Episode 44: Hunger, Bread and Cheese

Back to History of the Netherlands

The weariness that comes from decades of instability, war, economic turmoil and hardship really began to exact its toll on the Low Countries in the early 1490s. The last of the Hook uprisings had been quashed in Holland, but there was no stability anywhere, especially as the last flames of the wider Flemish revolt still flickered in Ghent, Bruges and Sluis. Albert of Saxony and Engelbert of Nassau, ruling in place of the now absent Maximilian, were faced with the fearsome obstinacy of Philip of Cleves and, with the seas blockaded, people across the region were underfed and unable to work. In the summer and autumn of 1490, this would result in the desperate lower classes of Bruges erupting into violence against the ducal regime once more, whereas in far-north Holland a large group of very angry, very broke and very hungry farmers, workers and servants decided that enough was enough, and refused to pay the taxes that the ducal government was demanding so that they could keep paying for it all. Welcome to History of the Netherlands. Today, everyone is starving and everything is revolting.

Misery prevails in the Low Countries

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of this episode, it’s probably worthwhile emphasising once again right off the bat just how devastating the last 10 years of war had been on the societies within the Low Countries, which had already been left reeling after the years of almost constant warfare which led up to the death of Charles the Bold in 1477. While researching this period, we have both been openly grateful for the fact that we don’t live in the Low Countries in the 1480s and 90s. The economy of Flanders had been devastated. The value of its currency had plummeted by 60% and the monetary reforms undertaken by Albert of Saxony to try and shore up the economy had led to dire consequences for the lower classes of people, who suddenly found themselves needing to pay off debts triple what they had expected them to be. Food prices had skyrocketed across the region and with Philip of Cleves’ pirate navy blockading the seas from Flanders all the way up the North Sea to Norway, the pain Philip was inflicting was being felt not only across the Low Countries, but also in England, in Denmark and in the Hanseatic League cities across the Baltic Sea. There had been outbreaks of plague in Flanders, Brabant, Hainault, Namur, Liège, Guelders, Utrecht and Maastricht. It is not too much of a generalisation to say that almost everybody in the Low Countries was suffering throughout this period and that most people, including the main belligerents in the war, meaning Philip of Cleves, and Albert of Saxony, Engelbert of Nassau acting on behalf of Maximilian/Philip the Fair, were longing for peace and for a return to some kind of normality.

In the time period that this episode covers, which is roughly 1490-1492, there are revolts going off all over the shop. There’s the one in Bruges, which we will go into shortly, and then another in Ghent, which we are going to leave for another episode, given our strict policy of sticking to just one Flemish revolt per episode. But during the time that these revolts kicked off, a large and violent peasants revolt would spontaneously erupt in the far North of Holland. The movement would take on the moniker “The Bread and Cheese Folk”.

All of these revolts might have happened independently of one another. But, due to the shared, general condition of misery which prevailed across the Low Countries at this time, it is impossible to ignore that they follow similar patterns and share common elements with one another. Ultimately, the vast sums of money which had either been squeezed out of Flanders, Holland and the rest of the Low Countries to fund all the military endeavours of the previous years, or which had been forcibly looted from the regions by the marauding armies traipsing through, had, in the end, mostly been taken from the peasants, the farmers and the working classes, rather than the wealthy minority. Wealth disparity was immense and continued to grow. The pain, anger and discontent which these people felt after all of their suffering meant that they were ready to explode,and ready to channel their unhappiness with their lot into one final, erratic orgy of violence against the authoritarian tendencies of the ducal establishment. These were all revolts that came from the very lowest echelons of society and were, arguably, driven by the all-consuming pangs of ill-temper that accompany being really hungry, all the time.

Bruges rejoins Team Philip of Cleves

You might remember that towards the end of our last episode, we mentioned that in July of 1490, Bruges erupted into open revolt against Albert of Saxony and the Habsburg ducal government. The town had been suffering under a dual blockade of the armies of Albert of Saxony and Engelbert of Nassau by land at Damme, and the fleets of Philip of Cleves by sea at Sluis. Bruges’s precarious position had meant that no matter which side the city chose to support in the conflict that was raging between Philip and Albert/Engelbert/Maximilian, Bruges was going to suffer from destitution, deprivation and starvation. This had led to the lower classes of Bruges overthrowing their city government and the mass exile of its aldermen and the patricians of the city, which also meant the removal of vast amounts of capital and business connections. Last episode, we needed to go against all of our natural inclinations at that point to go down the very tangent which this represented, but reigned ourselves in, so that we could finish off the Hook and Cod wars which, by the way, in line with that 1481 law passed in Amsterdam, is the last time I am going to mention those words in that context. Because we let is sit in the last episode, we can spend a nice chunk of this episode talking about yours and our very favourite topic - yet another Flemish revolt! 

