Comines-Warneton throughout the centuries
Why Comines-Warneton?
In 1977, the new town of Comines-Warneton was the result of the merger of five independent communes:
Comines, Houthem, Bas-Warneton, Warneton and Ploegsteert.
These five communes had been detached from Flanders under the language laws since 1963.
They formed a Walloon enclave in the province of Hainaut.
In 1982, the name “commune de Comines” was changed to “ville de Comines-Warneton”, with the addition of Warneton being necessary because only the latter locality had the title of town.
This double name also reflects the history of our region:
Houthem and Bas-Warneton were wholly or partly dependent on the seigneury of Comines, while Ploegsteert was part of the seigneury of Warneton.
Very early settlement
Our archaeologists have shown that the area has been inhabited for thousands of years.
Numerous artefacts from the Roman occupation have also been found.
The boundaries of the civitates, i. e. the administrative divisions of the Roman empire, were the predecessors of Catholic dioceses.
This explains why the region was divided between the diocese of Tournai, which included Comines and Houthem, and the diocese of Therouanne (then Ypres as from 1559), with Bas-Warneton, Warneton and Ploegsteert.
We have little information about the period before the year 1000. From the 11th century onwards however, charters begin to attest to the existence of two important seigneuries:
Comines and Warneton.
These stretched on either side of the Lys, as did their respective parishes.
The part north of the Lys depended on the castellany of Ypres, while the part south of the Lys depended on the castellany of Lille.
The development of Comines
A famous chronicler
One of the most famous local figures is undoubtedly Philippe de Commines (1447-1511), author of the famous Mémoires.
It is unclear whether he was born in Comines, but he was educated and trained there in the castle of Comines.
Comines-Nord and Comines-Sud as from 1713
Comines was attacked several times and its castle eventually wiped out by Louis XIV’s armies.
However, the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 – and other later treaties – forced Louis XIV to abandon his conquests.
For the first time it established the Lys as a border between states.
From that moment on, Comines north of the Lys belonged to the Austrian Netherlands, while the south was part of the Kingdom of France.
Comines continued to form a single parish, a single seigneury administered by a single town council, but it was at the same time part of two different countries.
The French Revolution created a new imbroglio.
Being in France, Comines-Sud became a municipality managed independently of the northern part, while still sharing common institutions such as the parish.
The northern part remained a seigneury until the annexation of Belgium by France in 1795.
It then became a new commune:
Comines.
This explains the existence of two Comines today: one French and the other Belgian.
The impact of industrial activity
From the 18th century onwards, intense industrial activity devoted to ribbon weaving developed in Comines-Sud.
In the 19th century, the population of Comines-Nord grew steadily: large numbers of workers came to work in the weaving mills of the two sister towns, mainly in Comines-Sud, which took the name Comines-France.
The population of Comines-Nord, which was around 3,400 in 1846, almost doubled to reach 6,640 by 1910.
After the Second World War, Comines-France became the world capital of ribbon. Then this activity declined sharply over the years in favour of other regions.
Warneton, seigneury, castellany and town
Warneton developed its settlement north of the Lys with a church, a castle and an abbey. A small part of the territory extended south of the river.
The town was first mentioned in 1249.
It was only a small part of the lordship of Warneton, which became a castellany in the 13th century and included numerous fiefdoms located in neighbouring communes or scattered throughout France along the Lys.
The successive lords of Warneton belonged to illustrious families such as the the Dampierres, the Bars, the Luxembourgs or the Orange Nassaus.
Located at the confluence of the Douve and Lys rivers and first mentioned in the 11th century, Warneton castle was rebuilt several times, notably in 1390 according to an existing plan, before disappearing stone by stone in the 17th century.
The castle mound however remains visible not far from the church.
Warneton Abbey, a source of spiritual and economic wealth
Warneton was a stopping point on the road between Lille and Ypres and on the river between Lille and Ghent.
Its banks on the Lys were a place of intense commercial activity.
Political upheavals
Like its sister town Comines, the town was conquered, destroyed and rebuilt several times.
The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 and, above all, the implementing treaties that followed caused it to lose all its possessions in France.
In exchange, it obtained the parishes of Neuve-Eglise and Dranoutre.
In 1831, Warneton covered its current territory plus that of Ploegsteert.
It was one of the 2,739 communes of Belgium which had just gained independence.
Ploegsteert was detached in 1850 and became a commune in its own right.
Comines-Warneton at the heart of the First World War
The First World War was undoubtedly the the most significant event in recent local history.
It virtually razed all villages and towns of the area to the ground.
The front line cut the region in two: Ploegsteert and the western part of Warneton, were held by British forces in the west whereas the German army occupied Comines, Houthem, Bas-Warneton and a small part of Warneton in the east.
This stalemate lasted for four long years.
The front line settled in October 1914 and changed little except during the offensives of 1917 and 1918, when fierce fighting claimed many victims.
Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler also stayed in the region during the First World War, but at different times.
They were to oppose again during the Second World War, which also brought its share of destruction and victims.
The exile of the local population separated and scattered whole families.
When they returned from exile, the refugees found only ruins.
They lived, sometimes for years, in barracks before the final reconstruction with solid materials.
Many dwellings from this period share architectural similarities.
Not a single building in the region is more than a hundred years old.
Francis De Simpel
