Antwerp in the 16th Century: The Babylon of Europe

The medieval city where the streets were bustling with activity from morning till night, seven days a week, every day of the year, where most of the international trade with the most varied goods from all over the world flowed, where many languages resounded, and where everyone could satisfy his or her business interests and thirst for knowledge and information, was not Paris, not London, not Madrid, not Amsterdam. It was Antwerp, a port on the North Sea which in the 16th century was one of the most cosmopolitan, liberal and wealthy cities in the world.

“You did whatever you wanted, talked about whatever you wanted, with whomever you wanted, and at dinner sat between two girls who kissed you casually now and then /…/”, wrote an Italian merchant who found in Antwerp a world of freedom, completely different from the formal, rigid and haughty Venice he was used to.

Today, Antwerp, Belgium’s second largest city in the province of Flanders, was given the status of a commercial metropolis by a combination of favourable circumstances, and was the place to be for anyone who was worth anything in Europe at that time. Although formally part of the Spanish Netherlands, for many decades it enjoyed the status of a free city rather than a strictly controlled Catholic province, thanks to special privileges and rights.

In 1501, the first Portuguese ship landed in Antwerp, loaded with luxury oriental goods, fine merchandise and, above all, spices. This gave Antwerp the primacy of international trade over its rival Bruges, and its golden age began. This coincided with the flowering of colonial trade and the great Spanish and Portuguese discoveries in the Americas, South-East Asia and Africa, made possible, among other things, by scientific and technological advances in navigation and seafaring. The world was opening up and new trade links were being established, with the centre of gravity shifting from the Mediterranean to the open oceans.

Antwerp was already trading with India via the ocean routes around the Cape of Good Hope and with Brazil and America across the Atlantic, via Seville and Lisbon. Merchant ships were looking for new ports from which access to the mainly northern and western European markets was easier and less obstructed. Antwerp became Europe’s largest port and the centre of an increasingly global trade network.

It has carefully nurtured its status by, among other things, being open, flexible and responsive to the needs of all those engaged in trade for the increasingly demanding European consumer. There, all Europe traded not only in spices, textiles and precious metals, but also in information, knowledge and secrets.

Through Antwerp, Europeans got everything they craved and it was known and praised by all. It became a world city, a sensation, and even Venice, until then the main European trading power, recognised it as its equal and feared for its position. The Venetian ambassadors reported home with concern but admiration: “Antwerp has trade from all over the world!”

It was said that in Antwerp you could buy everything from medicines, drugs, weapons, art, diamonds to books, maps, luxury clothes and tapestries. But everything had a price.

Antwerp was the port of call for ships carrying English textiles for sale across northern Europe as far as Constantinople, German copper and silver bound for Africa in exchange for slaves, ships on their way from Asia with pepper, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, diamonds and silk, among other things. New ideas and sciences in trade, medicine, technology, also made their way from there into the world. Antwerp was a printing centre, with the most publishers and bookshops in the world.

It was called the Babylon of Europe because of the infinite number of languages spoken there. It was also teeming with spies and ogres who traded in sensitive information – for example, by watching arms purchases, they were able to predict where a war or battle was brewing.

But despite becoming the biggest marketplace in the world, it remained relaxed and unforced. People were getting rich fast and fabulously, but this did not lead them to indulge in luxury and affluence. In the latter, they regularly overdid it with drinks.

But it was all too much, including tolerance of religious minorities. In the city, the Spanish authorities initially looked down on heretics because they needed their money. Then the anti-Reformation fever spread so much that only those who swore to be orthodox Catholics were allowed to settle there. There was a successful Calvinist rebellion with the support of King William of Orange of the Netherlands, but after only a few years the Spanish retook the town in 1585.

This time they established a strict Catholic regime, headed by King Philip‘s envoy, the notorious Duke of Alba. Antwerp’s golden age was thus irrevocably over.

The rise of

In the area of modern Antwerp, a settlement stood by the river Scheldt as early as Roman times. Christianity was introduced there in the 7th century and it was the fate of most of the local settlements before it became a border county of the Holy Roman Empire in the 9th century. In one of their typical marauding raids, it was sacked and burnt by the Vikings.

Around 980, the German Emperor Otto II built a manor house there, but without any protection, whether physical with walls, political with a court or ecclesiastical with a bishop. This proved to be both a weakness and a strength of the town in later centuries.

The city is situated well inland, but it is connected to the North Sea by the wide mouth of the deep Scheldt, which was easily reached by ships of all kinds from everywhere, from India, America and Africa. From there, goods found their way across the arms of the Rhine to the Alps and northern Italy, to the Baltic Sea to the east and even to the vast Ottoman Empire.

