Flemish beguinages - Belgium– UNESCO World Heritage Site

Issue Year:2000

The Beguines were women who entered into a life dedicated to God without retiring from the world. In the 13th century they founded the béguinages, enclosed communities designed to meet their spiritual and material needs. The Flemish béguinages are architectural ensembles composed of houses, churches, ancillary buildings and green spaces organized according to a spatial conception of urban or rural origin, and are built in styles specific to the Flemish cultural region. They bear extraordinary witness to the tradition of the Beguines that developed in north-western Europe in the Middle Ages.