The Settlement Pattern of Cloth Merchants, Makers and Weavers in the Textile City of Leiden 1498-1748

Abstract

Leiden was once the foremost textile city in Europe. Under ‘de nieuwe draperie’ (the new cloth industry, from 1580), a wide variety of woollen textiles were produced. At the pinnacle of this industry the city had no fewer than seven cloth halls. Merchants, makers and weavers usually worked from home, appearing at the hall at set times to have their semi-  finished or finished products inspected for quality. Thus broadcloth weavers went to the Lakenhal (Cloth Hall) and the serge weavers to the Saaihal (Serge Hall). The economic  historian N.W. Posthumus summarized this strictly regulated craft system as ‘no occupation without a hall, no hall without an occupation’. This article draws on occupational data in seven tax assessment registers and two censuses from the period 1498-1748 to investigate whether the location of the halls influenced the settlementpattern of cloth merchants, makers and weavers.In other words, was the distance between home andhall a determining factor in where people chose to live?

For this purpose the city was divided into eight districts. An occupational concentration is categorized as clustered when more than one third of a  particular occupational group lived in the district concerned. Within this a distinction has been made between moderate clustering (33-49%), strong clustering (50-65%) and very strong clustering (over 66%).

The clustering of cloth merchants in Leiden changed over time. Whereas in the Middle Ages there were high concentrations of cloth buyers and dealers in the historical centre where the Lakenhal was then situated, by the Early Modern period the wealthy textile merchants

(shipowners) had moved on. In 1581 they were clusteredin the Zuid and Oost-nieuw districts, once againclose to the Lakenhal, which was then situated on theSteenschuur canal. In 1674 there was a strong concentrationin Noord-nieuw, the district where the Lakenhad been located since 1640. Thus in each of the referenceyears, the cloth merchants were to be found in thevicinity of the cloth hall.

The surmise that, in addition to ‘no occupation without a hall, no hall without an occupation’, a case of ‘no hall without a clustered occupational group’ prevailed is reinforced by the distribution of cloth makers, cloth weavers, serge makers and serge weavers. In 1674 there was a strong concentration of both cloth makers and cloth weavers in Noord-nieuw. There were, however, no serge makers or weavers in Noord-nieuw; they were concentrated in areas closer to the Saaihal (Oost-oud and Zuid).

This study reveals clusters of seven textile-related occupations in various districts. In each instance there was a cluster in or adjacent to the location of the associated hall. On their own, individual occupations would provide insufficient grounds for concluding that the house–hall distance was a determining factor for locating a business, but taken together, the seven occupations provide enough indications in that direction in the period 1498 to 1674. This tendency of living close to the hall does not mean that prosperity played no role at all, because even within a limited walking distance from the hall it was still possible to live in a desirable area.