24-05-2012 | PhD ceremony: J.K.S. Moes

Among aristocrats. Hegemony, wealth and reputation of nobility, patriciate and other dignitaries in the Netherlands 1848-1914

PhD degree ceremony: J.K.S. Moes, 2.30 p.m., Academy Building, Broerstraat 5, Groningen

PhD thesis: Onder aristocraten. Over hegemonie, welstand en aanzien van adel, patriciaat en andere notabelen in Nederland 1848-1914 [Among aristocrats. Hegemony, wealth and reputation of nobility, patriciate and other dignitaries in the Netherlands 1848-1914]

Supervisor: Prof. Y.B. Kuiper

Faculty: Theology and Religious Studies

Aristocrats held on to their position of power for a long time in the nineteenth century

Aristocrats were more important in the ‘bourgeois Netherlands’ between 1848 and 1914 than is generally assumed, Jaap Moes concludes in his PhD thesis. Aristocratic families were over-represented in the top echelons of society when it came to power, wealth and reputation. After their class privileges had been abolished by Thorbecke’s liberal constitution in 1848, they used political, economic and sociocultural strategies to adapt to the changing circumstances without losing their collective identity. This way they maintained their exclusive social elite until the First World War, alongside the new wealthy middle class and the pillarized elites that had come to power in the Netherlands.

It has long been assumed that aristocratic families merged into the emancipating middle class in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But was nineteenth-century society as bourgeois as is generally believed? Or did aristocrats, defined as nobility and old patrician families, play an important role in public life? Based on these questions Moes compared the aristocratic families in the Netherlands between 1848 and 1914 to the bourgeoisie. The year 1848 was chosen as the starting point as this was when the aristocratic families lost their constitutional class privileges, and the end point of the study is marked by the beginning of the First World War. This was shortly followed by the introduction of universal suffrage, which seemed to end the power of the aristocracy once and for all.

In the period 1848-1914, aristocratic families in the Netherlands were faced with a number of major changes. Shifts were taking place from the countryside to the cities and from agriculture to industry and service provision. At the same time, Liberalism, free trade and at a later stage industrialization provided the bourgeoisie with more power, wealth and reputation from 1848 on. In the 1880s, lease incomes and the value of property of the aristocratic landlords started to decrease due to the major agricultural crisis. At almost the same time modern political parties started to emerge which mobilized mass support, causing a change in culture both in the political centre of The Hague and elsewhere. The question is how the aristocratic families responded to these social changes. Moes shows how the old, established families moved along with the times and stood their ground for at least half a century after their constitutional privileges were abolished.

Jaap Moes (Leiden, 1960) studied history at Leiden University. He will receive his PhD from the Faculty of Theology and Religious Sciences of the University of Groningen. His supervisor was Prof. Yme Kuiper, whose research interests include elites.