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Rudolf Dekker

Egodocuments in the Netherlands from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century(1)

Envisioning Self and status. Self-representation in the Low Countries 1400-1700 ed. Erin Griffey (Hull: Association for Low Countries Studies in Great Britain and Ireland (ALCS) c/o University of Hull, Department of Dutch Studies, 2000), p. 255-285. (Crossways Vol. 5) isbn 0 9517293 5 7).



The Netherlands is not known for its strong tradition in autobiographical writing.(2)

On the contrary, an American study points out the 'scarcity in Dutch literature of books of memoirs, confessions, and diaries. Autobiographies, if written at all, are kept in the desk for posthumous publication, and relatives who survive the author are seldom inclined to gratify his ambition to survive himself'.(3) More recently, the critic and diary writer Hans Warren claimed that there was no tradition here in the area of diary writing.(4)

The entry 'dagboek' in the Grote Winkler Prins encyclopaedia of 1980 states: 'In the Dutch language area the number of published diaries is relatively limited'.

Literary historians like Karel Porteman complained about the lack of interest in the genre among Low Countries experts.(5) This is an idea which had been expressed much earlier by Dirk Coster who in 1914 complained that the 'I' in Netherlands literature 'has been criminally neglected and uncultivated'.(6) Historians too paid little attention to such texts and those that did, did not find much to their liking. The historian Robert Fruin published the eighteenth century autobiography of Coenraet Droste but apologised for its inanity: 'A better one, where can it be found?'(7)



What is surprising is that against this background the historian Jacob Presser enriched the Dutch language with the introduction of a new word in the area concerned: egodocument. He meant this as a collective term to indicate autobiographies, memoirs, diaries, personal letters and other texts in which the author writes explicitly about his own affairs and feelings.(8) Presser did not include texts in which we implicitly get to know an author such as accounts books. Presser's neologism was quickly accepted and is now included in the latest edition of the Van Dale Woordenboek, the standard dictionary of the Dutch language.

Presser's encouragement to study egodocuments found less resonance. Previous generations have often dealt carelessly with such writings. This is still the case, as becomes apparent from the adventures of the autobiography of Pieter Vreede, one of the leaders of the Batavian revolution of 1795. A passer-by found the manuscript several years ago on the pavement in front of the Leiden publisher Brill, where the attic had been cleared out. In 1990 he showed the find on the television programme Tussen Kunst en Kitsch, the Dutch version of the BBC's The Antiques Roadshow. Experts told the finder that the manuscript was not worth a penny. Strangely enough, not a single library took the initiative to acquire the manuscript. An historian who had been watching by chance was able to trace the manuscript and thanks to his initiative Vreede's moving and eventful life story was eventually published.(9)

It does not usually work out so well. One could make a long list of hundreds of egodocuments which have been referred to even quite recently, that turn up in the footnotes of articles or that a journalist once wrote something about in a local newspaper but suddenly seem to have disappeared from the face of the earth forever. For example, a short description of the more than one thousand page long diary of the eighteenth century novelist Margareta Jacoba de Neufville appeared in 1966. It contained a lot of information about Amsterdam cultural life around the year 1800. It is, however, currently untraceable and probably lost.(10) Sometimes from writings about a person's life we learn of the existence of diaries which were destroyed by well-meaning descendants. A typical remark can be found in an obituary of the eighteenth century poet J.P. Kleyn: 'After his death part of a diary was found under his papers which he had kept to himself and it honoured his religious side as strongly as the rest of his writings did his knowledge, taste and genius'.(11) But whether it still exists and if so where it is, we don't know.

Nevertheless, in the last decade the appreciation of egodocuments by both historians and literary historians has grown strongly. But access to such texts was difficult, because they were spread over family archives and collections of manuscripts. An inventory, for which all Dutch archives, libraries and museums were visited, has now changed this situation. The results have been published in book form and also made available on the internet through the Faculty of History and Arts of the Erasmus University Rotterdam (http://echo.fhk.eur.nl/ego).

The project covered the period from about 1500 to 1814. We searched all public archives, libraries and museums, but no private collections. We looked for both printed texts and texts in manuscript form. We recorded the following text types: autobiographies, memoirs, diaries and travel journals. We also distinguished a category called 'personal notes' which we define as notes kept over a short period of time, often around a specific occasion, a family argument, for example. We only recorded family books or genealogical notes if there were also sizeable personal observations. Letters were ignored for practical reasons and because they are already being centrally catalogued.(12)



The concepts were defined in their broadest sense, all the more since autobiography and diary only took on their modern forms in the course of time. The word autobiography is a neologism from the nineteenth century. It does not appear in the nineteenth century Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal. Long-winded descriptions were used, as in the autobiography of the clergyman Passchier de Fyne, published in 1721, 'Het leven vandoor hem zelve beschreeven' ('The life ofdescribed by himself'). The Leiden professor J.W. te Water spoke of 'my life's story' around 1820. Moses Salomom Asser composed 'My biography' in 1823. The publisher of the autobiography of C.R.T. Krayenhoff spoke in 1844 of 'self-commemorative texts' and of 'life self-outline'.

In other European languages the word autobiography made its entrance around 1800, this occurred somewhat later in Dutch.(13)

We find its first use in a historical context in Kronyk van het Historisch Genootschap in 1856. From that time on the word is used more frequently. In 1863 the Lutheran preacher J. Decker Zimmerman spoke of his 'autobiography'. L. van Toulon wrote his autobiography in 1838 and himself spoke of 'herinneringen' (memories), but the text was posthumously published around 1875 as 'auto-biography'. The autobiography of the professor G.W. Vreede was published by his son in 1883 with the lengthy title Levensschets van G.W. Vreede naar zijn eigen handschrift uitgegeven (Life history of G.W. Vreede based on his own manuscript), but in the introduction the editor called the book an 'autobiography'. It is only in the twentieth century that the term autobiography has become established and only then did it acquire its modern meaning.

What follows is an overview of the results of the inventory, and a sketch of the development of the egodocument. It dovetails with a previously published overview of the development of the travel journal in the same period.(14)



Development

In total 1121 egodocuments were found in the course of over three centuries. This number is shown as a sharply rising line (fig. 1). The quantity of surviving texts from the decade 1800-1810 is as great as that from the whole of the sixteenth century. After 1780 a strong rise began in the number of texts, about one third of all texts originated from after that year. What are the causes of this increase? Of course there is a material factor: more recent texts have a better chance of survival. Other factors are nevertheless more important. Firstly, there was an increase in the ability to write. Literacy was already at a relatively high level in the Netherlands of the sixteenth century and between 1630 and 1780 illiteracy was reduced by almost two thirds, at least amongst men. So more and more people were able through their education to set their lives down in writing. But even more important than this technical ability was the fact that writing was gaining a more important place in life in a general sense.

A second factor is the fact that cultural changes stimulated the writing of egodocuments. Religious impulses to introspection, especially evident in adherents to the Dutch Reformed Church, were important. The keeping of a diary was recommended by the clergy. Encouragement to that effect can be found in printed moralistic writings. Religious diaries were modelled after the example of the Swiss clergyman K. Lavater. His Unveränderte Fragmente aus dem Tagebuche eines Beobachter seiner Selbst of 1773 was influential in Holland and appeared in a Dutch translation. More and more printed examples appeared, of autobiographies as well. The autobiography of Jacob Cats, for example, must have been widely read since it was included in eighteenth century editions of his work. The writing of egodocuments came more and more into fashion. Since the middle of the eighteenth century there are more and more indications that people encouraged each other to write diaries and autobiographies. This is a trend that is visible throughout Europe.

