The Rest Is History - 351: Amsterdam: Miracles, Money, and Mud

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

A city built on water, Amsterdam has often set the tone of European modernity. It first gained prominence as a miraculous centre for pilgrimage, and then stood out for its relationship with the Reformation, and for its role in the birth of modern capitalism. Join Tom and Dominic on part one of our tour of Amsterdam, as they take you on a journey through Dam Square, the birthplace of the Dutch East India Company, the Begijnhof, and the Amsterdam Dungeon… Read more about Tom and Dominic's trip to Amsterdam, in partnership with Wise: https://wise.com/campaign/restishistory *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. Hello and welcome to a very special episode of The Rest Is History. We are here in the heart of Amsterdam, surrounded by bicycles and trams and thousands of people. And we are here, Tom, thanks to WISE, the account that lets you send, spend, and receive money internationally. Tom, we are going on a Dutch adventure. We are. To learn about the history.

The heart of the Netherlands. I really hoped that wasn't going to happen, but he has done his Dutch accent. So we are going on a Dutch adventure to learn about the history of Amsterdam. And Tom, thanks to Wise, we'll be spending like locals. We will. So yes, we're here in Amsterdam and we thought you love the Netherlands. You always go on about how you love the Dutch and Dutch history. Well, Holland, obviously.

So we thought it would be a fun thing to do, to come to this corner of Northwestern Europe and to tell the story of the Netherlands through the history of Amsterdam and through a selection of buildings. So you've chosen your favorite historic sites in the city of Amsterdam and through a selection of buildings. So you've chosen your favorite historic sites in the city of Amsterdam, and we are going to be exploring the themes of capitalism, of liberalism, globalization, the religious tolerance of the Dutch. Because you say that this is an episode about the Netherlands as well as about Amsterdam. But Dominic, I would go further and say it's a history of the world. Amsterdam is one of those cities that has profoundly shaped the entire

course of global history. Well, don't people sometimes say this is the great birthplace or one of the great birthplaces, along with, I suppose, London, Genoa, Venice, I don't know, of capitalism, of modern international capitalism? Absolutely. And we will be exploring one of the great kind of shrines to that emergence of capitalism. But I think of all the cities that have played outsized roles in global history, you've been one of those places that have altered and changed the course of world history. Amsterdam for me is, I think, my favourite because it's the least grandiose, it's the least pompous, dare I say, it's perhaps the most comfortable. And that's a very unusual thing in a kind of world-shaking city to have. And what makes Amsterdam even more

extraordinary is that it seems in some ways so unsuited by geography for its role. So you compared Amsterdam to London as one of the two kind of great birthplaces really of modern capitalism. And London is obviously very well suited by geography to be a great city because it's lowest bridging point on the Thames, it's open to the sea. But Amsterdam, the clue is in the name. We are currently in Dam Square, which is the kind of ancient heart of the city, because a dam here was built over a river called the Amstel. But when we call it a river, it wasn't really. It was really a kind of, it was an extended bog. Yeah. And all this area around here, I mean, going back into, you know, the Iron Age,

then to the Roman period, early early medieval period it was really just a series of marshes and we have records say from my great friend plinny the old plinny would come into it somewhere so so he has so he served up here and he describes seeing people kind of perched on man-made island things that are called turps and the sea water's coming in and retreating twice a day and so he says you know he he asks are these you know is this to be reckoned sea or is it to be reckoned land yeah and it's an open question obviously the low countries you know it's below sea level isn't it yeah and so it's not an obvious place to settle so then why why is it that people are settling here and the reason is because the

soil is unbelievably good so you have peat which is good for farming. But the problem with that is that if you start draining it of water, which the more you settle here, the more you're doing that. So it shrinks. And so then you start sinking below the sea level. And Amsterdam is actually, I think, about two meters below the sea. And then, of course, the danger of flooding becomes even greater. And the only way that you can combat that danger of flooding is to get together and kind of form a collective and start building dams and dikes. Hence Dam Square. Hence Dam Square. And so Amsterdam is a very inhospitable geographical position for a city.

