Keywords

Altona was built for receiving strangers. In 1664 it was made the first free town of the Danish realm, and it was granted freedom of trade, tolls, and religion. The city space contained public sites of worships for Lutherans, Catholics, French and German Reformed, as well as German and Portuguese Jews.1 The openness of Altona was also tangible in terms of its boundaries. The city lacked walls, fortifications, and, until 1744, even border stones, all of which normally entailed mechanisms of social inclusion and exclusion as well as the practical function of controlling strangers who arrived at the city.2 When Altona’s city president Hans Rantzau referred to the city’s codified freedoms in a speech at the city hall in 1746, he strikingly added the “freedom of coming and going.”3

This was about to change. In 1748, the city’s burgher captains, heads of the local militia, were instructed to patrol their neighborhood every evening after 10 p.m., or “at the latest” after 11 p.m., and knock on every house door, “both guesthouses and private houses.”4 Those staying in the houses at that late hour were presumed to be night guests.5 The instruction prescribed that the captains should make sure that newly arrived strangers, regardless of gender or social status, were properly registered, and that the inspected houses did not host any so-called “suspicious people.”6 This reform reflected shifting expectations on the part of hosts and host communities in early modern Europe: the duty to offer guests a safe haven was changed into an obligation to register and report any disturbance of order to the authorities.7 Thus, the thrust of the 1748 instruction was not unique to Altona, but it was particularly challenging for a free town. Another essential dimension of this reform that makes Altona an intriguing case for researching shifting practices of hospitality and security is the role of the townsmen who were instructed to carry out these duties.8 While many cities increased public security by demanding written attestations from arrivals at the city gates—thereby replacing the ancient dress codes—the reforms in Altona relied heavily on patrolling burgher captains.9 One specific incident, recounted in a petition to the Danish king and signed by all 22 burgher captains, illustrates the difficulties in performing these tasks.

One evening in 1764, the Altona townsman Johann Stephan Arnold was instructed by the city’s police director Johann Peter Willebrand to enter the house of the royal postmaster in order to ask strangers spending the night there who they were and what they were doing in the city.10 He was expected to investigate this matter in keeping with his duty as a burgher captain. However, Captain Arnold did not comply with the order and did not enter the postmaster’s house. He stated that people staying there would most probably be insulted if he, a normal burgher “even though he is a captain,”11 would initiate such “private interrogations.”12 On the other hand, he argued that they would have to show respect if an assistant to the police director would ask these questions “in the name of his master.”13 In short, the burgher captains feared they would be perceived as private persons instead of public officeholders when crossing the threshold into the house. This episode just recounted supported the burgher captains’ wider argument that the patrolling tasks should henceforth be handled by assistants to the city’s police office. The police office had been installed in 1754 as an additional reform to increase public security, and was led by a police director appointed by the Danish king instead of the townsmen themselves.

This chapter investigates how conflicting expectations of hospitality and security in mid-eighteenth-century Altona affected perceptions of private and professional responsibilities. The example of Altona offers an illuminating case with which to examine how a system of public security was rapidly introduced in a free town, with ordinary townsmen expected to maintain and enforce it under supervision from a professional police director educated in Law. Particular attention will therefore be devoted to how the burgher captains’ dual capacities as public officials and private persons affected their lives and willingness to perform their duties. In other words, this chapter will not focus so much on the effects of their work, as their work’s effect on them.

The changes in Altona emerged amidst a context of rising interest in police regulation as a tool to increase wealth and security in expanding cities. Police regulation was rooted in cameralistic thought, which promised a favorable trade balance, increased productivity, and attractive policies for both merchants and inhabitants.14 The instruction for Altona’s first police master, issued in 1754, repeated the obligation that every host register those who were staying in their houses by name, occupation, and place of origin.15 In addition, the instruction also stipulated that a census would be held under the police master’s watch twice a year, at the feasts of Ascension and Saint Martin, in order to make sure that no exceptions were made, especially not for soldiers. Apart from the stricter registration of strangers, the police instruction included typical policies of the time regarding religious matters, moral behavior, business, and infrastructure.16 Research on how police regulation was introduced in eighteenth-century cities has pointed to a combination of intervention from above and initiatives from below.17 Indeed, the dispute about Captain Arnold’s mission to Postmaster Schäfer’s house demonstrates how townsmen themselves asked for professionalized policing forces.

The seventeen-page petition signed by the entire corps serves as the empirical starting point for this study. It is one single primary source, but it can rightly be considered significant because it articulated a fundamental and joint declaration from all the burgher captains. Further investigations in Landesarchiv Schleswig–Holstein have revealed that this petition was preceded by several individual applications from captains asking to be relieved of their duties. These documents have been consulted to offer additional evidence. Also, various administrative correspondence between Altona and Copenhagen further illuminate discussions about the functionality of the burgher militias by revealing points of contention and fragilities within the new system. One of these conflicts, which will be explained in more detail, followed on the heels of a burgher militias’ instruction to the owner of the Rathweinskeller to close for the night.

