History of Antwerp

Early settlement and growth

The site of Antwerp was probably already inhabited, as excavations on the right bank of the Schelde have proved, in Gallo-Roman times, in the 2nd and 3rd centuries ce. After the great Eurasian migrations of the 4th and 5th centuries, the region was occupied and Germanized by Franks and possibly Frisians, who gave it its present name, from the Germanic prefix anda (“against”) and a noun derived from the verb werpen (“to throw”), indicating a structure—possibly a predecessor of Antwerp’s 9th-century fortified castle, the Steen—erected against something or someone.

A more picturesque etymology for the name of the city involves the story of the evil giant Druon Antigonus, who severed the hands of the river’s boatmen when they refused to pay his exorbitant tolls. The Roman soldier Silvius Brabo challenged him to a fight, cut off one of his hands, and flung it into the river, not far from the site of the present Steen, thus putting an end to the giant’s extortion and giving the city its name: literally, “to throw a hand.” Antwerp’s coat of arms consists of a fortified castle with a hand on each side; and in the Great Market, in front of the 16th-century Town Hall, the Brabo Fountain (1887) depicts the legendary event.

The city probably developed from two nuclei: a southern one called Chanelaus–Caloes–Callo and a later northern nucleus grown around the Steen, which eventually became the more important of the two. Christianity was introduced in the 7th century. In the 9th century the region became a border county of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1124 the religious centre was transferred from Chanelaus to the northern nucleus. It was around the castle, built originally as a seat for the border county, that Antwerp developed, in the course of the centuries, in more or less concentric half circles.

Situated relatively far inland on the deep right bank of the Schelde, Antwerp was predestined to become a trade and shipping centre. This was already fully the case in the 13th century. At the end of that century and the beginning of the 14th, freedom of trade was given to the English, Venetians, and Genoese by the dukes of Brabant, who had made themselves masters of the county. The city of Antwerp became one of the duchy’s capital cities, together with Leuven and Brussels in Belgium and the city of ’s-Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-Duc) in the Netherlands. In the first quarter of the 14th century, the Antwerp fairs began to flourish. These, together with the fairs of nearby Bergen op Zoom (now in the Netherlands), became one of the foundations of Antwerp’s medieval economic growth.

From the 15th to the 19th century

Antwerp succeeded in the 15th century in becoming the successor of Brugge (Bruges) in Flanders, which until then had been the mercantile metropolis of western Europe. At the end of the 15th century, when nearly all the Low Countries were united under the Burgundian and Habsburg dynasties, the economic preeminence of Antwerp over Brugge is indicated by the fact that the majority of foreign merchants transferred their residence from the old Flemish town to Antwerp. It quickly became the leading commercial centre of western Europe, profiting from the beginnings of colonial trade and stimulated by the great discoveries of the Portuguese and Spaniards. Toward the mid-16th century, the population totaled nearly 100,000, whereas there had been about 20,000 people in the city at the end of the 14th century. Extensive urbanization plans were developed to lodge the increasing population, who earned their livelihood in trade, transport, and industry.

The port underwent its first northward extension. New industries included breweries, malt factories, and bleaching works. Together with the already established finishing works of (English) cloth, tapestry, and silk factories, the sugar refineries, and the diamond industry, they made Antwerp one of the greatest industrial centres of western Europe. Antwerp also became a financial centre: its Stock Exchange (inaugurated 1531), a model for the younger London and Amsterdam exchanges, was the scene of dramatic and momentous events, in which financial agents and bankers of the Habsburg, Tudor, and Valois monarchs played their part, together with Antwerpian, English, French, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, and German merchants. Antwerp also became a great cultural centre: its school of painting began to flourish at the end of the 15th century; the city’s printing houses became known throughout Europe; and humanism began to thrive.

State bankruptcies in Spain, Portugal, and elsewhere, together with religious troubles and ensuing wars (Antwerp early in the 16th century became a centre of Protestant activity), brought about a decline. Antwerp became involved in the revolt of the Netherlands and was taken, in 1585, by Alessandro Farnese, duke of Parma, governor general for the Spanish king. The consequences of this strife with Spain were severe: from 1585 to 1589 the population diminished from 80,000 to 42,000. The Schelde, gateway to the sea, was closed by the Dutch, maintaining their positions against King Philip II of Spain. Capital and enterprise emigrated from Antwerp, mostly northward. The economic greatness of Amsterdam in the 17th century was due in part to Antwerp emigrants and their financial support, as was the case, to a lesser extent, for Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main, and other mercantile cities.

Yet Antwerp was not reduced to the status of a nonentity. The city remained the dynamic economic centre of the Spanish (later, in the 18th century, the Austrian) Netherlands. Antwerp became a more famous art centre than ever before: this was the time of Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens, and other major artists. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic period, followed by Belgium’s temporary union with the Netherlands (1815–30), reversed the general decline in trade of the 18th century. With the Schelde once more freely navigable (restored by the French in 1792), the attraction of Antwerp as a seaport became evident again. Population grew, and the city began to expand and modernize.

The modern city

Since the second half of the 19th century, the growth of Antwerp’s seaport has been interrupted only by the two world wars and associated German occupations; even the economic depression of the 1930s did not affect the expansion of port traffic and facilities. In 1920 Antwerp hosted the Olympic Games. Immediately after liberation in 1944, Antwerp’s nearly unharmed port was instrumental in the supply of the Allied armies aiming their final blow against Nazi Germany, although bombardment by German missiles devastated the city. Since World War II Antwerp, its suburbs, and its seaport have grown apace, spurred by a commercial, industrial, and maritime boom. Port facilities, highways, and inland waterways have all been extended and improved. Some of this expansion, however, has created ecological problems, which have been investigated and addressed to some degree. Antwerp also has become the most important centre of finance and other services in northern Belgium, although the closure of the Antwerp Stock Exchange in 1997 reflects the increasing concentration of financial activities in Brussels.