St Aubin's Cathedral

The first dean, Frederick of Lorraine, brother-in-law of Albert II, about 1050 secured from Mainz Cathedral a portion of the head of Saint Albanus, to whose patronage the collegiate church was dedicated.

[1] The church became a cathedral by virtue of the papal bull of 12 May 1559 establishing the new bishoprics in the Low Countries, with the Diocese of Namur created as a suffragan see of the Archdiocese of Cambrai.

[1] In the cathedral, a marble plaque near the high altar conceals a casket containing the heart of Don Juan of Austria, governor of the Habsburg Netherlands, who died in 1578; his body lies in the Escorial near Madrid.

[3] In the interior, there is an ornamented frieze, carved with swags of fruit and flowers between the Corinthian capitals runs in an unbroken band entirely around the church.

The interior contains works of art that include paintings by Anthony van Dyck, Jacob Jordaens and Jacques Nicolaï, a Jesuit lay brother and student of Rubens.