CASTLE: the word itself gives a certain amount of mystery. The `English castle ', a word as we shall see, reinforces the romantic part of the message. For if the word "palace" tends to call to deal with an image of power and wealth overabundant, the kind we might associate with the Roman emperors and the Maharajas of India, the word "castle " is more subtle and more serious. The palace is the home of luxury and splendor. The castle stands surrounded by mist, keeping his sleeping princess. And while all eras and all civilizations have given the world of palaces, castles are almost exclusively products of Western Europe in the Middle Ages. Certainly one can find castles in northern India or Japan but have not much physical resemblance to those of Europe or they emerge from a political or social system quite similar to mean the same thing.
To start at the beginning, we must return to the Roman Empire, because the "Castle" and "Castle" have their roots in the Latin word "Castel" (diminutive of "castrum, a fortified camp), which was a limit military strong, and not a residence of any kind. European border from Rome was a heavily fortified line, a sort of Maginot line of defense, which has protected the natural boundary of the Rhine against the Germanic peoples. When the defenses, "limed" split in the 3rd century under the first invasions of Alemannic, it took all the energy of the emperors, Aurelian and Probus, to repair the situation and, even then, the "Pax Romana" was broken for ever. Aurelian has even surrounded the capital, Rome, with walls, and other cities throughout the western empire did the same thing. Minor gems of military engineers have been produced (like the Porta Nigra in Trier, Germany). But even the walls were not considered completely safe. People started to lower their temples to enhance the old "creditors", the enriched hillocks periods Celtic it is the word "creditor" as late Dutch "duin" and "Dune" is French (of French place-names with the creditor. Loudun and include Chateaudun).
With the collapse of the empire physics final in the 5th century, it was the Franks who imposed Christianity and some sort of order to the territories of Gaul and Germany. In the eyes of the people and the church, the Franks were seen as factors of law and order and in fact as "feoderati" Roman or allied troops. Until the arrival of the Carolinians, and despite the bloody dynastic struggles (which really only affected the life at court), the Low Countries in particular have enjoyed a relative prosperity that some historians have gone so far as to appoint a second age gold. The only real troublemakers were Friesian and, in about 638, King Dagobert built a castle in Utrecht to slow their progress. Frisian pirates bold Norsemen were precursors of the true cause of the radical reversal of the western half of the old empire and the death of classical antiquity was reached in one way or another to linger above under the Merovingian and the Carolinians, to whom the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople was still the symbol of universal sovereignty of Rome, and therefore a figure of awe and majesty. The tactics of these troops were armed vessels the boot with the toe up the rivers where they landed and returned defenseless cities or rich abbeys, so effective and simple qu'avéré beyond the powers of n 'matter what great rule to protect its people so little.
Without standing order of the sea, forests and vast uninhabited areas of the heath, there was no power who could resist the incursions of these mobile and well organized groups, the democracies of today are facing very similar problems with the threat of terrorism. In 5t century, the rules of the two halves of the Roman Empire were already stunned and quiet when faced with Mediterranean fleets of pirate Vandals under King Genseric.
was the century of the Norman invasions, which appear to be the wife of the feudal system, a century of plunder, slaughter and horror in a world falling apart. The rule, and so his accounts and lords were force to leave the land (or to come to some terms it could with its dispossessors) in exchange for a personal oath of loyalty. The origin of the word "account" is, again, Latin a "just" (companion) was a Roman military and administrative work late, usually denoting the military governor of a border region jeopardized. (In Britain, on behalf of the Saxon Shore was the second military post after the "Dux Britanniae," Commander-in-chief.) Accounts, at the Norman invasions, appeared to local people as the only true defense against thieves and in Longships was theirs, not the distant and ineffective monarch that their loyalty has been drawn. At the same time, the account; aware that territorial defense was in their own hands made their loyalty to the crown dependent on the dismemberment of the central authority. The prestige of the crown was a heavy burden: the Capetian dynasty, which replaced the last Carolinians by his power was weakened in the next two centuries.
