Mons

The County of Hainaut (French: Comté de Hainaut; Dutch: Graafschap Henegouwen; Latin: comitatus hanoniensis), sometimes spelled Hainault, was a territorial lordship within the medieval Holy Roman Empire that straddled the present-day border of Belgium and France. Its most important towns included Mons (Dutch: Bergen), now in Belgium, and Valenciennes, now in France. The core of the county, named after the river Haine, stretched southeast to include the Avesnois region and southwest to the Selle (Scheldt tributary). In the Middle Ages, its Counts also gained control of part of the original pagus of Brabant to its north and the pagus of Oosterbant to the east, but they did not form part of the old pagus of Hainaut. In modern terms, the original core of Hainaut consisted of the central part of the Belgian province of Hainaut, and the eastern part of the French département of Nord (the arrondissements of Avesnes-sur-Helpe and Valenciennes). Hainaut appears in 8th-century CE records as a Frankish gau or pagus which included the Roman towns of Famars and Bavay. In the 9th century, if not earlier, it was also described as a county, which implies that it had a single count governing it. As with many counties of the region, there was apparently a 10th-century fragmentation of territories among different counts, which is difficult to reconstruct. In 1071 a single large territorial county was given its more-or-less final form that lasted for the rest of the Middle Ages. For much of its existence the County of Hainaut was a frontier territory, bordering upon the Kingdom of France. From 843 the County formed part of the "middle kingdom" of Lotharingia. After about 925 Lotharingia was definitively attached by King Henry the Fowler to his eastern Frankish realm that would become the Kingdom of Germany. Hainaut and its neighbourhood remained an important frontier area, or "march", during the High Middle Ages. Though a part of the Holy Roman Empire, ruled from present-day Germany, it was culturally and linguistically French and ecclesiastically part of the Catholic Archdiocese of Reims. Like its neighbours such as the counties of Brabant and Flanders, it frequently became entangled in the politics of France. The counts of Hainaut were often rulers of other counties, including Flanders and Holland. Examples of such personal unions include the following: Hainaut and Flanders: 1067–71 and again 1191–1246 Hainaut, Holland and Zeeland: 1299–1356 Hainaut, Holland and Zeeland as part of Bavaria-Straubing: 1356–1432In 1432, Hainaut, Holland and Zeeland joined Flanders, Artois, Namur, Brabant, Limbourg, and later Luxembourg, within the large agglomeration of territories in the Low Countries belonging to the French House of Valois-Burgundy. This new state, the Burgundian Netherlands, was inherited by the Habsburg dynasty in the 1470s. In 1659 and 1678 southern Hainaut was acquired by France. The northern part continued as part of the Habsburg Netherlands. Like much of that state, the northern part of Hainaut was absorbed into the First French Republic in 1797 after the end of the Ancien Régime; it later became part of newly-formed Belgium in 1830.

The Battle of Mons was the first major action of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in the First World War. It was a subsidiary action of the Battle of the Frontiers, in which the Allies clashed with Germany on the French borders. At Mons, the British Army attempted to hold the line of the Mons–Condé Canal against the advancing German 1st Army. Although the British fought well and inflicted disproportionate casualties on the numerically superior Germans, they were eventually forced to retreat due both to the greater strength of the Germans and the sudden retreat of the French Fifth Army, which exposed the British right flank. Though initially planned as a simple tactical withdrawal and executed in good order, the British retreat from Mons lasted for two weeks and took the BEF to the outskirts of Paris before it counter-attacked in concert with the French, at the Battle of the Marne.

The siege of Mons, 15 March–10 April 1691, was a major operation fought during the Nine Years' War, and was the main French objective for the 1691 campaign in the Spanish Netherlands. The city was besieged and captured before the normal commencement of the campaigning season with minimal losses. The outcome was not in doubt, but in a conflict dominated by siege warfare, neither the French army of King Louis XIV, nor the forces of the Grand Alliance under King William III, could bring about a decisive battle. After the siege the duc de Boufflers bombarded the neutral city of Liège, whilst the duc de Luxembourg captured Halle, and scored a minor victory against the Prince of Waldeck at the Battle of Leuze in September. Strategically, however, little had changed in the war, and both combatants returned to winter quarters at the end of the campaigning season.

The siege of Mons of 1572 took place at Mons, capital of the County of Hainaut, Spanish Netherlands (present-day Belgium), between 23 June and 19 September 1572, as part of the Eighty Years' War, the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604), and the French Wars of Religion. In the spring of 1572, after the capture of Valenciennes by a Protestant force under Louis of Nassau, the Dutch commander continued with his offensive and took Mons by surprise on 24 May. After three months of siege, and the defeats of the armies of Jean de Hangest, seigneur d'Yvoy and Genlis, and William the Silent, Prince of Orange (Dutch: Willem van Oranje), by the Spanish army led by Don Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba ("The Iron Duke"), Governor-General of the Spanish Netherlands, and his son, Don Fadrique de Toledo, Louis of Nassau's forces, isolated and without any hope of help, surrendered Mons to the Duke of Alba on 19 September.

