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Val-des-Ecoliers, Mons

1252 establishments1796 disestablishmentsChristian monasteries in Hainaut (province)Protected heritage sites in Hainaut (province)Ruined Christian monasteries in Belgium
0 Mons Rue André Masquelier (2)
0 Mons Rue André Masquelier (2)

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.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Val-des-Ecoliers, Mons (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Val-des-Ecoliers, Mons
Rue André Masquelier, Mons Faubourg du Parc

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 50.4508 ° E 3.9414 °
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Tour du Val des Ecoliers

Rue André Masquelier
7000 Mons, Faubourg du Parc
Hainaut, Belgium
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0 Mons Rue André Masquelier (2)
0 Mons Rue André Masquelier (2)
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County of Hainaut
County of Hainaut

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.

Mons
Mons

Mons (French: [mɔ̃s] (listen); German and Dutch: Bergen, Dutch pronunciation: [ˈbɛrɣə(n)] (listen); Walloon and Picard: Mont) is a city and municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the province of Hainaut, Belgium. Mons was made into a fortified city by Count Baldwin IV of Hainaut in the 12th century. The population grew quickly, trade flourished, and several commercial buildings were erected near the Grand’Place. In 1814, King William I of the Netherlands increased the fortifications, following the fall of the First French Empire. The Industrial Revolution and coal mining made Mons a centre of heavy industry. In 1830, Belgium gained its independence and the decision was made to dismantle the fortifications, allowing the creation of large boulevards and other urban projects. On 23–24 August 1914, Mons was the location of the Battle of Mons. The British were forced to retreat by a numerically superior German force and the town remained occupied by the Germans until its liberation by the Canadian Corps during the final days of the war. There are several memorial placards related to the WW1 battles. Today, the city is an important university town and commercial centre. The main square is the centre of the old city. It is paved in the manner of old cities and is home to many cafes and restaurants, as well as the town hall and belfry. It is forbidden to park in or drive through the centre. Together with the Czech city of Plzeň, Mons was the European Capital of Culture in 2015.