Utrecht

UTRECHT, the smallest Netherlands province, has the Zuider Zee washing its very short northern frontier. The south east polder now being drained will be in contact with Utrecht (see NETHERLANDS, Impoldering), but its present area is 526 sq.m., and with a population of 406,960 (193o) it ranks third in the list of most densely-populated provinces. This is also the position which it occupied at the beginning of the zoth century, but between 190o and 193o its average density increased from 470 per sq.m. to 773 per sq. mile. Utrecht city (q.v.) has nearly 155,00o inhabi tants (fourth in the country) and Amersfoort over 38,500. The other settlements are relatively small. The province falls entirely within the Rhine delta. (See NETHERLANDS, Relief.) The southern limit of the Scandinavian ice passed diagonally through the province from north-west to south-east in the vicinity of Utrecht city, and the western part of the province consists of clay lands and, in the north-west, of low fen. The sand and gravel east ern region is covered with bare heaths and patches of woods, and the occupations of the scanty population are chiefly those of buck wheat cultivation and peat-digging. Amersfoort is here the only large town, but along the western edge of this tract there is a row of thriving villages, such as Amerongen, Driebergen, Doom and Zeist. The southern area is picturesque with more extensive wood lands and has long been popular for country seats : Zeist pro vided a hunting-box for William III., and Doom a retreat for ex Kaiser Wilhelm II. Venendaal, on the south-eastern border, is a market for the local bee-keeping industry. Amersfoort, one of the chief seats of the Old Catholics, is now a thriving garrison town, with a variety of crops, including tobacco, growing on the sandy hills in its neighbourhood. It retains the Koppelpoort spanning the Eem, a gateway which is probably the finest and least altered mediaeval entry to any town in the Netherlands. Within the town the old ramparts are now laid out as leafy promenades. Baarn, farther downstream, is a popular summer resort for Amsterdam citizens, and on the east side of the Eem are the typical peace ful fishing villages of Bunschoten and Spakenburg.

At Maarsen, near Utrecht, is situated Zuylen castle, which is of some note. Rhenen was once the seat of an independent lordship, though afterwards joined to the bishopric of Utrecht. The ancient church has a fine tower (1492-1531). Wijk-by Duurstede, originally a Roman settlement, was of considerable commercial importance as early as the time of Charlemagne, but decayed owing to Norman raids in the loth century. The tower of the ruined castle of the bishops of Utrecht still stands.

Ecclesiastical History.

The province represents the bulk of the ancient see, founded in 722 by St. Willibrord. The bishopric was weak compared with Holland, Gelderland and Brabant, and the middle ages saw local wars. Holland's growth in the 14th century forced Gelderland and Brabant to relinquish their claims over the see. Later, in the 15th century, her supremacy passed to the dukes of Burgundy and, still later, to the emperor Charles V. Notwithstanding the elevation of Utrecht to an archbishopric (1559), it was one of the seven provinces on the Protestant side which signed the Union of Utrecht (1579) against Spain. The chapter of the see was secularized and the power of the members of the five ecclesiastic colleges was severely curtailed. Under the vicariate of de la Torre (1651), trouble began with Rome, which claimed the right of appointing successors. It started in 1702 when Codde, the nominee of the Dutch secular clergy, was accused by the Jesuits of Jansenism (q.v.). Although innocent, he was deposed, and his chief opponent, de Kock, was appointed in his stead. De Kock was expelled from the country by the States-General and the Church of Utrecht was without a head.

In 1713 the French Government enforced the bull Unigenitus, and in the following years many refugee priests entered Holland, including Dominique Varlet who settled in Amsterdam in 172o. Steenoven, in 1723, was elected archbishop by the chapter of Utrecht and his subsequent consecration by Varlet led to a general excommunication by the pope. The Jansenist Church of Holland has continued as an independent body accepting the general coun cils, but rejecting inter alia the Vatican council and the infallibility of the pope. Two suffragan sees were created: Haarlem (1742), Deventer (1757) ; and though, in the following century, the Church lost membership, yet it has recently attracted numbers of the less rigid Roman Catholics. At first the Jansenist church of Utrecht established close relations with the Old Catholic move ment in Germany, but it subsequently viewed with strong dis approval the departures of the German members from Catholic tradition. The Jansenists refused to recognize the validity of Anglican orders, and in 1908 a singular offshoot of the Church of Utrecht was established in England when Dr. Gerard Gul (Jan senist archbishop of Utrecht) consecrated Arnold Harris Mathew, bishop of the Old Catholics in England. Meanwhile, in 1851, in Holland itself the Roman Catholic hierarchy had been restored, with Utrecht as the archiepiscopal see.

For general statistics see NETHERLANDS.