Tongerlo Abbey

[2] It was founded in 1128 in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by Giselbert of Kasterlee, who not only gave the land, but also himself became a lay brother in the new community.

[2] From small beginnings the abbey became influential in the district called Campine, now in north-east Belgium and the south of the Netherlands, then a wild area.

The bishops of Cambrai, the chapters of Liège and Maastricht, and several landowners entrusted the charge of parishes, with the right of patronage, to the abbey.

[3] From 1725 to 1732 Willem Ignatius Kerricx worked as an architect, sculptor and painter on the decorations for the Tongerlo Abbey and designed the new the abbot's residence.

The abbey's property was confiscated and sold by the French occupying forces in 1796, but in 1840 was bought back under its post-revolutionary re-founder, Peter Hubert Evermode Backx.