ABOUT
From 1506 t0 1785, was a special convent dedicated to Mary Magdalene known as the Maria-Magdalenaklooster located on today’s Kleerkopersstraat (Rue des Fripiers), bordered with the Schildknaapstraat (Rue de l’Écuyer) and Greepstraat (Rue de la Fourche). Known also as the ‘Priorij Bethanië’ (Priory of Bethany), the convent was set up for former prostitutes called at that time “bekeerde sonderessen” – repentant female sinners. Running through the location today is the Grétrystraat (Rue Grétry) paved in the 19th century.
Origin
The Syphilis Pandemic
The ‘Disease of Naples’ was first reported in Hainaut in 1495, but it spread like wild fire to the rest of the Low Countries. It did not take long that people realised that it was transmitted sexually, as sex workers suffered enormously from its ravages. To stop the further spread of the disease, asylums were set up for prostitutes under the invocation of Mary Magdalene, who in the bible was insinuated to be a prostitute. To be clear, these asylums were essentially convents. They were closed communities where the former prostitutes took a vow to repent their “sins” and became nuns. These convents for ‘bekeerde sonderessen’ (repentant female sinners) as they were called, were also known as the White Sisters, after the colour of their habits that signifies purity.
In 1506, Marc Van Steenberghe, Dean of the Collegiale kerk van Sint-Michiel en Sint-Goedele, set up such an asylum and community in his will. The convent would be constructed on the property he bought from the Lord of Arenberg a year before, along the Lange Ridderstraat (today’s Kleerkopersstraat). There, he ensured that there was place for thirteen penitent sisters and one supervisor.
In 1512, the plan became effective after the chapter of the Collegiale kerk van Sint-Michiel en Sint-Goedele sanctioned the provision made by their former dean and agreed to the foundation of a convent under the order of Saint Augustine with a chapel, a bell tower and a cemetery, in addition to the dormitory and the refectory. It was also then approved by the Bishop of Kamerijk, Jacob de Croÿ.
The Madelonetten: White but not White
To assist with the establishment of the new convent, White Sisters from the convent in Antwerp were asked to come help. But there was a problem: there was already a Convent of White Sisters for former prostitutes in Brussels, since 1235.
The Regularissenklooster Onze Lieve Vrouw ter Rosen gheplant in Jericho was the official white sisters convent in Brussels. As they were a merger of two convents, their sisters wore white habits with the rose of Jericho. Located along the Steenweg (today’s Vlaamsesteenweg), this convent occupied a large area, including an infirmary, which often conflicted with the Sint-Corneliusgasthuis down the road.
To avoid the confusion with the other White Sisters, the newcomers were called ‘Madelonetten’, after the name of their new order, which in Latin was ‘Sorores Penitents Beatae Mariae Magdalenae’.
Soon after its establishment, the Maria-Magdalenaklooster grew in size. There were more than twenty novices, converts, choir sisters, and non-entering women could also stay there for a small fee.
Did Brussels’ Maria-Magdalenaklooster continued to only recruit former prostitutes, even after the syphilis pandemic had gradually subsided? It was unclear whether there were instances where the convent could have stepped up to shelter women who escaped abusive husbands, or girls who got themselves pregnant and were chased out by their parents. From the records, we could only ascertain the sisters usually came from a poor background and from the surrounding areas of Brussels.
What's so special about this place?
Of Losses and Wins
When the Calvinists took over Brussels in 1580 and set up the Brussels Republic, the Madelonetten sisters fled their convent, which was completely sacked and looted the following year. The Maria-Magdalenaklooster was only re-established in 1585.
Luckily for them, the ‘miraculous hosts’ worshipped at the Collegiale kerk van Sint-Michiel en Sint-Goedele since 1370 were hidden in the beam of a house adjacent to their church to avoid being destroyed by the Protestants.
With a grant given to the Madelonetten sisters, the Maria-Magdalenaklooster bought the house on 20 May 1661 and transformed it into a Chapel of the Holy Sacrament of Miracles, attached to its newly renovated church. The first stone was laid by the archbishop on 10 August 1662, and it was consecrated on 12 May 1671.