But, before returning to the hardships of the burgher captains, it is important to clarify the broader expectations surrounding hospitality in Altona. In addition to sources from Landesarchiv Schleswig–Holstein, further information on this topic is also found in the book Abrégé de la Police (1765), written by Altona’s second police director, Johann Peter Willebrand (1719–1786) during his period of office from 1759 to 1766. In this book, the police director depicts a utopian urban order, according to cameralistic thought, utilizing in part concrete references to Altona.18 This book by Willebrand, together with several preserved manuscripts which he sent to Copenhagen, offers an ideal starting point to explore expectations of hospitality in the city, as seen from the perspective of the very public officeholder who was responsible for balancing ideals of hospitality and security.

Receiving Strangers in Theory and Practice

The first impression one gives to strangers arriving to a city, whether one receives them politely or impolitely, has a major influence on their decision to stay there or if they prefer to go back.19

These were police director Willebrand’s words about host–guest relations in the ideal city. However, this relationship was not described as an expression of hospitality, which is explained in greater detail elsewhere in his book. Instead, the headline to Willebrand’s statement was “politeness towards strangers,” and in the following paragraph, the author specifies that he was referring particularly to wealthy people who might expect special treatment. Concerning such figures, Willebrand argued in favor of turning a blind eye both to violations of legislation against luxury and, in another paragraph, smuggling, simply because the city would benefit more from making exceptions for the wealthy than it would by risking to lose these people. More generally, he also argued for a moderate approach when it came to applying the city’s laws to strangers.20 The principle of giving strangers a good impression of the city also occupied his thoughts when it came to material representation. In the police records, he repeatedly complained about the deteriorated state of two very visible places in the city: the ditches along the border to Hamburg and a crumbled wall forming part of the city hall. He described emphatically and with irritation how a visitor arriving to Altona from Hamburg was met by a stinking ditch full of excrement.21 Judging from the documentation of the border regulations with the Hamburg magistrate, this problem had existed for decades.22 Furthermore, a visitor entering from Hamburg very soon passed by the crumbled wall of the city hall which, according to Willebrand, provoked “all strangers to hold the police director’s office accountable for such a disgraceful omission.”23 In this context, the reception of strangers was linked to the public image and reputation of the city and its police office, and further related to the continuous campaigns for attracting newcomers.

Hospitality, in Willebrand’s terminology, was something very practical. The paragraph entitled “Hospitality” in his book dealt with how to ensure that guests had somewhere to stay. With reference to Montesquieu’s Lettres persanes (1721), he praised the “oriental nations” for practicing hospitality in ways that went far beyond European standards.24 Indeed, guesthouses in Constantinople embraced a principle of offering guests three nights’ stay for free, whereas the general, equivalent principle in European states was only one night.25 This “one-night principle” can be found in the sources from Altona, too. For example, in the regulation for craftsmen of 1732, migrating journeymen (Gesällen) were promised one night’s funded stay while searching occupation in the city.26 In the same way, passing soldiers, after tough negotiations between the city magistrate and the German Chancellery in Copenhagen, were limited to one night’s stay (which, according to the preserved documentation, could be made into an economic transaction).27

In addition to the number of nights to be offered to guests, Willebrand also discussed how the institutions of “piously funded” guesthouses for poor people served as an expression of hospitality. Such institutions were not found in Altona, but he did point out how well such institutions functioned in Lübeck, where he had lived previously. Falling under the remit of these guesthouses, which resembled the traditional Hospitalen in which the sick, the poor, and the pilgrims were taken care of, Willebrand also included people who were traveling for the sake of work.28 Willebrand had many other ideas of public institutions and services. In addition to libraries and other cultural facilities, he stressed the importance of offering places where arriving strangers (étrangers qui arrivent) and travelers (voïageurs) could eat, as well as people who lived in single households (célibataires).29 Here we get a glimpse of the eighteenth-century city and its gradual division of spaces for working, eating, and comfort.30 There is archival evidence that the city magistrate, at least to some degree, discussed such ideas. In 1757, a townsman named Johann Köbrell sent a petition to the Danish king asking for an economic contribution to create an auberge suitable for receiving traveling strangers (fremde Passagiers). He argued that such an arrangement would serve the common good, since people otherwise normally stayed in Hamburg.31 In the end, the Royal Chancellery let the local authorities decide on that matter. They did not provide Köbrell with funds, but instead supplied him with a piece of land, arguing that the city had no problem with lodging guests as it was, without going into any further detail.

