Sasbout Vosmeer (13 March 1548, in

Delft Delft () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, ...

– 3 May 1614, in

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

) was the first

apostolic vicar Apostolic may refer to: The Apostles An Apostle meaning one sent on a mission: *The Twelve Apostles of Jesus, or something related to them, such as the Church of the Holy Apostles *Apostolic succession, the doctrine connecting the Christian Churc ...

to the

Dutch Mission The Holland Mission or Dutch Mission ( or ') was the common name of a Catholic Church missionary district in the Low Countries from 1592 to 1853, during and after the Protestant Reformation in the Netherlands. History Pre-reformation diocese a ...

and succeeded Frederick Schenck van Toutenberg, the second Archbishop of Utrecht (1602–1614).

Life

Vosmeer's father and mother were both from

regenten The ''regenten'' ( Dutch plural for ''regent'') were the rulers of the Dutch Republic from the 16th through the 18th century, the leaders of the Dutch cities or the heads of organisations (e.g. "regent of an orphanage"). Though not formally a her ...

families in

. He studied in

Leuven Leuven (, , ), also called Louvain (, , ), is the capital and largest City status in Belgium, city of the Provinces of Belgium, province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipalit ...

and ordained priest in 1572 by archbishop of Utrecht

Frederik V Schenck van Toutenburg Frederik Schenck van Toutenburg ( – 25 August 1580) was the first Archbishop of Utrecht from 1559 to 1580. Prior to Schenck's ministry as archbishop, Utrecht was a bishopric with a succession of sixty bishops. The last bishop of Utrecht, p ...

. He then continued his studies in Leuven and

, before in 1579 settling in Delft, where he intervened in mission work. In 1582 Vosmeer was in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

and in 1583 he returned to Delft, where on 1 May he was made

vicar general A vicar general (previously, archdeacon) is the principal deputy of the bishop or archbishop of a diocese or an archdiocese for the exercise of administrative authority and possesses the title of local ordinary. As vicar of the bishop, the vica ...

to the Archdiocese of Utrecht. In 1592 he delegated powers over all dioceses in the church-province of Utrecht to the nuncio in Cologne and in 1601 he made Albertus Eggius vicar general of the

diocese of Haarlem 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 associated ...

. When this became known to the

States of Holland The States of Holland and West Frisia () were the representation of the two Estates (''standen'') to the court of the Count of Holland. After the United Provinces were formed — and there no longer was a count, but only his "lieutenant" (the stad ...

Vosmeer was searched out and Eggius imprisoned for some years. On 21 July 1602, Vosmeer was consecrated bishop by cardinal Simeone Tagliavia d'Aragonia. Vosmeer was officially appointed to head the Catholic community in the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands ...

vicar apostolic A vicar (; Latin: ''vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pre ...

Pope Clement VIII Pope Clement VIII (; ; 24 February 1536 – 3 March 1605), born Ippolito Aldobrandini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 30 January 1592 to his death in March 1605. Born in Fano, Papal States to a prominen ...

on 22 September 1602, on which occasion he was also made titular archbishop of Philippi (since it was impossible to make him archbishop of Utrecht). This was against the wishes of the

archduke Archduke (feminine: Archduchess; German: ''Erzherzog'', feminine form: ''Erzherzogin'') was the title borne from 1358 by the Habsburg rulers of the Archduchy of Austria, and later by all senior members of that dynasty. It denotes a rank within ...

s who, by the 1559

Concordat A concordat () is a convention between the Holy See and a sovereign state that defines the relationship between the Catholic Church and the state in matters that concern both,René Metz, ''What is Canon Law?'' (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1960 [1 ...

, demanded the right to nominate the apostolic vicar. When it became clear that his role was to reorganise the Dutch Catholic church he was banned from the Republic in 1603, continuing the Mission's work from Cologne. In 1613 he founded the Collegium Alticollense in Cologne to train priests for the diocese of Utrecht and another in Leuven to train priests for the diocese of Haarlem. Since there was a shortage of priests, no structure was set up for the Mission by Vosmeer. In 1606 Vosmeer was in Groenlo during its siege of Groenlo (1606), siege by Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange, Prince Maurice. Vosmeer tended towards inflexibility and instructed believers to refuse any decision of the States that could lead to an emergency, though this policy of his led to criticism from the

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

s. He also gained the head of

Balthasar Gérard Balthasar Gérard (alternative spellings Gerards or Gerardts; c. 1557 – 14 July 1584) was the assassination, assassin of the Dutch revolt's leader, William the Silent of the House of Orange-Nassau, House of Orange (William the Silent, and lat ...

, murderer of

William the Silent William the Silent or William the Taciturn (; 24 April 153310 July 1584), more commonly known in the Netherlands as William of Orange (), was the leader of the Dutch revolt against the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, Habsburgs that set off the ...

, and kept it in Cologne, as well as taking it to Rome in a failed attempt to have Gérard canonised. Six years after his death, Vosmeer was succeeded as Archbishop of Utrecht by

Philippus Rovenius Philippus Rovenius (; baptised 1 January 1573, in Deventer – 10 October 1651, in Utrecht) was apostolic vicar of the Dutch Mission from 1614 to 1651. Life Rovenius studied in Leuven, and was ordained priest in 1599. In 1602 he was made presid ...

in 1620.

References

External links

* http://www.okkn.nl/?b=15
Biographical sketch
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vosmeer, Sasbout 1548 births 1614 deaths 16th-century Dutch people Apostolic vicars of the Holland (Batavia) Mission Dutch Roman Catholic bishops People from Delft Old University of Leuven alumni