The Miracle of Amsterdam

Peter Jan Margry, Charles Caspers

Description

The Miracle of Amsterdam presents a “cultural biography” of a Dutch devotional manifestation. According to tradition, on the night of March 15, 1345, a Eucharistic host thrown into a burning fireplace was found intact hours later. A chapel was erected over the spot, and the citizens of Amsterdam became devoted to their “Holy Stead." From the original Eucharistic processions evolved the custom of individual devotees walking around the chapel while praying in silence, and the growing international pilgrimage site contributed to the rise and prosperity of Amsterdam.

With the arrival of the Reformation, the Amsterdam Miracle became a point of contention between Catholics and Protestants, and the changing fortunes of this devotion provide us a front-row seat to the challenges facing religion in the world today. Caspers and Margry trace these transformations and their significance through the centuries, from the Catholic medieval period through the Reformation to the present day.

An ode published in 1532 by the same Alardus of Amsterdam who was mentioned above refers to a visit to the Holy Stead by Charles V: “On account of a pious vow he made abroad, Charles, as soon as he arrived in Holland, visited the chapel as piously as he could to endow it with imperial donations.” This visit is said to have taken place in March 1531, that is about “Corpus Christi in Lent.” Charles did in fact visit the Low Countries in that year. It is remarkable that this visit was not recorded in the official chronicles. The theologian Kölker has suggested that Charles’s visit was perhaps of a personal devotional nature. Whatever the truth about this private initiative, the fact is that Charles’s Eucharistic devotion was well-known in Amsterdam and that many assumed that he therefore also favored the Holy Stead. This assumption is borne out by a curious action taken by several members of the women’s guild of the Holy Stead. As has been seen in the first chapter, this guild had been founded shortly after the 1345 Miracle to further the glory of the Holy Stead, and on several occasions in the sixteenth century it would prove to be a particularly resilient women’s movement. In May 1531, the Amsterdam city authorities decided to build a workshop for wool processing in the narrow garden beside the Holy Stead. But after the pits for the foundations had been dug, they were filled up again by a group of approximately 300 city women on the evening of May 31. These women apparently regarded the works as a violation of the sacred space of the sanctuary. Their action shows to what extent a large part of the population was attached the Holy Stead as something that connected them to God and to one another. The burgomasters strongly opposed this; for them stimulating the urban economy was of overriding importance. Their response was strict: a fortnight after the pits were filled up, on June 14, three of the four women who constituted the board of the guild of the Blessed Sacrament and who had planned the action, the so-called overwiven, were banished from the city for four years. The fourth escaped this fate by paying a fine of fifty guilders. But that was not the end of the matter. Together with a number of female friends and the parish priest of the New Church, Master Claes Boelen or Boelens, the three exiles went to the Low Countries’ seat of residence, Brussels, where they wished to complain to Charles about the proposed desecration of land belonging to the Holy Stead. They arrived in the Brabant capital on June 23, and had ample opportunity there to express their concerns about lutherij and the insults given to the Blessed Sacrament. Finally, on July 14, they succeeded in gaining access to the emperor in person, who was just about to sit down to table. Master Claes asked him for grace and support, as the women were fighting a just cause. The emperor, taken aback, left the case in the hands of his chancellor, Jean Carondelet. Carondelet discussed the issue with one of the burgomasters of Amsterdam who, shrewdly, had also travelled to Brussels. The two gentlemen evidently decided to regard the case as a purely administrative issue and not to attach any significance to the overwiven’s imputations. The chancellor just maintained the sentence by giving them the choice of paying a fine of fifty guilders or banishment. The women were no more successful with the emperor’s confessor and the papal legate, who both confirmed the option the women had been given. None of this prevented them from making a truly triumphal entry into the city when they returned to Amsterdam on July 28 – nearly two months after their departure. They rode through the streets in their carriage and waved to the public as if they had been entirely vindicated by the emperor’s decision. The fine of fifty guilders was not much of a problem for them, because all three came from wealthy and important families. Other women from the large group of 300 also had to pay fines, but found this considerably more difficult. New pits were dug at the Holy Stead on August 7 and the wool house was built without further incident. The equilibrium between sacred and commercial interests had been restored. The whole case shows that the impulsive women’s guild had overestimated its power, given that the emperor – or his chancellor – had not the slightest inclination to go against the city authorities. The latter used the case to show that they would tolerate no social unrest, regardless of the perpetrators’ intentions. Nevertheless, the Amsterdam women’s assertive reaction does indicate that in the 1530s a large part of the population was ready to defend the old faith and its local “personification,” the Holy Stead. This background makes it more significant that Alardus of Amsterdam would, one year later, dedicate his book on communion to his friend and sympathizer Claes Boelen, the women’s guild’s coach and companion. (from chapter 1.2)

Introduction

Part 1. Creation and expansion of a cult (1345-1500) 1.1. The rise of Amsterdam 1.2. Religious context 1.3. The Miracle 1. 1.4. Corpus Christi and Sacraments of Miracle 1.5. The bishop and the count 1.6. Miracles of the Miracle 1.7. Processions through the city

