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The abbey survived through years of glory and through years of disasters. Abbeys sustained themselves by farming, brewing, baking, and selling the products on the open market. The most deadly disaster was the raiding of the abbey by the French revolutionary army in 1797, in which the treasures were stolen and shipped to Paris museums, the monks were chased and some of them killed, and the abbey was completely destroyed.
The French troops really put a statement here to show their intention to brake the power of the church. Abbeys were visible rich, owned a lot of land and farms, and were responsible for the education in their area. Before the French army arrived, the monks had been able to save and hide some of their treasures: old medieval books and gold and silverware.

Here we need to introduce the story of the second abbey, which is the abbey that is still standing strong in the village of Bornem, a few miles away from Hemiksem. It is easy to find, although slightly out of the center of the village, the abbey church tower shows the way. At the end of the 16th century we are in the middle of the religious wars between the Protestants and the Catholics. Flanders is occupied by Spanish troops.
A Spanish nobleman had become the Lord of Bornem, and he builds a new abbey in 1603. It takes more than 50 years before the Dominican monks can call the abbey definitively their abbey. For so long were different orders of monks and nuns pulling, pushing and bribing to receive the abbey. Politicians and even a couple of popes were involved in the discussions.

But finally, the Dominican monks win and open the abbey to their brothers, Dominican monks chased away out of England. Thus no surprise that the first abbot of the abbey becomes the Englishman Thomas Howard. Again the abbey prospers very well and spends all its profits on the education: it becomes the prep-school for English missionary monks.

Unfortunately, it is again the French Revolutionary troops that raid another Abbey. All English monks saw it coming and had already fled to England. The abbey was plundered but not devastated. Which was a good thing for the St. Bernards monks from Hemiksem, who found a new home in this abbey once Napoleon was defeated.

Nine centuries history at
the St. Bernardus Abbey of Bornem.

The monks at the Abbey in Bornem have composed a splendid exhibition of artifacts about their history. It was in 1098 that Robertus, abbot of the Benedictus-abbey of Molesne (France), left this abbey with 21 fellow monks to go to an inhospitable spot called Cistercium, somewhere South of Dijon in France. The purpose was to create a life which was more faithful and more complete along the rules of St. Benedictus. This new style of hard labor and poverty, has become known as the creation of the Cistercienzer-order of monks. After 17 years the first settlement was strong enough to create a new abbey in Clervaux. Abbot Robertus created 68 more abbeys during his life.

After 150 years the new order was one of the most powerful and richest in the Catholic church. In 1252 the General Kapittel (Management) of the order forbade the creation of more Abbeys, because they feared that the whole world would become “Cistercenzier”. Some pressure from Rome to take it easier, and not out-compete other orders was certainly also a factor in that decision. In retrospect, it is sad to note that the order is almost completely extinct. The number of monks in the Abbey of Bornem is as low as five today.

The monks may be almost extinct today, but most of the richness of these abbeys still exists. Some of the abbeys could be revived after, or were able to survive the French revolution, during which the French State tried to confiscate all church belongings at the end of the 18th century all over Europe.

The first abbey of the Cistercenziers in the area of Bornem was created in Hemiksem in 1246. In 1668, the Abbey was at the top of its power, and was the owner of 40 farms, 7 mills, and a tremendous amount of acres of land. Indeed, it was the French revolution which chased the monks out of the abbey, and destroyed the abbey. Lucky for us, some of the most valuable items (also over 30,000 handwritten, centuries old books) were hidden and saved from the French robbers. Otherwise we would have to go to the Louvre in Paris, to admire our own artwork. Only in 1833, some surviving monks, who had fled to England, came back and created a new community in the actual St. Bernardus abbey in nearby Bornem.

An ‘antifonarium’, handwritten in 1244, and the famous “Cruyde-boeck” (Book of herbs) by Rembert Dodoens, written in 1644, are the center pieces in the book exhibition, among other mediaeval books. You know how beautifully decorated those writings are. But also silverware, and porcelain, and a lot of religious artwork is there to be admired.

In the early 1970’s, the St. Bernardus Abbey of Bornem choose the VAN STEENBERGE brewery to brew it’s BORNEM DOUBLE and BORNEM TRIPLE Abbey ales.