Yeah. But the city emerges because the only way you can settle here is to form a collective. And so what basically seems to have happened is that around 1150, 1160, there was really terrible flooding here. And so the only way that people could survive was really to start building kind of collective enterprises, dams, and so on. So you have drainage cows start to be dug from beginning of the 13th century um and then by about 1250 maybe 1275 people are digging dikes along the banks of the um of the amstel and then they they put a dam across it and where we are now in dam square is exactly the spot where they built the dam so the the Amstel back in early Middle Ages was

flowing exactly where we are now. So it's so late by the standards of European capitals, isn't it? I mean, what are we, 13th century? I mean, I suppose Madrid is a late capital, but if you think of so many of the great cities of Europe, Amsterdam is a real parvenu, Tom. It absolutely is. And it remains that pretty much for most of the Middle Ages. Its wealth essentially, to begin with, comes from fish. Right. How glamorous. Well, so herring in particular. Yeah.

And the Dutch have discovered a particular way of pickling herring that enables it to survive longer and actually makes it tastier. And so they corner that particular market. Just for those people who are wondering, we were talking about how glamorous Amsterdam is. And we are, Tom, you've picked a location that is right by the bins. Yes, the bins have just arrived. So yeah, if you're coming on your own trip to Amsterdam,

I wouldn't recommend going to the bins unless you want to redo the full Tom Holland. Well, you know, we're going into the dark underbelly of Amsterdam as well as looking simply at the beauties of it. So 13th century, we have Amsterdam. It's a fishing, it's a kind of fishing community. It, we have Amsterdam. It's a fishing, it's a kind of fishing community. It's still very muddy. It's still very boggy.

There doesn't seem to be very much that would make it a place worth visiting. And then something extraordinary happens, Dominic. Well, Tom, you've really been... Something, dare I say, miraculous. Miraculous.

Well, you've really been selling it so far with all the talk of preserved herrings and whatnot and taking me to see the bins. But it's only onwards and upwards from here, isn't it? It absolutely is. So we're going to go and see this miraculous thing that you're talking about.

The very sight of it. Very exciting. Let's go. So we've just ducked into this lovely little cafe here. Tom needs a bit of sustenance because, you know. It's excitement. The sacral moment is approaching. So, Tom, let me get these.

Now, your usual is, what is it? A strawbiz and cream skinny frappuccino is it is that what you normally have could i have um um a an espresso please don't worry tom's having an espresso and i'll have an americano please uh double please tom's gone for the double espresso my word he's more of a man than i thought and tom what a great opportunity this is to use our wise cards that allow us to spend like a local. Unbelievably useful. And actually, Dominic, bearing in mind what we're about to go and see, very apposite, because the next place, it's all about international tourism.

Is it? Yeah. So how useful a wise card would have been in the Middle Ages, as we will shortly find out. Genuinely miraculous history podcasting here. So I'm going to tap my wise card. This is an exciting moment and perfect. All done. Miraculous. Thank you very much. Well, Dominic, actually, yeah, that really was easy. I haven't used wise before, but I can now see why so many businesses and people, I think 16 million, maybe over. Yeah. So you can spend really easily and

you get notifications, Tom, to your phone, which you know you would love that. Because I love getting notifications on my phone. Yeah. The thing about Wise, you can spend in 40 different currencies. And if you're on the go, as you so often are with your travels, and you don't have the local currency in your Wise account, Tom, they were auto-converted at the mid-market exchange rate with absolutely no markups and no hidden fees because i hate a markup and i hate a hidden fee well you don't have to worry wise wise is the card for me

yeah and also dominic no maths no no you'd be a big fan of that that's very good so we um are now we've come to the second location that i've chosen yeah and you will see that it is the amsterdam dungeon yeah which i think is a franchise organized by the london dungeon so it's kind that I've chosen. Yeah. And you will see that it is the Amsterdam Dungeon. Yeah. Which I think is a franchise organized by the London Dungeon. So it's kind of basically waxworks of people being tortured, that kind of thing. So you may think, well, why have I brought you here? I actually genuinely enjoy those things, Tom. Well, I'm going to ruin your sense of enjoyment now by saying that we have come here not because

of the London Dungeon itself, but because of what stood here right which was a church dominic okay so um we were talking before about how it was that amsterdam starts to emerge from just being a kind of collection of people camped out next to a bog going fishing yeah for herring there was an awful lot of herrings involved in that early sequence i mean it's quite a rough place but it's also pious as you would expect for people kind of living very close to the elements. So there's a definite sense, I think, which runs throughout the history of Amsterdam. Descartes, who came to stay here, kind of famously said that God made the world, but the Dutch made Holland. And there is this sense that the ability to win land from the sea

