Liege is today the chief town of the Province of Liege and belonged to the Euregio the Meuse-Rhine. It has the greatest agglomeration of Wallonia. Far too many Inhabitant of Li2ege does not know that it was the capital of a State small but however very rich, the Principauté of Liege. Its geographical position between the France, the Holy Roman Empire Germanic and later the Germany, makes that she lived a very animated history.
Origins of the city
The archaeological research carried out in the ground of the Place Saint-Lambert made it possible to date with paleolithic the first traces from occupation from the site by the man. During these excavations of many testimonys of settlement were put at the day and this human occupation appears to have been continuous through prehistory. This prehistoric settlement was not limited besides to this part of the valley. On the heights, wooded at that time one finds also traces of occupation (Holy-Walburge, Cointe, Fragnée, Thier-with-Liege).But the principal discovery was that of the Roman villa, in 1907, on the site of current the Place Saint-Lambert. This villa is remarkable by the presence of a Hypocauste, a clever device which could be at the same time used to heat establishments of baths, other more or less vast buildings or of simple rooms.
The modern origin of the city of Liege goes up as for it, at the 6th century, when Saint Monulphe, bishop of Tongres which went Dining to Maastricht, stopped in a small valley where scattered some thatched cottages built on the edge of a brook called were Légia. Surprised by the picturesque landscape that he saw of all shares he exclaimed: “ It is here the place which God chose for the safety of a great number, it is here that must rise a powerful city later; we will make there even build a small oratory in the honor of Cosme saint and saint Damien ”.
This prediction of the bishop was not long in being achieved: many were the faithful ones which was established around the vault. The number of those still increased under the episcopate of Saint Lambert because this one was often withdrawn with Liege in order to be devoted to it to exercises of piety. And it that he died, is assassinated there by the traitor Dodon and its accomplices. The news of this crime was spread in all the surroundings which one ran to visit the places of the demise. The successor of Holy Lambert, Saint Hubert fixed his residence at it, and a church was built in honor of the martyr. The borough became a city, one surrounded it by thick walls (711) that one furnishes with high towers to defend the approaches of them.
Liege, feudal city
" Liege owes Notger with God and all the remainder with Notger".
When Notger reaches the station of bishop of Liege, in the year 972, the heart of Liege is consisted the complex of Saint-Lambert with the cathedral and its appendices, the palate, the Notre-Dame church. Towards the east the population was established around the market. In the North-West, the Richaire bishop, noting the fixing of the population on left bank of the Légia, had founded there a church dedicated to Église Saint-Were useful. The Publémont as for him was occupied by the collegial Saint Martin's day and the church the St. Lawrence, buildings unfinished at the time.
For Notger the principal action to carry out is to protect the city from the external threats. This is why it will in particular make build the Collégiale Holy-Cross and a strengthened enclosure including the city. One of the characteristics of the program of Notger was to offer an integrated defensive system. Not far from the place where the secondary arm of the Meuse joined the principal arm, it founded the Collégiale Saint-Denis. The bishop encourages the settlement of the island by completing the construction of the Saint-Paul church there and by raising another collegial there, even if this part of the city remains apart from the strengthened enclosure. Another priority of the bishop is to bring back the religious center in the valley; with this intention it rebuilds with a dimension the higher cathedral and the episcopal palate.
From the 11th century, Liege opens out. The successors of Notger, inspired by the work of this one, follow the example: Baldéric bases the abbey Saint-Jacob on the island and the Collégiale St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in the north of the city, Réginard completes the establishment of the church the St. Lawrence on the Publémont.
But especially Liege opens on the world. The road of France, current street Saint-Gilles, is connected directly to the city by the bridge of Avroy. The road of Germany is accessible by construction from a remarkable work of art: the Bridge of the Arches. Liege, which was already capital of a diocese and a principality, becomes also one of the capitals of the knowledge. From all the corners of Europe one comes to follow the teaching of the Masters inhabitant of Li2ege. This blooming is also perceptible in the visual arts with art mosan, its works of goldsmithery, its manuscripts with miniatures, its ivories. Liege is then called " News Athens "
Later the formation of the parishes gradually will assemble wire of urban fabric, will reinforce the human groupings, will establish between them roadways, streets, lanes and dead ends. The territory of Liege east in fact distributed of 24 parochial entities including 17 included/understood in the enclosure notgérienne. But, dice 1071, the creation of the church of Saint-Remacle-with-Bridge devotes the recognition of an extra-muros sector. Thus is born the district from Outremeuse.
