Loosduinen

Anthonij Moll (1825) refers to a story ["één zeer merkwaardig aanbiedt"] about Margaretha [gravin van Hennenberg?], the daughter of count Floris, and the baptism of her 365 children in the font at Loosduinen, a font, Moll adds, that still existed in his time [="de dochter van Graaf FLoris, waarvan 365 kinderen uit ééne kraam te Loosduinen in de doopvont, welke nog aldaar te zien is"]. This legend is referred to in C.D. van Strien's British Travellers in Holland during the Stuart Period. Edward Browne and John Locke as Tourists in the United Provinces (Brill, 1993: 195) [cited in www.nrc.nl/handelsblad/1993/12/04/reizend-door-de-gouden-eeuw-7205736 [accessed 31 December 2015]: apparently the legend is that the countess of Hennenberg gave birth to 365 children -one for every day of the year- in 1276, each child no bigger than a mouse; all the children and the mother died on the same day, presumably after their baptism in the font at Looduine church -- this font is still visited by women who hope its waters will bring forth fecundity, perhaps not in the same manner it did for the count's daughter]. Eyck (1846) mentions early fonts at Oldenzaal, Heemse, Loosduinen and Schokland, that are now lost]. The church is probably the former Cistercian nunnery founded ca. 1098, whose third abbot was Bernard of Clairvaux; Count Floris IV [cf. supra] and his wife, Matilda of Brabant, were early-13th century donnors to the abbey.