Retirees or sweat shop labourers?

In this blog I intend to report on the living conditions of historical retirees. In large parts of Europe it was possible to pay a handsome sum of money to enter into a contract that gave a right to life-long food and lodging.

The conditions of such contracts could be quite harsh though - certainly to our twenty-first century liking. For instance, those who paid for retirement in Amsterdam's Saint Peters hospital, in the fifteenth century, had to be at their best behaviour. Retirees causing any trouble risked being evicted for a period up to a month - a harsh penalty for sure.

That living conditions in medieval retirement castles were not always very rosy was also discovered by the woman Katrijn Hilbrant. She retired into Saint Peter's hospital in 1482, paying the entry fee this required. In 1485 she paid another seven guilders - equivalent to a month's wages - to be relieved from labour duties. In her own words, she 'only wanted to sew, weave and spin if she felt like this'.

Apparently Katrijn did not mind to do textile work once in a while, but not so often as the labour regime in Saint Peter's hospital prescribed. Based on her account it seems that some of the elderly women were put to work in the hospital's sweat shop, producing textile that earned the institution some money. Apparently the only way to prevent spending one's final years in hard labour, and to retire altogether, was simply to pay up.

More about retiring in Saint Peter's hospital in late-medieval Amsterdam can be found in the latest issue of Historisch Nieuwsblad.