With the rapid development of international maritime trade and shipbuilding, Antwerp was destined to become their centre as early as the 13th century. It was also connected to the interior of Europe by rivers, which, in the absence of good and safe road connections, offered the easiest way to travel.

It became one of the capitals of the Duchy of Brabant, which united parts of present-day Belgium and the Netherlands. The duchy was part of the Holy Roman Empire and the so-called Dutch lands, initially the Burgundian Netherlands and, from 1482, the Habsburg Netherlands.

Despite the fact that in its most prosperous period the formal ruler was a fervent Catholic monarch from the Habsburg monarchy based in Madrid, the city enjoyed a huge number of special rights and privileges and essentially governed itself as a kind of free mini-republic.

At the beginning of the 14th century, the city granted the right to trade freely, first to the English, then to the Venetians and Genoese. At that time, the town’s trade fair activity blossomed, and twice a year, merchants and entrepreneurs of all kinds flocked to the town from near and far.

But there was no court or government, no administrative centre, no army, no navy, no diocese. It was not a city-state like Milan or Florence, for example, and it had no world-famous noble families. Yet, despite this, or perhaps because of it, it has developed a unique identity linked exclusively to trade and commerce.

The decline of Bruges, which until then had had the primacy of trade and was glamorous and haughty compared to simple Antwerp, was also key to Antwerp’s rise – it was also home to the famous Medici dynasty, which traded in Flemish paintings and art.

But when silt clogged the North Sea coastal reserve that connected Bruges to the sea, access to the city was blocked. All the merchant houses began to move to Antwerp, which at the same time tempted them with its excellent business conditions, low taxes and liberal policies.

In addition, it had an existing traditional link with England, which had always traded wool and fabrics through Antwerp. Unlike Antwerp, most other Flemish cities had well-developed weaving, dyeing and garment-making industries, so it was only in Antwerp that the English could operate without competition. Ninety per cent of all goods destined for international markets were sold there.

The King of England even issued a decree that the English could only trade in Antwerp. They could operate under English law and did not have to pay taxes. They bought war materiel and luxury goods without supervision, and took out loans so that their country could survive. The English Treasury was notoriously and permanently empty because of the constant wars.

But the exclusive Anglo-Antwerp relationship, as well as bringing business privileges, also provided the city with a number of important contacts and connections through which to build its success and reputation.

By the beginning of the 16th century, Antwerp was already a world marketplace, a crossroads of all known trade and business routes, where anyone who was important in business had to appear at least occasionally. The city was becoming more and more crowded, with foreign merchants and local people from the countryside moving in as the opportunities for making money grew. With almost 100,000 inhabitants, it became the second most populous city in Europe after Paris. But more important than that, almost overnight Antwerp became the richest city in Europe.

Shop

Soon others moved in, as special privileges were granted to all foreign merchants. All nations had their own trading houses, which functioned as clubs and warehouses. The Portuguese with spices, diamonds and pearls from India and ivory from Africa, the Germans – both those of the confederation of merchants’ guilds and towns or the Hanseatic League in the north-west and the southern Germans – with silver, copper and wine, the French with salt and wine, the Balts with grain, timber, furs, and of course the Italians from Genoa and Florence and the Spaniards, who were present everywhere and with everything anyway.

Skilled workers processed fish, soap, cloth and, above all, sugar, which, to the delight of the sweet-toothed Europeans, was imported in large quantities from Madeira and St Thomas and the Prince, especially by the Portuguese, via Antwerp. One of its titles was thus ‘Sugar Capital of Europe’.

Every morning, the city bells would announce the official start of the working day and the gates would open, letting in crowds of traders, craftsmen, shoppers, curious people and all sorts of miscreants. Similarly, at the end of the day, after the bells had rung, people mostly took refuge in the pubs and continued their lively exchanges, this time more gossip, rumours, information and secrets instead of trade.

The city and its surroundings were expanding, not only because of increased trade but also because of the accompanying industrial activity. The booming industries included brewing, diamonds, textiles – including textile bleaching and dyeing, malt and sugar processing, silk and, last but not least, the meat industry.

The latter was extremely important and the Antwerp butchers were used to a favourable monopoly, with only 62 members within their guild, who could pass on their privileges to their sons and grandsons. The butchers also had the largest, multi-storey guild building.

The beer business was also one of the most important. Beer, at first very weak, low-quality and cheap, made from already used grain, was still purer than water. Antwerp was known for its dirty water, which also gave its beer a dubious reputation. But then pipes were laid from the Schelde to bring cleaner water, which also improved the quality of the beer. Various local beers were started and many, such as Hoegaarden, remain popular today.

