OUD BRUSSEL: #9 SINT-LAURENTIUSKAPEL

Oud Brussel: #09 Sint-Laurentiuskapel

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  • Name on the map:

    S. Laureys

  • Original name in Dutch:

    Sint-Laurentiuskapel aan het Zwanenbroek, Sint-Laureinskapel, Sint-Laurenskapel

  • Other names:

    Sint-Laureinsgasthuis, Sint-Laureinskerkhof

  • 19th century name in French:

    Chapelle de Saint-Laurent au marais des Cygnes

  • Current name:

    Drukkerij van de Nationale Bank, Imprimerie de la Banque Nationale

ABOUT

On the east side of today’s Sint-Laurensstraat, on the compounds of the former printing house of the National Bank, once stood the “Sint-Laurentiuskapel aan het Zwanenbroek” (Saint Lawrence’s Chapel by the Swanbrook, 1314-1799). Flanked by the Zandstraat (Rue des Sables) and the Komediantenstraat(Rue des Comédiens), the chapel also housed a small hospital for the poor and a cemetery. Above the chapel was the Sint-Elisabeth op de berg Sion (St Elizabeth on Mount Zion), an Augustinian convent to which the chapel was closely related.

Origin

The founding of the “Sint-Laurentiuskapel aan het Zwanenbroek” (Saint Lawrence’s Chapel by the Swanbrook) was shrouded in mystery. Historian Vannieuwenhuyze claims that it was founded at the end of the 13th century. The 19th century historians Alexandre Henne and Alphones Wauters says the Sint-Laurentiuskapel, also written as Sint-Laureinskapel, was established in 1314.

First, let’s talk about the land on which the Sint-Laurentiuskapel used to stand:

According to Henne and Wauters, on 22 January 1310, Duke of Brabant Jan II signed an agreement with his half brother, Jan (Hannekin) of Mechelen Lord of Huldenberg and Koekelberg, where the Duke would pay his brother 50 pounds a year for the mansion known as “De Munt” (The Mint) and its surrounding land. The small piece of land was located outside the first city wall west of the church Sint-Goedelekerk, and close to a water well known was the “Orsendalborre“.

The mansion and the land are thus then into fiefdom which were at 600 pounds. The Duchy of Brabant would also pay rent to the dean and the chapter of the Sint-Goedelekerk, which then was passed on to Jan (Hannekin) of Mechelen. It all sounds a bit complicated.

There was no mint here, especially when it was outside the city not within. But the confusion started, so this spot became known in the “Oude Munte” (The Old Mint) around 1341. But this name was completely forgotten by the end of the 15th century.

Back to the Sint-Laurentiuskapel.

In 1314, Elisabeth de Molenbeke, widow of Jan Smoerkens, was endowed in the same year an annual income of 40 pounds by the Lord Arnould III van Kraainem. With the money, she decided to build a chapel dedicated to Saint Lawrence, the Roman patron saint of the poor. The small cemetery attached it to was consecrated by the Bishop of Cambrai on 15 May 1316. These are the earliest written records of the chapel, not before.

There is a small hospital that was built next to the chapel, called the Sint-Laureinsgasthuis. This could be an incorporation of an older one that used to be located in the corner between today’s Broekstraat (Rue du Marais) and Kreupelenstraat (Rue des Boiteux).

In the 14th century, this area was located outside the city walls. It was comprised of marshland and sand pits. The main body of water was called the “Warmoesbroek“, where “warmoes” refers to beet. The abundance of water meant that this was also the vegetable garden of Brussels. You can still find references to this with the “Peterseliestraat” (Parsley Street) and “Koolstraat” (Cabbage Street). The main track across this marshland became today’s Broekstraat (Brook Street) which was better known then as the “Warmoesbroek“, or more politely as the “Zwanenbroek” (Swanbrook). You can read more about this vegetable garden part of Brussels in my article about the nearby outer city gate of Keulsepoort.

