Jeremy Bangs in the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum.

This website covers two different subjects: the history of the Pilgrims, the Separatists who went to North America on the Mayflower; and the history of the Dutch city of Leiden.

Some of the site content is about just one of these two subjects rather than the other. However, the subjects do intersect: the Pilgrim church came to Leiden in 1609; some departed for New England in 1620 and later years; while the congregation eventually merged in 1644 with Leiden's English Reformed Church. Much of the site is about the Pilgrims' stay in Leiden.

The author, Jeremy Bangs, was born in Oregon but has lived in Leiden nearly 30 years. After study at the University of Chicago, he completed his degree work at the University of Leiden (Ph.D., 1976). He has published a variety of books and articles on Dutch art and architecture, and Dutch and American history.

In 1980, as an American historian on the Leiden Archives staff, he was asked to answer visitors' questions about the Pilgrims, a topic new to him, and one that inspired further research.

He was formerly Curator of the Leiden Pilgrim Documents Center of the Leiden Municipal Archives (1980-1985), Chief Curator of Plimouth Plantation (1986-1991), visiting curator of manuscripts, Pilgrim Hall Museum (1994-1996). He was Visiting Distinguished Professor of Art History at the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in 1986. He is Director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, which he founded in 1997.

Bangs' books on Pilgrim topics are:
The Seventeenth-century Town Records of Scituate, Massachusetts (3 vols., 1997, 1999, 2001);
Indian Deeds: Land Transactions in Plymouth Colony, 1620-1691 (2002);
Pilgrim Edward Winslow, New England's First International Diplomat (2004);
Travellers and Sojourners - The Pilgrims, Leiden, and the Foundations of Plymouth Plantation (forthcoming).

His articles in this field have been published in The Mayflower Quarterly, The NEHGS Register, New England Ancestors, and Historically Speaking. Several are published online at: www.sail1620.org

Bangs' other books include:
Cornelis Engebrechtsz.'s Leiden (1979);
Church Art and Architecture in the Low Countries before 1566 (1997);
Swiss Sisters Separated, Pioneer Life in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Washington, from the letters of Louise Guillermin Dupertuis... (2003);
Letters on Toleration: Dutch Aid to Persecuted Swiss and Palatine Mennonites, 1615-1699 (2004).

His articles on non-Pilgrim topics have appeared in: Sixteenth Century Journal, Quaerendo, Renaissance Quarterly, Oud Holland, Bulletin KNOB, Doopsgezinde Bijdragen, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek (1986), Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch (1999), etc.