Description

Long a county in the Holy Roman Empire, Hainaut is the country of the Haine river, a small river mouthing in the Scheld.

Although the major cities in Hainaut now are Tournai, Mons and Charleroi, two of these cities (Tournai and Charleroi) actually weren’t in the Hainaut at that time (respectively the Païs Tournensis and the county of Namur), while the (arguably) most important city in Hainaut at that time was Hal, now located in the Flemish Brabant province. I chose to include all those cities for they link one way or another to the Hainaut’s culture.

Contrarily to the most part of the French-speaking part of Belgium, a large portion of the Hainaut was influenced by the Picard language rather than by the Walloon one, leading people nowadays referring the the westernmost part of Hainaut “Wallonie Picarde” or Wapi.

In the 17th century, the Hainaut was the theater of Strife between the Kingdom of France and the Spanish Low Countries, later Austrian and then Dutch. This impacted the Hainaut’s lanscape with incredible fortresses being built. The famous King’s Architect Vauban (renowned for his innovations in Fortress building, the Star Fort) dubbed the fortifications of Ath his “best achievement”.