Shortly after the meagre remnants of Frans van Brederode’s navy limped back into Sluis under the command of Jan van Naaldwik following the disastrous Battle of Brouwershaven, the revolting Brugeois decided that it was time to officially rejoin team-Philip-of-Cleves. For Bruges, the overwhelming problem facing the city was food, most specifically, a huge lack of it. Philip of Cleves put together a small army of around 150 men and 40 knights, under the command of a man named Jan van Rans, and ordered them to go and take control of Bruges. In early August of 1490, another of Philip of Cleves men, a guy by the name of George Picavet, was appointed as captain of Bruges, and it was he who was given the unenviable task of figuring out how to get food from Sluis into Bruges. Remember, the entire area between Bruges and Sluis was filled with German troops. It required a rather large army of around 2000 men for Picavet to be able to guard a transport of 150 wagons filled with butter, cheese, fish and other foodstuffs into the starving city. 

Over the following weeks, Picavet attempted various other actions to try and resupply Bruges with the necessities of life that were running desperately low, running raids from Bruges into the countryside and smuggling goods back in. There was a severe lack of wood within Bruges. So, the day after returning from that first food transportation mission, Picavet was out again with his army, this time heading towards Moerbrugge to get some. On the 19th of September, they headed out of the Koolkerke gate again, this time to try to create a better connection by water between Bruges and Sluis; one which bypassed the hostile town of Damme. To do this, they pierced a dike near the town of Hoeke, creating a passage by which they could funnel supplies back to Bruges. A few more raids were conducted from Bruges, but despite these efforts, the situation within the city was simply so desperate that support for the revolt began to wane. Philip of Cleves sent various messengers to Ghent to try to get that city to join in the revolt with Bruges, but, unwilling to help their historic rival, Ghent decided to sit back and remain neutral… for now. By the beginning of October, deputies were sent from Bruges to go and negotiate with Engelbert of Nassau. At around the same time, talks were also held between Philip of Cleves and Engelbert of Nassau.

Many, many failed peace negotiations

I’m going to be straight up with you all here right now and just say this: throughout the period we are going to cover in this episode, from August 1490-October 1492, there were a lot of diplomatic wranglings going on between Philip of Cleves and various representatives of the ducal government. It almost feels redundant to mention them all, however, because they basically all keep going back to, and breaking down around, the same point, which we already covered in the previous episode. Neither side in this conflict was willing to back down from the fundamental positions they held. Albert/Engelbert/Maximilian wanted Philip of Cleves and his armies out of Sluis, but Philip of Cleves was not willing to do that if it meant that his good name and honour would be besmirched and tarnished with blame for the current conflict. The obstinance of Philip of Cleves’s chivalric honour was banging its head against the wall of the authoritarian wishes of the Habsburg government, meaning that all of these attempts at negotiation were ultimately doomed for failure. So if we say “they tried to negotiate, but it didn’t work”, just rest assured that it’s for the same reason that you’ve already heard a bunch of times before.

So, on October 23, 1490, peace negotiations between Engelbert of Nassau and Philip of Cleves began and soon failed. In the middle of these negotiations, however, a couple of interesting things happened. One was that Philip of Cleves’ pirates were able to capture some ships which were returning from the siege of Montfoort in Holland with a few of the big cannons Albert of Saxony had brought with him up there. Engelbert of Nassau had been planning to put Bruges to siege with these guns, but thanks to the pirates, they were now the property of Philip of Cleves. Despite this apparent victory on paper, all it really served to do was make the people of Bruges all too well aware of their impending doom. The other interesting thing was that ambassadors from the King of France, Charles VIII, arrived at Sluis and Bruges, letting them know that if the peace was to have ended, then the French would do whatever they could to assist the Brugeois. Although they had agreed to the treaty of Montils-lez-Tours, the French were getting ready to insert themselves right back into the thick of things meddling in affairs within the Low Countries. Big surprise, that.

