Daily Life During The Reformation (22 page)

Extinguishing a fire once it had taken hold was nigh
impossible. People of all ages would arrive when the fire alarm was sounded,
forming lines along which buckets of water were passed to be thrown on the
blaze. Others would try to stop it spreading by tying wet cloths to the end of
a stick to put out sparks that landed in the thatch of a nearby house. In a
strong wind, such measures were almost useless.

The essential ingredient, water, had to be always available
to put out fires, and in winter when the rivers, streams, and canals were
frozen over, it was necessary to make sure there were openings in the ice from
which to draw it. In many communities, leather sacks of water were kept in the
houses for emergencies. In case of a fire, every household had to supply an
able-bodied person to bring pails for carrying water. It was also mandatory to
hang a lantern in front of every house in order to light up the dark streets if
the fire alarm sounded at night. Houses with thatched roofs also had to have
ladders standing by. When ordered by the city, everyone was required to have a
two-handled tub of water outside the front entrance, and inspectors came around
to take inventory and ensure compliance.

Gradually, in the course of the sixteenth century, more and
more houses were built of stone, and thatch gave over to tiled or slate roofs.
Outlets for smoke made of wood were replaced by brick chimneys.

HYGIENE

The back yards of houses were usually places to store
unused articles in sheds along with housing pigs, chickens, and a cow or horse.
There also would be hung the laundry, which would be done four or five times a
year. Pots hung from the gutter of the roof for nesting birds, generally
starlings, and when the young birds were nearly ready to leave the nest, they
were gathered up and eaten.

Streets were a dumping ground for just about everything:
kitchen leftovers, broken pottery, or china were thrown outside, and horses,
cattle, chickens, and pigs left their droppings as they wandered through the
smelly mess. If there was a canal or stream at the doorway, refuse was thrown
into that. Outhouses were constructed over the water, and sometimes there would
be a little landing next to it where pots and pans were washed.

Towns were infested with rats that ate the grain, cheese,
fruit, or whatever else was available. They also gnawed the woodwork in the
houses. Although they were not identified as carriers of disease, people tried
ingenious ways to be rid of them. One device was a narrow, about seven-foot-long,
wooden box with an opening at each end and compartments inside filled with
nesting material. Once the compartments were full of rats, the ends were sealed
and the animals drowned. Another was a plate balanced on two sticks of wood
extending out from the kitchen counter. When the rat walked onto the plate to
retrieve the bait placed on it, the plate tipped up and the rat fell into a
bucket of water placed underneath. There were many such devices, but the rats
bred faster than they could be eliminated. The streets, mostly unpaved, were a
moving mass of rodents at night that would begrudgingly make way for the night
watchman.

Bathing

Water was a precious commodity not because it was scarce,
but it had to be carried, usually by hand, from the source to the house. It was
used sparingly for washing the body, but when it was absolutely necessary, a
large wooden tub was available for the purpose. It was a time-consuming
operation pouring pots and pitchers of hot water into the tub and then sitting
there for a while, sprinkling some of it over one’s head in an attempt to wash
the hair. It was apparently more fun, although more costly, to go to the public
bathing house at the local inn where men and women climbed into the same tubs,
pots of beer in hand, to enjoy the bath and the company, much to the
disapprobation of the Church.

THE INFIRM

Mentally deficient people and those suffering from diseases
were found in abundance on the streets of Holland including many who were too
sick to work and others such as lepers, who were obliged to shake the lepers’
wooden clapper as they approached to beg, to alert the prospective almsgiver of
their condition. As the Reformation gained momentum, however, life became more
difficult for those in need. Having heard from the reformers that salvation
depended on God’s grace and not on good deeds, the latter became less popular
as people liked the idea that it was not necessary to give alms in order to go
to heaven.

There were people about who begged that appeared
handicapped but were in fact fit and sound. They would complain of having
suffered in the wars, women pretended to faint in the streets, and some would
lie down in front of the doors of residences, groaning and crying out. Some
women carried tiny babies saying they had just given birth and needed rest and
food. Others pretended insanity or faked an attack in the market place, and
when the audience gathered around, the pickpockets went to work.

Pieter Brueghel the Elder, 1562.
Triumph of Death. A dying man plays the lute as Death fiddles. Skeletons ring
bells from a dead tree, emaciated figures (representing death) drive a horse
and wagon filled with skulls. A crow sits on the horse looking down on the
dying and the dead.

THE PLAGUE

The bubonic plague appeared about every five years as a
regular part of daily life; nobody knew where it came from. About all they
could do was pray to God that it would not descend upon them. Many people
scraped bits of sandstone off the local churches, placed them in a bag that
they wore around the neck as a kind of holy talisman against the disease, which
was blamed on many things such as eating apples and plums, mosquitoes, the
dirty water of the canals, foreigners, or the Jews who were often rounded up
and exiled. Everyone had an opinion as people died by the thousands.