This is the reason why the chapel was called “Sint-Laurentiuskapel aan het Zwanenbroek“.

What's so special about this place?

The Annual Planting of the “Meyboom

According to legend, in the year 1213, a fight broke out between the cities of Brussels and Leuven in the Duchy of Brabant. Here, just outside the city wall of Brussels, Brussels citizens enjoyed their favourite beer – the Lambiek – in country taverns known as “schuren” (barns). Because these so-called barns were located outside the city, the drinks were sold at such a low price, which led to huge discontentment amongst the brewers from the capital city of Leuven, who struggled to compete against such unfair competition. One afternoon, a huge number of Leuveners besieged a tavern called “Het Cattenhuys” where a wedding celebration was taking place between a Brussels-Leuven couple.

The wedding party retreated into the building. A group of crossbowmen from the Oath Covenant of Crossbow Shooters bravely defended the party guests and eventually defeated the Leuveners.

To celebrate the victory, the Brusselers planted the “Meyboom” (May Pole, or ‘Tree of Joy’).

Nearly a century later, a company of crossbowmen was founded in 1308 close to the Sint-Laurentiuskapel and after the chapel’s founding in 1314, they became known as the “Gezellen van Sint-Laurentius” (Companions of Saint Lawrence).

Around this time, again according to legend, Duke Jan III of Brabant (who reigned 1312-1355) raised the status of the companions to a guild and into the Oath Covenant of Crossbow Shooters, thereby giving the company the right to erect the Meyboom every year. The conditions for the Meyboom were set:

  • The Meyboom is to be erected every year on the eve of Saint Lawrence on 9 August before 17 hour in the afternoon;
  • Should this not be done by this hour, the right to plant the Meyboom will go to Leuven.

Henceforth, the Meyboom was said to have been continuously planted every year nearby in the Zandstraat (Rue des Sables). Even throughout the two World Wars.

Except on one occasion. Even after a few hundred years, Leuveners could not accept defeat. On 9 August 1939, a group of Leuveners tried to steal the to-be-planted Meyboom but their attempt was foiled by the police. But on 8 August 1974, under the cover of the night, the “Men of 1929” made a second attempt and successfully carrying the Meyboom off to Leuven and planted it on their Grote Markt (Great Market) by 17 hours on 9 August. But the Brusselers denied the theft to this day, claiming they had a reserve Meyboom anyway.

Today, both Brussels and Leuven plant their own Meyboom, and would happily help each other out with the preparations and the celebrations.

 

The Victory against the Sint-Elisabethklooster-op-de-Berg Sion

The grounds on which the Sint-Laurentiuskapel stood belonged to the powerful Hinckaerts family. The Hinckaerts allowed a hermitage to be constructed beside the chapel in which the hermit chaplain Gielis van Bredeycke resided in 1380. By 1434 the group of hermit women living there founded a convent known as the Sint-Elisabeth op de berg Sion” (St Elizabeth on Mount Zion).

There was however some conditions when the grounds were ceded to the nuns: that every year the sisters would say an “obit” for any deceased members of the Companions of Saint Lawrence during which they would provide food, and on the day of the annual Brussels “Ommegang” parade, the sisters would also provide them with lunch AND wine.

One fateful Ommegang day, the Companions of Saint Lawrence arrived at the convent making loud noises with drums and loaded with jugs. In an attempt to redeem themselves from this servitude, the nuns kept their doors tightly shut. Annoyed at this betrayal, the Companions of Saint Lawrence immediately brought a lawsuit before the Council of Brabant, and were confirmed in their right, the enjoyment of which had since then not been contested.

