Rathaus in Brüssel

Title

Rathaus in Brüssel

Description

City hall in Brussel with 10 views of Belgium and Netherlands

ca. 1845

Artist

Anonymus

Historical Description

The name Brussels is composed of the word elements bruk and sel[la], as can still be seen in the French form of the name Bruxelles. According to legend, a chapel dedicated to St. Michael was founded in the 7th century by St. Goorik on the site of the present collegiate church. With the foundation of the cathedral chapter in 1047, Saint Gudula became the collegiate church. In the High Middle Ages Brussels took a decisive upswing. From 1420, the town hall and the first guild houses were built on the Great Market. In 1430 Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, inherited the Duchy of Brabant. He made Brussels the capital of his Burgundian kingdom. The city flourished economically during this period. As a result of the Eighty Years' War and the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, the northern Netherlands became independent, while the southern Netherlands, and thus Brussels, remained under Spanish rule. In the second half of the 17th century, France under Louis XIV fought for supremacy in Europe. French rule ended in 1815 with Napoleon's defeat on the battlefield of Waterloo, located just south of the present Brussels-Capital Region. The partly French-speaking and mainly Catholic south felt at a disadvantage to the Protestant, "Dutch" north in terms of politics, education and economics. The Belgian Revolution led to the secession from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1830 and the final establishment of a Belgian state.