This dismemberment of the power plant was sued it logical conclusion. If the modern village match roughly the structure of "villas" of the late classical time the feudal system was gradually split the country since the fortress is the symbol of power, the "size" than the protective walls are raised, castles appeared almost everywhere.
In countries with large populations, such as Belgium, there were sometimes several castles in the village (always the case in the village of Ecaussinnes). The abundance of local stone has made possible the great castles of the Ardennes, while Flanders and the Netherlands saw the building on a modest scale of men, using local brick and advantage with which nature had been particularly lavish - water. The sort of Wasserburg "called by the building - castle of water - is universal in Westphalia on the humid lowlands provinces codstal: walls and towers of the castle are safe to a medium gray-green pond .
However, in the beginning, and unlike the Roman aristocracy they supplanted Gallo, great men and Merovingian eras of Carolinian built their palaces and castles out of wood, since it was abundant and carpenters Gaelic were highly - skilful. The surnames of French, Belgian and Dutch people like Carpentier, Decarpentrie and Timmerman are very common and a witness to a longstanding tradition and glorious, even if they only appeared at a time when architecture was in rapid evolution.
Nobody knows with any certainty when the transition from wood to stone and brick occurred. A description of the castle of Baldwin, Count of Guines in 1168, proves that the construction was still almost entirely of wood. In an industry known for its harsh winter it is undoubtedly true that wood is more comfortable than the stone to live in, because Russia and Scandinavia to In the late 19th century show. When Catherine the Great and his son, Paul I, felt that their imperial splendor demanded Italian-designed palaces of stone, marble and stucco, they have made life terribly uncomfortable for their families and the court, who preferred "Versailles Wood" of Tsarina Elizabeth. But, alas, wood is flammable and if private citizens continued to prefer (at a cost of some terrible conflagrations, like the great fire of London in 1666), the great nobles opted for security. The livelihoods of Loches, established stone to the late 10th century Nerra by Fulk, Count of Anjou, made an impression on his contemporaries. If the monk Raoul Glaber, writing around the year 1000, Western Europe saw "dressed in a white mantle of churches", the llth and 12th centuries saw the castles arise in every corner, many of examples have come down to us.
The Treaty of Verdun in 843, which the empire of Charlemagne was divided among his three son, marked a decisive point in the history of Europe, so that nobody could have foreseen. The territories, which are the subject of this book, went to Lothar, and since his line could not maintain its hold on them, they spent largely in the orbit of German emperors. Flanders only depended on the king of France. Although the origins of all Merovingian, Carolingian and Capetian dynasties extended in these rich and much-coveted territories, the history of the 9th century with the disintegration of central authority against incursions and Norman Magyar have proved largely beneficial to the lords of what are now the Benelux countries. Accounts turbulent (as in Renier.s Hainault and Brabant and the Baldwins in Flanders), proud of their descent Carolinian in a world that denied them their whole legacy by not forgetting it, seized the opportunity to establish themselves as independent dynasties. They have resisted all attempts to bring heel, Arnold of Carinthia, King of Germany, or, later, the Dukes of Lower Lorraine and the bishops of Liege and Utrecht, who were given work by the German Emperor. In the north it was only in the llth century accounts of Holland and Guelderland managed to carve out important possessions for themselves at the expense of the bishops of Utrecht.
The new principalities had a direct influence on the rate of building Castle, as few nobles have imposed their own law in inverse proportion to the power of local account. In Flanders, the rule of some accounts (like Baldwin VII "the hatchet", about 1119) and the rise of industrial cities quickly limited the elevation of a bit of nobility (although families love Gavras, the Wavrin, houses and exposure Ghistelles they existed). In Luxembourg, the homes of the caliber of Eiter, Chiny, Rochefort, Bourscheidt, Pels, Brandenburg, of Rodemachern of Vianden Rollingen or have acquired an importance that has been supported by the impressive fortresses. From the fourteenth century on, the La Marcks held a network of strongpoints, they were true masters of the region. During the same period, Jacques de Hemricourt in his "mirror of noble Hesbaye", described the fratricidal war in which the small nobility of Liege and Namur committed. War and the Awans Waroux and the War of the cow were episodes that have not contributed to the collapse of a social class that had become closed in on itself and whose values have reflected an era of rapid -vanishing.
