Dirk II, Count of Holland

Dirk and his wife implore St Adalbert to intercede for them with Christ, in the Egmond Gospels

Dirk II or Theoderic II (920/930 – 6 May 988) was Count in Frisia (west of the Vlie) and Holland. He was the son of Count Dirk I and Geva (or Gerberge).

Career

In 983 Emperor Otto III confirmed his rights within the Duchy of Lower Lorraine to properties and territories in the counties of Maasland, Kinhem (Kennemerland) and Texla (Texel), thus stretching along the entire Hollandic coast (as well as inland). Count Dirk II built a fortress near Vlaardingen, which later was the site of a battle between his grandson Dirk III and an Imperial army under Godfrey II, Duke of Lower Lorraine.

Dirk II rebuilt Egmond Abbey and its wooden church in stone to house the relics of Saint Adalbert, the project starting in 950. Adalbert was not well known at that time, but he was said to have preached Christianity in the immediate surroundings two centuries earlier. The abbey was given to a community of Benedictine monks from Ghent, who replaced the nuns originally at Egmond Abbey, probably in the 970s. His daughter Erlint, Erlinde or Herlinde, who was abbess at the time, was made abbess of the newly founded Bennebroek Abbey instead.

Family

Dirk married Hildegarde (thought to be a daughter of Count Arnulf of Flanders, based on the names of her children), and had three known children. His son Arnulf became Count of Holland and Frisia after Dirk's death. The younger son Egbert became Archbishop of Trier in 977. His daughter Erlinde (Herlinde) was abbess of Egmond Abbey, until that institution was changed by her father from a nunnery into a monastery, after which she became abbess of Bennebroek.

Dirk died in 988 and was buried in the stone church at Egmond Abbey, which he had built there. Hildegard died two years later and was also buried there.

References

• Geerts.com: History of Holland
• Cawley, Charles, Medieval Lands Project: Holland and Frisia, Medieval Lands database, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy ,