Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis - Volume 133, Issue 3, 2020

Introduction: Heritage in the Revolutionary Era

This article serves as an introduction to the central theme of this special issue of Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis: the way local, regional, and national authorities dealt with heritage in and after the Revolutionary Era. It argues that a focus on objects, collections, and archives in the Batavian-French period and the early years of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands can offer a new perspective on the Dutch Revolution and the transition from the Old Regime to the modern nation state. As the different case studies in this special issue show, the meaning and ownership of objects and archives were often highly contested. By studying the history of these historic objectives and the discussions around them the different contributions to this issue not only highlight the symbolic importance of heritage in the Revolutionary Era, but also the role of continuity and memory in the context of a rapidly changing social and political environment.

Changing Society, Changing Archives 1747-1847

Developments in Dutch society and government in the first half of the nineteenth century led to changes in archival practices. The newly-established unitary state needed more and different information about society and people, and that information had to be managed and archived. However, after the Restoration in 1813 many traditional archiving practices were reintroduced. Aside from the function of government, collecting and publishing archival documents was not only (as in the eighteenth century) deemed necessary to bolster legal legitimacy, but was seen as a prerequisite for writing local, provincial, and national histories. A small number of cities and provincial governments appointed an archivist to serve the community by collecting and publishing archival documents.

Places of history. The ‘Belgian’ archives during the 1810s

Recent studies have shown that the states that formed in post-revolutionary Europe were eager to found national archives. Historical research in those archives fostered national unity and stability. Limited research on Belgian archival history has suggested a different picture: under the ‘occupation’ by both the French Empire and the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, ‘Belgian’ archives were plundered. This article offers another interpretation. While the head of the Archives de l’Empire wanted to move valuable documents to Paris, the Dutch government’s lack of archival policy meant decentralization continued. A reorganization of the State Archives in Brussels was not carried through. Local historians were encouraged in their archival interest by being appointed as city archivists. As a result a locally-rooted historiographical archival organization emerged in the ‘Belgian’ provinces of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The emperor and the eagle. Material culture from Napoleon’s reign in Dordrecht, 1810-1813

During Napoleon Bonaparte’s reign as king and emperor of the Netherlands (1810-1813) the Napoleonic eagle had a prominent place in Dutch society. Coats of arms were changed and civic symbols were altered to fit the new regime. But what happened to these symbols when Napoleon’s occupation was over? Were they destroyed, as in France, or was there a different way of looking at Napoleonic symbolism? On a national level the Netherlands attempted to forget the period 1810-1813. As this article argues, events were remembered very differently at a local level. As the case study of Dordrecht proves, objects related to the visit of Napoleon to the city in 1811, and to his reign in general, remained in circulation there. Private stories connected to 1811 secured a place for a seemingly negative episode in the history of Dordrecht. Moreover, the visit created feelings of civic and military pride in the same way that independence did in 1813.

In between ‘vandalism’ and ‘la manie de tout conserver’. Limburg’s archives in revolutionary times

The history of the Dutch province of Limburg during the French period from approximately 1795 to 1815 is more like that of Belgium and the Rhineland than the north of the Netherlands. The province itself, in a border region of the Netherlands, is a creation of the nineteenth century with a very complex geopolitical history going back to the Middle Ages. So Limburg, located at the edge of several countries, is a region which has never received much attention at a national level. The same is true for the Limburg archives of the Ancien Régime. This is of particular note because the Limburg archives contain the oldest original sources in the Netherlands. Despite this, consulting the archives of the Ancien Régime was not attractive to historians until well into the twentieth century. In the past many records of institutions dating to the Middle Ages were deliberately destroyed or lost as a result of war, or taken abroad, or they were accidentally ‘forgotten’ and ended up in the attic. Not unjustly the revolutionary government during the French period has been regarded as bearing directly or indirectly a great responsibility for this loss. But this is not the whole picture, and the account must be more nuanced. Owing to secularization, records from religious orders were lost in the decades leading up to the French period; and after 1815 there was little interest in archives, except perhaps for financial reasons. Documents previously sent for safe-keeping abroad disappeared from circulation. However, sometimes by coincidence, sometimes by the concerted actions of lovers of old documents, a number of extremely important historical documents have been preserved. The largest part of these has over time been acquired by the State Public Record Office of Limburg. As a result of this collecting of archives from abroad, Limburg has a richer collection from this period than is found in the rest of the Netherlands.

Between continuity and change. The introduction of the civil registry office (burgerlijke stand) in 1811

The introduction of the civil registry office – burgerlijke stand – in 1811 is often considered a significant caesura in the registration of personal data. While in previous centuries the church mainly performed this duty, the government took the task upon itself after 1811. However, this article asserts that this was in fact an instance of remarkable continuity. Already in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the government issued laws to ensure accurate registration by the church and to protect the legal identification of citizens. As this contribution shows, it was precisely with regard to this matter that an increase in centralisation took place. Until 1750, it was primarily the local authorities that laid down rules on the registration of persons. In the second half of the eighteenth century, provincial legislation increasingly came into force, and the civil registry was introduced nationally in 1811.