Flanders - Homeland of the Flemish                            

                                    

                       Flanders' Hymn ("The Flemish Lion") De Vlaamse Leeus

              

      

 At the outset the Flemish economy was agricultural, but there are very early
signs of clothmaking of more than local importance. This was linked with the
fact that the country raised large herds of sheep.

Around the 12th century Flemish trade and industry became of real international
importance. There also took place a crisis in the old manorial organization of
agriculture and an expansion of money economy together with the rise of towns
as centres of trade and industry.

The role of the counts in fostering urban development was important.The cloth
industry, which was soon working mainly with English wool and producing quality
goods, had its largest centres at Ghent and at Ypress. International trade, however,
was also very important. Till the 13th century the Flemish merchants conducted
their trade abroad, especially at the fairs of Champagne,but later merchants of
all nations came to Flanders. The seaport of Bruges became a centre of world
commerce. Flanders profited from its geographical situation, being an intermediary
between the Mediterranean and the Scandinavian and Baltic countries and also
between England and the Rhineland (especially Cologne).  http://www.gent.be/gent/english/history/gesch09.htm

Toward the end of the middle ages the Flemish economy suffered for two main reasons:
(1) the silting-up of the seaway to Bruges and the competition of Antwerp; and
(2) the attempts by the towns to conserve artificially an industrial monopoly
against normal development in the rest of the country. Even so, Flanders was a
rich country whose contribution was of capital importance to the revenues of the
Burgundian dukes.

 NEW LINK  http://noosphere.cc/flandersHistory.html   A Concise History of Flanders   

 NEW LINK  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanders  All you need to know about Flanders

       Old map of Flanders below and lovely photo of Flanders Poppies.      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Major John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.