When these negotiations broke down, the people of Bruges once again swore their loyalty to Philip of Cleves. Their hunger and deprivation, however, forced them to once again take up talks with Engelbert of Nassau in the middle of November, but he wasn’t interested in negotiating. Instead, on the 21st of November, 1490, Engelbert of Nassau, with 1200 knights and two thousand foot soldiers, attempted, under the cover of mist, to break their way into Bruges through the Ezelpoort. When the citizens of Bruges realised that the city was under attack, huge numbers of them ran to the city walls, intimidating the attacking German army so much that they retreated, but only after setting fire to all the houses in the area. Nevertheless, the German armies remained positioned around Bruges and regularly fired 15kg cannonballs into the city. Chaos reigned within the town. The food situation became so dire that women and children whose husbands had fled the town during the siege were forced out. Beggars and poor people who couldn’t afford the soaring food prices were given permission to leave on condition that they did not join the enemy.

Bruges surrenders and agrees to peace

Philip of Cleves must have realised that Bruges was now approaching its breaking point. On the night of the 25th of November, a team from Damme went out to cut another hole in the dike nearby Hoeke, to try to get a few transport ships filled with bread and dried fish into Bruges. A German army saw this happening and tried to block the hole up, but were beaten back by Philip’s men. On the night of the 28th of November, Picavet led another raiding army of about 500 men out of Bruges to go and collect those food supplies. On their way back to Bruges, at about 5am on the 29th, they were surprised when a German army of about 2000 men, under the personal command of Engelbert of Nassau, which had lain hidden on either side of the water, suddenly made themselves not-so-hidden and attacked. The fighting went on for hours, but despite their most valiant efforts, almost all of the men from Bruges were either killed or captured. George Picavet was captured and shortly thereafter beheaded. That same day, deputies were sent from Bruges to Engelbert of Nassau to surrender and agree to peace.

The treaty between Engelbert of Nassau and Bruges was pretty standard stuff. On the 4th of December, 1490, the people were forced to go outside the gates of the city and fall to the feet of Engelbert of Nassau, on behalf of Maximilian, where he publicly admonished them. Their privileges and rights were restored, but Bruges would need to pay a huge fine of 150000 St. Andries gulden, they needed to follow all of the requirements of the Peace of Montils-lez-Tours and they had to immediately bring into effect the much despised money reforms. Also, the peace excluded by name dozens of ring leaders of the revolt, including, first and foremost, Philip of Cleves. Later that day, Engelbert of Nassau entered the city of Bruges and decided to take up residence in Philip of Cleves’ house there, the Hof van Ravenstein. That must have a smug and satisfying night’s sleep. But the most lasting effect this surrender would have, was on the long term prosperity of Bruges itself. As historian A. de Fouw writes about this moment, “For Bruges the crisis was over and the decline of the city began”. Bruges would never again reach the same levels of power and influence that it once had.

Having put an end to the revolt in Bruges, Engelbert of Nassau set his sights on the most pressing problem in Flanders; Philip of Cleves and his pirate den of Sluis. There were attempted negotiations at Hulst in early January 1491, which failed. After this, Engelbert of Nassau decided that the best course of action would be to try to attack Sluis itself. The almost indomitable position of Sluis, however, meant that any attempt to take the city would be long and costly, and require a huge amount of collective effort. There was a gathering of the States of Flanders, which discussed how exactly they were going to protect Flanders from Philip of Cleves and his army/navy in Sluis. Engelbert of Nassau split his forces up and placed them in the towns of Aardenburg, Heist, Lissewege and St Anne ter Muiden to effectively close the lands around Sluis. At the same time, a bunch of warships were placed at the nearby town of Biervliet so that, when the time was right, Sluis could be blockaded by sea as well.

Be this as it may, Philip of Cleves, ensconced in Sluis at the beginning of 1491, was not going anywhere, any time soon. Because although the revolt within Bruges had been put down, it is important to remember that Ghent, that most formidable and intractable of Flemish cities, was also highly displeased with the monetary reforms and the Peace of Montils-lez-Tours. Ghent might not have been willing to come to the aid of Bruges, but that does not mean that Ghent was unwilling to lash out against the ducal government again. And Philip of Cleves was soon going to have a very powerful ally in his corner, Charles VIII, King of France. But, like we said earlier, this is not the “History of Flemish Revolts” podcast, and we are trying our best to refrain from talking about more than one per episode. So we will leave things like this in Flanders today and instead journey north, to Holland, to take a look at the most delicious sounding revolt we’ve seen so far, that of the Bread and Cheese people.

