About the Great Beguinage (Groot Begijnhof)
The beguinage dates from the 13th century. The community had about 360 beguines in its heyday in the 17th century. Today, the beguinage consists of a series of alleys, courtyards, gardens and parks with dozens of houses and convents built from traditional sandstone. It is currently inhabited by students, foreign visiting professors and staff of KU Leuven, the oldest Catholic university in Europe. The Great Beguinage was listed as UNESCO world heritage in 1998.
- Established around 1232 as a community of religious women who settled outside the city walls, on the banks of the river Dijle
- Original little craftwork houses with clay fillings and straw roofs gradually replaced by brick houses
- Some of the 72 houses have been named after a saint or event in the testament.
- Church Sint-Jan-de-Doperkerk is the oldest building, construction beginning in 1305.
- In 1962 KU Leuven bought the estate for 400.000 euros, with the exception of the church and a couple of houses that were later transferred to the university.
- Today the Great Beguinage university residential estate houses some 450 students, professors and staff belonging to KU Leuven.
- Provides temporary accommodation to senior students, guest faculty members and international researchers
- In 1998, UNESCO added the Great Beguinage to the World Heritage list, together with 12 other Flemish beguinages.
About the beguines
- Communities of beguines formed at the end of the 12th century .
- Beguines were women who dedicated their life to God without retracting themselves from the regular, secular life.
- Distinctive characteristic of the Beguine movement was that it was not, unlike most convent orders, founded at a specific time by a specific person.
- Movement gradually grew as individual, religiously inspired women found one another, each of them practicing their religion without actual rule and initially also without generalized vows.
- At the end of the 18th century some 300 Beguines lived here, and the last Beguine of the Great Beguinage in Leuven died only in 1988.