The Story of Brussels

by Ernest Gilliat-Smith

The mother church of Brussels, the church, that is, to which all the other Brussels churches were formerly submitted, in origin the most ancient of them all, the largest, too, and the most interesting in many respects, perhaps not the most beautiful, but certainly the most picturesque, not only of Brussels churches, but of all the churches of Brabant, is not so much the monument of the people of Brussels as the family monument of the princes who governed them, and more especially of the princes of the great house of Louvain: from Godfrey III. onwards almost all of them had a hand in it. The work was continued by several of their successors, and was at last brought to completion during the reign of Duke Philip VI. (Philip IV. of Spain), in 1653.

During the latter half of the ten hundreds the original Church of Saint Gudila, which stood on the spot now occupied by the nave of the present building, had been greatly damaged by fire. No attempt seems to have been made to restore it, and when Godfrey III. ascended the throne in 1142 it was fast falling into decay. He therefore determined to raise up a new church, which should be second to none in the Low Country, and of such vast dimensions that it could be built over the old church, which would thus be available for public worship whilst the work was in progress.

This plan he presently proceeded to carry out; the old church was patched up, and in due course he solemnly laid the foundation stone of the present structure. This was somewhere about the year 1170. At first the work was pushed on with vigour, but for some reason or other, probably owing to lack of funds, when the eastern wall of the ambulatory was completed, things came to a standstill, and nothing further was done for nearly sixty years. Duke Godfrey died in 1190, and his son and successor, Henry the Warrior—a keen, unscrupulous, strenuous prince, with a passion for territorial aggrandisement, and never happy unless he were doing something to promote the prosperity of his beloved towns, was too occupied with intrigue and warfare until the closing years of his long and successful career to have any leisure for church building. It was not till 1226 that he at last began to seriously think of realising his father's project, and he did something more than think about it: in the beautiful Transition work in chancel, transept and ambulatory we have the result of his meditations.

Henry himself, in the deed by which he endowed the Chapter of Saint Gudila's with ten new stalls, informs us of the motive which had inspired him. The work had been resumed, he says, by his order 'in honour of the Blessed Virgin.' But was he impelled by no other motive than his devotion to the Mother of God? What we know of the antecedents of the man suggests an affirmative answer.

The famous road from Cologne to Bruges—that road on which, as we have already seen, the commercial prosperity of the cities of Brabant at this time wholly depended—before entering the duchy of Brabant passed through the Pays de Liége, and the bishop who ruled that little principality was thus enabled, whenever he would, to create a commercial crisis by closing up that portion of the great trade route which traversed his domains.

To this state of things the burghers of Brabant objected, and Duke Henry would fain have put an end to it by transferring the See of Saint Lambert to one of his own towns. Though after the disastrous battle of Montenaeken (October 14, 1213)—'Saint Lambert's triumph,' as the men of Liége called it—he had humbled himself before Hugh of Pierrepont and sued for pardon on bended knees, his reconciliation with the bishop was only a feigned one, nor had he in reality abandoned his scheme; and it is more than likely that when, in his old age, he at last set his hand to the task which his father had left undone, he flattered himself that the church he was rearing would one day be a cathedral.

During the long peace which Brussels enjoyed from the closing years of the Warrior's reign to the end of the reign of his great-grandson, Duke John the Victorious, the building operations at Saint Gudila's were carried on continuously, but the progress made was comparatively slow, for the Dukes were often short of cash, and were obliged to have recourse to all kinds of expedients to raise the necessary funds. In 1273, however, the chancel was completed and the greater part of the transept, and it is most likely that in the same year the old church was pulled down. All the work done during this period may be described as First Pointed. The tracery of the clerestory windows is, of course, flamboyant; it was substituted for the original tracery during the first quarter of the fifteen hundreds. In the course of the succeeding century the north aisle was added and the lowest stage of the nave, and at least the foundation of the towers, all this in the style then in vogue—Second Pointed. Here we have the work of three Sovereigns, John II., John III., and Duchess Jeanne, the last of the Sovereigns of Brabant of the old Louvain line. The building was completed by the Dukes of the Burgundian dynasty, and the distinctive features of Brabant architecture now become more emphasised. In the nave, for example, we have the beginning of that transformation of the triforium, which was so marked a feature in the Brabant style. Here it is still a separate story, still a passage in the thickness of the wall, but the arcading has completely disappeared, and in its place is a series of vertical bars which are simply a continuation of the mullions of the windows above. These are in the same plane as the triforium, and are only separated from it by bands of masonry so attenuated that they appear to be nothing more than transom bars. The effect is not happy: each section of the blind story with the corresponding section of the clerestory above, seems to be one huge window with the lower part bricked up. The exact date of this portion of the building is uncertain, but the nave must have been completed before 1446, for we know that in this year the Baroness de Heeze was condemned by Philippe l'Asseuré to fill the great west window with stained glass by way of a fine for having infringed the rights of the city. The present glass, however, is of much later date. It was presented by Everard de La Marck, Prince-Bishop of Liége, in 1528.

The north aisle with its lateral chapels is of later date than the fifteenth-century work in the nave, and the architecture is of a more pleasing character. The general design is much the same as that of the south aisle, but the details differ considerably: instead of clustered columns we have here richly-moulded prismatic piers. Save those of the first two bays, which are of earlier date than the rest, they are all adorned with capitals. Hendrick Cooman, who was master mason of Saint Gudila's from 1460 to 1470, probably designed the bays without capitals, and the other bays are most likely the work of his successor, Jan Vandenberg, the builder of the Town Hall, or, to be accurate, of a considerable portion of it, and who also designed the upper church at Anderlecht, where all the columns have capitals. He directed the works at Saint Gudila's till his death in 1485, and the richly sculptured balustrade which surrounds the roof of the nave is attributed to him. The tracery of this feature is in form unique, and more curious than beautiful. It consists of a series of K's, an allusion, perhaps, to the name of the reigning Duke, Karel de Stout (Charles the Bold), or perhaps to Karlekin, as the Flemings called Charles V., but of course in the latter case it cannot be Vandenberg's work.

Though Hendrick Cooman was not so famous an architect as his successor, Jan Vandenberg, he seems to have done very well for himself in his profession, and to have been a man of consideration in the city of Brussels. He was four times a member of the Town Council: in 1448, 1451, 1458 and 1461, and in 1468 he was named burgomaster. There were two burgomasters in Brussels, it should be borne in mind. One represented the patricians and the other the plebeians, and in all probability Hendrick Cooman was second burgomaster. The name of the mason who succeeded Vandenberg should be held in perpetual remembrance. He designed the beautiful porch, much marred by restoration, which gives entrance to the south transept—Jan Vereycken. He occupied the position of master-mason until his death, which took place somewhere about the close of the century, and if he did not actually complete the Church of Saint Gudila, he at all events brought it within measurable distance of completion.

At this time the east end presented a very different appearance to what it does now; the chancel aisles, like the aisles of the nave, being flanked with side chapels—four on the north side, and a like number facing south. They were probably built about the same time as the choir, as the church archives bear witness that one Leefdael, a chatelain of Brussels, who died in 1293, was buried in the Chapel of Saint Peter, the first on the gospel side. All these chapels have disappeared. Those on the left were pulled down to make room for the Sainte Chapelle des Miracles, of which we have already spoken, in 1533; and those on the right, in 1649, when the Lady Chapel was built. This noble structure is of the same form and of the same vast dimensions as the Sacrament Chapel, but the details are less ornate. Here we have the last effort of the Gothic architects of Brussels, an effort not unworthy of their grand traditions.