Bastogne

Bastogne stands on a ridge in the Ardennes. Its lands were given to Saint Maximin's Abbey near Trier in 634 and later passed to Prüm Abbey. A market was recorded here in 887, and the counts of Luxembourg minted coins in the town by the thirteenth century. In 1332 John the Blind granted Bastogne a charter and enclosed it with defensive walls.

The town shared Luxembourg's passage into the Burgundian inheritance in the fifteenth century and later into the Spanish Crown. Agricultural and cattle fairs supported its prosperity, while its walls repelled a Dutch attack in 1602. During the Nine Years' War French forces occupied Bastogne, and Louis XIV ordered the walls dismantled in 1688. The Trier Gate remained as a reminder of the old defences.