Ruytergeld and Speckhaelders

The far northern tip of Holland contains a few smaller regional areas, which kind of blend together but still maintain a semblance of localised identities. Three of these are Kennemerland, Waterland and West-Frisia. Kennemerland is a western, coastal part of North Holland, flanked by the sea on one side and the rest of the peninsula on its east. Waterland is a chunk of land north of Amsterdam, on the old Zuiderzee coast and West-Friesland is the area north of that, which was taken over by the Count of Holland, Floris V, in the 1280s, which we covered way back in episode 11 - “The murder of Floris V”. In that episode we met scores of revolting Kennemer peasants which, spoiler alert, is about to happen again. People in both of these regions had long been incorporated into the administrative sovereignty of the Count of Holland - who had also been the Duke of Burgundy since Philip the Good.

Up until the beginning of 1491 this part of north Holland was relatively calm. It was on the periphery of the Frans van Brederode uprising to the south in Rotterdam and the siege of Woerden. It was also fairly removed from the unrest in Flanders. But the financial funny-buggers that the ducal government had been playing with the general economy across the Low Countries, along with the increased taxation of the Netherlandish territories to pay for the wars against Philip of Cleves and against the French, began to expose cracks in this calm that would soon widen into gaping chasms of popular unrest. In Holland people had to pay the ruytergeld, a tax which was levied to cover the costs of war. By 1491, however, because of the devaluation of currency, subsequent debt-dilemma and this tax, thousands had been made destitute. The majority of these were of the lower class peasantry, farmers and workers, but wealthy land-holders were not completely inured from such a fate. In large towns like Leiden and Amsterdam, over 10,000 people in each place were lining up for charity bread every week. Even smaller towns like Hoorn, whose total population was still fewer than 6000, at least 2000 people are said to have been forced into poverty. In the small villages, or dorpjes, the economic stress caused many people with capital to leave the countryside and go to the big cities, leaving many would-be workers without work. This terrible situation led to scores of so-called Speckhaelders roaming around the countryside, going from town to town. These were people who had been forced into begging, stealing and sometimes violently accosting the more well-to-do for their goods and monies. As the spring of 1491 unfolded, fewer and fewer people were able or willing to pay the ruytergeld, despite the continual demands and attempts by ducal bailiffs and loyal-to-the-government urban elites to extract it from them by threat and punishment, while still more and more found themselves in or on the brink of poverty, forced into begging because of the ducal threat and punishment.  

This soon became an even more urgent matter for the ducal government, represented in Holland in the form of the stadhouder of Holland, Jan van Egmont. The destruction wrought on Rotterdam, Woerden and Montfoort because of the recent sieges there would need to be repaired and this would require even more funds from an already depleted populace. From his perspective, the ruytergeld simply had to be collected. Now, the order of the following events is not certain, because the main sources - chroniclers Velius and Cornelius Aurelius, as well as a bit from Molinet - differ on dates and details. Great. But, in this account we have relied greatly on the analytical assembly work of historian J Scheurkogel and will try to relate these events pretty much in line with his argument of how these things played out.

Revolt begins with plundering of Corff house

In early 1491 many people across West Friesland, Kennemerland and Waterland refused to pay the Ruytergeld. In response to this, sometime in late March or early April, the Stadhouder Jan van Egmont set off with a bunch of soldiers, with the objective of throwing his weight around the region and helping to rustle up this money. Other ducal officers, such as the clerk of the Council of Holland Jan Oom van Wyngerde also set out to different towns to do likewise. In and of itself, Egmont heading out to do this was not an unusual act. He or his representatives had already carried out such actions on eight occasions since 1489. On this one particular occasion, however, it sparked a bunch of non-compliant reactions across the region. Whether these were directly connected occurrences or a more generally broad spontaneous sense of defiance that arose, there was fierce public resistance to ducal forces and authorities and the outright refusal to pay the tax in the farming regions between and around towns like Schagen, Hoogwoude, Hoorn, Alkmaar and Spanbroek. Farmers and peasants - generally people who were already suffering during these times of economic hardship - simply refused to cough up the tax. Skirmishes erupted and two protestors were killed.

