Hoogstraten () is a municipality located in the Belgian province of
Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, . The municipality comprises Hoogstraten,
Meer,
Meerle
Meerle is a village in the Belgian municipality of Hoogstraten in the province of Antwerp. As of 2021, it has about 3,871 inhabitants.
History
The village was first mentioned in 1266 as Meerle, and means "open forest near a lake/pond". The Thor ...
,
Meersel-Dreef
Meersel-Dreef is a village in the Belgian municipality of Hoogstraten in the province of Antwerp, Belgium.
Meersel-Dreef is the northernmost point of Belgium, and directly borders the Netherlands.
Name
"Meersel" is derived from the Germanic ...
,
Minderhout
Minderhout is a village in the Belgian municipality of Hoogstraten in the province of Antwerp close to the border with the Netherlands. As of 2021, it has about 4,420 inhabitants.
History
The village was first mentioned in 1238 as Minrehout, an ...
and
Wortel (Meersel-Dreef includes the
northernmost point in Belgium).
Hoogstraten (originally ''Hoogstraeten'') has a population of over 20,000, and lies in
Flanders
Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, ...
at the northern border of Belgium within an enclave surrounded on three sides by the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
. Today, about 15% percent of the population consists of Dutch people.
The town is named after the ''hoge straat'' or "high road" – a military highway that linked the old towns of
Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, and
's-Hertogenbosch
s-Hertogenbosch (), colloquially known as Den Bosch (), is a city and municipality in the Netherlands with a population of 157,486. It is the capital of the province of North Brabant and its fourth largest by population. The city is south of th ...
. In the town's early days, little trade existed. Villages and towns produced just enough for their own support, with little or no surplus to be 'sold' to other areas. Thus, most travelers along this high road were soldiers and armies.
Today Hoogstraten is internationally known for its strawberries. Veiling Hoogstraten (auction) is one of the largest of the Benelux. Every year more than 30,000 tonnes of strawberries are traded there. However its main agricultural crop is the tomato.
History
Medieval period
Originally Hoogstraten probably existed as a small group of
thatched
Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...
cottages, with perhaps one which served as an inn. Passing travellers would pay for a meal of bread and stew and the opportunity to lie on a straw
pallet
A pallet (also called a skid) is a flat transport structure, which supports goods in a stable fashion while being lifted by a forklift, a pallet jack, a front loader, a jacking device, or an erect crane. A pallet is the structural foundat ...
in an upper room for the night while their horse was tended in a stable attached to the cottage. Apart from the innkeeper who probably also sold beer, most of the men in Hoogstraten laboured for the principal landowner while their wives tended to the family. There was no natural lake or hill around which the cottages might have been grouped so the town's focus was the main street, the "Vrijheid". There was a small river, the Mark, but given the tendency for rivers to overflow in this flat land, townspeople were wise to avoid building too close to it.
The town was chartered in 1210, when it was granted the title of 'free town'. This effectively gave it a charter with certain privileges: perhaps exemption from some taxes or exemption from ecclesiastical territorial sovereignty. Both helped the growth of a town.
A watermill ('het Laermolen') was built outside town on the River Mark. It was already an old mill when it was first mentioned in 1391. In 1380 a
Beguinage
A beguinage, from the French term ''béguinage'', is an architectural complex which was created to house beguines: lay religious women who lived in community without taking vows or retiring from the world.
Originally the beguine institution was ...
was established to house good but poor old women.
Early-modern period
![Vitraux Lalaing - Montmorency](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Vitraux_Lalaing_-_Montmorency.jpg)
A very large brick church was built in 1524, and a matching
town hall
In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...
next door was built in 1530 before the church was completed in 1546.
By 1564, a drawing shows the town still consisted of houses on both sides of the wide unpaved Vrijheid. The number of houses had grown to more than a hundred fine upstanding
wooden
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin tha ...
buildings some three stories high. The church, St. Catherine's Church, formed the centre of the town. Behind the church on a slight hill a bit more than a kilometer away stood the castle of the Count.
Under the ownership of Count
Antoon de Lalaing (1480–1540) and his wife, Countess
Elisabeth van Culemborg
Elisabeth of Culemborg (30 March 1475, the former slot of Hoogstraten - 9 December 1555, Culemborg), nicknamed 'Lady Elizabeth ('Vrouwe Elisabeth') was the last sovereign lord or lady of the fiefdom of Culemborg (promoted to a county by Charles ...
(1475–1555), the 'Land van Hoogstraten' became a county, a title bestowed by
Margaretha of Austria. The 'county' encompassed the whole the Count's land in which several villages existed. It is now marked by the boundaries of his property, one of three bulges of northern Belgium each of which are almost surrounded by The Netherlands.
