“Whatsoever their estates be, their houses must be fair. Therefore from Amsterdam they have banisht seacoale, lest it soyl their buildings, of which the statlier sort are sometimes sententious, and in the front carry some conceit of the Owner. As to give you a taste in these:—
‘Christus Adjutor Meus;
Hoc abdicato Perenne Quero;
Hic Medio tuitus Itur.’
“Every door seems studded with Diamonds. The nails and hinges hold a constant brightnesse, as if rust there was not a quality incident to Iron. Their houses they keep cleaner than their bodies; their bodies than their souls. Goe to one, you shall find the Andirons shut up in network. At a second, the Warming-pan muffled in Italian Cutworke. At a third the Sconce clad in Cambrick.”
English travellers are not the only ones to bear witness to the extremes to which cleanliness was carried by the housewives of the Low Countries. A French writer, De Parival, says:—
“The wives and daughters scour and rub benches, chests, cupboards, dressers, tables, plate racks, even the stairs until they shine like mirrors. Some are so clean that they would not enter any of the rooms without taking off their shoes and putting on their slippers. The women put all their energy and pleasure in keeping the house and the furniture clean. The floors are washed nearly every day and scoured with sand, and are so neat that a stranger is afraid to expectorate on them. If the city women keep their houses clean, the farmers’ wives are not less particular. They carry this cleanliness even into the stables. They scour everything, even the iron chains and mounts until they shine like silver.”
The same traveller also says: “The furniture of the principal burghers, besides gold and silver ware, consists of tapestries, costly paintings (for which no money is saved, but rather eked out in economical living), beautifully carved woodwork, such as tables, treasure-chests, etc., and pewter, brass, earthenware, porcelains, etc.”
Another foreigner says: “Their interior decorations are far more costly than our own [English], not only in hangings and ornaments, but in pictures, which are found even in the poorer houses. No farmer or even common labourer is found who has not some kind of interior ornaments and so varied that if all were put together it would often fill a booth at the fair.”
Chrysostomus Napolitanus, who visited Holland in 1516, says: “Goede Hemel! welk eene netheid van het gereedschap! welk eene kostelijkheid van bedden en welk eene blankheid van servetten, tafels en tafellakens! welk een sieraad aan de stoelen! welke zindelijkheid eindelijk aan muren, vloer en al het overige! Den bodem der spijs-, noen- en slaapvertrekken bestrooien zij met een weinig zand, opdat, zoo er bij geval iets morsigs op mocht vallen, zoo iemand somwijlen er vuile voeten op mocht zetten, de vloer zelve er niet door besmet zou worden, maar men het terstond, eer het er zich aan vasthecht, met bezems uit zou kunnen keeren.”