Louvain - Église St. Pierre - Le Jubé

            The Postcard

The rood screen in the Church of St. Peter in Louvain.  The photograph is on a postally unused postcard by René Fonteyn of Louvain. Someone has written on the front:

"Luckily not destroyed. 
18 of the 28 chapels 
were burned out".

Louvain

Louvain, or Leuven in Flemish, is in the Flemish region of Belgium, and is about 30km east of Brussels.

In the 20th. century, both World Wars inflicted major damage upon the city. 

Louvain in the Great War

Following German penetration into the town early in the Great War, the town was heavily damaged due to the German Schrecklichkeit policy. The Germans shot the mayor, university rector and all the city's police officers. 

The famous university library of Louvain was deliberately destroyed by the German army on the 25th. August 1914, using petrol and incendiary pastilles.  Hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable volumes and Gothic and Renaissance manuscripts were lost. 

In addition to the library, the greater part of the town was razed to the ground early in the Great War on the pretext that the civilian population had joined in an attack on the German occupying troops.  

Buildings destroyed included the Law Courts, the Theatre, the Academy for Fine Arts and the Old Halls.

Also badly damaged at this time was the Church of St. Peter (1425-1500), with the roof and nave being burnt down. 

By the Treaty of Versailles, Germany undertook to deliver manuscripts and prints equivalent in value to those destroyed. 

Louvain in WWII

However in 1940, the library, rebuilt with the help of US funds in 1928, and containing over 900,000 volumes, was again destroyed by the Germans.

The Church of St. Peter was again damaged with bombing raids in 1944; the north aisle particularly suffered.  During the post-war restoration a Romanesque crypt from the 11th. century was found.

Taken in: Belgique / Vlaams Brabant / Leuven (show map)

Taken on: December 13, 2009

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Sets appears in: • Great War

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