As can be seen from Table 6.1, compulsory service was not widespread. Most regions in the southern Low Countries did not resort to compulsory service as part of their local and regional labour market policies, making such coercive forms of labour control quite unusual. All references to compulsory service in labour laws originated in the county of Flanders. In particular, compulsory service was only encountered in the Flemish regions bordering the North Sea, such as the districts of Bergues, Bruges and Furnes. In these regions compulsory service clauses targeted young unmarried adolescents who were living on their own. In the district of Bergues, the young could not live independently from their parents unless they had the explicit permission of the village aldermen. In addition, they could not take up temporary residence in inns. Instead, they were expected to hire themselves to farmers of the district in exchange for a ‘reasonable wage’ (‘redelicken loon’).
1 Costumen Berghen Ste Winocx, p. 51. Infractions were sanctioned with a fine of 10 £ parisis, but magistrates could also impose higher fines or other forms of punishment as they saw fit. In the district of Bruges the customs specifically targeted unmarried youths of the poorer sections of the population. Those who did not hire themselves were liable to be fined 6 £ parisis. Those who rented rooms to or housed such individuals also faced a fine of 6 £ parisis. As in Bergues, young people were expected to enter service with the farmers of the district. Thus the labour laws not only targeted the young unmarried labouring population but also those who enabled such people to live outside of service. Interestingly, the fines that were imposed on both recalcitrant youths and those who housed them accrued partly to individuals who denounced such behaviour and activity. The labour laws specifically stated that informers were entitled to half of the monetary fine.
2 Gilliodts-Van Severen, Coutume du Franc, ibid. Clearly, the aldermen of the district speculated that a financial stimulus would result in widespread social control and reporting.
The clauses relating to compulsory service in this region were not a novelty of the early seventeenth century. Compulsory service first appeared in Flemish labour laws in the 1550s and 1560s. Mortality crises and rising nominal wages spurred the aldermen of the coastal districts to introduce more strict and coercive labour laws to deal with the alleged labour shortages and subsequent ‘unruly’ attitudes of the rural workforce.
3 Lambrecht, ‘The Institution’, pp. 52–3. Significantly, these measures were not restricted to the specific challenges that characterised the rural labour market during the 1550s and 1560s. When new customs were compiled in the early seventeenth century, compulsory service was again included in the regulations. This indicates that the aldermen did not view compulsory service as a temporary measure to deal with short-term challenges, but considered it a useful instrument to get a permanent and strong grip on some parts of the labouring classes. Such coercive labour strategies were related to the specific social, demographic and agrarian characteristics of these coastal regions. First, the coastal regions in Flanders were characterised by large holdings. In comparison to more inland regions, a larger share of the soil was occupied by farms employing wage labour provided by day labourers, migrants workers and servants.
4 T. Lambrecht, ‘Agrarian Change, Labour Organization and Welfare Entitlements in the North-Sea Area, c.1650–1800’, in S. King and A. Winter (eds), Migration, Settlement and Belonging in Europe 1500–1930s: Comparative Perspectives (New York–Oxford, 2013), pp. 205–9 and A. Vervaeke, ‘Met recht en rede(n). Toegang en gebruik van burgerlijke rechtbanken in het Brugse Vrije, 1670–1795’, unpublished PhD dissertation (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 2018), pp. 210–14. Second, wage labourers in this region were relatively scarce. The slow transition to agrarian capitalism was accompanied by long-term demographic decline. Large tenant farmers were able to extend their holdings at the expense of small and middle-sized family farms. These farms were dismantled and integrated into larger holdings. This resulted in emigration from the region and comparatively low population densities.
5 D. Dalle, De bevolking van Veurne-Ambacht in de 17de en de 18de eeuw (Brussels, 1963), pp. 74–83; K. Dombrecht, ‘Plattelandsgemeenschappen, lokale elites en ongelijkheid in het Vlaamse kustgebied’, unpublished PhD dissertation (Ghent University, 2014), pp. 60–74. Moreover, permanent immigration by labourers was restricted to avoid pressures on local poor relief resources. Thirdly, the nature of agrarian production should also be taken into account. The large farms in the coastal regions increasingly specialised in pastoral agriculture during the early modern period. Dairy production and the fattening of cattle became the most important form of agriculture in this region.
6 P. Vandewalle, De geschiedenis van de landbouw in de kasselrij Veurne, 1550–1645 (Brussels, 1986), chapter 4 and E. Thoen and T. Soens, ‘Elevage, prés et pâturage dans le comté de Flandre au moyen âge et au début des temps modernes. Les liens avec l’économie régionale’, in F. Brumont (ed.), Prés et pâtures en Europe occidentale (Toulouse, 2008), pp. 79–99. This resulted in specific patterns of labour demand. Whereas in arable agriculture the demand for labour was highly seasonal, pastoral husbandry was characterised by a need for permanent year-round employees. Living-in servants provided an answer to these specific labour requirements. Therefore, the unique combination of large commercial farms, low population densities and pastoral specialisation probably explains why coastal regions in particular resorted to compulsory service in their labour laws. Compulsory service gave employers a powerful means of attracting labour to their farms not only in sufficient quantity but also in the specific form they desired as a permanent workforce of productive adolescents employed for longer periods. As the next section illustrates, the clauses concerning compulsory service did not constitute dead letters in these regions but were actively enforced to police particular segments of the rural labour force.