Church of Our Lady of Victories at the Sablon

Stand on the slope of the Grand Sablon and let your eyes move upward. Pale stone rises in tall, narrow bays, and each bay ends in a cluster of carved pinnacles. Flying buttresses lean against the walls like ribs. If the light is soft, the stone turns the colour of old ivory. Around you, cobbles tilt gently downhill, and the low murmur of café terraces drifts up from the square below. This is the Church of Our Lady of Victories at the Sablon. Most people in Brussels simply call it the Sablon church.

The name of the neighbourhood is your first clue to its past. Sablon comes from the French word for sand. In the Middle Ages, this hillside outside the old city centre was sandy, open ground. It was used for burials and for practice by the city's archers. That detail matters, because this church did not begin with a bishop or a king. It began with a guild of crossbowmen, the armed citizens who helped defend Brussels.

In the early fourteenth century, the crossbowmen's guild built a modest chapel here. It was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, their patron. For a few decades it was a small, local place of prayer. Then, according to a well-loved story, something unusual arrived by water. This story is the reason the chapel grew into the church you see today.

Legend has it that in the mid-fourteenth century, a pious woman in Antwerp named Beatrijs Soetkens had a vision. The Virgin Mary told her to take a small statue from Antwerp and carry it to Brussels. Beatrijs, so the tale goes, took the statue into a little boat and rowed it along the rivers, all the way to the city. The crossbowmen received the statue and placed it in their chapel. Whether every detail happened as told, nobody can say for certain. But the people of Brussels believed it, and that belief changed this hillside.

The statue drew pilgrims. Pilgrims brought offerings, and offerings paid for stone. Over the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the small chapel was replaced by a much larger church. Builders worked in a style known as Brabantine Gothic — a regional form of late Gothic from the old Duchy of Brabant, the territory around Brussels. It favours tall windows, slender columns, and lots of carved detail on the outside. The work went on for generations, and you can sense that slow, steady layering in the building.

Here is something many visitors miss. The procession that carried the statue through the streets became the famous Ommegang. Today, the Ommegang is a grand historical pageant held each summer, with costumed nobles, horses, flags and giant figures. It links the Sablon with the Grand-Place, the city's main square. So when you see photographs of that colourful parade, remember that it started with a small statue, a boat, and a crossbowmen's chapel on this sandy hill.

The original statue is gone. During the religious conflicts of the late sixteenth century, many churches in the Low Countries lost their images, and the Sablon's statue did not survive. Yet the memory of the boat stayed. Inside and around the church, you can still find carved and painted images of a woman in a small vessel with the Virgin's statue. Once you know the story, you start noticing that little boat in unexpected places.

Now step inside, if the doors are open. The first thing you notice is the light. The interior is tall and narrow, and the walls seem to dissolve into glass. The great windows of the choir rise almost from floor to vault. On a bright day, colour spills across the stone floor in soft patches of blue, red and gold. Much of the glass you see is the result of later restoration, but the effect is close to what Gothic builders wanted — a space made more of light than of wall.

Walk slowly toward the choir and look to the sides. Here the mood changes completely. Two chapels flank the choir, and they belong to a very different century. They were built in the seventeenth century as funeral chapels for the Thurn and Taxis family. This family ran the postal service across much of Europe for generations. Their chapels are Baroque, heavy with black and white marble, sculpted figures and dramatic decoration. After the airy Gothic nave, they feel almost theatrical.

That contrast is part of the pleasure of this church. In a few steps, you move from the soaring vertical lines of the late Middle Ages to the rich, sculptural confidence of the Baroque. One style reaches for the sky. The other wants to impress you at eye level. Take a moment to stand between them and compare the materials. Pale stone and coloured glass on one side, polished dark marble on the other.

Back outside, take a walk around the exterior. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the church was heavily restored. Restorers replaced worn stone and added carved details. Many of the small statues and decorative elements you see on the walls date from that period. So the church you see is partly medieval and partly a careful nineteenth-century idea of what a medieval church should look like. Look closely, and you may notice differences in the colour and sharpness of the stone.

The church sits between two very different squares. Downhill is the Grand Sablon, known for antique dealers, art galleries and some of the city's most respected chocolate makers. On weekends, an antiques market often fills part of the square. Across the street, uphill, is the Petit Sablon, a small formal garden. Its iron railings carry forty-eight bronze statuettes, each one representing a medieval guild of Brussels. It is a fitting neighbour for a church founded by a guild.

Before you leave, turn back once more and look at the church from a little distance. If you are here in the evening, the church may be lit, and the tall windows can glow against the dark stone. Listen to the square around you — glasses clinking, footsteps on the cobbles, a tram somewhere below. Seven centuries ago, this was sand and open ground, where crossbowmen practised their aim. Now it is one of the calmest corners of the city. As you walk away, keep an eye out for that small carved boat. It is the oldest story this place has to tell.