GORINCHEM – During the construction work of the Urban Restoration Foundation on the Pig market the remains of approximately thirty people were found Franciscans who lived and worked in Gorinchem. They were buried in the cloister courtyard of the monastery complex. City archivist AJ Busch wrote an article about the history of the Franciscans in Gorinchem.
Some graves found
Monastic life was highly regarded in the Middle Ages. Many young men and women saw it as their ideal to withdraw from worldly life to devote themselves entirely to their Lord and Creator within the confines of the monastery walls. It is known that there were also monasteries in Gorinchem. Street names such as Broerensteeg and Zusterhuis are reminders of this.
The oldest mendicant order is that of the Friars Minor (fratres minores), also called Franciscans after their founder Francis of Assisi. The order originated around 1210 in Italy, where Francis lived and died in 1226. The order soon spread over large parts of Europe.
In 1242, such a monastery could be found in Middelburg and a few years later -1244- a monastery of Franciscans is mentioned in Utrecht. Dordrecht also had a monastery of Friars Minor.
It is obvious that mendicant orders sought out urban population centres. The monks were entirely dependent on alms and gifts from the citizens for their maintenance due to their vow of poverty. A very strict rule of poverty applied within the order. For example, even the monastery buildings and the associated grounds did not belong to the monasteries, but were considered church property.
The monasteries had an extensive area as jurisdiction, the so-called term area. Gorinchem was within the sphere of influence of the Utrecht Franciscan monastery, so that the monastery was a term house of the Utrecht establishment. No less than two centuries lie between the foundation of both.
According to city historian Kemp, it was founded in 1454 and was known as “Onze Lieve Vrouwe te Betlehem”. The facade stone with the inscription “Dit is in Bethlehem” would later adorn the facade of the building at Gasthuisstraat 25.
Monastery Church
In his posthumous writings, city writer Cornelis van Zomeren is able to provide more details. According to this source, part of the monastery complex was completed in 1454. He literally writes: “…that this year the choir and the building on the north side were built…”. The complex included a church building. On a painting from 1568 with a view of Gorinchem, the church of the Franciscans is recognizable by a tower with a spire. The added name makes it certain that it is the Franciscan church.
According to the same author, the consecration of the main altar in the choir of the church took place in 1455. It was a beautiful altar with a depiction of the Descent from the Cross of Christ, with Mary, John and the founder of the Franciscans Francis of Assisi. In the choir there were also life-size statues of Saint Francis and of Saint Bonaventure, a prominent follower in the middle of the 13de century who led the Franciscans. The church must have had considerable dimensions, as is also evident from the tower rising in the painting. In addition to the main altar, there were two side altars. Despite the fact that the church belonged to a mendicant order, the interior contained several beautiful works of art.
Cloister Courtyard
Where exactly the church stood cannot be determined today without excavation. On the map by Jacob van Deventer, dating from around 1560, a building is drawn along the current Bloempotsteeg. Whether this is the Franciscan church or the monastery is not clear. The monastery complex included a fairly large area, enclosed by Bloempotsteeg, Vijfzinnenstraat, Haarstraat and Arkelstraat. This area would have been largely undeveloped around 1450.
H. van Hoogdalem already pointed out in a newspaper article in 1969 that the savings bank that was then under construction was located in the southernmost part of the monastery garden. There is evidence for the presence of a garden with trees. A regulation from 1517 dates from which the city government prohibited handball at the monastery of the observants (Franciscans) and shooting at starlings and other birds was also explicitly prohibited. The same regulation book mentions the location of the observant monastery as the Arkelstraat. In 1512, 21 monks lived there, 17 of whom were priests.
