In earlier centuries there was a long period when a large part of the urban population was very poor. Men had to work hard from an early age for very meager wages. It was difficult to make ends meet, especially in winter, because the guilds had stipulated that work could only be done when it was light. And if the harvest failed, everything became much more expensive without increasing wages. The result was that many became dependent on poor relief.
Living in niches of the city wall
The women often helped by, for example, spinning yarn for the weavers or washing and ironing for the rich. Even then, living conditions were often very poor due to poverty. It also happened that the poor lived in the niches of the city wall that were shielded with planks and cloth. In Amsterdam, however, in 1600 a number of residents of the niches were forced to look for another home because the city wall along Het Singel was demolished. They found new shelter in cellars, under bridges or in an abandoned monastery.
Diluted beer
At times when things were going better for a number of city dwellers, workers earned enough to buy beans, butter, peas, barley, herring, cheese and rye bread. Sometimes they had money to buy beer mixed with water. (Beer instead of water in the Middle Ages was necessary due to the poor hygienic condition of the drinking water.) But they should not be unlucky enough to get sick otherwise they would earn nothing at all.
Begging and charity
Many poor people lived by begging and charity. This was especially the case with the sick, disabled and elderly. They were dependent on the church and the city council and some wealthy people had food such as beans, bread and peas and clothes distributed on certain days of the week or peat and blankets in the winter.
Riots in major cities in the sixteenth century
Until 1500, beggars were more or less considered wards of God. In the sixteenth century that image changed and a beggar was seen more as someone who was too lazy to work. When discarded sailors and soldiers wandered the streets begging, it was believed that they could certainly work but did not want to or had fallen prey to alcoholism. Their poverty was their own fault. The number of poor increased sharply in the sixteenth century, meaning that poor relief could no longer cope with the growth. In the twenties and thirties of the sixteenth century, the number of poor people was so large that civil unrest broke out in cities such as Amsterdam, The Hague and Leiden.
Locked up in a correctional center
To combat street begging, the city council took over poor relief again. Almshouses and chaplains’ houses were built to get the vagrants off the streets. Poor people who had registered there were given food, clothing and fuel.
Beggars who were still wandering on the streets were at risk of being arrested and put to work in a correctional center. In the correctional center they slept on stone beds without straw.
Working in a correctional center or spider house
As a rule, men had to work in a correctional center for four to six weeks. Their food consisted of salted or smoked meat once a week and stockfish once a week and not much more than beans, peas and barley. It also happened that women were obliged to work. They were then housed in spinning houses where they had to spin wool. The penitentiaries and spider houses were more or less regarded as charities where people were re-educated.
Poverty in rural areas
But poverty did not only occur in the big city. In the countryside, many farmers only had a small piece of land that they rented from a nobleman, but they could hardly afford the rent.
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- Poverty movement in the Middle Ages