Consumer revolution in north‐western Germany: Material culture, global goods, and proto‐industry in rural households in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries

Bovenkerk, Henning; Fertig, Christine Article — Published Version Consumer revolution in north‐western Germany: Material culture, global goods, and proto‐industry in rural households in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries The Economic History Review Provided in Cooperation with: John Wiley & Sons Suggested Citation: Bovenkerk, Henning; Fertig, Christine (2022) : Consumer revolution in north‐ western Germany: Material culture, global goods, and proto‐industry in rural households in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, The Economic History Review, ISSN 1468-0289, Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, Vol. 76, Iss. 2, pp. 551-574, https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.13192 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/287907 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ DOI: 10.1111/ehr.13192 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Consumer revolution in north-western Germany: Material culture, global goods, and proto-industry in rural households in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries Henning Bovenkerk Christine Fertig University of Münster Correspondence Christine Fertig Email: [email protected] Funding information German Research Foundation, Grant/Award Number: DFG FE1916/2-1 Abstract Existing scholarship on the early modern consumer revolution postulates a dichotomy between the classic pioneering countries of England and the Netherlands and the remaining parts of Europe, which were more stagnant. We contribute to this literature by analysing probate inventories in a rural area in north-western Germany. We show that a closer look at these spaces, which had an intermediate level of development and integration into global markets, reveals a more gradual development and a discernible market evolution. Sumptuary laws may have somewhat slowed down the change in material culture in German regions, but the presence of towns and the proximity to the Netherlands had noticeably positive effects on consumer behaviour. The proto-industrialorientationof localeconomies provedtobe particularly important, as it led to the granting of access to global markets, in addition to greater availability of cash. We observe a delayed diffusion of the new consumer culture in intermediate European regionsand argue for a more gradual view of the European consumer revolution. KEYWORDS consumer revolution, consumption, global trade, material culture, north-western Germany, proto-industry This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. © 2022 The Authors. The Economic History Review published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Economic History Society. Econ. Hist. Rev. 2023;76:551–574. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ehr 551 552 BOVENKERK and FERTIG This pioneering study investigates the spill-over effects of the early modern consumer revolution from one of the core countries to neighbouring rural regions in mainland Europe. We compare the change in material culture in five rural communities in north-western Germany, given that it is a neighbouring region of the Netherlands. Using probate inventories, the study challenges the dichotomous interpretation according to which the revolutionary development of material culture was limited to the economic vanguards, while the rest of Europe either did not participate in this development or only did so very sluggishly. So far, there is a lack of studies examining the development of new forms of material culture in regions that can neither be considered centres of world trade nor remote peripheries. These intermediate spaces are important areas for the spread of new consumer culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and extended across much of the European continent. In the eighteenth century, north-western Germany was a region with an intermediate level of development and integration into global markets. Its proximity to the Netherlands facilitated the diffusion of new patterns of consumption. In this region, consumer goods, especially global goods, were integrated into everyday culture at a slower pace than in the North Atlantic trading centres. The long-lasting state regulation of consumption and luxury in Germany had a dampening effect on the development of modern consumer culture, and only slowed down this process but did not prevent it. The entry of global goods such as cotton goods and various products associated with the consumption of colonial hot drinks into rural households marked a turning point in the consumption patterns of hitherto locally oriented societies. Specific geographical and economic factors were of great importance. Proximity to cities had a clear positive impact on access to consumer goods. Of greater importance, however, was the proto-industrial orientation of the local economy, which provided access to cash and connectivity to global markets. With this study, we show that pre-modern households of north-west Germany entered product markets early and supplemented or even replaced self-produced necessities with purchased consumer goods. This study not only shows that the dichotomy between dynamic and static regions in Europe postulated in previous research falls short, but also points to the importance of specific regional factors and the role of market development. The remainder of this paper is organised as follows. Section I provides an overview of the research on the consumer revolution and early modern consumer society. Section II sheds light on the supply side of material culture in north-western Germany and on patterns of import trade and its organisation, which made significant progress in the eighteenth century, at least on an aggregative level. In section III, we present probate