Memorial Boudelo

Boudelo Abbey was a Cistercian abbey in Klein-Sinaai. The name Boudelo, which consists of two parts, can be explained as follows: Bouden, flattery form on -in, derived from Baldwin (Baldwin I of Constantinople, Count of Flanders), and lo a grove in a sandy, higher place. In the year 1197, several monks from St. Peter's Abbey in Ghent, led by Boudewijn van Boekel, settled on the Coudenborn site. The small community grew into an abbey on a location between the current Koebrugstraat and Kloosterstraat. The reasons why the Benedictine Baldwin of Boekel (who died in 1205) left his colleagues in Ghent remain a mystery. Was it because he found the discipline too weak or because the abbey in Ghent had run into difficulties due to failed financial transactions? It is certain that the Benedictine movement was experiencing a crisis at that time. From this abbey, which is also known in old spelling as Baudeloo, the monks began to polder the region around the Scheldt. They did this, among other things, by founding uithoven, such as at Lamswaarde and Othene in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen. In Hulst and Ghent the abbey had a refuge house, the refuge house Baudeloo. Boudelo owned a farm in Aarsele: the Baudeloohoeve or Hof van Baudeloo.

That things were not always Christian in abbeys is proven by the fact that Abbot Theodorikus was murdered by abbey residents in 1226. A quarrel in 1235 led to the abbey being placed under papal supervision. In 1578 the abbey was destroyed by Ghent Calvinists. In 1660, the Boudelohof on the Koebrugstraat in Sinaai was built with rubble from the demolished abbey.

Excavations brought building material from the former abbey to the surface. In 1985, the Boudelo monument was erected on the corner of Koebrugstraat and Kloosterstraat, on the site of a former monastery wall.

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