 

The Campernalisborre

Before the chapel even existed, there was a record in 1290 of a water well called the “Campernalisborre“:

In loco dicto Orsendal inter fontem dictam Campernalisborre et locum quo manent pueri de Heenbeke
“In the Orsendal where the children of de Heenbeke stayed”

Both Godding and Deligne placed this well in the Sint-Laurensstraat, right in front of the Sint-Laurentiuskapel.
This also meant the well was there before the chapel existed.
The full name of the well referred to a person’s name and title: “Sigerus de Campernalis” is the Latin translation of Zeger the Chamberlain.
It is however unclear who this person was and why the well was named after him.

How did it look like?

There are no paintings or drawings of the Sint-Laurentiuskapel that survived. The most detailed drawing comes from the 1695 map of Brussels by Jacob Harrewijn (see photo gallery).

Records show that the chapel, or at least the choir, was rebuilt around 1564.

By 1776, the hospital, which was serving poor pilgrims, was very much in debt. Its expenses amounted to 1196 florins while its income was barely 883 florins.
In 1799 under the French Occupation, the chapel and the hospital were confiscated as national property. They were sold the same year and replaced by a large brewery.

 

The Street that led to the Fall of Mayor Félix Vanderstraeten

Until the Sint-Laurentiuskapel was built in 1314, the street on the well of Campernalisborre and where the chapel was situated had no name. In the beginning, it was simply called the new street. But as time passes, it became known as the “Sint-Laurensstraat” after the chapel.

In 1880, this very same Sint-Laurensstraat would become the centre of an international scandal.

When Mayor Jules Anspach (1829-1879) died, Brussels had seen many changes: the River Zenne was vaulted over, huge boulevards copying Parisian ones were built over medieval slums. The very same year when Félix Vanderstraeten (1823-1884) took over the position, he discovered that the treasury has been emptied by the ambitious renovations. As a member of the city council since 1872 and an experienced lawyer, Vanderstraeten was the son of a brewer, who owned a large brewery in the Sint-Laurensstraat. Indeed, it was built on the location of the former Sint-Laurentiuskapel.

At the same time when Anspach was busy transforming Brussels’ cityscape, another transformation was taking place in the 1860s: the Brussels sex industry. Local doctors complained that many so-called good fathers had discovered things in the brothels, parks and alleys of the capital that they now also began to expect from their wives at home. The number of prostitutes and brothels in Brussels was also considerable. When the French poet Charles Baudelaire visited Brussels in 1864, he wrote: “C’est la coutume à Bruxelles, toutes les soirées finissent dans un établissement de tolérance” (It is customary in Brussels to finish every evening in an establishment of tolerance). Prostitution in Brussels had been regulated since the 1840s. For example, prostitutes had to report twice a week for a medical check-up. This took place in a dispensary, in the Sint-Laurensstraat.

But Anspach’s construction works brought a new problem for the industry: the cheaper brothels in the slums were torn down. The remaining brothels had to find ways to survive: by engaging even younger women so as to charge higher prices.

So the brothel owners turned to the Chief Police Commissioner Lenaers and the Head of the Vice Squad Schröder. Lenaers’ son had a lucrative contract supplying the recognised brothels with alcohol. Schröder has a mistress working in one of the largest brothels in the capital called “Madame Paradis” in the Peterseliestraat.

The duo came up with lax rules for these brothel owners, as these started trafficking under-aged girls from the UK. The English girls turned out to be very popular in Brussels. They were lured to Belgium with the promise of hot meals and comfortable housing.

A loophole in the rule was that as long as they were not virgins, the under-aged girls could be employed. An example was the 18-year-old orphan Louisa Hennessy who was lured to Brussels under false promises. Upon inspection she was found to be a virgin. So in order to be inspected by a recognised doctor in Brussels, she was sent to a brothel in Antwerp to “cure” her of her virginity. Schröder then helped with the forgery of the necessary documents.

Early in 1880, the first articles started to appear in the British press. The scandal that soon became known as the ‘white female slave trade‘ spread so widely in the British newspapers that Scotland Yard decided to send two detectives to Brussels. French paper “La Lanterne“, the Belgian paper “Le National” and the Catholic press all picked up the stories.

