Family reunion June 2011
VAN DOORNINCK Family Reunion
Deventer, 22nd June 2011
Ever since the Middle Ages Grote Kerkhof, a square in the centre of Deventer, has been the seat of both secular and religious authorities. The latter manifest themselves in the Grote of Lebuïnuskerk, which still dominates the townscape.
For centuries the City Hall has been the home of local government, the political centre and court of law of Deventer. The City Hall complex consists of a number of buildings dating from various periods. It has repeatedly undergone modest changes in the last few centuries. The entire complex was thoroughly restored between 1978 and 1982 to become once again the pulsing heart of a monumental city.
If you are in front of the City Hall, it may seem easy to understand how the building is put together. Its monumental front, in brown and cream, shows a beautiful centre-piece topped by the coats of arms of the City of Deventer and the Bishopric of Utrecht. This centre-piece with steps contrasts with the sober wings. The majestic front dates from 1694. It was designed by Jacob Roman (who was engaged by King-Stadhouder William III. Prince of Orange, to help build Loo Palace near Apeldoorn, which the guests from abroad will visit later) and contrasts sharp with the lavishly decorated front of the Landhuis that dates from 1632. However, the buildings are far more complicated than these two fronts seem to suggest. The entire complex consists of three main buildings and several smaller ones. The main buildings are the Landhuis (States House), the original Raadhuis (City Hall) and the medieval Wanthuis (Cloth Hall). The front covers Raadhuis and Wanthuis.
The local government of Deventer knew already in the late Middle Ages an oligarchic structure. That became stronger in the time of the Dutch Republic, roughly the 17th and 18th century.
A restricted number of families had complete control and authority in the government of all mayor Dutch cities. So it was also in Deventer. The members of those families formed together a privileged class. Outside their closed circle nobody was permitted any share in public affairs. The three capitals of the province of Overijssel: Deventer, Kampen and Zwolle, pretended full sovereignty. Their governments exercised complete authority. The regents (members of city councils) were very proud of their authority, many of them were truly vain.
Oligarchy matched with the class ridden society of the Dutch Republic.
The Dutch Reformed (Calvinist) Church - of which Martinus van Doorninck was in the 17th century a minister in Vorchten) was the only recognized and privileged church in the Republic. All regents had to be a member
In the 17th century the regents at Deventer and elsewhere closed up the ranks more and more. They tried to reserve the public offices for themselves, their relatives and friends. This they formalized by means of agreements between groups of families ('Contracten van correspondentie'). Offices were given away by rotation.
The families of the regents acted as store of wealth, authority and prestige. Every member got his share, to pass on to the next generation.
An individual could hardly build up a career. Everybody needed family connections. The individual had to make his own interest secondary to that of the family clan as a whole. Knowledge of family history and coats of arms was of great importance. Meetings like you have this week were common. Your ancestors would feel at home in this company. They knew that the Van Doorninck coat of arms is in stained glass in the Mayors' Room.
Families created opportunities for boys and girls to meet each other. The families encouraged mutual marriages. So they could hold power and money in their own circle. After some generations all families of regents in a city as Deventer were related to each other.
There was a great concentration of power in a small group of families within the regents. Therefore you could speak of 'clans' and of mutual competition. Most of the mayors came from families in the heart of such clans. They closed the doors of the council room or others, also for representatives of the citizens (who had their meetings in the Civic Hall) and of the guilds (whose guild plates hang in the Entrance Hall: both rooms we just visited).
Their dwelling house in the city was of great importance for all regents. It formed the focal point of their families, the centre of their representation and of their power. Often the house was inherited from and by former and later generations within the family. Most Deventer regents lived on the important squares the Brink and Grote Kerkhof and the streets between.
The regents build up family fortunes. They preferred to invest in landed property outside the city walls. Land was a solid investment, it gave the prestige of old families and old money. Some regents formed complete rural estates with an elegant country house, gardens, a park and farms. They participated in the administration of local communities. Their influence reached far outside the city walls.
Sons of regent families studied at the local Latin City School and afterwards at an Athenaeum and a university. The faculty of law was favourite and formed a good preparation for public administration and management of private possessions. An academic degree counted as equal to the birth in the nobility, especially in the peerage of Overijssel. The city regents formed together with the landowning peers the Provincial States. Their meetings were in the Landhuis (States House), near this City Hall.
