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Short History Of Belgium and Culture
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Belgium only became an independent country in 1830. Before that it had belonged to nearly all major continental European powers during their heydays: the Romans, the Franks, the Holy Roman Empire, Habsburgian Spain and Austria, Revolutionary France, and the United Kingdom of Netherlands.
Prehistory
Belgium was first settled by the Homo Neanderthalis over 100,000 years ago, well before the first Homo Sapiens set foot in Europe. Neanderthal caves were discovered in numerous locations around the Meuse Valley (Spy, Sclayn, Engis, Trooz).
Cro-Magnon arrived some 30,000 years ago (archeological sites were found in the province of Limburg). The Ice Age and the advance of the glacier over northern Europe forced humans to retreat south, probably in the Franco-Cantabrian refuge, north and south of the Pyrenees. After the melting of the ice cap around 10,000 years ago, humans progressively recolonised northern Europe.
The Neolithic period was characterised by the megalithic culture. The Seine-Oise-Marne culture flourished in the Fagne-Famene region of Wallonia between from 3000 BCE, and left some impressive monuments, notably around Wéris.
Ancient times
Around 500 BCE, the La Tène culture spread around Western Europe. The modern territory of Belgium was populated by Belgic tribes apparently of Celtic culture but Germanic blood. Among them were the Menapians (in the provinces of East and West Flanders), the Nervians (in Brabant and Antwerp), the Eburones (in Limburg and Liège), the Atuatuci (in the Hesbaye region), the Condrusi (in Condroz), the Paemani (in Famenne) or the Treveri (in Luxembourg).
Julius Caesar conquered the whole of Gaul in 57 B.C.E., and famously said that of all people of Gaul the Belgians were the bravest. However, the bravery of the Belgian tribes was to be fatal to most of them. Julius Caesar exterminated the Eburones to the last one, and most of the Menapians. This created too much free space for the Romans to fill, and soon new tribes were to arrive from the North and East. Ever since Emperor Augustus, the Romans would have to fight back invadors from Magna Germania.
In 16 C.E., the sub-province of Germania Inferior is created as a subdivision of Gallia Belgica. It comprised most of the territory of modern Belgium, as well as the Southern Netherlands (Maastricht, Nijmegen, Utrecht), Luxembourg and the part of Germany west of the Rhine. It becomes a province of its own right in 89 C.E.
Around the 2nd and 3rd centuries, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks descended from Scandinavia toward the Low Countries. Surrendering to Emperor Maximian (250-310), the Salian Franks became Laeti (allies of the Romans), and were allowed to settle in Germania Inferior. They were the first Germanic tribe to settled permanently on Roman land, and thus the first to become latinised, integrating quickly, and providing numerous generals and consuls to the Empire. The Frankish way of speaking Latin eventually evolved into a new language, French. The conquest of Roman Gaul by the Merovingian dynasty was to spread the Frankish language and customs, and eventually give their name to a new country, France (=> see history of the Franks).
Merowig (447-458) was the first Frankish king mentioned by the Romans and is considered the founder of the Merovingian dynasty. He was based in Tournai, which the Romans had founded around 50 C.E. and had later been given to the Franks as a fief. His son Childeric I (437-482) helped the Romans defeat the Visigoths.
Merowig's grandson, Chlodovech, better known as Clovis I (466-511), also from Tournai, conquered the neighbouring Frankish tribes in the Low Countries and Rhineland and established himself as their sole king. He defeated Syagrius, the last Roman official in northern Gaul, then the Visigoths in south-western Gaul, thus becoming the ruler of most of the old Roman Gaul. He converted to Catholicism at the instigation of his wife Clotide, a Burgundian princess, thus spreading Christianity among the pagan Franks.
Belgium as a nation only came into being in 1831, after France helped it wrest its independence from the Netherlands and Leopold I was inaugurated as the country’s first king. Over the next century it evolved into a parliamentary democracy with French as the official language of government. French influences also dominated the mainstream culture, making the friction between Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia at times very pronounced. The era was also marked by the rise of Belgium as a colonial power, and is remembered for the brutal treatment of King Leopold II (son of Leopold I) in the Congo Free State.
The country suffered four years of German occupation during World War I, seeing some of the most intense conflicts of the entire campaign and emerging in ruinous condition, something repeated when it again fell into German hands over World War II. It experienced good post-war economic growth, however, and state reforms helped it to recover stability, although there remain tensions between Flanders and Wallonia. The current prime minister, Yves Leterme, took office for the second time in November 2009.
