The BETHUNE database is based on the archive of Bethune & Fils. Since the firm initially sold a wide range of fabrics, the database is full of data on woollen cloth and mixed fabrics, some obtained domestically but mainly imported from abroad.

The preserved accounts contain purchase and sales registers, daily transaction books, journals and ledgers, which provide insight into the types of fabric that were obtained, as well as the quantities that were sold by type. The database lists the prices of the fabrics and contains information about what it cost to import items and to transport them by land or sea to Kortrijk from the different suppliers. The overview of the suppliers and customers gives a picture of the company profile, including the debt that was associated with a local retail public.

The database contains even more extensive data relating to the linen trade, since this was a regional product which was purchased from hundreds of producers on the various linen markets in West Flanders and East Flanders. The purchase registers are so detailed that we know the lengths and widths of the woven toiles, how much they cost and what customers paid for bleaching, finishing and packaging.

The purchase registers and the sales records, the latter preserved in their entirety, tell us how many pieces of linen were sold each year. Coupled with the background information from the correspondence, it is also possible to estimate how many pieces of linen the firm smuggled into France.

The database contains overviews of the linen customers, who mainly came from France and Spain, by company, by city and by period. As a result, the evolution of the Bethune & Fils customer base clearly emerges.

A complete overview of the database, which consists of two components, has been included as an Appendix in Adriaenssens, Annik. “Van laken tot linnen.” (“From cloth to linen.”) Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Ghent University, 2016, pp. 1293-1294.

1. The first component relates to the accounting records from the various registers. They are divided into two parts according to the two business sectors and therefore concern the trade in woollen goods on the one hand and the linen trade on the other.

Trade in woollen goods


This part of the database contains summaries of:


• Purchases in general

• Purchases per year

• Purchases by correspondent

• Purchases by type of fabric

• Turnover realised based on purchases

• Known sales, purchase prices and transport costs
• 
Customers of woollen goods, with a listing of the payment plans that they followed

Linen trade


For the linen trade, there are summaries of


• Purchases of linen

• Suppliers by municipality

• The type of bleaching that was performed
• 
The sale of linen, with summaries per year and by region

• The length of the pieces

• Linen prices

• Prices for bleaching

• Turnover realised for linen

• An estimate of the number of pieces smuggled into France

• Linen customers listed chronologically

• Linen customers listed alphabetically

• Linen customers by city

• Linen customers by period

• Linen customers by company

• Female linen customers

With regard to transport, the database gives the known transport agents and drivers who worked for Bethune.

Finally, the balance sheet of the mountain of debt that the company faced after the outbreak of the French Revolution has also been drawn up.

2. The second component contains descriptive lists of documents, known as calendars, of the tens of thousands of letters in the trading records. Both the incoming and outgoing letters are compiled thematically by correspondent.