Brussels Travel Guide - History

The founding of Brussels is considered to have happened about 300 years later when the relics of Saint Gudula were transferred to the chapel of Saint Gery in the city. For the next 2000 years, it was little more than an afterthought, passed around the many rulers that came and went in the region, including the count of Leuven.

By the 12th century, Brussels was beginning to emerge as a trading post between the more economically significant towns in the region, like Brugge. The town thrived thanks to its position en route to the south and other commercial centres to the south.

The city continued to thrive for many years, until disaster struck. First, the city was attacked by the French at the very end of the 17th century with much of the centre destroyed, including the medieval buildings that formerly occupied the Grand Place. Then in 1731, the sprawling Palace of Coudenberg was burnt to the ground in a huge fire, ending its 700-year history as the seat of the Brussels rulers.

One hundred years later, Brussels was embroiled in an incident that would change its history, and that of the whole country of Belgium, for ever. Following a performance of the Muette de Portici, at the Theatre de la Monnaie a riot began which soon turned into a revolution.

With the country seeing its second devastating war at the hands of neighbouring Germany from 1939 to 1945, Brussels sustained heavy damage from bombing, much of it inflicted at the end of the campaign.

Since then, Belgium’s sense of neutrality in a fractured, pained Europe, as well as its central geographical location helped it to emerge as the heart of the European community. As the new EU emerged at the end of the 20th century, Brussels became its very core as the seat of many of the bloc’s main institutions including the European Commission and the Council of the EU.