July 30: Day 1, Amsterdam to Breda
I've got a few spare days, which is a great opportunity to go for an easy relaxed ride. Ending at a train station with a good connection back home.
Cologne is a good distance: so I set up a route which goes there in a leisurely sort of way, dug the bike out of the storage room, and tried to get organized. It didn't go well.
I only got the bike out the day before, swapped the pedals on, did a quick run around the neighbourhood to check it still works - but in comparison with overseas trips, I didn't bother with spreadsheets, checklists, a "dress rehearsal" expedition or anything. Which is an invitation to overlook things.
Also it was about 30 degrees so I didn't have the energy to do much. Which is a long explanation for why I left late today, and 30 minutes down the road I suddenly realized I had forgotten the iPhone charge cord and wall plug. Which is pretty important.
Turn around or keep going? I don't have a spare hour and I do have a backup, so I kept going. (After checking they were there.) Hopefully that's the only thing I overlooked.
In Oudewater I stopped at de Heksenwaag. This was an official witch-weighing house, built in 1482, and approved as a fair weighing site by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. It's still got the original wooden scales from when it was first built.
The standard test is to throw your potential witch into the water, and if she floats, she's a witch. At the Heksenwaag the subject would be stripped, inspected by midwives to check she didn't have lead stashed on her, then dressed in a white smock and put on the scales, and they'd add weights to the other until they balanced.
They had some preserved certificates showing that the person "had a weight in accordance with the natural proportions of the body".
These days you can get yourself weighed, and they'll write up your Certificaet van Weginghe.
I got weighed, and asked for the WITCH certificate but didn't get one. I don't think they have them, sadly.
Which does make me wonder: what happened, back in the day? Did they actually have a procedure if you failed the test?
Thou Shalt Not Suffer A Witch To Live was backed up by law; being a witch got the death penalty. So if you failed the test, you would not recieve the certificate, and you would receive some near-instant execution like being burned at the stake. No time for a second opinion.
Of course, the scales measure weight, not density, which is the whole point of the float vs not float test. Did they estimate the person's volume, do some long division and compare to the density of water?
From left to right: starting out. This pig statue guarded someone’s front gate and I’d like to know more. The Heksenwaag scales, that detected no witches. Historic certificates stating that you weren’t a witch. Historic Dutch building. Fish lift - moves fish between two water levels than can be up to 2m apart.
Well yes, except for the long divison part. It sounds like there were tables showing the weight limit for a given height and build. Which were used at weighing stations all over Europe. But given how much estimation is needed here, whoever was doing it had a lot of control over the outcome. And they could be bribed.
The reason the Oudewater scales got the royal seal is because the king saw a corrupt weighing in the village of Polsbroek in 1545. He didn't believe the measured weight, and demanded that the woman be re-weighed in Oudewater, who found her weight heavy enough to be acquitted.
Oudewater's reputation for honesty meant accused people travelled to them from all over Europe. They never discovered a witch.
Which does suggest that one solution to the witch trials would have been for Oudewater's honest Heksenwaag to expand into a full European-wide franchise, so long as their honesty could be preserved...
So the Heksenwaag was the high point for the day, and the rest of the day was a straightforward run south. The whole area was expensive and the cheapest place I could find was a hotel on the outskirts of Breda, in a zone filled with warehouses, warehouse-sized showrooms, and showrooms that might also be offices. It was after business hours when I arrived, and everyone who could leave had left.
So I needed to head into town to find some dinner. The quickest way was bike: there was an irregular bus into town but it took longer, and it also wasn't quite clear when the last one back would be. So I rode carefully, trying not to break a sweat in the hot weather. It was a nice evening out, even considering the carefully paced cycling.
Still, I hope tomorrow is cooler.
