Historical background

Of castles and cloth


The story of Brussels is said to begin with a late sixth-century castle built on a small island in the River Senne. The castle and subsequent settlement became known as Bruocsella, meaning “village in the marshes”. This embryonic city channelled trade to the Flanders plain.

• For much of geological history, Belgium was probably under water. Wallonia, in southern Belgium, was the first land to dry, and other regions followed. Belgium’s plains remain marshy to this day, and are traversed by numerous canals.

The official founding date of Brussels is set at 979 AD, the year Carl of France (the Duke of Lorraine) erected a fortress. Within a century, the settlement was surrounded by city walls and had become a hub of commercial activity. Brussels specialised in the manufacture of fabrics. Fine woollen cloth—spun and patterned using imported English wool—found favour with Parisians, Venetians and even the landed classes in the Orient. Exports boomed.

Brussels’s wealthy merchants pushed their way into political power with little difficulty, squeezing out the craftsmen who made their export successes possible. This provoked widespread resentment among artisans, who, by the 13th century had organised themselves into guilds. The guilds rebelled in the late 13th and 14th centuries. An uprising in 1303 ended ignominously for its leaders: they were buried alive near the city gates. Later that century, the city authorities, still fearful of worker dissent, invested in fortified walls robust enough to last five centuries.

A capital life

St Michel's Cathedral

Under the rule of the French House of Burgundy, Brussels flourished. Mary of Burgundy chose to have her court in the city, and the presence of wealth and royalty drew a host of artists to the city. Rogier van der Weyden, the son of a master cutler, was appointed the city’s official painter in 1427. His work influenced Flemish painters for generations to come.

When Maximilian of Austria married into the Burgundy household in 1477, Belgium—together with the other Low Countries—was handed over to the Habsburgs. In 1531, under Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1519-59), Brussels was named capital of the Netherlands.

This was an appropriate status for the growing city. Apart from anything else, the 16th-century settlement with 50,000 inhabitants was physically imposing. The towering 200-foot Town Hall (still here today) and St Michel’s Cathedral had both been constructed during the 15th century. In 1536, Emperor Charles V (Maximilian’s grandson) proudly opened the Maison du Roi (King’s House)—though no royal ever deigned to live there—and ruled his empire from the city. The city’s cultural life was also becoming more sophisticated. As a teenager, Archduke Charles was tutored by Erasmus. The humanist scholar lodged in a house on rue de Chapitre in 1521.

Refinement spread into the city’s commercial sector. Driven by England’s move into woollen-cloth production, Brussels entered the market of tapestry weaving. Silk-weaving also proved profitable, and “pillow lace” from the city became a coveted item in fashionable European households. In 1561 the Brussels-Willebroek canal was completed. This opened up trading possibilities with prosperous Antwerp and connected the city to the North Sea.

Religious rumpus



The Duke of Alva's “Council of Blood” helped execute thousands for heresy

In 1567, life in the city took a distinctly unpleasant turn with the arrival of the Duke of Alva, the right-hand man of Charles V’s son, Philip II. Like the Spanish-born monarch, Alva was fervently anti-Protestant and a strong advocate of the Inquisition. The Duke set up a commission that was soon dubbed the “Council of Blood”. Thousands were executed on charges of heresy, including members of the nobility. William of Orange came to the rescue by marching into Brussels, expelling the Catholics and setting up a Calvinist administration which lasted for seven years (1578-85). But Philip sent the Duke of Parma to recapture Brussels and Catholic rule returned. (The Netherlands were more successful in their insurrection, breaking away from the Spanish in 1581.)

As part of the Spanish Netherlands, Brussels faced a constant military threat from the Calvinist north. The Thirty Years War(1618-48) hit the city’s economy badly. But culturally 17th-century Belgium was riding high. Pieter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck became famous during this period. Although they were natives of Antwerp, both painters produced work for the wealthy court at Brussels.

À l’attaque!

