Memoria in Leiden in de late Middeleeuwen: Stichten en bespreken. Samenwerken en betwisten

In Leiden the principal parish church, St. Peter, was from 1268 served by priests from the Utrecht bailiwick of the Teutonic Order. They formed a commandry in the town. They were introduced there by count Floris V of Holland, with the special charge to perform the commemoration (memoria) of the soul of Floris' father, count and King of the Romans William. The charter of 1268 included a clause forbidding these new priests to infringe on the rights of the citizens. Memoria is care for the souls in the here and the hereafter, i.e. in purgatory. The main forms of memoria in Leiden were founding and maintaining chantries for reading masses and prayers and engaging anniversaries for (in general) yearly commemoration of specified persons. Founders of chantries in St. Peters church wished to keep the presenting of chantry priests in their families, while the parish priests wanted to have this with the commandry, a latent cause for for disputation. Engaging anniversaries in St. Peter could be arranged directly with the commandry, scarsely documented, but was mainly done by mediation by lay authorities such as the curch wardens. In either type of memoria we therefore find a marked interdependence between the clerical and lay spheres. This is evident in the work of the famous jurist Philips van Leiden who in his treatise De Cura Reipublice et Sorte Principantis severely critisized the commandry on its attitude concerning chantries. Philips was the leader of a group of Leiden clergy who founded the church of St. Pancratius as a collegiate church and chapter, making it a prestigious balance to the noble commandry of St. Peter.
In the society of Leiden religion and the Church were essential elements. Memoria had an important, visible role. The town government legitmated itself through religion and the townspeople participated with the clergy in the life of the Church. Together they formed a religious community as is especially clear when seen from the point of view of memoria. This permits us looking for relations between religion and matters which nowadays are considered purely from a secular angle.