Cathedral of Saint Martin, Utrecht

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Interior of the St. Martin's Dom in Utrecht, drawing by Pieter Jansz Saenredam

Exterior of the St. Martin's Dom in Utrecht

The Cathedral of Saint Martin or Dom Church was the Cathedral of the diocese of Utrecht during the Middle Ages. Once this was the country's largest and only cathedral, dedicated to St. Martin of Tours, and the one church in the Netherlands that closely resembles the original French style that later became known as Gothic, even though in contrast to its French predecessors it only has one tower. All other Gothic churches in the Netherlands belong to one of the many regional variants.

[edit] History

The current building was preceded by one in romanesque style. Building took place from 1254 until well into the 16th century. The first part to be built was the choir. The impressive Dom Tower, 112 m high, was started in 1321 and finished in 1382. After 1515 steadily diminishing financing prevented completion of this building project, of which an almost complete series of building accounts exists. Then calvinism came and took its toll. In 1572, during a wave of Calvinist inspired vandalism or iconoclasm spread all over the Low Countries, much of the ornaments on both exterior and interior were destroyed.

When the church was finally taken from the Catholics and given to the Protestants, much of the enormous building was neglected and left to fall apart, and so it did. Only during the French occupation in 1672/1673, Catholic masses were held in the old cathedral. St Martin's was never to be returned to the Catholic Church. The still unfinished and insufficiently supported nave collapsed during a hurricane in August 1674.

When in 1853 the Catholic Church reestablished its episcopal hierarchy in the Netherlands, the former St. Catherine's church of the Carmelites was turned into a new Catholic catheral; the Dom church remained a protestant church.

[edit] The church today

What remains of St. Martin's today are the choir, the transept and the Dom Tower. Where the rest of the cathedral used to stand is now a windy square, the Domplein. Stones in various colours indicate in the pavement the original outlines of the church, and of its predecessors.