inventories as the central sources of this study and situate them in their rural contexts. In sections IV and V, the focus of our analysis is on global goods for which a broad demand emerged in Europe during the eighteenth century. We show how cotton goods and manufactured goods, for the consumption of colonial groceries, arrived in the material culture of this rural region during the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, as part of new material culture, not only global goods but also goods like pictures, mirrors, and clocks became a matter of course in rural households, even among the rural lower classes. The results are summarised and discussed in section VI. I THE EARLY MODERN CONSUMER REVOLUTION The thesis of an early modern consumer revolution describes a change in material culture in which pre-modern households increasingly met their needs by purchasing market goods at the CONSUMER REVOLUTION IN NORTH-WESTERN GERMANY 553 expense of household-based subsistence production.1According to this, households acquired, on the one hand, colonial goods such as coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar, and tobacco, and, on the other hand, larger quantities of differentiated manufactured goods such as pictures, mirrors, porcelain, and cotton goods, some of which were imported via global markets. This development affected not only urban elites, who were committed to a lifestyle oriented towards aristocratic splendour, but also the small-town bourgeoisie and rural households. Populuxe goods – smaller and relatively cheap items – such as colourful ribbons and printed handkerchiefs, which many people could afford, thereby setting significant markers for the further development of material culture, spread through all social classes.2In terms of time, the beginnings of this change are located in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; geographically, it has been confined primarily to the North Atlantic littoral regions, especially England and the Netherlands.3Ogilvie, however, argued that there is as yet little evidence of an early modern consumer revolution in other European regions, and argued for a more dichotomous view of the development of material culture in largely stagnant regions beyond the core countries.4 Several historical developments are considered to have contributed to an increase in the consumption of traded goods. First, the disintegration of sumptuary restrictions over the eighteenth century contributed to the emergence of a legitimate social sphere in which consumption appeared acceptable. In Germany, restrictions on consumption remained in force longer than in other countries, such as England and France, but over time, they increasingly gave way to a positive evaluation of the economic and political effects of consumption.5Second, the reduction of trade costs in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, through the improvement of trade techniques, allowed the distribution of differentiated trade goods at lower prices.6In some cases, the falling prices of such goods had enabled them to substitute more costly products.7An important contribution was made by the entry of global goods into the market, especially the steadily growing availability of colonial and manufactured goods, which contributed to the hybridisation of material culture and the appropriation of previously foreign cultural techniques in the Atlantic in the eighteenth century.8Therefore, it could have been the overcoming of regional limitations of economic areas, which led to a profound change in material culture, that can be called the consumer revolution.9 Third, it has been claimed that the enhanced availability of differentiated goods increased the willingness to work more and longer to participate in a flourishing consumer culture. The 1de Vries,Industrious revolution;McKendrick, ‘Consumer revolution’. 2The term ‘populuxe’ is used here in Fairchilds’ definition of ‘cheap copies of aristocratic luxury items’. See Fairchilds, ‘Populuxe goods’, p. 228. 3Blondé and Van Damme, ‘Consumer revolution’; Blondé and Ryckbosch, ‘Material cultures’; McKendrick,‘Consumer revolution’; Shammas,Pre-industrial consumer;de Vries, ‘Purchasing power’; idem, Industrious revolution. 4Ogilvie, ‘Consumption’; eadem, ‘Choices and constraints’. 5McKendrick, ‘Consumer revolution’, pp. 18–20; Hunt Sumptuary law; Ogilive, ‘Consumption’, pp. 304–12; Wirtz,‘Luxus’, p. 168; Rublack, ‘Right to dress’. 6Davis,Commercial revolution;North, ‘Transaction costs’, pp. 29–35; Verhoeven, ‘Fashionably late?’, p. 274; see also O’Rourke and Williamson, ‘After Columbus’; Pfister, ‘Great divergence’. 7Beck, ‘Luxus oder Decencies?’; Brewer and Porter,Consumption;Kriedte, ‘Großhändler’, pp. 21–2; Shammas,‘Textile prices’, p. 501. 8Berg, ‘Pursuit of luxury’, pp. 99–132, Findlen,ed.,Early modern things;Gerritsen and Riello,Global lives of things;Kümin, Drinking matters; Menninger, Genuss. 9Carson, ‘Consumer revolution’; Schuurman, ‘Things’. 554 BOVENKERK and FERTIG expansion of the labour input of household members allowed the acquisition of consumer goods in addition to meeting needs through subsistence production.10 However, it is not clear whether there was an initial expansion of labour input to secure sufficient income in the face of deteriorating economic conditions.11 Proto-industrial households may have played a special role in this, as they largely depended on selling manufactured articles for their income. They relied on markets to procure daily necessities and had already moved away from a traditional subsistence-based way of life. They also often received colonial goods, such as coffee and sugar, as payment for their yarns and fabrics.12 Consequently, faster penetration of rural households in proto-industrial areas by product markets could have occurred.13 Several studies have demonstrated a wide and rapid pervasion of urban and rural societies with new material culture in the core