Grote of Sint-Jacobskerk: A Late-Medieval Church in The Hague
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Netherlands
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page24 sections
History
Grote of Sint-Jacobskerk is a late-medieval church in The Hague, Netherlands, built in the Dutch Gothic style between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. It stands on the highest point of an ancient dune ridge in the historic centre and, together with the Binnenhof and the Abbey Church of Loosduinen, is among the city’s oldest buildings. Archaeological discoveries indicate human presence on the ridge before the church was built.
Origins and the court of Holland
The development of the church was closely connected with the growth of the counts of Holland’s court. The court was established on the same dune ridge in the thirteenth century, about 400 metres away, drawing merchants, craftsmen, and labourers. A settlement called Die Haghe grew around it, and a probably wooden church already stood on the site during that century.
The parish became independent between 1280 and 1296 through the intervention of Floris V, Count of Holland. A reference to a “great church” in 1337 may indicate that a stone building was already present. Basement walls made from bricks dating approximately to 1320–1350 support the existence of an early stone church, while documents from 1399 mention construction or maintenance work on a stone church.
The building was associated with the counts’ court from an early period. In 1372, Duke Albrecht of Bavaria, then Count of Holland, had his daughter Johanna baptised here by the abbot of Egmond, in the presence of prominent regional nobles. In 1405, Albrecht’s body was displayed in the church before his burial in the court chapel at the Binnenhof.
Expansion and the Golden Fleece chapter
The stone church was enlarged in stages during the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. Its tower was completed between 1420 and 1424 with the support of Duke John of Bavaria. By the fifteenth century, the scale of the church and tower reflected the growing importance of the settlement as a city.
On 12 May 1456, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy and Count of Holland, convened the ninth chapter of the Order of the Golden Fleece here. Founded by Philip in 1430, this prestigious chivalric order held formal ceremonies in which members displayed heraldic insignia. The 34 participating knights left their heraldic panels in the church. A fire in 1539 destroyed the original panels, but they were replaced almost immediately.
From 1468 until the Reformation, a college serving the seven daily liturgical offices operated at the church with paid professional singers. Catholic worship continued until the sixteenth-century Reformation, the religious movement that transformed western European Christianity and replaced Catholic institutions with Protestant church organisations in the Netherlands. By about 1540, the church possessed twelve chapels.
The fire of 1539 and religious change
Lightning caused a major fire on 29 December 1539. The blaze destroyed the tower clock and bells, the wooden spire, wooden vault coverings, stained-glass windows, and about 40 houses around the church. Restoration retained the building’s earlier form, although the wooden roof timbers between the bases of the roof were not reinstated or were removed.
Several powerful supporters helped renew the church after the disaster. Emperor Charles V, the bishop of Utrecht, and allied city governments contributed new stained-glass windows. At least fourteen windows received painted glass during the sixteenth century, including the Annunciation Window of 1541 and the Charles V Window of 1547, which remain in the church.
The church’s Catholic functions ended during the Reformation. After 1574 it was used exclusively for Protestant services, first by the Dutch Reformed Church and later by the Dutch Reformed Church in the Netherlands. The chapels gradually lost their original purposes and were demolished over time; the Marian Chapel, Holy Cross Chapel, and Van Assendelft Chapel remained.
Burials and the House of Orange-Nassau
Burial inside the church was favoured by prominent families, although it cost more than burial in the surrounding churchyard. The churchyard was used from the foundation of the church until 1681 and for a long period also served as a stabling area during the cattle market. In 1795, during the Batavian Republic, burial inside the church was prohibited because of unhealthy conditions. The Dutch government implemented the prohibition in 1830.
Grote of Sint-Jacobskerk has long been associated with the House of Orange-Nassau and related princely families. Willem Hendrik van Nassau-Zuylestein was baptised there in 1649, Willem Maurits van Nassau-Ouwerkerk in 1679, and Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange, in 2004. In 2020 and 2021, the church hosted the annual Speech from the Throne on Prinsjesdag because the Ridderzaal could not provide enough space for pandemic distancing. These were the first such addresses outside the Ridderzaal since 1904.
Restoration and present use
Major restoration campaigns took place in 1829–1830, 1854–1856, 1866, 1878–1884, 1910–1921, 1956–1961, 1986–1987, 2000, 2002–2003, 2007, and 2009. Investigations in the late 1950s and archaeological work in 2007 and 2009 revealed fourteenth-century masonry and the original cores of the nave columns.
The most extensive modern restoration occurred from 1910 to 1921 under Pierre Cuypers, with implementation principally supervised by his son Joseph Cuypers. The work altered, removed, restored, and added parts of the church, including a sacristan’s house south of the tower and a consistory room east of the Van Assendelft Chapel. The surrounding almshouses were demolished.
Since 1982, the church has no longer been used for weekly worship and is principally used for concerts, exhibitions, fairs, and other cultural events. A foundation established on 20 January 2020 was created to oversee its operation. The church and tower have separate ownership: the church belongs to the Protestant Church, while the tower belongs to the Municipality of The Hague. The church is a Rijksmonument, the Netherlands’ national monument status for historically or architecturally important buildings and sites, and was designated in 1967 under monument number 17970.
