Location: Herengracht 1, Muider Map
Constructed: 1370 by Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria
Tel. 02940 256 262
Open: Apr- Oct daily
Nov- Mar: Sat & Sun
Official site
Muiderslot or Muider Castle is a medieval castle situated 15 kilometers South- East of Amsterdam in Netherlands. The first castle on this site was erected at the mouth of river Vecht in 1280 by Count Floris V of Holland and Zeeland. Muider Castle was intended to become a stronghold for levy collection from passing merchant ships. Count didn't last last too long. He was ambushed during his hunting trip in the forest by assassins who were probably sent by bishop of Utrecht. He died of knife wounds. His fortress was razed in 1300 by the same bishop.
Current citadel was constructed in 1370 by Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria. One of the most famous residents who lived here was P.C. Hooft, a famous Dutch historian, writer and a poet. He lived here from 1609 to his death in 1647. He invited many prominent artists to the castle which gave them a nickname, the Muider Circle. This included Bredero and Maria Tesselschade Visscher, Joost van den Vondel, Huge de Groot, Constantijn Huygens and many others. The castle lost its military significance and was turned into prison in the 18th century. Eventually it was abandoned and fell in disrepair. Restoration of the Muiderslot began in 1895 during reign of King Willem I and by his orders. Most of the interior was recreated as it looked in the 17th century. Muiderslot is protected by a national museum of Netherlands known as Rijksmuseum.
Architecture
The castle is a square moated
castle . At each corner of the castle is a round tower and within
the walls is a large building with stepped gables . The castle has a
moat with a drawbridge . Around the castle there are, among other
things, a restored vegetable garden and a herb garden .
The
castle was built at the mouth of the Vecht in the Zuiderzee , where
the IJmeer is now located. Muiden with its harbor is located
directly at the castle.
History
The history of the castle
is not known with certainty. In the thirteenth century, a toll booth
probably stood on the site where the castle was later built. By
means of a chain over the Vecht , Count Floris V was able to collect
tolls from passing ships. Floris V turned it into a square castle
with a tower on each corner. but possibly the castle already existed
then and the count merely bought it.
Murder of Floris V
Count Floris V was murdered on June 27, 1296 in the vicinity of the
castle. During a falcon hunt he was captured by the participating
noblemen Gijsbrecht IV van Amstel and Herman van Woerden . He was
imprisoned in the castle for five days. During an escape attempt
from the castle, he was killed by, among others, Gerard van Velsen ,
with 22 knife wounds.
Demolition and rebuilding
It is
said to have been demolished after the death of Floris in 1296, only
to be rebuilt on the existing foundations a little under a hundred
years later, but this is by no means certain. The castle is said to
have been destroyed by Bishop Willem van Mechelen , who probably
extended the Vredelant (Vreeland) castle with the stones of the
Muiderslot . A 'dock yard' would have been restored. Seventy years
later Count Albrecht of Bavaria is said to have rebuilt the
(current) Muiderslot around 1370 on the same place and with the same
map, although there are also suggestions that the castle was never
destroyed.
Many accounts concerning the maintenance of the
castle have been handed down. These give the impression that the
castle was usually in a dilapidated state.
Habitation
Muiderslot was usually inhabited by castle guardians, who managed
the castle on behalf of their lord; that was for example the bishop
or the landgrave . At the beginning of the 16th century, the castle
became the property of the Geldersen for a short time. During the
Eighty Years' War , the castle was taken on behalf of William of
Orange in 1577.
In 1609 the castle became the official
residence of PC Hooft , who held the position of drost van Muiden .
Because the castle could not be heated in winter, Hooft only spent
the summers there, the rest of the year he lived in Amsterdam. He
partly paid for the maintenance of the castle himself. The
furniture, utensils and paintings currently on display in the castle
date from this period from the 17th century.
Hooft's
hospitality led to the myth of the Muiderkring , an alleged group of
literary and scholarly scholars who would have gathered regularly
for literary and musical evenings at the castle. It concerns a
romanticized image, created in the nineteenth century, of a group of
scholars and literati who regularly met at the castle to bring about
cultural development in unison. In the twentieth century, research
has reduced the image to realistic proportions. Although already
Bredero and Hugo de Groot in 1616 visited the castle at the same
time, the first documented stay qualifying as such a gathering took
place on July 7, 1633 and the last in the summer of 1645. Instead of
an organized permanent group of prominent people pursuing a cultural
goal, Hooft made the castle available to his circle of friends as a
kind of holiday resort. It is certain that one or more visits were
made to the castle by Vondel , Barlaeus , Constantijn Huygens ,
Vossius , Roemer Visscher and his daughters Anna and Tesselschade,
among others .
Decline and restorations
After Hooft's
death, the castle fell into disrepair. In French times, the castle
was used as a barracks by the French army. From 1795 the castle was
no longer inhabited and fell into disrepair. The War Department used
it as a prison and ammunition depot, until the building was found to
be too dilapidated. In 1823, the Ministry of War recommended that it
be demolished. The king objected to this, but in 1825 it was put up
for sale for demolition anyway , which meant so much that the buyer
was allowed to demolish the building and take ownership of the
resulting building materials (the site was therefore not offered for
sale). After many appeals to King William I , including from
historian and literatorSamuel Iperusz. Wiselius , however, the sale
was prevented. The building was handed over by the Ministry of War
to the Ministry of the Interior. According to historian Maarten van
Rossem , the castle's preservation was remarkable at a time when
many valuable monuments were demolished.
The ministry gave in to the protests against the
proposed breaking down, but did not intend to fix it. The plan from
1830 by the Second Class of the Royal Dutch Institute of Sciences,
Letters and Fine Arts to turn the castle into a national historical
museum was also not realized due to a lack of money. Instead, it was
thought of turning the castle into a romantic ruin. That did not
happen either. The weakest parts of the castle were at least
somewhat maintained from the mid-nineteenth century. In the course
of that century, the awareness gradually grew that this was an
important monument deserving a museum function.
The
Department of Arts and Sciences of this ministry only started the
restoration in 1895 , which was carried out under the direction and
plans of Pierre Cuypers . The exterior would have a medieval
appearance, while the interior would refer to the period when Hooft
lived there. Because there are no images of the castle in the Middle
Ages, Cuypers had to let his imagination run wild and provided the
castle with many battlements. This work was completed in 1909.
The second restoration took place from 1956 to 1972. Ideas about
restoration had since changed and the reconstructions of the
previous restoration were removed as too imaginative. The main
purpose of the restoration would be conservation and take into
account the changes that the castle had undergone over time. The
grounds around the castle have also been restored to its
17th-century condition with plum orchard and herb garden . The last
restoration started in 1999 with the restoration of the fortress and
the gardens and the redevelopment of the original vegetable garden ,
the Warmoeshof.
Trivia
The ground plan largely
corresponds with the ground plan of Radboud Castle in Medemblik .
That castle has also been restored by Cuypers.
Outside the castle
is a plum orchard , which already existed in Hooft's time. (A famous
phrase from Hooft to the other members of the Muiderkring: "See you
in the plum season").
The Waterliniepad and the Floris V-pad run
along the Muiderslot.
In 2010 the filming of the film Snuf en het
spookslot took place here . The Muiderslot then represents the Ruins
of Brederode , before it fell.
The Muiderslot is depicted on the
ace of clubs of the standard card game with Dutch images.
The
castle was on view from 2007-2008, 2012-2018 as the castle of
Sinterklaas in De Club van Sinterklaas .
According to historian
Maarten van Rossem , the 'fairytale castle' looks like a castle
should look like: 'Walt Disney would have been very satisfied with
it'.