Middelburg

Middelburg began as one of the fortified settlements built on Walcheren against Viking raids. A monastery and a town grew within this island landscape, and in 1217 Middelburg received city rights. Its merchants found a profitable place in trade between England and the towns of Flanders, while the abbey became a prominent feature of the town.

During the Dutch Revolt, Middelburg endured a long siege before Spanish forces surrendered it to the rebels in 1574. The town then prospered as a port of the Dutch Republic. In the seventeenth century it became, after Amsterdam, the republic's most important centre for the Dutch East India Company, and its merchants also took part in the Atlantic slave trade. Middelburg was a centre of lens making: spectacle makers including Hans Lipperhey and Zacharias Janssen have been associated with the early development of the telescope and microscope.