Onze-Lieve-Vrouw Hemelvaartkerk: A Gothic Decanal Church in Zottegem
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Belgium
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Belgian, County of Flanders, Habsburg, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page14 sections
History
Onze-Lieve-Vrouw Hemelvaartkerk is a Catholic decanal church in Zottegem, Belgium, dedicated to the Assumption of Our Lady. Its history reaches back to the twelfth century, when a parish church replaced the chapel and village church associated with Egmont Castle. The present building preserves a medieval Gothic core, shaped by later rebuilding, additions, and Neo-Gothic alterations.
Medieval parish origins
In 1162, the church’s right of patronage, the legal right to present clergy and exercise certain supervisory powers, was granted to the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Martin, which maintained a priory at Strijpen. During the fourteenth century, this patronage returned to the local lords. They became lay patrons and appointed the parish clergy as financial and material administrators.
The original church was Romanesque. In the fourteenth century, it was rebuilt in the Gothic style as a one-aisled cruciform church with an octagonal tower over the crossing and a spire. The Gothic building underwent relatively few changes between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, although later events would substantially alter its appearance and internal arrangement.
The Egmont family and wartime destruction
In 1561, Lamoral, Count of Egmont, a sixteenth-century nobleman from the Low Countries, commissioned a tomb of marble, alabaster, and jasper for his mother, Francisca of Luxembourg. A serious fire damaged the church in 1564. After Lamoral was beheaded in Brussels on 5 June 1568, his remains were brought to the church and placed in the family crypt beneath the high choir on 16 June.
The crypt also received Jacobus II of Luxembourg-Fiennes, Francisca of Luxembourg-Gavere, and Isabella of Egmont. Sabina of Bavaria and Lamoral’s sons Philip and Charles were buried there later. The family burials established the high choir and its crypt as a lasting place of commemoration for the Egmont lineage.
In 1580, during the Eighty Years’ War, the prolonged conflict over the Netherlands, Protestant Geuzen forces commanded by François de La Noue destroyed the church. Repairs took place between 1611 and 1615. French troops severely damaged the interior in 1645 and set the building on fire in 1658, after which it was repaired again.
The eighteenth-century tower and carillon
Major changes came in 1750. The former crossing tower was replaced by a western campanile, or bell tower, containing a carillon, a tuned set of bells played from a keyboard. The west façade was widened and completed with a triangular pediment, while the nave was enlarged by adding two side aisles.
The new tower and carillon caused local disputes. Pastor Joannes De Meyer regarded carillon playing as too frivolous and refused to consecrate the cross on the tower. The builder, Gillis Speelman, brought a legal action in 1753 over unpaid work. In 1763, the municipal government sued De Meyer after he refused to pay interest on money borrowed from the city.
The carillon tradition began with approximately twenty bells and a bronze playing drum cast by Joris Dumery, alongside six seventeenth-century bells. Twelve bells made by the Leuven founder Severinus Van Aerschodt were added from 1867, including three swinging bells. In 1925, four bells by Karel De Mette and four larger bells by Omer Michaux were installed.
In 1961, the municipal government decided to create a complete 49-bell concert carillon. Fourteen older bells were retained, while the Dutch firm Petit & Fritsen cast the other 35 in 1963. Dumery’s original bronze playing drum was transferred to the museum of the Royal Carillon School in Mechelen. Constant Versichel served as city carillonneur from 1949 to 1999, followed by Paul Hoste from 1999 to 2024. Their predecessors were Raymond Van Herzeele and Nándor Neichel.
Rediscovery, protection, and restoration
The Egmont graves were rediscovered accidentally in 1804, when the high choir was being repaired so that the church could reopen after the Concordat between Napoleon Bonaparte and the Catholic Church. The crypt was arranged in its present form in 1857. The graves of Francisca of Luxembourg, Jacobus II of Luxembourg, and Isabella of Egmont were excavated again in 1980 and marked with two stone slabs.
The church was protected as a monument in 1974 and designated architectural heritage in Flanders in 2009. Archaeological excavations in 2014 uncovered parts of the former cemetery wall and 94 graves. The interior was restored and repainted in 1980 and 2019. The tower was stabilized in 2018, and its wooden exterior joinery was repainted in 2021.
