Church Monuments Society

The Oude Kerk (Old Church) in Delft (the Netherlands) has been the subject of earlier contributions on the CMS website as the church houses several important monuments, such as the ‘macabre’ slab of burgomaster Joost Corneliszoon van Lodensteyn (d. 1660) and his family here [https://churchmonumentssociety.org/monument-of-the-month/floor-slab-of-joost-corneliszoon-van-lodensteyn-burgomaster-of-delft-d-31-april-1660-his-wife-maria-van-voorburch-and-their-descendants-oude-kerk-old-church-delft-netherlands] and the more elaborate monument to the Dutch naval hero Piet Hein (d. 1629) here [https://churchmonumentssociety.org/2025/06/09/making-waves-the-dutch-naval-hero-piet-hein-d-1629-and-his-monuments].

The Oude Kerk is dedicated to St Hippolytus of Rome (d. c.235) and is the oldest parish church of the city, dating to 1246. It is easily recognisable by its leaning tower, which is 75 m high and leans nearly 2 m from the vertical (fig. 1). Views of its interior were painted by many seventeenth-century artists such as in a trompe-l’oeil painting by Gerard van Houckgeest (c.1600-1661) in which an illusionistic green curtain complete with a curtain rail partly covers the view (fig. 2). We can see in this painting that the church floor is paved with stone slabs of many different sizes: some are true tomb slabs but there are also smaller rectangular tiles and perhaps square stones.

This Monument of the Month describes a very modest grey stone slab that can hardly be termed monumental (fig. 3). It measures a mere 36 x 36 cm and carries a simple Dutch inscription in incised letters:

Hier . leijt . begraue(n)
Aerlewij(n) . Wille(m)sz(oon) . o(u)d .
grafmaker . vande(n) . ou
de . kerck . bidt . voer
die siel

(Transl.: Here lies buried / Aerlewijn Willemszoon, former / gravedigger of the Old / Church. Pray for / the soul)

There is no date of death but stylistically the inscription appears to date from the fifteenth century, roughly between 1425 and 1475.  The slab has suffered some damage to the corners and lower edge but is otherwise complete and in very good condition.

As the term ‘grafmaker’ suggests, Aerlewijn was a humble gravedigger. This is also indicated by the two crossed tools of his trade depicted between the two last letters of his epitaph: a spade and a so-called woeler, a two-pronged fork with which the gravedigger could rake through the soil and the remains of previous inhabitants of a grave in order to make room for the next occupier (fig. 4).

It was prestigious to be buried within a church rather than outside in the churchyard but such intramural graves and the slabs or ledger stones that covered them did require regular maintenance to keep the church floor even, and this cost money. Well-off burghers would often buy a large grave to serve themselves and their nearest and dearest as a last resting place. Large stone slabs covering these graves could carry epitaphs to several family members, sometimes across several generations, and inscriptions were thus added over time, as I have previously explained here [https://churchmonumentssociety.org/2020/04/04/a-curious-detail-in-a-painting-by-gerrit-adriaensz-berckheyde-haarlem-1638-1698].

However, when spouses, relatives or descendants defaulted on the recurring maintenance payments that were recorded in ledger books, a grave could be repossessed by the church and sold on: this is what happened to the grave of Rembrandt’s wife Saskia van Uylenburgh (d. 1642) in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam. Digging and maintaining graves was thus a busy job and Dutch painters often included gravediggers at work within church interiors as an everyday detail. A nice example is the scene in the far left of Interior of the Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam painted in 1654 by Emanuel de Witte (1617-1692)  that is now in the Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, CA (fig. 5a-b or see here [https://www.timkenmuseum.org/collection/interior-of-the-nieuwe-kerk-amsterdam/#info-4]). In this painting we see an older bearded man in a cap and apron overseeing a younger man who is at work in an open grave. A spade has been stuck in a heap of sand, a skull and some bones are lying on the floor, and a wheelbarrow is standing nearby. In the foreground a young boy is on his knees and making a rubbing of a tombstone.

We do not know anything about Aerlewijn Willemszoon other than that he was a local gravedigger. It is also not known if he or his family had the means to pay for his intramural burial and a small memorial stone, or whether the church authorities granted him both in recognition of his services to the church. It may be telling that his status as gravedigger was considered more important to record than his date of death while the small size of his slab may have been an attempt to keep the cost down. Even so, the first letter of the short inscription has been carved with an artistic flourish.

The precise location of Aerlewijn’s last resting place is likewise unknown. At some point in history his grave must have been cleared and his small slab discarded. It was discovered by accident during work at the church after which it was preserved and published in 2011.  It can now be found in the vrouwenkoor (Lady’s choir) of the Oude Kerk where it has been inserted into a niche in the north wall. Thus Aerlewijn Willemszoon is once again remembered in the church that he served centuries ago.

Sophie Oosterwijk

Further reading:

 For an account of the discovery of the tomb slab of Aerlewijn Willemszoon see Pier Terwen and Prosper de Jong, ‘Grafdelver in de Oude Kerk’, Delf: Cultuurhistorisch magazine voor Delft Spring (2011), 23.

See also Sophie Oosterwijk, ‘The Story of Bianca Rubea: An Emblem of Wifely Devotion, or Death by Tomb Slab’, Church Monuments 27 (2012), 66-74.

The slab is described as ID 1088 in the online database of the Medieval Memoria Online (MeMO) project at https://memo.sites.uu.nl/.

Gallery

• Fig. 1. Leaning tower of the Oude Kerk (Old Church) in Delft, viewed from the north. Photo: M.M.Minderhoud or Wikipedia/Michiel1972 at Wikimedia Commons at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Delft_-_Oude_Kerk.jpg.
• Fig. 2. Gerard Houckgeest (c.1600-1661), Interior of the Oude Kerk in Delft (1654), oil on panel, 48.7 x 40.2 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. SK-A-1584.
• Fig. 3. Tomb stone of gravedigger Aerlewijn Willemszoon, Oude Kerk, Delft. Photo: Chris Booms for Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE).
• Fig. 4. Detail of the digging tools on the tomb slab of gravedigger Aerlewijn Willemszoon, Oude Kerk, Delft. Photo: Chris Booms for Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE).
• Fig. 5a. Emanuel de Witte (1617-1692), Interior of the Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam (1654), oil on canvas, 87.6 x 102.9 cm, Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, CA (USA). © Putnam Foundation, Timken Museum of Art, San Diego.
• Fig. 5b. Detail of gravediggers at work in the left half of Emanuel de Witte’s Interior of the Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam (1654), oil on canvas, 87.6 x 102.9 cm, Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, CA (USA). © Putnam Foundation, Timken Museum of Art, San Diego.