Miracles and Morals: Architecture as Agent of Change in Seventeenth-Century Brussels

In 1616, a community of monks of the ascetic Minim order settled in the ill-reputed Bovendael-quarter of Brussels. Several nobles and noble ladies at the Brussels court of the archdukes helped the monks acquiring property, so that they could build a monastery and church on the site of a former brothel. When construction was finished, an inscription on the façade read “what used to be of Venus; is now the home of the Virgin” (Quae fuerant veneris, fiunt nunc Virginis aedes).

This paper uses the Minim foundation as window onto the roles of court patronage in the broad Counter-Reformation efforts to effect societal change in the early seventeenth century Low Countries. Specifically, I focus on the propagation of sexual mores through art and architecture.

Attempting to restore Habsburg authority and Catholic piety in the Low Countries after the religious troubles of the sixteenth century, the archdukes Albert and Isabella of Austria gave the impetus to the institution or revival of many cults and devotions by founding or benefiting churches and convents all over the Southern Netherlands. Even their court itself was modeled after monastic examples: by enforcing a strict separation between the genders and strongly promoting virtues of chastity and piety, Protestant attacks on courtly lasciviousness were to be countered. This courtly image was to act as an example for society at large.

By helping monks of this particular order to “conquer” the vicious territory of Bovendael, the archdukes and their courtiers committed themselves to the social disciplining of a city quarter. Discussing the role of courtiers and their employment of specific religious patronage in disseminating good Christian behaviour offers new insights on the function of art and architecture in the building of early modern society.