

knell for the golden age of Antwerp and the duchy of Brabant. In the last quarter of

the sixteenth century, in particular, massive depopulation and interrupted trade

networks eroded the human and physical capital that had been the basis for the

earlier expansion. As the market shrunk, specialization and innovative production

reversed in favour of traditionalization.28

As we see from the simple rank-size distributions reported in Figure 3, the gains

realized in this period, especially during the two phases of acceleration in the first

and second quarters of the century, could not be sustained as the long sixteenth

25 Van der Wee, The growth; Van Uytven, ‘De triomf van Antwerpen’; also Blondé, De

sociale structuren. 26 Jan Luiten van Zanden estimated average income in Holland in the period 1510-1514 at

24.6 fl.; see van Zanden, ‘Taking the measure’. Recent and as yet unpublished research

might reshape the contours of this story, for it has been found that Dutch growth was most

significant in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, paralleling the Antwerp-led boom

in the Southern Netherlands. See B. van Leeuwen and J. L. van Zanden, The origins of

modern economic growth? Holland between 1347 and 1807, working paper Utrecht

University. 27 Blomme and Van der Wee, ‘The Belgian economy’. 28 Klep, ‘Urban decline’; Hanus, Affluence and inequality.

[10]

century progressed.29 In this way, the golden age of the Southern Netherlands was

a relatively common pre-industrial efflorescence.30 However, unlike many German

towns that were impoverished and crippled structurally by the Eighty Years’

War31, the urban economy of ‘s-Hertogenbosch – and presumably of the Southern

Netherlands as a whole32 – recovered relatively swiftly. The population gradually

returned to pre-war levels, and per capita income again stabilized at approximately

its early sixteenth-century level. Even so, the urban economies had undergone a

structural transformation towards small-scale production and the provision of

goods and services for the local hinterland. This shift has been documented for

many cities in the Southern Netherlands, including Mechelen, Leuven and ‘s-

Hertogenbosch in Brabant, Bruges, Ghent and a number of smaller cities in

Flanders, and indeed large parts of the rest of seventeenth-century Europe.33 An

important corollary, which will be discussed in more detail below, is that these

cities lost some of their appeal for (skilled and unskilled) migrants who had

increasingly turned to the booming Dutch Republic. As regards the macro-economic

narrative, therefore, ‘s-Hertogenbosch bears close comparison with similar urban

centres in the Southern Netherlands.

The divergent economic trajectories of the Northern and Southern Netherlands are

clearly reflected in their urban population histories, whose figures provide another

means of documenting the economic history of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. The urban

population swelled rapidly from approximately 15 000 in 1500 to more than 20 000

by 1530, after which the population was stable until the 1550s (when a number of

plague epidemics took their toll). Then, in 1579, prompted by the political and

29 Van der Wee, The growth; Van der Wee, ‘Structural changes’. 30 Goldstone, ‘Efflorescences’. 31 Friedrichs, Urban society; McIntosh, Urban decline. 32 Van der Wee, ‘Industrial dynamics’; Van Uytven, ‘What is new’. 33 Van Uytven, De geschiedenis van Mechelen; Van Uytven, Stadsfinanciën; Dambruyne,

Mensen en centen; for a wider European perspective see de Vries, European urbanization.

[11]

religious turmoil associated with the Eighty Years’ War, approximately one third of

the urban population (some 18 000 at that time) fled Catholic ‘s-Hertogenbosch for

the reformed Dutch Republic. Following the sixteenth century’s turbulent closing

quarter, all economic indicators, including population, again rose in the early years

of the seventeenth century. By 1620, and certainly by 1650, the urban population

again numbered 18-20 000. Very similar, if not identical population trends were

also recorded in Leuven, Mechelen and other similar cities.34 It can therefore come

as no surprise that the relative position of ‘s-Hertogenbosch in the urban hierarchy

of the Southern Netherlands remained relatively steady throughout the long

sixteenth century (Figure 3). The contrast with the continuous expansion of the

Northern Netherlands’ sixteenth- and seventeenth-century urban population is

stark. Rather than expanding, ‘s-Hertogenbosch was relegated from its position of

prominence as the second (1500) and third (1550) most populous city in what is the

modern-day Netherlands to just fourteenth in 1650.

Figure 3 about here

II.

A first indication of the social consequences that arose from the economic

trajectories sketched in the previous section can be found in the real wage curves

plotted in Figure 2. The divergence in GDP per capita and real wages is readily

apparent throughout almost the entire period. Only in the seventeenth-century

Southern Netherlands did real wages and GDP per capita increase slowly, and it is

no coincidence that this is the least dynamic period of the region under study. In

34 Van Uytven, Stadsfinanciën; Van Uytven, De geschiedenis van Mechelen; Klep,

‘Urbanization’.

[12]

the Northern Netherlands, the first half of the period witnessed stagnant average

incomes in the face of declining real wages. In the second half of the long sixteenth

century both measurements show an increase, but income rose approximately

three times as fast as real wages.35 In the Southern Netherlands, the economic

boom of the sixteenth century boosted income but had a deeply negative effect on

real wages – the Antwerp figures being the exception to this rule.36 This has lead a

number of scholars to highlight the adverse social effects of the golden age,

specifically for the working classes, who are thought to represent the majority of

the urban populace.37 In any case, on the basis of these examples a case can be

made that in early modern Europe, labour paid the price of rapid economic

development.

The study of long-term income inequality confirms the wider negative social

consequences of pre-industrial growth, although, as noted above, early modern

inequality also swelled in economically stagnant regions. Interestingly, this was

not the case in the Southern Netherlands, at least as far as we can tell from the

scarce evidence we have to rely on. Figure 4 summarizes (house rent) inequality

figures for a small sample of cities in the Northern and Southern Netherlands.38

From the 1550s onwards, in particular, it is obvious how booming income levels in

the north progressed hand in hand with rising levels of inequality (at least in ‘s-

Hertogenbosch during the first half of the sixteenth century; see below for more

35 Noordegraaf and van Zanden, ‘Early modern economic growth’; van Zanden, ‘What

happened to the standard of living’. 36 This is extensively documented in Scholliers, ‘Le pouvour d’achat’; Verlinden,

Craeybeckx, and Scholliers, ‘Price and wage movements’; Van Uytven, ‘In de schaduw’; Van

Uytven, ‘Sociaal-economische evoluties’. 37 Scholliers, Loonarbeid en honger; Lis and Soly, Poverty and capitalism; Vandenbroeke,

Sociale geschiedenis; Scholliers and Vandenbroeke, ‘Structuren’. 38 For ‘s-Hertogenbosch, a broad range of other inequality measures has been computed,

including a number of general entropy indices (Theil, Atkinson, etc.). Since these measures

revealed the same trends, and the Gini coefficient is most often used in the historical

literature, this discussion is restricted to the Gini coefficient for calculative simplicity and

interpretative comparability. A more detailed examination can be found in Hanus,

Affluence and inequality; for theory and methods of inequality measurement, see for

example Cowell, Measuring inequality.

[13]

detail), while in the south, stagnating or contracting average incomes from the

second half of the sixteenth century onwards can be associated with stagnating and

indeed declining inequality figures. Compare Alkmaar in Holland with ‘s-

Hertogenbosch in Brabant: while in 1750 the two cities’ inequality in house rent

distribution were comparable (Gini coefficient of 0.43-0.45), some 200 years earlier

inequality in ‘s-Hertogenbosch had been 50 per cent higher than in Alkmaar (Gini

coefficients 0.52 and 0.34 respectively). This relatively peculiar result will be

discussed in more detail below.