The growth in the number of egodocuments was not linear. We can break the development down into the different genres. In particular, the development in the number of diaries shows peaks (fig. 2). These coincide with periods of political crisis and war. Around 1570 we find several diaries kept by citizens in besieged cities. The year 1672 when war broke out with England and France also shows a peak and around 1813 there are many diaries from soldiers who took part in Napoleon's campaign in Russia.

The development in autobiographies is more gradual. In our survey, texts in this category are dated by the year of birth of the author and not the time of writing which is often not precisely known. A peak can be observed in the period 1570-1590, that is to say, the generation that experienced the Eighty Years War wrote a relatively large number of them. In the eighteenth century we see a gradual increase. The decrease after 1800 is a distortion, since no manuscripts are included from authors born after 1800.

It is difficult to say whether the total number of more than 1100 egodocuments is greater or less in comparison with other countries because there are as yet no comparable catalogues. Madeleine Foisil is of the opinion that in this period there was less written in France than in England.(15)

Furthermore, in her opinion French texts have less of a private character. The Netherlands was a much smaller country than these two great powers. During this period it had about two million inhabitants compared with the nineteen million of France and the nine million of England. Comparatively speaking, the collection of texts in the Netherlands can probably not be called meagre. Finally, numbers alone have limited meaning. What is more important is that in the Netherlands there are a number of individual texts of exceptional importance which have been handed down. To name just one example, there is no other diary in early modern Europe which reports as extensively on the raising of children as that of Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687).(16)



Geography

The production of egodocuments differed from region to region. The geographical distribution of the origin of the authors of egodocuments is not even as can be seen from the accompanying map (fig. 3). By far the largest number of texts were written by authors who were born in the provinces of North and South Holland and Zeeland, 226 in total. Authors from the rest of the country accounted for 140 documents. These figures are lower than the total number of documents firstly because they exclude travel journals, secondly because some authors wrote several texts and thirdly because we do not know the birthplace of all the authors. But the figures do give a clear indication of the trends. Just as many people lived in the coastal provinces as in the rest of the country, a million inhabitants. We have to look elsewhere for the explanation of the difference, namely in the higher levels of development and urbanisation in Holland and Zeeland. It is also noticeable that northern Friesland produced a relatively high volume, certainly in comparison with neighbouring Groningen.

In sixteenth century Friesland there was already a high degree of literacy, even amongst farmers.(17) The Frisian nobleman and rebel against the Habsburg authority Jancko Douwama wrote one of the oldest autobiographies after he had been imprisoned by Emperor Charles V around 1500. The Frisian farmer Dirck Jansz wrote a diary shortly after 1600 in which he tells us a lot about his marriages, children, illnesses and reading.(18)

It is the oldest autobiographical testimony of a simple farmer in the Netherlands.

In the eastern and southern provinces we find many fewer authors. The catholic south in particular is poor in egodocuments. There are various reasons for this. It was a sparsely populated and backward area with an agrarian character and it was ruled by the central government in the Hague. There was therefore no important economic and political elite, while elsewhere it was these groups who had a head start in writing egodocuments.

Most egodocuments originated in an urban environment. There are a few farmers who write but they remain the exception. Most authors living in the countryside are members of the nobility and regents, clergymen and others not directly involved in agrarian life.

Form

The physical form of the egodocuments which are handed down in manuscript form is very diverse. Sometimes they are little more than a collection of scraps of paper. The Utrecht apothecary Hendrik Keettell, for example, kept his diary during the period 1793-1816 on two thousand sheets of tissue paper used for wrapping medicines. Other diaries were handed down in the form of fair copy but were originally written on loose sheets. David Beck noted in his diary of the year 1624 that he was copying the text for each of his three children. He wrote the copies in a miniature handwriting which is unreadable without a magnifying glass.(19) Constantijn Huygens Jr. also regularly recopied into his diary from his notes, an activity which he recorded in his diary.

Some authors kept their diaries in almanacs. The printed almanac was a new form of printed material, a predecessor of the appointments book. Instead of being used as appointments books, almanacs were more often used to summarise the day's activities. The oldest examples come from the Gelderland nobleman Otto van Wijhe who made use of a Deventer Almanac for the year 1574 and the Haarlem nobleman Jan Maartensz. van Sypesteyn from whom we have almanacs for the years 1595 and 1599. From later years there are sometimes whole series like that of the Amsterdam Mayor Pieter de Graeff who filled forty almanacs between 1664 and 1706, a total of about 1600 pages.

Autobiographies have also been handed down in various states. Some authors got no further than making notes. Hugo van Zuylen van Nyevelt (1781-1853) sorted through his personal papers and described his life on the covers in ten 'époques'. Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp (1762-1834) got no further than putting the great mass of paper he collected during his political career in order and making brief notes while he did it. He never got back to writing his memoirs, only the outline for the book has been found. On the other hand, there are also extensive autobiographies that were carefully written out in fair copy. Some authors had their life's story bound in an expensive leather cover like the soldier Willem de Vaynes van Brakell (1763-1843).

These days egodocuments are characterised as strictly personal and unique but it is certain that some manuscripts were circulated.(20)

This holds true for several religious autobiographies and diaries which were popular in Pietist circles in particular. These egodocuments performed an exemplary function for other believers. Such texts also appeared in print, sometimes shortly after the death of the author.(21)

For example, the Latin diary of the preacher Sicco Tjaden was translated and published by a colleague after his death in 1726. The book appeared in 1727 and was republished in 1735 and 1751.(22)



A few scholars wrote their autobiographies on the invitation of their publishers. Gerard Vossius' (1577-1649) has survived in various stages in manuscript. We have a first draft in the first person and a definitive version in the third person. The latter was published in 1625 in a work about the university town of Leiden, Athenae Batavae, in which other autobiographies of Leiden professors were also included.(23)

Publishers have long stimulated the writing of autobiographies, especially those of famous people.

The autobiography of Maria Van Antwerpen, which appeared in print in 1751, had a very special history.(24)

This woman had dressed as a man and had served as a soldier for years, until she was arrested and had to confess. A fellow prisoner listened to her stories and wrote them down. At first sight the result seems like a fictitious picaresque novel, but archival research has indicated that the woman and her ghost-writer were indeed held in the same prison and comparison with her legal statements and interrogations confirms the authenticity.

Some texts stand out because of their length. This holds true especially for diaries, which can grow fairly unchecked. The diary of Lieuwe van Aitzema (1600-1669), historian, diplomat and above all spy, numbers about 5000 pages including copies of letters. Another example is the diary of Rijklof Michael van Goens (1748-1810), professor in Utrecht, and later exiled to Switzerland and Germany for political reasons. His diary numbers about 4300 pages. It consists of notes of his daily activities, his reading, health, meals, medical prescriptions and their effects and all kinds of household business.

