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Courcelles (Municipality, Province of Hainaut, Belgium)

Municipal flag of Courcelles - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 29 January 2006

Presentation of Courcelles and its villages
Municipal flag of Courcelles

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Presentation of Courcelles and its villages

The municipality of Courcelles (29,724 inhabitants on 1 January 2007; 4,423 ha) is located in the westerns outskirts of Charleroi. The municipality of Courcelles is made since 1976 of the former municipalities of Courcelles (15,991 inh.; 1,501 ha), Gouy-lez-Piéton (3,182 inh.; 1,652 ha), Souvret (3,838 inh.; 374 ha) and Trazegnies (6,627 inh.; 896 ha).
Courcelles, Souvret and Trazegnies were part of the coal basin of Charleroi, whereas Gouy-lez-Piéton remained a rural municipality.

Courcelles was already settled in the Prehistoric times; in 1876, a workshop of stone and tool manufacturing was excavated in the place called Marais Colau. Remains of a Roman village were found in Champs Falnuée. The first written mention of Courcelles dates back to 960. Courcelles has two monuments related to the word wars. The Jean Friot monument, built in 1923, is a tribute to the first soldier killed during the First World War, who came from Guéméné-Penfao (France). The 18 August 1944 monument recalls the 18 killed in Rognac by the Rexists. Rexism (from Latin Christus Rex) was an anti-parlementary, authoritarian and corporatist movement founded in Belgium by Léon Degrelle (1906-1994) in 1935; it was deeply involved in collaboration with Germany during the Second World War and disappeared in 1945.
Gouy-lez-Piéton was mentioned for the first time in 980.
Souvret was a hamlet of the St. Lambert parish in Courcelles and was never ruled by its neighbours, the lords of Trazegnies. Souvret became an independent municipality under the French First Empire.
Trazegnies has succeeded to the Roman villa of Thrazo, dated 268-275. A feudal family appeared in the XIth century, which set up alliances with several nobles families in Europe. Their banner of arms is used as the municipal flag by the municipality of Silly.

Source: Municipal website

Ivan Sache, 29 January 2006

Municipal flag of Courcelles

The municipal flag of Courcelles is white with a red diagonal descending stripe and a black lion, armed, crowned and langued in yellow, in the upper right part.
The flag follows the proposal made by the Heraldry and Vexillology Council of the French Community, described in Armoiries communales en Belgique. Communes wallonnes, bruxelloises et germanophones as:
Blanc à la bande rouge accompagnée dans le coin supérieur au large d'un lion noir armé, lampassé et couronné de jaune.
The flag is a banner of the municipal arms of Courcelles.

According to the Armorial of Hainaut, available on the Heraldus website, the arms of Courcelles were granted by Royal Decree on 3 March 1914 as:
D'argent à la bande de gueules accompagnée en chef d'un lion de sable armé, lampassé et couronné d'or (Argent a bend gules in chief a lion sable armed langued and crowned or.)

Arnaud Leroy, Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 8 June 2007