Figure 4 about here

The combination of shrinking real wages and rising inequality during the first half

of the sixteenth century offers, at first glance, considerable support for a

pessimistic reading of welfare and living standards in ‘s-Hertogenbosch and the

Southern Netherlands. However, previous research has already demonstrated that

caution is needed when extrapolating real wages to wider social groups and income

brackets.39 In addition, the step from relative to absolute deprivation is easily (if

often implicitly) made in historical research. This paper problematizes this

connection by drawing attention to the writings of John Rawls, arguably one of the

most important philosophers of twentieth century. Summarized all too briefly,

Rawls’ normative perspective holds that a distribution which leaves the poorest in

a better state is always preferred, even if this comes at the cost of higher

inequality.40 This insight is of crucial importance for the narrative of early modern

‘s-Hertogenbosch, as the following section will demonstrate.

39 Blondé and Hanus, ‘Beyond building craftsmen’. 40 Rawls, A theory of justice.

[14]

A second limitation of the relative-absolute deprivation issue arises when adopting

a more dynamic view of income distribution. Economic analysis of income (or

wealth) mobility has introduced the concept of mobility as an equalizer of longer-

term income41, and income mobility can indeed seriously distort any synchronic

appreciation of diachronic income distributions, especially if mobility is socially

biased. A mobility analysis of ‘s-Hertogenbosch’s dense and rich fiscal sources has

been performed elsewhere42, and the main conclusions of interest for the present

study are that in the short periods 1502-12 and 1552-7 (for which sufficient data is

available) income mobility generally equalized longer-term income to a minor

extent (actually comparable to present-day countries). No significant social biases

were found, though those in the higher income brackets were more secure in their

income than those in the lower ones. Unfortunately, insufficient demographic

evidence has survived to allow an incorporation of a life-cycle perspective in the

mobility analysis.

A final point of interest relates to migration. Edward Glaeser has recently

reminded social scientists that ‘cities aren’t full of poor people because cities make

people poor, but because cities attract poor people with the prospect of improving

their lot in life’.43 Thus, rising inequality levels in seventeenth- and eighteenth-

century Dutch cities may be testament to urban success above all: the attraction of

rich and poor migrants (especially the latter group, presumably) to the city and the

ensuing population growth inevitably pushed up inequality levels. There is clearly

much to be gained from incorporating migration and demographic histories into

any comprehensive study of inequality.44

41 See for example Fields, ‘Does income mobility equalize longer–term incomes?’; Krugman,

‘The rich’. 42 Hanus, ‘Income mobility’. 43 Glaeser, Triumph of the city, p. 70. 44 Williamson, ‘Growth’.

[15]

III.

The advantage of actual (diversified) living standards over relative inequality

measures lies in their tangible interpretation. A change in inequality levels can be

the result of many, sometimes diverging, welfare scenarios. One means of

sensitizing the analysis of inequality to distributional shifts is to compare a variety

of statistical measures of inequality, such as the Gini, Theil and Atkinson indices,

the top 1 per cent or 10 per cent shares, the log of variances, and so forth. Another

approach is to abandon statistical summary measures in favour of a more

comprehensive study that takes into account and indeed prioritizes the differences

between various income brackets.45 While this could be a problematic approach for

large-scale or broad comparative studies, for a detailed comparison of a small

number of income distributions, such as that performed here, this approach is

believed to be the more valuable. As an added and very valuable bonus, secular

trends in income poverty can also be brought into consideration.

In order to arrive at absolute living standards, three successive methodological

obstacles had to be overcome. The first step consisted in establishing that the

sixteenth-century ‘s-Hertogenbosch fiscal documents, the gemene zettingen, or

general levies, genuinely taxed the income of all urban households. This step has

been documented in detail elsewhere, and a summary of the main arguments can

be found in the Appendix.46 In short, it was established that the levies of 1502/3,

1505/6, 1512/3, 1552/3 and 1557/8 did indeed tax household income, or came as

close as possible to this in this pre-statistical context. Second, since records of this

type of direct income tax only survive for the sixteenth century, the analysis had to

be supplemented with a range of house rent taxes for the years 1505/6, 1547/8 and

1636. As noted above, many studies of income inequality are actually grounded in

45 Jenkins and Van Kerm, ‘The measurement’. 46 Blondé and Hanus, ‘Beyond building craftsmen’; Hanus, Affluence and inequality.

[16]

house rent distributions, which are considered useful and fairly readily available

proxies for income distributions. More accurately, it is habitually accepted that at

individual and household level, house rent and income are closely related, whereby

‘economists have noted that the income elasticity of housing is near enough unity

that one could use the value of occupied housing as an index of permanent

income’.47 The Appendix documents how house rent has been transformed into

income estimates in this paper. In brief, the availability of all but overlapping

income and house rent levies (1505/6 and 1506/7) allowed us to calculate the actual

income elasticity of house rent for this year. From this calculation, income

estimates were derived for 1636, though error margins have increased accordingly,

especially at individual and household level.

A third and final step consisted in deflating the nominal income data for inflation.

To this end, a general consumer price index (CPI) was modelled in the image of

(and making use of) the CPIs developed by Robert Allen.48 As such, the CPI is

constructed in such a way that it provides for a minimal intake of calories,

sufficient amounts of clothing, housing, etc., necessary for survival.49 Following

Allen, a distinction is made between respectable and bare bones subsistence baskets

of consumables. The main differences between the two baskets are the total

number of calories and proteins that each basket contains, and the choice of diet.

47 Hoffman et al., ‘Sketching the rise’, p. 160. 48 In particular, the scarce information available from the city archives of ’s-Hertogenbosch

was combined with more elaborate price data from Antwerp, Amsterdam and Utrecht found

in Posthumus, Nederlandse prijsgeschiedenis; Munro, ‘Builders’ wages’; Van der Wee,

‘Prijzen en lonen’; Munro, ‘Money’; van Zanden, ‘What happened to the standard of living’;

van Zanden, ‘Wages’. 49 Allen, ‘The great divergence’; Allen, The British Industrial Revolution. Some scholars will

disagree with this absolutist approach, pointing out the numerous difficulties associated

with estimating an absolute poverty line – let alone a poverty line applicable to as wide a

chronological and geographical range as Allen proposes. Many of these objections are valid,

but should not distract our attention from the fact that in market economies, purchasing

power and income prospects did have a major influence on various critical life changes. As a

result, poverty is defined in terms of earning insufficient income to pay for a minimal

basket of consumables; welfare is expressed in the quantitative relationship between

earned income and the range of baskets of consumables that represent various consumer

opportunities.

[17]

Subsistence baskets amount to some 1900 calories per day, and include the

cheapest cereal available, while the respectable baskets provide for 2500 calories

per day, and include the better cereals and relatively large portions of meat, cheese

and beer.50 It could be argued that the respectable basket represents the relative

poverty line, whereas the subsistence basket delineates absolute poverty.

Table 1 about here

Table 1 expresses the living standards of the ‘s-Hertogenbosch population at

various income levels in relation to the number of respectable baskets that a

particular income could buy. Allen’s older terminology of welfare ratios is used,

which is equivalent to his respectable baskets. The interpretation of the resulting

figures is that a welfare ratio (WR) of 1 implies that the earned income sufficed to

respectably feed, shelter and clothe a household numbering two adults and two

children. A welfare ratio of 0.6-0.7, for example, should provide for a respectable

lifestyle for a smaller family, such as a childless couple or a single-parent

household with one or two children. A one-person household could survive decently

on a welfare ratio of 0.4 or even 0.3, given the diseconomies of scale for rent and

other types of fixed expenditure this situation necessitates. In the early modern

Low Countries, however, the subsistence basket cost approximately one third of

what the respectable basket cost.51 In other words, a welfare ratio of 0.3 should

have sufficed to provide bare bones food and shelter for a family of four. For singles

in early modern Europe, welfare ratios as low as 0.1 would allow them to survive,

though only just.

