Beginning in front of the
LEIDEN AMERICAN PILGRIM MUSEUM: house built ca. 1375, probably as a residence
for priests of the Hooglandsekerk. The museum is nr. 9. The museum is open
Wednesday through Saturday, 1 - 5 p.m. For further information, and group scheduling, call
071-5122413. [from America: 011-31-71-5122413]]
Walk to the
HOOGLANDSEKERK: built in the 15th century; the clock tower remains from an
earlier smaller church of the first half of the 14th century.
Turning left in front of the tower, walk one block and enter the arch with the lion on
top, to see the
BURCHT: castle of the medieval viscounts of Leiden, built ca. 1200 to replace
an earlier wooden castle on the man-made hill, which is probably from the 10th or 11th
century. A walk around the parapet gives a view out over the medieval town.
Leaving under the lion arch, turn right and walk one block to the covered bridge.
In the LONG ROUTE, turn right without crossing the bridge.
COORNBRUG (Corn Bridge): first bridge over the Rijn River at Leiden. The
markets held here and along both sides of the river on Wednesdays and Saturdays have been
here continuously since the 13th century and are the oldest in Holland.
From the Coornbrug there is a view to the Town Hall tower, to the Visbrug, and beyond it,
to the Weigh House. This is where the city crane unloaded all the boats that brought
produce for Leiden's markets. Here, too, the passenger boats that provided regular service
two or three times a week to the other Dutch cities loaded and unloaded. The Pilgrims
landed by the city crane when they arrived from Amsterdam on May Day, 1609.
Without crossing the bridge, turn right along the Nieuwe Rijn and walk one block to the
next bridge.
At the top of the rise, you have a view out over the Stille Rijn. The Weigh House
(1667) is on your left. An earlier weigh house stood here when the Pilgrims arrived in
1609; their boat from Amsterdam moored at the quai where the crane stood that unloaded
market goods brought by boat to be sold in the markets along the river. Everything had to
be weighed officially before it could be sold. The ancient scales still hang in the Weigh
House, where concerts and exhibitions are held now. Ahead you see a modern footbridge that
ends on the place where the crane was. Later you will cross towards the Weigh House on
this footbridge, but for the moment, turn right and enter the Donkere Steeg, an alley
which takes you in one block to the Haarlemmerstraat, where you turn left.
At the end of the Donkere Steeg, jog left on the Haarlemmerstraat to the intersection
dominated by the Hartebrug Kerk, a Roman Catholic church built in 1835. Turn right on the
Lange Mare and go along this church to the first street behind it, which is the Vrouwekerk
Koorstraat. Turn left to reach the picturesque ruins of the
VROUWEKERK. Standing in the public square in front of the Boerhaave Museum,
just north of the Haarlemmerstraat. In Pilgrim times, this was the Walloon (or Huguenot)
Church (now the congregation uses a small chapel on the Breestraat instead). Francis Cooke
and Hester Mahieu were married here in 1603, and their nephew Philipe de la Noye (Philip
Delano) was baptised here the same year. These Pilgrims became ancestors of United States
presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and George H. W. Bush. The church
is presently threatened with imminent demolition. One of Leiden’s aldermen,
responsible for urban development, considered the ruin an eyesore in the way of the view
from a modern commercial property he wanted as a replacement for the medieval houses
across the street from the ruin. Now that he has resigned in the face of massive cost
overruns in another of his projects, there is a possibility that the demolition of the
Vrouwekerk could be reconsidered, but no such change has been announced yet. See this
historic site before it’s flattened for short-term profit.
Returning back along the Hartebrug Kerk (or going around the block to the front of the
Hartebrug Kerk), proceed to the footbridge over the Rijn, leading to the Weigh House. (The
Hartebrug Kerk is generally open. It is a good example of the first style of architecture
employed in the new Catholic churches that could be built when laws were liberalized in
the early 19th century allowing construction of dissenters’ churches that
could be seen from the street.)