This sparked a fierce public backlash against Egmont and his men. Then the rioters began coalescing, from out of those towns, and setting off on a march towards Alkmaar. In Alkmaar itself, a bunch of these rioters came together as an angry mob and stormed a house that belonged to a man called Claes Corff, a local urban leader and tax collector for the stadhouder. Molinet chips in here with a couple of things that the other sources don’t include. He reckons that Claes Corff had already appeared at the court in the Hague around Christmas the year prior to complain about people not paying the ruytergeld tax. This paints a picture of a man who was very solicitous in his job of impoverishing people on behalf of the government. He was not at home when the raiders arrived, so managed to escape the immediate fury of the mob. We can be pretty sure that this absence saved his life, as one of his servants was not so fortunate. They were tragically killed. His house was then ransacked. 

The rebels of North Holland, driven by hunger and frustration, had come suddenly to the stage of violent revolt. Following the attack on Claes Corff’s house, disparate farmers from the region began to descend upon Alkmaar, forming what, to anyone on team-government, would have looked like a pretty formidable force of angry and hungry people dominating the town. By the middle of April, Egmont was well aware that he needed to find a way to end the exploding insurgence and calamitous consequences of it before this force went on a rampage. Like I mentioned, the exact chronology of events is murky. If you believe Molinet, then in early 1491 the town of Haarlem stepped into the role of trying to avoid open conflict, sending representatives to mediate between the parties. The traditional narrative at this point is that the government was lenient in its dealing and largely appeased the revolting peasantry, many of whom now returned to the farms.

However the period that is the spring and summer of 1491 is seriously confused between all the main sources. It is worth saying that even the exact years of all of this are open to debate, since Cornelis Aurelius and Velius, the two chroniclers who have most been depended upon, only talk about the events that make up the Bread and Cheese revolts as happening in 1492, as do other chronicles. But to add to this confusion, Molinet puts events that definitely happened in 1491, in 1492. And Molinet is certainly not immune to being wrong about dates. Anyway, the point is that there is much conjecture about all this and especially about this period of the revolt. There don’t seem to have been any big confrontations, but tensions almost certainly did not disappear. As Scheurkogel puts it, after that first phase of the uprising, and during the latter half of 1491, “...what is certain is that the peace did not return.”

Tensions simmer

So we can safely imagine that, as the summer of 1491 commenced, tensions continued to escalate on both sides. At some stage during those months, a government building in Hoorn called the blochuys was occupied by a rebel group and, along with sections of the region they already controlled and the continued presence of insurgents and miscreants in and around towns like Alkmaar and Hoorn, the whole movement remained a huge issue for the ducal order. One message that went to Mechelen on the 31st of July basically says - and I am most certainly paraphrasing - that the continued disorder in Holland was because everyone was starving, so making peace with Philip of Cleves would be one way to end this uprising. At the very least this communique shows that people in the government clearly identified that the regional tensions were part of a wider problem in the Burgundian lands writ large: that the final burden of payment for decades of war and revolt had come to rest on the taught and bony shoulders of the Low Countries’ starving lower class. A mandate from the Court of Holland that was sent to one of its West-Frisian administrators and payment collectors had an attached missive telling him that people who refused to pay the tax should be executed.

At the end of July, two so-called speckhaelders were convicted and, coincidentally, so too was one of the suspected leaders of the uprising in Alkmaar, a man named Wouter Baertsz. It is also worth pointing out that defining this conflict as one between ‘two sides’ is simplistic. Those who were taking part in the uprising were doing so to varying degrees and for varying reasons, not all of them connected. It is impossible to get a full overview of all the people who made up this insurrection movement. Historians have looked at the verdicts handed down to the convicted in the aftermath to get some idea of those involved, but that is only a small sample size, of course. Included within those convictions were vagabonds who had been dispossessed, unemployed brewers, fullers, weavers, coppersmiths, boilermakers, sieve makers, a barber, shoemakers and innkeepers.

It is unclear whether there was any genuine connection or sense of unity, for example, between so-called speckhaelders and the farmers or urban citizens whose refusal to pay the ruytergeld had kicked off this revolt. The government seemed willing to treat them like there was. One man in Alkmaar, Reyer Claesz, as an example, was both a citizen of the town and treated publicly as a speckhaelder. So there probably was a fair crossover, as the speckhaelders were an ill-defined and varied group and many people who were classed as such would merely have been farmers or town citizens who had fallen into poverty and lost everything but, perhaps, the different relationships that they still maintained with fellow farmers, neighbours, family and so on. So while it is unclear how the different parties in this revolt lined up with each other, we can safely assume that there were numerous human relationships, connections and acquaintances woven throughout it.

