Dinant

From Free net encyclopedia

Dinant is a municipality located on the River Meuse in the Belgian province of Namur, Wallonia. On January 1st, 2005 Dinant had a total population of 12,907. The total area is 99.80 km² which gives a population density of 129.33 inhabitants per km².

Its strategic location on the Meuse exposed Dinant to battle and pillage, not always by avowed enemies: in 1466, Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, and his son Charles the Bold punished an uprising in Dinant by casting 800 burghers into the Meuse and setting fire to the city. The city's economic rival was Bouvignes, downriver on the opposite shore of the Meuse.

Late Medieval Dinant and Bouvignes specialized in metalwork, producing finely cast and finished objects in a silvery brass alloy, called dinanderie and supplying aquamaniles, candlesticks, patens and other altar furniture throughout the Meuse valley (giving these objects their cautious designation "Mosan"), the Rhineland and beyond. Henri Pirenne gained his doctorate in 1883 with a thesis on medieval Dinant.

The city's landmark is the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame (ilustration, right), rebuilt in Gothic style on its old foundations after falling rocks from an adjacent cliff partially destroyed the former Romanesque church in 1227. Several stages for paired west end towers were completed before the project was abandoned in favor of the present central tower with its highly-recognizable onion dome and facetted multi-staged lantern.

Above the church rises the vertical flank of the rocher surmounted by the fortified Citadel that was first built in the 11th century to control the Meuse valley. The Prince-Bishops of Liège rebuilt and enlarged it in 1530; the French destroyed it in 1703. Its present aspect, with the rock-hewn stairs (408 steps), is due to rebuilding in 1821, during the United Kingdom of the Netherlands phase of Dinant's checkered history. Further fighting took place during the World War I: among the wounded was Lieut. Charles de Gaulle.

Apart from the main block is the Rocher Bayard that would have been split by the giant hoof of Bayard, the horse carrying the four sons of Aymon on their legendary flight from Charlemagne through the Ardennes, told in a famous 12th-century chanson de geste. Image:Dinant-2004.jpg

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Culture

The Flamiche is the local version of quiche
The couque is Europe's hardest biscuit (American "cookie"), with a honey-sweetened flavor that is impressed with a carved wooden mold before baking.

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