Last modified: 2007-10-20 by ivan sache
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![[Flag of Bruges]](../images/b/be-vwvbr.gif)
Municipal flag of Bruges - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 13 April 2005
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Bruges (116,559 inhabitants) is the capital of the province of
West Flanders. From the XIIth to the XIVth century, it was one of the
main maritime, trading and market in Western Europe. Since
1970, the port of Zeebrugge, located 12 km of Bruges, is the third port
in Belgium.
The old town of Bruges was rediscovered by French and English tourists
in the XIXth century and is today heavily loaded by mass tourism.
The municipality of Bruges (116,982 inhabitants; 13,840 ha) is made since 1970 of the former municipalities of Bruges, Assebroek, Dudzele, Koolkerke, Lissewege, Sint
Andries, Sint Kruis and Sint Michiels.
The name of Bruges comes from old Icelandic Brucciam, meaning "pier";
the town was mentioned for the first time in a text dated 892. Bruges
was then an earthen fortress built between the two arms of river Reie by
Count Baudouin I of Flanders against the Norseman invaders. Once the
Norsemen were expelled from the area, the town developed and the Count
attracted merchants. In the XIth and XIIth century, the high tides of
the North Sea could reach the town.
From 1180 onwards, the sea opened the New Zwin channel and reached the
town later called Damme. The Count of Flanders built there the first
lock in Europe. Bruges was linked to Damme by a canal diverted from the
Reie. Goods were transshiped in Damme, and later in Sluis, located on the Zwin (today in the Netherlands).
Bruges was the last sea port used by the Hanseatic League before
sailing on the English Channel, and was also the outcome of the
coasters coming from La Rochelle and Bordeaux (France). It was therefore the
main point of meeting of the merchant fleets from Northern and Southern
Europe. The town developed rapidly and was enclosed in stone walls.
From 1127 to 1300, the intra muros area increased from 86 to 460
hectares. In the XIIth and XIIIth centuries, the merchants and
clothiers of Bruges constituted guilds and traded on the fairs of
London and Champagne. In the XIIth century, Bruges was the starting and
ending point of the land road linking London to Cologne via the Duchies
of Brabant and Limburg and the Holy Roman Empire. Genoese ships moored
in the port of Bruges for the first time in 1277, followed by ships
from Venice and Eastern Spain. The merchants prefered to use the sea
road because King of France Philippe le Bel had annexed Champagne. The
ships brought alum, silk, strains and spices. Italian moneychangers,
then the bankers of the Holy See, set up in the house of the Van der
Buerze family the first stock exchange (in Dutch, beurs; in French
bourse) in Europe.
The magistrat (Mayor) and the échevins (Municipal Councillors) of
Bruges were in permanent struggle against the Count of Flanders and his
suzereign, the King of France. They were progressively awarded legal
and financial rights. In 1302, the Flemish uprising against Philippe
le Bel was mostly funded by the merchants of Bruges. In the XIVth and
XVth century, Bruges fought a fratricidal war against the town of
Ghent. The main beneficiaries of the increasing insecurity were the
prince (the Duke of Burgundy from 1384 to 1482 and then the Hapsburgs)
and the English cloth industry.
In the XVth century, real-estate speculation by the rich abbeys and
merchants caused the silting of the Zwin, as stressed in an official
report released in 1470. In 1484, Bruges revolted against Maximilian of
Hapsburg, who was jailed for a while in the town. Bruges lost all its
privileges and the foreign merchants moved to Antwerp. The town had
then 35,000 inhabitants but started to decline. Bruges missed the
developemnt of trading capitalism in the XVIth century and the
industrialization in the XIXth century. No industry developed either in
the XXth century, and the town was nicknamed Bruges-la-Morte
(Bruges-the-Dead) by the Symbolist writer Georges Rodenbach
(1855-1898), who published the novel of the same name in 1892.
At the end of the XIXth century, King Léopold II opened the Baudouin
Canal between Bruges and Zeebrugge, achieving a project already
imagined by Napoléon. During the First World War, the Germans used
Zeebrugge as a port of call for their submarines; the English sunk
ships loaded with cement in April 1918 in order to block the port.
During the Second World War, Zeebrugge was bombed by the Allied air
force and completely destroyed by the Germans in 1944. The port was
fully revamped and new basins were opened in 1960 because of the
increasing car-ferry traffic with England. In the 1970s, the port was
increased in spite of the opposition of Antwerp and Ghent. Zeebrugge is
today the terminal of the gas pipeline (Zeepipe) delivering Norwegian
gas to Western Europe. More than 11,000 ships moor each year in
Zeebrugge, which is among the 20 most importants ports in the world.
Bruges is mostly renowned for its civil architectural heritage: belfrey
and market (c. 1300), town hall (1376), civil clerk's office (1537),
justice court (1727), St. John's hospital (rooms , XIIIth-XIVth
century); and its religious architectural heritage: Our Lady Church (in
Scheldtian Gothic style, XIIIth-XIVth century, showing a Madonna by
Michelangelo and the tombs of Mary of Burgundy and Charles the Bold),
St. Savior Cathedral (XVIth century), St. Ann church (XIIth
century), St. Walburgius church (in Jesuit style, 1642) and the
Beguine convent (XVIIth-XVIIIth century).
The town has also kept rich houses in the so-called Brugian or Flemish
style and rich museums showing paintings by the Flemish primitive
painters (Van Eyck, Van der Goes, Memling...)
Source: Guido Peeters. Bruges. Encyclopaedia Universalis.
Ivan Sache, 13 April 2005
The municipal flag of Bruges is horizontally divided into eight
white-red-white-red-white-red-white-red stripes with a blue lion in the
middle. The lion has a yellow crown and necklace with a small yellow
cross and red claws.
According to Gemeentewapens in België - Vlaanderen en Brussel, the flag was adopted by the Municipal Council on 26 October 1982, confirmed by the Executive of Flanders on 1
July 1986 and published in the Belgian official gazette on 3 December 1987.
The flag is a banner of the municipal arms, which were granted by (Dutch) Royal Decree on
20 October 1819 and confirmed by (Belgian) Royal Decree on 26 February 1842.
The oldest known seal of Bruges dates from 1199. It shows a fortress
and some fleurs-de-lis. A second seal shows a similar composition. The
arms first appeared on a third seal, known since the late XIIIth century.
The seal still shows a fortress or city gate, but in the base of the
seal is a small shield with the bars and lion. In the seal from 1289
the number of bars was increased form six to eight. The meaning of the bars,
however is not known.
The arms were first officially granted by the Count of Flanders in
1304. The lion is most likely derived from the lion of
Flandersshown in a different colour (blue instead of black).
The colours are known since the XIVth century.
Source: International Civic Heraldry website, by Ralf Hartenmink, quoting Servais' Armorial de Belgique and information given by the municipal administration.
Ivan Sache, 28 May 2007s
![[Former flag of Bruges]](../images/b/be-vwvb1.gif)
![[Former flag of Bruges]](../images/b/be-vwvb2.gif)
Former municipal flags of Bruges, c. 1900 - Images by Ivan Sache, 12 June 2005
Nouveau Larousse Illustré, Dictionnaire Universel
Encyclopédique (7 volumes, published in Paris, 1898-1904) shows the flags of the main Belgian towns, then based on the traditional colours of the towns.
Two flags are shown for Bruges, both horizontally divided red-white-blue but differing by the ratio of the stripes, 1:6:1 and 1:1:1, respectively.
Jan Martens & Ivan Sache, 12 June 2005