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Dinant is a Walloon city and municipality located on the River Meuse in the Belgian province of Namur, Belgium. The Dinant municipality includes the old communes of Anseremme, Bouvignes-sur-Meuse, Dréhance, Falmagne, Falmignoul, Foy-Notre-Dame, Furfooz, Lisogne, Sorinnes, and Thynes.
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History
Origins to the 10th century
The Dinant area was already populated in Neolithic, Celtic, and Roman times. The first mention of Dinant as a settlement dates from the 7th century, a time at which Saint Perpete, bishop of Tongeren (with see now at Maastricht), took Dinant as his residence and founded the church of Saint Vincent. In 870, Charles the Bald gave part of Dinant to be administered by the Count of Namur, the other part by the bishop of Tongeren, then Liège. In the 11th century, the emperor Henry IV granted several rights over Dinant to the Prince-Bishop of Liège, including market and justice rights. From that time on, the city became one of the 23 ‘’bonnes villes’’ (or principal cities) of the Bishopric of Liège. The first stone bridge on the Meuse and major repair to the castle, which had been built earlier, also date from the end of the 11th century. Throughout this period, and until the end of the 18th century, Dinant shared its history with its overlord Liège, sometimes raising in revolt against it, sometimes partaking in its victories and defeats, mostly against the neighbouring County of Namur.
Late Middle Ages
Its strategic location on the Meuse exposed Dinant to battle and pillage, not always by avowed enemies: in 1466, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, uncle of Louis de Bourbon, Prince-Bishop of Liège, and Philip’s son Charles the Bold punished an uprising in Dinant by casting 800 burghers into the Meuse and setting fire to the city. The city's economic rival was Bouvignes, downriver on the opposite shore of the Meuse.
Late Medieval Dinant and Bouvignes specialized in metalwork, producing finely cast and finished objects in a silvery brass alloy, called dinanderie and supplying aquamaniles, candlesticks, patens and other altar furniture throughout the Meuse valley (giving these objects their cautious designation "Mosan"), the Rhineland and beyond. Henri Pirenne gained his doctorate in 1883 with a thesis on medieval Dinant.
The Old Regime and World War I
In the 16th- and 17th-century wars between France and Spain, Dinant suffered destruction, famine and epidemics, despite its neutrality. In 1675, the French army under Marshal François de Créquy occupied the city. Dinant was briefly taken by the Austrians at the end of the 18th century. The whole Bishopric of Liège was ceded to France in 1795. The dinanderies fell out of fashion and the economy of the city now rested on leather tanning and the manufacture of playing cards. The famous couques de Dinant also appeared at that time.
The city suffered devastation again in 1914. That year, 674 inhabitants were summarily executed by the German imperial troops, which led to the death of thousands of people in a bit more than a month, and to the decision by millions of people in 1944 to flee at the first signs of fighting.
Sights
- The city's landmark is the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame (illustration, right), rebuilt in Gothic style on its old foundations after falling rocks from an adjacent cliff partially destroyed the former Romanesque church in 1227. Several stages for paired west end towers were completed before the project was abandoned in favor of the present central tower with its highly-recognizable onion dome and facetted multi-staged lantern.
- Above the church rises the vertical flank of the rocher surmounted by the fortified Citadel that was first built in the 11th century to control the Meuse valley. The Prince-Bishops of Liège rebuilt and enlarged it in 1530; the French destroyed it in 1703. Its present aspect, with the rock-hewn stairs (408 steps), is due to rebuilding in 1821, during the United Kingdom of the Netherlands phase of Dinant's checkered history. Further fighting took place during the World War I: among the wounded was Lieut. Charles de Gaulle.
- Apart from the main block is the Rocher Bayard that would have been split by the giant hoof of Bayard, the horse carrying the four sons of Aymon on their legendary flight from Charlemagne through the Ardennes, told in a famous 12th-century chanson de geste.
Culture
- The Flamiche is the local version of quiche
- The couque is Europe's hardest biscuit (American "cookie"), with a honey-sweetened flavor that is impressed with a carved wooden mold before baking.
Born in Dinant
- David of Dinant, philosopher (birth in Dinant is uncertain, 12th century)
- Joachim Patenier, 1485 - 1524, painter
- Antoine Joseph Wiertz, painter (19th century)
- Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone (19th century)
- Georges Pire, Dominican monk and Nobel Peace Prize recipient (20th century)
- André-Eugène Pirson (Dinant, 21 March 1817-Brussels, 28 December 1881), governor of the National Bank of Belgium (NBB) from 1877 until 1881.
- André Buzin, artist and stamp designer (20th century)
Twin cities
See also
References
External links
- Official web site in French, Dutch, and English
- Dinant groups on Flickr
- Citadel of Dinant: Official web site
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