The oldest stone churches in Holland

Authors

  • Elizabeth den Hartog

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7480/knob.97.1998.1.413

Abstract

This article concentrates on the oldest stone churches in the former county of Holland. The oldest examples to have survived were built of tuff, an expensive material, that was imported from the Eifel-region. It is argued that apart from the count himself, the local nobility acted as patrons of many of these churches, and that these served to show off their status and prestige, and at the same time functioned as mausolea for themselves and their descendants, as is suggested by the existence of imported, and therefore expensive, sarcophagi and sarcophagus-lids of red sandstone in many of the tuff churches.

Other tuff churches were built in the border areas and in regions that had recently been brought under the control of the count of Holland, i.e. West-Friesland. The churches in this latter region served as a stabilizing factor in an area that had been disrupted by warfare for many years, as tokens of the newly-established peace, to commemorate the mutual dead (interestingly, there are very large numbers of sarcophagus-lids of red sandstone in this region) and in order to control the inhabitants of the area.

Author Biography

Elizabeth den Hartog

Dr. E. den Hartog is als universitair docent werkzaam aan het Kunsthistorisch Instituut van de Rijksuniversiteit in Leiden. Naast publikaties op het gebied van de middeleeuwse sculptuur in Maastricht, schreef zij in 1992 het boek Romanesque architecture and sculpture in the Meuse Valley. Momenteel bereidt zij een boek voor over de vroege stenen kerk in Holland, waarin een aantal zaken die in het onderhavige artikel aan de orde komen, veel uitvoeriger behandeld zullen worden.

Published

1998-02-01

How to Cite

den Hartog, E. (1998). The oldest stone churches in Holland. Bulletin KNOB, 97(1), 15–30. https://doi.org/10.7480/knob.97.1998.1.413

Issue

Section

Articles

Plaudit