Leiden

Leiden grew beside the branches of the Rhine, around an artificial hill crowned by its stronghold, the Burcht. Waterways threaded through a town whose weavers made it one of Holland's great cloth centres. By the end of the fifteenth century its broadcloth industry was important, and printers and publishers later added to the city's commercial and intellectual life.

Leiden took the side of the Dutch Revolt in 1572. Spanish forces besieged it in 1574, and hunger took a terrible toll before dikes were cut and ships carrying provisions reached the city. The following year William of Orange founded the University of Leiden, which became an enduring centre of learning. The printer Lodewijk Elzevir established a business here that his descendants continued into the eighteenth century. Refugees from Flanders helped revive the textile industry after the siege, and Leiden grew rapidly during the seventeenth century. The physician Herman Boerhaave taught here, and the painter Rembrandt was born and trained in the city. As textile production declined from the late seventeenth century, however, Leiden's population and prosperity also diminished.