The Pieterskerk is a late-Gothic Dutch Protestant church in Leiden dedicated to Saint Peter. It is known today as the church of the Pilgrim Fathers, where the pastor John Robinson was buried. It is also the burial place of the scientist Willebrord Snellius.
In around 1100 the site held the county chapel of the counts of Holland, rebuilt in 1121. The present building took approximately 180 years to build, starting in 1390. Famous Leiden dignitaries are buried there, including the painter Jan Steen and the Leiden professor Herman Boerhaave. The beautiful stained-glass windows already took a terrible blow during the Beeldenstorm, but were completely destroyed a couple of centuries later, in the gunpowder explosion of 12 January 1807. The windows were boarded up, and it wasn't until 1880 that a large-scale restoration took place.
The Pieterskerk used to have a church tower, the Westtoren (west tower) from 1290 on. It was nicknamed "Coningh der Zee" (king of the sea), and was completed in stages, eventually reaching 110 metres (including the 35-metre-tall wooden spire). It collapsed in the night of 5 March 1512. [1] The tower was not restored and the church remains towerless.
Not only the stained glass windows were vandalised during the Beeldenstorm, many other beautiful statues and paintings were made victim of the Reformation. The internationally renowned painting Het Laatste Oordeel by Lucas van Leyden was barely saved by mayor Van Swanenburg.
On 7 July 1572 the church was closed for services. It reopened on 5 October of the same year for the first Protestant service. After this date the building of the church can be considered completed. [2] In following centuries small homes were built against the sides of the church. They are still there today.
The building was deconsecrated in 1971 and since 1975 has been managed by a foundation and rented for a wide variety of events. Since 2001, with 50% government funding, a long-term restoration project started that ran until 2010. Discoveries made during this and earlier restorations were put on permanent display in the church. A mummy is also on display, that the foundation has chosen not to subject to scientific scrutiny. Though the windows have been lost, the various grave monuments by prominent Leiden sculptors can still be seen. The building is open to the public.
In 2007 there was a famous concert by the choral group Libera . [3]
Before 1811 many prominent people were buried in the Pieterskerk, such as the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius (known for Arminianism), Herman Boerhaave, Jan Steen, the botanist Rembert Dodoens, Johannes de Laet, and John Robinson, pastor of the "Pilgrim Fathers".
For a listing, see the category Burials at the Pieterskerk, Leiden.
Herman Boerhaave was a Dutch botanist, chemist, Christian humanist, and physician of European fame. He is regarded as the founder of clinical teaching and of the modern academic hospital and is sometimes referred to as "the father of physiology," along with Venetian physician Santorio Santorio (1561–1636). Boerhaave introduced the quantitative approach into medicine, along with his pupil Albrecht von Haller (1708–1777) and is best known for demonstrating the relation of symptoms to lesions. He was the first to isolate the chemical urea from urine. He was the first physician to put thermometer measurements to clinical practice. His motto was Simplex sigillum veri: 'Simplicity is the sign of the truth'. He is often hailed as the "Dutch Hippocrates".
Leiden is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 127,046, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration with its suburbs Oegstgeest, Leiderdorp, Voorschoten and Zoeterwoude with 215,602 inhabitants. The Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) further includes Katwijk in the agglomeration which makes the total population of the Leiden urban agglomeration 282,207 and in the larger Leiden urban area also Teylingen, Noordwijk, and Noordwijkerhout are included with in total 365,913 inhabitants. Leiden is located on the Oude Rijn, at a distance of some 20 km (12 mi) from The Hague to its south and some 40 km (25 mi) from Amsterdam to its north. The recreational area of the Kaag Lakes (Kagerplassen) lies just to the northeast of Leiden.
Beeldenstorm in Dutch and Bildersturm in German are terms used for outbreaks of destruction of religious images that occurred in Europe in the 16th century, known in English as the Great Iconoclasm or Iconoclastic Fury and in French as the Furie iconoclaste. During these spates of iconoclasm, Catholic art and many forms of church fittings and decoration were destroyed in unofficial or mob actions by Calvinist Protestant crowds as part of the Protestant Reformation. Most of the destruction was of art in churches and public places.
St. Martin's Cathedral, Utrecht, or Dom Church, is a Gothic church dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours, which was the cathedral of the Diocese of Utrecht during the Middle Ages. It is the country's only pre-Reformation cathedral, but has been a Protestant church since 1580.
Willebrord Snellius was a Dutch astronomer and mathematician, AKASnell. His name is usually associated with the law of refraction of light known as Snell's law.
