Oude Kerk (Delft)

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Oude Kerk (Delft)

The Oude Kerk (Old Church), nicknamed Oude Jan ("Old John"), is a Gothic

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture which flourished during the high and late Middle Ages. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
church in the old city center of Delft

Delft

See also: Delft, Cape Town, Delft Island Media:Nl-Delft.ogg is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland . It is located in between Rotterdam and The Hague....
, the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a country that is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands is located in North-West Europe, and bordered by the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east....
. Its most recognizable feature is a 75-meter-high brick tower that leans about two meters from the vertical.

Oude Kerk was founded as St.

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The Oude Kerk (Old Church), nicknamed Oude Jan ("Old John"), is a Gothic

Gothic architecture

Delft

See also: Delft, Cape Town, Delft Island Media:Nl-Delft.ogg is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland . It is located in between Rotterdam and The Hague....
, the Netherlands

Netherlands

History

The Oude Kerk was founded as St. Bartholomew's Church in the year 1246, on the site of previous churches dating back up to two centuries earlier. The layout followed that of a traditional basilica

Basilica

The Latin word basilica , was originally used to describe a ancient Rome public building , usually located in the Forum of a Roman town. In Hellenistic cities, public basilicas appeared in the 2nd century BC....
, with a nave

Nave

In Romanesque architecture and Gothic architecture Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and Church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar....
flanked by two smaller aisle

Aisle

An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of seats on either side or with rows of seats on one side and a wall on the other. Aisles can be seen in certain types of buildings such as Church , synagogues, meeting halls, parliaments and legislatures, courtrooms, theatre s, and in certain types of passenger vehicles....
s.

The tower with its central spire and four corner turrets was added between 1325-50, and dominated the townscape for a century and a half until it was surpassed in height by the Nieuwe Kerk

Nieuwe Kerk (Delft)

Nieuwe Kerk is a landmark church in Delft, the Netherlands. The building is located on Delft Market Square , opposite to the Delft City Hall ....
(New Church). It is possible that the course of the adjacent canal had to be shifted slightly to make room for the tower, leaving an unstable foundation that caused the tower to tilt.

By the end of the 14th century, expansion of the side aisles to the height of the nave transformed the building into a hall church

Hall church

A hall church is a church with nave and side aisles of approximately equal height, often united under a single immense roof.In contrast to a traditional basilica, which lets in light through a clerestory in the upper part of the nave, a hall church is lit through windowed side walls typically spanning the full height of the interior....
, which was rededicated to St. Hippolytus

Hippolytus (writer)

For places named after the saint, see Saint-HippolyteSaint Hippolytus of Rome was one of the most prolific writers of the early Christian Church....
. The church again took on a typical basilican cross-section with the construction of a higher nave between about 1425 and 1440.

The Delft town fire of 1536 and the turmoil of the Protestant Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a Christian reform movement in Europe. It is thought to have begun in 1517 with Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses and may be considered to have ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648....
brought a premature end to an ambitious expansion project led by two members of the Keldermans family

Keldermans family

Keldermans is a family of Flanders artists, originating from the city of Mechelen in the Duchy of Brabant. The members of the family were mostly architects working in the Brabantine Gothic architecture style....
of master builders. This construction phase resulted in the flat-roofed, stone-walled northern transept

Transept

Full descriptions of the elements of a Gothic floorplan are found at the entry Cathedral diagram.'For the periodical go to The Transept....
arm that differs markedly in style from the older parts.

The great fire, iconoclasm

Iconoclasm

Iconoclasm, Greek for "image-breaking," is the deliberate destruction of important symbolic images recognized within a culture, religion, or society....
, weather, and the explosion of the town's gunpowder store in 1654 (see Delft Explosion) took their toll on the church and its furnishings, necessitating much repair work over the years. During one renovation, the tower turrets were rebuilt in a more vertical alignment than the leaning body below, giving the tower as a whole a slightly kinked appearance. The current stained-glass windows

Stained glass

For the Blackford Oakes novel, see Stained Glass The term stained glass can refer to the material of coloured glass or the craft of working with it....
were crafted by the master glazier Joep Nicolas in the mid-20th century.

Furnishings

The church possesses three pipe organ

Pipe organ

The pipe organ is a keyboard musical instrument that produces sound by venting mechanically compressed air through resonant Organ pipe. Each pipe produces sound at one fixed pitch, so they are provided in sets or "ranks" with one pipe or more per note, each rank having a common timbre and loudness throughout....
s, from the years 1857 (main organ), 1873 (north aisle) and 1770 (choir).

The most massive bell

Church bell

A church bell is a bell which is rung in a church either to signify the hour or the time for worshippers to go to church, perhaps to attend a wedding, funeral, or other Service of worship....
in the tower, cast in 1570 and called Trinitasklok or Bourdon, weighs nearly nine tonne

Tonne

A tonne or metric ton , also referred to as a metric tonne, is a measurement of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms, or 2204.6226 pounds....
s, and because of its strong and potentially damaging vibrations, is rung only on such special occasions as the burial of a Dutch royal family member in the nearby New Church. The massive bell is also sounded during disasters, when local air-raid sirens

Civil defense siren

A civil defense siren is a Machine or electronic device for generating sound to provide warning of approaching danger and sometimes to indicate when the danger has passed....
are sounded. This, however, does not happen during the siren's monthly, country-wide test, which happens every first monday of the month.

Graves

Approximately 400 people are entombed in the Oude Kerk, including the following notables:

Elizabeth Morgan, daughter of nobleman Marnix van St. Aldegonde (1608)
noblewoman and benefactrix Clara van Spaerwoude
Clara van Spaerwoude

Clara Jansdochter van Spaerwoude was a Netherlands noblewoman of Delft who is chiefly remembered for her great wealth and various charitable funds from her estate....
(1615)
naval hero Piet Hein
Piet Pieterszoon Hein

Piet Pieterszoon Hein was a Dutch naval officer and folk hero during the Eighty Years' War between the Dutch Republic and Spain....
(1629)
writer Jan Stalpaert van der Wiele (1630)
naval hero Maarten Tromp
Maarten Tromp

Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp was an officer and later admiral in the Netherlands navy. His first name is also spelled as Maerten....
(1653)
physician/anatomist Regnier de Graaf
Regnier de Graaf

Regnier de Graaf was a The Netherlands physician and anatomy who made key discoveries in reproductive biology. His first name is often spelled Reinier or Reynier....
(1673)
painter Johannes Vermeer
Johannes Vermeer

Johannes or Jan Vermeer was a Dutch people Baroque painting painter who specialized in exquisite, domestic interior scenes of ordinary life....
(1675)
painter Hendrick Cornelisz van Vliet, who had painted the church interior (1675)
statesman Anthonie Heinsius
Anthonie Heinsius

Anthonie Heinsius was a Dutch statesman who served as Grand Pensionary of Holland from 1689 to 1720.Heinsius was born at Delft on 22 November 1641, son of a wealthy merchant and patrician....
(1720)
scientist Anton van Leeuwenhoek
Anton van Leeuwenhoek

Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek was a Netherlands tradesman and scientist from Delft, the Netherlands. He is commonly known as "Fathers_of_scientific_fields", and considered to be the first microbiologist....
(1723)
poet Hubert Poot (1733)

External links

painted by Jan van der Heyden, ca. 1660 (Web Gallery of Art)