In contrast, the aristocracy Hainault has always seemed the most international, most glorious and the richest in the Low Countries: names like Avesnes Enghien Antoing, Line, Barbançon, Berlaymont, Ath, Chievres, Trazegnies, Lalang and Conde are testimony to that. The accounts became Avesnes of Blois in the 13th century and then counts of Hainault, Holland, Zeeland and Frisia, while Enghiens bore the titles of dukes of Athens accounts Brienne, Lecce and Conversano (Apulia in) and, in the person of Marie d'Enghien, later provided a queen of Naples and Hungary. The luster of this aristocracy is shown by the number of crusaders he has provided, as well as its style Brilliant Life, in which French influence was predominant.
The authority of the dukes of Brabant, who from the 13th century have now drawn Guelderland and the Rhine, was sufficient to retain the noble houses as Berthouts of Mechelen, but the development of court life in Brussels ( a court has announced that the Dukes of Burgundy) has made the capital of Brabant, a new pole of attraction. Only baronies remote as Breda and Bergen-op-Zoom, found room to increase their independence. The northern provinces, less developed early this time were subject to a highly feudal was violently overthrown when the Dutch revolt against Spain broke out.
Large families Dutch, like Egmont, the Wassenaar Arrangement, the Arkell, the Brederode, the Renesse, the Zuylen, the Borsselens the Monforts Voorn and have their meadows dotted with a number of "Slots , "and destroyed in endless fratricidal dispute. Very like that which had ravaged the principality of Liège: Hoeks (hooks) Kabeljauwen cons (cod) in the Netherlands, Bronkhorst Heeckeren cons in Guelderland, Lokhorst Lichtenhergs Utrecht and cons Schieringers cons Vetkopers in Frisia. This permanent state of insecurity among families on, with its origins in the intrigues of a certain court or quarrel between farmers, was the reason for survival in these provinces to a social system obsolete. At a time when all conditions were ripe for a leap to the modern world: a collective struggle against the sea, but also the call of the ocean, a class of small landowners, and good communications. When the elite of the southern provinces displaced l6th century intelligentsia to join the North, the Netherlands has taken the torch that Flanders had carried in the Middle Ages and became the spearhead of economic progress, science and politics. Just before that happened, there was the extraordinary expansion of the Dukes of Burgundy, these collectors territory and copies of a high order of chivalry, which was on the verge of disappearing forever. The splendor of the court of Grand Duke of the West in the middle of a region devastated by the Hundred Years War was all an illusion, he hid the deep-seated economic changes and sometimes ruinous. And, indeed, even in France itself during the "century of trouble," the Duc de Berry, Gaston de Foix and the Duke of Orleans rivaled the young King Charles VI in the setting of dazzling displays of luxury and fantasy. In spite of what one might have been led to think, the resources of the dukes of Burgundy were only about a quarter of those of the kings of France. But Philip did not have the proper support the expenses of a war and he preferred to invest the taxes paid by the cities in banquets and jewelry. Few great castles remain from this period, but the brilliance of the Burgundian court currently has attracted families with low foreign countries whose names reappear in later centuries: "I believe the Lannoye, Melun, and the Montmorency-Nassaus Hornes, while, with great patience, a family of Rhineland, Merode, acquired after lordship lordship in every corner of Belgium today through a series of dynastic marriages clever.
