Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/156

 122 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vin. FEE. 12, 1921. had its habitat in a spot favourable to the propagation of its species, for the country was not only marshy but also covered with woods and forests." The theory that Hazebrouck owes its naiie to a Lord of the name of Haza, who is supposed to have founded the church, is now abandoned. It finds mention, however, in Blaeu's 'Theatrum Urbium Belgicae ' (1649), in which the town is thus described : " Hazebrouck is a fair and populous munici- palitv in western Flanders, enjoying the rights and privileges, as well as the name, of a town, with a special jurisdiction of its own. It received laws from Philip of Alsace (Count of Flanders), its fairs in June and market on Monday from another Philip, Duke of Burgundy, and its name, according to Gramaye,* from Haza, a former magnate and founder of the church (cimahs ecclesia). It stands on a very marshy site, and owes its reputation to linen weaving and cloth making. At one time it attained great wealth by means of the canal cut through the forest of Nieppe to the river Lys. In addition to all its rights as a town, it has a Senate of seven men, and a special law for the regulation of measures and of fairs : it has also a guild of archers and one of rhetoric. The people are divided according to their occupations into trade guilds, and had not the town been afflicted by civil wars, they would have attained a prosperity equal to any. The parish church, which has a splendid tower, is dedicated to St. Eloi. The patronage belongs to the Bishop of Ypres, by right of succession from the see of Therouanne. * A small mmnery and hospital of Grey Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis was founded here two hundred years ago by two pious sisters. The friars of the Order of St. Augustine were admitted to the town under certain conditions, their house being founded and endowed by the Senate and people. It main- tains a school of polite letters, which has received confirmation from the Catholic King, Philip IV." This description dates from e time when Hazebrouck formed part of -the Spanish Netherlands, Philip IV. being the reigning sovereign. Accompanying it is a view- plan of the town, which shows the lines of the principal streets exactly as they are to-d&y. though the space covered by build- ings is very much less. The fields then encroached on whpt is now the centre of the town, and a large garden is shown attached to almost every house. It was nearly thirty years after Blaeu's book appeared that * Hazebrouck became definitely French (1678). A century later Hazebrouck seems to have been considered a place of small importance. The reference to the town in the 'Encyclopedie,ouDictionnaire Raisonne and historian, c. 1580-1635. des Sciences, des Arts, et des Metiers ' (ed.. Neufchatel, 1765), is very short : " Haesbrouk, petite ville de Flandre, a deux, lieues d'Aire. Longit. 20.4, latit. 50.40." At whet date the spelling of the name became fixed in its present form I cannot say, but the following variations occur' before the beginning of the last century : Hasbruc, Hasbroc, Hasbroec, Hasbroucq,. Hasbourg, Haesbroecke, Haesebrouck, Haesebroucq, Hazebrouc, Hazebreuc, Haze- bruch, Hazebruec, Hazebruck, and Haze- brouck. The earliest of these is found in a- charter of 1122 by which Charles le Bon, Count of Flanders, notifies that Lambert r Provost of Cassel, has given to the church of Oxelaere a certain piece of land situated near to the town of Hasbruc (apiid villain Hasbruc). y At this period, says M. Taverne der Tersud (from whom the above is cited) : " la ville n'e"tait qu'une agglomeration de quelques habitations baties au milieu des eaux et des bois- . . . .Sa situation a te" une cause d'empechement a sa developpement." M. de Tersud's was the only book on Haze- brouck that I was able to discover during a residence in the town of some months immediately before the evacuation of 1918 and again during the winter of 191819^ It is true that life was then abnormal and the times not well fitted for the pursuit of" the study of local history. But inquiry at the principal stationer and booksellers' shops failed to produce any volume dealing, with the history or institutions of the town not even a guide-book. In the Biblio- theque Communale at St. Omer, however,. I found M. de Tersud's volume : " Hazebrouck, depuis son origine jusqu'a nos jours ; par Charles Taverne de Tersud. 4to_ Hazebrouck, 1890. 454 pp." Though published in 1890 the book seems to have been written at least three years earlier, as the preface is dated May, 1887. In the thirty years that have elapsed since the appearance of this work some changes have, of course, taken place in Hazebrouck^ but generally speaking M. de Tersnd's description held good down to the outbreak of the war. The outstanding events in the history of the town may be summarized as follows : 1213. Philip Augustus, in order to avenge the disasters inflicted on his fleet off the coast of Flanders, ravaged the adjacent country, in the course of which action Hazebrouck and other towns were burned^
 * Jan Bapt. Gramaye, Flemish traveller, poet,