Case study: Gise Blankert’s public house
Blankert himself first appears in the sources in 1458 using his full first name, Gijsbert, suggesting that he may not have been the well-known and established figure that he became in later years.46 He became a burgher of Kampen at some point before 1483.47 His son-in-law48 was Frederik Rijnvis, who between 1481 and 1507 acted alternatively as alderman and councillor of Kampen.49 This suggests that Blankert was a well-respected man.
This is confirmed by some other pieces of evidence. In 1487 he was among four �tuychwerdige gelovige mannen’ – trustworthy and reliable men sworn in before the court to testify in a particular case.50 Blankert was also able to use a seal: in 1484 he and the town’s bell maker Geert van Wou co-sealed an �oervede’, an oath foreswearing violence, at the request of the oath swearer, a man from Nijmegen.51 In 1485 he appeared as one of the deans of the Rhine skippers’ guild and in 1488 he presided over a case as deputy sheriff (�onderschout’).52That publicans were generally respectable people fits in with the image described by Hermesdorf, who confirms that in the Low Countries, aldermen and even some members of the nobility were involved in running public houses.53 Especially inns where merchants lodged who might rely on their hosts to act as middlemen would need to be run by men of good reputation. In Bruges, where the dependence of merchants on innkeepers was more institutionalised than in most places, the ability of a landlord to utilise his network effectively, and respectability and trustworthiness were key components in working this network to the Hanseatic merchants’ advantage.54
There is some evidence suggesting that Blankert himself was involved in trade. His office of dean of the Rhine skippers’ guild is an important clue, as is his part ownership of a ship with his son-in-law.55 He may no longer have been steering any ships up the Rhine himself, but he likely had a network of skippers and merchants through the guild.
In addition, through his place of business he came into contact with a wide range of people and was called upon to act as a witness in a great variety of cases or to stand surety for merchants from outside of town. The latter were most likely patrons of his tavern or his own business partners. Rye was also stored in his house on occasion, for example for Friesian merchants in 1482/1483.56 All of this suggests that his was a larger establishment with storage facilities in which merchants could stay overnight. In the vast majority of cases, however, Blankert’s house is not differentiated in any way from the other houses in which legal business was conducted in late medieval Kampen. It is simply referred to as his house.The first time Blankert’s house appears is in 1474, when Henric Olger of Groningen was banished for throwing a jug at Gise in Gise’s own house and for failing to pay the fine of 80 pounds.57 In the same year Blankert stood surety for Willem van Dort (of Dordrecht) who had to pay a large fine to the town.58 These references are mostly from other sources, but Gise Blankert appears most regularly in the Liber Testium, both as a witness to transactions and/or as the owner of the house in which the legal business took place. The majority of these cases are from the period 1483–1487. After 1487 Blankert features much less regularly, though it is clear he was still running his business. It may be that his daughter Else took over around 1493. In that year we find the first reference to Else Blankert’s house.59 It is also the last year that Gise appears, though that may partly be because there is a gap in the evidence. The last time his house is named is in 1491.
Generally, when transactions were conducted at Blankert’s house, a group of people sometimes said to be in gelage was present. There is usually no further indication of their exact location in the house. In 1483, for example, Gise Blankert and his fellow publican Berent Jansz testified and swore that they had mediated (�gededinget’) in the reconciliation (�moetsoene’) between skipper Lubbert Jacobsz and Claes Jansz of Monnickendam concerning the freight of one last of tar at Gisen’s house.60 In this case it may have been that both publicans mediated on behalf of one of the parties.
Perhaps one was staying with Gise and the other in Jansz’s In den Witten Aern. In 1487 Gise Blankert and two other men acted as wijncoep- and dedingesluden settling a dispute between Johan van Wilsem and Dirck van Millingen in his house.61 Blankert played an active role in most of the cases which were transacted at his premises as witness or as mediator. A significant number concerned merchants and/or skippers from outside of Kampen or larger quantities of merchandise.Other transactions were also conducted at his house and Gise was not always involved personally. In another case of 1487, for example, three men testified that they had been present when Herman the miller had bought a horse that he wanted to use to pull his cart from Geert Rotersz.62 There are also a few cases in which Blankert was named as witness or mediator, but which do not name a location. It is likely that these also took place at his house.
The house of Gise Blankert was regularly used as a location for conducting various types of transactions, though many of them concerned larger quantities of merchandise and shipping. There is no evidence of sales of houses, for example, nor are there any marriage contracts or settlements of inheritances, or at least there are no recorded civil cases concerning such subjects. The house was frequented by merchants and skippers from outside Kampen, and during their stay they used it to conduct at least some of their business there. As the owner, Gise Blankert was an obvious person to act as witness and mediator in any transactions. That he was a well-respected burgher of Kampen, as well as a dean of the Rhine skippers’ guild, will also have made him an attractive partner. He may have been able to advise on suitable and unsuitable business relations, available merchandise and legal procedures to follow.63