Munsterbilzen Abbey

The women's abbey of Belisia (Bilzen) was, according to legend, founded around 670 by the holy Landrada, possibly under the direction of Lambertus, bishop of Maastricht (from 669 to 709).

The village that formed near the abbey was named Belisia Monasterii, or Munsterbilzen, to distinguish between Beukenbilzen (now Bilzen) and Eikenbilzen (now called Eigenbilzen).

Under Ida van Bonen, the mother of Godfrey of Bouillon and Boudewijn I of Jerusalem, around the middle of the 11th century, the abbey of Munsterbilzen received a large number of bequests, among others in Bilzen, Riemst, Waltwilder, Martenslinde, Gellik, Eigenbilzen, and Rijkhoven.

From the 17th century this right was disputed by the Saint Lambert's chapter of Liège and the prince-bishop, and after many processes the abbess in 1773 definitively recognized the sovereignty of the bishop.

Since 1895, in the remaining buildings a nursing institution for psychiatric disorders has been established, initially run by the congregation Sisters of Saint Joseph from Clermont-Ferrand, and now known as the Medical Center Sint-Jozef.

In the interior there is a Roman baptismal font, the tombstone of canoness Anna van Merode, and a large number of paintings and sculptures from the 15th-18th century.

The so-called abbess house and the main entrance in Maaslandse renaissance style were rebuilt around 1730-50 after a design by the Aachen architect Johann Joseph Couven.

The abbey school was built in 1725 at the expense of Abbess Anne-Antoinette of Tilly d'Aspremont of Lynden van Reckheim and was among other things meant for free education to six poor girls.

In 1591 it was in the possession of the Liège canon Arnold Wachtendonck, rector of the Landrada altar in the abbey of Munsterbilzen, and as a result of a dispute between two candidate abbesses the pope had been appointed as supervisor of the property and income of the monastery.