Sint Nicolaaskapel: A Medieval Romanesque Chapel in Nijmegen
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Netherlands
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Chapel
On this page14 sections
History
Sint Nicolaaskapel, also called Valkhofkapel, is a medieval Christian chapel in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, built probably in the first half of the eleventh century. Dedicated to Nicholas of Myra, a fourth-century Christian bishop associated with charitable acts and the later Saint Nicholas tradition, it is generally regarded as the oldest surviving building in Nijmegen and one of the oldest surviving stone buildings in the Netherlands.
Origins and changing interpretations
The chapel’s exact date and founder remain uncertain. Recent dating places its construction particularly around 1030–1040, while some architectural studies place it after the destruction of the earlier Valkhof complex in 1047, perhaps around 1050 or later. Suggested patrons have included Empress Theophanu, her granddaughter Theophanu of Essen, Emperor Otto III, Emperor Conrad II, and Emperor Henry III. One interpretation dates the building to about 996 and connects it with Otto III’s memorial for his mother, Empress Theophanu, who died at Nijmegen in 991. Other proposals associate it with Theophanu around 980 or with Conrad II around 1030. None of these attributions has been confirmed.
Earlier explanations assigned the building a much greater age. It was variously described as a Batavian or Roman temple, a late Roman structure from the fourth or fifth century, or a Carolingian building commissioned by Charlemagne, the ruler who became emperor in 800. Stories that Pope Leo III converted it into a Christian chapel in 799 arose from these interpretations. They are now rejected or treated as later mythologization based on mistaken connections.
The site later became associated with the Valkhof complex. From the mid-twelfth century, the complex also included the castle of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, completed around 1155. The chapel is commonly regarded as one of two chapels connected with the Valkhof, although it remains uncertain whether it was incorporated architecturally into the castle or stood separately. The chapel was first mentioned in 1258 as an imperial chapel. Its dedication to Nicholas of Myra appears in records from 1470, and sixteenth-century documents explicitly call it the Sint-Nicolaaskapel.
Medieval use and rebuilding
Two chaplains, Andreas and Ghiselbertus, were attached to the chapel in 1250. Around 1470–1471, Duchess Katharina of Cleves visited the building, which then had three altars. On 19 March 1470, she established four hereditary masses to be celebrated at the altar of Alexis.
The original Romanesque building suffered serious damage during sieges, probably around the beginning of the fifteenth century. It was rebuilt and altered in a more Gothic manner, while retaining its basic plan and approximately its original entrance. The Valkhof complex itself had already been destroyed by fire in 1047. A rebuilding associated with the medieval reconstruction of the Valkhof took place around 1155, and another major rebuilding followed in the late fourteenth century. Tree-ring analysis dates the felling of the timber used in the present roof structure to 1393–1394.
Early modern changes and preservation
The chapel was completely whitewashed in 1545. In 1564, during the reign of Charles V, it and the rest of the Valkhof complex underwent extensive restoration and received sacred vessels and liturgical vestments. Frescoes were probably added in connection with Anna of Austria’s visit to the castle in 1570, and part of this decoration remains visible.
After Jan van Nassau became stadholder of Gelderland in 1578, he prohibited Catholic worship. A stadholder was a provincial governor or chief representative of a ruler in the early modern Netherlands. The chapel lost its religious function and was used for purposes including the storage of firewood and coal. Two bells that had hung in the chapel were transferred by the city government to the church towers of Neerbosch and Hees in 1674.
When the Valkhof castle was demolished in 1796–1797, the chapel was spared partly because antiquarian claims that it was a temple founded by Julius Caesar were still used to defend it. The building entered the Dutch national monument register in 1973. It is now used partly by the Greek Orthodox Church and also hosts exhibitions and literary events.
Remains
Sint Nicolaaskapel is a centrally planned Romanesque building with Byzantine-influenced features. Romanesque architecture is characterized by massive masonry and rounded arches, while Byzantine central-plan architecture organizes a building around a geometric centre, often an octagon. The chapel is described as the only surviving Romanesque central-plan chapel of its kind in the Netherlands. Its design is closely related to the Palatine Chapel in Aachen, the central chapel of Charlemagne’s imperial palace, particularly through its octagonal interior and sixteen-sided exterior.
Central plan and interior
Octagonal centre and ambulatory
An octagonal central space is enclosed by a sixteen-sided, two-storey ambulatory, or passage running around the centre. The ambulatory has an internal clear width of just under 12 metres. Its original exterior openings were round-arched and set within blind arcades, shallow wall panels that appear as arches but do not open through the wall.
The central space rises considerably above the surrounding ambulatory. At ground level, arcades connect it with the ambulatory. These arches rest on simply profiled projecting impost slabs, the blocks from which an arch begins. The original upper termination of the central space and its earliest roof are unknown, although a flat ceiling beneath a central tent roof is considered probable.
Gallery and vaults
Shallow groin vaults, formed where two barrel vaults meet, cover the ground floor of the ambulatory and support the gallery above. The gallery opens toward the central room through paired arches carried by central columns. Some original column bases and cushion-shaped capitals survive. A cushion-shaped capital is a medieval capital formed from a roughly cubic block with rounded or modified lower corners. The gallery can now be reached by ladder, while architectural analysis indicates that the original access came through an adjoining building rather than through a staircase inside the chapel.
Exterior, materials, and later fabric
Entrance and masonry
A projecting portal structure forms the western entrance. The basic ground plan and entrance survived the later rebuilding, although much of the outer masonry was renewed, especially on the southern and eastern sides. The building is made mainly from tuff and brick, including Roman tuff. Reused Roman roof tiles and bricks carry marks associated with the Tenth Legion. About two-thirds of the original building fabric is estimated to survive, while approximately two-thirds of the exterior walls were replaced during later rebuilding.
Gothic rebuilding and roof
After major destruction, the central structure was rebuilt higher and received the roof that survives today. Ten renewed bays of the ambulatory were fitted with Gothic rib vaults, whose ribs were made from profiled bricks. The renewed walls were also built of brick, and the exterior windows were redesigned with Gothic tracery, the patterned stone framework of a Gothic window. The upper structure appears to have suffered fire damage. Surviving depictions do not establish whether the chapel originally stood independently from the rest of the Valkhof complex.
Inscription and Valkhof remains
Roman funerary inscription
A Roman funerary inscription was formerly set into the wall above the portal. Dating from approximately AD 96–104, it commemorated Julius Pudens, a Roman veteran of the Tenth Legion. His son, Julius Junius, apparently commissioned the stone, which probably once formed part of a larger funerary monument beside a Roman road leaving the settlement.
The inscription ended with the abbreviation “HFC,” meaning that the heir had the stone made. The stone was removed in 1670 and transferred to Nijmegen’s town hall, where it was re-embedded. It is now displayed in the Valkhof Museum. The inscription was long misread as evidence connected with Julius Caesar, but in 1982 the monogram was deciphered as the standard Latin funerary phrase meaning “May the earth lie lightly upon you.”
Barbarossa Ruin
The Valkhof grounds also contain the surviving apse of the former twelfth-century Chapel of Saint Martin. This remnant is now widely known as the Barbarossa Ruin and forms part of the physical remains associated with the wider Valkhof complex.
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