Education
In 1550 he managed the move of the Reguliers, monks from the monastery in Stein, South Holland (where Erasmus was educated) to a Double monastery (also housing the Bridgettines) in Gouda.
In 1550 he managed the move of the Reguliers, monks from the monastery in Stein, South Holland (where Erasmus was educated) to a Double monastery (also housing the Bridgettines) in Gouda.
Van Nieuwland became bishop when he was still young. He became titular bishop of Hebron in 1541. He was also assistant bishop of Utrecht.
Move of the Reguliers
The former home of the reguliers in Land van Steyn, (nl:Klooster Emmaüs te Stein), had been lost in a fire in 1549.
The convent they moved to in Gouda, was renovated for them by order of George van Egmond and the former sacristy was remodeled into a choir which housed eleven stained glass windows (today on display in seven windows in the Janskerk (Gouda) in the extra room called the Van der Vorm kapel). Foreign centuries the Catholic Hofje (nl:Hofje van Buytenwech), which was founded on the grounds of the monastery in 1563, was allowed to remain on the Raam in Gouda, but this too was finally torn down in 1958.
In 1580, before destroying the Regulierschurch, the expensive stained glass windows and the accompanying cartoons were moved to the Janskerk, where they were most recently restored in 1922 and given a separate chapel. Diocese Haarlem
In 1559 a new diocese was introduced, the diocese Haarlem, and Nicolaas van Nieuwland became bishop of this new diocese on November 6, 1561.
He entered the city on February 1, 1562 with a formal procession.
Van Nieuwland also became abbot of Egmond Abbey at the same time. Van Nieuwland"s protector George van Egmond had died in 1559. Perhaps because of these developments, he became an alcoholic, and is registered as walking in processions drunk, earning him the local nickname Dronken Klaasje.
He was asked to step down in 1569, and he was replaced by Godfried van Mierlo.
Van Nieuwland returned to Utrecht, where he later died.