When did they stop working? Craft guilds and retirement in early-modern Amsterdam

Contrary to popular opinion, many people in the past reached old age. Adults in the early modern period could reasonably expect to experience the physical and mental decline that comes with ageing, and to spend their final years unable to make a living. To make sure old age was not spent in dire circumstances required planning: making arrangements with family and friends, saving for old age, or seeking some form of old age insurance. The latter was for instance offered by many craft guilds, organizations that helped professionals throughout their carreers, by providing schooling, a set of rules for the profession, and that also provided rudimentary disability benefits that amounted to a retirement plan for craft guild members and/or their widows. Van Leeuwen (2012) discusses various types of insurance provided by craft guilds in the Dutch Republic, and indicates that craft guild retirement schemes were fairly common; the presence of such types of insurance has been linked to big-city life, and urban inhabitants who were often immigrants and usually removed from most of their family (Greif 2006). It has also been linked to a distinct Northwest European marriage pattern that fostered individualism, and weakened family ties (Van Zanden, 2009, 101-144). However, little is known about the practicalities of craft guild insurance, and in particular their offering of pensions to retired craftsmen.

A first question that might arise, is how many pensioners a craft guild could support. Although evidence is scrappy, the table below indicates that the larger crafts supported a substantial number of elderly members: the shipbuilders had about 1500 members, and supported 100 pensioners, which means that about 7% of the shipbuilders living in Amsterdam had retired. Similar percentages are found for the peat carriers, and surgeons. Considering that the table only gives data for a small number of craft guilds that existed in Amsterdam, it seems likely that in early-modern Amsterdam at least several thousands of craftsmen had stopped working and enjoyed a pension.

Of course crafts were not too keen on having to maintain such pensioners – whom they called bosleggers: members lying idle at the expenses of the guild’s funds (bos in old Dutch). Incidentally we learn of how crafts tried to reduce the number of pensioners: the carriers guild of Rotterdam prescribed that ‘sick, elderly and worn-out craft guild members’ would receive one guilder sixteen stivers per week ‘except for when they were still able to earn a living, or part of a living, with measuring coals or chalk or another activity, eighteen stivers’ (Starkenburg, n.d., ch. 8). So on the one hand the guild apparently acknowledged that hard-working carriers ran the risk of being worn-out, and should be able to rely on support; on the other, the guild also realized that members unable to continue as carriers could make a carreer switch towards less physically demanding work. Those that could, would continue to receive support, but at a considerably lower level.

[Nicolaas Maes, Regenten van het barbiers- en chirurgijnsgilde van Amsterdam (1680)]

An additional question concerns the length of retirement: did elderly craftsmen spend many years living at the expense of guilds? Or did many only receive support during their final days? The archives of the surgeon’s guild provides some answers, in a ledger that provides annual data on pensioners. Between 1788 and 1827 seventeen surgeons retired: on average they received their allowance for 6,7 years (median five years). Seven of them were survived by their spouses, who also had a right to an allowance. A few surgeons died within months of retirement, such as mr. J Veegers, who retired in 1788, died that same year, and without leaving behind a widow. Others were much more expensive for the guild: mr. A. Odinc retired in 1789, but only passed away nineteen years later, and made matters even worse by being survived by his spouse.

Unfortunately we do not know a great deal about the average age at retirement. Surgeons could apparently continue with their profession up until 6,7 years before passing away on average, but arguably their profession was physically not very demanding – at least when compared to such occupations as towers, carriers, etc. Whether such professionals could extend their carreer equally long, and whether they reached equally long lives as surgeons, is difficult to tell. A conservative estimate for all professions may be set at several years of retirement though. This underlines the considerable ‘risk’ early-modern people ran to reach old age, and the importance of anticipating the unability to make a living. It also brings to the fore the importance of corporations of non-relatives in meeting the challenge of how to prepare for one’s final years.