Kloveniersdoelen, Amsterdam
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![](#/media/File:SA_8422-De_Kloveniersdoelen_aan_de_Amstel-De_Kloveniersburgwal_op_de_hoek_van_de_Amstel_met_de_toren_"Swijgh_Utrecht".jpg)
The Kloveniersdoelen ("musketeers' shooting range") was a complex of buildings in Amsterdam which served as headquarters and shooting range for the local schutterij (civic guard). The companies of kloveniers were armed with an early type of musket known as an arquebus, known in Dutch as a bus, haakbus or klover (from the French couleuvrine), hence the name kloveniers.
The Kloveniersdoelen was located at the corner of Nieuwe Doelenstraat and Kloveniersburgwal canal, both named after the former shooting range. The 19th-century Doelen Hotel now stands on the spot. Two kloveniers are depicted on the domed tower of the hotel, another reference to the history of this location.
Rembrandt's painting The Night Watch was commissioned for the great hall of the Kloveniersdoelen.
The Kloveniersdoelen was one of three doelens (shooting ranges) for the Amsterdam schutterij (civic guard). The other two shooting ranges were the Handboogdoelen and Voetboogdoelen, both located along the Singel. The Handboogdoelen civic guard was armed with longbows, while the Voetboogdoelen civic guard wielded crossbows and the Kloveniersdoelen civic guard used an early type of musket, the arquebus. The Kloveniersdoelen was the oldest of the three.[1]
Amsterdam's militia guilds were formed in the Middle Ages to defend the city against attack. Around 1580, at the behest of William of Orange, these Medieval guilds were incorporated into a new, much larger civic guard to defend the newly Protestant city against the Spanish during the Dutch revolt which ultimately led to a full-blown war of independence, the Eighty Years' War. Officers of this new civic guard were recruited from the well-to-do of Amsterdam.[2]
The original building for the kloveniers guild was constructed in 1382 and stood along what is now Oude Doelenstraat, east of Dam Square. In 1520 it was replaced with a new building on Nieuwe Doelenstraat, adjacent to a defensive tower in the city walls known as Swych Utrecht ("Be quiet, Utrecht"), as its primarily role had been to defend the city against attacks by the Bishopric of Utrecht.[3][1]
In 1638 a lavish new addition to the Kloveniersdoelen was completed. The new building was very modern for its time — rectangularly shaped and in the Classicist style that was very fashionable at that time. On the first floor of this new wing was a banquet hall measuring 18 by 9 meters. The elegant hall so impressed visitors that some compared it to the Banqueting House in London.[4]
In the mid-17th century, the Eighty Years' War ended and the civic guard no longer served a military purpose. The civic guard continued to exist, but membership became an honorary position and the doelens assumed a primarily social function. The wealthiest and most powerful citizens of Dutch Golden Age Amsterdam came together in the doelens to eat, drink and smoke. The elegant building was also used for official receptions and dinners, and to provide lodgings to prominent visitors to Amsterdam.[5] Marie de' Medici and Czar Peter the Great viewed a fireworks display on the Amstel river from a window of the Kloveniersdoelen.
From 9 August to 15 September 1748, the great hall hosted public gatherings of the Doelisten, a local protest group of mostly merchants opposing the perceived nepotism and corruption of the well-to-do who dominated Amsterdam's city government. The crowds that gathered in the hall were so large, some feared that the floor would collapse under the weight.
In 1882/1883, the entire complex was demolished and replaced by the Doelen Hotel, which still stands on this location.
