Y
YPRES
. The smallest, after Bruges and Ghent, of the “three cities” that dominated Flanders in
the Middle Ages, Ypres is first mentioned in written sources of the 11th century, the only
“new” or founded town of Flanders that became a major metropolis. Its area was still
heavily forested in 1000 but was being cleared rapidly. It was the site of a castle of the
Flemish counts and the church of Saint-Martin, on the Yperlee canal at the point where it
became navigable to merchants traveling inland from the coast. Ypres was thus at a
strategic point linking the hydrographic systems that concentrated on Bruges and Ghent.
One of the “five fairs” of Flanders was held at Ypres, and it grew rapidly, playing an
important role in the revolutionary events of 1127–28. Ypres received a charter based on
that of Arras, probably in 1174, and an annually chosen échevinage, or city council, in
1209. By then, it was one of the most important textile centers of Flanders, indeed the
most purely industrial of the Flemish cities, with an active overseas trade. With Ghent
and Bruges, and before 1305 Lille and Douai, Ypres participated as a “good town” of
Flanders in regular consultations with the counts.
Ypres kept this position to the end of the ancien régime, despite a severe economic
decline after ca. 1315. The famine of that year and a subsequent plague cost Ypres nearly
one-sixth of its population, which is thought to have been about 22,000 in 1315, 14,000
in 1360, and 9,390 in 1437. Ypres was also the only one of the “three cities” that faced
substantial competition from neighboring smaller towns, particularly Poperinge, in textile
manufacture. Although’ the manufacture of certain types of luxury cloth was forbidden
within three comital miles of Ypres, the town was unable to enforce its right, and the
result was that the Ypres vicinity and the nearby Lys Valley became known for the
production of medium-grade cloth by the late 14th century. The cloth production of
Ypres dropped 60 percent between 1312 and 1360, and decline became even more rapid
after 1370. The events of 1302 did not involve replacing the French-speaking aristocracy
at Ypres, which continued to function except between 1325 and 1329. The walls of
Ypres, which still left most of the textile workers in the suburbs, were less extensive than
those of the other Flemish towns, for the ruling merchants, fearing rebellion, did not want
to have the artisans enclosed within the same set of walls as themselves. The workers of
Ypres thus suffered terribly during the wars of the 1380s, and most seem to have
emigrated. Despite its continued political importance, Ypres was a secondary center
economically thereafter.
David M.Nicholas
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1870