50 More details are given in Allen, The British Industrial Revolution, pp. 35-37. 51 Robert Allen has not yet reported the exact figures for his subsistence baskets online. The

figures presented here were derived from a yardstick comparison of figures 2.2 and 2.3 in

Ibid., pp. 39-40.

[18]

With these clarifications in mind, what does Table 1 reveal about the long-term

shifts in living standards in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century ‘s-Hertogenbosch?

Was the decline in income inequality reflected in rising purchasing power for the

poor, or did all lower income brackets suffer because of the shrinking real wage? If

the figures reported in Table 1 are to be trusted, we can detect a marked increase

in living standards for the lower income brackets. Between 1502/3 and 1552/3,

deciles 1, 2, 3 and 4 saw their welfare ratios increase by 40-50 per cent, and by 20-

60 per cent between 1552 and 1636. These results are potentially false, in part,

given that for 1502/3 and 1512/3 (15 per cent) and 1552 (5 per cent) the numbers of

the poor at the bottom of the distribution scale had to be estimated at a very low –

perhaps too low – income. Even so, if we were to remove (wrongly) these groups,

the upward trend would still be evident. One conclusion is certain: for the lowest

income ranges of long sixteenth-century ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the trend of declining

inequality established above appears to have been good news. In addition, the drop

in real wages did not affect the living standards of the poorer classes as we might

have expected.52

This is not to say that the lowest income brackets were not poor – quite the

opposite. In the sixteenth century, 40-45 per cent of all households earned less than

necessary for providing a respectable living for a four-person household. By the

seventeenth century, all things being equal, respectable poverty had decreased to

35 per cent of all households. This long-term decline is more pronounced when it

comes to below-subsistence poverty, although it should be taken into account that

the effects of the estimated number of non-taxed poor are more significant the

closer we come to the bottom of the distribution. As a consequence, absolute

poverty is likely to have been overestimated for 1502/3 and 1552/3.

52 A more elaborate discussion in Blondé and Hanus, ‘Beyond building craftsmen’.

[19]

Poverty was a very real issue in late medieval and early modern towns, and

institutions for poor relief were ubiquitous in ‘s-Hertogenbosch and elsewhere in

the Low Countries and Europe. Recent research has documented waves of

institutional reform that ‘neatly coincided with demographic pressure and with

fortunate economic trends’, such as in the first half of the sixteenth century in the

Southern Netherlands and around 1600 in the Dutch Republic. 53 A direct

connection with inequality is hard to substantiate, especially since we have seen

that growth and inequality do not necessarily correlate positively, though some

have hypothesized that a significant functional connection exists between capitalist

expansion, poverty and proletarianization, and poor relief reform.54

At the same time, it is important to look above and beyond the lower income

brackets. Poverty was commonplace, but so was prosperity among the middle and

upper income brackets of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. Traditional discussions of income and

wealth in late medieval and early modern cities tend to focus either on the urban

poor or on the affluence of the city’s commercial and political (bourgeois) elites. The

middle layers (in terms of income) are easily ignored or implicitly considered barely

better off than the poor.55 Such a perspective, however, does little justice to the

wide range of income prospects enjoyed by the majority of the urban populace of ‘s-

Hertogenbosch.

In 1552, as demonstrated in Table 1, households situated in the sixth decile made

more than double what was necessary for maintaining a respectable lifestyle; those

ranked in the seventh decile earned four times what was necessary; and belonging

to the town’s most prosperous 20 per cent (the eighth decile) secured a welfare ratio

of 5-6. These ‘upper middle’ income brackets had improved their purchasing power

between the onset and middle of the sixteenth century. This was even more the

53 van Nederveen Meerkerk and Vermeesch, ‘Reforming outdoor relief’, p. 153. 54 Notably Lis and Soly, Poverty and capitalism. 55 See also Farr, Artisans; Blondé and Hanus, ‘Beyond building craftsmen’.

[20]

case for the upper ranks of the top deciles, whose welfare ratios had increased by

more than 10 per cent. Between the 1550s and the 1630s, the bottom 60 per cent of

the urban population enjoyed a moderate improvement in living standards, but for

the top 40 per cent this period was actually accompanied by slightly reduced

purchasing prospects.

This egalitarian trend is only part of the picture, however. The essential, if

implicit, premise of the previous paragraphs relies on near fixed consumer

preferences, unchanging relative prices and constant household sizes: three

demonstrably false assumptions. The distinction between the respectable and

subsistence consumer baskets has already hinted at the existence of socially

diversified consumer preferences and constraints. Just as in the aggregate, an

individual who is unable to afford respectable cereals will shift to cheaper

alternatives, in the same way that households with more to spare tend to consume

differently. Higher income brackets can choose to purchase different, usually

superior goods, and their welfare will therefore depend on a different constellation

of prices.56 This idea is especially relevant for any study of early modern Europe. In

the period 1500-1800, European prices rose dramatically, but not at the same pace

for all types of goods. The price of bulk goods, for example, and other necessities,

rose more quickly than those of industrial products, which in turn outpaced

luxuries.57

Finally, a lack of insight into household composition forecloses the possibility to

make confident statements. Common sense suggests that a proportion of the

poorest households would number less than four members, and historical research

56 It is, in fact, not necessary to make this assumption. As noted by Hoffman et al., even if

we theoretically ascribe identical tastes to rich and poor, ‘having very different resources

means that the same price movements affect their welfare very differently’. See Hoffman et

al., ‘Real inequality’, p. 341. 57 Van der Wee, ‘Prices and wages’; and more recently Hoffman et al., ‘Sketching the rise’;

van Zanden, ‘What happened to the standard of living’.

[21]

has borne out this assumption in a limited number of cases. In 1581, in Leiden, for

example, the correlation between the rental value of a dwelling and its number of

occupants amounted to 0.76.58 Elsewhere, too, similar proportionalities between

neighbourhood or street aggregate wealth and household size have been

established.59 The significant presence of servants in better-off households, and the

tendency to postpone or reject altogether (re)marriage in the poorer classes of

society, do much to explain these differences. In addition, in early modern England

and elsewhere, the rich tended to have considerably more children than the poor.60

We are really interested in adult equivalent living standards: welfare ratios

deflated according to household size. This is of specific interest since the European

marriage pattern, thought to capture demography in urban centres such as early

modern ‘s-Hertogenbosch, assumes an important and socially biased connection

between economic trends and demographic behaviour. 61 The following section

operationalizes this idea and connects the evidence in Table 1 to the relative price

and demographic histories of early modern ’s-Hertogenbosch, thereby revealing the

long-term trend in ‘augmented real inequality’.

IV.

In order to obtain an understanding of the effects of socially divergent price trends,

the price series collected by Herman Van der Wee for early modern Antwerp was

used. In line with the general Western European pattern, between 1500 and 1600

(nominal) industrial prices rose by 250 per cent, while in the same period the price

of grain increased sixfold. Afterwards, it should be noted, this price divergence

58 Daelemans, ‘Leiden’. 59 Summaries in Kamen, Early modern European society, p. 22; Mols, Introduction;

Vandenbroeke, ‘Prospektus’. 60 Clark and Hamilton, ‘Survival’; Clark, A farewell to alms; Allen, ‘A review’; Hadeishi,

‘Economic well-being’. 61 For a recent discussion, see De Moor and van Zanden, ‘Girl power’.

