The dataset underlying this article includes the ordinary (ordinaris) and printed resolutions of the Dutch States-General issued between 1705 and 1796. This timeframe was selected because from 1705 onwards the public resolutions were continuously printed, while in 1796 the early modern States-General ceased to exist. Sensitive topics were generally recorded in volumes of secret resolutions, but because they were handwritten, HTR software is required – this proved too time-consuming for the present study. The same applies to the decisions taken over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The resolutions used for this article were digitised using the OCR software Tesseract. The results enable researchers to query the decisions in full-text format. Although the OCR results are not flawless, they exceed the threshold for practical usability.¹²

The dataset used consists of 311,886 resolutions. This number may deviate slightly from the final number proposed by the REPUBLIC project, as algorithms are still being improved and there are still small variations in resolution detection. Fig. 1 illustrates the distribution of the resolutions across time. There was a clear peak in the number of printed decisions during the first decade of the eighteenth century, but after 1711 the average number of resolutions rapidly decreased. The peak during the early 1700s was possibly related to an excessive number of petitions for passports during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713).¹³ Another explanation for the decline in the number of resolutions is that committees in which deputies occupied themselves with a specific topic outside of the regular assembly became increasingly important over the course of the eighteenth century. However, the findings of such committees were also frequently discussed in the wider assembly. It thus remains difficult to provide a definite answer as to why the number of resolutions decreased.¹⁴

Towards the end of the century, especially in 1781 and 1795, the number of resolutions peaked again. Both years correspond to moments of crisis in the Dutch Republic. In 1781, the Dutch faced tremendous losses in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780-1784), while in 1795 revolutionaries took over the government of the States-General, marking the beginning of the Batavian Republic. Although the number of resolutions might have increased because of such turning points, some caution is needed because alternative explanations have not yet been explored.

While the distribution of the number of resolutions provides insight into the dataset, the number of tokens must also be considered. Tokens refer to the occurrences of linguistic units, or in this case, the number of words per year. A large number of resolutions in a year does not necessarily correspond to more tokens, because the deputies deliberated upon different proposition types with varying contents and lengths. Missiven (letters) often contained reports written by government officials, organizations, and diplomats; ordinary people and local governments frequently addressed their wishes in requesten (petitions). Other proposition types were composed by the deputies themselves, such as rapporten (reports) or voordrachten (speeches).¹⁵ Fig. 2 shows the number of tokens in the dataset. While this graph roughly follows the pattern in fig. 1, the number of tokens produced in the early 1700s is relatively low when compared to later in the century. This indicates that many resolutions during the first decade were relatively short.

The first step to detect resolutions in which people referred to extraordinary times was to identify relevant keywords. As the Dutch language has changed considerably since the early modern period, querying the data with modern concepts of time was undesirable. An iterative approach was adopted and different concepts and their contexts were initially extracted to explore relevant terms for the experience of time. A pilot study executed within the REPUBLIC project, which used text mining techniques to extract references to time in the resolutions, demonstrated that during the 1672 Year of Disaster, references to extraordinary times occurred regularly.¹⁶ During this year, people increasingly referred to the times they experienced using extraordinary conditional terms when compared to those seen in sample years during the eighteenth century. The deputies and those who addressed the States-General recurrently referred to the times as troubled (troubele), sad (droevige), or perplexed (perplexe).

The first approach for my research, which addresses the entire eighteenth century, was to use keyword lists of adjectives and terms related to extraordinary times and extract the resolutions that contained at least two terms of these lists within frames of twenty-two tokens. Due to the large number of possible combinations, this yielded an enormous dataset with ambiguous results. Consequently, it was decided to simplify the lists of keywords to words related to the term tijd (time).¹⁷ The adjectives of the initial experiment were also removed. The query for the contexts of tijd and variants again yielded an enormous number of results (almost 50,000) and manual evaluation was undesirable. A different approach could be to trace references to extraordinary times by examining the contexts of the terms with the aid of n-grams, but this was equally unfeasible since it is as of yet impossible to automatically extract which specific actors used references to extraordinary times, as these actors can, in most cases, not be deduced from collocations alone. Additionally, the majority of the hits of the tijd query were related to practical matters, such as delayed decisions or passports that the States-General issued for certain amounts of time. These results were not useful for revealing patterns regarding references to extraordinary times.

