History of urban centres in the Low Countries

In 696 the Frankish king Pippin II permitted the Anglo-Saxon missionary Willibrord, whom Pope Sergius I had appointed archbishop of the Frisians, to settle in Utrecht.

Willibrord built a church dedicated to St. Martin in Utrecht and from there he converted some Frisians to Christianity, laying the basis for the city to become a major ecclesiastical centre in the Low Countries.

[1][2] From around the 10th century, mainly due to population growth and improved infrastructure, a greater number of larger settlements began to appear.

The textile industry flourished in this area, processing wool from England, and provided the region with enormous wealth, as well as attracting various other trades.

When the king of France added the county to his crown lands in 1297, this sparked a popular revolt culminating in the defeat of the French chivalric army by lowborn urban militias at the Battle of the Golden Spurs.

The boom was relatively short-lived, as merchants from Holland, Flanders and England were ultimately successful at breaking into the Baltic trade themselves, ending the Hanseatic monopoly which had earned its members their wealth.

Eventually they formed the bulk of the transport fleet sailing to Bruges and Ghent, which earned them considerable wealth and led to further expansion.

The latter had barely been able to establish itself as the main centre of trade in the Southern Netherlands, continually under pressure from Western Europe's new powerhouses: the much larger cities of Paris and London.

Today both regions, powered by the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp are agglomerating, as they are fuelling the hinterland: Germany's newly formed industries in the Ruhr.