Indeed, Willebrand’s general approach to treat the subject of hospitality as a practical public duty had some resonance with his time. Similar ideas were formulated amid processes of reform of the inner order of cities; here, as Karl Härter notes, the line between public security and public welfare was less clear in the second half of the eighteenth century than it would be later.32 Jurists in the early modern German lands identified three categories of hospitality, the provision of which were deemed essential and mandatory for every city: publica (public representation), necessaria (travelers, soldiers, and other groups who needed to travel due to their occupation), and mercenaria (merchants).33 The latter included, as standard, travelers.34 Each city was expected to solve these matters, even if each type of guest or form of hospitality, with the exception of public representation, was considered a matter of private responsibility for the common good, rather than something that the city should legislate about.35

So where did people stay in Altona? There is good reason to believe that people belonging to the higher social strata generally stayed in private houses, such as the postmaster’s house. More advanced commercial businesses generally had already moved from outdoor markets to private houses by the sixteenth century in European cities.36 In Altona, the opportunities for receiving guests in imposing indoor facilities were on the rise after the major merchant houses had created the Gesellschaft der Commercirenden (the Merchant Society) in 1760.37 Their houses were gathered in a specific quarter of the city between Elbstraße, with its market squares, and Königstraße, with its many public buildings. By the turn of the nineteenth century, the Danish architect C. F. Hansen (1756–1845) was recruited to add flavor and prestige to these structures. Likewise, distinguished political guests were received in private houses. This is demonstrated, for example, in the lodging registers for King Christian VII’s (1749–1808, r. 1766–1808) visit to Altona in June 1767, which displays the names (and, for lower servants, just their titles) of those guests who stayed in specific Altonian citizens’ houses. According to this preserved register, both police director Willebrand and postmaster Schäfer were hosting men of high rank, while one of the police assistants and some of the burgher captains were listed as hosts for people whose names were not even written down.38 The very fact that the burgher captains were instructed to investigate private houses clearly indicates that people of lower status, under normal circumstances, were expected to be found there as well. The police records reveal that unregistered people, sometimes categorized as Gesindel, were sometimes found staying overnight in private houses. Previous research on similar systems of control in early modern cities has also demonstrated well that particularly people of lower status were not registered as guests. As Riita Laitinen suggests, based on her findings in seventeenth-century Turku/Åbo in Finland, foreign merchants were housed legally and peasants illegally in burgher houses.39

At the Threshold of the Rathweinskeller

Apart from private houses, the burgher captains were also instructed to visit so-called Wirtshäuser—taverns that typically also served as inns. Research on these institutions has indicated that such guesthouses took over much of the hosting activity from ordinary households during the early modern period. This development came with the commercialization of the institution, both in the fees charged for a stay and in the consumption of goods on the spot.40 In 1744, Altona had around 300 Wein- and Bierschenken (Eng. taverns).41 This number far exceeded the average for a German eighteenth-century city, which was around one inn per 200 inhabitants.42 This high number reflects the combination of a strong beer and Brandtwein industry and Altona’s popularity as a day-resort for thirsty Hamburgers. Four of the major Wirtshäuser were granted tax exemptions, presumably with the expectation to facilitate the reception of guests.43

These taverns and inns effectively encompassed different types of thresholds between the public, private, and secret, which were all related to their functions as spaces of hospitality. The administration of the police office in Altona repeatedly categorized Wirtshäuser as public houses or places, as opposed to private ones.44 Numerous studies have demonstrated that these institutions were generally characterized by permanent access, which, in line with urban praxis, was marked out materially with a sign outside the building.45 However, it has also been noted that while the authorities tended to treat these houses as public spaces, they were often built just as private houses and offered inner rooms that could be used for less public matters.46 Chambers, parlors, passage rooms, and backrooms invited suspicion, not least since the generally thin partitions often were permeable to sound.47 The ambiguities made these buildings areas of projection for both multifunctional use and intense regulation.48 For example, a Danish ordinance against gambling in both private and public houses, introduced in Altona in 1753, specifically mentioned chambers found behind locked doors as places of concern.49 When the ordinance was repeated in 1761, innkeepers were requested to report on what they knew about illegal, hidden practices in these spaces.50

When it came to the powers of enforcement wielded by the burgher militias, however, the temporal aspect of regulation was of primary value. At 10 p.m., public houses had to close. If the burgher militias performed their prescribed duty, they could very well show up to make sure that the public houses had indeed adhered to the regulations. This situation implied an ambiguity in relation to various normative expectations. At nightfall, the host’s ancient duty to offer protection for guests staying overnight might potentially kick in. This entailed a perception of the house as a protected area, and the night as particularly sacred.51 According to Ann B. Tlusty’s study on public houses in sixteenth-century Augsburg, guests could reasonably expect to have a right to visit the host’s home, and this could be considered a matter of public duty, rather than an expression of voluntary hospitality.52 This was not evident. Early modern jurists debated whether the host had a public, obligatory role to play in this regard.53 Another, less contested expectation was that it was the host’s responsibility to guarantee that the guests got home safe.54 One thing was sure: the guests who were present when the local militia arrived could be drawn into petty conflicts.