is a kind of marker of divine favor. So Amsterdam, although it's rough, is a pretty pious place. But what really turbocharges the sense of Amsterdam as a godly city in the Middle Ages is a spectacular miracle, Dominic, which happened on the very spot where we are now looking at the Amsterdam dungeon. So this took place in 1345, and it was called the Miracle of Amsterdam. And it took place on the Tuesday before Palm Sunday, so kind of the week before Holy Week. And there's an old man,

and he's quietly dying in his house. The priest comes, gives him the final sacrament, and he takes the consecrated bread on his tongue and then he vomits dominic and he pukes it up and the holy the holy sacrament is in the in the puke so difficult to know what to do so they decide well we'll we'll chuck it on the fire that's probably the best way to get rid of it um and they chuck it on the fire and it doesn't burn right and they try it again and it still doesn't burn and so they clean it of the of the sick yeah and they check it on the fire and it doesn't burn. And they try it again and it still doesn't burn. And so they clean it of the sick and they take it to the local priest.

And he's amazed and thinks that this is highly supernatural. And they say that it's a miracle. And so they build a church around it. And then the church burns down and still it doesn't burn. The sacrament still survives. And then the church burns down again and still it doesn't burn. The sacrament still survives. And then the church burns down again, and still it doesn't burn down. So this is an absolute proof that this is a spectacular miracle. And so Amsterdam becomes a great, great center of pilgrimage. And actually all the kind of streets around here, they're kind of holy road, holy place, all this kind of thing. So even though

this is absolutely the heart of the of um the the modern day tourist heart of the city um there are trace elements of that so this is 14th 15th century and this is absolutely not a question of a sort of herring fishing town in the middle of nowhere desperately needing to attract tourists i think that would be an unduly cynical okay approach um no because i don't think that you'd be getting um say almost a hundred thousand people a year if it was a total fraud no they'd all be coming here with their equivalent of their wise cards ready to spend you know i mean some really very heavyweight figures came including an emperor of uh a future emperor of um the holy roman empire oh maximilian million yeah in in 1489. So it's a very, very Catholic city.

Right. Great center of Catholic pilgrimage. And so that then focuses the question, how is it that this incredibly Catholic city comes to be one of the most famous centers of Protestantism? Well, Tom, you mentioned Maximilian of Austria. So at this point, there is no country called the netherlands or holland is there this is part of the great hapsburg inheritance right this is part of the great enormous hapsburg domain

of the 16th century so charles v philip ii this is the what used to be called the spanish netherlands am i right absolutely so listeners may remember the episode we did the bart van loo on on burgundy burgundy and burgundy and all that kind of conglomeration of the Low Countries, which includes what would today be Belgium as well as the Netherlands, comes part of that inheritance. The thing about Amsterdam is that because it's on the periphery and because it's been won from the sea, its feudal obligations are unclear. The Bishop of Utrecht, the local lord of the Amstel,

and the Count of Holland are all kind of fighting over it. And in the end, the Count of Holland kind of claims it. But the city fathers are pretty independent. And so Charles V, who is having to deal with Luther, who's popped up by this stage, and so the Reformation is kicking off. He's saying to all the city authorities across the lowlands, stamp this out. But actually, the city fathers here in Amsterdam aren't keen on doing that. And basically, that's because it's a port, it's an open city, it's always depended on welcoming people to come here. And they don't really want to kind of dig too deep. And this will become very much a kind of Amsterdam tradition that things that are on the cusp of legality,

you kind of tolerate. Right. Because of the port, because of the sense of it being a melting pot, I suppose. Yeah. That if you're too top down, you will squash the creativity and the free exchange

on which Amsterdam presumably depends. And also the sense of a coherent civic culture, because without that, you can't keep the dams and the di exchange on which Amsterdam presumably depends. And also the sense of a coherent civic culture, because without that, you can't keep the dams and the dikes and everything maintained and draining it of water. So there isn't actually much persecution of Protestants as they start to come here. There's one exception, which is the Anabaptists, who are very badly behaved at this stage.

