In the Hunnegem district, a parish church was established in the 11th century when the city was founded.
The original Romanesque hall church was given an extended nave and a gothic spire in the 13th-14th century. Since the 14th century, the church has enjoyed fame as a place of pilgrimage in honour of Our Lady.
In 1624, a number of Benedictine sisters settled in Hunnegem, who started a school. The sisters built a monastery next to the Romanesque church in the Gasthuisstraat.
The church owes its neo-gothic interior from 1887 to the Geraardsbergen artist Louis Bert de L'Arbre.