Part 2. In the Habsburgs’ Favor (1500-1600) 2.1. Royal interest in the Holy Stead 2.2. The Habsburgs and national consciousness 2.3. Eucharistic symbolism 2.4. The Reformation comes to Holland 2.5. A women’s resistance movement and the city’s identity 2.6. The failed coup of the Anabaptists in 1535 2.7. Disciplining faith and cult 2.8. 1566, the “miraculous year”
2.9. The end of Amsterdam as an international place of pilgrimage

Part 3. The Miracle on the margins (1600-1795) 3.1. Hidden devotion 3.2. Catholic hope and Reformed fear 3.3. The Miracle expressed 3.4. The Miracle celebrated 3.5. The Miracle weighed up

Part 4. The battle for public space (1795-1881) 4.1. A velvet revolution: change and continuity 4.2. 1845: the “Feast of Folly” 4.3. Antipapism and the ban on public space 4.4. The “Ultramontane miracle disease”

Part 5. The Silent Walk as a national symbol of identity (1881-1960) 5.1. The construction of the Silent Walk 5.2. Cult versus cultural heritage 5.3. A national cult 5.4. The practice of the Walk 5.5. The international Eucharistic movement 5.6. Politics and ideology: the interwar years and the Second World War 5.7. The post-war cult: climax and catharsis

Part 6. Revolution and the reinvention of tradition (1960-2015) 6.1. Reconstruction and affluence 6.2. Revolution in the long 1960s 6.3. Religion, market, and tradition 6.4. Ecumenical harmony? 6.5. Continuing, broken, restored, and new traditions

Part 7. Conflict or consensus?

