Schutterij - Training Grounds

Training Grounds

The schutters (traditionally archers) or cloveniers (musket bearers) met at target practice grounds called Doelen (targets). These fields were generally adjoining a large building where they met indoors for gymnastic exercises and held their meetings. It was in these great halls where the large group portraits hung for centuries, and many paintings suffered dramatically from enthousiastic gymnasts over the years. These locations were not the only place the schutters met each other. These guilds also kept altars in local churches, where they met for religious reasons. Most schutterij guilds had as patron saints Saint Sebastian, Saint Anthony, Saint George (St. Joris in Dutch), or Adrian of Nicomedia (St. Adriaen in Dutch). These religious duties were a significant part of the guild membership, since that is also where they paid their dues. After the Protestant Reformation, all the altars were disbanded in the Dutch Reformed churches in the Northern Netherlands, and membership dues were no longer paid in church, but at the city hall. In Amsterdam, the guilds were no longer allowed to make rules or spend money on their own, but in Haarlem there were two guilds who kept their original rules (St. Adriaen and St. Joris), such as holding banquets and collecting for sick members or widows. Though they moved premises several times, some of the old Haarlem Doelen halls still stand where the schutters met and where their group paintings hung, though now these paintings are all preserved carefully now in the Frans Hals museum.

• Meeting hall of the Cloveniers, now the Haarlem Public Library, with a commemorative plaque above the door, placed 200 years after the Siege of Haarlem, when many Cloveniers died defending the city.

• For centuries a meeting hall and scene of indoor target practise. In the 20th century a gym for the local High School, and now a peaceful study hall.

• Group portrait by Hendrik Gerritsz Pot, 1630, on what is now library steps. Through the window one sees the study hall ceiling.