This article is classified "Real"
Turnhout is a city in the north of Flanders, at about 51.3 North 4.9
East. It has almost forty thousand inhabitants (A.D. 1995), and exactly
318 streets. It is the economic and cultural centre of its region, with
more than 40 schools and an important services sector. The surviving
traditional industry is making paper and printing stuff on it,
especially playing cards. Wherever in the world you live, if you have a
deck of cards with you, there is a more than reasonable chance that
they were printed by Carta Mundi in Turnhout. There is also a Museum of
Playing Cards in the city.
Turnhout grew in the protection of the castle of the dukes of Brabant,
which seems to have existed since 1110 or earlier on the duke's hunting
grounds. The community of merchants and craftsmen that grew around it got
its Libertas as a city under duke Hendrik I, between 1209 and 1213. In
1338, Turnhout got the privilege of the market day on saturdays; the
tradition still holds. At the end of the Middle Ages, Turnhout had
become a rich commercial centre. The beguinage was founded in the
fourteenth century, and in 1466 a traveller described the well-built
houses and the paved roads, and counted five churches.
The sixteenth century however was a time of wars, with its fires,
confiscations and epidemics. On top of that, the suppression of the
Reformation made many progressive (and rich) citizens take refuge in
Holland. Turnhout became impoverished, and until Napoleon the further
history of Turnhout consists of a series of ups and downs and a litany
of names of foreign conquerors. In 1830 Belgium, until then most aptly
described as the battlefield of Europe, was given its independance, and
Turnhout fell just south of the new border with the Netherlands. The
period of peace between 1831 and 1914 saw the digging of the canal
(1846) and the construction of the railroad (1855).
In the twentieth century, Turnhout history differs little from the rest
of Western Europe: the first world war, economic revival, then the great
crisis and the second world war. After the wars, Turnhout became a
modern city, not much different from many other small cities: the castle
now houses a court of law, there is a McDonald's opposite the medieval
St. Peter's church, and Carta Mundi mainly exports Magic(TM) cards. But
on the other hand, the beguinage still houses one beguine, market days
are still on saturdays, and the roads are still paved with cobblestones.
Bibliography:
1) R. PEETERS, Kleine Turnhoutse Geschiedenis, 1961,
place of publication unknown.
2) H. DE KOK and E. VAN AUTENBOER, Turnhout,
Groei van een stad, Turnhout 1983.