Kortrijk, Belgium

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processed in several spinning, weaving and finishing mills. Kortrijk is also important for synthetic fibers and has large flax treatment plants and other textile processing concerns (clothing, linen, carpets, canvas). In recent years efforts have been made to diversify from concentration on the single crisis-prone textile industry. New industries introduced include engineering, building materials, electronics, jewelry, rubber, furniture and printing.

Polishing of precious stones is also a well known and economically important activity. In addition Kortrijk is the economic and cultural center of an area encompassing 300,000 people and with a department of the Catholic University of Louvain is also a university town. In the "Hallen" built in 1967 important trade fairs and congresses take place.

Kortrijk was already an important junction of two roads in Roman times when it was known as Cortoriacum. In Merovingian times it had the right to mint coins. It became the seat of a Flemish burgrave and in 1189 was elevated to the status of town. Its period of prosperity was in the late Middle Ages, when it developed into a center of the Flemish cloth industry. When this declined in the 16th C. it was replaced by linen weaving based on the local cultivation of flax, which is still dominant today. The prosperous trading and industrial town was badly damaged during the wars of Louis XIV and in both world wars. Rebuilding radically altered the townscape, however some architectural monuments have remained intact.

On July 11, 1302 close to Kortrijk the Battle of the Golden Spurs took place on the battlefield on the Groeningekouter. Here the Flemish, mainly armed men on foot from the towns of Bruges and Ypres, routed an army of French knights under the command of Robert, Count of Artois. This battle was of international importance for two reasons: firstly this victory assured the English allied to the Flemish towns important landing places in the Hundred Years' War; secondly, it was the first time in history that an army of knights had been conquered by foot soldiers, thereby severely deflating the myth attached to the knights - their downfall had begun. After the battle the victorious Flemish weavers collected over 700 knights' spurs and hung them as a symbol of their triumph in the nave of the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwkerk in Kortrijk. They remained there until 1382 when the French inflicted a crushing defeat on the Flemish near Rozebeke, and one of their first acts after the victory was to expunge the humiliation of 1302 and remove the spurs from the church.

However, July 11 remained the most important day in Flemish history and has been a national public holiday since the 19th C.