The most extreme example is the diary of Willem de Clercq (1795-1844) which numbers about 13,000 pages. The manuscript represents a lifetime's work since he began it at the young age of eight and continued writing until shortly before his death. It is a typical example of a diary from the Romantic era. De Clercq can be compared with the pre-eminent example of the compulsive diary writer, Henri Frédéric Amiel. It is a true journal intime in which De Clercq openly writes about himself and analyses his faults. For example he writes a lot about the conflicts he had with two of his sons. He also writes a lot about his religious doubts. He was a leader of the Revival movement, de Réveil-beweging, which stood for a renewal of the Christian faith in which Romantic ideas were combined with a harking back to the seventeenth century orthodoxy.

The texts are usually much shorter. This certainly holds true for most autobiographies. Many of them border on the genre of the businesslike curriculum vitae and number no more than a few pages. The survey, however, required a minimum length of ten pages before a text could be included. Yet there are a few comprehensive autobiographies like clergyman Caspar Sibelius (1590-1658) which comes to almost 1300 pages. It must be noted that the manuscript was originally longer since a portion of it has been lost.

Genre and style

Egodocuments do not belong to a well-defined genre. On the contrary, a practically complete freedom of form has reigned for centuries, a fact which has perplexed many literary historians. For practical reasons we have chosen the following divisions: memoirs, autobiographies, diaries, family books and travel journals. A lot of discussion could ensue about the differences between these various genres, but one thing is certain: the boundaries are vague. There is also a great variation in style, although there are specific repetitive characteristics.

Autobiographies and memoirs, with about 200 texts, form about a fifth of the total body. Despite all the variety in form, the author's recounting of his or her life's story is, in most cases, subject to certain rules. Various patterns can be recognised. Older autobiographies are often written by scholars who borrow set elements from the classic scholarly biography.(25)

The Pietist autobiographies, which are primarily histories of conversions, classically follow a set pattern in which the 'second conversion' to deepen the Christian faith occupies a central place in the story of the subject's life.

Some autobiographies were written in a careful style, especially those which were meant for publication. The autobiography in verse occupies an exclusive place. A well-known example comes from the poet and statesman Jacob Cats in the middle of the seventeenth century. An earlier example is the autobiography of the Amsterdam artisan Harmannus Verbeecq.(26) Verse also comes from Coenraad Droste and Gerardus de Jong in the eighteenth century and Egbert Koning in the nineteenth century. The use of rhyme fell into disuse amongst the elite during the course of three centuries but remained popular with ordinary people: Droste came from the elite, De Jong was a schoolmaster and Koning a simple worker. Travel reports were also written in verse now and again, like the report Aernout van Overbeke wrote about his travels to the East Indies in 1668.(27)

Diaries, which number around 200, make up just as great a share of the total number of egodocuments as autobiographies. Diaries tend to have a much less fluent style. They were often kept for the use of the author and the reader was not taken into account. Sometimes the notation is even so brief that it hinders interpretation. For example, Constantijn Huygens Jr. systematically omitted essential syntactic information from his diary. Because of this we often do not know who said or did what to whom. And the diary of Rijklof Michael van Goens seems at times like stenography with all his abbreviations. An exception are some religious diaries which are written in a careful, Pietist language like the one published by the well-known eighteenth century writer Hieronymus van Alphen. This diary is all the more important because it can be compared to the real one Van Alphen kept.(28)

There are many differences in content and style between the printed version and the manuscript.

The rest of the egodocuments are for the most part what we have called personal notes which display an even greater variety in form and style. Besides these, there are the family books of which we have only included a few. These family books do follow a standard pattern; they are primarily an account of births, marriages and deaths in which as a rule there is little room for personal observations.

The word egodocument all but implies writing in the first person. Yet a few autobiographers have made use of the third person. This is especially true of a few autobiographies which were meant for publication like the texts of Gerard Vossius and C.R.T. Krayenhoff, already mentioned above. The use of the third person was aimed at creating distance. This could not always be sustained. Hendrik van Stralen wrote his autobiography in the third person but he described the death of his wife in the first person.

Language

Language tells us a lot about egodocuments, and egodocuments tell us, in turn, a lot about language. Firstly, they document the variations in Dutch. There was as yet no standard language and dialects and sociolects used to be more important than they are now. So far only the diaries of Dirck Jansz and David Beck have been linguistically analysed.(29)

Religious dialects can also be referred to. Pietists in particular used their own vocabulary to describe their relationship with God. Their writings are studied by specialists who have compiled a dictionary of Pietist vocabulary.

Furthermore, not all egodocuments were written in Dutch, between ten and twenty percent were in another language (fig. 4). Some texts are written in a mixture of Dutch and other languages. Within the Republic there was one other language spoken in the north: Frisian. There are, however, only a few Frisian egodocuments from before 1814 which have survived. In the sixteenth century, Dutch had already become the written language of the Frisian middle class and elite. The importance of Frisian only increased in the nineteenth century.(30)

What is more important is that some immigrants continued to use their own language: Sefardic Jews used Portuguese, Ashkenazi used Yiddish, Germans used German and French Huguenots used French. This phenomenon only involves small numbers. Furthermore, born Dutchmen frequently made use of other languages. The first of these was Latin, the use of which remained important throughout Europe into the eighteenth century.(31) Erasmus and other Humanists wrote their autobiographies and kept their diaries or travel journals in this language. Around 1630 the previously mentioned clergyman Sybelius wrote a 1300 page Latin autobiography. Latin fell into disuse in the eighteenth century, except among the Roman Catholic clergy.

The fall of Latin is mirrored in the rise of French. Mastery of this language was considered important among the elite. Coenraet Droste recounts in his autobiography that he undertook a 'pleasure trip' to France 'Om de welleventheyt en Franse tael te leeren/Die kan een Edelman in Hollant niet ontbeeren' ('To learn etiquette and the French language/Things a nobleman in Holland can not do without'). In some households only French was spoken as long as the children were young; this was for the benefit of their upbringing. In his autobiography Constantijn Huygens tells us this was the case in his family at the beginning of the seventeenth century, as it was for the Groningen Regent Willem Hora Siccama in the late eighteenth century. For many, French was the best language in which to express personal feelings. It was, after all, the language in which novels were read (often even English novels in French translation) by the elite. One of the most important Dutch authoresses of the eighteenth century published her entire oeuvre in French: Belle van Zuijlen, better known as Madame de Charrière outside Holland. Inversely, the above mentioned Jacoba de Neufville wrote her novels in Dutch, but her diary in French. Just how deep-rooted the use of French was can be seen from the example of the politician Gijsbert-Karel van Hogendorp. He wrote diaries and memoirs in French even though his politics were strongly anti-French, being one of the architects of the national Dutch state in 1813. Another example from this period is the French diary of Magdalena van Schinne, a unique personal document. She continued to write in French even though she was Orangist, even though her brother lost his office of bailiff because of the French victory in 1795, and even despite the fact that her other brother died while fighting against the French in the service of the English army. Magdalena van Schinne apparently saw herself as belonging not so much to a national Dutch culture, but to an international European culture in which French was the dominant language.(32)



We rarely come across English except in the writings of an eccentric scholar, R.M. van Goens, who had an English mother. For him, English may have been a language of protest, even though the fact that he was recounting his life for English readers was, in this case, a decisive factor. During the 1780's, he had left the country never again to return. One salient detail: he wanted to leave his English language books to the University of Utrecht where he had been a professor--the gift was, however, not accepted: after all, almost no one could read English the rector told him. Furthermore, the patriot and revolutionary, F.A. van der Kemp (1752-1829), who had gone into exile in America, wrote an autobiography in English for his son. It is striking that in these two autobiographies there is some room for humour and unique self-mocking, for example in a passage where Van Goens reports an illness for which he swallowed so many pills he 'smelled like an apothecary shop'. Did English lend itself to this sort of irony better than Dutch?