However, the extracted term tyden (times), and its spelling variant tijden, did meet the prerequisites for this study. This query resulted in 4150 hits dispersed over 3259 resolutions. Manual evaluation of these hits was more realistic, as this number roughly corresponds to the average number of resolutions that the States-General passed in a year. The term also occurred throughout the entire century and appeared not to have been subject to developments in early modern language, and so was considered a stable enough concept. The context of the word tyden proved to be intertwined with the cultural meaning of time. To demonstrate this, the most common context words for the concepts tyden/tijden are shown in tab. 1.¹⁹

Not surprisingly, many terms displayed in tab. 1 refer to tyden in the past tense (voorige, oude, vroegere, immemoriale). The past was highly valued in early modern discourse. Age and continuity of practices was one of the aspects that determined the legitimacy of arguments, and people regularly referred to rights and resources that were granted by customary law while addressing institutions.²⁰ This was also the case in the eighteenth-century resolutions. Nevertheless, there were also terms that related to the present (such as nu, tegenwoordige, and its variant jegenwoordige). The term wylen was intertwined with the future in the reoccurring phrase tyden en wylen (over the course of time). More important for this essay are the terms oorlogh (war), duure (expensive), and slechte (bad), as these refer to extraordinary conditions specifically.

The next step was to filter out the resolutions that contained references to tyden in the context of extraordinary times. The phrases in which tyden occurred were manually evaluated. This resulted in a final dataset of 811 resolutions over the period 1706-1796.²¹ To provide an idea of the phrases that were understood as references to extraordinary times, tab. 2 includes some examples. Tyden was signified as extraordinary in roughly three ways. First, some phrases refer to specific conditions, such as certain crises (examples two and four). There were also results that include broader references to the extraordinary (example three). Additionally, there were phrases which highlight the time conditions in general (examples one and five). In such sentences, the terms constitutie and conjucture were often used to emphasise the exceptional nature of the times referred to. Tab. 2 also provides a first indication of the function of references to extraordinary tyden. It seems that people did not only refer to tyden to indicate their experience of extraordinary conditions; rather, such references served in themselves as arguments to emphasise why the petitioner believed that action by the States-General was required.

Erica Boersma has distinguished different arguments that people employed when addressing the States-General during or immediately following disasters. Petitioners often emphasised why help was urgent; that they were loyal members of the Generality; the reasons why help served the general interest; the fact that victims were worth the help; and arguments of a more general humanitarian nature.²² Perhaps references to extraordinary tyden in the resolutions classify as a form of the first element that Boersma distinguished, namely emphasising why help was urgent. The examples in tab. 2 also include snippets of arguments or decisions made on behalf of the provinces represented in the assembly or the deputies themselves (examples one and five). Here, too, it seems that tyden was used within an argument to emphasise why measures should be taken.

Finally, all results were grouped by year to establish whether there was a connection between the references to extraordinary times in the resolutions and actual times of crisis. Considering that extraordinary tyden was used in the argumentative way as suggested above, the aspect of strategy and rhetoric must be taken into account. Since not all requests for help were approved or even discussed in the States-General, people who petitioned the assembly tried to frame their arguments as convincingly as possible.²³ Possibly, mentions of extraordinary tyden were not merely used to express experiences of particular crises, but were also employed tactically at more arbitrary points in time.

There are other possibilities, however. Maurits den Hollander, in his dissertation on the seventeenth-century Desolate Boedelkamer of Amsterdam, observed that this resorting to extraordinary times regularly occurred in the arguments of applicants for cessie van goede (cessio bonorum). A relationship to economic distress in broader society was present in some cases, but the timing of such arguments did not necessarily overlap with the worst financial crises during the century. Possibly, personal managerial skills also played a role.²⁴ Finally, since individuals and local governments also corresponded with the States-General, it must be considered that crises could also play out at more local levels.