countries of the consumer revolution. Research on various English and Dutch regions has shown that this new material culture spread rapidly from centres, such as London and Amsterdam, to smaller towns and rural regions. These findings suggest that it was not merely an urban or elite phenomenon, but that markets for mass goods had already emerged in the first few decades of the eighteenth century.14 However, the thesis that a consumer revolution took place throughout Europe in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been repeatedly questioned.15 In addition to the extensive research on England and the Netherlands, some studies deal with regions of Europe that were far away from the centres of trade, such asSpain andthe Scandinavian countries.16 Inher studyon thesmall townof Wildberg in Württemberg (located in south-western Germany), Ogilvie concluded that a revolutionary development, as postulated by de Vries in particular, was not a European phenomenon, but was confined to the vicinity of the European North Atlantic economies. She argued that the consumer aspirations of many people have been effectively curtailed by labour market institutions and parish councils.17 Earlier research on Württemberg found an increase in the quantity and variety of consumer goods, in particular, fashionable populuxe goods; these results are more consistent with the thesis of the consumption revolution.18 However, how far these specific local conditions can be transposed to other European regions is still an open question. For Ireland, it could be shown that the country, as a hinterland of the pioneer country England, participated in a developing European consumer culture, albeit with a clear time lag.19 This suggests that the idea of a pronounced dichotomy between the North Atlantic pioneers and the rest of Europe may fall short. 10 de Vries, ‘Purchasing power’, pp. 107–21; idem, ‘Industrial revolution’, pp. 255–6; idem, Industrious revolution;Voth, ‘Time and work’; idem, ‘Longest years’. 11 Allen and Weisdorf, ‘“Industrious revolution”’, pp. 720–23, 728; Clark and van der Werf, ‘Work in progress?’; Pfister, ‘Real wage divergence’, pp. 721–6; Verhoeven, ‘Fashionably late?’, p. 274. 12 Flügel,Kaufleute,p.56;Pfister, ‘Great divergence’, p. 61; Weber,Deutsche Kaufleute, pp. 42–5, 277–80. 13 Blondé et al., ‘Consumérisme’. 14 Berg, ‘Pursuit of luxury’, pp. 88–99; McCants, ‘Exotic goods’; Overton et al., Production and consumption, pp. 165–9; Shammas,Thepre-industrialconsumer;de Vries,Industrious revolution, pp. 149–54; Weatherill, ‘Meaning’; idem, Consumer behaviour. 15 Clark and Van Der Werf, ‘Work in progress?’; Ogilvie, ‘Consumption’; eadem, ‘Choices and constraints’. 16 Bengtsson and Svensson, ‘Living standards’; Fernandez, ‘Medieval villagers’; Heß, ‘Danzinger Wohnkultur’; A. Hutchinson, ‘Consumption’; R. Hutchison, ‘Industrious revolution’; Marfany, ‘Industrious revolution’; Moreno Claverías,‘New commodities’. 17 Ogilvie, ‘Consumption’, pp. 297–312; eadem, ‘Choices and constraints’, pp. 289–302. 18 Medick,Weben und Überleben, p. 406. 19 Flavin, ‘Consumption’. CONSUMER REVOLUTION IN NORTH-WESTERN GERMANY 555 Most studies on material culture outside the core countries of England and the Netherlands examine smaller or larger towns but do not focus on rural areas. Previous research on the transformation of material culture in Germany also refers to urban areas.20 Given that the core message of the consumer revolution claims a change in the consumption behaviour of the masses, who lived predominantly in the countryside, this perspective must be supplemented by an analysis of rural areas. If the aim is to explore the expansion of the consumption of global goods into large parts of the population and the transition from luxury to mass consumption, we must look at rural areas and the people living there. Thus, this article addresses two important gaps in historical research on the transformation of material culture. It explores the diffusion of the early modern consumer revolution into regions with an intermediate level of development and integration into global markets that are not significant centres of trade, but also cannot be described as remote areas. At the same time, this study looks at rural areas, such as studies on England and the Netherlands, and asks for signs of incipient mass consumption. II GLOBAL GOODS IN NORTH-WEST GERMANY In the long eighteenth century, Germany was characterised by its intermediate position in the economic structure of Europe. The level of real wages here lay between the higher real wages in southern England and lower real wages in Italy and other southern European regions.21 At this time, market integration in Germany had not yet progressed very far. The coastal regions were well integrated, as was generally the case in Europe, but there was hardly any market integration beyond that. There is little evidence of a general integration of the German-speaking region, to which the politically fragmented overall situation and the widespread trade barriers certainly contributed. Germany thus clearly differs here from the north-western European trading centres, which had a well-developed hinterland.22 Another indication of the slower development of the German economy can be seen in the imports of raw cotton. These can be taken as indicators of the emergence of an import-substituting cotton processing industry, which existed here as in many European regions. However, these imports grew at a rate of 1.0 per cent annually, while growth in the UK and France was at least twice as fast.23 There are several indications at the aggregative level that access to new consumer goods in the north-western German hinterland improved significantly during the eighteenth century. An important prerequisite for the expansion of the consumption of colonial and world market goods in rural households was that these goods were available. Three aspects suggest that there was a sufficient supply of colonial and global goods in north-western Germany: the increasing imports of globally traded goods in seaports of the north-western European mainland, a larger degree of openness of the economy, and a growing connection of inland regions to international trade. North-western Germany was part of the hinterland of some of the most important seaports in pre-modern Europe, such as Amsterdam and Hamburg, as well as to numerous smaller ports, such as Bremen, which supplied this region with globally traded goods. Amsterdam played a dominant 20 Driesner,Bürgerliche Wohnkultur;Heß, ‘Danziger Wohnkultur’; Hochmuth, Globale Güter;North,Material delight;von Heusinger and Wittekind,Materielle Kultur;Schmidt-Funke, ‘Stadt als Konsumgemeinschaft’. 