Grimbergen, Belgium - Beer and (?) piety

Yesterday afternoon I drove out to Grimbergen, in the northern, Flemish-speaking suburbs of Brussels. Say Grimbergen to your average Belgium, and he will immediately think of the heavy beer of that name. Given that most Belgian beers are named after monasteries (that can be the subject of another posting), you will not be suprised to learn that it also has a large abbey, founded in the 12th century by the Norbertines (generally known outside Belgium as Premonstratensians), canons who continue to live a mixed contemplative-pastoral life under the Augustinian Rule.

The abbey church is one of several superb pieces of late 17th century architecture in the country (others are another Norbertine abbey at Averbode and the parish church at Ninove), even if it was never finished to its full size, lacking 22 metres of nave and the customary monumental west façade.

 

Like many churches of the period between about 1650 and the French Revolution, its decoration raises huge questions as to the spirituality of the time. As elsewhere during this period, the Virgin predominates, in various forms: ascending to heaven, with swords piercing her heart, displaying the infant Jesus in large wall-paintings, or as an image of the church, with the chalice in one hand and the cross in another. Christ is relegated to a transept chapel, albeit on a superb, and quite sensuous, crucifix, flanked by a good painting of the erection of the cross. It is Christ in agony, with no note of resurrection.

 

Trying, like an archaeologist, to read back from these outer signs just what was the Catholic civilization of the time in Belgium (Spanish until 1713, Austrian until the French Revolution), I suspect that it splits into two main levels: an educated upper layer moving fast in the direction of deism and rationalism, and a popular level, running towards an uneducated and popular piety. Whether there was any real deep spirituality of at least reasonable theological purity, and an ongoing tradition of deep prayer, it is difficult to know. I sort of doubt it.

               

What is becoming increasingly clear to me is that Belgium lacks any real, deep and socially inclusive religious identity, in the same way as there is a Russian, Swedish, English, French or Spanish one. Since the fall of the Flemish-Burgundain dynasty in 1377, the southern Lowlands (what since 1830 has been Belgium) were first Spanish, then Austrian colonies. The only real movement with any impetus in this part of the world was Protestantism, which led to the split-off of what is now the Netherlands in the late 17th century, joined by a good portion of the Antwerp bourgeoisie who emigrated north.

Indeed, it is extraordinary difficult to produce a good Christian narrative about Belgium. The local Orthodox have tried to plug the gap with a hundred or so pre-1054 saints, but the result is forced and artificial: this is not tradition in the sense of being the latest link in a continuing story.

Indeed, no one to my knowledge has come up in the last fifty years with a good history of the Belgian church. I am not surprised. Writing the history of the Belgian brewing industry would be a much easier (and more profitable) assignment...