Ommegang of Brussels

From a stolen statue to an emperor’s welcome

The Ommegang — Dutch for “walking around” — began in the fourteenth century as Brussels’ great procession in honour of a miraculous statue of the Virgin. Legend tells of Beatrix Soetkens, who in a vision was told by the Virgin to take the statue of Our Lady from Antwerp cathedral to the crossbowmen’s chapel in the Sablon; the guild promised to carry it through the city every year. The procession gradually became a great civic occasion, and in 1549 the city’s elites staged a magnificent Ommegang to honour Emperor Charles V and his son, the future Philip II.

The tradition declined in the eighteenth century and the last small annual Ommegang took place in 1785. In 1930, for the centenary of Belgium, enthusiasts revived it — not as the old procession but as a re-enactment of the pageant of 1549. It has been held every year since 1958, and UNESCO inscribed it on its Representative List in 2019.

The procession today

About 1,400 participants take part in period costume, among them riders, crossbowmen, archers, fencers and arquebusiers, stilt walkers and processional giants such as St Michael, St Gudula and the horse Bayard. The magistrates and members of the Seven Noble Houses of Brussels walk in scarlet, and many roles, including the emperor himself, are played by members of noble families. From the Sablon the procession crosses the city centre and ends with a sound and light show on the Grand-Place.