21 Pfister, ‘Real wage divergence’, pp. 721–3. 22 Chilosi et al., ‘Many integrations’, pp. 58–62. 23 Pfister, ‘Great divergence’, p. 50. 556 BOVENKERK and FERTIG role, becoming the most important port on the north-western mainland in the seventeenth century, thereby replacing Antwerp.24 For north-western Germany, Amsterdam was relevant because it directly supplied parts of western Germany with globally traded goods via the Rhine and it also distributed these goods to other German ports, such as Hamburg and Bremen. Available data from the eighteenth century show that the exports of most global and colonial commodities to the German hinterland via the Rhine increased between 1753 and 1792, with the quantities of raw cotton growing at an annual rate of 1.7 per cent, sugar at 2.1 per cent, and tea at 0.4 per cent, while the value of exports of tobacco grew at an annual rate of 3.5 per cent.25 Regarding raw cotton, this is surprising because the Dutch cotton imports in general fluctuated and did not increase significantly over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; nonetheless, they were still substantial for European markets.26 With the increase in exports distributed over the Rhine, colonial and global goods reached the western areas of Westphalia.27 Hamburg formed the north-eastern end of the western European seaports and had grown to some importance since the middle of the seventeenth century. Since it had no direct access to colonial production areas in the eighteenth century, Hamburg imported these goods from the trading ports in the northern Netherlands, England, France, and the Iberian Peninsula. Hamburg was thus not directly involved in intercontinental trade until the American Revolution, but connected the German hinterland with trade in the East Atlantic and the North Sea.28 Between 1736 and 1798, Hamburg’s imports of colonial foodstuffs increased at an annual rate of 1.6 per cent. Coffee and sugar were the most important colonial goods; the annual growth rate of coffee imports was 3.7 per cent. Coffee rose to become a mass consumer good in Germany as early as the eighteenth century, with per capita consumption growing strongly from the middle of the century onwards.29 In the nineteenth century, smaller ports then also played an important role in supplying globally traded goods. In the eighteenth century, global and colonial goods were initially only imported in small quantities via the port of Bremen.30 From the 1840s onwards, Bremen became one of the most important ports for raw cotton and tobacco in Europe, competing with other international centres of trade, such as Liverpool for cotton.31 Therefore, at least in the nineteenth century, Bremen could be seen as a provider of globally traded goods in north-western Germany as well. During the eighteenth century, overseas import trade grew significantly faster than the German population. Overseas trade grew at a real rate of 1.0 per cent over the following four decades from 1753 onwards, while the population grew by less than half a per cent. GDP per capita income grew by 0.2 per cent in the first half of the eighteenth century.32 One can thus assume the degree of openness of the German economy increased significantly in the second half of the eighteenth century and consumption of globally traded goods overall increased. Finally, a strong interconnection between the ports and Westphalia provided a basis for the diffusion of colonial and global commodities. There is not much research on the connections 24 Lindemann,Merchant republics, pp. 19–30. 25 Pfister, ‘Great divergence’, p. 14. 26 Riello,Cotton, pp. 93–4. 27 Reininghaus,Wirtschaft in Westfalen,vol.2,p.717. 28 Pfister, ‘Great divergence’, p. 4; Fertig and Pfister, ‘Coffee, mind and body’, pp. 223–8. 29 Pfister, ‘Great divergence’, p. 44. 30 Hill,Die Stadt; Fuhse, ‘Wirtschaftsgeschichte’, pp. 103–11. 31 Fuhse, ‘Wirtschaftsgeschichte’, pp. 213–8. 32 Pfister, ‘Quantitative development’, p. 181. CONSUMER REVOLUTION IN NORTH-WESTERN GERMANY 557 between Hamburg and the West German hinterland,33 but Bremen had trading connections with Westphalia from the middle ages onwards. Merchants from Minden and Osnabrück exported textile products to and via Bremen.34 While this trade was mainly located in the north-eastern part of Westphalia, the north-western part had stronger connections to the Dutch ports and their markets. In the west, the city of Bocholt, a centre of cotton processing, participated heavily in trade with the Dutch ports to buy the required raw cotton and to sell the produced products as well.35 A second centre of cotton processing emerged at the end of the eighteenth century in the two adjacent regions of Gronau (Germany) and Enschede (the Netherlands).36 There is evidence that merchants who traded Westphalian linen offered colonial goods as part of their payments.37 While the importance of village shops in rural England has recently been highlighted, there is barely any research on this topic in Germany, where data on rural retailing are hardly available.38 Regarding the late nineteenth century, there is evidence that village shops sold global and exotic goods.39 The few extant sources for earlier periods suggest that