Provincial Finances of the Dutch Republic 1572-1795

The history of public finance is a crucial element in the history of the Dutch Republic in the period of the Ancien Régime. This project releases the available key figures regarding its public finance prior to 1795. The finances involved are those of the various provinces that, due to the federative nature of the former Republic of the Netherlands, were much more important for the functioning of the state than the so-called Generaliteitsfinanciën (the finances of the Generality of the Republic).

Quantitative data have been made available for the provinces Overijssel, Drenthe, Groningen, Holland, Utrecht, Friesland and Zeeland. For the province of Gelderland the available archival material was insufficient for publication. For Staats-Brabant, the main region in the Dutch Republic under the direct authority of the States General, the preserved material turned out to be too voluminous and too lacking in survey-material to allow processing.

The project as a whole has been carried out as a joint venture of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and the Huygens Institute of Netherlands History. The Fryske Akademy in Leeuwarden was involved in the volume on Friesland for which additional financing was provided by the Professor Van Winterfonds and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. The volume on Zeeland was a collaborative effort of the Huygens Institute of Netherlands History, the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and the Zeeuws Archief in Middelburg; it was made possible by a subsidy granted by the Province of Zeeland.