Werken is a small rural village in the centre of the Belgian province of West Flanders with around a thousand inhabitants.

For a long time Werken was closely associated with the sea, in the low-lying area that is now called the Handzamevaart Valley - gradually reclaimed for around the year 1000 through the erection of dikes.

The Mortagne family is recorded to have been in the area since the eleventh century, eventually becoming the lords of Werken - inhabiting a motte castle known as Hogen Andjoen (the 'high onion').

The Order of St.Clare founded a convent in 1286, and in 1295 the Cistercians of Hemelsdale Abbey moved their nuns to Werken (while the Clares relocated to Petegem).

At the end of the seventeenth century, Werken also cam under attack from French forces, the situation normalising in 1713.