One incident that has left extensive traces in the archives—because the host penned an angry petition to the German Chancellery in Copenhagen—concerns a conflict following a burgher militia’s visit to the city’s Rathweinkeller in 1757. According to the host, Georg Ludwig Keyser, the militia had ordered “several strangers” to leave his house once it was after the official closing time. Keyser presented several arguments against his treatment at the hands of the militia. First, he complained that he risked losing his business to competing wine houses. Second, he referred to the royal privileges for his business and, accordingly, he expected special treatment. Indeed, in light of such privileges, his wine house was certainly of a more exclusive kind than other public houses in the local hierarchy, at least based on existing categories of legal status.55 Keyser was obviously irked after having experienced first-hand the application of the instruction to the burgher captains to visit houses regardless of legal status (Stande).56 He stressed that his place had been peaceful (in Ruhe und Frieden) until the burgher militia arrived, and in so doing, he appealed to reasonable expectations of order, which at that time were referred to as ideals of tranquility.57 He then juxtaposed his peaceful house to “suspicious houses where constant noise and conflict is to be found.”58

Third, he expanded on the theme of honor. He claimed that a specific burgher captain had insulted both the strangers and him, which had put his honest reputation among “all honetten burghers” at risk. In order to restore his honor and set an example for other strangers, who might otherwise be deterred by this incident, he insisted that the burgher captain in question should be put in prison for eight days on a diet of water and bread alone.59 Finally, Keyser advanced arguments about the nature of the space that his house represented. He demanded that “the Policey” would once and for all leave his “Wohnung” undisturbed, and that the individuals serving as burgher captains should be banned from entering the building.60 They were no longer welcome to drink the city’s most exclusive wine.

Several boundaries were at play. To begin with, Keyser denied the city’s public security force access to his house. Moreover, the use of the term “Wohnung” signaled an intrusion into a room of a more private quality. Previous research has identified this type of a domestic conceptualization of place as a response to regulation. Such a boundary making often came with material aspects; doors and windows facing the street were typically closed, while those facing the yard or the neighborhood were kept open.61 When evaluating this conceptualization of domestic space, it is also relevant to bear in mind that evening sociability in German cities at the time could take place in both public taverns and in more domestic settings.62

Both the Supreme President Henning von Qualen (1703–1785, in service 1751–1766) and the magistrate council rejected Keyser’s demands. The Supreme President stressed that he must act against such an evident violation of regulations, but he also added that Keyser might well be treated more favorably in the future if he did not make so much fuss about the militia performing their duties.63 This comment suggests that the boundaries of this contentious space of public hospitality and security were not so clear-cut in practice. More intriguingly, both the Supreme President and the magistrate council firmly denied Keyser’s demand that the burgher captains should be barred from entering his house. As for the alleged cases of defamation, they directed Keyser to the courts. Nevertheless, they did stress how important it was that the burgher captains were not denied access to Keyser’s house. While this could be interpreted as an expression of the general principle of the accessibility of Wirtshäuser, the explicit rationale offered by both institutions was far more practical: if the burgher captains were not allowed into Keyser’s wine house, they could be barred entry elsewhere as well. The magistrate council, closer to the local realities, further expressed concern that the burgher captains could, accordingly, be denied access to other confraternities in the social fabric of the city or that their children could be refused as apprentices, which was a substantial threat to craftsmen families.64

Keyser’s complaint of having been subject to insulting and dishonorable treatment may well have served the functional purpose of minimizing the key regulatory issue of his inn’s opening hours. Judging from previous research, formulating vehement accusations seems to have been an efficient way of dancing around such incidents. In an illuminating study of conflicts in public houses in eighteenth-century Lyon, Susanne Rau has demonstrated that the local court gladly followed up accusations about insults rather than late opening hours, even in cases where guests felt they had been dishonored by being denied an unlawfully late drink.65 Moreover, Tlusty has suggested that focusing on insults was an acceptable way of legitimizing a conflict around public houses (and defences of drunkenness were the most effective way of being exculpated for such incidents).66 In light of these examples, one might suspect that Keyser primarily wanted an exception to be made in his case.

What we do know is that Keyser highlighted the fact that the strangers witnessed the scene, and this provided an overarching explanation of why the burgher militia’s act was horrible. Another thing is also sure: his attack on the burgher captains as both agents of the public security system and private persons hit them hard.

The Rise and Fall of the Burgher Captains

Within two decades, between 1748 and 1764, the public office of the burgher captains was first mooted as an idea, implemented, then heavily criticized, and subsequently significantly scaled back. To begin with, the decision to employ citizens for the task to patrol the city at night was a recurrent topic of debate in the administrative correspondence between Altona and Copenhagen. In a memorandum entitled “Reflection about the inner order” (Gedanken über die innerliche Verfassung), written in 1759, the former city president Bernard Leopold Volkmar von Schomburg (1705–1771, in service 1736–1746) raised an objection to employing citizens for such purposes based on economic grounds.67 If townsmen would serve during the night between Friday and Saturday, they would have to sleep on Friday afternoon and hence be unable to work on Saturday either. Furthermore, they would certainly claim to keep Sunday as their day of rest, and the craftsmen would also be free during Monday, in accordance with their tradition. Schomburg added that such “republican ideas” —by which townsmen were thought suitable for such time-consuming tasks—had been rebuffed in Hamburg and that people were drawn to Altona because of the lack of such policies. Finally, Schomburg stressed that these extra tasks would make it increasingly difficult for the appointed townsmen to support their wives and children economically. He concluded with an appeal to his successor as city president as well as to the magistrate council to “let the poor townsmen perform their work in peace.”68

