Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- 1 St. Jacob’s Parish and Construction of the Church: 1491–1780 -- 2 Ornament for the Church: 1585–1656 -- 3 Circa 1660: Crisis and Ornament: The Creation of a New Interior for the Parish Church -- 4 Sacraments in the Parish -- 5 The Blessed Sacrament Chapel and the Marriage Chapel -- 6 The Lady Chapel in Search of an Image -- 7 St. Jacob’s New Collegiate Chapter of Canons and Their Choir -- 8 Private Chapels in the Church -- 9 St. Jacob’s Counter Reformation Confraternities -- 10 Death in the Church -- 11 Church Against State in the Time of Enlightenment and Revolution -- 12 Conclusion -- Appendix 1: Documentation of Private Chapels in St. Jacob’s -- Appendix 2: Foundation, Membership, Location of Brotherhoods at St. Jacob’s in Chronological Order -- References -- Index.

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Of more than forty churches that fortified Antwerp as the bulwark of the Counter Reformation in the Netherlands, only St. Jacob’s stands now with its art and archives intact. Parish church of the city’s elite, it is filled with masterpieces, including the altarpiece that Rubens painted for his own burial chapel. Works of architecture, painting, sculpture, and hundreds of sacred objects, documented by the archives, enable a reconstruction of the integral role that art played in the transformation of a whole society over the span of two centuries, from 1585 to the 1790s. It is a history of real people and organizations, who used art for religion, politics, and social purpose, joined together in a church that embodied a diverse community.

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