The Catholic Church’s view, however, generally prevailed.
The priests maintained the plague came because of the sins of man and was a
sign of the wrath of God. Hygiene was generally very poor, however. People wore
the same shirt for weeks on end both day and night, a haven for fleas. No one
made the connection between plague, rats, and fleas. Rats carried fleas that,
in turn, carried the disease. Nearly everyone had fleas in their clothes and in
their beds. Pitch was burned in barrels in the streets in attempts to purify
the air.

Calling for the surgeon was generally futile because few
would come, considering it too dangerous. Those doctors who braved the plague
received extra pay for perilous duty. They would perform the usual
bloodletting, check the urine, and cover the boils with a poultice or with a
dried toad. Usually a priest would be in attendance not only to give a
blessing, but also to record the will and testament of the dying person in case
there was something to be given to the Church.

Coffins were at a premium in a plague-ridden area. When an
epidemic struck, corpses filled the streets waiting for burial. Those who had
had money were buried within the Church, creating an almost unbearable stench,
masked by huge amounts of incense. The less well off were buried in the church
yard. To prevent pigs from digging up the bodies, iron grates were laid down.
If the churchyard was filled up, the bodies were taken outside of the city and
dumped into mass graves.

Those who lived in a neighborhood where the plague appeared
generally fled, helping to spread it around. All the while, night and day, the
church bells tolled. The usual sign indicating there was plague in a house was
a bundle of straw hanging from the fac
_a
de. Children who had lost a
brother or sister to the disease had to carry a white stick when they played in
the streets. Others played games that involved make-believe funerals in which two
boys carried a third through the streets, lying on a plank, wrapped in a
blanket. A fourth boy led the little parade holding a wooden cross.

OCCUPATIONS

Many household items were sold by itinerant vendors from
door to door. From them the lady of the house could purchase candles, wood,
ceramic or copper candleholders, candle snuffers, and small lamps that burned
rapeseed oil for heat and light. People went to bed early, often just after
dark, hence little artificial light was required.

In 1566, occupations in Antwerp, one of the largest cities
in northern Europe, were recorded:

169 bakers

78 butchers

91 fishmongers

110 barber-surgeons

124 goldsmiths

300 painters and sculptors

594 tailors and stocking makers

There were, to be sure, some doctors of medicine, numerous
clerics and monks, musicians, and actors, traders, and many thousands of
laborers, sailors and foreign merchants, and beggars.

Most women were able to spin and make a little extra
income, which they did at home. Using wool or flax, they fastened the fibers to
a wooden distaff. The fibers were pulled out with one hand, twisted into thread
with the other hand, and rolled onto a spindle. Eye glasses were available for
those with poor sight.

People who worked for a daily wage lived on the edge. One
month, they had a job; the next month, they had nothing. This was especially
true of farm seasonal workers when the planting or harvesting were finished.
Unable to buy food, they might find a charitable organization in a large city
to keep them from death’s door, and if not, their only alternative was to beg.
Even for nonresidents, the possibility of working as a wage laborer was not
uncommon in the seven northern provinces of the Netherlands. Expected to work
12 to 14 hours a day, they were not usually allowed to reside in the same
village as their employers and lived in squalor in separate dependent villages.

FISHING

The Dutch designed special ships for the Baltic herring
trade, but an edict from Charles V issued in 1519 specified that all ships had
to have a license to sail and that only new barrels could be used. Inspectors
were appointed to verify proper barreling of fish in all ports. Fishing was at
its peak there around 1600–1630, and the many herring factories employed large
numbers of men and women.

The Dutch fishing industry, an important part of the
economic base of the northern Netherlands, included a type of factory ship
called the herring bus that enabled the fishermen to follow the herring to the
shoals of the Dogger Bank and other places, far from the shores of the
Netherlands, and to stay at sea for long periods. This ship was equipped to
salt the fish while at sea. Herring was an important export.

Fishing also attracted its own supporting businesses such
as trade in and refining of salt, manufacturing of fishnets, and specialized
building of ships. Traders invested the fishing revenues in buying up grain in
Baltic ports during the winter months that they transported to Western Europe
when the ice floes thawed in spring. The income generated from this incidental
trade was invested in unrefined salt or in new ships. The fishing fleet was
protected by naval vessels against privateers.

TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION

With no reliable transportation service available, there
was little possibility of sending packages or goods to another party or to
another city. Instead, people carried their own belongings from place to place
in sacks or baskets usually conveyed on their heads or backs or by use of a
yoke. Wheelbarrows could be converted into sleighs in winter for traveling over
frozen rivers or canals. Rowboats and sailboats were plentiful in summer and
were used to carry passengers and their luggage from one side of a river or bay
to the other; they were also used to transport grain from region to region
around the Baltic Sea.

Horses were a primary means of transport, but sometimes
three or four peasants shared one since not everyone could afford a horse.