Bruges

In the 15th century Bruges was a court city as well. The Burgundian dukes made it one of their residences, Philip the Good drew artists, bankers and nobles here from across Europe, and Jan van Eyck and Hans Memling lived and worked in the town. Venetians, Genoese, Castilians and, from 1493, Portuguese kept their own national houses in its streets, the Medici bank opened a branch, and William Caxton printed the first book in English here.

The decline began in the 1480s, as the cloth trade sagged, the Zwin kept silting up and Antwerp drew the merchants away. When the citizens held the future emperor Maximilian prisoner for more than four months, he took his revenge by ordering the foreign nations out of the city and blockading the Zwin for ten years, and no dredging or canal could afterwards restore the link to the sea. In 1584 Bruges surrendered to Alessandro Farnese for Spain; later its outport of Sluis fell to the Dutch Republic, and the population shrank from about 42,000 to 30,000. A new dock for seagoing ships on the Ostend canal, dug in 1665, brought some trade back, but Bruges had become a quiet provincial town.