Van den Gheyn was born in Ghent on 24 May 1854, the son of Edouard Van den Gheyn, a professor of chemistry at
Ghent University. He was educated at
St Barbara's College in Ghent and entered the Jesuit noviciate in
Drongen on 27 September 1871. He developed a wide range of intellectual interests and published articles in numerous fields relating to language and culture. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1886. guardian of the treasury of
St Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent, who hid the central panels of the
Ghent Altarpiece during the
First World War. Joseph was assigned to the Bollandists in 1888, to research Greek and Eastern saints, and taught a course on Sanskrit at the
Institut Catholique de Paris. In 1896 he was appointed conservator of manuscripts in the Royal Library of Belgium. He continued to contribute to the work of the Bollandists until 1905. As conservator he systematically catalogued and considerably expanded the Royal Library's manuscript holdings. He was involved in organising the
Exposition des primitifs flamands à Bruges, and published editions of several medieval illuminated manuscripts, including
Le Bréviaire de Philippe le Bon (1909),
Jean le Tavernier's
Cronicques et conquestes de Charlemaine (1909),
Loyset Liédet's
Histoire de Charles Martel (1910), and two books of hours attributed to
Jacques Coene (1911). In 1909 he was appointed chief conservator. Van den Gheyn received an
honorary doctorate from the
Catholic University of Leuven in 1911. He died in Brussels on 29 January 1913, a few weeks after retiring. ==Publications==