Initially primarily a preparatory institution for the Major Seminary, Bruges, it is now a substantial secondary school for the local community.
The diocesan Minor Seminary opened on 27 May 1806 in buildings that between 1641 and 1797 had housed an Augustinian Latin school.
[2] From 1849 to 1953, the Minor Seminary provided philosophy courses for those who had completed their secondary education and were beginning their training for the priesthood.
[2] Through the influence of Guido Gezelle and the activism of Albrecht Rodenbach, the school became one of the intellectual centres of the 19th-century Flemish Movement.
During the First World War the German occupying forces requisitioned the building as a field hospital.