From October 2023 to 2025, the roof was restored with new slates. The tower was dismantled in stages, repaired in a workshop, and rebuilt on site. Between October 2023 and September 2024, the carillon was also restored and retuned. Royal Eijsbouts removed the bells, and 26 of the 49 were recast after scans revealed substantial differences between the 1963 Petit & Fritsen bells and Dumery’s 1750 bells. The 1963 four-octave keyboard was replaced by a four-octave keyboard with 20 pedal keys.
Since 1802, a statue of Mary from the Onze-Lieve-Vrouw van Deinsbekekapel has been kept in a shrine in the church. The building has also occasionally hosted concerts organized by CC Zoetegem and local associations.
Remains
Onze-Lieve-Vrouw Hemelvaartkerk stands at the Markt and Zavel. Its surviving form combines a medieval Gothic core with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century additions and later Neo-Gothic work. The church’s physical arrangement reflects the transformation from a one-aisled cruciform building into a broader structure with side aisles, additional choir spaces, a western bell tower, and a crypt beneath the high choir.
Church structure and later additions
Gothic core and western façade
The fourteenth-century church was built as a one-aisled cruciform structure with an octagonal crossing tower and spire. A seventeenth-century engraving shows a choir with one or two straight bays, a three-sided apse, and a cemetery surrounding the building. In 1750, the crossing tower was replaced by the western campanile. The west façade was widened and received a triangular pediment, while the stone side walls of the nave were dismantled to make room for two side aisles.
Sacristies and side choirs
A sacristy and side choir built of Balegem stone were added on the Markt side in 1762, enlarging the church interior. Another sacristy and side choir, constructed in brick, were added on the Zavel side in 1855. A funeral door remains on the Zavel side. At the corner with the façade, a tombstone built into the wall commemorates Salomon De Groote, who died on 3 December 1693, and his wife Joanna Dernacourt, who died on 10 March 1790. The inscription states that they had seven children.
Western campanile
The 1750 tower contains a wooden beam inscribed with the builder’s name, Gillis Speelman of Ghent, and the year of construction. Its openwork octagonal spire contains 44 carillon bells. Below the spire are the keyboard room and an intermediate loft, where the 1750 beam and the wire connections between the keyboard and the bass bells remain. The bell chamber has sound openings, three swinging bells, and the five heaviest carillon bells.
The complete carillon consists of 49 bells with a combined weight of 6,828 kilograms. The heaviest weighs 1,338 kilograms and the lightest 9 kilograms. The instrument was restored and retuned between October 2023 and September 2024, when its keyboard was replaced and 26 bells were recast.
Interior furnishings and artwork
Jean-Baptiste Bethune designed stained-glass windows for the choir between 1871 and 1877. The Belgian architect and designer was closely associated with the nineteenth-century Gothic Revival. In 1886, the façade was rebuilt in Luxembourg stone, and 14 stained-glass windows were installed in the nave.
The church contains twentieth-century Neo-Gothic altars by Leopold Blanchaert. The left side altar holds a Gothic Madonna from the beginning of the sixteenth century. The eighteenth-century alterations also supplied a confessional, pulpit, and baptismal font. Among the paintings are Simon De Paepe’s Adoration of the Shepherds, dating from approximately 1650, and The Crucifixion of Jesus, attributed to Antoon Van den Heuvel.
The Van Peteghem organ dates from 1784. The Joris brothers of Ronse renewed it in 1872, and it was renewed again in 1931. Together with the altars, stained glass, paintings, and eighteenth-century furnishings, the organ forms part of the interior accumulated through successive periods of rebuilding and adaptation.
Crypt and former churchyard
Egmont crypt
The Egmont crypt lies beneath the high choir. It was arranged in 1857, renovated in 1952, and renovated again in 2016, when a glass dome was added. Two stone slabs mark the graves of Francisca of Luxembourg, Jacobus II of Luxembourg, and Isabella of Egmont, whose remains were re-excavated in 1980.
Cemetery remains
Archaeological work in 2014 revealed sections of the former cemetery wall and 94 graves associated with the churchyard. These remains relate to the cemetery that surrounded the medieval church and preserve physical evidence of burial activity around the building.