Vanderstraeten, who had let the facts pass without much enthusiasm, also got into trouble. The Sint-Laurensstraat, where his father’s brewery was located, had gradually become the epicentre of the Brussels prostitution world, which came under heavy fire internationally. In addition to the medical check-ups, a few brothels had already opened their doors over the years in the Sint-Laurensstraat. To make sure his father’s old brewery would not depreciate in value, Vanderstraeten sold it to a brothel owner, who intended to turn it into the largest luxury brothel in Brussels. Two days later, Vanderstraeten then went on to chair the Brussels city council, to recognise two additional brothels in the street.

When the sale came out, in the midst of the scandal, Vanderstraeten felt compelled to resign. Officially, he quit for health reasons on 14 February 1881. Today, Félix Vanderstraeten is largely forgotten as Brussels’ mayor and he is the only mayor who did not receive any recognition for his tenure.

Current situation

The very last traces of the Sint-Laurentiuskapel were allegedly seen in 1912.

On the location of the former Sint-Laurentiuskapel (which were replaced by brothels) and the Sint-Elisabethklooster-op-de-Berg Sion (which were replaced by an army barrack), everything was demolished so that an imposing Modernist building was built to house the printing house of the National Bank, designed by Marcel Van Goethem in 1950.

The printing house, called “Drukkerij van de Nationale Bank” (Imprimerie de la Banque Nationale) extended all the way from the Sint-Laurensstraat at the back to the Berlaimontlaan in front, and is flanked by the Zavelstraat and the Komediantenstraat.

The printing house of the National Bank is today no longer in use.

After their absorption into the Oath Covenant of the Crossbow Shooters (of Zavel/Sablon) in the 14th century, the “Gezellen van Sint-Laurentius” (Companions of Saint Lawrence) in fact stopped their independent existence, but was part of the Guild of Crossbowmen. So the so-called exclusive right given by the Duke of Brabant to plant the Meyboom cannot be confirmed. Historically, it was the Grand Guild of Zavel/Sablon that gave permission until 1785 to the managers of the chapel to go to the Chamber of Accounts of the Duchy of Brabant to take a tree free of charge from the Sonian Forest (Zoniënwoud in Dutch) in order to carry out this ancestral tradition. With the arrival of the French invaders at the end of the 18th century, all religious associations and brotherhoods were abolished.

However, a secular society made up of locals carrying the same name of “Gezellen van Sint-Laurentius” continued the tradition of the Meyboom as well as that of the giants that had belonged to the Grand Guild and the City of Brussels. It was this society that formally registered in 16 August 1880 as a workers’ association, and are today the ones who are organising the yearly planting of the Brussels Meyboom. Since 2005, the Meyboom procession is recognised by UNESCO as immaterial heritage.

 

Sources:

Vannieuwenhuyze, B. (2011) “Brussel, de Ontwikkeling van een middeleeuwse stedelijke ruimte.” Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Henne, A. Wauters, A. (1845) “Histoire de la ville de Bruxelles. Volume I-III” Brussels: Librairie Encyclopédique de Périchon.
https://faro.be/erfgoeddag/nieuws/sint-laurentius-over-de-brusselse-meyboomstoet-de-schatten-van-de-kerk-en-een-verm
https://www.meyboom.be/nl/histoire.html
https://www.kortweg.brussels/de-burgemeester-van-brussel-en-de-handel-in-blanke-slavinnen/
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9lix_Vanderstraeten

  1. Harrewijn, Jacob. (1695) “Bruxella, nobilissima Brabantiæ civitas, 1695” Maison du Roi (image)
  2. Gouman, A. (1880) “Règlement de la Société ouvrière des Compagnons de Saint-Laurent” (image)
  3. Stevens, A. (1900-1951) “Portrait of Felix Vanderstraeten, Mayor of Brussels from 1879 to 1881” Brussels City Museum (image)

HOW IT LOOKS LIKE TODAY

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