St. Eloy's Hospice is a Guild House in Utrecht

Utrecht (city)

Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...

 in the Netherlands.

Between the Dom tower and the Mariaplaats in Utrecht in The Netherlands there is a unique house that bears the name: St. Eloyen Gasthuis (St. Eloy's Hospice). The house

House

A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...

 has been occupied by the Smedengilde (guild

Guild

A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...

 of smith

Smith (metalwork)

A metalsmith, often shortened to smith, is a person involved in making metal objects. In contemporary use a metalsmith is a person who uses metal as a material, uses traditional metalsmithing techniques , whose work thematically relates to the practice or history of the practice, or who engages in...

s) since 1440. According to documents preserved the guild has existed since 1304, but older. The house can be visited free of charge on the second Saturday of September. The fraternity

Professional fraternity

Professional fraternities, in the North American fraternity system, are organizations whose primary purpose is to promote the interests of a particular profession and whose membership is restricted to students in that particular field of professional education or study...

 is private nowadays.

History

Associations

Voluntary association

A voluntary association or union is a group of individuals who enter into an agreement as volunteers to form a body to accomplish a purpose.Strictly speaking, in many jurisdictions no formalities are necessary to start an association...

 of craftsmen

Master craftsman

A master craftsman or master tradesman was a member of a guild. In the European guild system, only masters were allowed to be members of the guild....

 and tradesmen

Tradesman

This article is about the skilled manual worker meaning of the term; for other uses see Tradesperson .A tradesman is a skilled manual worker in a particular trade or craft. Economically and socially, a tradesman's status is considered between a laborer and a professional, with a high degree of both...

, called guilds, were founded as early as in the 11th century in the Netherlands, Northern France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.
The blacksmith

Blacksmith

A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...

 guild of Utrecht included the regular blacksmiths, the gold and silver smiths, the needle makers, the locksmiths, the weapon

Weapon

A weapon, arm, or armament is a tool or instrument used with the aim of causing damage or harm to living beings or artificial structures or systems...

 smiths, etc.
These guilds were formed to provide their members with a decent standard of living by controlling competition

Competition

Competition is a contest between individuals, groups, animals, etc. for territory, a niche, or a location of resources. It arises whenever two and only two strive for a goal which cannot be shared. Competition occurs naturally between living organisms which co-exist in the same environment. For...

, and on the other hand controlling the quality of the products as well. There was a severe training programme and subsequently a controlled career programme: apprentice —> workman

Workman

Workman or WORKman may refer to:* Workman , an English surname* Workman, a Linux cd player programmed in OpenLook* WORKman, a windows-based job control and task management application published by Veracity Systems...

 —> master

Master craftsman

A master craftsman or master tradesman was a member of a guild. In the European guild system, only masters were allowed to be members of the guild....

.

In 1165 a canal was dug which connected the city of Utrecht with the river Vecht

Vecht

Vecht may refer to:* Vecht , a Rhine branch in the Netherlands from Utrecht to the Eemmeer near Muiden, sometimes called Utrechtse Vecht** Vechtstreek is the region along the above river Vecht...

, and Utrecht became a very important town with a sea harbour (the present Muiden

Muiden

Muiden is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It lies at the mouth of the Vecht and is in an area called the Vechtstreek.-Population centres :...

 harbour) before Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

 was founded.
Perhaps the most important fact in the guilds history in Utrecht was the so-called "Battle of the Golden Spurs" in 1302, where the French noblemen and their army were beaten by an army of farmers and tradesmen. After their victory this Belgian army marched through the lowlands

Low Countries

The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....

 to Utrecht.
They forced the bishop to give up all his worldly powers by the so called guild-letter of 1304 and installed a city council consisting of representatives of the guilds.

In those days the city of Utrecht (20.000 inhabitants) was divided into four guild-quarters. The guilds possessed political, juridical and military power. That is why everybody had to participate and all inhabitants were obliged to be a member of one of the 21 guilds.
The administration of the city was thus organised:
Every guild had 2 aldermen

Alderman

An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members themselves rather than by popular vote, or a council...