In a town where drinking was excessive, beer was very important. In 1580, 376 bars were registered and Antwerp brewed 25 million litres of beer a year.

Even more important than these were the printing and publishing industries. Printing, of course, required paper, which was expensive at the time, but Antwerp had the money to spare. As a result, it also had enough paper. That is why there was a concentration of printers – there are said to be about sixty of them with their own printing presses, which had a great effect on the quality of the printing business. As in all other places, they became experts in the field, and to this day Antwerp is the Mecca of the printing and paper industry.

Initially, books were printed mainly for the English market – there was a huge demand on the island, as books were the only import commodity on which there were no duties in England.

All kinds of books were printed, but when King Henry VIII, after a dispute with the Pope, split the Church of England from the Vatican and made Protestantism the official religion of England, the most sought-after book became the English-language Bible. The first English Bible was printed in Antwerp in 1535.

The English relationship with religion was complex in the 16th century, and religious disputes between Catholics and Protestants paralleled the changes in the throne. But even when the English Bible was banned, it went underground and continued to flourish.

Of course, they also printed books for continental Europe and beyond, and in order to find enough buyers for them, they regularly attended the Frankfurt Fair, which was already the largest gathering place for publishers and printers. Dictionaries, religious texts, atlases, scientific treatises, medical books, the history of Rome and Italian poetry were also very popular, but above all religious books. They even published a Bible in five languages for the polyglot market.

The banking sector also expanded, financing merchants and manufacturers alike and covering the debts of all, including governments and kings. The growing volume of financial transactions soon necessitated a new stock exchange, which was built in 1531. Since then, its two magnificent bells have heralded the beginning and end of each working day. The Antwerp Stock Exchange became the model for all the others, including two of the most famous, the London and Amsterdam Stock Exchanges.

The new stock exchange was not just a building, but a true monument and tribute to the identity of the city. It was magnificent and they could hardly find a large enough plot of land for it. Even the construction of the town hall had to wait until the new stock exchange was finished. This most important building of Antwerp’s golden age was elegant, with a large inner courtyard resembling a ceremonial square and a wide covered passage with shops on each side. The whole was reminiscent of a Spanish plaza mayor, with the exception of the prohibition of parties and light-hearted activities.

It was a dignified and respectful space and it had to remain so. That is why even those who perceived the stock exchanges as immoral accepted, albeit grudgingly, the fact that it was indispensable for the survival of the city.

Soon similar buildings were springing up like mushrooms in northern and western Europe, in Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Lyons. In imitation, they even went so far as to hire Flemish builders and provide Flemish building stone. On the façade of the London Stock Exchange there was a plaque explaining that it was built on the model of the Antwerp Stock Exchange.

A worldly city

Of course, Antwerp also became a market for luxury goods, especially works of art, which were a status symbol for most of the nobility and wealthy Europeans. The Medici bought works by famous Flemish artists and hung them in their villas in Florence, alongside works by Botticelli and his Italian contemporaries.

Flemish painting flourished between the 15th and 17th centuries, with the Renaissance painter Peter Bruegel the Elder being its most prominent exponent in the Ante-Werpentine period. Although he eschewed the influences of Italian Renaissance artists, Bruegel, a pioneer of landscapes and large-format landscape scenes, developed his own distinctive artistic style. He was also one of the first painters to move away from exclusively depicting religious scenes and to avoid portraits.

In order to produce his beautiful paintings, Bruegel and his party needed painting materials and supplies, and above all expensive paints, unavailable in these parts of Europe. But Antwerp could afford the lapis lazuli stone from Afghanistan, which gave a beautiful ultramarine blue, and the special dried Mexican insects, which gave a vivid red. This is how Albrecht Dürer, an enthusiast of Antwerp, created his artworks.

High art was suddenly accessible and most of Antwerp’s dining rooms were adorned with beautiful images created in one of at least a hundred painting workshops. In addition to paintings and sculptures, Flemish tapestry was also in vogue, requiring as much skill to make as to paint, and was collected at all the courts of Europe. This was complemented by silk products and unique editions of books such as atlases and almanacs.

Antwerp became a must-visit destination for all those who could afford to visit, and for all intellectuals, writers, philosophers and scientists. Its surroundings were also beautified, the marshy soil was drained, trees and exotic plants from all over the world were planted. The country houses were surrounded by wide avenues with plenty of space for growing vegetables, entertainment and sport.

And word of the skills of the gardeners of Flanders and Brabant spread throughout the world. Botanical gardens, where there were more unknown plants than in Greece, Spain, Italy and even Constantinople, were accessible to all. A climbing plant, for example, was brought from China as a cure for syphilis, the curse of a too open and free society that could not restrain itself.

