Het recht van voorlading in Amsterdam in de zestiende eeuw

Abstract

In the late Middle Ages, the privilege of ‘pre-loading’ (recht van voorlading en aflegging) had developed in several towns of the Low Countries. In the sixteenth century Amsterdam followed, despite opposition from other cities in Holland. This privilege gave members of Amsterdam’s skipper’s guilds the first right to take cargoes, bypassing not only the interests of skippers from outside Amsterdam, but also the preferences of merchants, the owners of the cargo. The development of Amsterdam’s right of pre-loading and its reactions provide new insights in two debates in the field of the NIE. It nuances Sheilagh Ogilvie’s thesis that the power of guilds declined in times of economic growth. It also challenges Oscar Gelderblom’s thesis that cities adapted their institutions to the wishes of merchants: cities maintained their right of pre-loading against the wishes of merchants. Finally this article shows how institutional change played a role in intercity rivalry.