[22]

slowed down considerably. In the period 1600-25, for example, industrial prices

increased 6 per cent faster than the price of grain. The price of meat and fish rose

slightly more slowly than that of cereals, but easily outpaced consumer prices for

industrial goods (see Panel A.3). 62 Socially corrected consumer baskets were

constructed by combining the price trends for grain and industrial products in a

social gradient, as follows:

CPIij = [(10-i) *GRj*0,5 + i*INj*2] / (6*GR1500*0,5 + 4*IN1500*2)

where i = decile (1=lowest), j = year, GRj and INj the price indices for grain and

industrial goods, where 1500=100

In other words, the lowest decile is assumed to consume nine shares of grain, which

represents the trend in staples and necessities, and one share of industrial

products. The second decile is thought to consume eight shares of grain and two

industrial shares, and so on. The top decile purchases only industrial products.

Since the fourth decile most closely resembles the typical consumers of the

respectable basket, the series is calibrated to this decile. To account for absolute

differences in the costs of the baskets, grain prices are weighted at 50 per cent,

while industrial prices are weighted to 200 per cent in every basket. Alternative

weighting schemes did not alter the overview presented below.

The end results of these manipulations can be found in Panel A.2 in Table 2, and

clearly demonstrate the impact of early modern Europe’s specific price history.

Between 1502 and 1636, the ratio of the top decile to the bottom decile

consumption baskets declined from 3:1 to 2:1 – in other words, life had become

cheaper for the rich, and more expensive for the poorer households of ‘s-

62 Van der Wee, ‘Prices and wages’; Munro, ‘Builders’ wages’. Also Hoffman et al.,

‘Sketching the rise’.

[23]

Hertogenbosch (and the Low Countries as a whole). On top of significant nominal

inflation, the worse-off households also suffered from socially biased price

movements, in relative terms.

As a consequence, the trend in real inequality deviated slightly from nominal

inequality. The increase in grain prices during the first half of the sixteenth

century, in particular, resulted in a marked increase in the Gini coefficient, from

0.68 in 1512 to 0.72 in 1552. The long-term decrease in nominal inequality was also

countered by the socially biased price trends, since seventeenth-century real

inequality reached a level very close to what it had been in the early sixteenth

century.

Direct evidence on household composition, which would facilitate a construction of

augmented real inequality, is unfortunately lacking. A creative reading of the fiscal

registers allows for the formulation of valuable educated guesses, namely by

focussing on single women and widows noted in the fiscal documents. 63 This

method can lead us to estimates that delineate one-person households from more

complex households, and thus bring us one (small, hypothetical) step closer to adult

equivalent living standards. The methodological details are described in the

Appendix, and the conclusions are summarized in Panel A.1 of Table 2.

The most important diachronic shift is found in the lower deciles, the average

household size of which is assumed to have grown throughout the long sixteenth

century. This shift in household size resulted from the changing economic fortunes

of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, specifically the city’s transformation from a relatively

important intersection in the international urban network to a regional market

town, geared towards its immediate rural hinterland. The changed functional

63 Thanks to Bruno Blondé for suggesting this original line of reasoning; see also Blondé, De

sociale structuren; van der Heijden, Schmidt and Wall, ‘Broken families’; Wall, ‘Widows’.

[24]

importance of ‘s-Hertogenbosch resulted in a smaller number of immigrants, and

consequently fewer small-scale households.64

Connecting these figures to the evidence in Table 1 results in Panel B.2 of Table 2,

the family-size equivalent real income for various income brackets. These welfare

ratios are not calibrated to a household numbering two adults and two children,

but adjusted to the family size expected for each income bracket. The household

sizes are expressed in adult equivalents, following Allen’s logic that small children

(here defined as under the age of 14 years) consume half of the amount that their

parents and older siblings consume. An adult equivalent household size of 4.7 for

decile 5 in 1512, for example, corresponds to a household of two parents and three

older children (aged over 14); or two parents, a servant and four smaller children;

or one parent, two servants and two older children; and so on. Expressed in Allen’s

welfare ratios, this household requires an income of WR1.5 to sustain a respectable

lifestyle. Since this figure is equal to the estimated income for this decile (see Table

1), the household’s family-equivalent real income can be expressed as WR1. As a

second example, consider the households of decile 3, assumed to have had 4.1

members in 1552, only half of whom could be fed on their estimated income. The

main diachronic implications of this correction are found in the bottom deciles of

the urban population. When taking into account the (expected) increasing

household size of the poorer classes, their estimated nominal income gains shrink

markedly. At the same time, the long-term decline in income inequality is also

reduced.

Table 2 about here

64 Hanus, Affluence and inequality; see also McIntosh, Urban decline, esp. pp. 159-185; and

more generally de Vries, European urbanization.

[25]

The main interest of this exercise lies at macro level, especially in the question of

how the subsequent transformations from nominal to augmented real inequality

affect levels and trends in inequality in the long term. Figure 5 summarizes the

main findings of Table 2 in terms of Gini coefficients. First consider inequality

levels, which decline as demographic and price variables are added to the equation.

It should be noted that the weighting scheme has a particularly profound influence

on price-adjusted inequality levels. For example, if we had incorporated only the

socially biased relative price trends (as in Panel A.3), Gini coefficients would have

risen by 0.06-0.08 points, compared to the figures reported in Panels B.3 and B.4 of

Table 2. Here, differences in price levels have been integrated, since the logic of

Hoffman et al.’s real inequality argument relies on differing consumer practices in

combination with diverging budget constraints.65 In any case, the original 3:1 price

ratio of the richest to poorest consumer baskets is a conservative estimate.

That being said, we should not underestimate the reduction in inequality levels

that results from the incorporation of demographic and price data. As seen above,

in the early modern Low Countries (and abroad) household size correlated

positively to income. In this context, the transformation from nominal household

inequality to family-size equivalent inequality is bound to depress income

differentials. In addition, if we accept that consumption is also socially biased, it

follows logically that taking this into account will reduce (augmented real)

inequality.

Figure 5 about here

65 Hoffman et al., ‘Real inequality’.

[26]

Of more interest than the impact of the two transformations on levels of inequality,

however, are the resulting trends. The original nominal inequality trend revealed a

minor increase during the opening decade of the sixteenth century, followed by

long-term stagnation and decline during the second half of the century (see also

Figure 3). By the close of the long sixteenth century, nominal income inequality

was lower than at the turn of the century. Incorporating social biases in either

household or price composition seriously distorts this image. As noted by Hoffman

et al., the specific nature of the sixteenth-century price revolution drove up real

inequality during the first half of the sixteenth century. 66 Panel A.3 provides

further testimony to this, for it reveals that between 1512 and 1552, rises in grain

price ( 50 per cent) were double the rises in industrial prices (25 per cent). In later

years, relative prices evolved in closer harmony, and we see that in the long term,

price-corrected inequality was lower in 1636 than in 1500, which mirrors nominal

inequality. Household-size correction adds a further dimension to this

interpretation. This correction reflects the price adjustment in that it reveals a

significant increase during the first half of the sixteenth century, but the important

point to note is that after incorporating demography, inequality appears to have

been as high in 1636 as it had been in the early sixteenth century. Combining the

two series results in an augmented real inequality trend that is clearly distinct

from the original, nominal inequality time series. Real inequality increased during

the first half of the sixteenth century, rather dramatically between 1512 and 1552,

and then decreased until it had reached a level (slightly) above the 1500 starting

point. The image of long-term stagnation and decline evoked by the nominal

inequality figures disappears when socially biased changes in relative prices and

demography, characteristic of the long sixteenth century, are incorporated in the

66 See for example Goldstone, ‘Urbanization and inflation’; Munro, ‘Money’.

[27]

analysis. In the period 1500-1550, a 1 per cent increase in nominal inequality

masks a rise in real inequality equivalent to approximately 10 per cent.