Visitors compared it most to Rome and Babylon. The former for its glamour and luxury and the feeling that it was the centre of the developed world, the latter for more sombre reasons. Babylon was also a meeting point of cultures and religions, where so many languages were spoken that in the end no one understood each other any more. In Hebrew, the word means confusion, and Bruegel immortalised it as such. In one of his monumental works, he set the Tower of Babel in Antwerp, which he depicted as a merchant city in ruins. He thus prophetically predicted its decline.

But even though it was no longer so far away by the middle of the 16th century, the North Sea melting pot was still thronged with merchants and prospectors. But the competition was extremely fierce. To do business in Antwerp, you had to speak at least seven languages – Flemish, English, German, Latin, French, Spanish and Italian. So, of course, there were dictionaries in these languages, with an emphasis on business vocabulary. Even today, Antwerp is the city where the most languages are spoken in the world after Amsterdam!

Merchants were often scholars and humanists at the same time, and Antwerp was consequently a centre of learning. There was one teacher for every two hundred employees, which was huge compared to Lyons, for example, an equally wealthy medieval city, where there was one teacher for every four thousand employees. There were many church schools, which did not necessarily teach science, but private schools, where ‘free’ teachers taught, still dominated. These were strictly controlled by the Teachers’ Guilds, which could punish teachers or revoke their licences, for example for reading inappropriate books.

A real school was not in a classroom, but in a warehouse, an office, on a ship. So schools that accepted the sons of merchants between the ages of five and seven sent them out into the world, often abroad, between the ages of ten and twelve. This taught them the right skills to succeed in the business world.

There were also schools for girls, but these were primarily aimed at teaching them virtue and how to behave in public. Singing and dancing were only meant to deceive men, so they were fond of quoting Plutarch: “A woman devoted to literature will never pass the time by dancing.”

They were not allowed to write, paint, take part in public debates or engage in intellectual activities. But despite all this, the women of Antwerp were independent and often successful businesswomen and, although they never left Brabant, they spoke at least six languages.

A ‘relaxed’ city

The situation for women was not easy, but it was still better than elsewhere in Europe. By law, they needed a male guardian for all official tasks, as they were legally disempowered. They could be employed, but even a single working woman had to find a man to draw up legal documents, and legally she could only represent herself and the rights of her children. It was up to them to decide whether or not to marry.

When it came to business, the picture was very different. If the husband was away on business, they could carry on his business and make all the decisions, collect taxes, sign contracts, sell and rent property and do whatever was necessary to keep the family business going. If the husband agreed, they could be independent businesswomen without any accountability to the husband, provided, of course, that they were not in the same business as him and thus in competition with him.

On her husband’s death, the widow received half of the estate, while the sons and daughters had equal rights to the inheritance. The parents had shared duties towards the children and if the widow remarried, she could keep her property and the children.

Life was certainly almost bearable for women, who were not confined to four walls or forced into early teenage marriage. Unmarried girls were free to mingle with young men, and one Italian observer marvelled: “Everyone is allowed to kiss at any time and in any place.”

The streets were also filled with music, both during the day and at night. The Hanseatic merchants had their own musicians to accompany them on their way to and from the market every day. Flemish music also became highly appreciated and on his travels, Charles V was accompanied by Flemish singers instead of Spanish ones. Even kings were prepared to pay for them. For example, in 1560, King Eric of Sweden hired Flemish singers for a large sum of money on his way to visit the Queen of England.

There was noise and joy everywhere, and debauchery in the evenings. They lived modestly and did not overeat or indulge in luxury, but they went overboard when it came to drink. Drunkenness was commonplace, not only for men but also for women. But they often had to take care of business the next day so that the men could chase away their hangovers in peace.

Such revelry and frivolity worried many, including the famous Erasmus scholar who, in a book on Christian morality, lamented its lack and warned girls not to enjoy music or show off in public. However, as the number of thefts, street robberies and even murders increased, the city authorities tightened up their measures. To make the streets safer, after 1534 no one was allowed out in the evening without a light or armed.

It was all about money, and everything could be obtained with it. Often money changed hands in suspicious ways, but everyone turned a blind eye. The city breathed the principle of ‘Live and let live’.

Business also attracted craftsmen and workers who did not want to settle permanently in Antwerp, but who worked in trades that were scarce or non-existent due to the growing population and demand – first assistants to the grand merchants, followed by barbers, apothecaries, musicians, tailors, perfumers, goldsmiths, watchmakers, confectioners and so on.