In order to evaluate whether tyden was added during arbitrary points in time or not, it is beneficial that most references to tyden were made in the present tense (see tab. 2). It seems reasonable to assume that most arguments recorded in the present tense relate to events that took place within the recent past, such as within the year, making it a reliable measure to establish the connection of tyden to actual times of crisis. There are also limitations to this approach. Although the initial queries resulted in hits that were ambiguous or not meaningful, extracting resolutions on the one condition that they contained the term tyden inevitably left out some equally relevant results. Thus, the results in this article are best regarded as a representative sample of expressions of extraordinary time conditions that occurred in the resolutions. Although further advancement of the REPUBLIC project and the application of more advanced digital history methods may provide opportunities that can refine the used methodology here, the results still prove fruitful.

Fig. 3 shows the percentage of resolutions with extraordinary tyden by year throughout the eighteenth century. The peaks in this graph generally correspond to episodes of uproar that historians of the Dutch Republic have described as moments of crisis, whereas the troughs correspond to more peaceful times. Periods of war, years in which political reforms were implemented, and especially years in which the Dutch Republic was invaded correlate strongly with particular increases in tyden resolutions.

During the first years of the eighteenth century, the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) correlates with the first peak in the graph. The involvement of the Dutch Republic had detrimental effects on its economy.²⁵ The years 1723 and 1726 reveal other peaks in resolutions that contain extraordinary tyden. The Dutch Republic experienced a time of relative peace during this period, however, so it is not entirely clear why the use of tyden increased during these years. Between 1740 and 1747 the Dutch Republic was involved in the War of the Austrian Succession. The especially pronounced peak in 1747 corresponds to a key year in this conflict, when French troops invaded the southern provinces of the Dutch Republic and besieged Breda and Maastricht. Simultaneously, political reforms were enacted when William IV of Orange was appointed as stadtholder, marking the end of the second stadtholderless period.

After 1748 a relative decline in the number of results set in, which again corresponds to a period of relative peace in the Dutch Republic. Clear peaks reappear during the last quarter of the century. Here, too, peak years in the graph generally correlate to periods of (armed) conflict, beginning with the years surrounding the American Revolution. The Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1781-1784), and especially its onset in 1780-1781, is another example. Finally, the peaks in the 1780s correspond to the Patriot Revolt of 1781-1787, when political tensions arose between supporters of William V and the reformist Patriot movement. Several key years during the Patriot Revolution correlate with high peaks, such as 1785 and 1787, when military operations escalated – in 1787, for instance, Prussia intervened in the Dutch Republic to restore order in favour of the stadtholder. After 1787, when the revolutionaries had largely fled the country, a trough is visible. Notably, another peak set in shortly after the French Revolution, when the War of the First Coalition (1792-1795) started and France invaded the Dutch Republic. The Batavian Revolution of 1795, when revolutionaries took over power in the States-General and France occupied the rest of the country also features prominently in fig. 3.

We can clearly see that references to extraordinary tyden increase during times of crisis in the Dutch Republic. These findings reveal that in the eighteenth-century resolutions, heightened references to extraordinary times consistently and quantitatively corresponded to periods of actual crisis. As studies of egodocuments have suggested, there was a relation between periods of crisis and documenting the extraordinary, just as moments of crisis had a profound impact on how people referred to the times they lived in. The end of the eighteenth century, in particular the much-debated revolutionary era, features strongly in the results, which suggests that these times had a great impact on people’s experience of time, as Koselleck already argued. Nonetheless, earlier crises – especially the War of the Austrian Succession – reveal equally important peaks, suggesting that an increased awareness of extraordinary times was not exclusive to the end of the eighteenth century. Moreover, fig. 3 demonstrates that tyden was not used at random points in time. It appears that neither personal nor local crises were greatly influential factors. These references to extraordinary times seem to be have been reserved primarily for times of general distress and more specifically for periods of armed conflict in the Dutch Republic, and thus within the purview of the States-General.

