Abstract
In this book, Asger Nørlund Christensen sets out to study the spread of maritime culture and technology from the Dutch Republic to Scandinavia (albeit mostly Denmark), with a particular emphasis on the role played by sailors. This study is based on a theory of situated learning, referred to as learning through participation in training communities, which is used to explain how Scandinavian sailors gained advanced knowledge and competence by working on Dutch ships in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. According to the author, the sailors brought their skills with them when they returned to their home countries and, in the process, helped to spread Dutch maritime knowledge and culture to Scandinavia.
The structure of the book reflects its background as a dissertation. It has been translated from Danish into English, but still in some places contains noticeable language errors, which better proofreading could have rectified. The translation and presentation of many challenging nautical terms is generally satisfactory, even though some concepts lack precision at times – for instance, the differences between shipbuilders, ship carpenters and shipwrights (53–66), and between various ship types (91–112).
The empirical part of the study starts off with an examination of various sectors of mainly Danish maritime life from the sixteenth century onwards where Dutch influences have been noticed, including language, objects, shipbuilding and naval recruitment. This sprawling section is essentially a presentation based on existing literature, albeit with some new contributions. While the author stresses the processual learning aspect of the development, with everything from shipwrights to ships and nautical instruments viewed through the lens of the theoretical foundation, a more general conclusion would be to say that the Dutch influence on Danish maritime life was evident already well before the eighteenth century.
The main original research, and the most important part of the book, is a chapter that contains an analysis of Scandinavian sailors, with information drawn from muster rolls registered in the Amsterdam Waterschout Archive for the years 1772, 1780 and 1787. This is also where the key original findings of the dissertation can be found. The muster rolls provide information on the crew of all ships departing from Amsterdam, including their ages, origins, salaries and positions aboard. The material is analysed extensively, mainly to understand where the sailors hailed from, but also to define in which fields they were employed, and subsequently (and particularly interestingly) also where they lodged, including their local networks, while staying in Amsterdam. This is also where the Scandinavian aspect is most evident, as the study casts light on individuals with a Swedish or Finnish background who signed up on Dutch ships. However, no substantial discussions or analyses of the factors that affected the migration of Dutch sailors to these parts of Scandinavia are undertaken in the book. For instance, the otherwise detailed analytical discussion about push-and-pull factors (42–52) exclusively focuses on the Danish conglomerate state.
The author's analysis of the muster rolls demonstrates the importance of sailors from the Wadden Sea region – roughly equivalent to the western coast of Jutland – and south-western Norway in almost all areas of the Amsterdam maritime labour market. This is an interesting result and can be compared with more distant Scandinavian regions with a more limited participation. It seems apparent that not least the geographical closeness played a significant part in supporting a regular labour migration from the two mentioned areas. The author does not make the conclusions rest on geography or overarching regional explanations, however, but often tries to find more specific reasons by discussing the local situation in different towns and ports. At times, this is based on sound analysis. However, in many other cases, attempts to explain the decisions of a handful of sailors appear to be based on impressions or general assumptions. None of the ideas presented are necessarily unlikely. Still, compelling evidence that the sailors really were influenced by what the author claims affected them is often lacking.
The theoretical foundation of learning through participation in training communities is interesting and could be used to capture the learning processes of many hierarchical work communities during the early modern period. The author convincingly demonstrates that this type of learning process was indeed at play aboard sailing ships, highlighting the various positions that existed and the ranks through which a seaman could rise – from ship's boy to first mate. While this type of organization was undoubtedly common on all ships, the author argues that Scandinavian sailors who worked in the Dutch Republic acquired the specific set of skills required to handle large square-rigged ships, which could not be acquired on the smaller ships that were more common in Scandinavia. When they returned home, the sailors brought these skills with them, and later, when serving aboard Scandinavian ships, spread these skills and other Dutch maritime knowledge. While a perfectly reasonable hypothesis, there are problems with how the claim is substantiated.
For instance, on pages 205–8, the author provides a new assessment of the total number of sailors from the Danish conglomerate state who served in the Dutch maritime sector. The calculation provides estimates for 1650, 1700, 1750 and 1780, which are generally higher than numbers from earlier studies. Based solely on these approximations, and without other additional evidence, the author produces an estimate for how many of these individuals later returned to their home countries. While it must be assumed that Dutch-trained Scandinavian sailors moved back home at some point, no convincing evidence for the extent of this remigration is presented, nor is solid evidence given that Dutch-trained sailors had, in fact, introduced knowledge or a maritime culture to Scandinavia by the end of the eighteenth century that was not already there before. This relates to my earlier point that the types of learning processes which are studied for 1772, 1780 and 1787 had already happened on multiple occasions over a period of at least 150 years, resulting in a constant inflow of knowledge. That Dutch sailors, experts, maritime information and new types of ships were introduced to and incorporated in the Danish maritime sector already during the seventeenth century is a central tenet of the chapters that precede the examination of the Waterschout Archive. This logically must have led to a situation where, by the end of the eighteenth century, local communities and states, as well as shipowners, not only were aware of the type of skills that had previously only been available in the Dutch Republic, but also could rely on a much more advanced and diverse local seafaring community to provide trained individuals with the same knowledge.
In this case, was the decision by eighteenth-century Scandinavian sailors to go to the Dutch Republic in pursuit of a berth not just a personal decision, and was that decision not simply informed by the possibility of earning substantially more money there than at home? It is my opinion that the strength of this study lies in the realization that labour migration between certain parts of Scandinavia and the Dutch Republic was an ongoing process in the late eighteenth century, rather than in the less substantiated idea that these movements facilitated a measurable transfer of Dutch maritime skills, information and, indeed, culture to Denmark – or, for that matter, to the rest of Scandinavia. This book's analysis of the muster rolls in the Waterschout Archives provides a welcome and much improved understanding of the extent and direction of this maritime labour migration. This also makes Maritime Connections across the North Sea a valuable contribution to the field of early modern migration throughout the wider North Sea region.