Utrecht The Hermits: Suster Bertken

The most famous hermit in Utrecht was Sister Bertken.

Sister Bertken was born in Utrecht in the year 1426 or 1427 with the name Berta Jacobsdaughter and by that is meant Jacob van Lichtenberch.

Probably she chose for the life of a hermit because she had found out that she was a bastard. When she was 30 (1457) she was locked up in the hermitage of the Buur church and stayed there till her death in 1514 when she was 87 years old.

Her day plan consisted of praying, attending the mess, writing poems, advice people, doing needlework.

She lived a vegetarian life and her clothes consisted of a simple skirt and a coarse dress and naked feet without any form of heating in her hermitage.

In these times a renovation of the Buurkerk was planned and after her death the hermitage was pulled down and her grave destroyed. At another spot a new vault was made.

However, in 1579 also the holy cross choir was broken down and next to the Buurkerk the Choorstraat (Choirstreet) was erected.

In the Choorstreet Suster Bertken’s grave should be somewhere , but it is not for sure where it is exactly.

Now a stone is laid with the text: “Sister Bertken lived here as a hermit locked up in a niche in the bricked wall 1457-1514.wall

At the foot of the stone you see a map of the church and a golden dot shows the place where the hermitage should have been.

On the pictures the hermitage console corner Choorstraat/Vismarkt ; a book cover of Sister Bertken (Royal Library /Kon. Bibl.) and the grave stone in the Choorstraat

Utrecht Dom Towers (small)

There is one building in Utrecht that’s famous all over the tourist’s guides and

forms the skyline of the city.

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It’s the Dom Tower.

The tower is built on the place where the Romans erected their ’castellum’.

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The tower stands alone now, but was once a part of the Dom Church.

During a disaster in 1674 the church was partly blown away but the tower survived

The Dom Tower is the highest tower of the Netherlands (112,5 meters).

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Of course the tower is subject of more or less touristic souvenirs.

One of them are the “Domtorentjes” (Dom towers), chocolate with a cream centre and can be bought in the shopping street close to the Dom Tower.

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In the future more (serious) facts about the Dom in this weblog.

Utrecht The Hermits: In General

Sister Bertken (van Lichtenberg (1426/27-1514) is one of the most famous Utrecht women.

When she was about 30 years old she became a hermit (kluize-

nares).

In an other topic more about the person sister Bertken.

The first Christian hermits appeared by the end of the 3rd century.

One of the most well known hermits, and considered to be the first one, is St. Paul of Thebes (year 250).

The persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Decius was the reason that he flight into the desert to preserve the faith and to lead a life of penance and prayer.

In a hermitage, one secluded him/her self from the world to love only God entirely (‘soli Deo vacare’). It was considered as a higher way of the religion life.

A heritage should be small, and had two windows.

One window should have a view at the altar, and one window on the outside of the hermit to the seal hand over food and drinks and for the fresh air, for the door was sealed.

Only in case of illness it was allowed to break the seal and to open the door

A curtain hung in front of the windows for the people were not allowed to see the hermit.

Of course also in those times rules were made, so even for the hermitage.

The Church Meeting of Frankfurt in 794 decided that a hermit needed the approval of the bishop or an abbot.

A fixed rule was drawn up about the year 900, the Regula solitariorum, by the French priest Grimlaicus, a hermit himself.

In this document rules were mentioned about the way the hermitages should be build (see above) and so on.

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There was an impressive ceremony before someone was locked up in the hermitage.

It started with a mess and songs are sung among others the Veni Creator.

Then the person, who wanted to be a hermit, was urgently asked if it is still his/her wish to become a hermit. If so, she entered the hermitage and the door was closed.

The abbot or the head of a cloister guarded the keys. The door was indeed “hermetic” (hermetisch) closed.

In fact she was now in her coffin, for she was considered to be dead for the secular life.

That’s why also the Requiem is sung.

It will astonish you that a lot of people wished to be locked up.

There was even a waiting list, or more hermits were built.

Pictures made in the St.Jacobi Church in Utrecht

Utrecht Roman Wall, The Technique

If you go to Rots Maatwerk, and follow the path : Home/Projecten/picture Lichttechniek/Markering Castellum Domplein Utrecht, you find information about the technique behind the marks (alas in Dutch, but the pictures give also information).

On picture 1 the mark at the Domplein is still under construction.

The mark in the Servetstraat, picture 2, is already finished. You see the mist too.

Utrecht Roman Wall, The Opening Mark 3

The Domplein and the Domtower look like an oase of peace on a Sunday morning.

You hardly believe that in the year 47 a fortress was built by the Romans when they navigated on the Rhine and arrived at a dry area, where now the Dom Place is.

Here they built their fortress, called a castellum.

Studies found out where this castellum was exactly situated and marks of light and mist show the outlines of this castellum.

This night the third mark was officially opened at the Korte Nieuwstraat. The other two marks are situated at the Domstraat and Servetstraat.

It's really strange when you walk in these streets and suddenly the earth seemes to open and "steam and green light" come out from a crack in the street.

By led light the colour also can turn to blue or pink.

Utrecht Church Night & Church Cross

Friday 19 June the

"Church Night" was the opening of the project

“Visiting Churches in Utrecht”.

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The night was officially opened by the mayor.

The support came from the concert of the Cathedral Choir School Utrecht.

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After the opening in a lot of churches were all kind of activities.

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It’s no wonder that Utrecht has so many churches for in the Utrecht history the bishops and emperors played a big role in building churches, especially in the 11th century.

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The main five churches in the centre have - accidentally or not -

been built in the form of a Church Cross (see drawing above).

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The story tells that after the death of Koenraad II (+/- 990-1039) (Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire) his son Hendrik III ordered to built 4 churches around the St. Salvator (1010) (now the rebuilt Dom Church).

In fact around the hearth of his father, that was burried in the St. Salvator church.

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A more likely theory is that the place of the churches had everything to

do with the solid soil.

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These other four churches are the churches of St.Pieter (1048), St. Paulus Abby (1050), St.Marie (1085), St. Jan (1040)

Utrecht Wharfs and Trade

In 1122 a dam was erected in the Rhine
near Wijk bij Duur-
stede

The conse-quence was,that
the water level in Utrecht lowered.

The city had to prevent that the traders would come into difficulties now, for the water ways could not be used anymore for transport of goods.

That’s why a new canal was dugged, the Vaartse Rhine with first a connection to the Hollandse IJssel (from Ledig Erf, Utrecht to the river Lek near Vreeswijk).

A second connection was made between the Vaartse Rhine to the Stathe (a trading centre near the present town hall) and this connection was called the (Oude) Gracht.

The tides of the water, however,were still effected by the tides of the Rhine for there was an open connection.

As a solution sluices were built to regulate the level of the canal and to keep that level constant low.

The lower water level made it possible now to make corridors from the storage cellars of the houses directly to the canal(gracht), for the water wouldn’t come into the houses anymore.

And in this way the entrance of the cellars came much close to the water.
In front of the cellars a wharf (kade) was built.
That made it easier to load the goods over from the boats to the cellars.

In 1402, when the trade increased, there was even a hoisting crane to pick up the goods from the boats.

On the peinture as well as on the memorial stone you see a part of the wharf in the still existing corner near the town hall.