Mechelen

• 1. Introduction

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  Mechelen sits almost exactly halfway between Brussels and Antwerp, about 25 kilometers from each, and for a brief, remarkable window in the early 16th century it was the capital of the Low Countries. A city that raised Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, sheltered Margaret of Austria as she governed from her palace there, and attracted painters, composers, and illuminators during the Northern Renaissance. It later became the hub of Belgium's railway network, and in the darkest chapter of the 20th century, its train lines made it the site of a Nazi transit camp from which over 25,000 Jews and Roma were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. How does a city hold all of that? That is what this documentary will try to answer.

• 2. City on the Dyle

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  St Rumbold, an Irish or Scottish missionary, is said to have built the first monastery at Mechelen and to have brought Christianity to the area. Work on the cathedral dedicated to him began around 1200, and the tower that eventually rose above it became so dominant that it gave the city one of its nicknames: the Dijlestad, the City on the Dyle, because the river Dijle runs beneath that silhouette.

  Archaeological finds at Nekkerspoel, one of the hamlets within the modern municipality, document human presence stretching back to the La Tene era. Among those finds is an 8.4-meter canoe cut from a single oak trunk, as well as the remains of a small settlement of roughly five wooden houses.

  During the Gallo-Roman period the riverbanks were settled more formally, and Roman roads and ruins have been found throughout the area. When Rome's reach contracted during the 3rd and 4th centuries, Germanic tribes moved in, setting the stage for the medieval city that would follow.

  In 1303, John II, Duke of Brabant, granted city rights to Mechelen, and with them came something commercially decisive: Antwerp lost its stapelrechten, its rights as first seller, for wool, oats, and salt. The rivalry that transfer sparked between the two cities lasted well into the 20th century.

• 3. Capital of the Low Countries

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  In the 15th century, the Dukes of Burgundy took control of Mechelen, and the city entered its most politically powerful phase. In 1473, Charles the Bold moved several political bodies there, and from that point the city served as the seat of the Superior Court for more than three centuries, until the French Revolution ended the arrangement.

  The highly lucrative cloth trade underwrote Mechelen's rise, and in the first half of the 16th century, under Archduchess Margaret of Austria, the city became the administrative capital of the Low Countries, the territory that roughly encompassed present-day Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Margaret governed from her palace, the Hof van Savoye, which is now recognized as one of the first Renaissance buildings north of the Alps. She raised the young Charles V there until he was 17.

  Margaret drew talented figures to Mechelen. Painters, printmakers, illuminators, and composers of polyphony came to work under her patronage. Margaret of York, who had earlier maintained a court in the city after the death of Charles the Bold, was another such patron. Hieronymus van Busleyden, whose Gothic-Renaissance palace now houses the City Museum, received Erasmus, Thomas More, and the man who would later become Pope Adrian VI within its walls.

  A regular postal service between Mechelen and Innsbruck had been established as early as 1490, a practical infrastructure that reflected the city's role as a node in the broader European political network. When governmental institutions began moving to Brussels in 1530, and after the gunpowder magazine explosion of 1546, that centrality began to erode.

• 4. Wars, Fury, and Rebuilding

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  In 1572, during the Eighty Years' War, Spanish troops burned and sacked Mechelen in what became known as the Spanish Fury at Mechelen. The city was rebuilt, only to face another attack in 1580, this time called the English Fury. It was during this volatile period that the tradition of furniture making, still practiced in Mechelen today, took root.

  By 1559, the city had found a different kind of authority. That year it was proclaimed the Archdiocese of Mechelen, making it the seat of religious authority over the territory that would eventually become Belgium. In 1961, Brussels was added to the title, creating the current Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels.

  The Great Council of Mechelen, the supreme court of the territory, remained in place through these upheavals and continued functioning until the French Revolutionary Wars finally dissolved it.

  In 1718, angry mobs entered the Town Hall during a major rebellion. The Emperor formally requested that the President of the Great Council, Christophe-Ernest de Baillet, restore order. On the 18th of June, de Baillet received a full list of those who had led the troubles. Imperial regiments arrived in support, negotiations followed, and peace was restored.