A greater sense of organisation appears to have come into the uprising during the summer months of 1491. A meeting was arranged at sometime point in early summer that took place in Hoorn, attended by representatives from all of the towns and cities of Kennemerland, except for Enkhuizen. Here, the towns collectively agreed that, to the last person, they would not pay the ruytergeld any longer. Already by June, word of the popular unrest in North Holland had spread the length of the Low Countries, reaching the ears of the former you-know-who defeated partisan rebels who had failed to hold Rotterdam and since fled to Sluis.

Jan van Naaldwijk, looking for a new foothold from which to continue the cause, arrived by surprise at Wijk aan Zee, harboured his fleet in het Marsdiep, the strait between Den Helder and the island of Texel, and quickly had his men occupy Texel itself and the region around Wieringen, on the north-eastern tip of Holland. From there, he set about trying to push his agenda into this completely unrelated conflict, with further attempts on the towns of Hoorn, which was already a hotspot for the rebellion, and nearby Enkhuizen. The burghers of these towns resisted his offer, despite a fairly strong anti-authoritarian attitude within their walls. There were partisans…Just not that kind of partisan. To be serious, though, the general fear they had was of attracting a siege that they would not be able to sustain. Van Naaldwijk was left to partake in a patch of petty piracy on the Zuiderzee, which he spent the summer doing, before heading back to Sluis. This all had Philip of Cleves’ hands all over it and the piratical policies that had been serving him so well around Sluis now served him and Naaldwijk well in the Zuiderzee, helping to disrupt stability deeper into Maximilian’s realm. Who this spot of piracy did not serve, however, were the peasant rebels who, in the long run, would be the ones to suffer the most from what became a partial blockade of North Holland.

What exactly happened over the last half of 1491 and early 1492 is unclear, but Hoorn and Alkmaar remained in rebel hands. This brought a lot of pressure onto the wealthier members of the towns, who now had these recalcitrant freedom fighters knocking on their doors and demanding food and drink.

Cheese and Bread

In the first half of March, 1492, the burghers of Hoorn managed to convince (bribe) all the insurrectionists there to go and quarter only in Alkmaar. Along the way this motley force of disgruntled folk took a couple of castles, Nieuwburg and Middelburg and, after they had arrived in Alkmaar, basically planted themselves in the town, making it the main focal point for malcontents seeking to join the revolt against the ducal tax. Their stated aim was to be able to afford necessary foodstuffs, such as bread and cheese. These two items became the symbols of the uprisings, with banners made to display images of them, as well as the individual fighters attaching small chunks of both bread and cheese to their belts, indicating that it was these basic things that they were fighting for. The Alkmaar civic government, being composed mainly of the urban elite who had much to lose, tried desperately to appease and rid the town of the Bread and Cheese folk, even though many of their number came from Alkmaar anyway. Although there is evidence that they had some success in getting the rebels to leave, they were clearly not entirely confident about their ability to deal with these people properly, because they eventually turned to the Stadhouder, pleading with him to come and sort this mess out. A flurry of correspondence surged between all the main towns and stakeholders of the region. It was decided that the city of Haarlem would invite representatives from the rebelling towns to come and meet within Haarlem’s walls and try to find a resolution.

Molinet tells a story that during this meeting, which based on other evidence definitely took place in early March, 1492, one of the rebel leaders, a guy called Anthonis Willemsz. turned up at the head of a bunch of rebels and proposed that Haarlem let the entire rebel army in. The wealthier citizens of Alkmaar - where the majority of the insurrectionists were camped - would most certainly have supported this, but the town burghers of Haarlem, unsurprisingly, did not. In this version, it was a day after this that representatives from towns and villages across Kennemerland rocked up at the Hague and put their case before the Council of Holland and the Stadhouder, Jan van Egmont. The matter was deemed too important to decide then and there, so missives were sent to Leiden, Amsterdam, Haarlem, Edam and Monnikendam, which were all told to send representatives to the Hague to help with the ruling. Which meant that the petitioners had to wait a week for the decision. 

When the decision came it seemed a good one for the revolters. The remaining tax to be paid would be waived, the rebels would not be prosecuted and Haarlem, for its good work in playing the mediator role, would have this taken into account when it came to future financial obligations to the government. Many rebel farmers left Alkmaar and returned to their farms and any citizens who had fled were able to return without risk to their persons or possessions. Bloody win - win - wi…wait what does the ducal government win? 

