THE NETHERLANDS : LEIDEN
Leiden
is now a medium size town with about
100.000 inhabitants in the west of the Netherlands.
New office buildings near the railway station are signs of Leiden's
participation in economic growth and activity. In the immediate
neighbourhood there are great opportunities for recreation: the wide
sandy beaches and the dunes along the North Sea (during the summer
months, the fashionable seaside resorts of Noordwijk and Katwijk aan Zee
sparkle with life), lakes for sailing, rowing and windsurfing, and in
spring the richly coloured tulip fields.
Leiden University
is the oldest university in The Netherlands. In 1574, Prince William of
Orange took the first step towards establishing the university, as a
reward for the city's brave resistance to the Spanish besiegers. The
university was founded on February 8, 1575. Throughout the centuries
many great scholars and scientists have brought fame and respect to
Leiden University. Ever since 1575 life in Leiden has been influenced to
a great extent by the relatively large number of students who live and
study in this historic town.
Leiden is famous for its history. Most
notable is the
brave defence by its inhabitants
during a siege by the Spanish army When all their frontal
attacks failed to take the town, the Spaniards decided to starve it into
submission. The decimated citizens of Leiden, however, refused to
surrender. On the third of October 1574, after months of hunger, illness
and starvation, Leiden was finally released by the Dutch rebel army,
bringing food supplies over the flooded polders. The third of October (
Leidens Ontzet ) is still a day that is celebrated by the inhabitants of
Leiden by eating the same food that was supplied on the third of October
1574: herring, white bread, and hutspot.
Leiden
is well known as the City of
Refugees. The sojourn
of the Pilgrim Fathers in Leiden has contributed to the city's
reputation. In the first decades of the seventeenth century Queen
Elisabeth I and her successor, King James I of England, persecuted the
English Calvinists, especially those that wanted to separate from the
Anglican Church of which the King was the head. These Calvinists were
called Separatists. By fleeing to Holland they hoped to benefit from the
relative religious freedom there. Between 1620 and 1629 some of these
refugees emigrated to North America, the so-called Pilgrims. In the U.S.
the Pilgrims are seen as the 'Founding Fathers' of that country. Some
American presidents were direct descendants of the Pilgrims.
Leiden
knew a booming period in the
Seventeenth Century,
which made it the second largest town in Holland, after Amsterdam.
It was in this century that Leiden's most famous son born :
Rembrandt van Rijn,
the famous painter. He studied and lived here until the age of 26, when
he moved to Amsterdam.
The beautiful town centre
with its canals ( grachten and singels ) is still dominated by various
monuments and Seventeenth Century mansions and facades. Famous buildings
are the Lakenhal, Burcht (an old fortress which still stands in the
middle of Leiden offering a fascinating view), Gravensteen (a former
judicial building complete with old dungeons, now housing part of the
Faculty of Law), Pieterskerk (Leidens largest church), Hooglandse kerk,
Academiegebouw and two old town gates. The town also has many old
almshouses (hofjes), at one time founded for poor people, now largely
occupied by students.
Leiden has a variety of
well-known museums,
like the National Museum of Antiquities, the Ethnology Museum and the
Municipal Lakenhal Museum with paintings by Jan Steen, Gerard Dou, Lucas
van Leyden and Rembrandt van Rijn. The Boerhaave Museum, which is the
National Museum of the History of Science and Medicine, deserves special
attention. It was recently rehoused in the former Caecilia Hospital,
where Herman Boerhaave gave his famous bedside teaching. The museum has
in its collection the early microscope of Van Leeuwenhoek, clocks of
Christiaan Huygens and the helium refrigeration equipment of Kamerlingh
Onnes.
History of Leiden
The members of the Dutch
Royal Family - at least those who were destined to ascend the throne one
day - all studied at the University of Leiden. It's a matter of
tradition. Leiden has the oldest university of the country (1575). It
was the founding father of the Nation himself, William of Orange
(William the Taciturn) who granted Leiden the right to found a
university. This was meant as a token of gratitude for the resistance
the people of Leiden against the Spanish repression in the 1570's. The
city outlasted the siege by the Spanish army until the Dutch rebels (watergeuzen)
set Leiden free on the 3rd of October 1574. The rebels fed the starving
population with white bread and herring. This event is still commemorated
on each 3rd of October, when the inhabitants of Leiden eat the same food
as their ancestors in 1574. Another of the traditional food supplements
eaten on that day is a kind of "carrot stew". Legend has it that, when
the Spanish fled, all that was left in the city was a casserole with
carrot stew.
Leiden has, of course, a more ancient
history that the one referring to the events that happened in the 16th
century. During Roman times Leiden was an important traffic crossroads
and was called "Lugdunum Batavorum". Only at the beginning of the 1990's
the canal of Corbulo was discovered. This canal constituted a nautical
connection between Leiden at the "Old Rhine" river and the estuary of
the river Maas, near the present city of Naaldwijk. Corbulo, a military
commander, had the canal dug in the year 49. It covered a distance of 28
kilometres and had a width of 15 meters. In this way, the Roman
fortifications at the Old Rhine could be reached without having to cross
the (sometimes) dangerous North Sea. Further important archaeological
findings came up during the construction of railway tunnels and the
creation of new settlements all through the 20th century.
Leiden's most famous son is the painter Rembrandt Harmernszoon van Rijn.
He was born on the 15th of July 1606 in a pharmacy in the street called
"Weddesteeg". From 1614 to 1620 he attended the Latin School at the back
side of the "Gravensteen" in Leiden. In 1623 he started to work as an
apprentice in the work shop of the Amsterdam painter Pieter Lastman
(1583-1633). Rembrandt is not the only famous painter from Leiden. All
the painter from the 15th until the 17th century are grouped into was is
called the "Leiden School". Lucas van Leyden lived in the city from 1489
until his death in 1533. Jan Steen (1626-1679), who spent most of his
life in Leiden, is seen as one of the most humorist painters in The
Netherlands. The Dutch expression "It looks like one of the paintings of
Jan Steen" is used to describe a funnily chaotic situation.
