The Hanswijk Processie, described as "just a little local festival" by one of my wife's colleagues who lives in Mechelen and has a gift for understatement; is in fact a spectacle with 2,000 participants, a hundred horses and twenty floats, not to mention twenty sheep and a donkey. But, when we first tried to see it in 2002, I didn't know that. I knew that the image, together with the relics of Sint Rombout, were paraded, but I expected something like the Pardons I'd seen in Brittany. Not so. The procession takes more than an hour to go past. It does, however, feel like a Pardon, even if it's much the biggest I've seen. It's a community event, in which the image and the relics take pride of place amongst the spectacle. It's based around the Hanswijk Basilica and the procession is only a part of the whole event.
The story of the image and of the Basilica starts in 998, when a ship ran aground at the then hamlet of Hanswijk on the River Dijle, which runs through the centre of the modern town of Mechelen. The ship stuck fast and resisted all efforts to refloat it including taking off the cargo. It wasn't until an image of the Virgin Mary was taken from the ship that it floated free - a sure sign, say the commentators, that The Lady wished to stay there. Almost three hundred years later, in 1272, plague, pestilence and other assorted troubles struck the then town of Mechelen. All other recourse failing, the citizens prayed to Our Lady of the Hanswijk and the town was saved. The citizens made a pledge to process the statue round the town every year thereafter, and the Hanswijk Processie was born. The original image was "lost" during the religious wars, but a new image was constructed and in 1876 it was crowned on the instructions of the pope.
O.-L.-Vrouw van Hanswijk, as befits her origins, is particularly good at saving ships and seamen. It must be said that stories of Mary saving seamen when all else has failed, and of Her image lifting plagues, are not uncommon and indeed a number date back in writing to the Cantigas de Santa Maria, but there is at least one twentieth century instance attributed to this particular Lady. On the 19th of April 1906, the "Comte de Smet de Nayer" a Belgian registered ship, foundered in the Gulf of Gascony at ten past seven in the morning. Of the fifty-nine aboard, twenty-six were saved and one of them, a seaman from Mechelen called Beelaerts, attributed the saving of their lives to Our Lady of the Hanswijk.
The image is brought from the altar to the nave of the Basilica before the procession and the area around Her is strewn with Hydrangeas of all colours. Petitioners light candles of all sizes: on the morning of the parade Our Lady is surrounded by a blaze of light. Last year, with little light from outside because of the rain-clouds, the effect was subtly different, equally beautiful and somehow less formal. Just after noon they began to snuff the votive candles and remove the flowers. We watched the statue being prepared for the procession. The front and back panels were removed, revealing sockets for the six beams. Everything went smoothly, but presumably sometimes it doesn't, for at least an hour before the off, having carefully swept the church several times, the team of carriers were standing around with the air of having built in too much contingency and needing something to do.
I was sure everything would go ahead now. We walked round the Ring to the place where, last year, we'd watched some very wet horses being returned to their boxes. This time, the procession was mostly forming up, stretching something like a kilometre round the Ring. We stopped on a stretch of wide pavement and watched as the hinged and padded shoulder rests were attached to the relics of Sint Rombout, then on, passing the Hanswijk boat, to the head of the procession.
We picked the first spot where we could see all the little performances, as attested by some locals in folding chairs outside a (closed) bar. Hmm, chairs, what a bright idea, with twenty-twenty hindsight. A blare of trumpets and the first set of riders arrived. My description of other parts of our visit is on another page: here I'll confine myself to describing the elements I might have expected in a small Pardon.
As I've mentioned elsewhere, when planning last year's trip I'd assumed the procession would be smaller. The statue I knew about, as well as the relics of Sint Rombout. Had I known the story at that time, I might also have expected the boat, which arrived after about twenty minutes. Of the floats, I think this was my favourite. Preceded by a group of dancers in blue, floating costumes, the boat carrying the image of Our Lady stopped and played music for the dancers, representing the waters of the Dijle. As the waters moved away, grounding the boat, a chain-gang dismounted and began frantically carting the cargo ashore. Then, the waters returned and the boat floated serenely on, the cargo being surreptitiously returned for the next performance.
A few scenes later, the relics of Sint Rombout were proudly carried past: Even in the overcast, the casket gleamed and I recognised in the faces of the carrying party the mixture of solemnity, determination and just plain pride that seems to be universal.
I was by now becoming a little worried again (if you've read the other description you'll know that this was my motif for the weekend). Nearly half an hour in, we were less than a quarter of the way through the procession. There'd been some last minute re-arrangement of the route and I'd read that the image of Our Lady was due to leave the Basilica about now. What I couldn't translate was whether it would join the head of the procession. We might not have time to see the head of the procession before it reached the basilica and I wondered if I'd see it at all.
It seemed disappointing to have come all this way and not see the image in the procession, so I ran back down the procession line, every one (apart from the donkey) still waiting patiently. Our Lady and her bearers were also waiting patiently, just ahead of the Thrice Holy Mary section. I have no idea whether this is what normally happens, but I jogged back to the others in a more leisurely fashion. "What had I missed?" I asked. Well, Moses and the tablets were what had stuck in everyone's mind, but we were only up to Jesus in the temple, so I figured mentally that we'd get to see Moses again, and picked up the bible stories again.
Then, after about another twenty minutes, came the sound of the portable carillion, and the image of O.-L.-V.- van Hanswijk paused sedately at the pedestrian crossing before proceeding down the street (the crossing was closed but was being used as a convenient marker to ensure the procession didn't trip over itself). This was the culmination of two years' planning, so it did bring a little lump to my throat, but the Thrice Holy Mary tableaux were no anticlimax, and I'd have been happy at that point to retreat to De Oliphant.
However, there was more to come. We walked in the opposite direction and caught the head again in Hanswijk Straat. Of course, having seen it once we now caught many of the tiny details. As the carillion arrived again, I sneaked across to the other side of the road to photograph the entrance to the Basilica. As I watched Sint Rombout's relics being loaded onto the tail-lift of a forty-tonner I was struck once again by the intimate combination of spectacle, reverence and matter-of-factness. Then a friendly hand on my shoulder propelled me between two other people to get the shots I wanted of the image being swung round and reversed into the basilica.
I'd ascertained in advance that it's okay for interlopers to attend the short, but beautiful, service at the end of the procession, so we crammed into the back of the basilica to hear the singing and join in the Alleluia and the Amen of the chant. There was something particularly striking about the dome filled with incense smoke, reflecting the light, the image just about visible over everyone's heads and the beautiful Marialieder ringing out through the nave. Apart from the memories, I think the order of service is probably my favourite souvenir.