The above observations leave the question of how exactly tyden was used largely unanswered. The results do not show who used it, nor do they show when, why, and how. It is entirely possible that people referenced extraordinary times, even though their arguments were unrelated to an actual crisis. Here, the multifaceted nature of the resolutions proves their value, as the diverse roster of participants illuminates which people used tyden and in which context. To achieve this, the tyden resolutions were classified as belonging to issues regarding money, domestic and international politics, war, and naval operations, as can be seen in fig. 4. These themes are not surprising, as they comprised the main responsibilities of the States-General.²⁶ Fig. 5 offers an overview of the actors who used tyden: the categories in the graph refer to the people from whose perspective the argument was articulated.

Figs. 4 and 5 reveal that the actors and topics of the tyden resolutions were generally related to actual moments of crisis as outlined above. The periods of armed conflict as identified in fig. 3 coincide with an increase in the themes Army_Fleet and War_Conditions. In years of conflict, these results typically comprised at least half of all resolutions containing zware tyden (difficult times). This theme was associated with deputies or provinces, who, throughout the eighteenth century, used tyden as an argument to emphasise the urgency of increasing naval and military power. War_Conditions is primarily related to actors who corresponded with the States-General, such as Individuals, Local_Governments, and Military. These were often people who were directly involved in the unfolding war. For example, propositions by the towns of Lille and Tournai, occupied by the allied Anglo-Dutch army in 1708-1709, were highly present during the years that followed.²⁸ The States-General took up an active political role in these towns and inhabitants quickly turned to The Hague with their problems, using the difficult times they faced in their petitions.²⁹

Taxes were continuously raised during the War of the Spanish Succession, which took its toll on the Dutch population. By 1713, the tax burden was thirty-seven percent higher than it had been before 1672, and by 1715 the Dutch Republic was practically bankrupt.³⁰ Notably, the topic Money_Politics, which concerns financial matters on a more general level, was not much more prevalent compared to later years. However, during the first half of the eighteenth century, references to tyden frequently related to the actor Local_Government and the topic Local_Money. Many of these resolutions were from Staats-Brabant. Although frequent communication between Brabant and The Hague was no exception due to its status as Generality Land, Guido de Bruijn has argued that at least during the later years of the seventeenth and the first years of the eighteenth century, it was because of the economic hardships in this area that a stream of petitions reached The Hague.³¹ The tyden resolutions, then, regularly contained complaints about poor city finances, just as people included references to difficult times to demonstrate why financial measures were necessary. The Local_Money resolutions declined after 1750, which might be explained by the conviction of some historians that the disposable income of people in the Dutch Republic increased, which went hand in hand with a recovery of agriculture.³²

The Money_Private results (see fig. 4) are useful to compare to the resolutions above. In the first half of the eighteenth century and during more peaceful periods, this category primarily contained requests from ordinary people within the Dutch Republic and diplomats. By way of contrast with what was established earlier, these resolutions regularly related to more personal crises or crises not directly related to the Generality. Diplomats, for example, asked for raises in salaries referring to times of hardships at the places where they were stationed.³³ In the last few decades of the century, Money_Private increasingly included petitions by colonial inhabitants, (overseas) merchants, and members of trade companies. These people typically expressed their worries about the state of commerce, which was no coincidence, given that Dutch trade had collapsed after the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War.³⁴ The War_Conditions resolutions also refer to the commercial character of conflict in this later period. In 1781, for example, several plantation directors in Surinam wrote that shipping to the colony was blocked due to the war with England. ‘In these circumstances of time’, they noted, it was unfeasible that high fees on their bills of exchange should be charged.³⁵ Petitions from Surinam were relatively common during this period, as in the 1770s an economic crisis had caused profits from the plantation economy to collapse.³⁶ Thus, while tyden was still used as an argument to emphasise the States-General should take immediate action, the changing circumstances during the latter half of the eighteenth century were reflected in the themes and the actors that were attached to the tyden resolutions.

