Begijnhof

As you step through the door from the Spui, you enter another world. For centuries this enclosed courtyard was home to the beguines, Catholic women who lived in community with a vow of chastity but without being nuns. Keep your voice down: people still live here.

1A hidden faith

After the Alteration of 1578, when Amsterdam turned Protestant, the Begijnhof was the only Catholic institution to survive. But it lost its church, which ended up in the hands of English Presbyterians: that is the building in front of you, the English Church. The beguines kept their faith in secret, and in 1671 they turned two houses into a clandestine chapel. You can see it opposite: an ordinary house front concealing a church.

That chapel keeps the memory of the Miracle of Amsterdam. According to the story, in March 1345 a dying man in the nearby Kalverstraat vomited the host he had just received; it was thrown into the fire, and the next morning it was found intact among the ashes. Every March, thousands of Catholics remember it with the Stille Omgang, a silent night-time procession.

2The beguine who chose the street

Cornelia Arents died on 14 October 1654. She refused to be buried in the church, which she considered desecrated by Protestant worship, and asked to rest in the path, beside the gutter. Tradition adds that she was buried inside anyway and that her coffin turned up in the street the next morning, until her wish was finally respected.

The red granite slab in the path marks, so it is said, the place where she lies.

3What to look out for

• The red granite slab, to the left of the English Church.
• The hidden chapel, opposite it, behind a domestic façade.
• The painted plaques above some doors, showing religious scenes.