The Ruusbroec Institute was founded in 1925 by four Jesuits with a background in Dutch philology: Desideer Stracke, Jozef Van Mierlo, Leonce Reypens and Jan-Baptist Poukens. Their aim was to study the history of spirituality in the Netherlands up to 1750. The Society’s founders were highly productive: they established a library (1925) and published a journal (Ons Geestelijk Erf – 1927) and a series of books (Studiën en Tekstuitgaven van Ons Geestelijk Erf).
The Ruusbroec Institute remained an independent research institute until 1973. In that year, it was incorporated – without losing its identity – into the University Faculty of St Ignatius Antwerp (UFSIA), which had also been founded by Jesuits, and in 2003 into what is now the University of Antwerp. The Ruusbroec Institute is affiliated with the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy and holds a semi-autonomous position within this faculty.
History of the Ruusbroec Institute (1925-2000)
In 2001, former librarian Frans Hendrickx published an article on and his library in the journal Vlaanderen.
More information on the early years of the Ruusbroec Institute can be found in:
- Christian de Borchgrave, Eerst Vlaanderen voor Christus: de pionierstijd van het Ruusbroecgenootschap. Averbode: Altiora, 2001.
The Ruusbroec Institute in the 21st century
In the 1998–1999 academic year, following a major reorganisation of the degree programmes at the UFSIA, the Ruusbroec Institute became the Department of Religious Studies. Shortly afterwards, Paul Verdeyen S.J. and Paul Mommaers S.J. retired, in 2000 and 2001 respectively. In the summer of 2002, Paul Verdeyen was succeeded by Veerle Fraeters, a Germanist who had already been affiliated with the Department of Dutch Literature within the Germanic Languages programme at UFSIA for several years. Paul Mommaers’ post was eventually filled in the autumn of 2003 with the appointment of two part-time researchers: church historian Theo Clemens (0.7 FTE) and Dutch language specialist and theologian Rob Faesen S.J. (0.3 FTE). Meanwhile, the Ruusbroec Institute was renamed the Institute for the History of Spirituality in the Low Countries up to c. 1750 when the three Antwerp university institutions (RUCA, UIA and UFSIA) merged to form the University of Antwerp on 1 October 2003. This new structure broadened the scope of research into spirituality and also ensured that the Ruusbroec Institute's independent research, as established by its founders, could continue unhindered. At the time the three Antwerp university institutions merged, Thom Mertens became director of the Ruusbroec Institute. He was given the difficult task of guiding the research institute through the changing academic landscape.
Three years after the merger, Guido de Baere S.J. retired at the end of September 2006. This was marked by the completion of the critical edition of Jan van Ruusbroec’s Opera Omnia. Kees Schepers, who obtained his PhD from the University of Groningen and had been an associate researcher at the Ruusbroec Society since 1990, was appointed in 2007 to fill the vacant post. In 2007, Frans Hendrickx, who had been librarian at the Ruusbroec Institute's library since 1975, was succeeded by the historian Erna Van Looveren. She led the library to membership of the Flemish Heritage Library. Under the directorship of Theo Clemens and Thom Mertens, the research institute entered the second decade of the 21st century. Following his retirement in 2012, Theo Clemens was temporarily succeeded by church historian August den Hollander (until September 2015).
2015, the year of the Ruusbroec Society’s ninetieth anniversary, marked the beginning of a new era in the history of the research institute. With the election of Veerle Fraeters by the Institute Council, the institute welcomed its first female director in its history. At the same time, the arrival of Tine Van Osselaer, a specialist in religious history, and her research team signalled a shift in the Ruusbroec Society’s mission. Their research into 19th- and 20th-century stigmatics shifted the end date of the period studied by the Ruusbroec Institute from 1750 to the Second World War. To mark its ninetieth anniversary, the Ruusbroec Institute also organised four interdisciplinary colloquia: the so-called Ruusbroec Encounters. These Encounters, featuring researchers from Jewish Studies (IJS) and Islamic Studies (in collaboration with UCSIA), book historians (VWB) and researchers specialising in modern Flemish literature (ISLN), reached a broad and diverse audience and were well received.
Pierre Delsaerdt served as director between 2019 and 2022; on 1 September 2022, he was succeeded by Prof. Dr John Arblaster. Following Erna Van Looveren’s retirement, Kara Verboven was appointed as the new librarian.
(Frans Hendrickx, translated by Robrecht Neyrinck)