The by-now-fossilised miraculous hosts went back to Collegiale kerk van Sint-Michiel en Sint-Goedele of course, but the beam was worshiped in this chapel for two centuries.
While that may seem like a win, but the 17th century was the height of the Counter Reformation in the Low Countries led by Dominican fanatics the likes of the Predikherenklooster. From 1645 onwards, the Madelonetten sisters had to from now live in silence and, upon entry, give up all their possessions.
Another blow came in 1695 when the French bombarded Brussels. The Maria-Magdalenaklooster was completely destroyed. To rebuild their convent, the nuns had to sell two of their five yield houses in 1696 and take on a loan in 1715. They were obviously not able to repay the load because in 1734, they received the permission to beg inside their church.
Fortunately, they could still count on benefactors. One of them, Melchior Zyberts († 1723), Councilor of Brabant, received a marble burial monument in their church by renowned Brabant sculptor, Michiel van der Voort the Elder (with a bust and two allegorical female images).
How did it look like?
A Baroque Beauty
The reconstructions of the Maria-Magdalenaklooster after the destruction by the Calvinists turned it into a splendid baroque beauty. The new church, now enlarged with the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament of Miracles, was ready by 1677.
Inside the church, were two remarkable paintings: “The Resurrection of Lazarus” painted in 1664 by Gaspar de Crayer and “Saint Cecilia” by Jan van Orley. The link with Gaspar de Crayer was not a coincidence, as will be explained in the following paragraphs.
1783: Banned and Abolished
Under the 1782 Edict of Tolerance by Habsburg Emperor Jozef II, Brussels’ Maria-Magdalenaklooster was abolished in 1783, like many of Brabant’s other religious institutions. Given that the sister lived in poverty and debt since the destruction of their beautiful convent in the French bombardment in 1695, their property did not raise much money for the state.
It is unsure how many sisters were present when the community was banned. But by 1785, when the compound was freed up, the sisters did not return.
Brussels first air balloon first took off here in the compound of the former Maria-Magdalenaklooster! This is the reason why the main adjacent street called today the Kleerkopersstraat (Rue des Fripiers), came to be known as the Rue du Ballon during the French Occupation.
The Horrible Murder of Willem van Criekinge
By 1787, a police post and a prison was set up in the compound of the former convent.
In the context of the Brabant Revolution (1789-1790), as a result of the revolt against the religious purges by Emperor Jozef II, the whole Southern Netherlands plunged into an uber Catholic frenzy that presumed itself holier than the Pope.
A young man named Willem van Criekinge shouted an insult at a Capuchin friar Josse Huyghe during the Maria Procession on the Grasmarkt on 6 October 1790. Assuming he was anti-Catholic, the crowd went after him. The police caught him and locked him up in the prison in the former Maria-Magdalenaklooster. But the crowd outside shouted for his blood. Unable to maintain control, the police opened up his cell and the mob went after him. The poor boy was dragged to the Grote Markt where he was promptly hanged on a lamppost in front of the city hall. The mob grabbed him from all sides and the rope broke. A certain Jacquemyn tried to behead him, perhaps to end his misery, missed and chopped off his chin instead. Over the next two days, various parts of his body were paraded around Brussels as prized trophies.
Under the French Invasion and Occupation (1792-1793, 1794-1815), the prison at the Maria-Magdalenaklooster held political prisoners. The church itself was demolished in 1795 and the abandoned convent compound was sold as a national good to a certain Pirlet/Pierlet in 1799. In the exsting convent buildings, he set up a butcher shop on the ground floor and a dance hall on the first floor. After Pierlet’s death in 1840, some kind of bazaar took over.
Rue Grétry: A Street Runs through
In 1860, the Brussels government decided to pave a new street that would run through the compound of the former Maria-Magdalenaklooster. The idea was to connect the Rue des Bouchers (the medieval ‘Lange Beenhouwersstraat‘) to the Rue des Fripiers (the old ‘Korte Ridderstraat‘). The shortcut would make the traffic flow more easily.
The new street, Rue Grétry, was named after Liège composer A.E.M. Grétry (1747-1813).