So famously, they take over Munster and there's all kinds of carnage and horror there. There is an Anabaptist uprising here at the same time in 1535. And a load of Anabaptists take their clothes off and run around the town. And they capture Dam Square, where we've just been. And they storm the city hall and they kill one of the city mayors. So this doesn't go down well. And the Anabaptists, when this uprising gets suppressed, will get horribly killed.

Their chests are cut open and their beating hearts are pulled out in front of them. and the anabaptists when this uprising gets suppressed will get horribly killed they kind of their chests are cut open and their beating hearts are pulled out in front of them um and they're drawn and quartered um so anabaptists are stamped on but the calvinists so the followers of jean calvin yeah john calvin um who we talked about actually in our swiss episode didn't we in the world cup they're much quieter they're much less prone to taking their clothes off and killing mares. I see here from your notes, you've written the three words, much less barking.

So that's bad news for our Anabaptist listeners. Yes. Well, the Anabaptists do kind of calm down. But by the standards of the mid-16th century, Calvinists are easier for the city fathers to tolerate. And so basically, the city fathers in Amsterdam, it's still absolutely majority Catholic, but they're a kind of growing Calvinist population,

and they hope that they can kind of balance both sides. However, events beyond Amsterdam's borders make that impossible. Because in 1566, you have what? The Bildenstorm. That's beautiful Dutch, Tom. Well done. The kind of great fury of iconoclasm yeah

which really kicks off in Antwerp where there are a lot of Calvinists far more Calvinists than in Amsterdam and they go kind of berserk

ransacking everything pulling down icons and stuff and actually in Ghent as well so again we had Bart was on our show wasn't he

talking about Belgium and the and Jan van Eyck Jan van Eyck and Jan van Eyck. And that only gets saved because they hide it. Okay, the Ghent altarpiece. The Ghent altarpiece. In Amsterdam, it's less, again, it's less serious.

So there's a woman who takes her slipper off and throws it at an icon of the Virgin. Iconoclast smashed some stained glass. But again, the authorities in Amsterdam do not react to this with violent oppression in fact they do the opposite they kind of try and negotiate with calvinists and they say that um they can hold services outside the city walls and this is their their approach to the the this kind of wave of iconoclasm right but this is not what the imperial authority is allowing to happen because

by now charles v has been succeeded by Philip II, who as English listeners will know is the person who sends the armada, very, very keen on stamping out Protestantism completely. And he basically orders a strategy of outright oppression. And this precipitates an enormous revolt from- The famous Dutch revolt. The famous Dutch revolt, which is initially focused in Southern Holland, but spreads northwards. And Amsterdam, as this great center of Catholic pilgrimage, is really the kind of the holdout. It doesn't side with this revolt. So that by 1572, Amsterdam is pretty much the only city

left in Spanish hands. And so the Duke of Alba, who is the great, you know, the Iron Duke, this terrifying Spanish soldier, warlord, who is charged with the repression of the Dutch revolt. He comes here and he makes Amsterdam his base. And Catholic refugees from the kind of the rising tide of rotten success elsewhere in Holland, they kind of come here. But also coming here are refugees from Antwerp, which has been sacked very, very brutally by the Spanish. So a lot of Calvinist refugees come here. And by 1578, the city is, dare I say, a kindling box, Dominic. A tinderbox. A tinderbox. A tinderbox. All it requires is the spark.

So the spark comes on the 26th of May. But when it does come, what the Dutch call the alteration, which is a kind of wonderful euphemism, but it's not so much of a euphemism because it is actually a bloodless transfer of power from Catholics to Protestants. So all the Catholic members of the city council, again, so Dutch, they get put on barges. They sail off and the Franciscans get kicked out the monasteries and

the convents get converted to other uses so um orphanages prisons yeah that kind of thing the churches are whitewashed so it's a proper protestant revolution yeah it really is and the the oldest church in um in amsterdam it gets whitewashed and renamed the Oude Kirke, the old church. And all the processions and ceremonies and commemorations of the miracle of Amsterdam are closed down. So the miracle church has transformed into a tourist trap. Yes. It's decreed that it will be turned into a center of waxworks. Very good. that it will be turned into a center of waxworks. Very good.

And so this very, very Catholic city, pretty much overnight, has been rebranded as one of the strongholds of Protestantism and specifically Calvinism. Then the question is, well, what happens to the surviving Catholics? Wow. I bet you've got something up your sleeve, have you? I have.

