West-Friesland has around 85 fairs, with the drinks and parties often a lot more important than the merry-go-round and the other attractions. The party seems to have many more feet on the ground in West Friesland than in other parts of the Netherlands.
Born Hoogwouder Lars Boon is a historian, podcast maker and works for the Westfries Museum in Hoorn, among others. The origin of the fairground festivals as we know them now lies with the church, he says. “For that you have to go back to the Middle Ages. The fair then arose as a Catholic party. The fair is therefore one of the oldest festivals in the Netherlands.”
From church mass to fairground
He continues: “The word” Kermis “is derived from ‘church mass’. It was celebrated in honor of the day of a church, a parish or a patron saint. A mass was held at such a church, and all kinds of festivities were created around it. A kind of annual market, with trade, cattle and entertainment. Jaemmarkten were already usual, but around these church.”
It grew into parties for everyone, although it was sometimes taunted by the elite as a ‘farm fair’. Fairers were real folk festivals: there was entertainment, trade was driven, and arts were shown, sometimes even with exotic animals.
In the 17th century you could just see a lion at a fair, which was brought by a ship from distant places.
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