ideological causes, each framing the altarpiece as a symbol of all they hated.
The Lamb ’s hometown, the stalwart and oft-burgled city of Ghent, has a fascinating history, one inextricably linked to the story of its masterpiece. Ghent (Gent in the local language, Flemish, Gand in French) has retained the flavor of its rich and dark history, as the city was largely spared damage from the many wars that charged across its threshold. The story of Ghent is integral to the understanding of what happened to the city’s greatest treasure, particularly in the early period of The Lamb ’s history as the victim of crimes.
Though archaeological elements have been found at Ghent dating back to prehistoric times, the city began, as so many European cities did, as a Roman fortified encampment. The name of the city probably comes from the Celtic word ganda , meaning the confluence, or meeting point, of several bodies of water—in this case the rivers Lys and Scheldt. What began as a simple settlement rose to prominence in 630 with the establishment of
the Abbey of Saint Peter, soon to be renamed the Abbey of Saint Bavo. A second abbey, called Blandijnsberg, followed. Abbeys at the time were not only religious centers but nuclei of trade. A town rose out of the gathering of craftsmen and traders around these abbeys.
It was about this time that a wealthy local landowner by the name of Allowin was born in the nearby settlement of Brabant. Allowin married and had a daughter, but felt unhappy despite his wealth and family. When his wife died, Allowin had something of a midlife crisis. He turned to God, giving away all of his land and possessions to the poor, entrusting himself as disciple to a wandering bishop who later became Saint Amand of Maastricht.
Saint Amand had been a hermit for fifteen years before beginning a successful missionary career at age forty-five. Pope Martin I (later a saint himself ) had granted Amand a bishopric without a fixed see. Amand had a bishop’s privileges but no cathedral. Amand wandered, preaching in Flanders and among the Slavic tribes of the upper Danube. He founded several abbeys and was the probable founder of Ghent’s Abbey of Saint Peter. There he first encountered Allowin.
Moved by the piety and strength of the future Saint Amand, Allowin followed the bishop on his missions in Flanders. Amand baptized Allowin with the name Bavo (Baaf in Flemish, alternately spelled Bavon in English). Relatively little is known about Bavo’s life postbaptism. The only enduring story is of an occasion when Bavo ran into a man whom he had sold into serfdom long before. Bavo insisted that the man lead him in chains to the town jail, as a retributive, penitent gesture. After his missions with Amand, Bavo was given permission to live as a hermit in the forest behind the Abbey of Saint Peter in Ghent. Bavo died on 1 October 653 and was buried in the abbey that, from that point on, bore his name.
Ghent achieved sufficient importance that Charlemagne granted it a fleet with which to defend itself against Viking incursions along its rivers. The settlement had been attacked and plundered by Vikings on two occasions, in 851 and 879. Vikings were unprepared for either open-field
combat or siege and breach of fortifications, so, after the second of the two devastating Viking attacks, in 879 Ghent developed its first substantial wooden fortifications.
Ghent blossomed in the twelfth century, when it became an international center for the cloth trade, importing English raw wool and producing high-quality cloth for export. In 1178 Count Philip of Alsace, the ruler of the area, gave Ghent official trade privileges and built the city’s first stone citadel, the formidable Castle of the Counts, which still stands today. By the thirteenth century, Ghent was the second-largest city in Europe, after Paris, with a population of 65,000.
Thirteenth-century Ghent saw the unusual oligarchic governance of a board of merchant patricians.
The Lamb ’s hometown, the stalwart and oft-burgled city of Ghent, has a fascinating history, one inextricably linked to the story of its masterpiece. Ghent (Gent in the local language, Flemish, Gand in French) has retained the flavor of its rich and dark history, as the city was largely spared damage from the many wars that charged across its threshold. The story of Ghent is integral to the understanding of what happened to the city’s greatest treasure, particularly in the early period of The Lamb ’s history as the victim of crimes.
Though archaeological elements have been found at Ghent dating back to prehistoric times, the city began, as so many European cities did, as a Roman fortified encampment. The name of the city probably comes from the Celtic word ganda , meaning the confluence, or meeting point, of several bodies of water—in this case the rivers Lys and Scheldt. What began as a simple settlement rose to prominence in 630 with the establishment of
the Abbey of Saint Peter, soon to be renamed the Abbey of Saint Bavo. A second abbey, called Blandijnsberg, followed. Abbeys at the time were not only religious centers but nuclei of trade. A town rose out of the gathering of craftsmen and traders around these abbeys.
It was about this time that a wealthy local landowner by the name of Allowin was born in the nearby settlement of Brabant. Allowin married and had a daughter, but felt unhappy despite his wealth and family. When his wife died, Allowin had something of a midlife crisis. He turned to God, giving away all of his land and possessions to the poor, entrusting himself as disciple to a wandering bishop who later became Saint Amand of Maastricht.
Saint Amand had been a hermit for fifteen years before beginning a successful missionary career at age forty-five. Pope Martin I (later a saint himself ) had granted Amand a bishopric without a fixed see. Amand had a bishop’s privileges but no cathedral. Amand wandered, preaching in Flanders and among the Slavic tribes of the upper Danube. He founded several abbeys and was the probable founder of Ghent’s Abbey of Saint Peter. There he first encountered Allowin.
Moved by the piety and strength of the future Saint Amand, Allowin followed the bishop on his missions in Flanders. Amand baptized Allowin with the name Bavo (Baaf in Flemish, alternately spelled Bavon in English). Relatively little is known about Bavo’s life postbaptism. The only enduring story is of an occasion when Bavo ran into a man whom he had sold into serfdom long before. Bavo insisted that the man lead him in chains to the town jail, as a retributive, penitent gesture. After his missions with Amand, Bavo was given permission to live as a hermit in the forest behind the Abbey of Saint Peter in Ghent. Bavo died on 1 October 653 and was buried in the abbey that, from that point on, bore his name.
Ghent achieved sufficient importance that Charlemagne granted it a fleet with which to defend itself against Viking incursions along its rivers. The settlement had been attacked and plundered by Vikings on two occasions, in 851 and 879. Vikings were unprepared for either open-field
combat or siege and breach of fortifications, so, after the second of the two devastating Viking attacks, in 879 Ghent developed its first substantial wooden fortifications.
Ghent blossomed in the twelfth century, when it became an international center for the cloth trade, importing English raw wool and producing high-quality cloth for export. In 1178 Count Philip of Alsace, the ruler of the area, gave Ghent official trade privileges and built the city’s first stone citadel, the formidable Castle of the Counts, which still stands today. By the thirteenth century, Ghent was the second-largest city in Europe, after Paris, with a population of 65,000.
Thirteenth-century Ghent saw the unusual oligarchic governance of a board of merchant patricians.
Similar Books