itinerant traders played an important role in the distribution of goods in the rural regions of north-western Germany.40 Although the supply of colonial goods in north-western Germany expanded significantly during the eighteenth century, the consumption of these goods was restricted by sumptuary laws. In the eighteenth century, luxury prohibitions served the protectionism of the domestic economy, but above all supported an endangered social hierarchy, and were therefore directed less at the abundantly consuming elites than at the poorer parts of the population. Even had these laws been less effective than the authorities intended, they very likely pushed the consumption of novel goods into clandestine spaces, making it difficult to track this development.41 Sources are largely silent about the rise of consumption, as it was considered undesirable for public discourse. In the prince-bishopric of Münster, there were regulations for the clothing of the rural population from 1571 onwards; rural people were not allowed to wear clothing made of imported fabrics or adorned with gold and silver ornaments.42 Only clothing for holidays and festivities could be made of cotton or silk. For quite some time, these restrictions were not further addressed; it was not until 1764 that there was another regulation according to which the rural population was not allowed to wear clothes made of expensive fabrics. A year later, this was supplemented by disallowing them from wearing precious metals, except for silver rings, necklaces, or shoe buckles. However, these 33 Kikuchi excludes Westphalia from the analysis and only describes Hamburg’s important role for the eastern parts of the hinterland. Kikuchi, Hamburgs Ostseeund Mitteleuropahandel,p.22,n.19. 34 Hill,Die Stadt. 35 Reekers, ‘Baumwollgewerbe in Westfalen’, pp. 109–14. 36 Adelmann, Baumwollgewerbe Nordwestdeutschlands, pp. 17, 37; Reekers, ‘Beiträge’, part 1, p. 124; idem, ‘Baumwollgewerbe in Westfalen’, pp. 120–1; Reininghaus,Wirtschaft in Westfalen,vol.2,p.717. 37 Schulte Beerbühl, Deutsche Kaufleute;Weber, ‘German merchants’; idem, Deutsche Kaufleute. 38 Stobart and Bailey, ‘Retail revolution’; Bailey, ‘Shopkeeper’. For south-western Germany see Ogilvie, Küpker, and Maegraith,‘Krämer’. 39 Spieker, Dorf. 40 Pfister, ‘Kiepenkerl’, pp. 41–4. 41 Beck, ‘Luxus oder Decencies?’; Ogilvie, ‘Consumption’; Wirtz, ‘Luxus’; Rublack, ‘Right to dress’. 42 The following descriptions refer to the prince-bishopric Münster because Münster was the capital and Steinfurt is an enclave of the prince-bishopric, and the electorate of Cologne because Flaesheim was a part of the Vest Recklinghausen, which was part of the electorate. König, Luxusverbote, pp. 56–63. 558 BOVENKERK and FERTIG regulations could not be enforced and were, therefore, abolished in 1792.43 In the electorate of Cologne, there were similar regulations: in 1595, people living in the countryside were prohibited from wearing imported fabrics or any gold and silver additions.44 In 1730, luxurious black clothing was banned for funerals and the mourning period. In 1764, authorities enacted a new ordinance for peasants’ wives and daughters, prohibiting them from wearing lace made from imported fabrics. The ordinances did not prevail, for in 1766 there was a renewal with an explicit demand for compliance. Although further ordinances followed, their enforcement was rarely successful.45 The consumption of colonial luxury foods was repressed in the prince-bishopric of Münster in 1724 by sumptuary laws. Urban retailers and members of the trader’s guild (Krämerzunft) observed growing sales of saffron, ginger, coffee, tea, and other colonial goods in the countryside, and tried to have them banned to protect their own economic interests. Their concerns were heard by the authorities, who, for their part, were not comfortable with the growing consumption of the rural population.46 From 1766, there was a prohibition on drinking coffee and tea, and even the ownership of objects for drinking and preparation for poorer people and the people living in the countryside.47 This prohibition was abolished in 1785 because the authorities were not able to enforce the prohibition, and it was ineffective.48 In sum, we observe an increasing supply of manufactured and colonial goods that came to the north-western German hinterland via the seaports of Amsterdam, Hamburg, and, to a lesser extent, Bremen. The degree of openness of the economy grew, and the market for consumer goods expanded. This was contrasted with a restrictive economic policy that attempted to curb consumption by the general population. Researchers largely agree that this has succeeded very inadequately. Therefore, sumptuary laws had more of an effect on the visibility of consumption than on consumption itself. Overall, a remarkable upswing in private consumption in the eighteenth century can be inferred from the results concerning the supply and accessibility of traded goods. III ANALYSIS OF PROBATE INVENTORIES IN NORTH-WESTERN GERMANY This study is based on the analysis of probate inventories from five communities in north-western Germany in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries (figure 1). Methodologically, it follows current studies on consumer research with probate inventories, for example on England and Scandinavia.49 Since inventories are snapshots of household stocks, we use descriptive statistics to examine changes in the occurrence of certain goods over time. The inventories for three communities were created within the framework of the specific variant of serfdom (Eigenbehörigkeit) prevailing in the region, according to which the heirs of serfs owed a kind of fee on 43 König, Luxusverbote, pp. 166–75, 220–2. 44 Scotti, Sammlung, part 1, pp. 180–1. 45 Ibid., part 2, pp. 878, 987–8. See Schlumbohm, ‘Gesetze’, and the critical comment in Ogilvie, ‘Choices and constraints’. Obviously,thecontroloftheindividualbythe political spherewasgreaterinOgilvie’s study area of south-westernGermany than in north-western Germany. 