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Gavere (Municipality, Province of East Flanders, Belgium)

Municipal flag of Gavere - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 30 October 2006

Presentation of Gavere and its villages
Municipal flag of Gavere

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Presentation of Gavere and its villages

The municipality of Gavere (12,004 inhabitants on 1 January 2006; 3,134 ha) is located on the river Scheldt, half distance (15 km) between Ghent and Oudenaarde. It is made since 1976 of the former municipalities of Asper, Baaigem, Dikkelvenne, Gavere, Semmerzake and Vurste. All the components of the municipality are located on the right bank of the Scheldt except Asper.

Gavere was known in the Xth century as Gauara, from the Germanic word gabra, a marshy area. There are several Flemish toponyms built on the same root, for instance, Gaverbeek, de Gavers, Gavergoed.
The Barons of Gavere, known since the middle of the Xth century, were considered as "one of the oldest, most powerful and most famous lineages of the County of Flanders". They tried every possible means to increase their domain, which more or less matched the today's municipality of Gavere. The Gavere lineage ended in 1325 with the violent death of its last male heir.

In the late Middle Ages, Gavere was a small village (c. 500 inhabitants), but its water castle (waterbucht) had a strategic importance, watching the access to Ghent by the Scheldt. The battle of Gavere, which opposed on 22 July 1453 the Ghent militias to the Burgundians, is a milestone in the Flemish history. It was the last fighting in the fierce war that opposed Ghent to its suzereign, the Duke of Burgundy.
At that time, Ghent was the biggest and richest town in Flanders; its burghers challenged the centralized power exerted by Duke of Burgundy Philip the Good (1396-1467; Duke in 1419), who was always in need of cash and pressured the wealthy merchant towns. During the so-called Great Ghent War (grote Gentsche oorlog), both camps committed acts of violence in Flanders for two years.
In June 1453, the Duke decided to definitively get rid of Ghent; he gathered his vassals in Picardy, Artois and Hainaut, setting up a 30,000-men army, as powerful as the enemy's militias. On 16 July, he started the siege of the fortress of Gavere, which had been seized by Ghent two years ago and kept since then. The fortress was defended by some 50 Ghent milicians and 16 English mercenaries commanded by captain John Fox. Some of them attempted to break the siege and to reach Ghent. The Gaverse reyse (journey to Gavere) started on 23 July: all the valid men aged between 20 and 60 rushed out of Ghent. In the meantime, the fortress of Gavere surrendered and all his defenders were hung. The Burgundians settled in the small woods near the villages of Semmerzake, Gavere and Vurst, and waited for their opponents. After having marched three hours, the 30,000 Flemings from Ghent were gathered by John Fox, who had escaped after the surrending of the fortress. After artillery shots, the Burgundian cavalry broke the Ghent lines; some 15,000 Flemings were killed or drowned in the Scheldt when attempting to escape. However, a core group of c. 1,000 men moved into a curve of the Scheldt, where they resisted for hours to the Burgundians, which were led in personam by the Duke and his son Charles the Bold. None of them escaped but their heroic sacrifice preserved the town of Ghent from total destruction and plundering, since it was too late in the afternoon for the Burgundians to march against the town. Eventually, the Duke imposed a very strict treaty to Ghent, whose de facto independence and political dominance were suppressed for ever.
The fortress of Gavere was eventually destroyed in 1658 by King Louis XIV. The only representation of the fortress is found in Sanderus' Flandria Illustrata (1641). A monument recalling the fortress and using some of its stones was built in the municipal park by Pr. Sander Evrart in 1969.

In 1518, Emperor Charles V made of Gavere a County granted to Jacob, Count van Egmont, who had married Françoise van Luxemburg and incorporated Zottegem to the domain of Gavere. Françoise obtained the upgrading of the County to a Principality in 1540. The next year, the domain was transferred to Lamoraal van Egmont (1522-1568) after the death of his elder brother Karel. Lamoraal van Egmont was a powerful politician, diplomatic and military councillor of Charles V and Philip II; he was beheaded on 5 June 1968 in Brussels with the Count van Hoorne on Philip II's order. The Egmont family kept Gavere until 1717, when Maria-Clara van Egmont married the Italian prince Nicolaas Pignatelli.

Asper, once written Haspra, Haspera, Haspre, Aspera, Haspere, and eventually Asper in the XIIth century, has no widely accepted etymology. The name might be related to the river or to a local lord. Asper, together with Zingem, formed a powerful domain belonging to the lordship of Oudenaarde, which was personally owned by the Counts of Flanders.

Baaigem, according to Gysseling, comes from the Frankish Badwoingaheim, Badwo's estate. Older written forms are Badengem and Badingehem. The village belonged to Gavere but had its own court, which met outdoors in the center of the village. The "Stone of the Disappeared Villages" (Steen der Verdwenen Dorpen), set up in Baaigem in 1978, recalls all the Belgian rural municipalities suppressed by the 1976 administrative reform.

Dikkelvenne was already known under Charles the Bold (d. 814) as Ticlevenni. Dicla means a small dyke, whereas venne could refer to the cahracteristic of the local soil (in Dutch, veen means peat). The settlement is very old, since a bronze sword dated 1000-700 BC was found there in 1810. A small treasure of coins dating back to the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius were also found near 1800 in Dikkelvenne. Dikkelvenne was the seat of the Benedictine St. Peter abbey built by abbot Hilduardus, who had evangelized the local lord Magrippus in the IXth century. The English princess Christiana retired in the abbey, and her grave became a place of miracles. During the Northmen invasions, the monks brought the relics of Hilduardus and Christiana to Dendermonde. In 1081, the Count of Flanders decided to "relocate" the abbey in Geraardsbergen as the St. Adrian abbey.

Semmerzake was also already known in the Carolingian times as Cimbarsaca or Cimbrazacium, maybe Cimbrasius' estate. The village, once owned by the lords of Boxborre, was incorporated to Gavere in the XIIIth century.

is probably derived from the Latin word forestum, a forest that might have existed in the marshy banks of the Scheldt. The village belonged to Gavere, whose lord came there once a year to exercize justice. Vurste is the birth place of the expressionist painter Henri De Cocker (1908-1978).

Source: Lokale Geschiedenis Gemmente Gavere, available on the municipal website

Ivan Sache, 30 October 2006

Municipal flag of Gavere

The municipal flag of Gavere is red with three white lions placed 2 and 1.
According to Gemeentewapens in België - Vlaanderen en Brussel, the flag was adopted by the Municipal Council on 18 September 1992, confirmed by the Executive of Flanders on 16 February 1993 and published in the Belgian official gazette on 21 June 1994. It is a banner of the municipal arms.

The municipal website shows the official images of the flag and arms, and gives the official description of the arms as:
Drie zilveren leeuwen op een veld van keel (rood), bekroond met een prinsenkroon (Gules three lions argent, the shield surmonted with a prince's crown).
Servais shows the arms of Gavere before the administrative reform as:
Or three lions gules placed 2 and 1 a border engrailed sable.
These arms were granted on 19 October 1819 and confirmed by Royal Decree on 6 July 1840. There was no explanation in the application for the arms. A municipal seal dated from 1773 shows the three lions, whose origin and meaning are not known.
The Gelre Armorial, however, shows the arms of Raesse de Gavre, Lord of Liedkerke (#998, folio 82v) as Gules three lions or.

Arnaud Leroy, Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 30 October 2006