At the beginning of the FOOTBRIDGE is the starting point for an excellent canal
boat tour, called "Schuitje Vaart." At the end of the bridge you see the WEIGH
HOUSE (1655), with the former hotel called The Mermaid in the 16th century,
across the alley to the right. Farther along the river to the right are the buildings of
the Aalmarkt area which are threatened with demolition to make space for modern stores, a
disco, and a parking garage. The the brick building with tall tiled roof seen at the far
end of a vacant lot to the right of the old hotel is one of several visible remains of the
large quadrangle that made up the St. Catharine’s hospital, as is the house with the
large white gable next to a long school building. Myles Standish is mentioned in a list of
soldiers who were taken care of in this hospital in 1601, although his name was misspelled
as "Myls Stansen."
Continue in the direction of the bridge into the Mandenmakerssteeg, an alley that passes
along the side of the Weigh House and the Butter Hall behind it. Above the entrance to the
Butter Hall is an interesting sculpture by Rombout Verhulst, depicting people buying and
selling butter inside the building (ca. 1660). The Mandenmakersteeg ends at the
Breestraat. To the right, is the bell tower of
DE WAALSE KERK (Walloon Church): Now used by the Walloon church (French-speaking
Protestants, also called Huguenots), in Pilgrim times it was the chapel of the St.
Catharine's Hospital. Across the street from the Walloon church is the impressively
ornamented headquarters of the Waterways Commission for Rijnland (1599), now containing a
heritage center.
With a slight jog to the right, the Mandenmakerssteeg continues on the other side of
the Breestraat, taking the name Diefsteeg. The first cross street on the Diefsteeg is the
LANGE BRUG: Originally an open canal, it was vaulted over in the early
seventeenth century and then became known as the Lange Brug, or Long Bridge. Pilgrim James
Chilton and his family lived here, although exactly where is unknown. In 1619, coming home
from church, he was surrounded by stone-throwing youths. Hit by a paving stone or brick,
he was knocked unconscious. The crowd had attacked him and his daughter because it was
suspected that illegal religious gatherings of the followers of the theologian Jacobus
Arminius (called Remonstrants) were being held in Chilton's house.
One block further along the Diefsteeg is the Pieterskerkstraat (left) and
Pieterskerkgracht (right). There is a good view to the Pieterskerk. The low building on
the left, with a simple classical front is the
LOKHORSTKERK: an example of a "hidden church," the actual church was
built behind houses in the 17th century, so that it was not visible from the street. Those
houses were replaced in 1860 by the present entrance. This church was built by Mennonites,
who were already here when the Pilgrims arrived. Now the church is also used by the
Remonstrants, a denomination that was organized in 1619 by the followers of Jacobus
Arminius, after they were forced out of the Dutch Reformed Church. Other groups that had
hidden churches in Leiden included Lutherans and Catholics.
Continuing along the Diefsteeg, the building on the right at the end of the block is
the
LATIJNSE SCHOOL (Latin School): While the Pilgrims lived in Leiden, the Latin
School prepared students for university study. Rembrandt was a pupil here. The school was
founded in the middle ages to provide training for the boys choir of the Pieterskerk. The
music sung before the Reformation was famous throughout Europe, and the church was visited
by other choirs in the 16th century, including the choir of the cathedral of San Marco in
Venice. The Latin School received a new facade in 1599. In the Schoolsteeg (School Alley)
there was a Jesuit "hidden church" in Pilgrim times.
(Café Het Gerecht, across the street from the Latin School, serves a variety of
Belgian beers, some of which are historically correct for Pilgrims. After the Saturday
market people involved in the campaign to save Leiden’s historic sites often gather
here. Say hello to Martin.) Farther along the open square, on the left is the
GRAVENSTEEN: This was the residence of the Counts of Holland around 1200,
before they moved their residence to The Hague. It later became a prison and presently is
part of the Law School of the University of Leiden. Many Protestants, including the father
of Burgomaster Pieter van der Werff, a Mennonite minister, were martyred here under the
Inquisition. At the time it was illegal to sing psalms in public.
