The (''Head Watch'', or " Civic guard headquarters") is a historically important . It was built in the 13th century and it is considered the oldest building in

Haarlem Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English language, English) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the Provinces of the Nether ...

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

.Beschrijving der Nederlanden, Volume 1
on

Google books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

, page 86 It has served as a printshop for

Coornhert Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert (152229 October 1590), also known as Theodore Cornhert, was a Dutch writer, philosopher, translator, politician, theologian, and artist. Coornhert is often considered the Father of Dutch Renaissance scholarship. Bi ...

, as a temporary council meeting location across from

City Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city o ...

and even as a

jail A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where people are imprisoned under the authority of the state, usually as punishment for various cr ...

. It is located on the across from the St. Bavochurch.

History

From 1250 to around 1350 the building served as the first city hall of Haarlem. After the current city hall was built across the square, various important families lived in the house. The lower part of the building was used as a printing shop, a general store and for storing beer. Though it had lost its official function, as a large and imposing building in medieval Haarlem, it continued to be used for council meetings whenever the

Count of Holland The counts of Holland ruled over the County of Holland in the Low Countries between the 10th and the 16th century. The Frisian origins While the Frisian kingdom had comprised most of the present day Netherlands, the later province of Friesland ...

was visiting. A plaque above the door states: This text in

old Dutch In linguistics, Old Dutch ( Modern Dutch: ') or Old Low Franconian (Modern Dutch: ') is the set of dialects that evolved from Frankish spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages, from around the 6th Page 55: "''Uit de zesde eeu ...

says that whenever the Count "planted his court here on the sand" (meaning when he stayed in the large "Gravenzaal" or Count's hall across the square), this honorable building was put to use as the courthouse. The

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humanism" ha ...

Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert once ran a printshop from the basement in the 16th century. The baroque facade is newer and dates from circa 1650. On May 17, 1755 the building was bought by the municipality to serve as headquarters for the civic guard ('). This is the reason for the building's current name.Historic buildings
, Haarlem marketing, accessed April 2013 Each evening and morning the gates of the city would be unlocked by the militia who lived here.

Town Jail

Until the Spaarne prison was built on the east side of the river (known as the ') in 1899, there were a few jail rooms upstairs here. Before 1755, prisoners were kept in the cellar of the city hall across the street, which was often quite damp, but open to the street level and allowed some exchange with townsfolk in the rear alleyway. After sentencing, prisoners received public humiliation though corporal punishment such as branding, eye gouging, or execution, but for minor crimes they were sent to the '' Tuchthuis'', the local workhouse. Coornhert wrote the first treatise on criminals and pleaded for more humane treatment. The latter 17th century saw some reforms and a restriction in public executions, which came to be seen as barbaric. After 1755, keeping the prisoners upstairs significantly improved their living conditions, but it also saw a change in the purpose of their stay, as they had no contact anymore with the outside world. Before this change, prisoners were only held until sentencing, and their stay in jail was relatively short and not considered part of their punishment. With abolishment of public displays of corporal punishment, there was no solution for convicted felons that were not suited for the workhouse. For these prisoners, imprisonment became their punishment, but there was no longer any need to house them near the courthouse or near the Grote Markt. This building could not house longer term prisoners and thus the jail function was moved.

Sentinel post

For a short period the Hoofdwacht was in use as a military hospital, where Antonius Mathijsen made his discovery of the orthopedic plaster cast in 1851. The upstairs was also the place where the watchmen would stand guard near the balcony. The church opposite had a sentry lookout posted in the steeple who could signal the guards on the balcony using red flags so that the guards in the Hoofdwacht could react to fires or other unrest. This sentry position was still in use in 1919. Since 1919 the building has been occupied by the Haarlem historical association ', which uses it today for its meetings and small public exhibitions on the history of Haarlem. From May to September it is open to the public as a free "mini-museum" on weekend afternoons from 1:00-5:00 PM.

References

History
on website of the {{lang, nl, Vereniging Haerlem Buildings and structures completed in the 13th century Buildings and structures in Haarlem History of Haarlem Rijksmonuments in Haarlem Museums in Haarlem History museums in the Netherlands