  In 1781, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, ordered the destruction of Mechelen's fortified walls. The city absorbed the change: the former wall locations are still referenced in everyday speech using the Latin terms intra muros and extra muros, within and outside the walls, and the site became the inner ring road.

• 5. Railways, Holocaust, Reconciliation

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  In 1835, one of the first railways on the European continent connected Brussels to Mechelen, and the city became the hub of the Belgian railway network. That status attracted metalworking industries, including central railway workshops that are still located in the city today.

  A century later, that same infrastructure made Mechelen the site of one of the Second World War's most painful chapters in Belgium. The Nazi occupation forces chose the city specifically because of its railway connections. Over 25,000 Jews and Roma were transported by rail from Mechelen to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. The former transit camp and a purpose-built complex across the public square now house the Kazerne Dossin Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights.

  Mechelen also carries a different kind of historical significance in the story of Christian reconciliation. A meeting held in 1909 is thought to have inaugurated the Liturgical Movement. Between 1921 and 1925, a series of unofficial conferences called the Malines Conversations took place in the city, presided over by Cardinal Mercier. Anglican clergy and laypeople, including Lord Halifax, attended. Historians regard those talks as among the most significant early efforts at reconciliation between the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches.

• 6. Folklore and the Carillon

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  Since 1687, Mechlinians have carried a nickname with a story behind it. That year, residents saw what they believed was fire high in the gothic windows of Saint-Rumbold's Tower and mounted a heroic effort to extinguish it. The glow turned out to be the moon reflecting between clouds. Ever since, inhabitants have been called Maneblussers, moon extinguishers.

  Every 25 years, the Ommegang parade commemorates the arrival of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, father of Margaret of Austria, alongside other landmarks of the city's past. An extra edition was held in 2000 for the 500th anniversary of the birth of Charles V. The procession features six processional giants from the 15th to 17th centuries, alongside puppets and carts built on a large scale. It has been a UNESCO Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity since 2005.

  The city's wooden mascot, known since 1775 as Opsinjoorke, dates to the 17th century. During the Ommegang it is pulled around the city on a sheet; a replica now serves in that role, while a bronze statue of the figure stands in front of the Belfry.

  Mechelen was at the heart of the revival of the carillon in the early 20th century, and the Royal Carillon School, named after Jef Denyn, remains the principal school in the world for the instrument. Students come from around the globe to study and perform there. Adele Colson, born in Mechelen in 1905, became the first woman in the world to earn a carillon certification.

• 7. Trade, Taste, and Local Breeds

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  Mechelin lace, a precious bobbin lace, was already among the city's prized exports by the early 18th century. The trade in woollen cloth, tapestries, cordwain, wood carving, and furniture stretches back further still, and some of those crafts are carried on today. The Refuge of Tongerlo, one of several retreat mansions for distant abbeys now within the city, houses Manufacturer De Wit, a workshop that restores Flemish tapestries of the kind that made the region famous in the 16th century.

  The farmland surrounding Mechelen produces Belgian endive, asparagus, and cauliflower. The Mechelse Veilingen, a vegetable auction founded in the city but located in the neighboring municipality of Sint-Katelijne-Waver, is the largest cooperative vegetable auction in Europe.

  The Malinois, one of the four breeds of Belgian Sheepdog, originated in the Mechelen area. The Mechelse koekoek, a local poultry breed, has black and white feathers extending onto its legs, with coloring that recalls a cuckoo bird, which is how it got its name.

  Mechelsen Bruynen was reportedly the favorite beer of Emperor Charles V. A version of that beer is still brewed at Het Anker brewery in the city, which is one of the oldest breweries in Belgium. In 1988, football club K.V. Mechelen brought the city its most recent moment of international sporting glory, winning the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and the European Super Cup, something the two Mechelen clubs founded in 1904 could not have predicted at their formation.