V.

Are these results unique for ‘s-Hertogenbosch, typical of the Southern Netherlands

or relevant for (large parts of) Europe? In terms of explanation and historical

significance, much hinges on this question. Few or no other studies of augmented

real inequality exist, and we are therefore limited to making tentative comparisons

that can do little more than outline the general trends.

As noted above, previous studies have tended to document rises in nominal income

and/or wealth inequality in early modern Europe. For the booming Dutch Republic,

this has been examined at national as well as urban level (see Figure 2). The

evidence for Italy and Germany is rooted in urban data similar to our own, while

English records are based on national samples. 67 Philip Hoffman et al. have

suggested that socially biased price trends occurred throughout early modern

Europe68, and real inequality in the Dutch Republic, Italy, Germany and England

would therefore have exacerbated rising nominal inequality even further. Even so,

the price trend was more egalitarian in the Northern Netherlands than elsewhere;

in other words, in the region where nominal inequality arguably increased most,

the social bias in prices was also the smallest. Obviously, other elements need to be

factored in, not least the population explosion and unparalleled economic growth of

the Dutch golden age, which may have caused a massive demand for luxuries,

meaning that staple and luxury prices were kept in closer parallel.

67 It should be noted, however, that one recent study of early modern England provides

evidence that inequality rose between 1550 and 1624, but subsequently stagnated and

declined until 1684. This interpretation conflicts with that of this study, yet it shows from

the evolution in the coefficient of variation, the only inequality summary statistic that was

calculated. See Shephard and Spicksley, ‘Worth’. 68 Hoffman et al., ‘Real inequality’, p. 350.

[28]

In any case, it would appear that smaller increases in nominal inequality were

associated with less egalitarian price trends (as in England, Italy and Germany),

and vice versa (as in the Dutch Republic), which leads us to hypothesize that real

inequality in early modern Europe progressed along similar lines. The case of

‘s-Hertogenbosch complies with this model, for we see a minor sixteenth-century

increase and slight seventeenth-century decrease in nominal inequality alongside

an inegalitarian price trend. It is beyond the scope of this paper to explain this

supposed Europe-wide pattern. As van Zanden has already indicated, likely causes

for the general nominal inequality trend are the secular European decline in real

wages (excluding the North Sea area) and the growth of human capital

accumulation, which led to higher earnings for an increasing number of ‘middle

class’, mostly urban households.69 As for real inequality, Hoffman et al. identify

population growth as the main driving force behind biased relative price

movements, since ‘faster population growth by itself could have lowered real wages,

raised real land rents, raised the price of staple foods relative to luxuries’.70 The

relationship between population and price dynamics is indeed significant in the

Low Countries, though population quantity and population quality should be

treated with equal sensitivity in terms of income and purchasing power.

In the changing urban economy of early modern ‘s-Hertogenbosch, important

economic and social processes influenced welfare and inequality in unexpected

ways. The history of relative prices – which were themselves the result of dynamics

much further afield than the narrow confines of the city walls – reflects macro-

economic developments associated with population size and riches. A closer

analysis might succeed in disentangling the effects of geographical shifts in

aggregate income (documented in Figure 2) on the (relative) price histories of the

69 Van Zanden, ‘Tracing the beginning’. 70 Hoffman et al. ‘Real inequality’, p. 322.

[29]

Northern and Southern Netherlands, and their consequent impact on real

inequality.71

The same is true for demography and household behaviour, the second important

variable in this study. Here the history of inequality merges with economic, social

and migration histories. Consider the Northern Netherlands’ considerable

population expansion and rapid urbanization in the seventeenth century, which

pushed up the number of immigrants in the cities dramatically. Since rising

inequality rates for Holland and the Northern Netherlands were largely the result

of growing urban inequality (as in Figure 3), especially in growing urban centres

associated with higher inequality levels72, it is reasonable to assume that the

numbers of small households in Alkmaar, Amsterdam, and so on were growing.

Add to this the sensible hypothesis that many of these small, often single-person

households were to be found among the lower income brackets, and the result is an

urban demographic history entirely opposite to that of early modern ‘s-

Hertogenbosch. If booming population and urbanization figures correlated to

shrinking average household sizes for the lower income brackets, rising nominal

inequality might actually have been associated with declining adult equivalent

(real) inequality.

It could therefore be argued that the Dutch Republic, and many other regions

experiencing an economic boom, underwent the opposite of what occurred in

seventeenth-century ‘s-Hertogenbosch. In the latter city, the sluggish urban

economy had lost much of its appeal for large portions of the migrant population,

71 A large quantity of price data has already been collected, but this information has not yet

been treated in this way. See for example Posthumus, Nederlandse prijsgeschiedenis;

Verlinden and Scholliers, Dokumenten; and also Verlinden, Craeybeckx, and Scholliers,

‘Price and wage movements’. 72 Soltow and van Zanden, Income and wealth inequality.

[30]

who no doubt refocused their attentions on the efflorescent Dutch Republic.73 As a

result, the lower income brackets numbered fewer small-scale and young

immigrant households, and adult equivalent inequality was ultimately higher than

nominal inequality might suggest. A similar situation unfolded in Italy. In his

recent work, Alfani presents an involved discussion of the relationship between

demographic crises and wealth inequality, but neglects to consider the socially

biased effects that plague and dramatic population shifts potentially had on

household composition.74 He insists on a connection between population growth

and inequality, but does not follow up on his suggestion that his case study of

seventeenth-century Ivrea was heavily influenced by a large poor immigrant

population. This overlooks the issue of whether the rising nominal inequality he

finds in fact obscures a decline in augmented real inequality, as might be

conjectured from the analysis presented here.

More vibrant economies, conversely, were attractive to migrants from near and far,

who were often labour migrants with the main intention of earning a substantial

income in the city (most notably Amsterdam in the Dutch Republic) before

returning home. They constituted small households situated in the lower income

brackets, and this skews inequality figures when they are assumed to represent

full-size households. This scenario is largely conjectural, though as noted above,

correlation between income and household size in sixteenth-century Leiden was

significant enough to seriously disturb any kind of inequality estimate.75

The broadened concept of augmented real inequality thus yields a mixed answer to

the question of economic growth’s social consequences in the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries. On the one hand, during the phase of efflorescence that

73 On ’s-Hertogenbosch, see van Gurp, ‘Bosschenaars’; Kappelhof, ‘Laverend’; and more

generally Lucassen, Naar de kusten; Lucassen, ‘Mobilization of labour’; Lucassen and

Lucassen, ‘The mobility transition’. 74 Alfani, ‘Wealth inequalities’. 75 Daelemans, ‘Leiden’.

[31]

characterized the (early) sixteenth-century Southern Netherlands, demographics

and price trends combined to widen real income differentials in ‘s-Hertogenbosch.

