The history of Gelderland is ‘the most beautiful in Europe’, according to experts. High time for a provincial museum

When he feared that Normal singer Bennie Jolink could outdo Duke Karel of Gelre in 2018 in the election as the greatest Gelderlander of all time, Bas Steman knew that he had to strengthen his mission. The TV presenter and his partner René Arendsen had been working tirelessly on Omroep Gelderland for three years to draw attention to Gelderland’s history.

They find it incomprehensible that Gelderlanders know their past so poorly. In their eyes ‘the most beautiful history of Europe’, one Game of Thrones-like epic full of wars, noble intrigues, exiles and fraternal quarrels. To convince all residents that no really hard regional rock can compete with that, in addition to their well-watched TV series Knights of Gelrethere will also be a Gelders Museum.

That dream now seems closer than ever. This would give Gelderland its own museum long after many other provinces. ‘Our national history invariably starts with Floris the Fifth,’ says Steman. ‘While the fairy tale story of Gelre, with its heyday and ultimate demise, has already more than begun.’

Steman can’t stop talking about it in the Zutphen City Archives. It hangs above one of the masterpieces that will soon be on display in the Gelders Museum. The Covenant Letter of Guelders, with which the cities and knights of the duchy actually established parliament in 1418. From now on, the duke would be democratically elected, controlled and possibly deposed. One of the first constitutional monarchies was born.

Center of power

Zutphen cultural councilor Sjoerd Wannet and Paulo Martina, director of Musea Zutphen, also came to the city archives. Due to the unbridled enthusiasm of resident Steman, they came to see the possibility of turning Zutphen into the cultural center of Gelderland.

It is no coincidence that Zutphen is the place where, according to the three, the story of Gelderland should be told. After all, it was the first place in Gelderland with city rights and for a long time the economic, political and legal center of the powerful Duchy of Gelre. “From a historical perspective, Zutphen simply lays claim to this museum,” says councilor Wannet. ‘After a museum visit you can walk straight into the medieval city where it all happened.’

On the Houtmarkt, past the old city palace of the counts and dukes of Gelre, for example, where an ice cream parlor now houses. Or the Walburgis Church, where in 1118 – when Amsterdam did not yet exist – the Count of Gelre married the Countess of Zutphen. With which the then county of Guelders rose from the Hanseatic city to a powerful duchy, which at its height stretched from Zaltbommel to Hattem and from the German Geldern to Roermond.

A true museum district should be created around Zutphen’s ‘s Gravenhof. The municipality is making a 1,000 square meter wing available ‘free of charge’ in an empty part of the town hall. The museum hall overlooks the Walburgis, the fire-capped church that was once higher than the Utrecht cathedral. Adjacent is the Librije, the reading room from 1561, where the first books from the printing press are still on chains. Opposite it are already the existing Zutphen Museums: the Stedelijk Museum Zutphen and Museum Henriette Polak.

Identity

Unlike Friesland or Brabant, Gelderland is not known for its own identity. Inhabitants are Achterhoekers, Arnhemmers or Nijmegeners, not Gelderlanders. The provincial slogan is telling: ‘Gelderland provides you with beautiful regions’. But the whole thing is also worth telling, says museum director Martina. “We’ve just never told the whole picture,” he says. ‘We want to do that, because every Gelderlander has the right to know his own history.’

That, just to name a few, the man who is seen as the first painter in the Netherlands, long before Rembrandt and Vermeer, came from Nijmegen in Gelderland. And that this Johan Maelwael (1371-1415) was uncle of the three Van Limborch brothers, who were educated at the Gelderland ducal court and subsequently made a name for themselves in France. Their works, which hang in the Louvre in Paris, among others, are seen as highlights of medieval painting.

Whether they will ever be on display in the Gelders Museum in Zutphen is now up to the province. The coalition agreement led by the BBB already states that the provincial museum must be built, but the board is first investigating what this should look like.

Myth

After years of lobbying and with the support of Martina and his fellow municipal museum directors in the province, program makers Steman and Arendsen presented their plan at the beginning of this year. They do not want to compete with other museums, but rather collaborate and tell the story of Gelderland chronologically with loan art.

For example with the 17th century work The dragon fight of Gelre from the city archives of Geldern (D), showing knights Wichard and Lupold slaying a dragon. The myth has it that the beast’s last cry was ‘Gelreeeee’ and the knights then built a castle on that spot with that name – thus also giving the name to the surrounding (Gelre)lands.

Preferably with a portrait such as in Museum Arnhem, of Karel van Egmond (1467-1538), Duke of Gelre. The young man who was imprisoned by the French king, returned to Zutphen in 1491 and then liberated Gelre from the Burgundian occupier.

The same man who, later on, had no match for Bennie Jolink – whether or not because the regional singer turned out to be excluded from participating in the biggest Gelderlander election of all time.