Well, it would appear that Jan van Egmont and the Council of Holland were being a little bit underhanded in looking for their ‘win’, because in the third week of April they secretly set about mobilising a force of two-hundred men at arms and, by the end of the month, were garrisoned in Egmont’s castle. Along with loyalist citizens of Alkmaar, Hoorn and other towns where the rebel minded - who were basically the working class - still lingered, Egmont had clandestinely arranged that he would appear before the city gates of Alkmaar with this force. They would have to let him in and, through this action, he would be finalising the submission of the bread and cheese folk to his will and bringing this …well I was going to say ‘bring this unsavoury affair to an end’, but bread and cheese is most certainly a savoury affair. Anyway, that was the plan. 

But, alas, a priest got wind of this secret arrangement and got word out to the rebel leaders, who mobilised all the agitants who had returned to their farms, who then set off back out into the fray, heading for Alkmaar. When Egmont did turn up before the city gates, expecting the full submission and entry to within, the gates remained closed to him and he and his force found themselves under attack from scores of rebel farmers and Alkmaarders. He suddenly had to make a hasty retreat, which he did, all the way back to the Hague. Once there he took out his quill and parchment and wrote to Albert of Saxony to basically say, ‘this bread and cheese business has come with a great pickle, which I am now in.’

The Cheese and Bread rebels take Haarlem

This aggressive action by Egmont rallied the farmers once again and, as Scheurkogel put it, they “streamed out of North Holland” and began to arrange themselves into troop units. Shortly, they had set off, for some reason, towards Haarlem, on the way taking the towns of Beverwijk, Velzen and Santpoort, thereafter arriving before the city gates of Haarlem in the early evening of May 3rd. These remained closed to them. They asked politely and less politely if they could come in and were steadfastly refused by the sheriff. Oh no, what would they do? Well, some of their number thought they should return to Alkmaar. I reckon I would have been one of those. After all, why were they in Haarlem? All Haarlem had done in this was try to mediate between the absolutely penniless rebels and the rapacious ducal government. It wasn’t their fault that Egmond had betrayed the peace that had been reached. Anyway, according to Molinet, the besieging, hungry peasant army didn’t have to do much to take Haarlem, as sympathetic Haarlemmers within its walls opened one of the gates for them. The rebels surged into Haarlem and towards the city hall, which is where some of the trusty old urban elite had sequestered themselves, fearing for their safety with pretty good reason.

There are two accounts of how the marauders got into the town hall. Cornelis Aurelius tells us that they offered the besieged urban toffs safe conduct out of the building, after which the doors were opened. Molinet, backed up by another source, on the other hand, says that it was taken by force. However it happened, the result was that they took the building and two Haarlem aldermen and the sheriff, who had initially refused them entry into the city, were killed then and there. The next day saw particular buildings and houses of wealthier Haarlemmers ransacked and looted, before order was restored on the second day. The city was now the base of a full flung revolt. A letter was sent to Hoorn telling the rebels there to send reinforcements immediately because they now had Haarlem. According to Molinet, soon there was a rebel army of around 6000, about 40% of them from Haarlem and the rest from Kennemerland, Waterland and West Frisia.

On May 4th, the day after the rebel group had arrived in Haarlem, Egmont made his way to Leiden to organise the regional defence. Then, a day later, he shot off another letter to Albert of Saxony suggesting that perhaps he would like to bring all his German mercenaries that he had in Gorinchem, where he was, and come to lead said defence of North Holland. Being a veritable Action Jackson, Albie Animosus set off almost straight away, also ordering towns and villages across Holland to send able men to Haarlem. Meanwhile the rebels in control of Haarlem, now decided to take another big scalp. Leiden. They set off in this pretty big force, but when they got there on the 10th of May they found it well fortified and completely closed to them. They attacked it anyway and managed to take a stronghold bulwark that had recently been erected outside the walls. But, despite this, they could not breach the walls and gate themselves and a fearsome sally on horseback, led by Egmont, soon saw the rebels scampering away and being hacked down. Over the following night and day, survivors slowly turned up back in Haarlem and a bunch of the farmer rebels returned to their holdings, now fully aware of what it often meant when meagerly armed peasants came up in battle against knights.