We're going to go to um a very quiet and peaceful location that will enable us to answer exactly that question brilliant welcome back to the rest is history we've come to this lovely um oasis of calm in the center of amsterdam and tom explain to us where we are we are um in the beguine hof and so a hofie is a courtyard with almshouses around it so this is the only medieval hofie that has survived so it it dates back to the 14th century um they're privately funded um they are veiled from the street so to get in here you just come through kind of a single door if anyone has been to a kind of oxford or cambridge college it's that kind of vibe but but but privately funded and it's for charitable purposes so these are arms houses

yeah and then generally for women i mean not not always but in this case absolutely for women because the the beguines are communities of lay women. So they're not nuns. They haven't kind of vowed chastity or poverty. They swear themselves to virginity and they're free to leave whenever they like. So it's kind of Beguines in French, isn't it? Yes, exactly. So these houses are sort of 17th century, that house there the the wooden house am i thinking that's the oldest house i think it is yes because there was um there was a fire in in 1521 and they

introduced a ban on building wooden houses so it must predate that right i think it's one of two um wooden houses it left in the city so so yeah so kind of fantastic relic. But the reason for coming here isn't just that it's a famously beautiful spot, quiet spot, but that it focuses in on some of the kind of the paradoxes and tensions of the response of the Dutch, and particularly of Amsterdamers, to what they call the alteration, the changeover from Catholic to Protestant. Catholic worship is banned, and so this is a problem for the Beguines, who are a Catholic order. We're sitting on a bench next to the church, which is 15th century. This gets taken from the Beguinesines and it stands empty for a couple of decades after the alteration.

And then in 1607, it's handed over to the English. Oh, that's good. It's given to English speaking Presbyterians. Right. And I mean, if you go inside, anyone who is familiar with 17th century churches in Britain would immediately recognize it's hung with English flags, Scottish flags, Union Jacks.s to this day it remains aligned with the church of scotland so the

presbyterians of the church of scotland but the beguines are not expelled and the reason for that is that the amsterdamers have great respect for property law and the beguines own all the houses so the church be confiscated but not not their houses. So the Hoffie remains their private property and they continue to be buried inside the church even once the uh, the English Presbyterians have taken it over. And then in 1665, what they do is they take two of these private houses and they knock them together and they build a chapel. And inside the chapel they show a kind of wonderful artwork illustrating the miracle of amsterdam um so this great shrine that has been knocked down that we were just just visited i

thought you said catholicism was uh banned right so this is again this distinctive amsterdam approach to what is legal and what isn't the beguines approach the council and say look this is what we're doing and the council's response is to say okay you can worship there provided that it's hidden away provided that it doesn't look like a chapel so it has to continue looking like houses so there's that sense in which they're simultaneously saying yes okay it's legal it's fine go ahead with it while at the same time saying well it isn't really oh so this is what we're looking at so this is what we're looking at now because i was was wondering the stained glass windows in these, what appear to be these townhouses. Yeah.

And that's actually a chapel. And that is absolutely the chapel. And so this kind of provides a template for what is going on elsewhere in the city. So actually, there's a hofje built in 1614, which also serves as a refuge for Beguines. Right. You know, there aren't chapels there, but Beguines settle there in Hoffier. And also for kind of radical Protestant sects still. So our friends, the Anabaptists,

they're still lurking around. So they have their kind of, their secret churches and their Hoffiers. Mennonites, who are kind of another radical Protestant sect. But more generally, the Hoffiers, these courtyards that are built with charitable intent yeah this is a kind of impulse that survives the reformation so right the way up

into the 19th century there was famously a baron who got locked in his own strong room counting his money and he made a vow that he would build a hoffier if he got out and didn't starve to death and he did manage to get out so he built a hoffier and if you come to amsterdam and you want a kind of a way of of getting to grips with the kind of the history and the character of this city i think there is no better way than to do a tour of the hoffiers and you have to know where they are because they're often invisible they just look kind of little doorways quiet doorways so unless you know where you're going you'd never know that there are these kind of incredible spaces hidden away from because the point of the hof here is to be turned in inwards away from the street so people can't see this these terrible religious practices that you're

getting up to and you're not infringing on the civic culture which is overtly protestant there is that but but there's also a kind of a value of inwardness of privacy a lack of public flourish that is expressive of the civic culture of the city, I think. Right. This sense that the domestic is valuable and precious and something that is worth cultivating is absolutely a part of, I think, of what Amsterdam gives to the modern world. You talked about this, didn't you, in the episode we did about the Dutch maid. Remember the maid of Holland and the sort of the cleanliness, the domesticity.

