Good Ol’ Saint Nic

Just a couple more nights and the whole country will be celebrating Sinterklaas, Saint Nicholas. A good time for the Chessmen Museum to have a closer look at the celebration of this saint’s birthday.

Saint Nicholas in the Middle Ages
No one really knows how far back exactly this holiday dates, but sources reveal that we have been celebrating Saint Nicholas with a passion ever since the twelfth century. The medieval celebration of Saint Nicholas was very different from our current version. It was a big fun fair really. People danced, made music, guilds would organize processions, plays and communal meals. Money was raised for the poor and everybody went to church to dedicate a prayer to good Ol’ Saint Nic. From the fifteenth century onwards it became a tradition to place one of your shoes in the church.

The tradition of eating ‘speculaas’, a cinnamon-based biscuit, already existed though. A ‘speculaasman’ gave young men the opportunity to catch a nice girl’s attention. The young man would give his girl a big ‘speculaasman’: if she in turn broke off its head, it meant that love was mutual. If she broke off its legs though, it meant she wasn’t interested and it would be better for the young man to get out of her sight.

From saint…
The rise of the protestant church in the sixteenth century meant the end of a lot of public catholic traditions and celebrations. Saint Nicholas was one of them. In the seventeenth century people would mostly celebrate him in the privacy of their homes instead of on market squares. With this change, Saint Nic was assigned some important educational tasks. He changed into a strict and distant old gentleman that was to be treated with due respect. Well-behaved children had nothing to fear, but the badly mannered ones had to be careful…

Saint Nicholas carried a terrifying black devil along with him, balled and chained, and had this devil punish naughty children. Compared to him, Saint Nicholas was a real saint. He had defeated the devil and made him his servant. The image of good-versus-evil was now complete. Saint Nic represented the good and the sacred and awarded good children with presents. The horrid devil, also known as Joost Pek, Zwarte Jan or Pieterbaas, represented evil and badness. He was in charge of punishment. Seventeenth century Saint Nic and his chained devil hardly ever showed themselves, but if you heard the jangle of heavy chains, you knew there were close by.

…to child’s best friend
Since 1900 Saint Nicholas and Piet have developed into being the characters as we know them now. The good-versus-evil element was dropped and Saint Nic became an old and wise man who was kind to all children, good and bad. His servant also changed. He wasn’t a chained devil anymore but had turned into a silly and loyal friend to children. From now on his name would be Zwarte Piet, Black Pete. He didn’t have a black face because of his devilish character anymore though, but because of all the chimneys he had to climb down to deliver presents to the children. The once terrifying devilish servant had undergone a total make-over.

After the war, Saint Nic’s only servant got a whole army full of colleagues. History shows that the Canadian soldiers stationed in the Netherlands helped out during the arrival of Saint Nicholas in 1945. They weren’t familiar with the celebration of Saint Nicholas and they thought it would heighten the spirit of the party if there were a whole bunch of Petes dishing out candy. After the war Pakjesavond, or Night of the Presents, came into being. Before, children would celebrate Saint Nicholas on his name day, in the morning of the sixth of December. When adults became more involved in the celebrations, the festivities were moved back to the evening before, the fifth of December. Now the whole family could enjoy the celebrations and Saint Nicholas had become a real family holiday. And what would be a better gift than a chess game from the museum shop? We recommend our Rotterdam chess game for chess- and Rotterdam lovers!

By Marjette van Koperen