The priest who founded Hippolytushoef

The Hippolytus church is first mentioned in the twelfth century. It is said to have been founded by a priest from Gelderland, who came to Wieringen by way of Friesland. Hippolytushoef was then little more than an inhabited boulder-clay hill in the sea. He founded a circle of Catholic followers. Only when that community grew did he build a farmstead.

The name fits: in the fourteenth century the village was called Ypolshof, a farmstead dedicated to Saint Hippolytus. Until the Reformation Wieringen had four parish churches: St Michael's in Oosterland, St Willibrord's in Stroe, St Hippolytus's, and St Nicholas's in Westerland. Of the churches of Oosterland and Westerland it was later said that they were in the gift of the count of Holland. The one at Hippolytushoef was not. In 1573 the churches were taken out of Catholic worship.