Route of the Silent Walk Timeline Sources and literature Index

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Sacraments
• Medieval
• HISTORY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Edad Media
• Heilige Stede
• Stille Omgang
• Christian Church
• Middle Ages
• Western
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 31 mai 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780268105679
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE MIRACLE OF AMSTERDAM
THE MIRACLE OF AMSTERDAM
Biography of a Contested Devotion
CHARLES CASPERS and PETER JAN MARGRY
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
English language edition copyright © 2019 by the University of Notre Dame
Published by the University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved
Published in the United States of America
Originally published by Prometheus Amsterdam as Het Mirakel van Amsterdam: Biografie van een Betwiste Devotie . © 2017 Charles Caspers and Peter Jan Margry
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Caspers, Charles, 1953- author. | Margry, P. J. (Peter Jan), author.
Title: The miracle of Amsterdam : biography of a contested devotion / Charles Caspers and Peter Jan Margry.
Other titles: Mirakel van Amsterdam. English
Description: Notre Dame, Indiana : University of Notre Dame Press, [2019] | Translation of: Het mirakel van Amsterdam : biografie van een betwiste devotie. | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2019011954 (print) | LCCN 2019017018 (ebook) | ISBN 9780268105686 (pdf) | ISBN 9780268105679 (epub) | ISBN 9780268105655 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 0268105650 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Processions, Religious—Catholic Church—Netherlands—Amsterdam. | Miracles—Netherlands—Amsterdam—History.
Classification: LCC BX2324.N4 (ebook) | LCC BX2324.N4 C37313 2019 (print) | DDC 282/.492—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019011954
∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper .
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail]
Contents
Introduction
1 Creation and Expansion of a Cult (1345–1500)
2 In the Habsburgs’ Favor (1500–1600)
3 The Miracle on the Margins (1600–1795)
4 The Battle for Public Space (1795–1881)
5 The Silent Walk as a National Symbol of Catholic Identity (1881–1960)
6 Revolution and the Reinvention of Tradition (1960–2015)
7 Conflict or Consensus?
Route of the Silent Walk
Timeline
Notes
Bibliography
Index of Names
Index of Places
Introduction
Each year in March, a large group of silent men and women walk through the city center of Amsterdam at night. Their walk is called the “Silent Walk.” The Silent Walk is—or was—a household name for many Catholics in Amsterdam and elsewhere in the Netherlands, something they looked forward to every year. For generations, tens of thousands of men (women were only allowed to take part later) from across the country traveled to the capital to demonstrate their devotion to the Miracle of Amsterdam and their loyalty to the Dutch Catholic Church by walking in the dark, without any external display, and to the sound only of their footsteps. Their numbers and their silence impressed outsiders. A present-day uninitiated observer who encounters the Walk on the street at night will feel puzzled: what on earth are those people doing? For the participants themselves it is often a fascinating experience that stimulates the senses. In the past, it was not only the ritual of the Walk that invited contention and discord in Dutch society, but also the cult of the Miracle itself, which regularly became the subject of controversy during the almost seven centuries of its existence.
Because the Walk is not a formalized ritual—nothing is said and no one carries any attributes—every participant is left to his or her own devices. Uniquely for the Netherlands and for Western Europe, this makes the annual Silent Walk the largest collective expression of individual religiosity. The paradox is clear: a prayer and meditation walk made by individuals, but in connection with each other and with others. It was not always like this. Until after World War II, it was also a protest march against the subordination of Catholics in society. Although the position of Catholics has changed completely since then, the Walk has always retained something of its protest-march character. It has widened its scope. When it was established in 1881, it was open to Catholic men, and from 1966 to Catholic men and women, but it is currently open to men and women of all Christian denominations, and even to all people who wish to take part discretely in this “meditative and spiritual” walk.
The Silent Walk has roots that go much further back than 1881. According to tradition, on the night of March 15 to 16, 1345, a miracle took place in a house on Kalverstraat in Amsterdam. A host that was thrown into the burning fireplace was hours later found intact. To commemorate that God had worked a miracle in this place, a chapel was erected over the spot, bearing the unambiguous name of “Holy Stead” or holy place. None of this was very remarkable for the time: reports of Eucharistic miracles came from various places during the later Middle Ages, and chapels and other shrines were built quite frequently, often to accommodate a particular cult. But the citizens of Amsterdam—not just the “ordinary faithful,” but also the clergy and the city authorities—became exceptionally devoted to their Holy Stead. Together with the many pilgrims who came from outside the city, they turned the chapel into the richest church in the city. All the city’s militias, craftsmen’s guilds, religious, and schoolchildren participated in the processions with the miraculous host that passed through the city annually or more frequently. In addition, individual devotees would walk around the chapel a number of times praying in silence, at night or in the early morning.
In the sixteenth century, the age of the Reformation, the Holy Stead was no longer a unifying force; on the contrary, it contributed to the divisions that were occurring. The cult became a source of mental support for the Catholic part of the population, the part that remained loyal to the sovereign, Philip II. This situation continued until the so-called Alteration of 1578, when a coup brought Amsterdam into the ranks of the insurgents. The new authorities confiscated the Holy Stead from the Catholics and rebaptized it Nieuwezijds Kapel (Chapel on the New Side). But the homeless cult survived the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the period of the Republic of the United Netherlands. The hidden church in the Amsterdam beguinage or Begijnhof in effect became an alternative Holy Stead, and individual Catholics continued to carry out their circumambulations of the old Holy Stead. For Protestants, the cult remained an important source of irritation and an object of scorn.
During the nineteenth century, the Roman Catholics in the Netherlands successfully—though not without setbacks—claimed the status of full citizens. We would like to single out two important milestones along the road: the fifth centenary of the Miracle of Amsterdam, celebrated in 1845, and the establishment of the Silent Walk in 1881. The centenary year saw the rise of a revived historical and religious interest in the old cult. The Silent Walk was one fruit of this renewed interest, and—something its two initiators would never have been able to imagine—it developed into Dutch Catholicism’s symbol and ritual of unity par excellence. It created in the end a national pilgrimage to Amsterdam, constituting at the same time a national symbol for Dutch Catholicism in its emancipation struggle.
Much has already been written about the long history of the Miracle of Amsterdam, from the miracle in 1345 to the present-day Silent Walk. This is partly because a relatively large number of sources has been preserved, making it an attractive subject for cultural and religious historians. An even more important reason is that in the past, Catholic historians especially felt the need to document and narrate the history of the Miracle cult so as to give legitimacy to its continuation. On the whole we believe there is good reason to publish the current book. The wide range of literature, its diversity, and the fact that so many leaflets, articles, sermons, books, and so on are often difficult to find calls for a new survey, with new analyses. This book then is intended to be a synthesis, based on the work of previous generations of historians and complemented with new research of the sources—especially in the last two chapters, which deal with the Silent Walk.
There is a second reason for writing this book: the historiography of Dutch Catholicism shows an important lacuna. One of the historiographical monuments in this field, a book that was awarded the Netherlands’ most prestigious literary prize (the P. C. Hooft Prize), is the voluminous In vrijheid herboren (Reborn in freedom), published in 1953 and subsequently reworked by one of its authors, Louis Rogier († 1974) in 1956, resulting in a revised second edition published under the title of Katholieke herleving (Catholic revival). 1 In it, Rogier describes the social and cultural emancipation of Dutch Catholics during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In our view, Rogier should have also paid attention to the nineteenth-century revival of the Amsterdam Miracle cult, and, by extension, to the wider devotional mobilization of Dutch Catholics and the national significance of the cult. This omission is all the more remarkable because he had a keen eye for new and ostensibly idiosyncratic developments in popular Catholicism. 2
The more recent follow-up to Rogier’s book, a collaborative study published in 1999 under the title of Tot vrijheid geroepen (Called to freedom), which deals with Dutch Catholicism since World War II, commits the same sin of omission and more generally embodies a denial of the significance of cults and popular religiosity for the church and for society. This is particularly unfortunate because the book deals with the very period in which the Silent Walk reached its quantitative peak, in the im