The city of Leuven in Belgium was not only the seat of three different universities, but also through them, the seat of notable academic libraries.

Since the founding of the University in 1425 until 1636, there was no official library of the university. Very likely the students had access to manuscripts and printed books preserved in the homes of their professors or colleges. In 1636, however, a library that might be called Central Library was founded in 1636 in the Cloth Hall.

This library and its various additions was sent in 1797 to the Central School of Brussels, official successor of the former university, while its books and most precious manuscripts were deposited in Paris among the national treasures of the National Library.

It is also very likely that during the troubles of the wars of the French Revolution many books and valuable documents surreptitiously followed an “unofficial journey", sometimes with the lofty aim of saving them from disaster, sometimes with the sordid aim of making money from them. It is thus that many libraries across Europe have books and manuscripts that certainly come from the Old University of Louvain, such as the founding charter of 1425 which was located in 1909 at the seminary of s'Hertogenbosch, or the courses of the law professor Henricus de Piro which were located in the late 20th century in the National Széchényi Library in Budapest.