Hesdin was a fief of the
counts of Artois, vassals of the
Counts of Flanders until 1180. When
Philip, count of Flanders gave
Artois as dowry to his niece
Isabella of Hainault when she married
Philip Augustus of France in 1180, Hesdin and the other seigneuries passed to France. At the end of the 11th century, Hesdin gained renown for the
park and chateau of
Robert II, Count of Artois, which featured the earliest examples of early medieval
automata in Europe. These included mechanical monkeys covered in badger fur, mechanized fountains, a large sundial surrounded by lions and leopards, and a bellows-operated organ. Over the years additional automata were added, including creations such as a mechanical king and an indoor fountain with mechanical birds.
Guillaume de Machaut, in his poem
Le Remede de Fortune, characterized them as "the marvels, the delights, the inventions, the engines, the contrivances, the water courses, the strange things that were enclosed there." By the 1380s, the automata had fallen into disrepair, until
Philip the Good renovated them again in the 1430s. A 1433 bill of account recounts numerous mechanical amusements, including machines that played pranks on the guests as well as angels and figures that spoke and directed visitors. Though subsequently the territory passed to the
Dukes of Burgundy, Hesdin remained one of a handful of French strongholds, until in 1553
Emperor Charles V ordered the utter destruction of the old fortified town on a rise of ground and built the present town the following year, some from the original site, on the banks of the Canche. The unfortified village of
Vieil-Hesdin was later built on the original site. In 1639 the French laid
siege to Hesdin and under
Louis XIII, it was recaptured for France. Thus, though Hesdin has an ancient name and 16th century structures, there is nothing left of the medieval town. During
World War II, the town was
occupied by Germany. The
SS operated a subcamp of the V
SS construction brigade, in which mostly Soviet and
Polish prisoners were subjected to
slave labour. In August 1944, due to
Allied advance, the Germans dissolved the subcamp and deported its prisoners to subcamps of the
Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. ==Population==