Landmark

Begijnhof

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Candidate image for Begijnhof in Amsterdam

Pass through the Begijnhof entrance and the city noise falls away around a quiet courtyard. This medieval community was home to beguines—lay religious women, not cloistered nuns—and its wooden house, chapel, and English Church reveal centuries of changing belief.

Quick facts

  • A beguinage at the site is documented by 1346.
  • Beguinage residents were lay religious women, not nuns bound to remain in a convent.
  • Begijnhof 34 preserves a late fifteenth-century wooden façade.

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