It should be noted that the peak years at the end of the eighteenth century offer some exceptions. Grievances from inhabitants of besieged and occupied towns, as well as those who petitioned the assembly with a purpose that was directly connected to crisis events, were relatively less prevalent than in earlier years, especially during the Patriot Revolt. Although actors such as Individuals and Local_Governments still appear, those resolutions which connect clearly to unfolding events were now primarily related to the deputies or provinces themselves. Perhaps this was due to the specific circumstances, because during the revolutionary period existing political institutions, including the States-General, were increasingly criticised from outside.

This possible development during the revolutionary period is related to the topic of Domestic_Politics, which refers to how deputies in the States-General used tyden in decisions regarding political and institutional reforms. Fig. 4 demonstrates that while this topic recurred throughout the century, it peaked during the Batavian Revolution, which constitutes a turning point in the institutional history of the Dutch Republic. In 1795 the States-General was taken over by revolutionaries: the new representatives implemented institutional reforms, and a number of tyden resolutions reflect these changes. In December 1795, for example, deputies argued that the Dutch East India Company was in need of a new board that would be ‘more suitable in the current times’ and that ‘these times of danger’ required a new National Assembly.³⁷ In light of the debate surrounding the revolutionary period as a catalyst for a switch from pre-modern to modern conceptions of time, it can be noted that the tyden argument was, on occasion, explicitly connected to the need for institutional renewals that clearly broke with the past.

Still, these quantitative findings suggest that resorting to extraordinary tyden generally occurred in a remarkably steady, or even cyclical fashion in the eighteenth-century resolutions of the States-General. A plethora of different voices from various layers of society, who generally experienced the consequences of the crises that unfolded first-hand, expressed their needs to and within the States-General by referring to the times they experienced. Since the tyden argument was used in the context of receiving and granting favours, there was doubtless a strategic aspect attached to it, with details added to make the argument more convincing or believable.³⁸ However, the overall picture seems to affirm the accuracy of the results in fig. 3: the references to tyden reflected an increased experience of actual times of crisis in the Dutch Republic.

Second, references to tyden were mainly used as arguments in fairly practical contexts, such as receiving money, taking protectory measures, or evading duties, which anticipated a specific action of the States-General during times of crisis. Here, people’s references to extraordinary times clearly did not serve to document the details of the crisis they experienced in order to make sense of it or draw lessons for the future, as has often been argued in the case of egodocuments. Instead, people who used the extraordinary tyden argument drew from their experience of crisis with the aim of getting something done, even as events unfolded.

Yet egodocuments, and especially the genre of the chronicle, had cyclical aspects similar to those of the tyden resolutions. People regularly documented changes in weather, death toll, and prices to illustrate the extremity of the times they lived in. There was yet another function, however. Documenting prices, for example, reminded people to change their consumption habits as prices increased.³⁹ The cyclical use of extraordinary tyden in the resolutions served a similar purpose, namely to put arguments before the States-General during times that diverged from the usual. As a result, one might wonder whether the chronicling of extraordinary times in egodocuments, and thus the increased writing activity during periods of crisis, not only served to document and remember the intensity of events, but also allowed people to discern wider patterns and determine their course of action. In this sense, institutional sources and egodocuments might be closely connected; future researchers may well consider reading the two genres alongside each other.⁴⁰

What still remains unclear, however, is how the use of tyden related to the actual decision-making process of the States-General during such periods: what impact did this argument have? In this article’s final section, I evaluate the results of two quantitative categories using a close-reading approach, which also serves as an evaluation of the quantitative approach. I selected the topics of Army_Fleet and Private_Money, because these categories contain arguments made by voices from above as well as from below.

