Leiden No. 3

Information received from Pol Herman (e-mail of 27 December 2021) refers to an early font or fonts, as dates for them vary depending on the source 1) Bulletin van de Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond, 1899; 2) De Sint Pieterskerk in Leiden, Bouwgeschiedenis, Inrichting en Gedenktekens, Elizabeth den Hartog en John Veerman. The most intriguing object, or perhaps even objects, is said to have been donated to the Pieterskerk in the 13th century by King William II, king of the Roman Empire, in memory of his birth and baptism in Leiden in 1227. His son Floris is also said to have been baptized in the Pieterskerk. We don't hear anything about this object until well after the Reformation, when two versions of the story appear to be in circulation. According to the 1641 edition of J.J. Orlers' description of the city of Leiden, the Roman king donated a high altar that was beautifully made of touchstone. According to J. van Heussen, who wrote in 1719, the donation concerned a precious baptismal font […] whose peers could hardly be found in the whole of Holland. This baptismal font stood in a very beautiful and clean chapel, which King Willem II had built in the S. Pieterskerk. The Van Heussen version was followed by Van Mieris who wrote in the second half of the 18th century: In this Church there used to be a beautiful baptismal font, which was hardly unparalleled in Holland, which Count Willem II, then Roman King, had there in a beautiful chapel. built, and set, and bestowed unto that end, in remembrance of his being baptized there; as afterwards also his son Florent the Fifth, was baptized in the same place. What memorial has been obscured by the savage people during the iconoclastic fury. There is therefore a problem with regard to the donation of Willem II. Did the Roman king give an altar, a baptismal font, or both, or is this a fairy tale? I am inclined to assume the latter. Orlers was the first to write about an object that had already disappeared for some time and his version, that William II donated a high altar to the church, which only disappeared during the Iconoclasm, is unlikely, since the high altar is well documented and from the early 15th century. A baptismal font then? This tradition is of an even later date and, like the first, rattles on all sides. It is certain that the Pieterskerk had a beautiful baptistery; it still exists, but was certainly not built by Willem II. We know nothing about the font. The only account item that mentions the font dates from 1412. If a new baptismal font was not made, this could mean that the new baptistery housed an older baptismal font. Whether it was donated by Willem II, however, is not said. In any case, the piece did not survive the Iconoclasm; in 1566 it disappeared. Mulder reports in 1903-1904 about the alleged baptismal font donated by Willem II that, according to tradition, one of the stones from it was used for one of the inscriptions that appear on the facade of the town hall, which was restored in 1597. In Blok's view, reflected in his 'Geschiedenis eener Hollandsche stad', however, it was an altar stone that was used for this purpose. Indeed, large rectangular plaques of blue stone have been bricked in on either side of the platform, which bear inscriptions. Given the shape of these stones, flat and rectangular, the idea that they come from an altar seems the most plausible.