From times of old, when Saint Willibrord (c. 658–739) came from the British Isles to Christianize people living in the Low Countries, Utrecht was one of the region’s major political and ecclesiastical centres. During the medieval period, Utrecht enjoyed a position as the only episcopal city in the Northern Netherlands, and many churches, monasteries, and convents could be found in it. The list of Utrecht’s houses of God was expanded with a large Romanesque church around 1080, some forty years before (1122) Utrecht obtained its city rights from the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V (1086–1125). This church was the Church of Saint Mary (St Marie, or Mariakerk), the last of the five collegiate churches where the daily office of worship was maintained by chapters, that is, colleges of high-ranked priests called canons. Located near the west side of the city walls, St Marie formed a part of Utrecht’s kerkenkruis, a cross-shaped formation of churches seen from God’s perspective, together with the Dom cathedral, the collegiate churches of St Pieter and St Jan, and the Paulus Abbey. The Mariahoek is a site within the immunity of the chapter of St Marie, a distinct domain where jurisdiction belonged to the church alone and not to the secular authorities. Although the Protestant Reformation and the Dutch Revolt against Habsburg Spain (1568–1648) drastically changed the medieval Catholic landscape of the Northern Netherlands, the Mariahoek in Utrecht developed into one of the crucial strongholds of outlawed Catholicism in the Dutch Republic (1581–1795).