With the cover-up of the River Zenne by the estbalishment of the North-South connection, the new broad Boulevard Anspach was created. The second part of the Rue Grétry was extended in 1867-1871 to the boulevard, and then further on to the Rue des Halles where a new market hall “Halles Centrales” was located.
Gaspar de Crayer (1584 – 1669)
Although born in Antwerp, the young painter Gaspar de Crayer was shrewd enough to seek his fortunes in Brussels, the capital of the Duchy of Brabant and of the Habsburg Netherlands.
It was said that he took up residence in a house located on the Korte Ridderstraat, a street that led from the Lange Ridderstraat to the Botermarkt where the Sint-Niklaaskerk was located. His house was directly opposite that the entrance of the Maria-Magdalenaklooster.
With such a famous former neighbour, it was no wonder that Gaspar de Crayer’s “The Resurrection of Lazarus” was hung in the newly renovated baroque church of the convent.
In the course of the 16th century, second-hand clothes dealers set up shop here in the Korte Ridderstraat, and soon it became known as the ‘Oudkleerkopersstraat‘ (used clothes street). Because of the convent, it was also known as the Madelonettenstraat.
One of the oldest streets of Brussels, the Korte Ridderstraat had a refuge house owned by the Abbey of Grimbergen. Their abbot Cornelius de Kempeneer (from 1416 to 1446) bought it in the 15th century and it was inhabited for a long time by monks driven out by the Calvinists. During the French Occupation, the refuge was sold and transformed into a hotel. By the late 19th century, this was the Hôtel des Étrangers, located on Number 52.
Today,the street name is the Kleerkopersstraat (Rue des Fripiers).
Grijpstraat
At the back of the Maria-Magdalenaklooster was the S-shaped ‘Grijpstraat‘, translated into French as ‘Rue de la Fourche‘ – literally ‘Fork Street’. This ancient narrow alleyway meanders from today’s Schildknaapsstraat (Rue de l’Ecuyer) to the Grasmarkt (Rue du Marché aux Herbes).
Despite its 19th century French translation, the etymology of this street is in fact undetermined. First accounted for in 1295 as ‘Griipstrate‘, ‘Gripstrate‘, the Middle Dutch word ‘grijp’/’gripe’ is synonymous with the Middle English ‘griff‘ which means a deep narrow glen, ravine or ditch. The modern Dutch word is ‘greppel‘.
Could the street have been a ditch before it was filled up? Looking at its unusual shape, this could very well be the case.
Numbers 49-51 was the old dance studio and apartment of the famous French ballet choreographer Maurice Béjart (1927-2007).
Current situation
Not a single brick is retained from the former Maria-Magdalenaklooster.
The only thing of value when their possessions were put up on sale in 1785, was Gaspar de Crayer’s “The Resurrection of Lazarus”, purchased for 1,800 florins on behalf of the French king.
Today you can still see this painting in the church of Saint-Germain in Rennes.
The “sacred beam” has also been stored, but I have not been able to trace its whereabouts.
The archives of the convent are stored in Mechelen. The archives includes statutes and ordinances, inspections (1590-1775), processes, interrogations of novices and professions (1653-1771), accounts (1709-20 and 1733-36) and a list of sisters.
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.
Rombaut, J-A. (1777) “Bruxelles illustrée, ou description chronologique et historique de cette ville.” Brussels: Chez Pauwels.
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalenaklooster_(Brussel)
https://monument.heritage.brussels/nl/streets/10004055
https://www.ilotsacre.be/site/fr/curiosites/rues_principales.htm#Gretry
- van Deventer, J. (1550-1565) “Atlas of the city of the Low Countries : 73 minutes between 1550-1565 on orders of Emperors Charles V and Philip II” KBR (image)
- de Tailly, M., van der Horst, N., Santvoort, A. D. (1640) “Bruxella nobilissima Brabantiae civitas anno 1640” KBR (image)
- de Crayer, G. (1664) “Resurrection of Lazarus” Musée des Beaux-arts de Rennes (image)
HOW IT LOOKS LIKE TODAY
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