The egodocuments in which several languages are used make up a separate category. There are a few scholarly writers, especially around 1600, who are eager to show off their linguistic knowledge. The Groningen Secretary of State, Johannes Julsing, wrote his diary in Dutch, Latin, German, French, Spanish and Greek and occasionally used the Hebrew alphabet, often within a single sentence. This was almost certainly more than a scholarly diversion since he was writing his diary during the uncertain times of the Eighty Years War and wanted to keep his political observations secret. Lieuwe van Aitzema used Dutch, Spanish, Latin, French and English in his diary, again for reasons of secrecy. Other authors switched to different languages for more personal reasons. The Utrecht professor Aernout van Buchell only wrote about affairs of the heart in French and Italian, perhaps because such passages sound better in those languages. We often come across incidental use of other languages. The Groningen artisan Gerard Udinck, who lived between 1663 and 1665 as an exile in Germany because of rebellious activities and who kept a diary at the time, wrote in French whenever he bought a bottle of wine, whenever he had a hangover and when the maid asked him for a new shirt. These were apparently things about which he was embarrassed or which he wanted to keep hidden from his wife. To be more safe some authors made use of a secret code. Constantijn Huygens Jr. provides us with an example. He was secretary to the King of England William III and therefore used secret codes almost daily. The one used in his diary was only decoded recently when the key turned up by chance several years ago. Huygens is know as the Dutch Pepys but with one important difference, Pepys wrote about his own sexual activities while Huygens wrote mostly about those of others.(33)

A contemporary, Lodewijk van der Saan, a clerk in the Dutch Embassy in London during the late seventeenth century, kept it simpler and now and again wrote normal Dutch in Greek letters. In one of the passages where he used this technique he compared the quality of the prostitutes from various countries; those from Italy were by far the best.(34)

An interesting case of a bilingual diary comes from an Irish woman, Elisabeth Richards, who was married to a Dutch soldier.(35)

Her diary is in English--apparently the language in which she continued to think--but dialogues are often reproduced in French, apparently the language used to communicate in her circles. Dutch rarely appears.

Finally, the use of foreign languages could also have an educative aspect. For example there is a French children's diary, written by A.J. van der Hoop (born 1775), in which we find corrections by a parent or teacher. And there is the diary of the youthful Delft citizen Adrianus van Overschie from his grand tour of 1674. He wrote in three languages: Italian in Italy, Spanish in Spain, French everywhere else. It was while travelling that one could really practise one's languages and it was useful to master several.

There are probably a relatively large number of egodocuments written in foreign languages. Dutchmen have always attached great importance to the learning of foreign languages. This is logical within a small language area where trade and shipping were important sources of income for the economy. Dutchmen were also proud of their linguistic abilities. We find a nice indication of this in the travel journal of the clergyman and well-known opponent of the belief in witches, Balthasar Bekker, who describes in his report about a journey through France and England in 1683 how his party of travellers dubbed him 'master of the languages', that is to say, the one who decides which language was to be used in conversation.(36)



The frequent use of foreign languages in egodocuments disappeared in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This is certainly the consequence of the development of a Dutch identity. Before about 1800 the use of Dutch in writing was not so much a set part of a person's identity as it is in the modern, unified state where language education and even the spelling are regulated by law.

Writers

The development of the autobiography is often correlated with the rise of the middle class. It is precisely the middle classes who had climbed the social ladder who would have needed to examine themselves, because of their uncertain status, amongst other reasons: they were forced to ask themselves where they belonged. In the Netherlands the middle classes filled an important position, certainly since the revolt against Spain. Did that influence the production of egodocuments?

It is customary to divide Dutch society from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries into six social levels. The first is that of the nobility and regents, even though within this elite nobility was still seen as an important division in terms of status. Beneath this comes a second group of important merchants and entrepreneurs, high civil servants and high officers in the military. Beneath that comes the numerically greater third group of people with a university education and with professions such as professor, doctor, lawyer, and the middle layer of the civil service. Next comes the fourth group, made up of independent artisans, shopkeepers, schoolmasters and in the countryside, the farmers. The fifth group is formed by labourers with regular employment, soldiers and sailors. The sixth and final group is made up of day labourers and the poor. As can be seen from the accompanying graph (fig. 5), most of the authors belong to the middle and higher levels of society, although we do see an increase in the number of authors of lower status. It is only the lowest level of society which has not produced a single author.

The House of Orange is well-represented within the elite class. There are the memoirs Johan Lodewijk van Nassau (1590-1653) wrote for his children; the commemorative texts of Stadhouder Frederik Hendrik (1584-1647), which appeared in print in 1733; and the extensive diary of the Frisian Stadhouder Willem Frederik van Nassau which is currently being analysed by Luuc Kooijmans.(37) There are also the memoirs of the youth of Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia (1751-1820). Many servicemen, both soldiers and sailors have described their experiences, mostly from the higher ranks. One example is the journal of Arie Knock from the late eighteenth century.(38) Above all, a lot has been written by those who use the pen in their profession: clergymen, professors, lawyers, people with a university education, but also simple teachers. The simpler authors are often the most interesting. There are tradesmen, among them a carpenter, a corset maker, a cartwright, a shipwright. There are shopkeepers such as an apothecary, a green grocer, a bookseller. There are fishermen and farmers. And from the bottom level there is a peddler and a domestic servant. The autobiography of the Amsterdammer Harmannus Verbeecq is one of the most remarkable. We get a good picture of the life of ordinary people in Amsterdam in the first half of the seventeenth century, especially because Verbeecq had no career. On the contrary, he failed as a furrier, as shopkeeper and as middleman and was even dependent on charity for a period.

In specifying the social status of the authors we especially looked at wealth, public offices and profession. Quite a few authors bettered their position in the course of their lives; there is a relatively large number of social climbers among them who have often risen in status through study at university. An early example is Wigle van Aytta van Zwichem, better known as Viglius. The intellectual capacity of this Frisian peasant's son was already noticeable when he read books while tending the cows. He went to study and eventually became the Chairman of the Council of State under King Filips II. Another example is the previously mentioned Passchier de Fijne, the son of a simple shearer, who became a clergyman. An example from a later period is Willem van den Hull (1778-1858), the son of a Haarlem postman, who rose to become the proprietor of a prominent public school and whose long autobiography hints at what can almost be termed an obsession with social positions.(39)

The proportion of women is limited, less than ten percent. But among them we do find a few of the most remarkable texts. One example is the autobiography of Elisabeth Strouven who founded a community of religious women in Maastricht and nursed plague sufferers among others. A well-known example is the autobiography of Anna Maria van Schurman, the Netherlands most learned woman of the seventeenth century.(40) The previously mentioned diary kept by Magdalena van Schinne, written at the end of the eighteenth century, is also of special significance. It is the first true journal intime in the Netherlands. A relatively large number of women wrote out of religious inspiration. Elisabeth Strouven wrote at the request of her confessor. And there are quite a few female writers of Pietist diaries and conversion histories. Why did they continue to be such exceptional cases? Presumably the ability of women to write was more limited than that of men even among the middle classes. If they were able to write, they made less use of this skill in the practice of professions. Women did not belong to the group who took part in intellectual life through a classical education and university, the group which produced the majority of egodocuments. The consequence is that the women who did write were less aware of literary traditions. This is why the autobiography of Elisabeth Strouven seems to display characteristics from oral storytelling traditions.

