Jacob Taets van Amerongen

Jacob Taets was appointed house commander of the Teutonic Knights' Bailiwick of Utrecht on 20 May 1576, managing the order's household officials, servants and stores, and leading the order in the absence of the land commander.^[2] Under his leadership the convent church employed three secular priests, a sacristan, a chantry priest, a sexton, four choristers and an organist. The services were held frequently, followed traditional practices such as foot-washing for the poor on Maundy Thursdays, and were fully attended.^[5] In October 1579 Taets became land commander.^[2] He succeeded Frans van der Loe.^[6]

Taets tried to restore the order to its former religious nature, and to confirm the allegiance of the Utrecht bailiwick to the Emperor and the Deutschmeister.^[3] Taets resisted demands by the States of Utrecht that Catholic institutions be dissolved and their goods used for charity. In 1580 he argued that the goods "belonged to our Lord the German Master", and that the Bailiwick was a knightly institution that served "where necessary to fight with weapons for the defence of the Empire against our common arch enemy, the Turk..."^[7] In 1594 Taets sent two knights from Utrecht to Bad Mergentheim to join brothers from the Alden Biesen bailiwick in a crusade to defend the Holy Roman Empire against the Ottoman Empire.^[8]

Jacob Taets van Amerongen remained land commander until his death in 1612.^[9] He died 4 December 1612.^[3] He was succeeded by Diderick de Belois van Treslong.^[6] Soon after, the Teutonic Knights became a Protestant organization.^[3]

A portrait of Taets van Amerongen appears on the seventh panel of a series held in the Duitse Huis that depicts all the land commanders of the order from 1239.^[3] He in fact^[10] commissioned the series of portraits between May 1576, when he took office, and March 1580, when the last panel was damaged in the Beeldenstorm.^[2] His body and head were painted by different artists. He is the only commander to be shown with the signs of having made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, although one would expect that others would have done so. This may be because Taets van Amerongen commissioned the work and therefore influenced what was represented. He may have been deliberately showing the connection with the traditional Teutonic Order, founded during the crusades in the Holy Land.^[3]

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