Albert of Saxony crushes the peasant army

Now was Albert of Saxony’s turn. On the 11th of May he sent one of his captains, Wilwolt von Schaumburg, via ship, to Noordwijk, from which he and a bunch of troops set out via Zandvoort and Wijk aan Zee for the rebel-held Beverwijk, which they promptly laid to siege. After a battle about which basically nothing is known, Beverwijk was taken and utterly pillaged by the ducal forces. News of this saw messages flying out of the rebel strongholds of Alkmaar and Haarlem, once again seeking to recruit any farmers and other recalcitrants to the cause. 

Albert then sent sternly worded messages to the major cities of Holland, warning them not to allow any one of their citizens to aid the rebels, particularly the sympathetic porters. To Leiden and Amsterdam in particular, being closest to Haarlem, he warned the city governments to deny any passage of the working class towards Haarlem, or towards Heemskerk. This was just north of Beverwijk which was now under Wilwolt van Schaumburg’s control. So Heemskerk had become the place where the peasant farmer army was assembling. Meanwhile, the city government of Haarlem, trying to get itself out of this sticky situation of being under the rebel thumb, sought to employ a mercenary force from Guelders to come to their aid. They succeeded in getting about 1200 men to depart for Haarlem, but only 200 arrived, it seems, as the rest took the money and ran. Well, that was a good plan. 

So Albert of Saxony’s invasion force, under the captaincy of Wilwolt, was in Beverwijk, while the rebel army was gathering in Heemskerk. Naturally, then, that is where they locked horns on the 15th of May. Despite their formidable size, the rebel troops were no match for the experienced ducal soldiers. Scheurkogel points out that the rebel cause was not helped by the fact that one of them, a guy called Pieter van Leeuwenwerf and his unit made up of angry, hungry servants, fled the battle without taking part. On top of this, a West-Frisian auxiliary force was on its way to help out, but got there too late.

This was the battle that broke the bread and cheese board. The rebels who had taken over Haarlem pretty quickly surrendered, followed by those in Alkmaar and, soon, the rest of North Holland followed suit. Albert of Saxony had waved his wand of power and ensured that the immense resources of his office would not suffer a dent by an uprising that the stadhouder and council of Holland had been unable to keep under check. A few days after the battle at Heemskerk the proxy ruler of the Low Countries, alongside members of the council of Holland, made an entrance into the now submissive Haarlem. Albert oversaw the handing down of reparations and punishments, which included a bunch of executions. 

And that was the end of the Bread and Cheese Folk. Although, just as we saw with previous bouts of factional or social conflict in Holland which we refuse to mention anymore, although the label of the movement disappeared, the roots of unrest remained. There would be continual meetings of malcontents in West-Friesland well into the year, and even as late as October Albert was prepared to send troops up to Holland to ensure that his enforced stability of the region was maintained. I think we can safely say, however, that variations of rebellious chatter and feelings of discontent towards the government and wealthy minority would very much remain. 

By the middle of June Albert had left North Holland, to return to Zeeland, where he would rejoin the on-going preparations for the on-goinig conflict that had been the biggest thorn in his side since taking over from Maximilian. Sluis was being laid to siege, because none of those negotiations between Philip of Cleves and Albert had gone anywhere. So it is to Flanders we will return, next time on History of the Netherlands.

Sources used:

‘The social and economic effects of plague in the Low Countries 1439-1500’ by W.P. Blockmans in Revue belge de Philologie et d'Histoire Année, (1980) 58-4 pp. 833-863.

Jaer-boecken der stad Brugge, behelsende de gedenckweerdigste ..., Volume 2, edited by Charles Custis (1765).

Philips van Kleef by A. de Fouw (1937).

Knokke & het Zwin by Maurits Coornaert (1974).

Dits die Excellente Chronijcke van Vlaenderen by anonymous (1531)

‘Het Kaas- en Broodspel’ by J. Scheurkogel. in Bijdragen en mededelingen betreffende de geschiedenis der Nederlanden 94(2):189 (January 1979)

The History of Holland and the Dutch Nation: From the Beginning of ..., Volume 1 by Charles Maurice Davies (1851).

Chroniques de Jean Molinet. T. 3 and T. 4

‘The Burgundian Netherlands, 1477–1521’ in The New Cambridge Modern History, chapter by C. A. J. Armstrong

Vaderlandsche historie. Deel 4 by Jan Wagenaar

Monarchies, States Generals and Parliaments by Helmut Koenigsberger