La Cambre Abbey
La Cambre Abbey (French: Abbaye de La Cambre) or Ter Kameren Abbey (Dutch: Abdij Ter Kameren) is a former Cistercian abbey in the City of Brussels, Belgium. It is located in the Maelbeek valley between the Bois de la Cambre/Ter Kamerenbos and the Ixelles Ponds. The abbey church is a Catholic parish of the Archdiocese of Mechelen–Brussels and home to a community of Norbertine canons, while other parts of the monastery house the headquarters of the Belgian National Geographic Institute and La Cambre, a prestigious visual arts school.
The abbey was founded around 1196. It was suppressed during the French Revolution. Most of today's buildings date from the 18th century; only the church, the refectory and the wing of the capitular hall maintain their medieval character. The simple abbey church houses Albert Bouts' early 16th-century oil painting The Mocking of Christ.
The abbey was founded around 1196 by its patroness Gisèle, with the support of the monastic community of Villers Abbey (in present-day Walloon Brabant), following the Cistercian rule. Henry I, Duke of Brabant, donated the Ixelles Ponds, a water mill, and the domain of the monastery. The Abbaye de la Chambre de Notre-Dame ("Abbey of the Chamber of Our Lady"), hence La Cambre in short form, remained under the spiritual guidance of Villers, one of the most important Cistercian communities.
Saint Boniface of Brussels (1182–1260), a native of Ixelles, canon of Saint Gudula (future cathedral of Brussels), who taught theology at the University of Paris and was made bishop of Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1231, lived for eighteen years in the abbey and is interred in the church. The mystic leper Saint Alix lived in the community at the same epoch.
During the numerous wars of religion of the 16th and 17th centuries, the abbey was largely destroyed, but it was rebuilt in the 18th century in the French form it largely retains. It was suppressed during the French Revolution and sold as national property in 1796.
After the abbey closed as a monastic community, the buildings were used successively as a military hospital, a cotton manufacture, a poor house, and a military school. During the First World War, the premises were occupied by German troops. In 1921, the League of Friends of La Cambre moved into the abbey to preserve it. The terraced garden and formal clipped bosquets were restored in the 18th-century manner starting in 1924.