After the bubble had burst, due to revolt, war and general economic and social

disruption, nominal inequality decreased markedly. However, alongside the altered

nature of the ‘s-Hertogenbosch urban economy – which had undergone a functional

transformation into a primarily regional marketplace – the demographic layout of

the city changed. The evidence available suggests that the city then had fewer

small-scale households, with serious consequences for any analysis of inequality

insensitive to household composition or adult equivalent welfare measures. This

finding places the study of inequality in its proper social and economic context.

[32]

Appendix

Table A.1 lists all surviving fiscal registers for sixteenth- and seventeenth-century

‘s-Hertogenbosch and some simple summary measures for each register. A

distinction can be drawn between house rent levies (numbers IX, XVII, XX and

XXI), in which all houses within the city walls were taxed a share of the annual

rent, and taxes levied on income or, in the words of the city clerics, according to the

‘status, power, honour and wealth’ (na state, macht, eere ende ryckdomme) of each

household. It has been established that in the latter case, household income, or as

close an estimate as was feasible in this pre-statistical era, was effectively taxed.

The methodological pitfalls associated with these levies have been examined at

great length in a number of other publications.76 The reliability of inferring (real)

income from the income taxes of ‘s-Hertogenbosch has been extensively scrutinized,

in particular.77 The assumption is supported by evidence consisting of independent

income estimates for a range of craftsmen and labourers, as well as for high-end

rentiers.

Table A.1. about here

In contrast to many other early modern fiscal registers, the ‘s-Hertogenbosch levies

taxed the majority of urban households. Some of the poorest households were

exempt from the sixteenth-century levies, but their numbers can be estimated by

means of detailed hearth enumerations and similar sources. 78 Various income

estimations were attempted, but ultimately the simplest method was chosen,

namely assigning to each exempted household the income of the poorest taxed

76 Among others Blondé, De sociale structuren; Schuttelaars, Heren van de raad; and more

recently Blondé and Hanus, ‘Beyond building craftsmen’. 77 A comprehensive survey in Hanus, Affluence and inequality. 78 Blockmans and Prevenier, ‘Openbare armenzorg’; Schuttelaars, Heren van de raad.

[33]

household. The results of this approach were to all intents and purposes identical

to that of log linear interpolation.79

Alongside the direct income estimates derived from the income taxes, the dense

fiscal registers of ‘s-Hertogenbosch were used to assess the income elasticity of

house rent by nominally linking households in the income levy of 1507/8 and the

house rent tax of 1506/7. According to economic theory, in the case of a (power)

curve of the functional form, as in equation (1) below, exponent b represents the

elasticity.

Y = a * Xb

(1)

Regressing house rent (R) on income (Y) resulted in the model (2).80

R = 0.886 * Y0.499

(2)

In other words, in ‘s-Hertogenbosch we find income elasticity of house rent to be

approximately 50 per cent. This is an important warning for historians and

economists too eagerly embracing the notion that ‘the income elasticity of housing

is near enough unity that one could use the value of occupied housing as an index

of permanent income’.81 In this paper, the early sixteenth-century income elasticity

of house rent has been used to transform seventeenth-century house rent

distributions into income estimates.

79 As in Soltow and van Zanden, Income and wealth inequality. 80 Model summary: n=1,909; F-test=3,665.249; p=0.000; R²=0.658. 81 Hoffman et al., ‘Sketching the rise’, p. 160.

[34]

These calculations lead to the aggregated estimates reported in Table A.2. The top

and middle sections of Panels A and B present nominal figures calculated from the

distributions as a whole. Disaggregated figures that focus on living standards and

inequality can be found above (Table 1). The bottom rows of both Panels represent

the final steps in the series of computations required to arrive at real income

estimates from house rent levies. Here, general price trends are taken into

consideration. In particular, by making use of extensive price data on nearby

Antwerp and Utrecht, as well as the little price information available for early

modern ‘s-Hertogenbosch, a price series has been reconstructed for sixteenth- and

seventeenth-century ‘s-Hertogenbosch that could be used as a deflator. More

information on the process of conversion into welfare ratios can be found in the text

above. The estimates of Gross Urban Income or urban GDP per capita comprise the

underlying data for Figure 1 above.

Table A.2 about here

Household size estimates constitute an important factor in this study, and indeed

in the concept of augmented real inequality itself. As noted above, however, no solid

evidence exists for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, excluding the 1581

Leiden census.82 The first sources to document household composition in detail, in

relation to economic and/or financial information, date from the late eighteenth

century, notably the French government registers. However, this constraint should

not prevent us formulating tentative estimates in order to address this crucial

theoretical point.

82 Daelemans, ‘Leiden’. See also results for early modern Norwich and Geneva, summarized

in Kamen, Early modern European society, pp. 22-23.

[35]

To assess household size from the fiscal registers described above, this paper

assumes that in cases where women were recorded as heads of household, these

households were typically small, often consisting of only one person or a small-scale

composite household.83 For example, in a partial census from 1622 – a rare source

of demographic data – we find Jenneke Roosen living in the humble Katerstraatje

with two small children, and Marij Dircks cohabiting with the Welsh Willemke and

their four children. All other female heads of household in this census were

widows, and single parents.84 Subsequently, an underlying (aggregated) economic

logic was adopted towards the income distribution of single women and widows

within wider society. This is apparent in the disproportionally large numbers of

(single) women found in the lower income brackets of the various fiscal documents

(see Figure A.1). This finding suggests that the households in these fiscal brackets

consisted of only one breadwinner, in many cases a single woman or widow. Indeed,

by linking (with an elaborate GIS database) the 1622 census information with the

1636 house rent evidence from the verpondingen, it has been established that

cheaper houses (in the 1636 levy) were inhabited by smaller households (in the

1622 census). In short, this analysis has shown that the average household size for

the poorer, east side of the Vughterdijk district amounted to 2.4 people, while for

the somewhat better-off west side this figure rose to 4.3 people.

The distribution of female-headed households has been used to estimate household

size. Though it is impossible to ascertain whether male-headed households were

small or large in size, or simple or complex in composition, it is feasible to

83 See in general van der Heijden, Schmidt and Wall, ‘Broken families’; Wall, ‘Widows’. 84 ‘s-Hertogenbosch City Archives, Old Archives, number 3348. Ideally, widows should be

separated from single women for this exercise. However, nominal record linkage between

the numerous early sixteenth-century levies has proven that in many cases a woman

recorded as a widow in one levy may be referred to by her maiden name or (more often) by

her late husband’s name in others, without the prefix ‘widow’ attached. Since there is no

meaningful method of differentiating widows from single women, they have been grouped

into one analytical category.

[36]

extrapolate the numbers of (supposedly single) women recorded as household heads

to include single men. In other words, based on the evidence summarized in Figure

A.1, it is conjectured that among the poorest 40 per cent of taxpayers, the majority

were actually small-scale households, more often than not numbering only one

adult.85 These men and women did not earn enough to sustain a family. From

decile 5 upwards, we find fewer women (and presumably single men) as household

heads, which might indicate that this fiscal position implied an annual income that

was sufficient for marriage – and, of course, that the income may have been

comprised of the earnings of both partners (and children).

Figure A.1 about here

The viability of this set of propositions is strengthened by two facts. First, it should

be noted that the threshold identified with this exercise (decile 5 in 1502/3)

corresponds neatly to the income estimates presented in Table 1. There it was

revealed that in 1502/3, those households with a conjectured income equal to one

welfare ratio (WR1.0, the minimal real income necessary to support a family of four

respectably) were situated around percentile 45. There is, in other words, a very

close distributional match between the threshold identified as the respectable

poverty line – which separates incomes that could or could not sustain a household

of four respectably – and the threshold identifying the single-person/parent

household line – which determines those households most likely to be smaller than

85 Alternative measures were calculated, but since they yielded similar results, this more

readily accessible visualization was chosen. It holds true when we divide the income

distribution into twenty shares, each 5 per cent of the population (instead of deciles), when

we employ absolute figures rather than relative figures, and when we calculate ‘column

shares’ based on the total number of women distributed across all deciles rather than ‘row

shares’ based on the shares of women per decile.

