Origins Archeological digs seem to show the area as inhabited by as early as 2000 BC, most notably in the modern
quartiers of
Fives,
Wazemmes and Vieux Lille. The original inhabitants of the region were the
Gauls, such as the
Menapians, the
Morins, the
Atrebates and the
Nervians, who were followed by
Germanic peoples: the
Saxons, the
Frisians and the
Franks. The legend of "
Lydéric and Phinaert" puts the foundation of the city of Lille at 640. In the 8th century, the language of
Old Low Franconian was spoken, as attested by
toponymic research. Lille's Dutch name is
Rijsel, which comes from
ter ijsel (at the island) from
Middle Dutch ijssel ("small island, islet"),
calque of
Old French l'Isle ("the Island"), itself from
Latin Īnsula, from
īnsula ("island"). From 830 to around 910, the
Vikings invaded Flanders. After the destruction caused by
Normans' and the
Magyars' invasion, the eastern part of the region was ruled by various local princes. The first mention of the town dates from 1066:
apud Insulam (Latin for "at the island"). It was then controlled by the
County of Flanders, as were the regional cities (the
Roman cities
Boulogne,
Arras,
Cambrai as well as the
Carolingian cities
Valenciennes,
Saint-Omer,
Ghent and
Bruges). The County of Flanders thus extended to the left bank of the
Scheldt, one of the richest and most prosperous regions of Europe.
Middle Ages The Carolingian duke
Évrard lived in the city in the 9th century and participated in many of the day's political and military affairs. There was an important Battle of Lille in 1054.
Raimbert of Lille (fl. c. 1100) was an early
nominalist who taught at Lille. From the 12th century, the fame of the Lille cloth fair began to grow. In 1144 Saint-Sauveur parish was formed, which would give its name to the modern-day
quartier Saint-Sauveur. The counts of Flanders,
Boulogne, and
Hainaut came together with England and East Frankia and tried to regain territory taken by
Philip II of France following Henry II of England's death, a war that ended with the French victory at
Bouvines in 1214.
Infante Ferdinand, Count of Flanders was imprisoned and the county fell into dispute: it would be his wife,
Jeanne, Countess of Flanders and
Constantinople, who ruled the city. She was said to be well loved by the residents of Lille, who by that time numbered 10,000. In 1225, the
street performer and
juggler Bertrand Cordel, doubtlessly encouraged by local lords, tried to pass himself off as
Baldwin I of Constantinople (the father of Jeanne of Flanders), who had disappeared at the
battle of Adrianople. He pushed the counties of
Flanders and
Hainaut towards sedition against Jeanne in order to recover his land. She called her cousin,
Louis VIII ("The Lion"). He unmasked the imposter, whom Countess Jeanne quickly had hanged. In 1226 the king agreed to free Infante Ferdinand, Count of Flanders. Count Ferrand died in 1233, and his daughter Marie soon after. In 1235, Jeanne granted a city charter by which city governors would be chosen each All Saint's Day by four commissioners chosen by the ruler. On 6 February 1236, she founded the Countess's Hospital (
Hospice Comtesse). It was in her honour that the hospital of the Regional Medical University of Lille was named "Jeanne of Flanders Hospital" in the 20th century. The Countess died in 1244 in the
Abbey of Marquette, leaving no heirs. The rule of Flanders and Hainaut thus fell to her sister,
Margaret II, Countess of Flanders, then to Margaret's son,
Guy of Dampierre. Lille fell under the rule of France from 1304 to 1369, after the
Franco-Flemish War (1297–1305). The county of Flanders fell to the
Burgundian State next, after the 1369 marriage of
Margaret III, Countess of Flanders, and
Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Lille thus became one of the three capitals of said Duchy, along with
Brussels and
Dijon. By 1445, Lille counted some 25,000 residents.
Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, was even more powerful than the
King of France, and made Lille an administrative and financial capital. On 17 February 1454, one year after the
taking of Constantinople by the
Turks, Philip the Good organised a
Pantagruelian banquet at his Lille palace, the still-celebrated "
Feast of the Pheasant". There the Duke and his court undertook an oath to Christianity. In 1477, at the death of the last duke of Burgundy,
Charles the Bold,
Mary of Burgundy married
Maximilian of Austria, who thus became Count of Flanders.
Early modern era on the Grand' Place The 16th and 17th centuries were marked by a boom in the regional textile industry, the Protestant revolts and outbreaks of the
Black Death. Lille came under the rule of the
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in 1519. The
Low Countries fell to his eldest son,
Philip II of Spain, in 1555. The city remained under
Spanish Habsburg rule until 1668.
Reformed Christianity first appeared in the area in 1542, and by 1555, the authorities were taking steps to suppress that form of
Protestantism. In 1566, the countryside around Lille was affected by the
Beeldenstorm. In 1578, the
Hurlus, a group of Protestant rebels, stormed the castle of the Counts of Mouscron. They were removed four months later by a Catholic
Wallon regiment, and they tried several times between 1581 and 1582 to take the city of Lille, all in vain. The Hurlus were notably held back by the legendary
Jeanne Maillotte. Also in 1581, at the call of
Elizabeth I of the
Kingdom of England, the north of the
Seventeen Provinces, having gained a Protestant majority, successfully revolted and formed the
Dutch Republic. The war brought or exacerbated periods of famine and plague (the last in 1667–1679). The first printer to set up shop in Lille was Antoine Tack in 1594. The 17th century saw the building of new institutions: an
Irish College in 1610, a Jesuit college in 1611, an Augustinian college in 1622,
almshouses or hospitals such as the Maison des Vieux hommes in 1624 and the Bonne et Forte Maison des Pauvres in 1661, and of a
Mont-de-piété in 1626. in 1708, by
John Wootton. Unsuccessful French attacks on the city were launched in 1641 and 1645. In 1667,
Louis XIV successfully laid
siege to Lille, resulting in it becoming French in 1668 under the
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, provoking discontent among the citizens of the prosperous city. A number of important public works undertaken between 1667 and 1670, such as when
Sébastien Le Prestre, Marquis of Vauban build the
Citadel of Lille, or the creation of the quartiers of Saint-André and la Madeleine, enabled the French king to gradually gain the confidence of his new subjects in Lille, some of whom continued to feel Flemish, but they had always spoken the Romance
Picard language. In 1708, during the
War of the Spanish Succession, the
Grand Alliance managed to
capture Lille. For five years, from 1708 to 1713, the Dutch continued to occupy the city. Throughout the 18th century, Lille remained a profoundly Catholic city. It took little part in the
French Revolution, but there were riots and the destruction of churches. In 1790, the city held its first municipal elections.
