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Carlota Sofia de Bothmer

1697–1748

Born
21 Oct 1697, The Hague
Country of birth
Dutch Republic, today Netherlands
Died
14 Sep 1748, Erbach
facts
8
sources
1
images and files
0

Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

A life in time

  1. Born · The Hague

    Birth, The Hague

  2. Child born: Heinrich XI, Prince Reuss of Greiz

    Birth, Greiz

  3. Died · Erbach

    Death, Erbach

What was it like?

The world around The Hague, 1697: who ruled, who else was alive, how people lived. This is general history, not a record about the family, and every item shows where it comes from.

Carlota was born around the same time as Giovanni Battista Sammartini, Charles Jennens, and Margherita Durastanti.

Born around the same time

  • Giovanni Battista Sammartini

    1700 · Italian composer

  • Charles Jennens

    1700 · English landowner and art patron (1700–1773)

  • Margherita Durastanti

    1700 · Italian singer

  • Daniel Bernoulli

    1700 · Swiss mathematician and physicist (1700-1782)

  • Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli

    1700 · Italian architect (1700-1771)

  • Johann Christoph Gottsched

    1700 · German writer, dramaturge, linguist and literary theorist as well as professor of poetics, logic and metaphysics (1700–1766)

Fashion

Church dress and head coverings

For ordinary church services, women typically wore a black head covering, with the poorest maidservants attending in plain white caps. By the late 17th century, wearing black to Holy Communion was a standard custom for both men and women.

Standard male layered waistcoats and attire

Men frequently wore an underwaistcoat called a kamizool as their primary waistcoat, which gentlemen would also layer beneath their main waistcoat for warmth during colder days. Standard male attire also included shirts, breeches, tight-fitting stockings, and shoes secured with a bow.

Music

Musical instruments for home and festivities

Common people played instruments like the fiddle, bagpipes, and the rommelpot, a rhythmic instrument used by children during the Epiphany processions to ask for sweets or pennies. In homes, the lute was a favored instrument for accompanying song, while taverns featured violins, basses, and sometimes even the harpsichord.

Popular dances and social customs

At festivals like Easter, people performed the egg dance (eierendans), a skillful folk dance where participants moved eggs placed inside a chalk circle using only their feet. Singing and dancing provided one of the few opportunities for young people to openly meet and find potential marriage partners.

Getting around

Comfort and schedule discipline

Travelers could pay extra for a seat in the more comfortable cabin (roef) of a barge, and if the cheaper hold was full, they might be upgraded for the same price. Sandglasses were sometimes used in boats and at stops to ensure skippers kept to their schedules and did not pause too long.

Predictable journey times and routes

Travel times were remarkably predictable; for instance, the journey from Delft to Rotterdam took one hour and 45 minutes, while the 57-kilometer trip between Leiden and Utrecht took eight hours. Passengers could disembark at various stops along the route to refresh themselves at inns.

Daily life

Access to education and literacy

Children in the Dutch Republic typically had better access to basic education than many others in Europe, contributing to literacy rates that were likely higher than the prevailing European standard at the time.

Multipurpose homes and the back hearth

Ordinary homes often lacked dedicated rooms for different tasks, with the front room serving as a workspace or shop, while family life, cooking, and sleeping centered in a multipurpose back hearth room. Separating activities into specific rooms like kitchens or bedrooms only became more common toward the end of the century.

Food

Beer was the daily, safer drink choice

Because local water was often polluted and unsafe, most people, including children, drank thin beer with very low alcohol content throughout the day. Wine was much more expensive and typically associated with higher social classes.

Bread as a social class indicator

Bread was the foundation of the diet, with poor families consuming large quantities of dark, coarse rye bread. In contrast, wealthy families could afford expensive, refined white wheat bread.

Prices and wages
Around 1700–1774

Cost of daily necessities

The price of a kilo of rye bread was 2 stuivers, while meat cost between 6 and 16 stuivers per pound depending on the quality. A simple pair of leather shoes cost between 5 and 10 guilders.

Around 1700–1774

Prices of luxury or new items

Newer items like potatoes were initially expensive luxuries, costing between 10 stuivers and 1 guilder per pound, while coffee was priced at 2 to 3 guilders per pound.

Work

Family-based work in the home and shop

Many people worked in small family businesses where the father, mother, and children all contributed to the trade. Craftsmen, such as shoemakers, often worked in the front of their homes with the windows open to allow daylight for their detailed work.

Long working hours from dawn until night

Working days were long, typically lasting from 5 or 6 am until 8 or 9 pm, often supplemented by candlelight during dark winter days.

News and letters

Letters between Netherlands and England took days

Letters sent by boat between Hellevoetsluis, Netherlands, and Harwich, England, typically took three to four days to complete the trip.

Ordinary people read and mailed newspapers

Ordinary people, including sailors' wives, regularly read newspapers and sometimes even mailed them to family members to keep them informed.

During their lifetime

  1. 1709

    Great famine after the 1709 winter

    A severe winter caused the Bodensee to freeze completely, leading to widespread crop failures and famine across Europe.

  2. 1713

    Cattle plague epidemic (1713–1720)

    A severe cattle plague epidemic devastated herds across the Netherlands between 1713 and 1720, decimating rural livelihoods.

  3. 1716

    Financial speculation crisis (1716–1720)

    During 1716-1720, an epidemic of wild speculation in bubble companies caused financial ruin for many people in Holland.

  4. 1717

    Christmas flood kills 11,000 people

    A major storm surge on Christmas claimed over 11,000 lives along the German North Sea coast.

  5. 1717

    Compulsory education introduced in Prussia

    Prussia introduced compulsory education for children between the ages of five and twelve.

  6. 1717

    Massive coastal flood in 1717

    A massive coastal flood devastated communities across the North Sea coastal region in 1717.

Family

Parents

Spouses

Children

Ancestors and children

Open the full tree

Four generations back to the right, the children to the left. The number beside a child counts the generations of descendants known after them.