. These 42 men nominated 24 persons in the city council.
The council nominated 12 sheriff

Sheriff

A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....

s for administration of justice. The president of these sheriffs was one of the 2 burgomaster

Burgomaster

Burgomaster is the English form of various terms in or derived from Germanic languages for the chief magistrate or chairman of the executive council of a sub-national level of administration...

s.
The city council itself nominated a second burgomaster. This system lasted till the emperor Charles V

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...

 took back all power in Utrecht.
In one way the blacksmiths' guild formed an example to the others, especially in the care it lavished upon its members who were old or infirm. A hospice

Hostel

Hostels provide budget oriented, sociable accommodation where guests can rent a bed, usually a bunk bed, in a dormitory and share a bathroom, lounge and sometimes a kitchen. Rooms can be mixed or single-sex, although private rooms may also be available...

 was established on this very spot in Utrecht in 1440. The blacksmiths' hospital was devoted to their patron Saint Eligius

Saint Eligius

Saint Eligius is the patron saint of goldsmiths, other metalworkers, and coin collectors. He is also the patron saint of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers , a corps of the British Army, but he is best known for being the patron saint of horses and those who work with them...

 (St. Eloy in Dutch

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

).

The very place of this house is also historical. Utrecht, the second oldest town in the Netherlands, was founded in 48 by the Romans

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

, being the most northern fortress of their emperor. This fortress was situated on the spot where we see now the Dom tower and the Dom cathedral. In the neighbourhood, high sands in et land, were pubs and shops.
In 1798 Napoleon abolished the guilds. The blacksmiths' guild however cleverly changed itself into the Blacksmith Trade Organisation and is in this way the only surviving institution of its kind in the Netherlands.
In 1817 all the guest houses lost their hospital function, but this house remained and still is a charitable institution which forms an independent existence until today.
The governors of the house, called regenten, adapt to the demands of present times, continue charitable work and take care of funding for maintenance of the building, the art collection and completion of the archives.

Hospice today

The members, still divided into apprentices, brothers and regents, meet every week on Monday to talk, have a drink, play cards and play kolf. In this sense it is a social club.

Brothers

There must always have been a strong feeling of mutual solidarity in the St. Eloy Guild of Smiths. The members were brothers to each other in more than name alone. They decided to found a hospice where old and poverty-stricken smiths and their widows could be lodged and cared for, thus lightening the burden of their declining years. The hospice was the first of its kind and can be seen as the forerunner of mutual medical insurance and funeral insurance in the Netherlands. In 1440 the Guild bought a property in the Boterstraat in Utrecht, and today, five and a half centuries later, it is still there and is known as St. Eloy's Hospice (St. Eloyen Gasthuis).

Adriaan Willemszoon van Dashorst

The Guild of Smiths seems to have been a rich guild, mainly in consequence of an inheritance from Brother Adriaan Willemszoon van Dashorst in 1571. A special additional clause in the will allowed for the distribution of bread and some money on Sundays to twenty upright poor guild brothers or other paupers, and that in perpetuity.

Charity today

The last will of Van Dashorst is still being respected today. Twenty upright poor, selected in consultation with several social services, received till 1962 each quarter a book of coupons which they can exchange at the baker's for one loaf per person per week. Nowadays the poor of Utrecht can still get gifts of the guild.

Kolven

The Guild of Smiths is full of traditions. One of them is the attachment of the governing body to 'kolf', a game played with wooden or sajet balls, lapped with felt or leather, and heavy curved bats, called kliek

Kliek

A kliek is a heavy curved bat to play kolf with.-Literature:*Kolven, het plaisir om sig in dezelve te diverteren. Uitgave 2001 van de Kolfclub Utrecht St. Eloyen Gasthuis. -External links:...

en.

The hospice has a kolf court, now roofed over, which is more than 250 years old. Since its last restoration it is a really beautiful sight, with the court marked out in brass inlay in the floor.

By the 18th century, when the kolf court was purchased, kolf (then an outdoor sport) had become so popular that courts were to be found throughout the land. Every little village had one, while a city like Utrecht had as many as twenty (in 1700).

In 1730 the Governors of St. Eloy's Hospice made the decision to buy a court which lay directly behind the hospice, an event that is planned to be commemorated in 2010 following the 280th anniversary

Anniversary

An anniversary is a day that commemorates or celebrates a past event that occurred on the same day of the year as the initial event. For example, the first event is the initial occurrence or, if planned, the inaugural of the event. One year later would be the first anniversary of that event...

.