In 1212, the Duc of the Brabant benefits from the absence of the bishop and his militia, to invest the city and to put it at fire and blood. This affront is severely sanctioned the following year with Steppes where the troops inhabitants of Li2ege triumph over Brabançons. This episode marks the first defeat in the history of a feudal army vis-a-vis an army in which one finds, inter alia, of the urban militia. The exploitation of the coal starts in Liege as of this time and will continue until the 20th century.
Following the example cities of the France, Holy Germanic Roman Empire, Italy, the demographic explosion which bursts in XIIIe century breaks the primitive fortifications of Liege. This is why new enclosures are built beginning of the 13th century.
The Peace of Fexhe, signed in 1316, leads to a participation of the people in the management of the city via the corporations of trades. Fundamental democratic liberties are acquired: inviolability of the residence, prohibition of the arbitrary arrests, proscription of the emergency courts…
Destruction of the city
The will of the dukes of Burgundy east to create a powerful state between the France and the Empire, they gather gradually the Netherlands under their capacity. Only the Principality of Liege, attached deeply to its freedoms, refuses the Burgundian supervision. At the end of violent one confrontations, the city is put at fire and blood in 1468 and its population victim of a terrible massacre, perpetrated by Charles Bold the.
The medieval face of the city mosane disappears irremediably.
The rebuilding
All the city is to be rebuilt, only the religious buildings were saved by the Burgundian ones, although those were often devoted to plunderings in the churches and convents.
Increasingly considerable buildings by their proportions are born. They are buildings with public office and houses canonic. These last shelter the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the cathedral and the seven collegial ones. Nothing is too beautiful to place the members of their family, the servants, furniture and the collections.
With Érard of Marck which makes its Merry Entry as a prince-bishop of Liege, the May 30th 1506, peace and the modern man penetrate in the City. He attends the humanistic crowned heads and the most famous. It is in contact with these very diverse personalities, but which made pass the Europe of the Moyen-âge to the Renaissance, that Erard of Marck throws the bases of a patronage from which it made above all profit Liege and its country. Its first concern was to rebuild the palate. Arnold van Mulchen, the architect of the Saint-Jacob church, seeks a new way; still inspired by the Gothic, it is attracted by the innovations coming from France and Italy. An exceptional occasion will enable him to give all the measurement of its talent. Prince Erard of Marck will entrust the realization of the episcopal palate to him, between 1526 and 1536. Philippe de Hurges, traveller Turned his, written in 1615 in its account of voyage: " the palate of prince Liégeois who void uniting holy Lambert is more accomply that is not the Louvre and that are not the Tuileries in Paris" .
The extension of the habitat establishes a direct communication between the city and the suburbs, but it is slowed down, in the northern part, by the presence of the doors and the ramparts. As soon as one passes Hocheporte, one finds oneself in the countryside, in the middle of the farms with the thatched roof. On the other hand, industry settled on certain islands of the Meuse: a “furnace where one makes iron” occupies, since 1566, half of the small island of the Boverie.
At the end of the century, the commercial good relationships maintained with the United Provinces allow the development of the nail factory inhabitant of Li2ege and the industry of alum.
The economic force of people conscious of his rights and jealous of its freedoms a new capacity joins: that of the liberalism, which is formed and drawn little by little its structures. New industries having for bases salpetre, the powder, iron, find an application extremely remunerative in the manufacture of the weapons, the guns and the ammunition. It is what will make the fortune of that which represents, in the principality, the exemplary success of the great capitalism. Jean Curtius left in Liege the sumptuous symbol of its power: the “palate” which bears its name still today and which constitutes the specimen most characteristic of private architecture inhabitant of Li2ege of the beginning of the 17th century.
On the artistic level, the 17th century sees many artists inhabitant of Li2ege making the voyage to Rome in order to perfect their formation. In second half of the century, the sculptor Jean LED Court illustrates himself particularly in the sculpture baroque. Its public works most known are the Virgin with the Child who decorates the fountain of Vinâve-in Île and the Three Graces which overhang the perron inhabitant of Li2ege. Moreover, one artistic sector knows a glare without similar: the industry of the piece of furniture inhabitant of Li2ege.
At the dawn of the 18th century, the downtown area and the municipal palate are seen destroyed by the French Army. In 1734, in fact the princely palate takes fire: a new frontage is then built with a pediment on which one can still see today the armorial bearings of the prince-bishop Georges-Louis de Berghes. Peace reigns and the artists are in the line of those of the previous century.
