Utrecht

UTRECHT, a city of Holland, capital of the province of Utrecht, on the Crooked Rhine, which here divides into the Old Rhine and the Vecht. Pop. (1930), 154,882. It is an important junction station 22 m. S.S.E. of Amsterdam by rail. It is a pic turesque and interesting old town. The line of the ancient ram parts, demolished in 1830, is now only marked by the Singel, or outer canal, which surrounds the oldest part of the city, with pleasant gardens and promenades laid out on the inside. Two canals, the Oude and the Nieuwe Gracht, intersect the town from end to end. Utrecht is the seat of a university, and of a Roman Catholic archbishopric. It is also the seat of the archbishop of the Dutch Old Catholics. The Domkerk, dedicated to St. Martin, is a large Gothic building erected in 1254-1267 on the site of the original church founded by St. Willibrord about 720 and com pleted by Bishop Adelbold about lois. An open space forming the heart of the square in which the church stands separates the soli tary western tower (14th century) from the choir and transept, the nave having been blown down by a violent hurricane in and never rebuilt. In the crypt are preserved the hearts of the German emperors Conrad II. (1039) and Henry V. (1125). The Roman Catholic cathedral of St. Catherine dates from 1524 and has been restored in modern times. Other churches of very early foundation in Utrecht are the Pieterskerk and the Janskerk. At tached to the Domkerk by fine old Gothic cloisters is the uni versity, which was founded in 1634 and enlarged in Connected with the university are a valuable library, occupying the palace built for Louis Bonaparte, king of Holland, in 1807, and containing upwards of 200,000 volumes and mss. ; a museum of natural history; a botanic garden; an observatory, etc. The archi episcopal museum (1872) contains examples of all branches of sacred art in the Netherlands. In the Museum Kunstlief de is a small picture-gallery, chiefly remarkable for some pictures by Jan Scorel (1495-1562) ; the museum of antiquities contains a miscel laneous collection. Other buildings of interest are the museum of industrial art ; the so-called "Pope's house," built in 1517 by Adrian Floriszoon Boeyens, afterwards Pope Adrian VI., and a native of Utrecht; the royal mint of Holland; the Fleshers' Hall (1637) ; the home for the aged, occupying a 14th-century man sion, and the town hall (1830).

The country round about Utrecht is pretty and plentifully studded with country houses, especially on the road to Arnhem. Close by, on the north-east, is the village of De Bilt, the seat of the Dutch meteorological institute. Four miles north-west of Utrecht stands the 13th-century castle of Zuilen, which was care fully restored in 1752, and is still in excellent preservation. Five miles east of Utrecht is the village of Zeist, the seat of a Moravian settlement established here in 1746. There are also a fine castle

(1667) and grounds, a sanatorium for children and numerous modern villa residences. At Ryzenburg, close by, is a Roman Catholic seminary, founded in connection with the establishment of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in 1853 and practically serving as an archiepiscopal palace.

History.

Utrecht (i.e., Oude Trecht or Old Ford, rendered in Latin documents Vetus Traiectum) is a city of great antiquity. The place is mentioned in the itinerary of Antoninus, but its im portance began when St. Willibrord (q.v.), the apostle of the Frisians, established his see there. The bishop's seat had to be fortified against the incursions of the heathen Frisians and North men, and the security thus afforded attracted population till, after the destruction of its rival Dorestad by the Normans in the 9th century, Utrecht became the chief commercial centre of the northern Netherlands. On the accession of Bishop Balderic (A.D.

918-976) to the see, Utrecht had just been sacked by the North men. He succeeded in driving the raiders away, rebuilt the walls, and during the 58 years of his episcopate the town grew and pros pered. Its gradual acquisition of civic rights followed the same line of development as in the German episcopal cities. Bishop Godebald (1122-1127) granted to the inhabitants of Utrecht and of Muiden, the neighbouring port on the Zuider Zee, their first privileges, which were confirmed (June 22, 1122) by the emperor Henry V. The magistrates, the Schout or high bailiff and his assessors, the Schepenen (scabini, echevins), were nominated by the burgrave from the order of knights. In 1196 we read for the first time of councillors as assessors of the magistrates, but these, who a little later were known as the Raad or council, were also nominated. As the 13th century advanced, the council, repre senting the wealthy and powerful gild of merchants, began to take a larger share in the government, and to restrict more and more the direct exercise of the episcopal authority.

The struggle between the town of Utrecht and its ecclesiastical sovereign reached its climax (1481-84) in the "groote vorlag," or great quarrel, between the citizens and Bishop David, the Bastard of Burgundy. With the aid of John, burgrave of Mont foort, who had been called in, and endowed with supreme power for the defence of the town, the Utrechters defeated all the efforts of their bishop, aided by the Hollanders and an aristocratic faction. They only succumbed when the weight of the archduke Maximilian was thrown into the scale against them (1484). The struggle continued with intermissions till 1527 when Bishop Henry of Bavaria sold his temporal rights to the Emperor Charles V.

Utrecht took a leading part in the revolt of the Netherlands.

The union of the seven northern provinces, proclaimed at Utrecht in 1579, laid the foundation of Dutch independence (see NETH