That's a very, very sort of golden age of the Dutch Republic kind of ethos, isn't it? Yes. And so we'll go and look at a particularly spectacular example of a Dutch townhouse in the second episode but i think that these these courtyards are that there are very powerful striking and i think moving expression of that impulse towards valuing privacy and valuing the domestic which is something i think you know pretty new by the standards of of what had gone before yeah however it would not at all do dominic to imply that um everyone in amsterdam is going inwards because 16th going into the 17th century even as hoffiers are being built and this sense of privacy is being valued at the same time amsterdam is becoming the capital of globalization brilliant well let's leave the beguine behind and go and um go and find your next location which i think is a much more outward-looking one.

It couldn't be more outward-looking, Dominic. So, Tom, we've just walked down the street from the Begainhof and we've come to another courtyard. This is a courtyard of a very, very different-looking building, much grander. And this is the building that tells us the story, doesn't it, of how Amsterdam goes from being basically a bit of a backwater to being the engine of globalization. Yeah. So in the 17th century, I mean, as you say, Amsterdam, an obscure backwater,

a place that's still at war with the world's largest empire. But it becomes the birthplace of the modern world. So it becomes the richest richest city in the world it becomes the most globally connected and it develops aspects of capitalism that are still completely with us to this day and this courtyard that we're in now with this kind of incredibly by the standards of amsterdam grandiose architecture so tom just we're just let's just get out of the way to these tourists. And so this is, for those people who can't see it, which is basically everybody. That's the magic of podcasts. That is the nature of podcasting. So it's a red brick building. It is, what is

it, three stories tall. It is by the standards of Dutch architecture at the time, very grand. And this is the headquarters, I believe, of the Verenigde Oost-Indische Kompanie. The United East India Company. So it's the Dutch equivalent of the British East India Company. And this building was founded in 1606, and it is added to over the course of the succeeding decades. So it's not finally finished until the 1660s. And if modern capitalism has a birthplace this is it right and so this building is simultaneously a great administrative center it's a warehouse um it's an auction room and you know the company is is dutch wide right so there are other east india companies in other cities but amsterdam is where

meetings of all the various uh council directors the directors of the company come from across the dutch provinces because it is the biggest and the wealthiest so then there's the question well why amsterdam i mean this is the subject of a podcast in and of itself isn't it the dutch east india company but the fascinating thing is that basically amsterdam is copying as a copying antwerp is that right well it kind of is copying antwerp but but essentially what happens is that um we mentioned before that antwerp gets sacked by the spanish and so calvinist merchants from antwerp come here and they bring with them both their commercial practices and their taste in architecture so this is kind of quite antwerp come here and they bring with them both their commercial practices and their taste in architecture. So this is kind of quite Antwerp in its look. And the other thing that they bring with them is an addiction to gambling. So there's a fabulous passage in Simon Sharma's Embarrassment

of Riches, the great kind of modern history in English of the Dutch golden age, where he says, the Flemish city in its day had been famous for its addiction to gambling and in this too its dutch stepdaughter followed suit wages were made on every conceivable opportunity from the outcome of a siege to the sex of an impending baby they were made on the street in taverns at home in barges the stakes could be a house full of furniture or a tankard of ale and he makes the kind of the wonderful suggestion that the the this calvinist obsession with gambling is almost a kind of um a subconscious summing of the nose that the kind of calvinist ideas of predestination that um all right that everything has been chosen that you can take a

stand against what is doomed to happen yeah um and in a way the founding of the voc the um the renegade austin company is is the expression of of probablyC, the Renegade Oost-Indische Compagnie, is the expression of probably what is the biggest and ultimately the most lucrative gamble in the whole of Dutch history, which is domineering. And I'm sure this will upset you because you're a huge lover of Portugal, aren't you? Yeah, Lucifer. That it was possible for the Dutch to stage a very, very literally aggressive takeover of Portugal's global trading network because the Dutch are following the course that the Portuguese had

blazed. To the Dutch in the late 16th early 17th century Portugal seems absolutely a kind of you know a global Titan it's the Portuguese who've really set up the first global trading empire, as we know. You know, much better than me. But there are Dutch observers who are working out that actually the power and the prestige of Portugal's trading system isn't all that it might be.

