Averbode Abbey
| Averbode Abbey | |
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Entrance of the Baroque church, finished in 1672
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| 51°02′00″N 4°58′47″E / 51.0333°N 4.9797°ECoordinates: 51°02′00″N 4°58′47″E / 51.0333°N 4.9797°E | |
| Location | Diest, Flemish Brabant |
| Country | Belgium |
| Denomination | Premonstratensian |
| History | |
| Founded | About 1134–1135 |
| Administration | |
| Archdiocese | Mechelen-Brussels |
Averbode Abbey is a Premonstratensian abbey situated near Diest (Flemish Brabant), in the Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels in Belgium. It was founded about 1134, suppressed in 1797, and reestablished in 1834. Throughout the 20th century the abbey press was a leading children's publisher in Belgium.
Averbode Abbey was founded about 1134–1135 by Arnold II, Count of Loon. With land donations from the Abbey of Sint-Truiden, the lords of Aarschot and Diest, and some years later Godfrey III of Leuven, the abbey was situated right on the border of the County of Loon and the Duchy of Brabant. The first canons and abbot Andreas came from the Sint-Michielsabdij in Antwerp, founded in 1124.
The abbey started rather small but grew over the centuries, until it was some 5500 ha in the seventeenth century, including farms, fields, woodland, mills, heath, and local chapels. The abbey also provided the priests for 27 parishes. The first abbey church was inaugurated in 1194, and soon after the nuns, who until then resided in Averbode as well, moved to Keizerbos, where it stayed until it disappeared in 1796.
New buildings were erected all the time at the abbey. The gatehouse, built at the end of the 14th century, is the oldest remaining building. The church and part of the abbey was destroyed by a fire after a lightning strike on October 25, 1499.
The abbey went through a prosperous period in the first half of the 16th century, under Abbot Gerard vander Schaeft. The church was rebuilt and richly decorated. Unrest and plundering troops made it necessary to flee the abbey four times in this period. Political and religious instability in the latter half of the century, with the Beeldenstorm, made the canons flee the abbey again in 1578 to the refuge of Diest. The death of 12 monks in 1579 because of the bubonic plague reduced the abbey to only 28 monks in 1584. They returned to Averbode only in 1604.
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