Legal transactions in houses
When analysing the entries from the Liber Testium that specify that a legal transaction or agreement took place in a house, it has to be noted that there are similar entries in the same register which do not include a location and which may well have occurred, or likely also did occur, in a similar place.
But the following quantification is more an indication of the type of business that took place than an attempt to calculate exact percentages. A total of 123 entries were analysed in which some legal business was conducted in a public or private house. Of these, 56, nearly half, concern sales. The majority of products only appear once, from tools, animals and a valuable purse with silver fittings to items of food such as fish, and merchant goods from abroad like raisins and ash. But there are some things that feature more regularly: ships or ship’s parts, immovable goods, horses, various grains, stones and rope. Of the other entries, 14 relate to the settlement of conflicts which are not further specified, and between two and five each concern the arrangement of marriage, work or carriage contracts, the rental of property, the exchange of goods and the settlement of an inheritance.About 70 different locations are named where this business took place, of which 20 are mentioned more than once (see Table 9.1). Six of these locations were established drinking locations: the wine cellar (�wijnkelder’) and five named taverns (In den Gulden Hoern, In de Lappe, In den Pellicaen, In den Vranckrijck and In den Witten Aern). The wine cellar and named taverns were used relatively regularly for these transactions: 27 times altogether. There were two other houses which appear to have been commonly utilised for this type of business: that of Jacob van Zutphen and especially that of Gise Blankert.
TABLE 9.1
Legal transactions in houses in Kampen: locations named more than once
Name of house/owner
Number of times
Gise Blankert
11
Wine cellar (�wijnkelder’)
7
In den Witten Aern
6
Jacob van Zutphen
5
In den Gulden Hoern
4
In den Pellicaen
4
In de Lappe
3
In den Vranckrijk
3
Broesken
3
Lambert Berentsz.
3
Lubbert Jansz.
3
Merten Voirne
3
Berent Swartken
2
Geert ten Holten (In den Moriaen)
2
Jacob Schroer
2
Jan van Wilsem
2
Johan In de Zwanen
2
Wijnken Wesselsz.
2
Willem Tiel
2
Willem van Rossen
2
Other evidence from within the Liber Testium confirms whether a house was used as a drinking venue on a more regular basis. The Liber Testium also includes testimonies on a large amount of other business. Most useful for our purposes are statements about brawls, some of which resulted in wounding, and comments or insults made in houses and taverns. Information about the storage of grains, which suggests that a location may have served as a small hub for local trade, is also noteworthy. Adding this information adds 37 locations to a total of 107, and 11 with 2 or more entries to a total of 31. The wine cellar and named taverns already mentioned continue to play an important role, as does Gise Blankert’s house.
It is clear that a few of the houses which are not referred to by a house name but by its owner did function as permanent drinking venues. The houses of Jacob van Zutphen and Gise Blankert are the most obvious examples of this. Like in Aberdeen, it was not uncommon to refer to taverns by their owner’s names, as for example the In den Witten Aern is also known as �Berents huys in den Witten Aern’.43 Blankert’s house is only ever referred to by his name, but it is called a �herberge’ on one occasion.44 It also features as a location where legal business was transacted and where drinking occurred more regularly than at any other place in the late fifteenth century.45 In order to gain a better insight into the workings of a late medieval public house and its keeper in Kampen and into how legal business was facilitated, we shall zoom in on this establishment and its landlord.