There's one guy in particular, a guy called Jan Huigen van Lichotten. Tom, do you speak fluent Dutch? Yeah. Any Dutch listeners to the podcast, please address all your complaints to Tom and not to me. Well, I think you're complicit in this. We've both dabbled our fingers in the blood.

And van Linschotten has a kind of very cool CV. So he's been assistant to the Archbishop of Goa in India, which is quite impressive for a Dutch for yeah for a dutchman for a dutchman um and then he comes back and he gets shipwrecked on the azores which is also portuguese islands and he gets stuck there for two years right and he took full advantage of this to um basically kind of take notes on on how the portuguese do things right and in 1595 he publishes a book which is basically one of the great travel books ever written. But from the point of view of Dutch capitalists, one of the most useful travel books ever written, you know, they need ships. The Dutch have that in Amsterdam. They need the ability to build ships, you know, churn them out. Again, Amsterdam has that, you know, they need to know their way around the seas. The Dutch have that and they need

lots of money. And again, Amsterdam is starting to pick that up. And so basically in 1602, when the VOC is founded and the Dutchutch republic gives them um a monopoly um over the trade with asia they are in pole position and they move in and i'm i'm so sorry dominic but they they basically we talked about this as the first world war didn't we i mean the dutch portuguese war yeah and they basically take over the portuguese trading networks yeah so this is the we're talking about the east indies obviously hence the name in particular spices but brazil as well i mean it's so that that is absolutely why we've described this as the first world war yeah and the dutch emerged basically triumphant from that right and they end up you know this this town perched on a stretch of bog

on the margins of the north sea they end up with this globe-spanning trading empire. And what they do even more than the Portuguese had done is to buy up goods and not just bring it back to Amsterdam, but also sell it to other places across the various kind of areas of Dutch control in the world. So they'll sell spices from Indonesia in Arabia, carpets from Persia in New Amsterdam, the future New York. They'll sell Chinese porcelain to India. And also what they're doing is that they are encouraging people in the various portions of the world to bend and adapt their production to suit the needs of Dutch and ultimately

European consumers. So it's the start of the process by which the global economy comes to be distorted and changed to reflect the demands of European consumers. So even a country like Japan, which famously has chucked Europeans out and refuses to have anything to do with it, the only Europeans that they have dealings with are the Dutch. So to bring this back to Amsterdam, where we are now at the center of this massive growing global network is the city is this city where we're in and this becomes one great warehouse yes so i think that it blazes the path for for capitalism in two ways the first is that it

absolutely makes the people who live in amsterdam in a way that simply hadn't been the case. This is across all classes. So obviously the goods have to be brought back and physically stored. And so this is part of what this house is. So you have more commodities available and for sale concentrated in one place than had ever been the case before in human history. Right. In this spot. So we're talking pepper, spices, porcelain.

Pepper, porcelain, I mean, tea and coffee. So it's the Dutch who are influencing the Europe-wide taste for tea and coffee. Yeah. So it's to the Dutch that the British owe their taste for tea. I mean, again, it's something we may not want to acknowledge.

But the Dutch tea is rubbish. Yeah, it's true. But even, so in Rembrandt's house, which isn't far from where we're standing, there are drawings of alligators and of armadillos. So they're all kind of wild animals being brought back as well, so that he can sketch them.

So it's on an absolutely stupefying scale. And Descartes, who we mentioned before, who comes here and spends much of his life here, he says that, you know, there is nowhere else in the world where, where you can find more commodities and where the curiosity to consume is more stimulated. Right. So he's, he's, he's kind of fascinated by this and he absolutely has the sense that he is looking at something that is completely new. So it's kind of an amazing, amazing moment in global history.

Considering where it's going to end up, this is basically where it starts. But the other thing that Amsterdam is doing is it's turbocharging financial industry. Right. So the VOC sells shares. Yeah. And it's not selling shares in expeditions, individual expeditions. Which people have been buying beforehand. Right.