During the eighteenth century, references to tyden in the Army_Fleet resolutions primarily served to emphasise the urgency of strengthening the military on land and at sea. The broader context in which these arguments were embedded also remained the same. In 1708, the province of Utrecht refused to invest in the army and fleet. Deputies responded by claiming that they were ‘utterly upset and saddened’ and that the refusal was ‘against the interest, well-being, and salvation of the state’.⁴¹ During the War of the Austrian Succession, similar arguments were put forward. In 1744, following the French declaration of war against England, the province of Zeeland argued that in ‘such critical and dangerous times’, the fleet, which was in a worse state than ever, had to be rebuilt with great urgency. As in 1708, the deputies noted that the safety and the salvation of the Dutch Republic were in danger.⁴²

These resolutions reflect the early modern conception of the cyclical and classical argument that republics followed an inevitable pattern of rise, decline, and fall. Such beliefs were frequently articulated at times of crisis, when people were especially afraid the state might collapse.⁴³ In the Army_Fleet resolutions, this argument of decline persisted throughout the century, even in its latter quarter, during which it has been argued that the cyclical conception of time transformed into a modern, linear one.⁴⁴

At the eve of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, for instance, arguments to build up the fleet in order to save the Dutch Republic from total destruction peaked again. This view was expressed by stadtholder William V, amongst others.⁴⁵ The States-General’s committee of finances similarly reported that the Republic was ‘entirely unexpectedly attacked’, suggesting that measures were needed to ‘save the fatherland and all that is precious’.⁴⁶ This rhetoric was repeated even in 1795, when the assembly was about to be taken over by revolutionaries, as the sitting deputies emphasised that measures adjusted to ‘the circumstances of times and affairs’ should be taken for the ‘salvation and preservation of the country’.⁴⁷ Over the course of the century, the application of the tyden argument correlated with discourse reflecting a serious concern over the course of events within the assembly. This finding largely confirms the results based on the quantitative analysis.

Taking a yet closer look, these examples also demonstrate another point: tyden and its context were frequently used to convince members of the assembly of the necessity of an action. It was thus not the expression of a uniform standpoint shared by all deputies and provinces. In fact, one or more of the provinces had usually done the exact opposite of what was envisaged in the resolution: they had declined to contribute to the army or fleet. In 1708, for example, the province of Utrecht had refused to invest in the army, prompting the deputies of other provinces to argue that Utrecht’s collaboration was much needed, using the rhetoric outlined above.⁴⁸ The opposite happened as well. In 1744 the deputies of Zeeland defended their particular interest as a maritime province by arguing for additional warships to protect the coast. Other provinces, in their view, did not take the fleet seriously enough.⁴⁹

All in all, despite increased references to extraordinary tyden, the regular deliberation practices of the States-General did not fundamentally change during times of crisis. Deputies still consulted the estates of their respective provinces before taking a decision, and the different interests of the various provinces clearly marked the course of the meetings and the decisions that were subsequently taken by the States-General. Despite the tyden argument, no unanimous feeling of urgency resulting from the extraordinary times was reflected in these resolutions.

The Local_Money resolutions further clarify this point. As in the case of the Army_Fleet category, the context of the tyden argument remained largely stable. In 1708 the sheriff, aldermen, and authorities of Rosendaal and Nispen requested a loan of four thousand guilders because of the ‘present heavy burdens, both of enemy contributions and otherwise, as well as these penniless times and the very poor availability of grains’.⁵⁰ In 1723 the sheriff and authorities of the village of Stant requested a similar loan of four thousand guilders, which they promised to repay once the bad times had ended.⁵¹ The year before, three groups consisting of the authorities of the villages of Vught, Cromvoirt, those of Oostelbeers, Middelbeers, and those of Vessem, Wintelre, and Knegsel submitted a petition asking for executory attachment using almost identical language.⁵² In 1710 the authorities of Elmpt requested the remission of taxes while in 1786 the authorities and inhabitants of the village of Vlodrop presented a petition asking for their suspension, noting that ‘because of the recent bad times, scarcity of grain, failed crops, and hail, the supplicants have fallen into a desolate state and incurred significant debts’.⁵³ In contrast with earlier petitions, this last one was harshly rejected.⁵⁴ This raises an important question: how were the petitions generally received by the States-General?

