's-Hertogenbosch - St Janskathedraal

From the east side of the Markt either Hinthamerstraat or Kerkstraat will bring you to St Janskathedraal (R.C.), the finest medieval church in the Netherlands. Originally Romanesque (1280- 1312), the church was given its present Gothic form between 1380 and 1530. It is 115m/377ft long by 62m/203ft wide, making it the largest church in the Netherlands. The choir was built in the early 15th century, the transept about 1450. The Romanesque tower has a Gothic spire. Work on the church was interrupted by the iconoclastic movement, so that its building was spread over a century and a half. Owing to shortage of money, however, it was left unfinished: some of the buttresses near the west doorway, for example, are not properly finished. In 1529 a wooden tower 85m/280ft high was built over the crossing, but this was destroyed by lightning in 1584 and was not rebuilt; it was replaced instead by a raised dome, on top of which is a large painted eye, a symbol of the Trinity. The outside of the choir is richly articulated by flying buttresses topped by small medieval figures: no other church in the Netherlands is so richly ornamented. Above the windows, all round the church, are reliefs of scenes from the early life of Christ. One of the builders left his own monument on the north side of the church - the "pease soup man", depicted overturning the pot of pease soup brought by his wife for his dinner. Other builders are known only from the masons' marks on columns. A curious feature, perhaps by another mason demonstrating his skill, is the twisted canopy at the east end of the nave, the tip of which is nevertheless directly over the saint's head.