The first written history of Lille is the charter by which the Count of Flanders Baldwin V (1035-1067) in 1066, endowed the collegiate chapter of Saint-Pierre, consecrated in 1055, considerable income. The castrum, which had been built the college and the Château de la Motte-Mrs defended, from time impossible to determine, portus established where the road Ghent-Paris-Champagne Deûle crosses the river that undergoes a slight change of slope. Moreover, when Baldwin V grants its charter, Lille (whose name attests position island [Isla] in the arms of Deûle) is already flanked to the south of a forum, or suburb merchant, who, around one second church, Saint-Etienne, will be the center of the future city. Already, some 200 m, the village has fine, too, a church, Saint-Maurice, which is incorporated in Lille in the twelfth century Better still, the charter of 1066 speaks even a territorium islense, embryo of the future castellany Lille.
From the late twelfth century, Lille, with Bruges, Ghent, Ypres and Douai, one of five “members” of Flanders, a century later, the city group 10 000 inhabitants and seven churches, a new Parish (Saint-Sauveur) was separated from Saint-Maurice and the suburbs of Saint-Pierre and Weppes having been annexed in the north and west. The drapery of Lille is well known, particularly in the Iberian Peninsula and Genoa; prosperity benefits a caste of notable citizens of Lille, whose privileges as those of the city are recorded from 1297 in a custom called Paper commonly Roisin.
Sacked by Philip II Augustus (1213), who punishes his loyalty to Count Ferrand of Portugal, Lille has boomed under the Countess Jeanne de Constantinople (1206-1244) and Marguerite of Constantinople II (1244-1280). In 1235, Joan granted it a charter that will remain the foundation of civic life until 1789. At the head of the city, twelve aldermen (all citizens), the first having the title of mayor, and a rewart, which is like the prosecutor of the bourgeois as the body.
Captured and recaptured by Philip IV (1297-1304), Lille came under direct rule of the kings of France (1304-1369), but the marriage of Philip the Bold with Margaret, daughter of Louis II of Male, in fact one of the capitals of the dukes of Burgundy (1383) and the seat of one of their four chambers of accounts (until 1473). Philip III the Good plays the first chapter of the Golden Fleece (1431) and organizes (1454) the special feast called “the vow of the pheasant.”
Spanish town after the death of Charles the Bold, Lille, dedicated to the cult of Notre-Dame de la Treille, is affected by the Reformation Calvinism is spreading especially among the little people, but the draconian measures taken by governments of the Netherlands Netherlands were soon destroy the Reformed Church Lille.
From 1596 to 1633, the city prospered under the rule of Archduke Albert of Austria (1559-1621) and Isabella (1566-1633): the loss of English wool has led to devote himself to sayetterie and bourgeterie ( dry wool), which employs thousands of artisans, while merchants benefit from Lille large Spanish market. At the same time, the Counter-Reformation in Lille expressed by the installation of many religious communities.
The city grew northward, annexing the suburbs Notre Dame (1603) and Courtrai (1618). In 1667, she was besieged and taken by Louis XIV himself, who instructed Vauban to build the “queen of citadels,” Meeting in France by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668), it increases west, where a neighborhood is built in the French royal. In 1708, Louis Francois Boufflers (1644-1711) maintains an office in Lille heroic and unfortunate against Prince Eugene and Marlborough, but the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) renders the city – a Dutch moment – to Louis XIV.
In the eighteenth century, Lille – head of the stewardship of Flanders and Artois – is strongly marked culturally and administratively by the French influence. The prosperity of the industry is evidenced by the establishment of a Chamber of Commerce (1714), but the end of the ancien regime is characterized by a decline, linked to the end of its monopoly and economic development – encouraged by regulations liberators – the textile industry of “open country” (Roubaix, Tourcoing, Lannoy).
From September 26 to October 8, 1792, 34 000 Austrians besiege Lille, which resists to the point of forcing the Duke of Saxony-Teschen to withdraw, leaving a city ravaged by bombing. In 1804, Lille Douai replaced as head of the department of Nord.
From the beginning of big industry (first half of the nineteenth century), the city becomes a major industrial site, thanks to the modern cotton spinning, which has flourished under the Empire and which added spinning flax and twisting, mechanical engineering (plant Fives, 1861) and chemical industries. In 1850, it has 75 000 inhabitants and 25 000 workers. In 1858, it appends four common industrial (Wazemmes Esquermes, and Fives-Lille Moulins), suddenly tripling its size and doubling its population (which magnifies the influx of Flemish Belgian), gradually pushing its tentacles to Roubaix and Tourcoing, and becoming the center of the economic region’s richest France. But the impoverished working class, which doubles the boom, making it one of the strongholds of socialism Guesdist. In 1901, Lille has 220 000 inhabitants, what is the absolute maximum number of its population, because the development of communication channels (opening Railway North 1846) and the dismantling of the city (from 1919 ) contribute to depopulate it in favor of its suburbs.
What she has gained economic power, Lille has lost picturesque, and soon the savory dialect Lille, sung by Alexander Desrousseaux (1820-1892), author of Little Quinquin, will be a memory, as the Flemish folklore. City University (State University, Catholic schools) since the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the center of a bishopric since 1913, head of an international exhibition (1925), Lille became a great regional capital. The battles which took place in October 1914 and May 1940 (prelude to two hard German occupations) remain in line with its military past. Lille is the home of Albert Samain, General Faidherbe, Edouard Lalo, General de Gaulle.
(Excerpt from Larousse online)
