Vander Linden was born in Leuven on 27 April 1868 and was educated in the state secondary school there.
He graduated doctor of philosophy from Ghent University in 1891, with a thesis on the constitution of the medieval city of Leuven.
[2] In 1895 he obtained a special doctorate in historical sciences with a thesis on merchant guilds in the medieval Low Countries.
He and his family became refugees in England, returning after the end of the German occupation of Belgium in World War I.
[2] He was an active contributor to the Biographie Nationale de Belgique, and from 1935 to 1944 secretary of the committee responsible for publishing it.