During the period of Emperor Charles V was built, impressive castles that reflected the accumulation of wealth and the favor of the court: "I believe the Lalang, the Egmont, the Henin-Liétard the Nassaus and lines have gradually taken the place held by the territorial magnates of the past. The results were that, in the case of Line-Arenberg seventeenth century and the Pity-Argenteaus early 19th century, these large families became a state within a state. In contrast, northern centers of power had shifted very quickly with the onset of major economic enterprises and colonization of the golden age. Under informed, although not strictly constitutional, the Government of the Orange-Nassaus, the triumphant middle classes have taken in catching all the levers of power. The wealth that has so quickly changed the face of a city like Amsterdam was largely put back into the cities that have grown larger as a result, while the upper classes, imbued with a sense of Calvinist reservation is focused on the `Van Hoven plaisantie'ou country retreats. These were usually placed in small grounds and represented a complete break with the concept of a fortified castle and a territorial power. Tangles of Vecht, between Amsterdam and Utrecht, have held to date dotted with "second homes" luxurious and tea houses, which date from this period. Luxury has taken forms other than just the prestige building: the search for Chinese porcelain and exotic animals like parrots dropped plethora of large capital What was also consumed during the period the tulip mania, when fortunes were eliminated to pay a handful of rare bulbs. In 1667, the Dutch legislature has been obliged to pass laws prohibiting trade of these flowers ruinous. This contrast between the middle class, the United Provinces and the English progressive, then the Austrian Netherlands with their still largely feudal stamp, led to a marked difference in the models of the castle-building. Thus, until the late seventeenth century, especially in the Ardennes, some induction courses were still flanked by high walls, sometimes pierced with loopholes, while the patrician residences of wealthy Dutch variance in a peaceful countryside. The decoration of these castles Nordic is characteristic: the austere facades were a reflection of the current mentality, as will be found in or Middachten Amerongen, but the interior was largely decorated with stucco work and laminated roll in which the influence the French, Daniel Marot, a Huguenot in the service of Nassaus can be seen to hold sway.
In the south, the castles were of a size much more impressive. This was because, first, there was a stone building abundant and, secondly, because the social system. A force of labor at reduced prices served as territorial magnates not distracted from their traditional areas of effort by modern economic systems. In contrast, the United Provinces have exported their handicrafts surplus to a large business empire spreading right across the world. The interior design has tended to be sober and even sparse, although some landowners, influenced by French fashion, have made him their special pride to override their walls with stucco, silks and woodwork. The Liege region is somewhat unique in this regard. Here, the improvements French harmonized smoothly with a typical Dutch love china and with the old tradition of high skill in cutting, especially in oak. The result is more than just a summary and is a very personal lifestyle of a principality peaceful and well-to-do, ordered by an ecclesiastical bean-living, sometimes light, as the account Velbrück (1772-1784).
For the rest, the number of properties held by large families meant that there was no recommendation to establish a symbolic seat of the family. He said, for example, that the Duke of Arenberg could travel to Rome or Berlin and stop each night at one of his castles. Perhaps an exaggeration, but it is a convenient reminder of his lifestyle. Park at Enghien's certainly surprised the great Miss, but at the end of the ancient regime, the Duke was ill but a house where he stayed low for hunting. Another of his properties, the castle in Heverlee, the former palace of William de Croy, lord and master Chievres to Emperor Charles V, have crumbled into dust cloths and spiders. Properties myriad of Merode were no less neglected. At the reception following his second marriage, field marshal and the count de Merode-Westerloo have barely escaped with his life while his castle Petershem collapsing around his ears.
There are exceptions, however, and Beloeil, home of the Princes de Ligne, is one, which earned him the title somewhat excessive "Versailles of Belgium ...". On the one hand, few of the aristocracy, who had only one field and no regiment to maintain (the courtiers or soldiers), tended to follow the example of Dutch patricians and built some delightful castles where the art of life took precedence over the need to maintain the general condition.