Remains
Built of brick and natural stone, the church measures approximately 47.0 by 32.5 metres, with a central nave 12 metres wide. Its medieval form developed from a cruciform building with a nave and two low aisles into a broad hall church, in which the nave and aisles are approximately equal in height. The transformation created the first example of the Hague hall-church type, which later spread widely through the County of Holland.
Nave, aisles, and choir
Nave and aisles
The original cruciform arrangement can still be traced through the 1424 roofline preserved in the facade adjoining the tower. Between 1434 and 1455, the aisles were widened and raised to the height of the central nave, making the cross-shaped plan less visible from outside. Each aisle bay has a high gable and an independent roof set across the direction of the nave roof. This arrangement allowed the aisles to contain large windows.
High choir
The choir was replaced in 1492 by a higher structure on the same ground plan. It has a basilical form and an ambulatory, or passage around the choir, covered by stone star vaults. Slender cylindrical columns have capitals decorated with two rows of acanthus leaves, and the choir rises above the nave.
Chapels around the ambulatory
The Marian Chapel and Holy Cross Chapel were added around 1490 on opposite sides of the choir ambulatory. Three smaller chapels, the Holy Sepulchre Chapel, Saint Anne’s Chapel, and Sacrament Chapel, were added on the north side before 1539. The surviving chapels contain high or timber-vaulted spaces according to their individual construction.
Van Assendelft Chapel and memorials
Van Assendelft Chapel
The Van Assendelft Chapel on the south side was probably built around 1455 for the knight Gerrit van Assendelft and his wife, Beatris van Dalem. They were buried there beneath a tomb monument, and members of the Van Assendelft family continued to be buried in the chapel until 1558. Cross vaults and pointed-arch windows form part of its medieval structure.
After the fire of 1539, a Renaissance tomb monument was made from alabaster. It is decorated with columns and capitals, coats of arms, angels’ heads, and foliate ornament. The chapel and monument were restored in the 1960s, and the chapel is also used for chamber concerts and weddings.
Admiral’s cenotaph
The cenotaph of Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam stands in the choir on the former site of the high altar. A cenotaph is a memorial for a deceased person whose remains lie elsewhere. Commissioned by the States General and made by Bartholomeus Eggers in 1667, the monument commemorates an admiral who received a sea burial. Its Baroque design places his statue beneath a canopy, accompanied by four female virtues and reliefs of battles including the Battle of Lowestoft. The monument was restored in 1842.
Other tombs and memorial boards
The church contains the late-Baroque tomb of Philip, Landgrave of Hesse-Philippsthal, and his wife Catherine of Solms-Laubach, designed by Daniel Marot in 1721. Numerous heraldic and memorial boards commemorate prominent Hague families, including mourning boards and later heraldic panels. The oversized heraldic board of Angenis Hooft was returned to the church in March 2011.
St. James’s Tower
Tower and lantern
The six-sided St. James’s Tower forms the western end of the church. Built of brick and completed between 1420 and 1424, it is 92.5 metres high. Its hexagonal form and lantern distinguish it from the church body. The tower probably served both as a church tower and as a civic watchtower, with a clock and bells likely installed from the beginning.
The medieval wooden Gothic spire was destroyed in the 1539 fire and replaced by a Renaissance lantern during reconstruction completed in 1542. Charles V contributed to rebuilding the tower and donated the Jhesus bourdon. A bourdon is the large bass bell in a bell group. One side of the bell bears the earliest known representation of the stork as The Hague’s coat of arms, and a stork was later installed as a weather vane.
In 1861, the Renaissance lantern was replaced by a much heavier openwork neo-Gothic cast-iron spire, popularly called “the nightcap.” Its weight caused cracks in the brick walls. The earlier lantern was reconstructed in copper-clad wood in 1957 and slightly enlarged for the expanded carillon. Concrete intermediate floors were also installed to tie the walls together.
Bells and wartime survival
The principal bells include the approximately 6,000-kilogram Jhesus, cast in 1541 by Jasper and Jan Moer; Jacob, cast in 1570 by Hendrick van Trier; an unnamed B-flat bell made in 1647 by Coenraet Wegewaert; and a C bell cast in 1956 by Koninklijke Eijsbouts. They function as swinging bells and, when stationary, as bass bells for the carillon. Retuning in 1956 changed their pitches, while cranked headstocks altered the sound produced during ringing.
During the Second World War, the Jhesus bourdon was concealed at the bottom of the tower to prevent German requisition. Its size meant that it could not pass through the monumental doors, which had been narrowed with old beams to mislead the occupiers. On the night of 4–5 May 1945, the bell was returned to its position and rung for the liberation. The Wegewaert bell was recovered in Germany after the war, while Jacob survived after the vessel carrying it was sabotaged and sank in the IJsselmeer. The Salvator bell, cast in 1547 by Jan Moer, remained in the tower during the war and was later used only as a carillon bell.