The Faculty of Engineering of UMons (French: Faculté Polytechnique de Mons (FPMs)) is a faculty of engineering at the University of Mons in the Wallonia region in Belgium.Before the 2009 merger of the Faculté Polytechnique de Mons and the University of Mons-Hainaut, the FPMs was the oldest university of the city of Mons and the first civil Engineering school in Belgium (1836). Its first name was École des Mines (Mining School). It is a member of the Top Industrial Managers for Europe (TIME) network, an association of 50 leading engineering schools and faculties in Europe. On January 1, 2009, the Engineering Faculty of Mons and the University of Mons-Hainaut merged into a new university called the University of Mons (UMons). The Faculty organizes a five-year course and delivers the Engineering (Ir.) and Master of Science (MSc.) degree. An Applied Sciences Doctoral degree (Dr.) is also available at the FPMs.

Saint Waltrude Collegiate Church (French: Collégiale Sainte-Waudru) is a Roman Catholic parish church in Mons, Belgium, named in honour of Saint Waltrude. The church is a notable example of Gothic architecture, and is protected by the heritage register of Wallonia.

The Belfry of Mons (French: Beffroi de Mons) is one of the more recent among the belfries of Belgium and France. At a height of 87 metres (285 ft), it dominates the city of Mons, Belgium, which is itself constructed on a hill. This belfry, classified in Belgium since 15 January 1936, belongs to the major cultural patrimony of Wallonia. It was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List on 1 December 1999, for its unique architecture, civic importance, and testimony to the birth of municipal influence and power in the area. It is the only one in Belgium that is constructed in Baroque style.

Museum François Duesberg was opened on 21 September 1994 and is devoted to decorative arts from the period 1775 to 1825. The museum is located in Mons (Hainaut) opposite the collegiate Saint Waltrude Church in the former buildings of the National Bank of Belgium. It houses a large collection of objects in perfect condition: it has a prestigious collection of clocks and mantel clocks, exceptional gilded French bronzes, porcelain (mainly from Paris and Brussels), pottery, jewelry (including the famous Mons-punch), and numerous items of similar quality. It was founded by François Duesberg and his wife Betty whose collections focus on the periods of Louis XVI, that of Charles X of France and of the First French Empire under Napoleon.

The Maison Losseau is an Art Nouveau private house located in Mons, Belgium. Dating from the 18th century, it was renovated in Art Nouveau style in the early 1900s at the request of Léon Losseau by Paul Saintenoy. It is listed on the list of the exceptional heritage site of Wallonia and since 2015 houses a center for the interpretation of Léon Losseau's collections and regional literature. The house is located at number 37 rue de Nimy in Mons, next to the courthouse.

Collège Saint-Stanislas is a mixed Catholic secondary school in Mons, Belgium. It was founded in 1851 by the Jesuits. It is located on Rue des Dominicains in the centre of Mons. Despite some disruption during the two world wars, the college has continued to have classes over the entire course of its history.

Notre Dame du Val des Écoliers was a monastery of Augustinian canons regular in the city of Mons, Belgium, founded as a priory in 1252 at the invitation of Margaret, Countess of Hainaut. It became an abbey in 1617 and was suppressed in 1796, during the French period. The buildings were later used as an arsenal, a meeting hall, a warehouse, a factory, and a hospital, but were allowed to decay into considerable disrepair. Most of the old buildings were demolished in 1876, but one tower remained and was restored in 1892. It was classified as a monument in 1955 and is now a landmark. The monastic ruins were investigated by archaeologists in 2021 prior to being cleared to make way for an underground carpark and office space. Initially expected to last a month, the dig would ultimately run from March to July, and exhumed about sixty sets of human remains dating from the 14th and 15th centuries.

The University of Mons (French: Université de Mons) is a Belgian university located in the city of Mons, founded in 2009 by merging the Engineering Faculty of Mons (FPMs) and the University of Mons-Hainaut. The merging of the institutions was achieved following a geographical logic because of the high complementarity between them and their location in the same city. This merger was accepted by the two universities on 6 July 2007 and confirmed by the Belgian French Community Parliament on 25 November 2008. From an administrative point of view the University of Mons was founded on 1 January 2009. Prof. Calogero Conti, former rector of the Engineering Faculty of Mons, became the first rector of the University of Mons. The University of Mons is the fourth (of six) university of the French community of Belgium with over 10,000 students.