‘Non erubescat Hollandia’: Classical Embarrassment of Riches and the Construction of Local History in Hadrianus Junius’ Batavia

Abstract

At least since 1987, when Simon Schama published his famous study The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age, it has been well known that there was a strong connection between notions of wealth and collective identity in the early modern Low Countries, or at least in Holland.1 In this book, the incomparable wealth and the boundless consumerism in the young Dutch Republic are contrasted with the dominant moralist discourse of the seventeenth century – a discourse that was often hostile to avarice, luxury, and wasting money. According to Schama, this paradoxical phenomenon is at odds with Max Weber’s famous thesis that Calvinism denounced consumerism, praised a strong work ethic, and regarded wealth as a confirmation of God’s benevolence, that in doing so it created favourable conditions for investment as an alternative to consumption, and that it thus contributed to the rise of capitalism.2 Schama argued that this theory does not explain the situation in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic very well, because despite the dominance of Calvinism, the Dutch Republic witnessed a strong consumerist culture. Moreover, Calvinism was far from unique in its critique of wealth. Most importantly, however, Calvinists often criticized