Sint Odiliënberg () is a village in southeast

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, It is located in

Roerdalen Roerdalen (; ) is a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the southeastern Netherlands, in the province of Limburg (Netherlands), Limburg. As of , it had about inhabitants and borders Germany. Roerdalen is the renaming of the munic ...

, Limburg, in the Roer River valley.

History

Romans settled here very early. Around 700, missionary monks from Northumbria,Farmer, David. ''The Oxford Dictionary of Saints
(5 rev) OUP, 2011] Wiro of Roermond, Saints Wiro, Plechelmus, and Otgerus, built a monastery there, which was important in the Christianisation of the Netherlands. In the time of the

Viking Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

invasions the

Utrecht Utrecht ( ; ; ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city of the Netherlands, as well as the capital and the most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht. The ...

clergy found shelter here. At first it was a secular collegiate chapter, which later moved to Roermond in the 14th century. A community of the Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre settled on the hill during that period. The village was first mentioned in the first half of the 9th century as Mons Petri. The current name means "hill of Odile of Alsace". After the

Eighty Years' War The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt (; 1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish Empire, Spanish government. The Origins of the Eighty Years' War, causes of the w ...

, this area came under Spanish rule; it was ceded to the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands ...

in 1715. Until the French municipal reorganisation, St. Odiliënberg belonged to the administrative division known as Ambt Montfort. Around 1810 it became a separate commune/municipality. In 1991 the municipality of Sint Odiliënberg merged into Ambt Montfort, which in January 2007 merged into

Attractions

Standing on a hill is a Romanesque

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek Eas ...

with two towers dating from the eleventh century. Next to the basilica is a 10th-century chapel, originally the parish church.

Gallery

File:Sint Odiliënberg, basiliek RM33643 foto10 2011-03-16 11.28.jpg, Sint Odiliënberg, basilica File:Sint Odiliënberg, molen foto5 2011-03-16 11.40.JPG, Sint Odiliënberg, windmill: molen van Verbeek

Notable residents

* Connie Palmen, writer, born in St. Odiliënberg * Geert Chatrou, professional whistler, born in St. Odiliënberg

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sint Odilienberg Populated places in Limburg (Netherlands) Former municipalities of Limburg (Netherlands) Roerdalen