To the left of the Gravensteen is a short alley called the
MUSCADELSTEEG: Rembrandt may have shared a studio here with the painter Jan
Lievens.
Going through the Muskadelsteeg, we reach the
PIETERSKERK: the present church was built between 1390 and 1565; different
parts were designed by several of the most famous architects in the Low Countries. It
contains an important organ from 1637, parts of which date from the 15th and 16th
centuries. Many renowned university professors are buried here, as well as the painter Jan
Steen and the Pilgrims' minister John Robinson.
When you can visit the church, the door to the north transept is open. The inside is
well worth seeing, including the memorial to John Robinson in the octagonal baptistry
chapel in the far corner diagonally opposite the transept entrance. Continuing along
outside the church, you reach the:
PIETERSKERKHOF (churchyard): The theologian Jacobus Arminius lived in a house
facing the church. The white house on the corner of the Kloksteeg was where the family of
Pilgrim Thomas Rogers lived (in one room) briefly while he went with son Joseph to America
first to start a farm in 1620. Although Thomas died in the first winter, the remaining
members of his family moved to Plymouth in 1623. The tall Pieterskerk tower at the west
front of the church collapsed in 1512, but the bell was unbroken and was hung in a stubby
free-standing tower at the corner of the church yard, giving the name Bell Alley or
Kloksteeg to the street. Thomas Brewer lived in the second house to the right of the
almshouse on the opposite side of the Kloksteeg. Brewer was a friend of the Pilgrims and
provided financial support for William Brewster's printing activities. The minister of the
English Reformed Church, Hugh Goodyear, who became a friend of the Pilgrims, lived for a
while in Brewer's house.
On the far side of the churchyard is the formal entrance to the almshouse called the
JEAN PESYNHOF: built in 1683 on the spot where the Pilgrims' minister John
Robinson's house was. The Pilgrims built about a dozen small houses in the garden behind
Robinson's house. These were smaller than the dwellings that are now part of the
almshouse. It is possible to see the roof of the chapel of the Begijnhof from the
almshouse garden. The almshouse was built for members of the Walloon church, through a
legacy from Jean Pesyn and his wife Marie de la Noye, who was probably a distant relative
of Philip Delanoye, the Pilgrim ancestor of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. You may push open
the large entry door and view the garden, but please respect the quiet of the residents.
From the almshouse, enter the alley leading away from the church, and walk one block to
the canal.
CORNER OF KLOKSTEEG AND RAPENBURG: In Pilgrim times this pub (Barerra) was an
English book shop operated by the publishers Thomas and Govert Basson. Although the
Bassons were friends of John Robinson, Govert Basson supported the followers of Arminius
(whom Robinson opposed) and Govert Basson published the complete writings of Arminius in
1617.
Across the bridge is the
ACADEMIEGEBOUW: Theological debates were held in the lower room on the right
end of this medieval convent chapel, which is the oldest part of the University of Leiden.
This is probably where Robinson debated with Arminius' successor Simon Episcopius. Now the
room is part of the Museum of University History. Gomarus, the strict Calvinist opponent
of Arminius, lived across the bridge in the Nonnensteeg. Pilgrim Robert Cushman lived in a
small house built in an alley off the left side of the Nonnensteeg, but the houses there
have disappeared.
Turning left without crossing the bridge, follow the Rapenburg canal and notice the
STEPS DOWN TO THE WATER: These steps were probably used by the Pilgrims to
embark on the boats that took them to Delfshaven, although scheduled boats began at the
Weigh House in the center of town.
A little farther along the curve of the canal, just past a fenced garden is an alley
leading to the
BEGIJNHOFKAPEL (Beguinage Chapel): This chapel was used by the university for
its library and anatomy theater. The Pilgrims were allowed to use a large groundfloor room
on Sundays in the last years of their stay in Leiden, when religious meetings in private
homes were made illegal. Later the same room became the English Reformed Church (the
Puritan congregation led by Hugh Goodyear). There is a garden area behind the chapel, with
a fine view to the Pieterskerk over the roofs of the area where Robinson lived.
