| Month: | February 2026 |
|---|---|
| Type: | Ledgerstone |
| Era: | 16th Century |
Sint Joris
Kerkstraat 32, 4433 AT Hoedekenskerke, Netherlands
The tomb slab of a priest, moved from the lost church of Bakendorp (where he served) to a new location in Hoedekenskerke
One of the many late-medieval tomb slabs inside the St Joriskerk (St George’s church) in Hoedekenskerke (or Oetjeskerke in the local dialect), a small coastal village in the Dutch province of Zeeland, is actually an interloper (fig. 1–2). The chalice and host in the centre of the slab indicate that it commemorates a priest, but the short inscription beneath the chalice and the longer epitaph around the edges of the slab reveal more about its original location.
Hoedekenskerke is situated along the Western Scheldt river on the Zuid-Beveland peninsula (fig. 3). The village is said to owe its name to Lord Odekijn who founded the village church in the early fifteenth century although other sources claim that the original church was probably built around 1280 when the parish was founded as a daughter church of the older church in nearby Vinninghen. Archaeological evidence indicates that it was rebuilt on a smaller scale in the gothic style around 1420–30 but the nave collapsed probably in the seventeenth century and in 1782 what remained of the nave was greatly reduced and the original tower demolished. The church now mainly consists of the fifteenth-century choir (fig. 4–5).
During the Battle of the Scheldt in October-November 1944 the church was badly damaged. The building was restored in 1948–49, ironically only a few years before disastrous North Sea Flood that hit the low-lying coastal areas of England, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands in the night of Saturday 31 January 1953; the province of Zeeland was affected particularly badly. Unfortunately Zeeland has a long history of flooding, as the story behind this month’s monument will reveal.
Jan Lenartszoon’s slab is a relatively simple one but rather large, measuring 190 x 88 cm. Its four corners are decorated with quatrefoils containing the four evangelist symbols in taille d’épargne relief, which we frequently find on tomb slabs of this period in the Low Countries: there was a lively trade in such slabs that were imported from workshops in Flanders. The centre of the slab features a chalice and host in a dufoil that is decorated with two fleurs-de-lis, also in taille d’épargne relief. An undivided renaissance-style shield with a mark by way of a heraldic device is carved beneath this, but in a different technique that may suggest it was a later addition, and thus possibly evidence of re-use of the slab. Incised in rather shallow letters between the two is one word: ‘bakendorp’.
Along with the size of the slab, the elegant lettering of the deeply incised inscription in gothic textualis around the outer edges is evidence that this would have been a relatively expensive memorial. The inscription reads:
Hier leet begraue(n)
heer Jan Lenart z(oon) pastoer va(n) deser kercken alias
bakendorp en(de)
sterf a(nn)o m vc luiij den xxuiije(n) dach va(n) aprilis
(Transl.: Here lies buried / Sir Jan Lenartszoon, priest of this church named / Bakendorp, and / [he] died in the year 1558 on the 28th day of April.)
Priests were traditionally buried in the church of the parish they had served so why is this slab in Hoedekenskerke and where is Bakendorp? The question ought to be: where was Bakendorp (or Bikkedurp in the local dialect)?
Bakendorp was a medieval village with its own parish church of which Jan Lenartszoon was priest, presumably until his death in 1558. Yet Bakendorp is one of the many villages in this area that was ‘drowned’ by floods, either in the St Felix Flood on 5 November 1530 according to some sources, or more gradually between 1530 (when the disastrous St Felix’s Flood hit the region on 5 November 1530) and 1570 according to a list and map of ‘flooded villages’ of Zeeland posted on Wikipedia (fig. 6). An early local historian, Mattheus Smallegange (1624–1710), mentions in his Nieuwe Cronyk van Zeeland (part 1, 1696, book v, pp. 701 and ‘bladwijser’) how the sea by then had largely ‘ingeswolgen’ (swallowed) Bakendorp as well as nearby Vinninghen and O(o)stende (nrs 50 and 51 in fig. 6).
