Saint-Omer

Saint-Omer grew up around the abbey of Saint-Bertin, in the marshes of the Aa, with the collegiate church of Notre-Dame beside it. In 1340 an Anglo-Flemish army led by Robert of Artois was driven from its outskirts by Eudes IV, Duke of Burgundy. From 1384 the town belonged to the Burgundian Netherlands. In 1559 it became a bishopric, and Notre-Dame was made a cathedral; from 1581 the town belonged to the Spanish Netherlands.

In 1593 the Jesuit Robert Persons founded an English college here, with the support of Philip II of Spain, to educate boys from English Catholic families. Among its eighteenth-century pupils were John Carroll, later founder of Georgetown, and his cousin Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Louis XIV forced Saint-Omer to surrender in 1677 after a seventeen-day siege, and the Treaty of Nijmegen in 1678 confirmed the annexation. The college continued until 1762, when the Jesuits and their pupils moved to Bruges.