Cemetery
Part of the monastery courtyard served as a cemetery, where deceased monks were given a final resting place. This resting place was brutally disturbed after more than four centuries by the construction work at the buildings of the Stichting Stadsherstel Gorinchem on the Varkenmarkt. When excavating the terrain behind the houses, coffins containing human remains were uncovered. The coffins were entrusted to Mother Earth at a very short distance from each other. The graves were not covered by a tombstone. Presumably each grave was recognizable by a raised area of earth with a simple wooden cross, as one might expect from people who were not attached to earthly things. The bones of the uncovered coffins were kept together per coffin and remain available for scientific research. More than thirty coffins were found, but more human remains will undoubtedly be found under the surrounding buildings and the Varkenmarkt. Graves had also been found when planting the chestnut trees on the Varkenmarkt, as well as when building a bomb shelter during the Second World War.
During the iconoclasm in 1566, the monastery on Arkelstraat was also targeted. In the legal documents of the Council of Troubles – the so-called Blood Council – there is mention of a certain Jacob Matthijsz. who “...having used great force on the monastery of the brothers of the Minnebroeders in Gorinchem.…”. These must have been frightening days for the superior, the guardian, and his Franciscans.
According to the charge against Adriaen Dircksz. van den Heuvel, he had ordered the guardian to evacuate the monastery church and to withdraw with his monks. They would then receive ample food. He said he spoke on behalf of the city council, but that was not true. The intention was to use the church of the Friars Minor for the proclamation of the new doctrine by the preachers.
Martyrs
After the unrest, peace returned to Gorinchem and the sober life within the monastery walls resumed its old course. But that would not last long, no more than the calm before the storm. In June 1572, the Geuzen gained access to the city. The clergy were captured, including the Franciscans with their guardian Nicolaas Pieck, almost 38 years old and born in Gorcum. The servants of the Catholic Church were exposed to abuse in the Blauwe Toren. They then went by ship to Den Briel, where eventually in the early morning of Wednesday 9 July 1572, seventeen priests and two brothers were hanged for their steadfastness in the faith. Among them Nicolaas Pieck with eight fathers and two brothers from the monastery on the Arkelstraat.
The monks expelled, the monastery empty. The States of Holland gave orders to mayors “...to demolish and demolish the convent and church of the gray monks there within fourteen days…”, as Van Zomeren reports. Thus everything that reminded of the Friars Minor from Gorinchem disappeared. Only the buried Franciscans remained as silent witnesses in the monastery garden.
Residential construction
A few years later – on 4 August 1579 – the vroedschap decided to level the monastery complex and issue it in lots for housing construction without paying attention to the graves. The proceeds from the lots were intended for the fortification works of Gorinchem.
And so it happened that plots of land were sold by the city, usually to carpenters who built houses there. This sale did not take place until much later in the 90s, when the construction of the city's defenses was in full swing. On October 3, 1593, the carpenter Oth Ottensz. bought the property on the corner of Arkelstraat and Haarstraat, once belonging to the territory of the Franciscans. A certain Adriaen Petersz. came into possession of a plot of land on 31 May 1595 “… laying at the Haerstraet on the spot where the Minrebroederen monastery used to be…”.
This designation does not mean that the monastery was there, but that the terrain came from the monastery. The evidence that the monastery was in those regions can be found in the archives, but it is not stated exactly where.
The entire monastery domain was given out for the construction of houses, with the exception of what is now called Varkenmarkt. The Franciscan monastery would have stood there, if the resolution of the city council of 2 June 1580 is to be taken literally.
The board of directors then decided to designate that spot as a cattle market, but that does not match the human bones found at the time in the middle of the Varkenmarkt. Until 1978, the weekly pig market was held there on Monday mornings. Now it is the place where small livestock is traded during the Easter and Whitsun markets.
In 1572, the establishment of Franciscans in Gorinchem came to an end. Under difficult circumstances, a Franciscan father resumed pastoral care in this city in 1628, and this would continue uninterruptedly until 1988. After the departure of Father H. van Eeuwijk OFM, the secular clergy of the diocese of Rotterdam took over this task.
by AJ Busch
archivist of Gorinchem
May 8, 1996
Gorinchem Courant