Qualla: Egmond Abbey

Egmond Abbey: Introduction

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Picasdre, CC BY-SA 4.0. When the monks of Egmond rolled out their solar panels in the spring of 2003, they were doing something their tenth-century predecessors would have understood instinctively: putting the work of the day in the hands of God and the sun. Two weeks later the panels were gone. Someone had backed a van up to the abbey at night and stolen all 20,000 euros' worth. The monks, with the resigned good humor of people who have lost a great deal of property over the centuries, started an online fundraiser. New panels went up. The monastery, which has been destroyed once and rebuilt twice in eleven hundred years, kept going.

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Image: Picasdre | CC BY-SA 4.0

Egmond Abbey: The Gospels and the Counts

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AnonymousUnknown author, Public domain. Egmond Abbey is the oldest monastery in the Holland region. Dirk I, Count of Holland, founded it around 920-925 as a nunnery, set near a small wooden church built over the grave of Saint Adalbert, an eighth-century Northumbrian missionary whose bones drew pilgrims. In about 950 D...

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Image: AnonymousUnknown author | Public domain

Egmond Abbey: Scriptorium and Power

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Blueknight, CC BY-SA 3.0. For six centuries the abbey grew. Its monks served as scribes in the chancery of the Counts of Holland; its scriptorium turned out chronicles that historians still consult. Its library was famous. Its property rights covered villages in three directions. North of the church grew ...

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Image: Blueknight | CC BY-SA 3.0

Egmond Abbey: The Year of the Beggars

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jacob van Ruisdael, Public domain. In 1573 the Spanish army was advancing through North Holland toward Alkmaar. The Protestant Sea Beggar commander Diederik Sonoy gave the order: destroy Egmond Abbey before the Spanish can use it as a base. The monks were driven out. The church was looted, the cloister demolished,...

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Image: Jacob van Ruisdael | Public domain

Egmond Abbey: Rebuilding by Hand

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jim Judges at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 2.5. In 1933 a new Benedictine community refounded the abbey on the original site, sent from the monastery at Oosterhout in Brabant. The architect Alexander Kropholler designed the buildings; construction began in 1935. The community was elevated to abbey status in 1950, and in 1984 t...

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Image: Jim Judges at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 2.5