And which is happening in England at this time. Yes. They're selling shares in theitions, individual expeditions. Which people have been buying beforehand. Right. And which is happening in England at this time. They're selling shares in the company itself. And the shares, the price of the shares are not fixed, which means that once you've bought the shares, you could then sell them on, which means that you can then start to speculate in them. So basically this, again, this is where kind of share dealing is born. So people are, I mean, the Amsterdam stock market, people are buying and selling shares in companies, which again is a complete novelty. Yeah. And so the Amsterdam stock market, the BORS, is built, I think, six years after the founding of the VOC. And it basically exists as something that is designed

to be distinct from the rest of the city. So governed by its own rules and again you know when we look at the workings of financial markets and the impact that they have on our kind of everyday life again this is where this sense of finance as something invisible powerful separate from us yet able to influence us almost like a kind of greek god right this is where it has its birth. So there are very precise rules governing it. It's the only place in the whole city that is licensed to deal shares. You can only buy and sell shares between noon and two o'clock. And right from the beginning, you are getting the kind of behavior that we would recognize now.

So there are crazes, there are investors running in desperate to sell shares, to buy shares. And basically the behavior of people who are dealing in shares is so undignified that the very rich, the kind of the fathers of the city will employ brokers to do it for them. So talking about undignified behavior, Tom, a huge part of tourists have come in. So you have to compete with them now. Okay, well that's fine. But you can manage that. We can do that. Yeah, of course you can.

So you've got this separate place, you've got brokers running around kind of screaming and shouting and yelling, and also you have scandals right from the beginning. So famously there's a guy called Isaac Lemaire who was born in Flanders, early investor in the VOC, gets expelled due to financial improprieties. And so he goes off to France and tries to persuade the French king to set up an East India company. And he then sets up a consortium to sell shares in the VOC that they don't actually own. So again, this is short selling on the assumption that the French are going to set up a company and that this will therefore tank the VOC. But it doesn't because the French King doesn't go ahead with it.

Um, and so they're stuck with all these shares that they haven't even bought. And so they, what they do is they set up rumors saying that, um, the French King is going to set it up anyway. There's a mass panic, all the shares get scaled. So there's a collapse in the share price and, um, the Dutch authorities have to step in and they declare share manipulation illegal. Okay. I'm not entirely convinced that we explained that quite as lucidly as we could have done, but I think we should charge straight on anyway, because I think you're going to talk about tulips. I mean, basically it's short selling and it's share manipulation and it's the need for financial regulation. All has come in within 10

years of the birth of this concept of share dealing. Yeah. But yes, of course, the most famous of all the financial developments… Don't get run over by this man with his bike. But yes, of course, the most famous of all the financial initiatives that the Dutch develop is speculative bubbles. Right. Namely tulips.

So tulips. So there's a great craze. I mean, tulip mania, we'll do a whole podcast about tulip mania. So, but there's a huge craze for tulips, isn't there? Those people spend all their money on tulips and it all goes horribly wrong. Yeah. So these are luxury items. The Dutch love their gardens and tulips are imported from the Ottoman Empire by traders.

And there's kind of complete mania. And the mania is one that's across Europe, but it becomes heightened to an astonishing unprecedented degree in the Dutch Republic because the wealth and the opportunities for dealing in them are so much more advanced than anywhere else. And people aren't just dealing in the tulips, they're dealing in tulip derivatives, which anticipates so many stock market bubbles and all that sort of stuff. Exactly. And again, it becomes apparent

to the authorities in Amsterdam that disaster threatens. So they step in and bring the price of tulip back and there's an almighty crash. Right. So to recap what we're saying, we will definitely come back and we'll do an episode

about the Dutch East India Company at some point in the future. We will do an episode about tulip mania because that is a brilliant subject. But Tom, you can stand down because we are now going to close this episode and we will be resuming our journey around Amsterdam next time.

Now, remember Tom, WISE have created a travel guide to Amsterdam that includes many of the locations that you've talked about in today's episode. So for a nice souvenir, you might want to look at it yourself. Now, to learn more about how you can travel like a historian and spend like a local.

Travel like a historian, spend like a local. Just like TV's Tom Holland, visit wise.com slash restishistory or click the link in today's episode description. And Dominic, it's wonderful, isn't it? That we are being sponsored by a global company, Vesting in Finance. And that's exactly what we've just been talking about.

That's exactly the theme of this episode. So without this house, we would have no whys. And what a terrible thing that would have been. That would be terrible. And on that bombshell, we'll see you next time. Goodbye. Bye-bye.