Pre-1500 Historical Antwerp allegedly had its origins in a Gallo-Roman
vicus. Excavations carried out in the oldest section near the Scheldt river in 1952–1961 (ref. Princeton), produced pottery shards and fragments of glass from the mid-2nd century to the end of the 3rd century. In the 4th century, Antwerp was first named, having been settled by the
Germanic Franks. At the end of the 10th century, the Scheldt became the boundary of the
Holy Roman Empire. Antwerp became a
margraviate in 980, by the German emperor
Otto II, a border province facing the
County of Flanders. In the 11th century, the best-known leader of the
First Crusade (1096–1099),
Godfrey of Bouillon, was originally
Margrave of Antwerp, from 1076 until his death in 1100, though he was later also Duke of
Lower Lorraine (1087–1100) and
Defender of the Holy Sepulchre (1099–1100). In the 12th century,
Norbert of Xanten established a community of his
Premonstratensian canons at
St. Michael's Abbey at Caloes. Antwerp was also the headquarters of
Edward III during his early negotiations with
Jacob van Artevelde, and his son
Lionel, the
Duke of Clarence, was born there in 1338.
16th century After the silting-up of the
Zwin and the consequent decline of
Bruges, Antwerp, then part of the
Duchy of Brabant, grew in importance, with the city doubling its population between 1500 and 1569. At the end of the 15th century, the foreign trading houses were transferred from Bruges to Antwerp, and the building assigned to the association of English merchants active in the city is specifically mentioned in 1510. Antwerp became the sugar capital of Europe, importing the raw commodity from Portuguese and Spanish plantations on both sides of the Atlantic, where it was grown by a mixture of free and forced labour, increasingly with
enslaved Africans as the century progressed. The city attracted Italian and German sugar refiners by 1550, and shipped their refined product to Germany, especially
Cologne. Antwerp also had an unusually high number of painters, around 360 in 1560, in a city with a population of roughly 89,000 in 1569 (250 people per painter), it was the most important artistic centre north of the
Alps, serving notable painters such as
Pieter Bruegel.
Fernand Braudel states that Antwerp became "the centre of the
entire international economy, something Bruges had never been even at its height." Antwerp had the highest growth rate and was the richest city in Europe at the time. Without a long-distance merchant fleet, and governed by an oligarchy of banker-aristocrats forbidden to engage in trade, the economy of Antwerp was foreign-controlled, which made the city very cosmopolitan, with merchants and traders from
Venice,
Genoa,
Ragusa,
Spain and Portugal. Antwerp had a policy of toleration, which attracted a large crypto-
Jewish community composed of migrants from Spain and Portugal. Antwerp experienced three booms during its golden age: the first based on the pepper market, a second launched by American silver coming from
Seville (ending with the bankruptcy of Spain in 1557), and a third boom, after the stabilizing
Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis in 1559, based on the textiles industry. At the beginning of the 16th century, Antwerp accounted for 40% of world trade. The boom-and-bust cycles and inflationary cost-of-living squeezed less-skilled workers. In the century after 1541, the city's economy and population declined dramatically. The Portuguese merchants left in 1549, and there was much less trade in English cloth. Numerous financial bankruptcies began around 1557.
Amsterdam replaced Antwerp as the major trading centre for the region.
Reformation era The religious revolution of the
Reformation erupted in violent riots in August 1566, as in other parts of the
Low Countries. The regent
Margaret, Duchess of Parma, was swept aside when
Philip II sent the
Duke of Alba at the head of an army the following summer. When the
Dutch revolt against Spain broke out in 1568, commercial trading between Antwerp and the Spanish port of
Bilbao collapsed and became impossible. On 4 November 1576, Spanish soldiers sacked the city during the so-called
Spanish Fury: 8,000 citizens were massacred, several houses burnt down, and over £2 million sterling of damage was done.
Dutch revolt Subsequently, the city joined the
Union of Utrecht in 1579 and became the capital of the
Dutch Revolt. In 1585,
Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza, captured it after a
long siege and as part of the terms of surrender its
Protestant citizens were given two years to settle their affairs before quitting the city. Most went to the
United Provinces in the north, starting the
Dutch Golden Age. Antwerp's banking was controlled for a generation by
Genoa, and
Amsterdam became the new trading centre.
17th–19th centuries The recognition of the independence of the
United Provinces by the
Treaty of Münster in 1648 stipulated that the
Scheldt should be closed to navigation, which destroyed Antwerp's trading activities. This impediment remained in force until 1863, although the provisions were relaxed during French rule from 1795 to 1814, and also during the time Belgium formed part of the
Kingdom of the United Netherlands (1815 to 1830). In 1830, the city was captured by the Belgian insurgents, but the citadel continued to be held by a Dutch garrison under General
David Hendrik Chassé. For a time, Chassé subjected the town to periodic bombardment which inflicted much damage, and at the end of 1832, the citadel itself was besieged by the French Northern Army commanded by Marechal
Gerard. During this attack, the town was further damaged. In December 1832, after a gallant defence, Chassé made an honourable surrender, ending the
Siege of Antwerp (1832).
20th century , October 1914, by
Willy Stöwer Antwerp was the first city to host the
World Gymnastics Championships, in 1903. During
World War I, the city became the fallback point of the
Belgian Army after the defeat at
Liège. The
Siege of Antwerp lasted for 11 days, but the city was taken after heavy fighting by the German Army, and the Belgians were forced to retreat westwards. Antwerp remained under
German occupation until the Armistice. A few years later, Antwerp hosted the
1920 Summer Olympics. During
World War II, the city was an important strategic target because of its port. It was
occupied by Germany on 18 May 1940 and liberated by the
British 11th Armoured Division on 4 September 1944. After this, the Germans attempted to destroy the
Port of Antwerp, which was used by the Allies to bring new material ashore. Thousands of
Rheinbote,
V-1 and
V-2 missiles were fired (more V-2s than used on all other targets during the entire war combined), causing severe damage to the city but failed to destroy the port due to poor accuracy. After the war, Antwerp, which had already had a sizeable Jewish population before the war, once again became a major European centre of
Haredi (and particularly
Hasidic)
Orthodox Judaism. A Ten-Year Plan for the port of Antwerp (1956–1965) expanded and modernized the port's infrastructure with national funding to build a set of canal docks. The broader aim was to facilitate the growth of the north-eastern Antwerp metropolitan region, which attracted new industry based on a flexible and strategic implementation of the project as a co-production between various authorities and private parties. The plan succeeded in extending the linear layout along the Scheldt river by connecting new satellite communities to the main strip. Starting in the 1990s, Antwerp rebranded itself as a world-class fashion centre. Emphasizing the avant-garde, it tried to compete with
London,
Milan,
New York and
Paris. It emerged from organized tourism and mega-cultural events. ==Districts==