The Grote Kerk or St.-Bavokerk is a Reformed Protestant church and former Catholic cathedral located on the central market square in the Dutch city of Haarlem. Another Haarlem church called the Cathedral of Saint Bavo now serves as the main cathedral for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Haarlem-Amsterdam.
Rijksmuseum Boerhaave is a museum of the history of science and medicine, based in Leiden, Netherlands. The museum hosts a collection of historical scientific instruments from all disciplines, but mainly from medicine, physics, and astronomy.
John Robinson (1576–1625) was the pastor of the "Pilgrim Fathers" before they left on the Mayflower. He became one of the early leaders of the English Separatists called Brownists, and is regarded as one of the founders of the Congregational Church.
The Old or Pilgrim Fathers' Church is a church located in Rotterdam-Delfshaven, in the Netherlands.
The Vrouwekerk or Vrouwenkerk, originally known as the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk, was a 14th-century church in the Dutch city of Leiden. In the early 17th century, the church was attended by the Pilgrims as well as by the first colonists to settle on Manhattan.
The Leiden American Pilgrim Museum is a small museum in the Dutch city of Leiden dedicated to the Pilgrim Fathers. These Separatists or English Dissenters were religious refugees who had fled England to Amsterdam in 1608 and moved to Leiden the next year. They lived and worked in that city for about 12 to 20 years. In 1620, their emigration began. They left Leiden by canal, going to Delfshaven where they embarked on the Speedwell, which took them to Southampton. But the Speedwell proved leaky and had to be sold, so they transferred to the Mayflower. The Mayflower undertook the famous voyage to New England in 1620 alone. In the 19th century the colonists' first harvest festival after their arrival at Plymouth Colony was identified as the origin of the annual Thanksgiving celebration in the United States.
The Sint Janskerk in Gouda, the Netherlands, is a large Gothic church, known especially for its stained glass windows, for which it has been placed on the list of the top 100 Dutch monuments.
Isaak Nicolai or Isaac Claesz van Swanenburg was a Dutch Renaissance painter and glazier active in Leiden and Gouda. He was a city council member from 1576 and became mayor of Leiden five times.
Museum De Lakenhal is the city museum of fine art and history in Leiden, Netherlands. One highlight is its collection of fijnschilder paintings from the Dutch Golden Age. Just like the city, the museum combines a classical appearance with a contemporary character. The broad collection ranges from early works by Rembrandt van Rijn and Lucas van Leyden's Last Judgement to modern classics of De Stijl and artworks created by contemporary artists such as Claudy Jongstra, Atelier van Lieshout and many others.
The Hooglandse Kerk is a Gothic church in Leiden. Its earliest parts date back to the last quarter of the fourteenth century. Most of the current structure dates from the fifteenth century. The brick church was dedicated to St. Pancras and today serves parishioners of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands.
The Great Church or St. James' Church is a landmark Protestant church in The Hague, Netherlands. The building is located on the Torenstraat, named for its high tower. Together with the Binnenhof, it is one of the oldest buildings in The Hague. Members of the House of Orange-Nassau have been baptised and married there. The latest are King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and his daughter and heir apparent Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange.
The Grote Kerk of Dordrecht, officially the Church of Our Lady is a large church in the Brabantine Gothic style, and the largest church in the city. It was built between 1284 and 1470, though some parts are newer. It became a Protestant church in 1572, and remains an active church, now owned by the Protestant Church in the Netherlands.
St. Mary's Church, also called Mariakerk or Maria Maior, was one of five collegiate churches in the Dutch city of Utrecht, the others being St. Martin's Cathedral, St. Salvator's Church, the Pieterskerk, and the Janskerk. It dated from the eleventh century and was considered one of the finest buildings in Romanesque style in the Netherlands.
The Heilige Lodewijkkerk, also called the St. Louis Church, is a Roman Catholic church at the Steenschuur in Leiden.
The period between the start of the Beeldenstorm in August 1566 until early 1572 contained the first events of a series that would later be known as the Eighty Years' War between the Spanish Empire and disparate groups of rebels in the Habsburg Netherlands. Some of the first pitched battles and sieges between radical Calvinists and Habsburg governmental forces took place in the years 1566–1567, followed by the arrival and government takeover by Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba with an army of 10,000 Spanish and Italian soldiers. Next, an ill-fated invasion by the most powerful nobleman of the Low Countries, the exiled but still-Catholic William "the Silent" of Orange, failed to inspire a general anti-government revolt. Although the war seemed over before it got underway, in the years 1569–1571, Alba's repression grew severe, and opposition against his regime mounted to new heights and became susceptible to rebellion.
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