The first documented call for the abolition of the office as burgher captain was heard only four years after its introduction, in 1752. The request, signed by a group of townsmen, addressed the need for a chief of police instead, arguing that the burgher militias were temporary and dysfunctional units.69 There is good reason to believe that the authors of the letter did not exaggerate when they claimed that the burgher captains often forsook their duties. During the 1750s, several burgher captains indeed resigned, some of them after having penned a request to the German Chancellery in Copenhagen in which they asked to be relieved from their service.70 Writing to the Danish king was a strategy they resorted to after the city magistrate had denied their requests to resign. Their pleas were eventually accepted by the Supreme President, in the name of the sovereign.

Two of these petitions have been preserved, together with the administrative correspondence they generated.71 Similar to the joint petition of 1764, the arguments expressed in these single petitions discussed the issues from a more practical and social point of view, as opposed to Schomburg’s rational calculations. Thus, they provide us with further insights about the points of contention surfacing in the wake of the new system having been put into practice. When it came to society’s lower strata, they complained about the increasing workload in the expanding city. They claimed it was difficult to expel “suspicious people” without the aid of a city wall or some other effective demarcation of space that could facilitate greater protection and security. Issues concerning the amount of time required to discharge militia duties were fundamental to the burgher captains’ requests to leave their office. But the captains also signaled three additional factors growing out of their experiences in the role and the tensions that resulted from private persons taking public office. Briefly, these three factors were: private business, personal health, and domestic occupations.

First, the burgher captains argued that what they had sacrificed for the public good had to be balanced against duties they described as private business or business considerations.72 In part, such was a plain statement that the work was time-consuming, especially when combined with other public duties that these same individuals performed for the city. The city magistrate remained unimpressed by this argument. They commented that public offices had always come with the expectation to abstain from certain private businesses.73 The petitioners meant, however, that it was particularly harmful for them to serve as burgher captains. One of them stressed that he had made enemies in the neighborhood because of his role in that office.74 Another captain made the same argument, adding that it was particularly harmful for the businesses of merchants if they served as burgher captains, claiming that he himself was the only merchant who continued to trade out of the twenty-two men currently in office.75 These arguments resonate well with two documented cases that have already been mentioned: the conflicts around the Rathweinskeller in 1754 and the postmaster’s house in 1764. The joint petition in the wake of the latter incident raised a rhetorical question that puts its finger on the central issue: “What would a man answer his co-citizen when interrogated every week if he was lodging suspicious people?”76 In other words, burgher captains were not seen as professional police servants, but private persons. The joint petition continued: “And what would a stranger, a respectable man, an officer, or another stranger who stays for a couple of days in a public guesthouse or a private house reply when a burgher captain asks him who he is?”77 These scenes capture the problems of patrolling both the neighborhood and houses of people of higher social status, such as the postmaster’s house or the Rathweinskeller. Furthermore, all petitions made frequent reference to the fact that other burgher captains had had their resignations accepted. They also assured the authorities that they were performing other tasks for the public good instead.78 The petitioners emphasized even more the non-professional character of the task by stressing that this was a voluntary task, not mandatory, and that it should not be allowed to deny someone permission to take leave.79 The city magistrate, however, expressed their concerns in correspondence to Copenhagen, stating that too many changes to the positions and personnel of the burgher captain squad would be detrimental for the city.80

Second, there was the issue of the burgher captains’ personal health. The petition of 1764 mentioned that the night rounds could be violent, which is also confirmed in accounts of the police office indicating that some of the burgher captains were compensated for damages caused by fights while on duty during nights.81 According to the burgher captains themselves, it was the city’s expansion during the past decades that had made the task significantly more challenging, as there were now more “suspicious people” to keep track of. Another health issue was the cold winter nights. Both individual applicants attached a medical certificate confirming the bodily damage suffered by winter night rounds.82 The city magistrate was unimpressed. It argued that the problem could easily be solved by the installation of small indoor facilities, which the burgher captains could use as their bases.83 The concerns of the captains, however, went deeper. One of the burgher captains described his request to resign due to the cold winter nights as a “question of conscience,” since bad health would subsequently risk making his wife a widow and his children orphans.84 This might well be seen as an overstatement, but the joint petition did indeed further appeal to this domestic perspective of the captains’ families.

Finally, the petitioning burgher captains highlighted that their service at night led to significant “omissions of their domestic occupations.”85 They stressed that they were complaining not only for themselves but also for their children.86 This highlighted issues of being able to support one’s family economically, in line with the former city president Schomburg’s argument. Artisans, in particular, put considerable stock in an ideal of being self-supportive.87 But there are grounds to ask if this wish to withdraw physically to home—which received no further explanation—also expressed a desire to stay with family, both to ensure domestic security and to enjoy the night rest. Furthermore, the emotionalization of family relations, and the division between living and working spaces, are crucial factors when explaining the observable trends in urban life towards withdrawal to domestic space by the turn of the nineteenth century.88 Using the night as a time for rest was, for natural reasons, an ancient attitude. But it was also hailed by the former city president Schomburg as well as police director Willebrand as a reaction against increasing nocturnal lights and activities in eighteenth-century cities.89 Regardless of how this is associated with larger historical processes, the declared withdrawal from the public office as burgher captain had domestic motivations.

