In Flanders Fields

To talk about the origins of the neighbourhood in the “Kapel van Onze-Lieve-Vrouw ter Koorts” (Chapel of Our-Lady-of-Fevers), we have to first start with the neighbourhood in which the chapel is located. Back in the early Middle Ages, this part of Leuven was located just outside the city walls, which today can still be seen in the Sint-Donatius city park. Persons of undesirable characters or those working in vice often had to live outside the city walls, and left in their own devices whenever invaders struck the city.

In the second half of the 13th century, a group of immigrants from the County of Flanders and formed their own extra-muros village, and so, the area became known as ‘Vleminckxveld‘ (Flemish fields).

One should be reminded that the real historic Flanders has little to do with the current political Flanders invented only in the late 19th century. The County of Flanders was ruled by its own Count, and its territory covered today’s East and West Flanders, the French Flanders region of France and the Zeelandic Flanders region of the Netherlands. The Duchy of Brabant, with its capital in Leuven, was a completely different country. Under the Treaty of Verdun of 843, Flanders belonged to West Francia while Brabant belonged to Middle Francia (later Lotharingia). This division continued throughout most of the history of the two states under Habsburg rule until the French invasion in 1795. Today, the Brabantian identity is largely forgotten, taken over by the awkward terms of ‘Flanders’ now referring to the whole Dutch-speaking region of modern-day Belgium and ‘Flemish’ to the people who live there and the various Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium. To know more about the rise of the political Flanders, check out my articles on ‘The Self-Identification of the Other: How Flanders came to be the Name of the Region Today‘.

Between the 12th and 15th century, the County of Flanders was renowned throughout Europe for its weaving industry. Yet because Flanders was under the rule of the French Empire, which was in constant combat with England, Flanders’ main source of wool, the collapse of the industry in the second half of the 13th century led to waves of Flemish migration into the Duchy of Brabant. This led to some of them settling just outside Leuven, not as welcomed guests but as undesirables.

The Miracle of the Immovable Statuette of Virgin Mary

The story began in 1535, when a female resident in the Vleminckxveld placed a wooden statuette of Virgin Mary in Pieta in the altar on the front of her house. That night, a group of (possibly drunk) students tried to remove the statue, but it refused to budge “like a block of granite”. This was hailed as a miracle. Henceforth, the statuette was hung on a tree in the neighbourhood, drawing veneration from far and wide. The earliest account of this story was written by Norbertine friar Augustine Wichmans in his “Brabantia Mariana tripartite” (1632). The statue has survived the centuries, and is now preserved in the Sint-Jozefskerk (St Joseph’s Church) in the Bogaardenstraat in Leuven.

The devotional attraction of the miraculously immovable statue was so great, that the pastor of the parish church Sint-Michielskerk gave his permission in 1540 to build a modest chapel for the Pieta statuette. the chapel then received the name of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-van-de-Vlamingenstraat (Chapel of Our Lady of the Flemingstreet) or simply as Vleminckxkapel (Flemish Chapel).

Soon, the Flemish Chapel gained the reputation of a place of healing, especially for fever.

This reputation drew believers from not just the neighbourhood, but also from the whole city and the surrounding region. The number of devotees necessitated the construction of a bigger building in 1601. In 1603, the Archbishop of Mechelen, Mathias Hovius (Matthias van Hove), officiated this new chapel. A watercolour painting of this building can be found in the 17th century ‘Het Leuvens schetsboek’ (The Leuven Sketchbook), from the perspective of Flessenstraat (today’s Frederik Lintsstraat).

The theologians at the Leuven University were managing the chapel, and they were the ones who stimulated the devotion of Virgin Mary, making the chapel a site of pilgrimage. Under the supervision of Sint-Michielskerk, the chapel started its own brotherhood in 1643, who organised the yearly procession of the Virgin Mary devotion and open air masses, with the abbots from the nearby Abdij van Park.

The Slow Road to a New Chapel

On 8 October 1641, a large crowd gathered outside the chapel. Together with the magistrates of the city, the Marquise of Aarschot, Dorothea van Croÿ gave an audience to devotees of the Virgin Mary. Then, she laid the first stone of a new building that will accommodate even more pilgrims.

The cult of Virgin Mary in combination with her invocation to heal especially children with fever, was a huge success. By the 17th century, the chapel became known as Kapel van Onze-Lieve-Vrouw ter Koorts to highlight its specific expertise.

Parents hang ex voto all over the walls of the chapel, often pictures and drawings of their sick children, in search of divine intervention to help them recover. The funds and support from the Marquise came at an opportune moment.

Yet works barely progressed in the years to come. In fact, the construction only started in 1700 and completely in 1705. The roof only came in 1733.

Despite all structural setbacks, the religious exploitation of worried parents never stopped. Desperate parents of sick children and grateful parents of healed children continued to adorn the walls of the chapel with paintings of their children.