The wijncoep
In order to obtain a better appreciation of the use of houses of varying kind, we will now turn our attention to Kampen, its Liber Testium and the practice of wijncoep. The Liber Testium includes, among other things, testimonies from the years 1483–1493.
It is not always clear why specific testimonies were recorded. Often, they are headed �in den schelinge tusschen’: �in the dispute between’, that is to say that they were given as part of civil proceedings before the town court. But other entries include no indication of an associated court case. Regularly there is a short note at the end which includes the name(s) of one or two men: the current burgomasters. They were the two aldermen in charge of the daily administration of justice in Kampen.26 It appears, then, that all the testimonies were given before the lower court of burgomasters. Although not all entries specify that they functioned as evidence in a civil case, they all appear in the same format. All start with the names of the witnesses followed by �tugen’ (pl.) or �tuget’ (sg.): give witness. This suggests that they may all have been intended to have a similar role, that is, to serve as evidence in court.Another possibility to consider is that the testimonies in the Liber Testium functioned as a confirmation in front of town officials of an oral transaction that had taken place in a house in front of witnesses, that is to say that the parties perhaps requested these witnesses to ratify the transaction in court. This is unlikely for a number of reasons. The first is that the Liber Testium includes both acknowledgements and testimonies which concern the sale of immoveable property. The acknowledgements were made by the sellers of the property themselves, and as such seem more suitable ratifications of a sale before the court than a testimony by witnesses.
Also, contrary to these acknowledgements, the testimonies are rarely precisely dated. They tend to concern transactions which took place a while ago; sometimes cases go back two, three or even four years. Alijd Stevens and Stijne van Malsen in 1484 recalled, for example, that they had witnessed Hille Luttike giving a gilded ring to Greta, an English woman, four years before.27 It is likely, then, that the majority of the testimonies that are being investigated were recorded as part of a civil case because a problem of some kind had arisen between the two parties involved in the legal transaction or agreement. The Liber Testium thus only recorded a small portion of the business that took place in the public and private houses of Kampen. The transactions as witnessed by the wijncoepsluden and others did not need to be recorded to be recognised by the court as legally valid. That the testimonies concerning them were accepted in the Liber Testium as evidence supports this interpretation.There are three different types of formal witnesses which feature in the Liber Testium: the wijncoeps-, dedinges- and moetsoensluden. The first are associated mainly with sales and rentals and any references to wijncoep are included in entries concerning sales or conflicts after a sale. At times witnesses in such cases are named as �wijncoeps- en dedingesluden’. The latter is a term meaning arbitrator or perhaps more generally negotiator. A �moetsoen’ is a reconciliation, and a �moetsoensman’ (pl. moetsoensluden) is therefore a negotiator in a reconciliation. The differences between the three types are not very clear-cut in the sources, and in many entries the terms are not used at all. Another word that is associated with these entries is �gelage’. This can mean food and drink, but also the group of people sharing this food and drink, and the costs associated with it.
The wijncoep itself was either paid for by the buyer, or its costs were shared between buyer and seller.28 Occasionally, it is stated that the costs of the wijncoep would be deducted from the price of the goods.
As such, it functioned as a down payment, though the money was not received by the seller, but spent on the drink which would bind the two parties and their witnesses to the agreement. The acceptance of the drink by the seller meant that he would damage his reputation if he did not deliver the goods.29Sometimes a sample of goods would be brought into the gelage to persuade the buyer. In 1492 two building stones of a batch of 8,000 to be sold were brought into the gathering. The buyer declared himself satisfied with their quality.30 A similar arrangement was made when a horse was sold to a miller, who was allowed to try out first if the horse would pull.31 At other times, the agreement allowed for a cooling off period, generally until the next day. For example, a seller of wool gave a buyer a day to examine the merchandise properly. If the latter did not like the goods well enough, the former would return the money as well as reimburse the costs of the wijncoep.32 This practice may have prevented anyone regretting a sale made while under the influence of alcohol, though the evidence is too slight to assume that this was a general rule. There are also a few examples of property transactions in which the husband consulted his wife. It appears that houses and associated pieces of land belonged to both spouses together. In 1487, for example, a seller of a house left the gelage saying that he wanted to consult his wife on the discussed deal. After his return the transaction was sealed with a drink paid for by the buyer.33 A couple of years earlier the five wijncoepsluden in a sale of half the �verbeterschap’34 of a house and yard confirmed that the seller’s wife had already consented to the sale at the same venue the other day.35
All these details about the circumstances of a wijncoep come from legal practice. There are no regulations concerning this topic in the Kampen laws at all.
The only mention of wijncoep is in the Gulden Boeck, in a by-law of 1385, which determines that the person who was confirmed in the rental of the town waters or other communal property should be held responsible for paying for the wijncoep.36 But there is nothing confirming the amount of witnesses required, the exact ritual involved or the space where proceedings should be conducted. This lack of regulation suggests that the customs concerning wijncoep had existed unchanged since before the recording of the town’s by-laws in the fourteenth century. It was a ritual so established that there was no need to put it in writing.It was different in some other areas of northern Europe. Gustafsson has investigated the regulations in Scandinavia and northern Germany, and found symbolic acts associated with the sale of goods in various town laws from the thirteenth century onwards. In some places this was â€?winkop’ or â€?litkop’, which may or may not have been the same thing, in others a â€?God’s penny’, â€?Holy Ghost penny’ (hilegen geystes penninc) or â€?confirming penny’ (fästepäninge), but also a handshake.37 It may be that these practices were put in writing because they indicated a change with earlier rituals. Some authors have suggested that the God’s penny replaced the wijncoep in the course of the middle ages.38
The God’s penny was also used in Kampen and Aberdeen. In Kampen it certainly did not replace the wijncoep. The two symbolic acts were, in fact, used side by side. The God’s penny is not referred to as regularly as the wijncoep and it was rarely utilised on its own. In 1482, for example, two ship’s parts were transferred from two men to a buyer. God’s pennies were exchanged and the cost of the wijncoep shared between them.39 Elsewhere, the exchange of a God’s penny is associated with an employment contract: in 1486 Loy Seylmaker hired a man and gave him a God’s penny. Loy also provided the wine for the wijncoep.40 In the same year another contract was ended by returning the penny, which suggests that it functioned as a symbol of the agreement which the other party held on to, rather than that it was paid to be given to charity or as a down payment.41 Handshakes are mentioned on a few occasions too, and they too appear to have been used in addition to the wijncoep.42