New Worlds. Petruskerk and the Luyken-Taddel-Lauren Family, Sloterdijk, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
When you walk out of the city centre of Amsterdam westward towards the hypermodern railway station of Sloterdijk and its surrounding high-rise office buildings, you will almost miss the hamlet of original Sloterdijk on the Spaarndammerdijk. The small dike houses crowd up against the late-medieval Petruskerk. The church is attested to from the middle of the fifteenth century, but today only its tower dates from then. During the Eighty Years' War the building was almost entirely destroyed (in 1572 by Lumey and his so-called 'sea beggar' forces) but it was rebuilt in 1663 in early-modern style.
The churchyard is fascinating. It demonstrates that it was fashionable for up-and-coming burghers from Amsterdam to have their tombs here next to those of the villagers but more prominently. Often it wasn't posssible for them to be buried in style in or near Amsterdam churches. So the Petruskerk became a favored spot (especially, too, for non-conformists such as Lutherans).
An interesting case in point is the tomb (see inset) against the church wall of the Luyken-Taddel-Lauren family. International commerce had apparently made them well-to-do: Johan Jochem Lauren (1764-1822) had been born in Visby, Sweden; he married into the Taddel family. The Taddels had commerical interests in Surinam; Philippus Taddel (1748-1802) and Engeltje Westerborgh (1722-1792), widow of of Gerrit Luyken, were the joint owners of plantations the Eendragt on the Para Kreek and Kroonenburg on the Commewijne River (Surinaamsche Almanach 1793). Philippus' daughter Catharina (1780-1861) married one Claas Ringeling (or Rengeling) (1773-1813), born into a Lutheran family on Curaçao. Indeed: internationalism in a single Sloterdijk tomb: Holland, Sweden, Surinam, Curaçao.
But Phillipus seems to have realised that wealth means not a great deal without some cultural trappings. He was inducted into Felix Meritis, the cultural society of Amsterdam founded in 1777 for the 'new' classes, presenting them with a fine lectern. And he was the host to literary meetings in his manor Vredestein on the Amstel River near Amstelveen. A poet, organist, director of the Amsterdam theatre and translator, one Bartholomeus Ruloffs (ca.1740-1801) was enlisted to write a long panegyric (1780) on that manor and its master. One shudders, though, at its lines.
Small town contemplations...
New Worlds. Petruskerk and the Luyken-Taddel-Lauren Family, Sloterdijk, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
When you walk out of the city centre of Amsterdam westward towards the hypermodern railway station of Sloterdijk and its surrounding high-rise office buildings, you will almost miss the hamlet of original Sloterdijk on the Spaarndammerdijk. The small dike houses crowd up against the late-medieval Petruskerk. The church is attested to from the middle of the fifteenth century, but today only its tower dates from then. During the Eighty Years' War the building was almost entirely destroyed (in 1572 by Lumey and his so-called 'sea beggar' forces) but it was rebuilt in 1663 in early-modern style.
The churchyard is fascinating. It demonstrates that it was fashionable for up-and-coming burghers from Amsterdam to have their tombs here next to those of the villagers but more prominently. Often it wasn't posssible for them to be buried in style in or near Amsterdam churches. So the Petruskerk became a favored spot (especially, too, for non-conformists such as Lutherans).
An interesting case in point is the tomb (see inset) against the church wall of the Luyken-Taddel-Lauren family. International commerce had apparently made them well-to-do: Johan Jochem Lauren (1764-1822) had been born in Visby, Sweden; he married into the Taddel family. The Taddels had commerical interests in Surinam; Philippus Taddel (1748-1802) and Engeltje Westerborgh (1722-1792), widow of of Gerrit Luyken, were the joint owners of plantations the Eendragt on the Para Kreek and Kroonenburg on the Commewijne River (Surinaamsche Almanach 1793). Philippus' daughter Catharina (1780-1861) married one Claas Ringeling (or Rengeling) (1773-1813), born into a Lutheran family on Curaçao. Indeed: internationalism in a single Sloterdijk tomb: Holland, Sweden, Surinam, Curaçao.
But Phillipus seems to have realised that wealth means not a great deal without some cultural trappings. He was inducted into Felix Meritis, the cultural society of Amsterdam founded in 1777 for the 'new' classes, presenting them with a fine lectern. And he was the host to literary meetings in his manor Vredestein on the Amstel River near Amstelveen. A poet, organist, director of the Amsterdam theatre and translator, one Bartholomeus Ruloffs (ca.1740-1801) was enlisted to write a long panegyric (1780) on that manor and its master. One shudders, though, at its lines.
Small town contemplations...