In the Lordship of Bredevoort, the drost represented the sovereign lord or pledge-holder and had administrative, judicial and often military responsibilities. The office changed over the centuries and was regularly exercised by a deputy. Periods of office can therefore overlap in the sources.
Below are the drosten and verwalter-drosten (acting bailiffs) of the Lordship of Bredevoort. The list is based on archival documents, the court book, the Nassau register of offices and E.M. Smilda’s preliminary inventory. Where contemporary records prove only part of a period of office, this is presented as cautiously as possible below.
Source note: offices sometimes overlapped. Evert van Lintelo, for example, is usually described in the court book as richter (judge) and in 1520 explicitly as both drost and judge. Johan van Isendoorn appears earlier as hofschulte/stadtholder and court judge; in documents from 1557 the court book refers to him directly as “Droste” and “Amptman und Droste”. For Hendrik van Isendoorn, the precise division of office between him and Johan has not yet been established equally directly from these primary records. A year in the table therefore does not automatically mean that someone served under exactly the same title throughout every intervening year.
Bailiffs
After the end of the lordship
After 1795 the system of government changed substantially. The drost’s old seigneurial position disappeared, and in 1798 the seigneurial administrative rights were formally abolished. Willem Passchen, who is described in sources from the Batavian-French transition period as drost of Bredevoort, therefore does not belong in the same sequence as the bailiffs of the old Lordship. His office is dealt with as part of the transition from the Lordship to the Ambt Bredevoort.
Acting bailiffs
| Period | Name |
|---|---|
| 1692–1696 | Rutger Keijser |
| 1703–1712 | Diederik Volmer |
| 1715–1726 | Reijnier Jurrien van Coeverden |
| 1728–1735 | Theodor de Lalane du Thay |
| 1736–1746 | Derk Hoppenbrouwer |
| 1746–1751 | Willem Sigismund Hecking |
| 1751–1759 | Benjamin Satink |
| 1759–1768 | Hendrik Arnold Bom |
| 1768–? | Herman Willem Aberson |