Finally, the diaries kept by children earn a special mention. We counted a dozen of them by children under eleven. Children's diaries such as these are rare and give us special information about upbringing and education. The most extensive is that of Otto van Eck (1780-1798), who wrote about 1600 (small) pages from the age of eleven to the age of sixteen. In pedagogical writings from the late eighteenth century, parents were advised to have their children keep diaries.(41)



Motives

Why were egodocuments written? And do the authors' motives change through the course of time? In answering these questions, we can distinguish the motives the author was aware of from the deeper, often subconscious motives. We will limit ourselves to the motives explicitly given by the authors themselves. These were mentioned no less than 151 times.

Most authors wanted to keep memories alive. When Coenraet Droste decided to put his memoirs on paper, he named the reason as 'opdat zulks niet verdwijnt uit mijn geheugen' ('so that these things do not disappear from my memory'). The Rotterdam painter Gerard van Nijmegen imagined himself as an old man sitting by the hearth with his wife bringing back the memories of his travels by re-reading his journals. The professor G.W. Vreede (1809-1880) began his autobiography a few weeks after his retirement 'to refresh his mind'. The recording of memories is the most fundamental motive given for writing egodocuments and is implicitly present in many other texts.

This registration of memories sometimes happened purely for the author himself. In a fifth of the texts this is explicitly stated. The previously mentioned Groningen artisan Udinck wrote in the front of his diary: 'Ik begeer dat deze na mijn dood, te weten deze klad, mag in het vuur verbrand worden, want hier niets bijzonders in staat, behalve dat het gediend heeft als tijdverdrijf in mijn ballingschap' ('I want this text to be burned after my death since there is nothing special in it except that it has served as a pastime during my exile'). This private character came mostly from the fact that the diary noted things which one would prefer not to be known in a wide circle.

One motive which is always linked with the writing of egodocuments is introspection, but we encounter it remarkably seldom and then only in texts from after the middle of the eighteenth century. The first modern journal intime is the previously mentioned diary of Magdalena van Schinne. In a passage from 1792, there is a direct dialogue with her diary: 'N'importe, mon cher papier je ferai une nouvelle tentative pour vous rendre journellement le dépositaire de mes pensées. Je n'ai d'autre ami d'autre vrai confident que vous. Mon coeur qui cherche à s'épancher, est obligé sans cesse de se replier sur lui-même'. In 1801 she writes: 'O mon cher papier! toi qui fut tant de fois le confident discret de mes peines & de mes plaisirs, deviens le encore a l'avenir, sois mon consolateur et mon ami. Où en trouver ailleurs qui puisse t'être comparé. (...) Ah cher ami, je le répète, deviens de nouveau le dépositaire, de mes pensées & de mes actions & parfois de celle des autres'.

The only diary that can compare with hers is that of Alexander van Goltstein from the same period. He was a young man from a family of nobles from Gelderland who began his diary when he was seventeen. It runs from 1801 to 1808. Alexander reflected continually on his motives for keeping a diary or as he put 'thinking with the pen'. He cites rational motives such as aiding the memory and perfecting style, but the initial incentive was emotional as appears in the first sentence 'intention to make a diary of his heart'. Alexander re-read his diary often which seldom made him cheerful. 'Oh! When will I make any progress? Writing this, I turn back the page and find the same exclamation' (21 July 1804). Two years later his opinion became more positive: 'Last evening I amused myself reading my diary. Reading my diary gave me great pleasure and strengthened my perseverance to continue with it' (1 January 1806). Alexander actively used his diary to keep track of his own intellectual development.

In the course of time, the diary took on a more reflective character. The diary turned into a real journal intime, a development Alexander was aware of. He observed: 'my diary is now my heart's confidant' (29 March 1807).(42)

We more often find such sentiment in the course of the nineteenth century, amongst autobiographers as well. Cornelius Vollenhoven (1778-1849), solicitor and later civil servant, began his autobiography with the words: 'Nu en dan bekruipt mij de lust eine Selbstbiographie te schrijven, ofschoon ik eigenlijk niet weet waartoe dat dienen zal' ('Now and then the desire to write a self-biography comes over me, although I really do not know what purpose this will serve'). He did not get past the first nine pages. Pieter Harting (1812-1885) stated his goal and motives in the foreword of his autobiography, dated July 1873. He wrote for his children and grandchildren, but also out of 'a need, felt by myself, to look back on my own life' and 'to trace my own development'.

It is often personal crisis which prompts people to write. In 1785 when she was eighteen, an anonymous woman, the daughter of a Rotterdam merchant began to keep a diary after the death of her father.(43)

A lot of 'personal notes' were also written in response to a personal crisis; they deal with incidents such as rows, illnesses or deaths and sometimes a report of a vaccination--exceptional and risky in the eighteenth century--or a similar event. Events outside of the family circle just as often form the impetus for keeping a diary; we have already pointed out the peaks in the years of political crisis. Hendrik Fagel de Jonge (1765-1838), Registrar of the States General, kept a diary for the latter reason in the turbulent period 1785-1795.

Religious motives are generally seen as an important impulse for the development of the diary and autobiography. The flourishing of both these genres amongst Puritans in the seventeenth century is often cited. It is too simple a theory to suppose that the egodocument replaced the confession of the old Catholic faith among adherents to the Reformed Church. However, one fifth of all Dutch egodocuments are written out of an explicitly religious motive. The authors write 'to honour God' like the Middelburg carpenter Pieter Joossen did around 1600. In his case it was a chronicle-type autobiography, more often the contents were strongly religious in nature. The Amsterdam merchant Daniël Delprat began a diary in 1773 'Au nom de la très sainte Trinité' and started out with the following declaration: 'C'est l'amour, c'est la reconnaisance qui m'ont fait naitre l'idée de commencer ce recueil'.(44)



Writing for one's own children is mentioned by numerous authors, no less than eighty percent, as the reason for writing. The primary function of most egodocuments was to relay information from one generation to the next. They stemmed from a family tradition rather than from a modern notion of individuality. However, in some documents we find evidence of both, such as in the autobiography of the boarding school director, Willem van den Hull.

In 1609, reverend Gerardus Schepens wrote in his autobiography that his 'dear children would know how much mercy the Lord has shown upon me'. Willem Baudartius--a colleague and contemporary of Schepens--was more modest when he wrote that he hoped that his autobiography would be 'of some use to my children'. David Beck kept a diary 'as a cherished memory for my dear children'. Anna Maria Theresia C., the daughter of a merchant, started keeping a diary in 1785 before she was married. She dedicated her diary to the children she hoped to have in the future. Sometimes authors excluded all readers but their children. The lawyer, Hendric van Stralen wrote that his memoirs were only intended for his children and were not to be published. And Nicolaas Lambrechtsen--regent from Zeeland--requested that his daughter burn his diary after having read it (which she did not do). Why some people thought that they authored shocking or controversial memoirs is unclear. But they were always certain that their children would be eager to read what they had written. The captain, Ids Tjaarda even worried that his children would fight over his diary and therefore indicated that each child had half a year to read it.

Jan Pet, a failed cheese merchant, apologised to his children that he left them only a 'literary estate', meaning his autobiography. Willem Ockerse also gave his children, what he called a 'written legacy', published as Vruchten en resultaten van een zestigjarig leven (The Fruits and Results of a Sixty-year long Life). He hoped that they would read the book sitting by his grave. J.G.J. de Bretone dedicated his autobiography to his son Johannes, and hoped 'the Almighty would restore his power of reason, which had been affected by a childhood sickness, and allow him mercy to read my notations with understanding'. The purpose of those as well as other egodocuments was to serve as a life-lesson for children. They should either follow the example of their fathers or avoid their mistakes.

Ocker Repelaer (1759-1832), arrested in 1798 because of contra-revolutionary activities and fearing he would be sentenced to death, wrote an autobiography as a farewell to his family. He also kept a prison diary and is one of the examples of the connection between the rise of the prison and the writing of egodocuments. Since Jancko Douwama in around 1500 there are many more examples of texts originating in prisons.(45)

Immigrants often had an extra reason to recount their own histories to their children. This holds true for some Jewish writers and for Protestants who had fled from France. They often urged their children to adhere to their faith. A comparable author is the German immigrant from the early nineteenth century, E.H. Krelage, who wrote an autobiography in German for his son Heinrich 'dass derselbe wissen soll, wo seins Vaters Stammhaus und sein Stamm herkommen'.

Finally, it also has to be mentioned that some authors wanted to reach a readership. It is striking that some texts intended primarily for the family also seem to be written with an anonymous reader in the back of the mind. For example, the Scheveningen fisherman Maarten Baak (1779-1847) began his autobiography with the words: 'My dear child! Dear spouse! Or whoever might read this manuscript'. Even a very personal text like that of Magdalena van Schinne seems to have been intended for a broader public. In any case she expressed the hope that someone would find her writing in a hundred years and publish it.

Some authors wrote brief autobiographies shortly before their deaths with useful information for obituaries which they expected to be published in newspapers or magazines. Hendrik Collot d'Escury (1773-1845) wrote at the top of his autobiography: 'When after my death one wants to know one thing or another about me, he can be given the following text'. The General C.R.T. Krayenhoff (1758-1840) went a step further. He wrote his memoirs after he left active service in 1826. He wanted them to be published after his death and indicated an editor in his will. Other authors also wrote with an eye for posthumous publication. For example, there is an autobiography by the Leiden professor Willem Jona te Water (1740-1822). It is an extensive manuscript and the author felt obliged to justify this. He urged the reader not to see his autobiography as 'proof of scandalous conceit' because he had illustrious predecessors like Viglius and Cats. He stresses his modesty by remarking that he wrote his book 'in spare moments and between other things'. And whoever doubted the truth of this could examine the 'original proof' from the author or his descendants.

Authors who intended their autobiographies for a readership did not have an easy job; this is apparent from the case of the Utrecht professor G.J. Mulder (1802-1880). His memoirs, published in two parts, consist of a collection of essayistic pieces. He regularly wrote autobiographical sketches 'as if they were meant for the press after my death' but also 'with the certain intention to destroy them'. He carried out the latter plan after having first corrected the pieces. A striking course of action which bears witness to the tension that autobiographical writing for a wide nineteenth century audience continued to bring with it. Between 1861 and 1877 Mulder wrote pieces that he put in the hands of friends with the aim of posthumous publication. Reading other autobiographies formed an example for Mulder of 'how such a text should not be written'. For him it was a question of presenting the 'genesis' of the man 'whose image is to be represented'. The result that survives is a more contemplative than factual text; Mulder did not dare to be truly frank.

The publication of an autobiography during the life of the author continued to be unusual in the Netherlands. One of the earliest exceptions is the autobiography-in-verse of Coenraet Droste which he published in 1723. Around 1800 three authors published their life stories during their lives: F.L. Kersteman, Gerrit Paape and Jacob Haafner.(46) The fact that they were professional writers must have lowered the threshold for them. In the case of Kersteman it only seems as though he added a new picaresque novel to his oeuvre. An autobiography turned out to be a possible source of monetary gain. Others would follow hesitatingly. The retired teacher Liewe van Albada (1793-1876) wrote down his memories partly to earn money. He admitted, not without irony: '[I want] to become a hack and defy the faultfinding and censure of the harsh critics'. His life story first appeared as a series of articles in 't Schoolblad and was thereafter published separately. The publisher praised the work as 'refreshment at the breakfast or tea table'. And before that C.J. Inkrott (1792-1862), retired rector of the Latin school in Veendam, published his memories in a book and had future readers take out a subscription for a copy of the book before it appeared. He only wanted to begin writing 'once I got to know the honourable audience I wanted to write for'. When he saw the list of subscribers he decided not to write a 'simple narrative' of his 'life history', but to permit himself a few literary and philosophical digressions. Whether that made his memoirs more interesting is debatable, but he was able to do it without any qualms since among the subscribers were many professors, mayors, pastors and clergymen.

The interaction between novel and autobiography is one of the most important developments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries but needs separate treatment. In any case what is certain is that writers began to use more and more autobiographical elements in their fiction. And furthermore, autobiography and diary writing became a favourite form for novelists in the twentieth century.

Conclusion

The inventory of egodocuments up to 1814 has given a strong impetus to the use of such texts in historical research and literary studies. Examples of this type of research are the study of Arianne Baggerman into the reading behaviour of Otto van Eck,(47)

Jeroen Blaak's study of the professional life of the Amsterdam artisan Harmannus Verbeecq,(48)

Florence Koorn's research into female religiosity on the basis of the autobiography of Elisabeth Strouven,(49) Herman Roodenburg's study of sexuality,(50) Luuc Kooijmans' work on friendship,(51)

the research by Judith Pollmann on religion(52) and Monique Stavenuiter's study on old age.(53)

A follow-up inventory on the period 1814-1914 (compiled by Arianne Baggerman, Gerard Schulte Nordholt and Hans de Valk) is currently underway, the results from the Public Archive in Rotterdam have already been made available on the previously mentioned website.(54)

New inroads are being made by, amongst others, Jeroen Blaak who is studying the history of reading and writing on the basis of diaries and Gert-Jan Johannes who is investigating the development of the autobiography as a genre in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.(55)

In the coming years a comparison with a Swiss parallel project under the direction of Kaspar von Greyerz will also open interesting perspectives.(56)

As a direct result of the inventory, twenty five egodocuments have appeared in the series Egodocumenten from the publisher Verloren in Hilversum, a project sponsored by the Prins Bernard Fonds. The manuscripts themselves are, beginning with the travel reports in languages other than Dutch, being published on microfiche and have become available in libraries around the world, including the British Library.(57)



Egodocuments remain a unique type of source material because of their lack of uniformity and their personal nature; they are often difficult to work with. And not all writers are as co-operative as one might expect. On this score, the clearest statement has been made by the poet Willem Bilderdijk who begins his short autobiography with the unforgettable words: 'For as long as I can remember my life has been painful, difficult and empty. I have tried to forget most of the details and in this I have to a great extent succeeded, although not to as great an extent as I would have liked.'

