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It is often thought that AD 900-1100 was a time when nothing much happened in the area that is today the Netherlands; many overviews of Dutch history have a tendency to skip straight from the Romans to the later Middle Ages. However, the RMO’s latest exhibition, the culmination of a three-year research project, is hoping to change this. The Year 1000 features over 400 objects from the Netherlands and beyond that demonstrate that this was a rich and interesting period in which the region and the lives of its occupants underwent many changes, several of which were instrumental in the development of the Netherlands as we know it.
A changing land
According to an old Dutch saying, ‘God created the world, but the Dutch made the Netherlands’. In fact, this momentous transformation of the landscape began even earlier than one might suspect. In the 10th/11th centuries, the Netherlands did not yet exist in a political sense, but it was in this period that the area first began to resemble the region we see today. Large swathes of land were being reclaimed or made usable for the first time; dykes were dug, marshland was drained, peat was extracted, areas of forest were felled. Between AD 900 and 1100, cultivated land went from making up 30% of the territory to over 70%. Evidence of the man-hours that went into these processes is present in the archaeological record, in the form of spades, axes, ploughshares, and even a wooden ladder left behind in a well.
Across this newly emerging landscape, churches, fortresses, and monasteries were popping up, and cities were expanding to house the growing population, which reached c.250,000 in this period. And as the wilderness was tamed and the trappings of civilisation spread, the land became easier to traverse, whether by foot, on horseback (as demonstrated by the large quantity of equestrian paraphernalia found in various regions), or by river (surviving ship timbers are often found reused in later construction projects). With an increase in travel came more detailed maps, further expanding the world of the people who lived across this region.
Global connections
Interactions with distant places stretched far beyond the land that is now the Netherlands. DNA analysis of 11th-century burials in a graveyard in Vlaardingen, an important trade hub on the bank of the Nieuwe Maas river, reveals that its inhabitants had come from all over, including from the UK, Germany, and Scandinavia. Similarly, everyday objects found at settlements, such as tools, pottery, and fittings, offer hints that these villages were part of wider networks stretching across Europe. We also have a rich variety of gold jewellery and ornaments, including the Hoogwoud hoard – found in 2021 and made up of four crescent-shaped ear pendants and two strips of gold leaf, dating to the first half of the 11th century – which reflects the presence of elites with connections to these global networks and access to luxury goods.
These connections extended even further afield than we might imagine. People travelled to Rome and Byzantium, for politics and for pilgrimage. Important exchanges of knowledge were occurring through books and treatises, scientific instruments like astrolabes, and even the game of chess, which spread to the Netherlands from India via the Arab world and Al-Andalus. The exhibition shows objects from contemporary empires in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, offering a wider view of the world and emphasising that the Holy Roman Empire, which encompassed the region of the Netherlands, was just one of many.
Rulers and religion
Power and religion were closely intertwined in the Holy Roman Empire. In the 10th-11th centuries, the Netherlands was largely controlled by bishops, who held court in fortified palaces scattered across the landscape, like those at Zutphen and Utrecht, many of which formed the basis for later cities. The region was also subject to other authorities, ranging from minor local rulers to emperors. At Utrecht, when the former Roman legionary base was converted into an episcopal fortress after AD 1000, two residences were built next to the cathedral, both connected by a walkway: one for the bishop and one for the emperor. Other sites of significance included royal palaces like the one in Nijmegen – a large-scale reconstruction of which is used for an interactive game in the exhibition. This imperial residence was the favourite of Emperor Otto II and his wife, Empress Theophanu (who was born in Byzantium, representing an important link to yet another powerful empire). Theophanu gave birth to the future Emperor Otto III (who was on the throne in the year 1000 itself) while the couple were on their way to Nijmegen.
The power and wealth of the church is also reflected in the relics it owned, and the beautifully decorated containers in which these were kept. Impressive examples on display include the Pectoral Cross of St Servatius, one of the religious masterpieces of the 11th-century Netherlands, and a Viking drinking horn that was later converted into a relic container with silver fittings to hold the bones of three apostles. Many of the relics were also wrapped in valuable textiles that came from Persia, Central Asia, or the Far East. Religious books and manuscripts were often richly decorated as well, including the 10th-century ‘Egmond Gospels’ – which contains the first picture of ‘Dutch’ people whose names are also known from written sources, the count and countess Dirk II and Hildegard – and the Codex Ansfridus, which is lavishly decorated with gold and precious stones, and was given to St Martin’s Cathedral by Ansfrid, Bishop of Utrecht, in the year 1000.
For many, it seemed possible that all of this glory might come to an end with the turn of the millennium. As they approached the year 1000, Christians across the world began looking for signs of the apocalypse in comets and solar eclipses. But 1000 came and went, and life carried on, continuing many of the new practices that would go on to shape Dutch history in the centuries that followed.
The Year 1000 – and the accompanying book of the same name by curator Dr Annemarieke Willemsen – is an exhibition that offers a new image of the Netherlands in the Middle Ages; one that shows how the changes that occurred in these centuries impacted the formation of the country we know today.
DETAILS
The Year 1000
Address: Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Rapenburg 28, 2311 EW Leiden, The Netherlands
Open: until 17 March 2024
Website: www.rmo.nl/en/exhibitions/temporary-exhibitions/the-year-1000
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