Police director Willebrand commented that the burgher captains’ petition was well written, but he completely rejected its demands.90 Instead, he accused the captains of lacking patriotic spirit. On a practical level, Willebrand remarked that the applicants had not attended meetings to leave reports, that they were mostly amusing themselves instead of patrolling the city, “gambling and drinking at the cost of the city […] in the name of a militia,”91 and that their complaint was instigated by one specific leader: Carsten Cölln, a “republican spirit.” In the end, the burgher captains could claim a partial victory, as the new instruction to police assistants, dating from 1766, instructed these servants to inspect one innkeeper per day in Altona or in the nearby village Ottensen.92 The randomly kept police protocols from their duty confirm that they did so.93 The protocols detailing fines also record some of the names of those hosts who were fined for not having reported their guests in advance.94

Idealized as Hosts—Perceived as Intruders

To summarize, when Altona increased its system for public security in 1748, a significant burden was placed on the burgher captains. Their duties to patrol the expanding city were reported as both extensive and risky, but most of all, prevailing social norms undermined its purpose as well as the motivation of the people involved. Reports coming after incidents concerning the postmaster’s house and the Rathweinskeller, as well as individual and collective requests to leave office, all point to how the duty as burgher captain triggered conflicts—and most importantly, conflicts in which no distinction was made between the professional role and the private person. The burgher captains were not perceived as incumbents of a public office. Instead, they were seen as non-professionals, and their reputation, business, access to locations in the city, and future opportunities for themselves and their family members were all endangered.

The conflicts rested on the collision of ideals of hospitality and security, as well as distinctions between private and public spaces. The forces responsible for patrolling Altona were explicitly instructed to visit both private and public houses, but thresholds to houses of high status were protected, based on a number of factors: business, privilege, domestic terminology, ideals of tranquility, professionality, and—as an overarching argument—the gentle treatment of strangers, or the very presence of strangers itself. From the other side, the burgher captains explained their willingness to withdraw from office, at least in part, because of their desire to spend the night at home with their families. Seen from a wider historical perspective, these arguments were articulated in a context marked by urbanization, professionalization, and increasing divisions between spaces for work, home, and comfort.

In a wider historical perspective, these conflicts in Altona stand out as an intriguing example of colliding expectations on the citizen’s private responsibilities and the professionalization of urban regulation of the eighteenth century. In his book Abrégé de la Police, police director Willebrand envisioned a society in which “a stranger would not be shocked to be asked about his name, his occupation, his motives, and the whereabouts of his residence,” regardless of whether the one asking the questions was a burgher captain or a police assistant.95 He concluded: “nothing contributes more to maintaining order in the city than if the burgher captains were to perform this duty.”96 Such an ideal of a utopian system in which normal townsmen, the genuine representatives of the host community, were recruited to receive and monitor strangers corresponded pretty well to the instructions for the burgher captains when they received their patrolling duties in 1748. However, evidently, this ideal corresponded very poorly to the existing norms and social fabric of Altona. The thorny position of the burgher captains as both idealized hosts and perceived intruders triggered requests for a more clear-cut division between home and city.

Notes

  1. 1.

    See Kopitzsch (1982).

  2. 2.

    On the importance of city gates, see Jütte (2014: 204–227); Boes (2007: 92).

  3. 3.

    Hans Rantzau (1693–1769, in service 1746–1749). LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3747: 11.

  4. 4.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3886: 103: “sowohl in Wirths- als Privat-Häusern.”

  5. 5.

    Copenhagen, Rigsarkivet (Danish National Archives, hereafter DNA), Tyske Kancelli, Slesvig-holstein-lauenburgske Kancelli, Patenten (1670–1770), B5.60, 175: 376–378. Similar systems were introduced at the same time in other cities. For example, in Cologne it was stated that a list of night guests would be reported to the city hall one hour at the latest after the officially prescribed closing hour (see Schwerhoff 2006: 364–365).

  6. 6.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, Nr. 3886: 103: “verdächtige Leute.”

  7. 7.

    Schulz (1987: 237–242).

  8. 8.

    To be sure, the patrolling local militia was not an institution unique to Altona. Research has even demonstrated that such militias were often both unpopular and dysfunctional. Wealthy burghers gladly paid to escape the duty or found ways to avoid the strictures imposed by the militia. See Boes (2007: 92, 108–110), Eibach (2007: 20, 24–25), Laitinen (2007: 607), Schwerhoff (2006: 365), Sälter (2006: 131).

  9. 9.

    For example, in Frankfurt am Main passports were introduced in 1689, and after 1731, official dress codes were no longer published (see Boes 2007: 110–111).