Farther along the curving Rapenburg canal, on the opposite side is an arched bridge
over the
VLIET RIVER: The Pilgrims began their migration to America in 1620, departing
Leiden in boats that went along the Vliet River to Delfshaven, where they got on their
ship the "Speedwell." The "Speedwell" took them to England, where they
met the "Mayflower," which their agents had hired. Both ships were intended to
go to America, but the "Speedwell" was leaky, and so the ships turned back and
many "Speedwell" passengers got on the "Mayflower" which continued on
alone to America. Some passengers came back to Leiden, and joined other Leiden Pilgrims in
the later ships, "Fortune," "Anne," "Little James," and
another ship also called the "Mayflower."
A small house on the left as we continue along the Rapenburg has a carved coat-of-arms.
This is the
HOUSE OF THE VAN DUIVENBODE BROTHERS: Two brothers who kept carrier pigeons
lived here. Their pigeons were used during the Siege of Leiden in 1573-1574 to send and
bring messages between the people in Leiden and the navy of William of Orange, which
eventually was able to sail up to the city walls to relieve the siege, once they had
flooded the farmland south of town. The city granted the coat of arms seen on the house to
the brothers to commemorate their contribution to the city; and the brothers took the
surname "van Duivenbode" which means "of the carrier pigeons."
Two picturesque streets lead back left to the Pieterskerk, where the route continues;
going straight and following the canal a little farther, however, we go past a larger
house, identified by a stone inscription. This was
JEAN LUZAC'S HOUSE: America's first ambassador, the future president John
Adams, visited Leiden's publisher Jean Luzac in the 1780's here, where the French-language
"Gazette de Leyde" was produced. That newspaper carried favorable news and
editorials about the American Revolution, distributed throughout Europe. Luzac was killed
in 1807, when a boat full of gunpowder exploded further along the canal, destroying about
eight square blocks of houses and killing 155 people.
Turn left on the Herensteeg at the end of the block. At the corner is the
Kamerlingh-Onnes laboratory, which was the center of Leiden University's pioneering
physics research into temperatures near absolute zero. Notice the elaborate 16th-century
tower further along the canal, which belongs to the
LODEWIJKSKERK (Church of St. Louis): Built as a hospice chapel for a stopping
place on the medieval pilgrimage route to Santiago da Compostella in Spain, the building
became a guildhall after the Reformation and was also used briefly as a food distribution
center when Leiden’s siege ended. William Bradford belonged to the cloth guild that
met here, and this was where cloth approved by the guild was sold. The chapel marks the
edge of the destruction caused by the 1807 gun powder explosion. By order of Louis
Napoleon, who had been appointed King of The Netherlands by his brother, the French
Emperor Napoleon, the building once again became a Roman Catholic church. It was renamed
after St. Louis, the patron saint of France and Louis Napoleon’s namesake. Louis
Napoleon had personally come from The Hague to help in the rescue efforts the day after
the explosion, which could be heard as far away as The Hague, Delft, and Amsterdam.
The Herensteeg leads back to the Pieterskerk, passing the well-stocked antiquarian
print shop of IJ. Meurs. On the corner before the Pieterskerk is the antiquarian bookshop,
auction house, and publisher, Templum Salomonis, where there has been a library, book
publisher, or book auction house nearly continuously since the 14th century.
Turn right in the corner across from Templum Salomonis and enter the little archway
leading to the
PIETER VAN DER SPECKHOF (1645). This almshouse gives a good idea of the houses
built for other Pilgrims behind Robinson’s house, which are now replaced by the
somewhat larger houses of the Pesijnshof. (The windows in both almshouses have been
modernized in the 18th century.)
Walking out at the other end of the almshouse, turn left in the courtyard, where the
painter Jan Steen lived, and go out to the Lange Brug, turning left past antique shops and
the carved back entry to the former Tripe Market, to come to the
PIETERSKERK KOORSTEEG: In the block to the left (towards the Pieterskerk) lived the
Leiden burgomaster and historian, and also book publisher, Jan Orlers, just around the
corner from William Brewster, whose house opened onto the alley now named after him.