46 Scotti, Gesetze und Verordnungen,p.373. 47 Ibid., p. 92. 48 König, Luxusverbote,p.185. 49 For example, Overton et al., Production and consumption; Ulväng, ‘Tea, coffee or printed cotton?’. CONSUMER REVOLUTION IN NORTH-WESTERN GERMANY 565 Inventories from Steinfurt (1725–99) and regions in the vicinity of Münster (1675–1810) show the same pattern regarding cutlery and dishes. Objects such as butter and soup bowls and tablespoons are listed with no special reference to objects used for the consumption of colonial products. This may indicate a change in dining culture that appears to have no direct linkage to coffee or tea. Cutlery and crockery are not particularly common in the inventories of the Münster area; they were only recorded when they were made of a more valuable material than wood or clay, such as tin or silver. While this may indicate a higher standard of dining culture, there appears to be no direct evidence of the consumption of colonial goods. In contrast to the communities remote from towns, there is some evidence of increased consumption of colonial comestibles in the vicinity of Münster: with the lifting of the sumptuary restrictions at the end of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth century, a small number of inventories included objects for the preparation of coffee, such as coffee grinders and kettles. From this period onwards, it appears that the rural population acquired goods for the preparation of coffee. There is also evidence of the consumption of tea, with the explicit mention of teapots. Four inventories from the late eighteenth century specifically mentioned coffee and tea objects. These were by no means always rich farmers; small owners also owned utensils for drinking coffee and tea. So, there is no reason to assume that this was the exclusive consumption of a narrow elite. Therefore, it can be stated that it is quite difficult to find sufficient evidence for the consumption of stimulants in the eighteenth century. Probate inventories in north-western Germany never recorded food items or colonial groceries. However, because consumption of these beverages was forbidden for a long time, it is hardly surprising that tea sets or coffee roasters were not part of the everyday material culture until the late eighteenth century. This is when the influence of towns with earlier developed consumer culture comes into play. In the late eighteenth century, corresponding objects were first found in the vicinity of Münster but not yet in more rural areas. However, the efforts of the authorities to ban these colonial goods from rural households indicate that there was a corresponding consumption early on. Objects acquired specifically for the enjoyment of coffee and tea only appeared in inventories with the abolition of sumptuary laws. The probate inventories for Löhne (eastern Westphalia) and Borgeln (east of the Ruhr area), which date from the early nineteenth century and have been available since then, contain global goods from the beginning. Since we have data here for peasant and non-peasant households, we can pursue the question of how far the new consumer culture diffused into the poorer social classes. On the basis of the development of total wealth, we can see that peasant households became significantly wealthier in the nineteenth century, while the wealth of non-peasant households remained constantly low (figure 2). Nevertheless, these poorer households also participated in a new consumer culture that included the acquisition and ownership of global goods. In both communities, many peasants and households from rural lower classes owned a whole range of consumer goods that they did not produce themselves but instead bought at markets, which made life more pleasant. These included beautiful things that embellished the living space and refined table culture. Mirrors, pictures, and clocks hung on the walls, and tablecloths, glasses, porcelain, and tea sets were found on the tables and the sideboards (table 3). In both communities, households acquired furniture for storage and also for displaying things, so that by the middle of the nineteenth century, over 80 per cent of households had a sideboard or cupboard. This shows that an upscale living culture developed in this region during the nineteenth century. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the inventories in both communities mentioned numerous objects for the preparation and consumption of coffee. The inventories listed objects manufactured for the consumption of coffee, such as roasters, grinders, kettles, and pots. 566 BOVENKERK and FERTIG FIGURE 2 Total values of inventories, by the size of landed property. Note: ‘Ha’ refers to hectares. Source:Authors’data TABLE 3 Frequency of possession and number of selected consumer goods in Borgeln and Löhne, by period (%) Borgeln Löhne 1810–39 (N=28) 1840–81 (N=6) 1810–39 (N=4) 1840–81 (N=24) Coffee equipment 53.6 50.0 50.0 79.2 Porcelain 10.7 33.3 50.0 4.2 Tea service 21.