The conceptual universe of the regents consisted of the Old Testament, the Roman Republic and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. They mingled freely the symbols of these references. This concept we see represented everywhere in this City Hall, e.g. in the stucco and the woodcarving on the portal in the Entrance Hall.
Part of the way of life of the regents was to commission painted portraits of themselves and their families. Many of these portraits have come together in the Van Doorninck Family Trust. Two of them hang now on loan of the trust in the Mayors Room, two others are in the Deventer City Museum (City Clerk Hendrick van Haexbergen and his wife Eva Nilant). Some of you also have paintings at home.
Some of the paintings show gentlemen in their study with their books. Books not only formed a nice decoration of the portrait of a gentleman, but they were also a necessarily part of the working apparatus of any clergyman, doctor and lawyer. Some of the professors at the Deventer Athenaeum had at home the disposition of a better and more up-to-date library as the official and semi public Athenaeumlibrary had.
The study was where a man of letters found - within his house – the centre of his professional and private live. Here he kept not only his books, but also the records and files of his family, his collections of coins and medals, his physical or medical instruments and his curiosities. Old maps and globes also found their place here.
Many regents showed a keen interest in travelling, geography and nature. They disposed of beautiful atlases, travel books and illustrated works.
The study-cum-library could develop into an art cabinet with paintings and sculpture. That was a sign of the taste, knowledge and prosperity of the owner. In short: a show-case.
The Van Doornincks belonged to the many families that came from elsewhere, settled in Deventer and came to prominence after marriage in the local upper-ten.
The son of the reverend Martinus van Doorninck, of Vorchten, married a girl Tichler, whose father was a city clerk and whose mother Nilant came from a family of mayors.
In the next generation a daughter married a Jordens, absolutely on the top of the pyramid of regent families, a son again with a Nilant and after her death with a girl Van Duren, mayors again.
From these families and their ancestors come many of the portraits in the Van Doorninck family collection, for instance the city clerk Dr. Assuerus Strockel and his wife Barbara Glagau.
As a result of the many marriages between families of regents, most regents had a lot of ancestors that had been seated in the council room.
We can see this clearly of the painting of the City Council (or Magistracy in 1667) by one of the most famous Dutch artist of the 17th century: Gerard ter Borch, who worked about thirty years here in Deventer. Four mayors (magistrates, Hendrik and Wilhelm Niland, Hendrik Jordens and Joan van Duren) and two city clerks (Rutgerus Tichler and Assuerus Strockel, the man from the portrait) belong tot the ancestors of Adam van Doorninck (who lived at the end of the 18th century on the estate De Lathmer near Wilp on the other side of the river IJssel) and of his brother Martinus van Doorninck, mayor of Deventer in the 19th century. Members of this branch of the family lived on Boxbergen and Oxerhof.
Mayor Martinus van Doorninck of Deventer shows us, that members of old regent families could hold a public office in the 19th century. But that was after the dissolution of the Dutch Republic, the revolution of 1795, French occupation and restoration of the Dutch independence in 1813-1814. The Netherlands became a kingdom, the Prince of Orange not stadhouder but King William I.
No longer a closed circle of prominent families exercised a complete control and authority over the government: not in the cities like Deventer, neither in the kingdom as a whole. Members of the old families were still present in public life, had often some capital, studied law and entered politics. But they had to share their position with members of other families, many of whom had risen to prominence in the years of revolution between the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom, the so called Batavian-French time from 1795-1813.
Both classes mingled easily together. New aristocrats adopted the way of life of the old upper-ten, many marriages united old and new families, a new ruling class was born.
No longer sons of old regent families felt restricted exclusively to the city of their ancestors. A 19th century aristocracy enclosed the whole country and its colonies. Yong members of the Van Doorninck family studied in other directions then law only, they found jobs outside public administration and partners outside the traditional circles.
Two of them were archivists, lawyers and historians (Jan and his nephew Jan Izaak). Others went to the police, navy and army, went in business, became teacher and later we had doctors, an ICT-professional, a chemist, a vintner, a merchant captain, a colonial official, a course instructor on a adult education centre, a geologist, an architect. The girls and daughers in law also studied and built up their own careers. Some went to Zutphen, others to Sweden, Canada and the USA. But there are still lawyers in the family!
But today many of you are not here because of their profession or the place they live. You are here because of your connection with Vorchten, Zutphen Deventer and especially with each other.
Deventer, June 2011, Dr. C.M. (Clemens) Hogenstijn