Saint-Géry Island

According to local legend, Saint Gaugericus of Cambrai built a chapel on the island around the year 580;[1] hence the name Brussels, which derives from the Old Dutch Bruocsella, Broekzele or Broeksel, meaning "marsh" (bruoc / broek) and "home" or "settlement" (sella / zele / sel) or "settlement in the marsh".[2][3] Starting in the 10th century, the church began to house the relics of the martyr Saint Gudula, who had died two centuries earlier, transferred there from Moorsel (located in today's province of East Flanders) by Duke Charles of Lower Lorraine. In 1047, these relics were transferred again by Count Lambert II of Leuven to the church that would later become the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula.[4]

When King Lothair II appointed the same Charles (his brother) to become Duke of Lower Lotharingia in 977, Charles constructed a fort on the island. Past the island, navigation on the Senne was much more difficult, so it was a good strategic position.[5] It had to defend not only the area, but also the western frontier of the Holy Roman Empire (to which the Duchy of Brabant, and thus also Brussels, belonged) against attacks by the French kings and their powerful vassals, the Counts of Flanders.[3] This fort marked the birth of the City of Brussels, though the ruins have not been found. The island was also said to be once completely carpeted in yellow irises. Due to the island's importance, the iris has been a symbol of Brussels since the 19th century, and a stylised version is featured on the flag of the Brussels-Capital Region.[6]

By the 12th century, the island was home to a high density of watermills, playing an important role in Brussels' growth as a commercial centre.[7] During the Middle Ages, the island also housed a large number of fishmongers, who would use the surrounding river to exchange the water in their fish reservoirs.[8] Fish were extremely important in the Roman Catholic city, as fasts prescribed by the church were rigorously obeyed. This ceased to be common practice even before the Industrial Revolution, as a growing number of tanners, dyers and other trades dumped their waste into the river, causing it to be unsuitable for storing fish.[9]

At the end of the 18th century, under the French revolutionary regime, the Gothic Church of St. Gaugericus (which had replaced the chapel) was razed, replaced by a fountain centred on an obelisk, dating from 1767, which had been taken from Grimbergen Abbey (in present-day Flemish Brabant). The square was an open-air market for the following century.

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  The Church of St. Gaugericus in the 18th century (demolished 1798–1802)
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  Cartoon showing the Place Saint-Géry/Sint-Goriksplein during the flood of January 1820
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  Saint-Géry Island in 1867, before the covering of the Senne

Around 1870, when the Senne was covered over, the island ceased to exist as an island and some of its eastern sections were demolished to make way for the modern bourgeois housing on the newly constructed Boulevard Anspach/Anspachlaan (then called the Boulevard Central/Centraallaan). Plans were made to create a covered market to replace the open-air one, and in 1882, work was completed. The building, known as the Halles Saint-Géry (Dutch: Sint-Gorikshallen) was designed by the architect Adolphe Vanderheggen in the Flemish neo-Renaissance style. The interior, which still includes the old fountain-obelisk, has four rows of double blue stone stalls. The building's metallic structure is an outstanding architectural example of hall design.

The Halles Saint-Géry prospered until after the Second World War, then, abandoned by traders, it was finally closed in 1977. Despite the building's designation in 1987 and several attempts at commercial or cultural reassignment, it took more than twenty years for the halls to benefit from a definitive rehabilitation as an exhibition space. Nowadays, the Saint-Géry area is well known for the many bars, cafés and restaurants in the vicinity, making it a popular nightspot in the capital.

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  Construction of the Halles Saint-Géry/Sint-Gorikshallen, c. 1881
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  The Halles Saint-Géry as it appears today
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  Interior of the Halles Saint-Géry

• Deligne, Chloé (2005). Bruxelles sortie des eaux : Les relations entre la ville et ses cours d'eau du Moyen Age à nos jours (in French). Brussels: Musées de la Ville de Bruxelles. ISBN 978-2-9600373-1-9.
• State, Paul F. (2004). "Brusselization". Historical dictionary of Brussels. Historical dictionaries of cities of the world. Vol. 14. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-5075-0.
• Le Patrimoine monumental de la Belgique: Bruxelles (PDF) (in French). Vol. 1C: Pentagone N-Z. Liège: Pierre Mardaga. 1994.