Between 1 September 1602 – 18 May 1604 the
Mutiny of Hoogstraten
The Mutiny of Hoogstraten (1 September 1602 – 18 May 1604) was the longest mutiny by soldiers of the Army of Flanders during the Eighty Years' War. Frederick Van den Berg's attempt to end the mutiny by force, with a siege to recapture the town, ...
took place - the longest mutiny by soldiers of the Spanish
Army of Flanders
The Army of Flanders ( es, Ejército de Flandes nl, Leger van Vlaanderen) was a multinational army in the service of the kings of Spain that was based in the Spanish Netherlands during the 16th to 18th centuries. It was notable for being the longe ...
during the
Eighty Years' War
The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt ( nl, Nederlandse Opstand) ( c.1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish government. The causes of the war included the Refo ...
.
While Hoogstraten lies within modern Belgian Flanders, prior to 1794 the town was in the
Duchy of Brabant
The Duchy of Brabant was a State of the Holy Roman Empire established in 1183. It developed from the Landgraviate of Brabant and formed the heart of the historic Low Countries, part of the Burgundian Netherlands from 1430 and of the Habsburg Neth ...
since old Flanders reached no further North West than
Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, .
Hoogstraten remained in the hands of the Lalaing-Culemborg family until 1709 after which the town was transferred to the Salm-Salm family. In 1740 Hoogstraten was elevated to a
Duchy
A duchy, also called a dukedom, is a Middle Ages, medieval country, territory, fiefdom, fief, or domain ruled by a duke or duchess, a ruler hierarchically second to the king or Queen regnant, queen in Western European tradition.
There once exis ...
by
Emperor Charles VI
, house = Habsburg
, spouse =
, issue =
, issue-link = #Children
, issue-pipe =
, father = Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor
, mother = Eleonore Magdalene of Neuburg
, birth_date ...
, but barely half a century later, during French rule, it lost its titles of 'town' and 'duchy.' The status of a town often depended on whether the townspeople were considered supporters or not, so one might infer that the area was seen to have anti-French feeling.
Contemporary period
Over two hundred years later, in 1977, Hoogstraten was combined, as it had been in the past, with a mixture of dependent municipalities: the villages of Meer, Meerle, Meersel-Dreef, Minderhout and Wortel, which clustered around its edges, none of these villages was more than 15 kilometers from each other. Since 1985 Hoogstraten has once more been entitled to call itself a 'stad' – a town.
Klein - Seminarie (Hoogstraten)
Postal history
The HOOGSTRAETEN post-office opened on 1 February 1845. It used a Distribution postal code 26 (before 1864), and 182 with points before 1874. MEERLE opened on 18 July 1902.
Postal codes since 1969:
[Liste des Numéros Postaux, Administration des Postes, Bruxelles 1969.]
- 2320 Hoogstraten
- 2321 Meer
- 2322 Minderhout
- 2323 Wortel
- 2328 Meerle.
Sports
The
Vlaamse Aardbeiencross
The Vlaamse Aardbeiencross is a cyclo-cross race held in Hoogstraten, Belgium since 1987. It became part of the Superprestige in the 1998–1999 season. In 2020 the race moved to Merksplas
Merksplas () is a municipality located in the Belgian ...
is a February
cyclo-cross race held in Hoogstraten,
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
, which is part of the
Superprestige.
Gallery
File:Hoogstraten1603.jpg, Castle of Hoogstraten in 1603
File:Begijnhofhoogstraten1.jpg, The Béguinage
A beguinage, from the French term ''béguinage'', is an architectural complex which was created to house beguines: lay religious women who lived in community without taking vows or retiring from the world.
Originally the beguine institution was ...
File:Hoogstraten (B) Molenstraat 7 - Salm-Salm Molen.JPG, The Salm-Salm Molen
File:46506 Laarmolen.jpg, Remnant of a former watermill
File:Arbeiderswoning - Meer - Donckstraat 19.jpg, Typical single-storey village house
File:Hoogstraten (B) Vrijheid 181 - Dubbelhuis "De Draeck".JPG, House in Hoogstraten
File:Hoogstraten 2016 - Sankt-Katharinenkirche 01.jpg, View on St-Catherine's Belltower
File:46576 stadhuis hoogstraten.jpg, View on the Town hall
File:Hoogstraten 2016 - Sankt-Katharinenkirche 03.jpg, View on St-Catherine's Tower
File:Hoogstraten 2016 - Sankt-Katharinenkirche 04.jpg, View on St-Catherine's Tower
File:Hoogstraten (Belgium) - Church of Saint Catherine, aerial view.jpg, Church of Saint Catherine, aerial view
File:Hoogstraten (B) Vrijheid 148 - Huis "Torenijzer".JPG, The Vrijheid
File:Hoogstraten (B Vrijheid 185 - Herenhuis "Het Gulden Vlies".JPG, Entrance of "The Golden Fleece"
Notable inhabitants
Born in Hoogstraten
Lived in Hoogstraten
References
External links
*
*
Local Heritage (1)a colourful history of St Catherine's church in English
*
Local heritage (2) contains an Image Bank, several old movies, Audio, old artifacts etc
*
Local heritage (3)
{{Authority control
Sub-municipalities of Hoogstraten
Municipalities of Antwerp Province
Populated places in Antwerp Province