In 1648, the borders between the United Provinces (the precursor to today's Netherlands, comprising the provinces of Holland, Gelderland, Overijssel, Frieseland, Groningen, Utrecht and Zeeland) and the Spanish Netherlands were settled. But military threats came from other quarters. Continuing French-Spanish hostilities had long threatened to engulf Belgium. The worst of it came in 1695. Pounded by Louis XIV’s French artillery for two days, Brussels was virtually razed to the ground (though the city’s age-old symbol, the Town Hall Tower, somehow survived). When the city was rebuilt, the new constructions included the lavish Grand Place, which exists to this day.

In 1713, under the Treaty of Utrecht, Brussels became part of the Austrian Netherlands. The city prospered, with industries such as glass, cotton and linen performing especially well. But peace and prosperity did not last.

Napoleon captured the region in 1792. With revolutionary zeal, he ladled out egalité for Brussels, confiscating church land and mandating conscription. French occupation lasted until 1815. The city’s jittery nobles were delighted by the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, which took place only nine miles south of Brussels and rid the city of the French. When Byron travelled to Brussels in May 1816, he was struck by the scenes of merriment:

"There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium’s capital had gather’d then
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes look’d love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell.
But hush! Hark! A deep sound strikes like a rising knell!"

- Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, canto III, stanza 21 (1816)

But liberation had a catch. With France’s expansionism still a major concern, the great powers (principally Austria, Prussia, Russia, Great Britain and France) decided at the 1815 Congress of Vienna to lump Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg together. The “Kingdom of the Netherlands”, ruled by William of Orange, would be a buffer-zone against the French. But this arrangement made everyone miserable. The Netherlands and Belgium had last been together during the troubled 16th century, and their union was so frail that there were even rival capital cities: The Hague and Brussels.

After 15 years, unemployment in the south, coupled with a harsh winter (1829-30) set the stage for the Belgian Revolution. On August 25th 1830, a performance took place at Théâtre de la Monnaie of “La Muette de Portici”. This was an opera about an uprising in Naples, and the scenes sparked off a demonstration, first in the theatre, then out on the city streets. Brussels was in rebellion.

William I dispatched 10,000 more troops to the city to quell the revolt, but Belgian soldiers forced them out. A national assembly was elected in November. With Britain and France on its side, Belgium triumphed. In January 1831, it was recognised as an independent state at the Conference of London.

Free at last

Brussels was finally the capital of a free state; now it needed the trappings to live up to its heady new title. Thanks to Napoleon, the city already had a stock exchange and an art museum (both founded in 1801). Under Léopold I, the first ruler after independence, it developed railway lines, public transport and an improved sewer system. The Free University opened in 1834. Twelve years later, Galerie Royale Saint-Hubert, an opulent shopping arcade, opened for business.

Le Cinquantenaire

Léopold II, a ruthlessly expansionist monarch, went on to acquire the Congo. The rubber and minerals extracted from the African colony allowed for extravagant building schemes at home. The Palais de Justice, a grandiose, Greco-Roman affair, was completed in 1883. The River Sennes was covered over (it had become an open sewer). In 1880 Léopold celebrated the golden jubilee of Belgium with an exhibition at Le Cinquantenaire, a bombastic arch east of the centre.

Brussels entered the 20th century prosperous and at peace. It became a centre of the Art Nouveau movement in architecture. Victor Horta originated the style in buildings such as the Hôtel Tassel (1893) and Hôtel Solvay (1894), with their graceful curves, stained glass and iron swirls. Horta later settled into a neo-classical style—the Palais des Beaux Arts (1922-28) and the Gare Centrale (1936-41) are representative of this period.

Along comes war

In August 1914 German troops marched into Brussels on their way to France. They occupied most of the country until 1918. King Albert I stood by his Belgian armies on the northern stretch of the western front, and continued to lead the fight against the invader. When the war with Germany was over, Belgium had suffered devastating losses, with over 40,000 dead, the railways shattered and the economy in pieces. Albert however, had become a national hero.