[37]

average, and who could therefore survive respectably on a welfare ratio of below

one.

A second argument in favour of this interpretation of Figure A.1 stems from a

comparison of the 1502/3 and 1512/3 curves. The latter curve is evidently similar to

the former, except for a downward shift among the lower deciles and an upward

shift among the middle deciles. There were fewer single-person households in the

lower income brackets in 1512/3, but more in the middle and upper middle groups.

This is in line with what we would expect of a booming economy characterized by

the European marriage pattern.86 Rising real incomes (see Table 1) presumably led

to increased numbers of marriages and therefore to fewer single-person households

in the lower income brackets. Higher up the distribution, conversely, burgeoning

real income ensured women and widows (and perhaps also widowers) more

agreeable living standards, thereby obviating their economic need to (re)marry.87

The opposite was true at the beginning of the century, when comparatively lower

real incomes forced men and women with smaller incomes into celibacy.

In 1552/3 the situation was largely similar, although the total number of women

and widows recorded in the levy was smaller than it had been. Whether or not this

reflected fiscal policy – an important consideration in this exercise – is unknown.

Given that the difference is most pronounced in the lowest decile and much less

visible in other segments of the distribution, this is a likely hypothesis. In any case,

the general trend is similar, with deciles 4 and 5 comprising the point of

stabilization and therefore the likely point of separation between single-person or

single-parent households and more extensive household arrangements. Again this

fiscal position corresponds to an estimated welfare ratio of 1.0 at percentile 42.

These figures suggest that mid-sixteenth-century ‘s-Hertogenbosch harboured

86 De Moor and van Zanden, ‘Girl power’; also Hanus, ‘Income mobility’. 87 van der Heijden, Schmidt, and Wall, ‘Broken families’.

[38]

smaller numbers of single-person and single-parent households than half a century

before, which is certainly plausible given the weakened economic trend and the

subsequent contraction of immigration rates (see text).

Finally, the seventeenth-century figures derived from the 1636 verpondingen

further corroborate the proposed relationship between income and household

formation. This curve’s course is more erratic, though the overall shape is similar

to that based on the sixteenth-century data. Here, it should be borne in mind that

the verpondingen were less complete in terms of taxed households than the

sixteenth-century sources. Accepting the present results and building on the

income estimates above, it would seem that the higher incomes reported for the

lower brackets are reflected in more complex households from decile 2 onwards.

The final step from shares of women per decile to estimated household size is

performed using the following equation, which produces the figures reported in

Table 2:

(Estimated household size)ij = FSij*2*2.5 + (1-FSij*2)*6*(1-1/(FSij*5)) (3)

Where i = decile (1=lowest); j = year; FS = female-headed share of households

The logic underpinning equation (3) is double: firstly, as explained above, it is

assumed that female-headed households tended to be smaller, and that their share

would be similar to the number of households headed by single or widowed men.

These households are assumed to number 2.5 adult equivalent members, meaning

two adults and one child, or one adult and three children under the age of fourteen.

Jenneke Roosen, mentioned above, maintained an even smaller household, and she

is unlikely to have been alone in this in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. The first factor of the

equation, therefore, first doubles the share of female-headed households (to account

[39]

for the single/widowed men), and then multiplies by 2.5 as an estimate of

household size.

Secondly, the estimation of household size for the other households is more

involved. First, this share is set at one minus double the share of women. Next, the

estimated household size is a regressive function of income, on the basis of findings

in the literature that suggest the number of children and servants correlated

positively with income.88 Measured in deciles, the average size of a ‘full’ household

is estimated at 4.8 for decile 1 and 5.4 for decile 2, up to 5.9 for decile 10. These

calculations produce the estimated household sizes reported in Table 2.

88 Kamen, Early modern European society, pp. 22-23; Clark and Hamilton, ‘Survival’; Allen,

‘A review’; Hadeishi, ‘Economic well-being’.

[40]

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[45]

Figures & Tables

Figure 1. ‘s-Hertogenbosch and the early modern Low Countries

Figure 2. Trends in GDP per capita and real wages per capita, 1500-1650

Sources: all figures for ’s-Hertogenbosch obtained from sources stored in the City Archives, Old Archives (Stadsarchief, Oud archief), numbers 1354-1520 (city accounts 1496-1669) and 2134 (verpondingen 1636 and 1656), see also the Appendix; real wages obtained from Allen, ‘The great divergence’; GDP figures from Blomme and Van der Wee, ‘The Belgian economy’; and van Zanden, The long road.

0,0

0,5

1,0

1,5

2,0

1500 1550 1600 1650

We

lfar

e r

atio

Year

GDP 'Netherlands' (2009)

GDP 'Belgium' (1994)

GDP 's-Hertogenbosch

Real wage Amsterdam (11 yearMA)

Real wage Antwerp (11 yearMA)

Real wage 's-Hertogenbosch (11year MA)

[46]

Figure 3. Place of ‘s-Hertogenbosch (emphasis) in simple rank-size distribution

of towns in the Southern Netherlands (left) and the Northern Netherland (right)

Sources: de Vries, European urbanization; ***.

1

10

100

10001 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10

11

Po

pu

lati

on

siz

e x

1,0

00 (

log

scale

)

Rank

South 1500 South 1550

South 1600 South 1650

1

10

100

1000

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

Po

pu

lati

on

siz

e x

1,0

00 (

log

scale

)

Rank

North 1500 North 1550

North 1600 North 1650

[47]

Figure 4. House rent inequality in the Low Countries, 1500-1750

Sources: data for ’s-Hertogenbosch and Mechelen were collected from the local archives. For Mechelen: City Archives, Old Archives (Stadsarchief, Oud archief), series K. Impots Maisons, numbers I (1544), III (1579), IV (1599) and VI (1643) and XIV (1746). For ’s-Hertogenbosch, see Figure 1. Data for Alkmaar: van den Berg and van Zanden, ‘Vier eeuwen welstandsongelijkheid’; for Leiden: Soltow and van Zanden, Income and wealth inequality.

0,3

0,4

0,5

0,6

1500 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750

Gin

i co

eff

icie

nt

Year

's-Hertogenbosch Mechelen Alkmaar Leiden

[48]

Figure 5. Summary graph: income inequality in 's-Hertogenbosch, 1502-1636

Sources: see Figure 1.

