Adventurer and businessman, who met an untimely death in Scotland: Bruges celebrates Anselm Adornes

Not everyone gets a feast for their 600th birthday. But Anselm Adornes was an extraordinary figure. He was born in Bruges on 8 December 1424, six centuries ago this week.

Adornes was of Italian heritage and had contacts in the highest circles of the nobility. He made several adventurous journeys to the Levant during the course of his lifetime. 600 years later, he is far from forgotten. You can follow in his footsteps at the Jerusalem Chapel and the Adornes Estate in Bruges, which, by the way, is still owned by his descendants, 17 generations later.

Celebrations included a midwinter festival earlier this week. Guides were on hand to tell you all about the adventurous life of Anselm Adornes. There was Scottish dancing.  After all Adornes was as famous in Scotland as he was here, but was eventually murdered there  in 1483.

The Jerusalem Chapel also houses a 15th-century alabaster statue of St Catherine, a birthday gift to Anselm Adornes from his descendants. The chapel is also on the fairy lights trail of the Winter Glow festival in the West Flemish capital.

The Adornes estate, with its 15th-century Jerusalem Chapel as the eye-catcher is one of the most beautiful and quiet corners of Bruges and is not yet overrun by tourists. The Adornes family came to Bruges from Genoa during the Middle Ages. Hundreds of years later, the domain is still in family hands.

A little Jerusalem in Bruges

The 15th-century Jerusalem Chapel is the best place to immerse yourself in this centuries-old story. It was decorated by Anselm Adornes after his return from a long pilgrimage.  He took the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem as his model.

Right in the middle and recently restored is the gigantic mausoleum of Anselm Adornes and his wife Margareta van der Banck. The couple had 16 children. Sadly, only Anselm's heart is buried here; his body remained in Scotland, where he was struck down.

Adornes led an andventurous life

A man from Bruges, of Italian descent, undertaking daring journeys to the Levant, only to meet his end in Scotland? Anselm Adornes' life story reads like a novel of adventure.

‘Clearly, he belonged to top notch society,’ says Noël Geirnaert, former head of the Bruges city archives. ‘He was involved in the city’s administration and its finances, had good relations with the Duke of Burgundy, and was at the head of an important textile dyeworks.’

A business family moving up in the world

The Adornes Family thrived in international trade, the banking world, and the very international commercial elite of Bruges of the 15th century, clarifies Jan Dumolyn, professor of medieval history at Ghent University.

‘This is a typical example of a merchant family being ennobled at some point as a result of social mobility. This Jerusalem Chapel shows their ambition to climb the social ladder and display symbolic social prestige.’

Anselm lived like a nobleman, a knight, with all the trimmings. ‘Tournaments, coats of arms, a private oratory, a tomb and the promise in his will to give money to the poor. It was the life of a nobleman, the lifestyle of someone of very high standing,’ Dumolyn explains.

Circumventing the wool boycott

Anselm Adornes also made several interesting trips, which are covered in detail at the exhibition in Bruges. To Scotland, for instance, and that had everything to do with his business.

He managed to break the boycott of the wool trade, when the Scots sided with France in its struggle against the Dukes of Burgundy and the export of wool to the thriving Flemish textile industry was banned. King James was keen to see an end to the wool boycot as were the people of Adornes's native Bruges. Many years later Anselm was  murdered in Scotland by the king’s opponents.

Pilgrimage to Jerusalem

Adornes's most adventurous and longest journey took him to the Holy Land and Jerusalem together with his son Jan. There were also numerous  stopovers in Italy on the way. The pilgrims stayed away for 14 months.

The exhibition features magnificent objects that bear witness to their journey: a finely sculpted wooden cross and a silver reliquary with stones from the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem: objects from the family treasure that are otherwise never on display. 

‘Adornes was here’

Even on the road, their presence did not pass unnoticed. In the famous St Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai Desert, now Egypt, carved into a stone near the refectory Adornes's name can still be read.

Marvel at henna tattoos

The diary kept by his son Jan shows that the pilgrims' attitude during their journey was open and showed interest in everything around them. ‘Incredibly fascinating,’ thinks Véronique de Limburg Stirum, who is married to one of Adornes’s descendants. ‘Their feelings and fears are very contemporary, but their admiration for other cultures is impressive. Even for us today, Anselm is an inspiration. He shows how important it is to achieve tolerance. This is important given what is happening now in the Middle East.’

‘Men and women’s arms and hands are often painted and decorated with all kinds of figures. I cannot understand how these drawings are made permanent, because they do not disappear with washing or in time,’ his travel diary reads, when Adornes visited Tunis. He was marvelling at henna tattoos, which are still made today.

Historian Jan Dumolyn admires Adornes's innovative ideas. ‘He was a humanist, when this phenomenon was still in full development in our regions. He collected interesting new literature and followed developments in science. Culturally and intellectually, this is also an interesting family.’

Meanwhile, historical research continues. ‘We've been undertaking this since the 1980s and it's gained momentum in recent years,’ explains Noël Geirnaert, ’because of archaeological excavations, but also because forgotten documents are coming to the surface.’