Not so Léopold III, who quickly surrendered to Hitler when the Germans invaded Belgium again in 1940. Although the king sent a letter to Hitler in 1942 that is often credited with saving half a million women and children from deportation to Germany, rumours of collaboration with the enemy tainted him for the rest of his reign. His immediate post-war years were spent in Switzerland waiting for the Belgians to decide his fate. In 1950, a referendum returned him to the throne, but its endorsement was so lukewarm that he was soon pressed to abdicate in favour of his son, Baudouin I.

The efforts of ordinary Belgians during the war were more distinguished. Though thousands of Jews were deported from 1942, many non-Jewish Belgians risked their lives to protect those who stayed behind. An active underground movement protected adults and children, often by providing them with Christian names and identities. Over 2,700 Jews escaped deportation and death at the hands of the Nazis.

But there were also active collaborationist movements in both the Flemish and Francophone communities. Reprisals against collaborators after the war were savage: many were summarily executed. This episode has continued to mark modern Belgium, with some commentators tracing the roots of far-right Flemish nationalism to the collaborationist movement in the second world war—and to the bitterness felt by their families after post-war reprisals. A minister in the government of Flanders had to resign in 2001 after attending a reunion of Belgian SS veterans.

Capital of Europe?

After the war, Belgium abandoned its policy of neutrality and threw itself into the process of European integration. In 1957 Brussels became the home of the new European Economic Community (EEC).

The Quartier des institutions Européens sprang up east of the historic old town of Inner Brussels, in a smart residential district. The famous Berlaymont building was home to the European Commission from its construction in 1967 until its closure in 1991, after asbestos was found in the walls (it is due to re-open in the next few years). The Commission is now scattered around several buildings in the European Quarter, although it may decamp back to a renovated Berlaymont. Across the road from the Berlaymont lies the vast Justus Lipsius building, which serves as the headquarters of the Council of Ministers, where the ministers from national governments meet when in Brussels.

Belgium matched its new alliances with Western European nations with military integration. One condition of American aid under the Marshall Plan was that the Western European countries work together to rebuild themselves after the war. The result was the Brussels Treaty of 1948, which promised military co-operation among the European states. In 1949 America came aboard with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty. Brussels became the headquarters of NATO in 1967.

A city divided, Europe united

Today the most persistently divisive issue in Brussels (and in Belgium as a whole) is that of language. The country has three official languages: French (spoken in Wallonia, in the south), Dutch (spoken in Flanders, in the north) and German (spoken in a small eastern enclave).

Throughout most of its history, Brussels was predominantly a Flemish town (the city lies entirely within Flanders). But in the 19th century large numbers of Walloons came to the city to work as civil servants and professionals. At the time Wallonia’s steel and coal factories were a vital part of the Belgian economy. This economic dominance, combined with Francophone pre-eminence in governance and the upper classes, led to the domination of the Walloons in Brussels over the next century.

After the first world war, Wallonia’s traditional industries began to decline. Flanders, meanwhile, was starting to shine, especially in the telecommunications industry. With their new economic might, the Flemish began to feel that they deserved political and cultural representation. In 1980 a new constitutional arrangement attempted to resolve the issue with a complex devolution of power to Wallonia, Flanders and Brussels.

But the arrangement has proved cumbersome in Brussels. Around 80% of the city’s population speaks French as a first language (the exact number is not known; sensitivity to the issue has prevented a proper census from being taken since 1947). Despite this, all signs and printed matter must appear in both Dutch and French. At government press conferences, questions and answers must be given in both languages, one after the other. An awkward, possibly unstable stalemate reigns. Flemish speakers are guaranteed a role in the government of Brussels. But the situation is particularly tense in the Dutch-speaking communities surrounding Brussels, where the Flemings have pursued an aggressive policy for promoting and protecting their own language.

Does it matter? Brussels is a cosmopolitan place, home not only to the EU and NATO but also large populations from North Africa, Turkey and Belgium’s former colonies, including Rwanda and Burundi. It lies at the heart of a Europe where borders are increasingly meaningless. Most of its inhabitants—Belgians, diplomats, EU civil servants and lobbyists alike—speak at least two languages well, and many speak more. Belgium’s awkward capital sometimes seems to hang together by a thread, but in the newly integrated Europe that may be all it needs.