Translated by Katheryn Ronnau-Bradbeer

1. With thanks to the Vereniging Trust Fonds of the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) and the Faculteit der Historische en Kunstwetenschappen for their financial support.

2. An earlier version of this article appeared in Opossum. Tijdschrift voor Historische en Kunstwetenschappen 3 (1993), p. 5-22. With thanks to Manon van der Heijden and Ingrid van der Vlis for their help in the mounting of the graphics. For further information see also Driemaandelijkse Bladen voor Taal en Volksleven in het Oosten van Nederland 44 (1993), p. 5-23. Titles of printed egodocuments and the location of the egodocuments in manuscript form mentioned in the text can be found in: Egodocumenten van Noord-Nederlanders uit de zestiende tot begin negentiende eeuw. Een chronologische lijst, ed. R.M. Dekker, R. Lindeman, Y. Scherf (Haarlem: Stichting Egodocument, 1993) and Reisverslagen van Noord-Nederlanders uit de zestiende tot begin negentiende eeuw. Een chronologische lijst (Haarlem: Stichting Egodocument, 1994), ed. R.M. Dekker, R. Lindeman en Y. Scherf. For Friesland see also: Gosse Blom, Repertoarium fan egodokuminten oangeande Fryslan (Ljouwert, 1992).

3. Adriaan J. Barnouw, The Dutch. A portrait study of the people of Holland (New York: Columbia U.P., 1940), p.24.

4. 3 Hans Warren, Het dagboek als kunstvorm (Amsterdam, 1987).

5. K. Porteman, 'Jacob Cats Twee-en-tachtigjarig leven als autobiografie', in: H. Duits et. al., ed., Eer is het lof des deuchts. Opstellen over Renaissance en Classicisme aangeboden aan dr.Fokke Veenstra (Amsterdam, 1986) p. 154-161; Cf. M. van Faassen, 'Het dagboek: een bron als alle andere?', Theoretische Geschiedenis 18 (1991) p. 3-19.

6. Quoted in: G.Kalff, Het dietsche dagboek (Groningen: Wolters, 1935), p.211, in De Gids 1914-II, p.321-322.

7. For a survey of literature on the subject: Rudolf Dekker, 'Egodocumenten: een literatuuroverzicht', Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 101 (1988), p. 161-190.

8. J.Presser, Uit het werk van J. Presser (Amsterdam 1969) p.277-282.

9. Pieter Vreede, Mijn leevensloop ed. M.W.van Boven, A.M. Fafianie and G.W.J. Steijns (Hilversum: Verloren, 1993) (Egodocumenten 7).

10. A.M.Lubberhuizen-van Gelder, 'Het dagboek van Margaretha Jacoba de Neufville', Maandblad Amstelodamum 53(1966) p.85-94.

11. 'Levensbeschrijving van den, in 1805 overleden, vaderlandschen dichter, mr.J.P.Kleyn', De Recensent ook der Recensenten 2(1807) 71-90, 83.

12. Accessible through the Dutch library network on the World Wide Web.

13. Jacques Voisine, 'Naissance et évolution du terme littéraire "autobiographie"' in: La littérature comparée en Europe Orientale (Budapest: Akademiai Kiado, 1963) p.278-286.

14. Rudolf Dekker, 'Dutch Travel Journals from the Sixteenth to the Early Nineteenth Centuries', in: Lias. Sources and Documents relating to the Early Modern History of Ideas 22 (1995), p. 277-300.

15. Madeleine Foisil, 'L'écriture du for privée', in: Philippe Ariès en Georges Duby, ed., Histoire de la vie privée. III, De la Renaissance aux Lumières, (Paris: Seuil, 1986), p.331-369.

16. See: Rudolf Dekker, Childhood, Memory and Autobiography in Holland from Golden Age to Romanticism (London: Macmillan, 1999).

17. Wiebe Bergsma, De wereld volgens Abel Eppens Een ommelander boer uit de zestiende eeuw (Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1988).

18. P. Gerbenzon et.al., ed., Het aantekeningenboek van Dirck Jansz. (1578-1636) (Hilversum: Verloren, 1994) (Egodocumenten 5).

19. David Beck, Spiegel van mijn leven; een Haags dagboek uit 1624, ed. Sv.E.Veldhuijzen (Hilversum: Verloren, 1992) (Egodocumenten 3).

20. Rudolf Dekker, 'Van manuscript tot drukwerk, van privé tot publiek: Dagboek en autobiografie', Biografie Bulletin 7 (1997), p. 107-113.

21. See: F.A.van Lieburg, Levens van vromen. Gereformeerd piëtisme in de achttiende eeuw (Kampen: De Groot Goudriaan, 1991).

22. S. Tjaden, Eenige aantekeningen en alleen-spraken (Groningen: Jurjen Spandaw, 1727). A new edition: F.A. van Lieburg, ed., Het verborgen leven voor de Heere (Houten: Den Hertog, 1992).

23. See also: C.S.M.Rademaker, ed., 'Gerardi Joannis Vossii de vita sua usque ad annum MDCXVII delineatio', Lias 1(1974) p.243-265.

24. F. Kersteman, De Bredasche heldinne (Hilversum: Verloren 1988) ed. R.M.Dekker, G.-J.Johannes and L.C.van de Pol (Egodocumenten 1).

25. Karl Enenkel, `Humanismus, Primat des Privaten, Patriotismus und niederlaendischer Aufstand: Selbstbildformung in Lipsius' Autobiographie', in: Karl Enenkel and Chris Heesakkers, ed., Lipsius in Leiden. Studies in the Life and Works of a great Humanist (Voorthuizen: Florivallis, 1997), p. 13-45.

26. Harmanus Verbeecq, Memoriaal ofte mijn levensraijsinghe ed. Jeroen Blaak (Hilversum: Verloren, 1999) (Egodocumenten 16).

27. Aernout van Overbeke, Buyten gaets. Twee burleske reisbrieven van Aernout van Overbeke, ed. Marijke Barend-van Haeften and Arie Jan Gelderblom (Hilversum: Verloren, 1998) (Egodocumenten 15).

28. See: P.J. Buijnsters, 'Het geheime dagboek van Hieronymus van Alphen', De Nieuwe Taalgids 61 (1968) p.73-83.

29. Jennifer Boyce Hendriks, Immigration and Linguistic Change. A Socio-cultural Linguistic Study of the Effect of German and Southern Dutch Immigration on the Development of the Northern Dutch Vernacular in the 16th/17th-Century Holland (Ph.Diss. U.of Wisconsin Madison, 1998).

30. This is borne out by the catalogue of Frisian egodocuments in which only two percent Frisian texts are recorded up to 1850, against ten percent in the period 1850-1900 and more than thirty percent in the period after that.

31.