Post-French Revolution In 1792, in the aftermath of the French Revolution, the
Austrians, then in the United Provinces, laid siege to Lille. The "
Column of the Goddess", erected in 1842 in the "Grand-Place" (officially named
Place du Général-de-Gaulle), is a tribute to the city's resistance, led by
Mayor . Although Austrian artillery destroyed many houses and the main church of the city, the city did not surrender, and the Austrian Army left after eight days. The city continued to grow and, by 1800, had some 53,000 residents, leading to Lille becoming the seat of the Nord
département in 1804. In 1846, a railway connecting Paris and Lille was built. In the early 19th century,
Napoleon I's
continental blockade against the United Kingdom led to Lille's textile industry developing even more fully. The city was known for its cotton while the nearby towns of
Roubaix and
Tourcoing worked wool. Leisure activities were thoroughly organised in 1858 for the 80,000 inhabitants. Cabarets or taverns for the working class numbered 1,300, or one for every three houses. At that time the city counted 63 drinking and singing clubs, 37 clubs for card players, 23 for bowling, 13 for skittles, and 18 for archery. The churches likewise have their social organizations. Each club had a long roster of officers, and a busy schedule of banquets festivals and competitions. In 1853,
Alexandre Desrousseaux composed his lullaby "
P'tit quinquin". In 1858, Lille annexed the adjacent towns of
Esquermes,
Fives, Moulins-Lille and
Wazemmes. Lille was liberated by the Allies on 17 October 1918, when General
William Birdwood and his troops were welcomed by joyous crowds. The general was made an honorary citizen of the city of Lille on 28 October. The only audio recording known to have been made during World War I was recorded near Lille in October 1918. The two-minute recording captured the Royal Garrison Artillery conducting a gas shell bombardment. Lille was also the hunting ground of the German World War I flying ace
Max Immelmann, who was nicknamed "the Eagle of Lille".
Années Folles, Great Depression and Popular Front Town Hall (1932) In July 1921, at the
Pasteur Institute in Lille,
Albert Calmette and
Camille Guérin discovered the first anti-
tuberculosis vaccine, known as
BCG ("Bacille de Calmette et Guérin"). The
Opéra de Lille, designed by Lille architect
Louis M. Cordonnier, was dedicated in 1923. From 1931, Lille felt the repercussions of the
Great Depression, and by 1935, a third of the city's population lived in poverty. In 1936, the city's mayor,
Roger Salengro, became
Minister of the Interior of the
Popular Front but eventually killed himself after right-wing groups led a slanderous campaign against him.
Second World War During the
Battle of France, Lille was besieged by German forces for several days. When Belgium was invaded, the citizens of Lille, still haunted by the events of World War I, began to flee the city in large numbers. Lille was part of the zone under control of the German commander in Brussels, and was never controlled by the
Vichy government in
France. Lille was instead controlled under the
military administration in Northern France. The
départements of Nord and
Pas-de-Calais (with the exception of the coast, notably
Dunkirk) were for the most part liberated from 1 to 5 September 1944, by British, Canadian and Polish troops. On 3 September, German troops began to leave Lille out of fear of the British, who were on their way from Brussels. The city was liberated by a British force consisting largely of tanks. Rationing came to an end in 1947, and by 1948, normality had returned to Lille.
Postwar In 1967, the Chamber of Commerce of Lille, Roubaix and Tourcoing were joined, and in 1969 the
Communauté urbaine de Lille (Lille urban community) was created, linking 87
communes with Lille. Throughout the 1960s and the 1970s, the region was faced with some problems after the decline of the coal, mining and textile industries. From the early 1980s, the city began to turn itself more towards the
service sector. Pierre Mauroy served as Mayor of Lille for 28 years from 1973 to 2001. Mauroy was Prime Minister for part of the term of Francois Mitterrand. In 1983, the
VAL, the world's first automated
rapid transit underground network, opened. In 1993, a high-speed
TGV train line was opened connecting Paris with Lille in one hour. This, with the opening of the
Channel Tunnel in 1994 and the arrival of the
Eurostar train put Lille at the centre of a triangle connecting Paris, London and Brussels. Work on Euralille, an urban remodelling project, began in 1991. The Euralille Centre was opened in 1994, and the remodeled district is now full of parks and modern buildings containing offices, shops and apartments. In 1994 the "Grand Palais" was also opened for the general public, which is free for the public to enter on the first Sunday of every month.
21st century Lille was chosen as a
European Capital of Culture in 2004, along with the
Italian city of
Genoa. Lille and Roubaix were affected by the
2005 riots, like all of France's other urban centres. In 2007 and again in 2010, Lille was awarded the label "Internet City". The
Saint-Joseph Chapel of Saint-Paul College was demolished in February 2021. ==Climate==