Aportacions més rellevants

Not only were meals offered to family and friends, there were cir-cumstances where relative outsiders would also be offered this type of hospitality. This also applied to those professional contacts

who were paid to perform chores within the household, and would enter the confines of one’s home, like salters, peat-men, and tailors.¹⁸⁸

Tailor Abraham Breckeveld van Cuijlenburg was ordered to make a suit for David’s younger brother Abraham on Monday, 15 January.¹⁸⁹He started work at Beck’s house the next day, and re-turned there every day for a week to finish the suit. On these days he joined the Beck-household for dinner every evening.¹⁹⁰ On some of these evenings Beck would be present himself, but even if he was not, Abraham would be offered a meal in the company of sister Diliane and the Beck children. The meals offered to these professional contacts were a result of both convenience and cus-tom: it was customary to provide tailors or other professional con-tacts, like the salter or the peat-carrier, who worked in the house, with a meal when they were around on mealtimes.¹⁹¹

On the other hand, there are also examples of individuals that are referred to by Beck as being professional contacts, while as a matter of fact a closer look at the actual relationship between Beck and that person is one that can be considered friendship, more than anything else. This is the case, for example, with Beck’s other tailor Berend Zwidde. Soon after tailor Abraham Breckeveld had finished working on some clothing for David’s younger brother, David Beck contracted Zwidde to make him“a French mourning cloak”.¹⁹²Unlike Breckeveld, tailor Zwidde did not work at Beck’s house but in his own workshop and, in the days that followed, Beck visited him regularly to bring cloth, buttons, ribbons or tags.

On some of these occasions, Zwidde offered him a drink or even a meal, which is just ordinary professional hospitality.¹⁹³A little less than two weeks after ordering the garment, Beck noted in his diary that he was wearing his “new French mourning cloak” for its“first voyage” and expressed his wish that the Lord would have him wear it in good health.¹⁹⁴ Since this garment was finished, one might expect that this also implied that the contact between Beck and his tailor was over, but this was not the case. During the year, Zwidde and David Beck paid each other visits, which were sometimes accompanied by a drink of“anise water”.¹⁹⁵They also invited each other to dinner parties, which were usually very en-joyable. Beck talked of being “well-treated and merry” and of being“very sweet and merry” on these occasions, so it does seem that these two men appreciated each other’s company.¹⁹⁶In No-vember, Zwidde organised a harst to which Beck was kindly

in-vited as well. It turned out to be a very merry occasion.¹⁹⁷In that sense, Berend Zwidde was not just Beck’s tailor but also a friend.

Another special case with respect to the offering of hospitality to professional contacts was the wet nurse. She was hired after the death of his wife to take care of Beck’s infant daughter Roeltje.¹⁹⁸ The wet nurse was obviously not a family member nor could she be considered a friend, but she was to a certain extent quite a cen-tral figure in David Beck’s life in 1624. She was, after all, taking care of one of his children, and thus he visited her house on a regular basis. These facts notwithstanding, it is impossible to identify her: Beck never mentions her by her first name or her maiden name, nor does he ever reveal the name of her husband.

This is quite extraordinary. Most of the time Beck’s male ac-quaintances were referred to by at least their last names and Beck would usually add their professions as well. The aforementioned Zwidde was both his tailor and friend, but would nevertheless al-ways be referred to as“tailor Berend Zwidde”. Whenever he men-tioned women with a specific function he would describe them in the same manner. Women that he just saw as the partners of his male acquaintances were usually referred to by mentioning the husband first, and then adding to that“and his housewife”.¹⁹⁹So, the fact that the wet nurse is only designated as “de min”, or “the wet nurse”, is quite striking. She cannot be identified other than by her professional task within the Beck household.

As a matter of fact, her entire position in David Beck’s life and his social circle is quite exceptional. On the one hand, David Beck regularly visited her home to see his little girl and to pay her, which are obvious things to do. On the other hand, she was the only person with whom Beck had a relationship of a solely profes-sional nature who was invited to dinners that were organised to celebrate calendar feasts. Normally, these events were only cele-brated in the company of relatives and close friends, but the wet nurse was invited to have pancakes with the Beck’s on the occa-sion of Carnival and joined the Beck household for a kermis meal.²⁰⁰ Furthermore, the wet nurse also had lunch at Beck’s house right before Christmas, by which time she was in fact not taking care of little Roeltje anymore.²⁰¹

This suggests that even though she maintained a professional relationship with the Beck household, she was to a certain extent part of the household since she took care of one of its members.

However, even though she was present both in the diary and as a

guest at these dinner parties, the wet nurse, as mentioned above, remains anonymous and not only because her name is not re-vealed. Whenever Beck noted that he had visited her at home, he never mentions what they discussed, which is something that he duly noted whenever he visited other women like the aunts of his late wife. In that sense, her participation in these festive occasions seems dependent upon her function in the Beck household. Natu-rally, her professional relationship with Beck would not have ex-cluded personal appreciation, but there is no hint of any personal involvement with or appreciation for the wet nurse in David Beck diaries.