30 Peter Burke, 'Heu domine, adsunt Turcae: A Sketch for a Social History of Post-medieval Latin', in: P.Burke and R.Porter, ed., Language, Self and Society. A Social History of Language (Oxford: Polity Press, 1991), p.23-51.

32. Het dagboek van Magdalena van Schinne (1786-1795), trans. and ed. Anje Dik (Hilversum: Verloren, 1991). Journal de Magdalena van Schinne (1786-1805), ed. Rudolf Dekker and A.Dik (Parijs: Coté-femmes, 1994).

33. See R.M.Dekker, 'Sexuality, Elites, and Court Life in the Seventeenth Century: The Diary of Constantijn Huygens Jr' Eighteenth-Century Life. (forthcoming).

34. Donald Haks, 'Een wereldbeeld uit de "middelmaetigen stant". De aantekeningen van Lodewijck van der Saan, 1695-1699', Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis 24 (1998), p. 113-137.

35.

34 The diary of Elizabeth Richards, ed. Marie de Jong-IJsselstein (Hilversum: Verloren, 1999) (Egodocumenten 19).

36. Balthasar Bekker, Beschrijving van de reis door de Verenigde Nederlanden, Engeland en Frankrijk in het jaar 1683, ed. Jacob van Sluis (Ljouwert: Fryske Akademy, 1998).

37. Luuc Kooijmans, `Liefde in opdracht. Emotie en berekening in de dagboeken van Willem Frederik van Nassau', Holland 30 (1998), p.231-256.

38. Arie Johannes Knock, Uit Lievde voor Vaderland en Vrijheid. Het journaal van de patriot Arie Johannes Knock over de periode 1784 tot 1797, ed. P.M. Peucker and J.P. Sigmond (Hilversum: Verloren, 1994) (Egodocumenten 8).

39. Willem van den Hull, Autobiografie, Raymonde Padmos and Bert Sliggers, ed. (Hilversum: Verloren, 1995) (Egodocumenten 10).

40. M. de Baar, '"Wat nu het kleine eergeruchtje van mijn naam betreft...". De Eukleria als autobiografie', in: M.de Baar ed., Anna Maria van Schurman (1607-1678). Een uitzonderlijk geleerde vrouw (Zutphen, 1992), p.93-109.

41.

40 Otto van Eck, Dagboek 17991-1797 (ed. Arianne Baggerman and Rudolf Dekker) (Hilversum: Verloren, 1998) (Egodocumenten 12). A study is in preparation. Compare the lecture by Arianne Baggerman on children's diaries in the symposium `Tot volle waschdom. Nieuwe hoofdstukken voor de geschiedenis van de kinder- en jeugdliteratuur', Utrecht, 1-2 October 1999.

42. Alexander van Goltstein, De vertrouwde van mijn hart. Dagboek 1801-1808, ed. J. Limonard (Hilversum: Verloren, 1994) (Egodocumenten 4).

43. NRC July 1927; the location of the manuscript, if it still exists, is unknown.

44. Fred van Lieburg, `Piëtistische egodocumenten in de 18de-eeuwse Nederland', Spiegel Historiael 25 (1990), p.320-324; Id., ed., De stille luyden. Bevindelijk gereformeerden in de negentiende eeuw (Kampen: De Groot Goudriaan, 1994).

45. Rudolf Dekker, 'Gevangeniservaringen in Nederlandse egodocumenten uit de 17e en 18e eeuw', in: C.Fijnaut and P.Spierenburg ed., Scherp toezicht. Van Boeventucht tot Samenleving en Criminaliteit (Arnhem: Gouda Quint, 1990), p.145-165.

46. On the autobiography of Kersteman: A.H.Huussen, 'Het leven van F.L.Kersteman (1792) -een autobiografie', in: Feit en fictie in misdaadliteratuur (Amsterdam, 1985) 57-69; Gerrit Paape, Mijne vrolijke wijsgeerte in mijne ballingschap ed. Peter Altena (Hilversum: Verloren, 1996) (Egodocumenten 11); C.M. Haafner ed., Lotgevallen en vroegere zeereizen (Amsterdam, 1820). Heruitgave: J.A. de Moor en P.G.E.I.J. van der Velde, ed., De werken van Jacob Haafner I (Zutphen, 1992).

47. Arianne Baggerman, `The Cultural Universe of a Dutch Child: Otto van Eck and his Literature', Eighteenth Century Studies 31 (1997), p. 129-134; Id., `Lezen tot de laatste snik. Otto van Eck en zijn dagelijkse literatuur (1780-1798)', Jaarboek voor Nederlandse boekgeschiedenis 1 (1994), p. 57-89.

48. Jeroen Blaak, `Worstelen om te overleven. De zorg om het bestaan in het Memoriaal van Harmannus Verbeecq (1621-1681)', Holland 31 (1999), p.1-19.

49. Florence Koorn, `Een charismatische anti-heilige: Elisabeth Strouven (1600-1661)', in: Mirjam Cornelis e.a. (ed.), Vrome vrouwen. Betekenissen van geloof voor vrouwen in de geschiedenis (Hilversum: Verloren 1996) (= Tipje van de Sluier deel 10), p. 87-109; Id., `A Life of Pain and Struggle, the Autobiography of Elisabeth Strouven (1600-1661)', in: Magdalene Heuser, ed., Autobiographien von Frauen. Beitraege zu ihrer Geschichte (Tuebingen: Max Niemeyer, 1996), p. 13-24.

50. Herman W. Roodenburg, `The Autobiography of Isabella de Moerloose: Sex, Childrearing and Popular Belief in Seventeenth Century Holland', Journal of Social History 18 (1985), p. 518-539.

51. Luuc Kooijmans, Vriendschap en de kunst van het overleven in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1997); Id., 'De dagboeken van Joan Huydecoper', Nederlands archievenblad 100 (1996), p. 59-69.

52. Judith Pollmann, Religious choice in the Dutch Republic. The Reformation of Arnoldus Buchelius (Manchester: Manchester U.P., 1999).

53. Monique Stavenuiter, Verzorgd of zelfstandig. Ouderen en de levensloop in Amsterdam in de tweede helft van de negentiende eeuw (diss. Rijks Universiteit Groningen, 1993); Id., `Ouderdom in egodocumenten. De dagboeken van Gedeon Jeremie Boissevain', Groniek 24 (1991), p. 177-188.

54. Arianne Baggerman, Rudolf Dekker and Gerard Schulte Nordholt, `Inventarisatie van in handschrift overgeleverde egodocumenten 1814-1914', Archievenblad 103 (1999), p. 18-21.

55. Gert Jan Johannes and Rudolf Dekker, `Egodocumenten: literatuur en geschiedenis', forthcoming in Vooys.

56. Sebastian Leutert and Gudrun Piller, `Deutschschweizerische Selbstzeugnisse (1500-1800) als Quellen der Mentalitaetsgeschichte. Ein Forschungsbericht', Schweizerische Zeitschrift fuer Geschichte 49 (1999), p. 197-222.

57. Egodocuments from the Netherlands, 16th Century-1814 Part I: Manuscript Travel journals in Languages other than Dutch, 16th Century-1814 ed. Rudolf Dekker (Lisse: MMF Publications, 1996), 335 microfiches.