Tongerlo Abbey

Tongerlo Abbey is a Premonstratensian monastery at Tongerlo in Westerlo near Antwerp, Belgium. It become based in 1128 in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by using Giselbert of Kasterlee, who no longer best gave the land, however also himself became a lay brother in the new network. The first monks were sent from St. Michael's Abbey, Antwerp, under Henry, who had include Saint Norbert, founder of the Premonstratensian Order, to Antwerp to extirpate the Tanchelmite heresies. The charter of its foundation became signed, among others, by way of Bernard of Clairvaux and with the aid of Waltman, first abbot of Antwerp.

The Bishop of Cambrai granted synodal rights to the abbots. From small beginnings the abbey have become influential in the district referred to as Campine, now in north-east Belgium and the south of the Netherlands, then a wild location. The bishops of Cambrai, the chapters of Liège and Maastricht, and numerous landowners entrusted the charge of parishes, with the proper of patronage, to the abbey. In time the abbey had to provide clergymen for a few forty parishes in those parts.