  10. 10.

    Schleswig, Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein (hereafter LSH), Abt. 65.2, no. 3915: 158–159.

  11. 11.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3915: 159: “einen Bürgersmann, wenn gleich Capitain.”

  12. 12.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3915: 176: “privat Inquisitionen.”

  13. 13.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3915: 159: “in Namen seines Herrn.”

  14. 14.

    Nokkala and Miller (2020).

  15. 15.

    Such a system of registration was practiced in many European cities (see, for example, Mączak 1995: 118; Boes 2007: 109–110; Jütte 2014: 216–217).

  16. 16.

    See, for example, Sälter (2004: 165–175), Simon (2004: 381–481), and for the Danish realm, Tamm (2008). The police regulation in Altona regarding religious matters is discussed in Ljungberg (2022).

  17. 17.

    See Blickle (1998), and for the Danish realm, Mührmann-Lund (2011).

  18. 18.

    Willebrand 1765.

  19. 19.

    Willebrand 1765: book 2, article 328, 123: “La premiere impression que l’on donne aux Étrangers qui arrivent dans une Ville, par une Réception polie ou impolite influë beaucoup sur leur Résolution à s’y fixer, où à s’en rétourner au plutôt.” The headline of the section is “De la Politesse envers les Étrangers qui arrivent.”

  20. 20.

    Willebrand 1765: book 2, article 329, 125–126.

  21. 21.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3888: 50.

  22. 22.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 143: 72.

  23. 23.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3888: 40: “die Schande einer solchen Unterlaßung, von allen Fremden, auf das Contores Policey-Directores geschrieben wird.”

  24. 24.

    Willebrand 1765: book 1, article 51, 81–83.

  25. 25.

    On the one-night principle, see Jancke (2013: 206–207).

  26. 26.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3883, article 22, 30.

  27. 27.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3939: 81–104. In 1765, the innkeeper Cordt Hinrich Dölling was charged for one Nacht-Quartier for a troop passing through his inn, apparently without having met them in person, see 117–118, 135–136, 143–150, 171–173.

  28. 28.

    Willebrand 1765: book 1, article 51, 81–83. For similarities with Hospitalen, see Rau and Schwerhoff (2004: 27).

  29. 29.

    Willebrand 1765: book 2, article 274, 80–81.

  30. 30.

    Hayen (2007: 130–141); Tosh (2008: 6).

  31. 31.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3882:I: 69–80.

  32. 32.

    Härter (2013: 198–200).

  33. 33.

    Jancke (2013: 198–210, 304–305).

  34. 34.

    Keechang (2000: 24–25).

  35. 35.

    Jancke (2013: 198–210, 304–305).

  36. 36.

    See Lovisa Olsson’s contribution to this volume, as well as Harreld (2003). For an illuminating case study of Augsburg, see Jachmann (2010: 197).

  37. 37.

    Kopitzsch (1982: 712).

  38. 38.

    DNA, Overhofmarskallatet, Sager vedr. kongeliges rejser (1719–1900), 1766: Christian VII Vallø, Frederiksborg, Altona, Holsten mm, 7 – I.K.11 – I.K.13, 212.

  39. 39.

    Laitinen (2017: 85).

  40. 40.

    Rau and Schwerhoff (2004: 27).

  41. 41.

    The number of 300 comes from the city president Bernard Leopold Volkmar von Schomburg (1736–1746), see LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3740: 60.

  42. 42.

    According to Susanne Rau, an average eighteenth-century German city had one inn per 200 inhabitants, see Rau 2004.

  43. 43.

    Saye-Mühle, Idens-Hof, Französischer Hof, and Rütterischer Hof, see no. 3882: II: 42.

  44. 44.

    For example LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3915: 175: “in einem öffentlichen Wirtshause oder in einem privat Hause”; LSH, Abt. 65.2, Nr. 3772: 5: “auf denen Gaße, in den Wirths-Häusern oder in Bürgerhäußern, auch anderswo auf der Stadt.”

  45. 45.

    Kümin (2006).

  46. 46.

    Tlusty (2006), Krug-Richter (2006).

  47. 47.

    For perspectives from England on these issues, see Brown (2009: 69, 73–74); Gowing (2000: 134).

  48. 48.

    Schwerhoff (2006: 363), Tlusty (2004), Krug-Richter (2004: 110).

  49. 49.

    Tyske Kancelli, Diverse sager, Trykte kgl. forordninger (1567, 1629–1770), BX.171: 520.

  50. 50.

    Tyske Kancelli, Diverse sager, Trykte kgl. forordninger (1567, 1629–1770), BX.171: 591.

  51. 51.

    For a discussion on these and related aspects of Hausfrieden, see Schmidt-Voges (2010: 197–217).

  52. 52.

    Tlusty (2001: 161).

  53. 53.

    Jancke (2013: 403–406).

  54. 54.

    Schwerhoff (2006: 364–365).

  55. 55.

    Cf. Kümin (2007: 91–93), Rau (2007: 104–105).