Turning into the little alley off the Pieterskerk Koorsteeg, through the archway on the
right, we enter the
WILLIAM BREWSTERSTEEG. In the last house on the right, Brewster and his
assistant Edward Winslow printed books that were forbidden in England. Many were smuggled
into England for distribution there. Others were sold at the Frankfurt Book Fair, taken
along by Orlers. Through pressure exerted by the English ambassador, the Pilgrims'
printing activities were suppressed. Brewster was arrested along with Thomas Brewer, who
had helped finance the printing projects. Brewster was released by Leiden's sheriff, which
angered the English. Brewster went into hiding in the next village, Leiderdorp, and
escaped further pursuit by emigrating to New England in 1620 on the "Mayflower."
Only the end wall of Brewster’s house remains; the house was enlarged in the 17th
century.
Back in the Pieterskerk Koorsteeg, we go away from the Pieterskerk towards the
Breestraat, the main street, passing Fleuron antiquarian print shop, specializing in
antique maps. At the corner set into the street is the
BLAUWESTEEN (Blue Stone): in the center of the Breestraat, an old Roman road
that marked the northern boundary of the Roman Empire; the Blue Stone was the place of
justice in early medieval Leiden. Thieves had fingers cut off; faulty products were burned
here. There was also a stone pedestal on the front of the town hall where gossips and
scolds had to stand for a set length of time to be jeered at.
Looking left at the corner, across the street we see a 17th-cent. house with pillars
and carving, called the "Vergulden Turk."
JAN VAN HOUT'S HOUSE (to the right of the Vergulden Turk): where William
Brewster must have gone to discuss obtaining permission for the Pilgrims to stay in
Leiden. The English poet Sir Philip Sidney Stayed here as a guest of Jan van Hout in 1586,
and Brewster probably met both Sidney and Van Hout then. Brewster was an assistant of Sir
William Davison, England's Secretary of State, who was visiting Leiden at the same time as
Sidney. (The present façade is of a later date.)
DE VERGULDEN TURK (The Gilded Turk): the mansion of a wealthy merchant. The figures
in the gable (by Pieter Xavery, 1673), depict Neptune and Mercury, gods of the sea and of
communication, and a turbanned Turk, suggesting that the merchant traded with
Constantinople. The first Dutch trader with Constantinople on a large scale was
Bartholomeus van Panhuysen of Leiden. Van Panhuysen was a family connection of Daniel van
der Meulen, the merchant banker who organized the construction of the new front of the
town hall.
Turning right along the Breestraat, the elaborate little carved doorway is the
PENSHAL (Tripe Market): entry, dated 1607, to the market for cheap meat where
liver, tripe, kidneys, etc. were sold, as well as chickens and rabbits. More expensive
meat was sold in the main meat market across the street. Poorer people, such as many of
the Pilgrims, could only afford the cheaper fare available in the Tripe Market.
Across the street is the impressive
STADHUIS (Town Hall): façade 1595; represents the attempt to revive Leiden's
importance as a commercial center after the Siege of Leiden (1573-4), when half the
population died of starvation, and after the fall of Antwerp to Catholic armies in 1585
and the closing of Antwerp's port. The money for the new town hall was arranged by the
leading banker of the Flemish and Walloon (Huguenot) refugees, Daniel van der Meulen. He
nominated the architect, Lieven de Key, also a refugee, and the sculptor, Luder van
Benthem, who altered the designs while carving the façade stones at his quarry near
Bremen in Germany. Various Pilgrim couples were married in civil ceremonies before
magistrates in Leiden's city hall - for example, William Bradford and Dorothy May's
marriage was registered here.
At the far end of the Town Hall, turn left and go one block to the Nieuwe Rijn River
and the covered bridge, the Coornbrug. Upstream, one block to the right is a footbridge
that leads directly to the the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum at Beschuitsteeg
nr. 9.
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