Carillon and clockwork
The carillon has contained 51 bells since 1956. A carillon is a set of tuned bells played by an automatic mechanism or by a keyboard connected to the bells. Bells by Melchior de Haze, Claude Fremy, and Koninklijke Eijsbouts form part of the instrument. Forty-seven bells are visible in and around the lantern windows, while four are housed on the bell-ringing loft below. The instrument uses equal temperament and is connected to a keyboard according to the actual pitch of the bells.
The tower’s first automatic chime probably consisted of eight to ten small bells and was installed when the tower was completed in 1424. The fire of 1539 destroyed it. In 1541–1542, Heynrick Vabrie of Breda, a clockmaker working in Leuven, supplied a new clock with a playing drum, a mechanism using movable pins to operate hammers according to programmed melodies. The drum survives in the Speelklok Museum in Utrecht.
Melchior de Haze supplied a 37-bell carillon in 1686, based on an E bell weighing approximately 1,150 kilograms. Claude Fremy later cast a new bass bell, although the intended replacement instrument was not completed. In 1931, carillonneur Johannes de Zwaan directed a restoration. The original seventeenth-century meantone tuning was treated as defective until André Lehr identified it in the 1950s. Taylor of Loughborough then retuned the bells to equal temperament and lowered the entire instrument by a semitone.
Koninklijke Eijsbouts restored the carillon in 1956, replacing the Taylor bells, adding new bass bells, incorporating the lower tower bells, and greatly increasing the instrument’s weight. Its automatic playing drum was made in 1689 by Hague blacksmith Libertus van der Burgh. It contains 14,000 holes and movable pins that activate external hammers. The drum plays a different melody each quarter-hour, with melodies changed periodically in January, May, and September. A mechanical keyboard between the bell-ringing loft and the lantern allows manual playing.
Corrosion in the bell suspension and deterioration of the supporting beams led to renewed work during the winter of 2015–2016. The bells were rehung in a new frame, and the wiring and clappers were replaced. The carillon returned to use on 20 May 2016.
Interior furnishings and artworks
Pulpit and Golden Fleece panels
The oak Renaissance pulpit dates from 1550 and is probably by Colijn de Nole. Its five sides carry panels of the four Evangelists and John the Baptist. Female figures with satyr heads and goat legs support the pulpit bowl, while the rear panel depicts Moses holding the tablets of the law. Five downward-looking royal figures appear on the sounding board. The later hexagonal domed crown, topped by a round temple and gilded sphere, may have replaced an image of Saint James the Greater, the church’s former dedication.
The surviving sixteenth-century Golden Fleece panels bear the shields and names of the 34 knights who attended the 1456 chapter. The Order of the Golden Fleece was founded by Philip the Good in 1430, and its members traditionally displayed heraldic insignia during formal chapters and ceremonies. The panels are protected as cultural property.
Stained glass
The Annunciation Window of 1541 and Charles V Window of 1547 contain high-quality painted glass attributed to Dirck and Wouter Crabeth. A later window commemorating Jan de Bakker was commissioned in 1925, designed by Max Nauta, made by Scurire en De Ru of Haarlem, and installed in 1930.
Organs
The main organ is a Metzler instrument made by Metzler Orgelbau of Dietikon-Zurich and installed in 1971. It has fully mechanical key and stop action, four couplings, equal temperament, and a pitch of A = 440 Hz at 18 degrees Celsius. Since the church ceased regular worship in 1982, the organs have been used for concerts.
Earlier instruments included a large organ installed around 1549 by Cornelis Gerritsz, a smaller organ made before 1540, and a major rebuilding of the large organ by Aelbrecht Kiespenninck in 1601. Galtus Germer van Hagerbeer and his son Germer Galtus installed a new 23-stop main organ in 1626–1629. Gerard Steevens rebuilt it and added an upper division in 1766–1768, and the instrument was sold in 1877.
Johan Frederik Witte built a 55-stop main organ installed beside the tower against the west wall in 1882. It was severely damaged when the church heating was overheated before the 1901 wedding of Queen Wilhelmina and Prince Henry. The instrument was dismantled and eventually replaced by the Metzler organ in 1971.
A cabinet organ built by Christian Müller in Amsterdam in 1755 stands in the high choir. Made for a private owner, it later stood in the Dutch Reformed church at Budel and then passed through churches in The Hague. It was placed in the Van Assendelft Chapel in 1973 and moved to the high choir after restoration by Henk van Eeken in 2005. The instrument has mechanical key and stop action, no pedal, equal temperament, and a pitch of A = 440 Hz at 18 degrees Celsius.
Burial ground and archaeological evidence
The church’s surrounding cemetery extended northward beneath the 1733 extension of the Old Town Hall. Skeletal remains found during a twentieth-century restoration beneath the western part of the town hall indicate that many graves north of the church remain partly intact. Within the church, grave monuments and memorial stones commemorate civic, noble, military, diplomatic, artistic, and scholarly figures, including Constantijn and Christiaan Huygens, who are remembered by a plaque.
Nearby sites