The art of life is perhaps the main feature of the architecture of the classical period in Belgium and the Netherlands (the chateaux of the Belgian and Luxembourg Grand Duchy itself reflect the poverty of the region at this time there, but they nonetheless have a kind of old fashioned charm). There is no attempt to recreate the palace of the dukes rural English, French bishops or princes of central Europe, but the castles are the reflection of a civilization where the owners have soft lived like gentlemen in their fields and have always kept - or nearly so - of the precepts of fashion, and social tensions that led to the outbreak of the French Revolution were largely absent in these territories prosperous wars had not touched for a long time, and where the church, for example, was much less guilty of the abuses that have cut lordlings in the rest of Catholic Europe seemed all too prone to commit.
Thus the destruction of castles during the revolution and the years that followed was due much more from the passage of foreign armies that the fury of the rebellious peasants. Only Liege, keen to emulate the revolutionary fervor of Paris, lowered the splendid cathedral of Saint-Lambert. And, despite the social upheavals in the late eighteenth century, building small castles meet continued, if for the old nobility or importance but proud owners of new fortunes.
union of Belgium and the Netherlands into a single kingdom (1815-1830), the direct ancestor of Benelux today, coincided with a remarkable economic growth and the arrival on the scene " ; new men "who were to the 19th century. But national characteristics have persisted. While the Dutch remained their sober individuals, and resisted the fashion for Gothic, the Belgians were seized by a mania for building and dotted with new kingdom confections that were exaggerated evidence together with their pride in their new discovered later and their current situation and their confidence in the future. For example, Dr. Eggermont, an ambassador rich, built in Leignon a castle, which was the envy of any English peer or noble Bohemian. The enormous size and splendor of Victorian decor late may call themselves the work of an upstart vulgar by some, but they were made in that time the most brilliant of Belgian architecture. However, the Dutchman has been very nice to quickly realize their architectural heritage and has managed to preserve much, in all its beauty and integrity. While industry
Twente built the cottages with charm, their model is no longer, as in the south, in a direct line of descent from the age of a dominant noble class, interested in greatness, the power, brilliance and historical justification. It is as an aesthetic achievement continues. Only slightly crazy castle in the Netherlands is Haar, which was built in the van Nyevelt Belgian Baron van Zuylen, husband of Helene de Rothschild. Its architect was Cuypers, a Catholic who has worked in this country loyally Protestant, and the result is obviously one that goes directly against the national feeling and taste.
After the first world war, which has indeed rung down the curtain in the 19th century, social change has completely changed the scope and nature of the problem. Now nobody has dreamed of building a castle. Instead, the primary concern was how to maintain what was there. Here it was the 50s, which proved to be an important milestone in the history of castles and chateaux in Europe. Regardless of the fact that the Old World had now completely disappeared in Eastern Europe, there was the astonishing economic development of Western countries which have significantly cut the supply of domestic servants, without whom these large structures could not be maintained. Up to this point, despite all the dramas of European history, the domestic population of the Middle Castle and the castle was remained at a constant level: the same numbers appear for domestic workers in 1250, 1500, 1700, 1850 and 1930. The challenge was posed to the owners, whose private fortunes were imposed to pay for social improvements, was so intense that many of them have simply abandoned. In Belgium, especially the castles have disappeared by the dozen, mostly those of the 19th century but also some pure masterpieces of the classical era. It was not a rare sight to see a farmer with a bulldozer breaking a medieval tower which was obtained as its planting while the historian in a hurry to complete his monograph on this particular building. Not all the buildings shared the same fate. Some of them were taken over by foundations or associations, who can seek government assistance, and in this sector, the Netherlands has set the example. In this regard, while it is true that most people believe that a private owner would make a distinctive work better and cost less in government funds, the apparent misunderstanding of a government grant is accessible to the public . And that would weigh against the castles matrices that are not on a tourist route or worth saved although the owner's attitude towards the opening of his castle or negative.
This website has a twofold purpose: first, to give the public an idea of limitless choice of castles in Belgium and, secondly, to assist owners or custodians to bring far more to note the properties they are responsible.
We hope that wider dissemination of such information will, in a modest way, to preserve our heritage.