The deputies’ decisions in response to the Local_Money petitions of the first half of the century can be divided into roughly four categories: decisions regarding requests for adjustments to the collection of (local) taxes and other sums of money due to the Generality; regarding loans from the States-General; regarding specific measures that did not involve a payment from the States-General (especially executory attachments); and decisions regarding charity. Resolutions in the same category typically resulted in similar decisions. Resolutions in the first two categories, which in total made up most of the propositions in the Local_Money dataset, were usually referred to the Raad van State; sometimes additional committees were asked for advice. Supplicants often had to wait for months before they received the final decision. The regents of Waalwijk, for example, were notified which points of their petition were approved after eight months.⁵⁵ This procedure was typical for the States-General during peaceful times too; most petitions were referred to committees or sent to external bodies for advice, most often the Raad van State, which could take a long time.⁵⁶ Decisions of the third category, in which local magistrates typically asked for executory attachment to enforce the collection of fees and taxes, were treated directly by the States-General and almost always received a positive decision.⁵⁷ Decisions of the last category were more often directly rejected or referred to an external party.⁵⁸

The question, of course, is how important it was to adopt the tyden argument for a certain outcome, granted that similar requests resulted in similar outcomes. The outlined categories suggest that it might not have been the tyden expression in itself that was decisive, but rather the subject matter to which a petition was connected. This is further demonstrated by a small additional sample of fourteen requests for executory attachments in 1722, none of which contained the tyden argument. These petitions led to the same decision compared to those that did refer to tyden. Although some contained references to difficult conditions using other phrases, such as more general references to wars and poverty, which might have served a similar purpose as the tyden argument, this was not the case for all of the petitions.⁵⁹ It is possible, therefore, that the nature of the petition proposed during times of crisis was more decisive than the tyden argument in which they were wrapped.

Only a further comparative study of resolutions that do not contain the tyden argument may shed definitive light on the matter. However, combined with the observation that deliberation procedures did not really change in connection to the increased use of tyden, the points made here bring to light an important limiting factor of the quantitative text mining approach used in this article. The quantitative analysis measured how often categories of people articulated the tyden argument in relation to crises, but it missed important, often more implicit, accompanying practices and the impact of this discourse, both of which help to grasp the full meaning.

This essay began with the observation that administrative documents have been largely overlooked in the debate about the experience and documenting of extraordinary times during the early modern period. Relying on both quantitative text mining and a close reading of the resolutions of the States-General, this article has made several points. First, times of crisis, as opposed to more peaceful times, consistently correlated with increased references to extraordinary times. The intimate connection between crises and the documenting of such extraordinary conditions, which has already been suggested on the basis of egodocuments, could thus be quantitatively confirmed using administrative documents. Furthermore, this digital and quantitative approach revealed cyclical patterns in how references to exceptional times were used over an entire century – something that would not have immediately appeared obvious when using a more qualitative approach. In combination with the argumentative properties of the results, it became clear that references to extraordinary tyden in the resolutions should be regarded as actual incentives that required political action by the States-General in times of crisis. Finally, these findings suggest that we should reconsider the functions of signalling and writing about extraordinary times, and that historians might usefully rely on political sources to intervene in ongoing debates about perceptions of time.

These conclusions also give rise to new questions. It was established that increases in the use of tyden coincided with crises which mainly played out on the Generality level, especially armed conflicts. Adopting the same approach to analyse the administrative sources of governmental institutions at other levels in the Dutch Republic might lead to different results. This, in turn, could reveal how inhabitants used the various institutions to which they had access to further specific interests. Other questions relate to the methodology used here. It was not possible to examine how the properties of resolutions with tyden fit in the overall characteristics of the digitised resolutions. It remains difficult, for example, to provide a definitive answer to the question why some deviations occurred from the general quantitative patterns regarding the actors and themes at the end of the eighteenth century. In all likelihood, the further development of the REPUBLIC dataset will provide an opportunity to answer questions of this nature, as important metadata will be added to the final dataset. The inclusion of all resolutions prior to 1705, for example, will offer an opportunity to extend research into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A more fundamental limitation, though, is the fact that the text mining method was unable to reveal the broader practical impact of the tyden argument. It turns out that expressions of extraordinary times on paper did not necessarily impact the decision-making processes. Even when taking these limitations into account, it is clear that the digitised resolutions of the States-General offer a wealth of data for exploring the rich political and cultural history of the Dutch Republic.