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 Glassware 14.3 33.3 50.0 33.3 Scarfs 17.9 0.0 0.0 4.2 Towels 53.6 66.7 50.0 45.8 Tablecloths 32.1 33.3 50.0 25.0 Mirrors 10.7 16.7 50.0 41.7 Paintings 0 0 0.0 20.8 Books 3.6 16.7 25.0 54.2 Clocks 28.6 66.7 75.0 91.7 Sideboards 0 0 75.0 79.2 Cupboards 46.4 83.3 50.0 25.0 Source: Authors’ data. Porcelain was evidenced in the form of porcelain plates and cups, as well as teacups, at least in the richer village of Borgeln. The latter is remarkable, as tea consumption in Germany generally tends to be common in coastal regions but not necessarily in inland regions.65 The picture emerging from this research is of a culture of coffee and tea consumption, which had already advanced in the early nineteenth century and was also visible to visitors and officials drawing up 65 North,Material delight. CONSUMER REVOLUTION IN NORTH-WESTERN GERMANY 567 TABLE 4 Frequency of possession and number of selected consumer goods in Borgeln and Löhne, by social class (%) Borgeln Löhne <5ha(N=24) 5–50 ha (N=11) <5ha(N=18) 5–50 ha (N=11) Coffee equipment 50.0 54.5 66.7 90.9 Porcelain 8.3 27.3 16.7 0.0 Tea service 16.7 18.2 0.0 0.0 Glassware 20.8 9.1 22.2 54.5 Scarfs 16.7 9.1 5.6 0.0 Towels 50.0 63.6 44.4 54.5 Tablecloths 29.2 36.4 38.9 18.2 Mirrors 8.3 18.2 44.4 45.5 Paintings 0.0 0.0 5.6 36.4 Books 4.2 9.1 50.0 54.5 Clocks 20.8 63.6 88.9 90.9 Sideboards 0.0 0.0 77.8 81.8 Cupboards 41.7 81.8 38.9 18.2 Note: ‘Ha’ refers to hectares. Categories distinguish between smallholders or landless households and peasants. Source: Authors’ data. inventories. Unlike the studies conducted in England and the Netherlands, coffee drinking was not closely associated with the ownership of porcelain.66 On the contrary, many households had coffee pots but no porcelain. These coffee pots were made of pewter, earthen materials, or often, plain tin. Porcelain was nowhere near as present in this region as it was in the Netherlands, with its mass import of Chinese porcelain and a flourishing Delft industry. This may have been due to the greater geographical distance of the hinterland from the seaports. It is also noteworthy that peasants and lower-class households had equal access to coffee, despite obvious differences in wealth and income (table 4). In Löhne, a village characterised by its proto-industry, it is also noticeable that consumer goods were not only more widespread, but that the difference between poorer families and farmers was less pronounced than in Borgeln. In addition to coffee equipment, clocks were almost standard equipment in poorer households as well as among peasants. This indicates an advanced awareness of time, which coincides with the trend towards increasing industriousness, but it also confirms that proto-industrial regions had already moved some distance away from a traditional way of life based on subsistence production. In Löhne, local grain production was not sufficient to feed the population. The numerous landless and land-poor households had to provide for themselves largely on the market, and the many hours of spinning and weaving were better survived with coffee as a supplement to an already meagre diet.67 It seems that coffee drinking was already widespread at the latest in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, and with the removal of restrictions, the corresponding objects now also found their way into households and the public view. The presence of consumer goods is also underlined by the widespread use of sideboards even in poorer households; it was necessary, 66 McCants, ‘Porcelain for the poor’; Smith, ‘Complications’. 67 Braun, Industrialisation;Voth, ‘Time and work’. 568 BOVENKERK and FERTIG practically everywhere, to store objects, and perhaps also to present them attractively. The fact that we found more evidence of consumer goods overall in Löhne than in Borgeln is somewhat surprising given the economic situation of this region. Wages were lower, farms were smaller, and people inherited less from their parents. Above all, however, proto-industrial linen manufacture came under considerable strain in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, when cotton goods from England flooded the textile markets. Nevertheless, it was normal here for the poorer part of the population to own consumer goods as well. Some of the land-poor households in Löhne owned larger values of coffee sets, mirrors, clocks, paintings, and sideboards than rich farmers in Borgeln. Here, we can see a clear connection between the proto-industrial character of the local economy and the presence of coffee consumption and advanced consumer culture. The inventories in these two communities contained textiles in the form of clothing, home textiles, and bedding. However, inventory writers rarely recorded the materials from which these textiles were made. The bedding was of considerable value in the probate inventories of the nineteenth century, and the inventories often contained descriptions of their condition. They often mentioned the size (i.e. whether one or two people could sleep in them) and their age. Beds could be complete, old, or battered, but the descriptions rarely addressed the materials. Some beds were made of linen or wool, some also of fustian or ‘drill’, a firm, durable fabric. From what we know about the development of bed textiles in Münsterland during the eighteenth century, cotton had already become accepted as a material for beds. We interpret the fact that cotton was barely explicitly mentioned as a sign that cotton beds were no longer a speciality. The material was also rarely recorded for clothing and home textiles. There were a few silk scarves, cotton–linen blends, and individual garments made of cotton. Towels and tablecloths were widely used early on, but in those cases too, there was usually no indication of the materials from which they were made. However, because no reference to the type of fabric was noted for most objects, it is not possible to determine the quantitative penetration of imported fabrics in rural areas during this period. Our analysis of inventories from the first half of the nineteenth century shows that global goods were already widespread in rural households. The comparison of the two communities suggests that proto-industry played a central role in the establishment of a consumer society. The stimulating effect of proto-industry can be seen in two factors. First, early participation in supra-regional markets led to the regular use of cash payments, which is also reflected in significantly higher cash holdings in probate inventories. In proto-industrial Löhne, cash and receivables accounted for more than a quarter of total assets; in Borgeln, however, only less than a sixth. Cash was available here to buy traded consumer goods. Second, merchants who traded linen on supra-regional