Bakendorp did not disappear in 1530, however, or at least not completely at first. An undated drawing by Jacob Stellingwerf (1667–1727) shows an evidently still inhabited farmstead with at least the remains of the church, notably its tower, by the edge of the water (fig. 7). Yet some decades later an etching with a view of the church in 1743 shows merely a ruin in a picturesque woodland setting with three fashionably dressed visitors gazing upon it on the right: two cows on the left are the only indication of a farm nearby (fig. 8).
It thus seems that the church and probably part of Bakendorp survived the 1530 flood. Perhaps Jan Lenartszoon was appointed before this flood, in which case he evidently remained there as its priest as the inscription does not mention that he subsequently took up a post elsewhere: he died before the Reformation. In fact, the burst dike was initially re-embanked but it remained subject to further collapses that caused the gradual disappearance of the medieval village of Bakendorp into the Western Scheldt. The last remaining traces vanished only after 1957 as a result of land consolidation in Zuid-Beveland although several local street names still serve as a reminder of the lost church and village of Bakendorp.
So how did Jan Lenartszoon’s slab end up in Hoedekenskerke? It is possible that he was ultimately buried there but it is perhaps more likely that he continued to serve what was left of the community in Bakendorp until his death in 1558 and that his tombstone – and perhaps also his mortal remains – were moved to Hoedekenskerke when the church in Bakendorp fell into disuse some time in the later sixteenth century: the name ‘bakendorp’ in the centre of the slab, still in gothic textualis, could have been added at this time.
In fact, Jan Lenartszoon’s slab is not the only ‘interloper’ here for removal and transfer to Hoedekenskerke is what happened to a number of tomb slabs from the churches in two other ‘lost’ villages, including Vinninghen and O(o)stende – but that is a story for another occasion.
Sophie Oosterwijk
Further reading:
The tomb slab of Jan Lenartszoon can also be found as ID 1665 in the online database of the Medieval Memoria Online (MeMO) project at https://memo.sites.uu.nl/. As explained above, however, it is questionable whether this monument is ‘still in its original institution’.
Fig. 1. Tomb slab of Jan Lenartszoon (d. 1558), parish priest of Bakendorp, now situated in the Sint Joriskerk (St George’s church), Hoedekenskerke (Zeeland): detail of fig. 2 with digital adjustments. Original photo: Gerard J. Dukker, 1981 (Creative commons, Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed/RCE, doc. nr 231.822).
Fig. 2. Tomb slab of Jan Lenartszoon (d. 1558), parish priest of Bakendorp in situ in the south aisle of the Sint Joriskerk (St George’s church), Hoedekenskerke (Zeeland). Photo: Gerard J. Dukker, 1981 (Creative commons, Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed/RCE, doc. nr 231.822).
Fig. 3. Map of modern-day Zuid-Beveland at https://www.wandelenlangskusten.eu/Nederland/Zeeland/Zuid_Beveland.php: Hoedekenskerke is circled in blue.
Fig. 4. Interior of the Sint Joriskerk (St George’s church), Hoedekenskerke (Zeeland), looking east: notice the slabs in the floor between the pews. Photo: Gerard J. Dukker, 1977 (Creative commons, Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed/RCE, doc. nr 185.438).
Fig. 5. Exterior view of the Sint Joriskerk (St George’s church), Hoedekenskerke (Zeeland). Photo: Chris06 (15 April 2019) at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sint_Joriskerk_(Hoedekenskerke)_(2).jpg (Creative Commons).
Fig. 6. Modern map of flooded villages in Zeeland, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flooded_villages_in_Zeeland: Bakendorp is nr 49.
Fig. 7. View of Bakendorp, drawing in pencil and brown wash by Jacob Stellingwerf (1667-1727), collection Prints and Old Drawings, Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed/RCE (Creative commons, Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed/RCE, doc. nr TH-324).
Fig. 8. View of the remains of Bakendorp church in 1743, etching published in 1754 in Cornelis Pronk, Abraham de Haan, Jan de Byer and H. Spilman, Het verheerlykt Nederland of Kabinet van Hedendaagsche Gezigten ... (1745-1774).