Dutch Engagements and "Palmknoopen"

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Something Old and Something New: Illustrating Spousal Ceremonies in "Religious Ceremonies of the Known World"

Dutch Engagements and "Palmknoopen"

Bernard and Picart dedicate lots of time to Dutch Reformed marriages (the RCA-CRC split did not occur until 1857, so all Dutch Reformed Christians fell into one denomination). Picart chooses two pre-marital traditions to engrave. The first is a typical Dutch engagement party, celebrating the bride and groom. His illustration here is rich—Picart had firsthand experience with these types of celebrations. The second illustration is of a Dutch “Palmknoopen,” a fascinating tradition based around friends getting together rather than family, in a very similar, joking manner to a modern-day bachelor or bachelorette party. Both traditions add to the feel of excitement surrounding an upcoming marriage.

The Guests: As the married couple sits under a “large looking-glass” (an interesting metaphor for being watched in the early days of marriage), a large number of guests gathers around them, each group separated. The bride’s family stays in one corner, while the groom’s family remains in another. Friends, guided by young “paranymphs,” greeted the young couple before dividing by gender into separate spaces. The women, depicted in the center forefront of Picart’s engraving, sit on a bench and whisper. Meanwhile, men retreat to the private back room, “wherein there is nothing observable, but an extraordinary noise, and sometimes a tumultuous joy, to which the circumstance of the day gives a kind of sanction, and which is inspired by a carafe of wine, amidst a perpetual cloud of tobacco.” Clearly, Bernard and Picart had experience of being in that room!
The Food: Picart includes an illustration of an absolutely towering pile of “sweet meats,” served to the guests throughout the celebration. Sweetmeats are generally understood to have been preserved fruits, candies, or nuts; occasionally pastries and other cakes were included as well. This pile would have been entirely eaten by the end of the celebration, and there was even a servant whose sole job was to deliver sweetmeats, wine and “the Hipocras” which is according to the Oxford English Dictionary “a drink made from wine sweetened with sugar or honey and flavored with spices."
Palmknoopen: The full text of Picart’s French caption reads, “Ceremony called by the Dutch Palmknoopen, which consists in tying and setting flowers and leaves together which are thrown at the married couple on their wedding day, young people of both sexes who are invited to the ceremony, prepare them two days before; they intermix also some leaves of gold and silver, and will stick some of these on the other leaves.” The engraving shows the general merriment and joy that accompanies Palmknoopen; the word means “palm knots,” and tying the knot and utilizing palms and plants are both involved.

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