and international markets are important for the intermediation of global goods. These merchants, who were mostly based in surrounding towns, traded linen through the North Sea ports and very likely brought colonial goods to rural society in return. Although the consumption of coffee was already part of everyday life everywhere at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was much more widespread in the poorer but proto-industrial Löhne than in the agrarian Borgeln. In the latter community, cash crops were produced and sold, but market access was limited to the households of rich farmers and oriented towards neighbouring areas, such as the mountainous Sauerland and the fast-growing Ruhr area. Access to supra-regional proto-industrial markets accelerated the change in consumption habits among the general population and enabled the early emergence of a modern consumer society. What we observe here is that proto-industrial areas moved away from traditional lifestyles on the basis of agricultural production regimes and increasingly met their needs through the market. Long hours at the loom or the spinning wheel could be better survived with bittersweet drinks than with calorie-rich, but rather bland, cereal porridge. CONSUMER REVOLUTION IN NORTH-WESTERN GERMANY 569 VI CONCLUSION Previous research on the early modern consumer revolution has queried whether the development observed in England and the Netherlands can also be found in other European regions, and has tended to answer this question in the negative. According to this view, a revolutionary change in material culture took place in the pioneering North Atlantic countries, while the rest of Europe hardly participated in this development. However, previous studies focused on cities and regions relatively distant from overseas ports and early modern trading centres. This study, by contrast, focused on rural areas, and thus, on the consumption behaviour of a broad section of the population in an intermediate region on the Dutch border. It shows, for the first time, that new forms of material culture from the pioneering countries spread at a slower pace to regions with an intermediate level of development and limited integration into global markets. Three findings stand out in this regard. First, the study shows that the diffusion of new consumer culture in regions beyond the European North Atlantic economies took place with some delay. Even in an area that was economically, socially, and culturally closely linked to the pioneer Netherlands, the effects of a pre-modern consumer revolution can only be observed with some delay and to a limited extent. Sumptuary laws did not prevent the consumption of new goods but pushed it into the private, non-public sphere until the late eighteenth century. Cotton clothing did not appear in the inventories, while cotton bedding, which was not subject to any restrictions, soon became popular in the wake of a new need for comfort and became a new standard in the eighteenth century. After restrictions on hot beverages, such as coffee and tea, were lifted in late eighteenth century, manufactured articles, such as coffee accessories or tea sets, immediately appeared in probate inventories. They spread rapidly throughout all sectors of rural society, suggesting that the consumption of colonial goods had already become established in the eighteenth century, and now also entered the semi-public sphere for all to see. Secondly, access to markets can be seen as a driving factor for the seepage of global goods into rural society. European expansion and the accompanying expansion of trade formed the basis for an emerging early modern consumer society. However, participation in these new markets varied across European regions. The connection of certain regions to the supra-regional, increasingly global network of proto-industrial production led to greater circulation of cash and provided channels for the penetration of popular and global goods. The same merchants who sold linen fabrics in the major seaports also brought the colonial goods available there to the rural hinterland. The great importance of direct access to trade networks and commercial centres for the development of early modern consumer society can thus hardly be overestimated. Thirdly, this increasing orientation of everyday life towards pre-modern markets was followed by shifts in everyday culture. Proto-industrial households were part of rural society, and in many regions peasants also participated in both agricultural and proto-industrial production. At the same time, however, new forms of need satisfaction and consumption emerged here that were little oriented towards traditional rhythms and modes of production. The new proto-industrial forms of work brought households into stronger contact with markets and thereby led to new opportunities of shaping everyday life, work, and consumption. In this way, the proto-industrial penetration of a region was accompanied by a new, more modern lifestyle that developed new consumer needs. 570 BOVENKERK and FERTIG ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was made possible by a German Research Foundation project grant: DFG FE1916/2-1: ‘Konsumrevolution und Wandel des Konsums von Haushalten im Spiegel von Nachlassverzeichnissen vom 16. bis zum frühen 19. Jahrhundert in Nordwestdeutschland’. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the European Social Science History Conference 2020–21 and at the workshop ‘Encountering the Global in Early Modern Germany’, University of Tübingen, and we are grateful for the comments and suggestions of those who were present. We would like to thank Ulrich Pfister, Esther Sahle, and the anonymous reviewers for discussing the findings and presentation of this project at various stages, and we are grateful for the careful comments, which led to a much-improved final version of the article. 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