An unmarked archway off the Spui opens into the Begijnhof, and the drop in noise is immediate. It was founded in the fourteenth century for the Beguines, women who lived a religious life in common without becoming nuns: no vows, own property kept, free to leave and marry. They ran the courtyard for six hundred years and the last of them died in 1971. The houses are almshouses for single women and people still live in them, which is why the gate asks for quiet.
Two churches face each other across the lawn, and between them they tell the story of the city's split between Protestants and Catholics. The medieval chapel was taken from the Beguines at the Reformation in 1578, stood empty for a generation, and went to English-speaking Protestants in 1607, who have it still. Directly opposite, the parish priest bought two houses and had them turned into a Catholic chapel the community was not permitted to have, giving it a plain domestic door and a rich interior behind it. In one corner stands Het Houten Huys, timber-fronted and dated by tree rings to about 1528 — after wooden facades had already been banned as a fire risk.