0,6

0,65

0,7

0,75

0,8

1502 1512 1552 1636

Gin

i co

eff

icie

nt

Year

Nominal inequality

Household sizeadjusted inequality

Price adjustedinequality

Real inequality

[49]

Figure A.1. Share of women and widows as heads of household in fiscal levies, 1502-1636

Sources: see Figure 1.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Shar

e o

f w

om

en

an

d w

ido

ws

Decile

1502

1512

1552

1636

[50]

Table 1. Absolute income distributions in 's-Hertogenbosch expressed in welfare ratios, 1502-

1636

Decile averages

Welfare ratio (RR)

1502/3 1512/3 1552/3 1636

D1 0.1 0.2 0.2 0.3 D2 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.5 D3 0.5 0.6 0.5 0.8 D4 0.9 1.0 0.9 1.2 D5 1.5 1.5 1.3 1.8 D6 2.3 2.3 2.1 2.6 D7 3.6 3.6 3.6 3.6 D8 5.9 6.0 5.9 5.6 D9 10.9 11.7 11.8 13.5 D10 46.9 46.1 51.3 45.2

Gini

coefficient 0.75 0.76 0.76 0.71

Sources: see Figure 1, also Allen, The British Industrial Revolution

[51]

Table 2. Real inequality in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, 1500-1636

Panel A. Deflators

Panel A.1. Proposed household size (in adult equivalents)

Panel A.2. Proposed consumer price trend

1502 1512 1552 1636 1502 1512 1552 1636 D1 2.1 2.2 2.5 2.4 D1 0.59 0.64 0.68 0.80 D2 2.9 3.1 3.3 3.7 D2 0.73 0.76 0.79 0.88 D3 3.5 3.7 4.1 4.2 D3 0.86 0.88 0.89 0.96 D4 4.0 4.2 4.5 4.5 D4 1.00 1.00 0.99 1.05 D5 4.7 4.7 4.8 4.8 D5 1.14 1.12 1.10 1.13 D6 4.8 4.8 4.9 4.9 D6 1.27 1.24 1.20 1.21 D7 4.9 4.9 5.0 4.9 D7 1.41 1.36 1.31 1.29 D8 5.0 5.0 5.1 5.0 D8 1.55 1.48 1.41 1.37 D9 5.1 5.1 5.15 5.1 D9 1.68 1.60 1.51 1.45 D10 5.1 5.1 5.2 5.2 D10 1.82 1.72 1.62 1.53

Panel A.3. Original price series (1502=1.00)

grain 1.00 1.35 1.99 7.32

industrial 1.00 1.11 1.39 3.90

Panel B. Re-estimates of absolute income distribution

Panel B.1. Original welfare ratios (see Table 1)

Panel B.3. Price-equivalent welfare ratios

1502 1512 1552 1636 1502 1512 1552 1636 D1 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.3 D1 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.4 D2 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.5 D2 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.6 D3 0.5 0.6 0.5 0.8 D3 0.6 0.7 0.6 0.8 D4 0.9 1.0 0.9 1.2 D4 0.9 1.0 0.9 1.1 D5 1.5 1.5 1.3 1.8 D5 1.4 1.4 1.2 1.6 D6 2.3 2.3 2.1 2.6 D6 1.8 1.8 1.8 2.2 D7 3.6 3.6 3.6 3.6 D7 2.5 2.6 2.8 2.8 D8 5.9 6.0 5.9 5.6 D8 3.8 4.1 4.2 4.1 D9 10.9 11.7 11.8 13.5 D9 6.5 7.3 7.8 9.3 D10 46.9 46.1 51.3 45.2 D10 25.8 26.8 31.7 29.5

Gini 0.75 0.76 0.76 0.71 Gini 0.69 0.69 0.72 0.68

Panel B.2. Family size-equivalent welfare ratios

Panel B.4. Family size- and price-equivalent welfare ratios

1502 1512 1552 1636 1502 1512 1552 1636 D1 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.4 D1 0.4 0.4 0.2 0.5 D2 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.4 D2 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.5 D3 0.4 0.5 0.4 0.6 D3 0.5 0.6 0.4 0.6 D4 0.7 0.7 0.6 0.8 D4 0.7 0.7 0.6 0.8 D5 1.0 1.0 0.9 1.2 D5 0.9 0.9 0.8 1.0 D6 1.5 1.5 1.4 1.7 D6 1.2 1.2 1.1 1.4 D7 2.3 2.3 2.3 2.3 D7 1.6 1.7 1.7 1.8 D8 3.7 3.8 3.6 3.5 D8 2.4 2.6 2.6 2.5 D9 6.7 7.2 7.2 8.3 D9 4.0 4.5 4.8 5.7 D10 28.7 28.2 31.1 27.4 D10 15.8 16.4 19.2 17.9

Gini 0.72 0.72 0.75 0.70 Gini 0.64 0.66 0.70 0.65

Sources: see Figure 1.

[52]

Tabel A.1. Statistical description of 's-Hertogenbosch fiscal levies, 1497-1656 (all figures are intra muros)

Number Year (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

I 1497/8 1,754 1,945 1.1 0.6 75 (incomplete) II 1500/1 472 2,645 5.6 3.0 105 condition, etc.

(incomplete) III 1501/2a 2,687 8,249 3.1 1.0 299 IV 1501/2b 2,619 3,933 1.5 0.7 240 V 1502/3 2,978 5,149 1.7 0.6 222 VI 1503/4 3,029 5,088 1.7 0.6 191 VII 1504/5a 2,116 2,246 1.1 0.4 167 VIII 1504/5b 2,663 8,795 3.3 1.0 367 IX 1505/6 2,749 2,744 1.0 0.7 199 10% house rent X 1506/7 2,742 8,903 3.2 1.0 215 XI 1507/8 2,319 2,132 0.9 0.3 154 XII 1511/2 2,905 5,207 1.8 0.6 304 condition, etc. XIII 1512/3 2,838 9,800 3.5 1.0 400 condition, etc. XIV 1547/8 2,977 2,366 0.8 0.6 175 6.7% house rent XV 1552/3 3,593 19,176 5.3 2.0 130 10% income XVI 1557/8 3,260 8,058 2.5 1.0 168 5% income XVII 1569 871 2,206 2.5 1.6 73 10% house rent

(incomplete) XVIII 1578 834 11,106 13.3 11.0 19 forced loan XIX 1586 3,231 3,211 1.0 2.0 14 loan XX 1636 3,115 189,030 60.0 40.0 131 12.5% house rent XI 1656 3,225 161,851 50.0 34.0 119 12.5% house rent

Key: (1) Total number of tax payers (2) Total amount collected (in guilders) (3) Mean tax paid (in guilders) (4) Median tax paid (in guilders) (5) Number of different values observed (6) Type of levy (according to sources) Sources: ‘s-Hertogenbosch City Archives, Old Archives (Oud Archief), city accounts, numbers 1358 (1497/8) - 1408 (1556/7), Council of State Archives, number 2134 (verpondingen)

[53]

Table A.2. 's-Hertogenbosch Gross Urban Income, 1500-1640

Panel A. General levies 1501/2 1512/3 1552/3 1557/8

Total tax contribution (fl.) 8,249 9,800 19,176 8,059 Median tax contribution (fl.) 1 1 1.5 0.75 Estimated median income (fl.) 45 52 65 65 Population 15,450 16,320 18,860 17,115 Gross Urban Income (fl.) 372,000 511,000 832,000 699,000 GUI per capita (fl.) 24.1 31.3 44.1 40.8 GUI/c in welfare ratios 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.1 GUI/c in 1990 $ 1,272 1,315 1,435 1,373

Panel B. House rent levies 1505/6 1547/8 1569 1636

Total tax contribution (fl.) 2,390 2,366 6,855 23,227 Median tax contribution (fl.) 0.5 0.5 1.5 5 Estimated median income (fl.) 47 60 75 240 Population 15,350 18,600 17,500 15,645 Gross Urban Income (fl.) 389,000 585,000 803,000 2,230,000 GUI per capita (fl.) 26.7 32.9 45.9 142.5 GUI/c in welfare ratios 1.1 1.1 0.9 1.0 GUI/c in 1990 $ 1,387 1,294 1,134 1,284

Sources: see Table A.1; also Van der Wee, ‘Prices and wages’; Allen, ‘The great divergence’; and for the calculation of equivalence to 1990 international dollars, see van Zanden, The long road.