The revolution inhabitant of Li2ege
Many printers and editors elected residence in Liege to avoid the French censure and to diffuse the " Lumières". In Liege, all the French events finds an echo immediate, the Storming of the Bastille determines, the August 18th 1789, the Révolution inhabitant of Li2ege. After two short restoration of the episcopal capacity, Liege accommodates with heat the French troops which release the territory of the Principauté. This one disappears with fastening with the France, on October 1st 1795: eight hundred and fifteen years of history have been just closed. In spite of the Legal settlement of 1801, much of churches are destroyed, whereas others are saved of extreme accuracy like the Saint-Jacob church. But the largest loss for Liege is indisputably the demolition of prestigious the Cathédrale Saint Lambert starting from 1793 following the steps of the painter Léonard de France, enthusiast republican. These treasures of art will be resold with the profit of the Republic. Thus that disappeared which, with the Moyen-âge, was regarded as the splendor of the Occident. It will never reappear of its ashes and leaves a lapse of memory in the middle of the city. The French mode passes, the Dutch mode succeeds to him and, with him Liege enters the industrial era definitively. This revolution will involve an important reorganization of urban fabric.
The industrial revolution
The economic advancement from which the basin inhabitant of Li2ege starting from the Dutch mode profits has, on public works, of the immediate repercussions which will be prolonged until the great crisis of 1929 - 1930. One initially seeks to gain ground to be built by filling the levels and rivelettes of the Meuse which furrow the heart of the city. On Right Bank, one attends the same victory of the ground to build in the districts of the Vennes and Fétinne. But the most important decision relates to the assignment of space left vacuum with the destruction of the cathedral. One decides to build a place there. This one sees the day in 1827 and gradually became the turntable of an important traffic and the point of concentration of a very active trade. In north, the frontage of the old palate of the prince-bishops closes with solemnity new space. It is however necessary to await 1885, date of the construction of the Large Bazaar, to balance this imposing opposite. The correction of the principal arm of the Meuse involves, in addition, of the fundamental modifications in the island located in front of the old abbey Saint-Jacob, more known under the name of Île Commercial. The conquest of this plain is done gradually: establishment of basins for navigation, which survive a score of years, then systematic settlement of all the surface, construction of middle-class houses, installation of the academy of music (1887), installation of the terraces. As of 1844, the channel of Sauvenière is arched. From this work is born the boulevard from Sauvenière, which finds its continuation in the boulevard of Avroy. The Gare of Guillemins is created in 1842 in a still green space
The presence of the station causes the development of a new district, furrowed by large arteries. To semi-course of the street of Louvrex, a botanical garden brings the freshness of its shades. On left bank, the transformations are not less important. In its turn the station of Longdoz, which ensures since 1861 the rail link with Maastricht, determines the extension of a shopping area and industrialist. The district of the east is radically transformed by the creation of the derivation of the Meuse, since Fétinne and the city is surrounded by a news girdles strengthened in 1880.
The twentieth century
The World Fair of 1905 proceeds in Liege, in the district of Boverie with the construction of the Pont of Fragnée.
Thanks to its strengthened belt, Liege, plays a big role by delaying the German invasion of 1914. This heroic action will be seen besides rewarded in 1919 with the handing-over of the Legion for Honor at the town of Liege by the France.
The year 1926 is that of the last large flood of Liege; to stop the phenomenon, from the banks then will be built along the Meuse.
In 1939, it is the international exhibition of water to the Island-Monsin. This last exposure is seen enclosed prematurely after a few months because of the international events. From 1940, the city is again occupied by the German army. It is the American army which releases Liege in September 1944. Then begin the most harmful period of this war for the city, with the destruction caused by the flying bombs V1 and German V2.
The second half of this century is calmer and more prosperous thanks to the entry of Belgium in the Benelux then in the European Union.
In the Seventies, in fact whole old districts disappear under the action of the excavators, in order to rebuild there in a modernistic style very with the mode and to meet a need for increasingly intense mobility.
The Palate of the prince-bishops henceforth accommodates the Governor of the province of Liege, part of its administration, as well as the services of the ministry for Justice. The presence of one évêché perpetuates the religious tradition of the city.
And afterwards?
At the dawn of the third millennium, Liege seeks to join again with its prestigious past and tries to become again a crossing point impossible to circumvent in all the Europe. Located at an important European highway crossroads connecting Brussels, Antwerp, Luxembourg, Maastricht, Rotterdam, Aachen, Cologne, Strasbourg, Paris… Liege also has an international airport, the second port river of Europe and a new station TGV. Liege has scientific parks which gather companies opening in the growth industries such as the aerospace one, the agro-alimentary one, biotechnology, data processing… The sector of the metallurgy with Cockerill-Sambre occupies a great part of labor inhabitant of Li2ege. Liege also accommodates the seat of several economic institutions of the Walloon region. The university is attended by 14.000 students and the higher establishments by 10.000 students.
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