Godfried van Mierlo, O.P. (2 February 1518 – 28 July 1587) was a Dominican friar who served as the Bishop of Haarlem and the last direct

Abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The ...

Egmond Abbey Egmond Abbey or St. Adalbert's Abbey ( nl, Abdij van Egmond, ''Sint-Adelbertabdij'') is a Benedictine monastery of the Congregation of the Annunciation between Egmond aan den Hoef and Bakkum in Egmond-Binnen in the municipality of Bergen in the ...

from 1570 to 1578.

Biography

Van Mierlo was born in the City of Helmond on 2 February 1518, then the

Duchy of Brabant The Duchy of Brabant was a State of the Holy Roman Empire established in 1183. It developed from the Landgraviate of Brabant and formed the heart of the historic Low Countries, part of the Burgundian Netherlands from 1430 and of the Habsburg Neth ...

, part of the

Habsburg Netherlands Habsburg Netherlands was the Renaissance period fiefs in the Low Countries held by the Holy Roman Empire's House of Habsburg. The rule began in 1482, when the last Valois-Burgundy ruler of the Netherlands, Mary, wife of Maximilian I of Austr ...

. He entered the

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of ...

in 1533, at the age of 15, in

's-Hertogenbosch s-Hertogenbosch (), colloquially known as Den Bosch (), is a city and municipality in the Netherlands with a population of 157,486. It is the capital of the province of North Brabant and its fourth largest by population. The city is south of th ...

. He professed his religious vows as a

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ...

of the Order the following year. After completing his studies, he was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform ...

Catholic priest The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the Holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in layman's terms ''priest'' refers only ...

in 1542. He gained the degree of doctor of theology and was appointed as the Prior Provincial for Holland. Van Mierlo was named the Bishop of Haarlem and the Abbot of Egmond Abbey in March 1570 by

Pope Pius V Pope Pius V ( it, Pio V; 17 January 1504 – 1 May 1572), born Antonio Ghislieri (from 1518 called Michele Ghislieri, O.P.), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1566 to his death in May 1572. He is v ...

. He was welcomed to that city in early 1571, where he was consecrated a

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is c ...

on February 11 of that year in the original Cathedral of St. Bavo by Franciscus van der Velde, the

Bishop of Antwerp The Diocese of Antwerp is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in Belgium. The diocese was restored in 1961. It is a suffragan in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brusse ...

. The following year, however, on December 4, 1572, the cathedral suffered the

iconoclastic Iconoclasm (from Ancient Greek, Greek: grc, wikt:εἰκών, εἰκών, lit=figure, icon, translit=eikṓn, label=none + grc, wikt:κλάω, κλάω, lit=to break, translit=kláō, label=none)From grc, wikt:εἰκών, εἰκών + wi ...

destruction of the ''

Beeldenstorm ''Beeldenstorm'' () in Dutch and ''Bildersturm'' in German (roughly translatable from both languages as 'attack on the images or statues') are terms used for outbreaks of destruction of religious images that occurred in Europe in the 16th centu ...

'' and temporarily became the scene of

Calvinist Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Ca ...

services, which lasted until the end of the

Siege of Haarlem The siege of Haarlem was an episode of the Eighty Years' War. From 11 December 1572 to 13 July 1573 an army of Philip II of Spain laid bloody siege to the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands, whose loyalties had begun wavering during the pre ...

.''Beknopte geschiedenis van Haarlem'', by mej.dr. G. H. Kurtz, Erven F. Bohn, 1946, Haarlem Van Mierlo had to re-sanctify the church in 1573. In

Veere Veere (; zea, label= Zeelandic, Ter Veere) is a municipality with a population of 22,000 and a town with a population of 1,500 in the southwestern Netherlands, in the region of Walcheren in the province of Zeeland. History The name ''Veere ...

, in 1577, Van Mierlo set his seal to the " Satisfactie van Haarlem" wherein he promised to swear allegiance to

Willem the Silent William the Silent (24 April 153310 July 1584), also known as William the Taciturn (translated from nl, Willem de Zwijger), or, more commonly in the Netherlands, William of Orange ( nl, Willem van Oranje), was the main leader of the Dutch Rev ...

rather than Philip II of Spain, on the condition that the Catholics would keep the same rights as Protestants. This was reversed a year later on May 29, the

Feast of Corpus Christi The Feast of Corpus Christi (), also known as the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, is a Christian liturgical solemnity celebrating the Real Presence of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in the elements o ...

that year, when Calvinist supporters again stormed the cathedral, this time during the celebration of the Hour of

Terce Terce is a canonical hour of the Divine Office. It consists mainly of psalms and is held around 9 a.m. Its name comes from Latin and refers to the third hour of the day after dawn. With Sext, None and Compline it belongs to the so-called "Litt ...

at the 9th hour of the day, or 3:00 P.M., ravaging the altars, killing a priest and injuring several others. The provost of the cathedral,

Jacobus Zaffius Jacobus Hendriksz Zaffius also known as Saffius or Saffio (1534 – 19 January 1618), was a Catholic pastor in Haarlem. Biography He was born in Amsterdam where he later owned some property. From 1568 he was Prior of the Canons Regular mona ...

, who had witnessed the Amsterdam "

Alteratie The Alteratie (Eng: Alteration) is the name given to the change of power in Amsterdam on May 26, 1578, when the Catholic city government was deposed in favor of a Protestant one. The coup should be seen in the context of the greater Dutch Revolt t ...

" two days earlier, saw it happen. Van Mierlo fled to

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

where

Pope Gregory XIII Pope Gregory XIII ( la, Gregorius XIII; it, Gregorio XIII; 7 January 1502 – 10 April 1585), born Ugo Boncompagni, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 May 1572 to his death in April 1585. He is best known for ...

appointed him coadjutor bishop of the

Diocese of Münster In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associat ...

. He was then appointed Bishop of Deventer in 1587, where he needed to re-sanctify the local churches. Van Mierlo died the year of his appointment at the age of 69, and was buried in the Lebuïnuskerk of Deventer. After Van Mierlo fled Haarlem, the city was no longer an official Catholic

bishopric In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

, and the period from then onwards until 1798 (during the French occupation) was known as the ''Hollandse Zending'', or Dutch Mission, where the Catholics had to worship in secret. However, the ''Haarlemse kapittel'' or cathedral chapter, remained active and St. Bavo was always called the

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominatio ...

by townsfolk, even after the Cathedral of Saint Bavo was built in the 19th century to serve the re-established Catholic diocese.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mierlo, Godfried Van 1518 births 1587 deaths People from Helmond Dutch Dominicans Dominican bishops 16th-century Roman Catholic bishops in the Holy Roman Empire Roman Catholic bishops of Haarlem-Amsterdam Burials in Overijssel