BRUXELLES - L'ÉGLISE du SABLON.

Another really nice example of Brabantine Gothic is this little church just south of the Co-Cathedral of St Michael and St Gudula. In French it is called the 'Église Notre-Dame du Sablon' and in Dutch 'Onze-Lieve-Vrouw ten Zavel'.

Brussels was a walled city. Just outside the walls was a sandy clay area known as the Sablon or Zavel. In the early 13th century this plot of land was handed over by the Duke of Brabant to one of the Guilds of the city: the Noble Serment of Crossbowmen. It was used as an exercise ground by the members of the Guild. Nearby they built themselves a Chapel: the Capella Beatae Mariae super Zabulum.

But in 1348 the place became somewhat notorious.

Beatrijs Soetkens was a devout follower of the Virgin and it seems that she had a vision which told her to go to Antwerp and steal the miraculous statue of ‘Onze-Lieve-Vrouw op ‘t Stocxken’ (Our Lady on the little stick). Somehow she got it back to Brussels by boat and placed it in the Capella Beatae Mariae super Zabulum.

All of this was perceived as a miracle.

The Guild of Crossbowmen took on the relic/object as a symbol of their own and promised to celebrate the miracle each year with a procession called in Dutch an 'Ommergang'. These days the event is a pageant held in the Grand'Place each year in July. The relic itself suffered under the Calvinists and was destroyed.

At the beginning of the fifteenth century work began on a new Brabantine Gothic Church that took a century to complete. This is the Church we see today.

As time went the Sablon became an area where the rich and famous lived in Brussels - it went up-market and was gentrified. One of the great families of Europe was the Thurn und Taxis. They lived opposite the Church and gave money to add a couple of chapels to it over the years: "the St. Ursula Chapel north of the choir (1651-1676) started by the sculptor-architect Lucas Faydherbe from Mechelen and completed by Vincent Anthony, and the Chapel of Saint Marcouf situated south of the choir (1690).

At the beginning of the French occupation in 1795 the church was saved from the anti-religious zeal of the occupiers and their supporters thanks to the priest swearing allegiance to the Republic. The church remained closed for a few years and was returned to religious service under Napoleon, as a subsidiary of the Chapel Church." (Wikipedia)

By the way the Thurn und Taxis family has importance to postcards as well!

As imperial postmasters they had founded the first international postal service in 1516.

A postcard published Th. Van Den Heuvel of Brussels, number 25.