  56. 56.

    For discussion about the control of houses belonging to people of different social status in eighteenth-century London, see McEwan (2011: 53).

  57. 57.

    Schmidt-Voges (2010: 198–202).

  58. 58.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3882: I: 95: “verdächtige Häuser worin beständiger Larm und Streit ist.”

  59. 59.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3882: I: 108–113, 138–139.

  60. 60.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3882: I: 96: “die Policey aber mich ferner in meiner Rathweinkeller Wohnung zu turbiren.”

  61. 61.

    Laitinen (2007: 608–609).

  62. 62.

    Schindler (1992).

  63. 63.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3882: I: 86–89, 101–107, 141–143.

  64. 64.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3882: I: 86–89, 101–107, 141–143.

  65. 65.

    Rau (2007: 108–110).

  66. 66.

    Tlusty (2001: 130–131).

  67. 67.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3740: 82–85.

  68. 68.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3740: 83: “die armen Bürger in Ruhe bey ihrer Arbeit lassen solte.”

  69. 69.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3749: 111–118.

  70. 70.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3927:I: 57.

  71. 71.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3927:I: 8–32 (supplicant: Johann Christian Bothe, 1756); 34–67 (supplicant: Johann Martin Wetzel, 1758); LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3915: 156–160, 174–177 (joint petition, 1764). In one of the cases, the city president von Qualen referred to the fact that there had been more than the two cases mentioned.

  72. 72.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3927: I: 13. The words used here were “gemeinen Wesen” and “Privat-Nutzens.”

  73. 73.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3927: I: 65.

  74. 74.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3927: I: 13.

  75. 75.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3927: I: 44–45.

  76. 76.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3915: 175: “Was würde ihm doch wohl sein Mitbürger antworten, wenn er wöchentlich bey demselben nach verdächtigen Leuten.”

  77. 77.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3915: 175: “Was würde ein fremder, vornehmer Mann, ein Officer, oder ein andere fremder Mann, der in einem öffentlichen Wirtshaus, oder in einem Privathause auf einige Tage sein Quartier genommen, dem Captaine deselben Bezirks für Antwort geben, oder wie würde er ihn begegnen, wenn leztere ihn fragen wollte, wer er sey? was er hier wolle? was er betriebe? und was dergleichen fragen her sind, die doch geschehen müsten, wenn man von der verdächtiger Anverdächtigkeit einer solchen Person unterrichtet werde wollte.”

  78. 78.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3927: I: 20, 24, 40.

  79. 79.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3927: I: 20–21: “eine freywillige Beliebung der Bürgerschaft, folglich mit keinem solchen Zwang verknüpft, daß nicht Officirer zumahl unter dringen Gründen ihrer Dimission erhalten sollten.”

  80. 80.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3927:I: 16, 67.

  81. 81.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3887: 94–96.

  82. 82.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3927: I: 13, 44–45.

  83. 83.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3927: I: 15.

  84. 84.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3927: I: 19.

  85. 85.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3915: 174: “in jeder Wache einen ganzen Tag mit Versäumung ihrer Hauslichen Geschäfte.”

  86. 86.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3915: 160: “nicht nur wir für unserer ringeste Person, sondern auch für unsere Kinder.”

  87. 87.

    Zucca Micheletto (2015: 766–767).

  88. 88.

    Hatje (2015: 503), Tosh (2008: 4).

  89. 89.

    Willebrand 1765: book 2, article 224–229, 37–41. On the struggle against nocturnal lights and activities in eighteenth-century cities, see Koslofsky (2011: 157–197).

  90. 90.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3915: 168–173.

  91. 91.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3915: 171: “Trink und Spiel, auf Kosten der gantzen Stadt […] unter Namen einer Patrouille herumspatzieren.”

  92. 92.

    LASH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3887: 133–134: “zu einem Wirth in Altona und Ottensen gehen, und sich erkundigen, wer bey ihm logiert sey; auch überhaupt vigilieren ob ein Wirth in Altona und Ottensen, ohne e vorhero anzuzeigen, jemand bey sich zubeherbergen aufgenommen habe.”

  93. 93.

    LASH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3887: “Rapport”, no. 1–15.

  94. 94.

    LSH, Abt. 65.2, no. 3888: For example December 12, 1761; January 31, 1765.

  95. 95.

    Willebrand 1765: book 2, article 210, 26: “un Étranger ne doit pas être choqué, s’il est questionné succintément sur son Nom, son Emploi, les Motifs qui l’aménent, & le Logement qu’il compte d’occuper.”

  96. 96.

    Willebrand 1765: book 2, article 211, 27–28: “Rien aussi ne contribute plus à entreténir l’Ordre dans une Ville, quelque grande qu’elle soit, que losque les Subalternes des Compagnies de la Bourgeoisie sont obliges de declarer périodiquement à leur Capitaines ce qui s’est passé de nouveau dans leur District pendant la Semaine, quels Etrangers y sont arrives, & chez qui, selon les apparences, des Gens suspects sont allés loger.”