There were also many blacks living freely there, more in Europe at that time than in Lisbon. Some were slaves when they arrived, but the city immediately gave them the right to petition for their own freedom. Others were merchants, sailors, even craftsmen. They enjoyed incomparably greater rights than elsewhere, their children were baptised, and many rose up the hierarchical ladder and became local bigwigs because of their ability.

The dark side

The city was not short of people who carefully hid their identities at home, but in Antwerp they did not have to pretend. This was one of the attractions of the city, where immigrants flocked in droves. At least two thousand a year arrived. But like London and Amsterdam in the following century, the city soon became a graveyard for immigrants. The death rate from plague was so high that the population would have fallen radically without the influx of immigrants.

During periods of plague outbreaks, which were frequent and unavoidable because of the number of people crammed into small spaces, often with rats, the city tried to clean up the streets and tell people not to throw pet remains and excrement on them.

Incidentally, during the worst of the epidemic, they also managed to make a business out of the plague, publishing books, so-called ‘plague booklets’, with advice from doctors who blamed the plague mainly on bad air and the wrath of God as a result of sin and debauchery. Doctors prescribed the impossible, namely a quiet life without overeating, drinking and sex, quiet conversations with good friends, playing musical instruments, brushing teeth carefully and sleeping soundly.

They tried to isolate the sick, children were not allowed in school, meals with more than ten people at a time were forbidden and pigs were not allowed to roam the streets. No one was allowed out of a house where there had been a death from the plague, otherwise they had to wear a white ribbon. Their houses were marked with a bale of straw next to the door.

Some churches were reserved for the relatives of the plague victims, so that they could at least pray, and burials were also allowed outside regular hours. The special infectious diseases hospitals were so full that sometimes several patients shared a bed. The lucky ones who made it out alive reported that they would rather die than return to such hell.

But despite the ever stricter rules, people were unable to obey. It was difficult to stop the crowds that poured into the city every day, even though a quarantine was imposed on those who came from infected places. The city could not be slowed down, so the inhabitants resigned themselves to living close to death. Nor did the disease suppress a sense of community and togetherness.

In addition to the plague, the city was also plagued by poor protection, leaving it vulnerable and exposed to attacks from greedy neighbours. It had neither an army nor walls. Local inhabitants and foreign merchants joined forces to defend the town, defending it as if it were their own lives, but soon they began to insist on building walls.

This led to a compulsory tax hike for everyone, no matter how poor they were. After seven years, the walls were only half-built and the city’s debt was steadily rising. Members of the various guilds most affected by the taxes went on strike and attacked the houses of the Spaniards. Charles V dealt harshly with the leaders of the rebellion, whipping some of them and even beheading others, which made him even more unpopular. Order in the city began to burst at the seams.

Religious pragmatism

But life was becoming most dangerous for heretics or heretics who had apostatised from the true Christian faith, that is, Jews and Protestants alike. Despite the initial religious tolerance, it gradually tended to be unaccepted and even persecuted.

Antwerp was kept alive and prosperous mainly by foreign merchants, and no one wanted to ask publicly what religion they actually were. Like everything else, religious denominations and sects abounded, and although it was in principle under the Catholic Spanish crown and therefore not secular, it was pragmatic and developed its own kind of religious tolerance. He categorically refused offers from Madrid to become a diocese with its own bishop.

The city was a refuge for Jews as well as for the intransigent Protestants whom the fervent Catholic Charles persecuted everywhere else except here, where his state coffers were diligently filled by the proceeds of trade and tax revenue. He also regularly borrowed money from the Jews, an activity which was considered a sin among Catholics and therefore not to be indulged in.

Madrid was particularly keen to prosecute so-called book crime and the printing of forbidden books, but what when he needed the money. It was an open secret that dozens of forbidden books were being printed in Antwerp, especially the Bible in English, for which Charles threatened the death penalty, but everyone looked the other way. The Portuguese were the most suspected of being Jewish, so they had to write notarised declarations that they were Christians.

Similarly, it was well known that many Jews had taken refuge here, having been expelled from Spain in 1492 by the implacable Queen Isabella of Spain. Around 120,000 of them went on to flee across the border to neighbouring Portugal, where all those who could afford to pay a kind of entry tax were allowed to stay. The rest were either deported or enslaved, and their children Christianised.

But when King Manuel of Portugal wanted to marry the heiress to the Spanish throne, Isabella insisted on banishing all heretics. The King, who had previously been seen as kind and understanding, now chased the fugitives around the harbour of Lisbon with priests and the army, and had them forcibly baptised.

Although the Portuguese also needed money from the Jews, the Inquisition also began in Portugal in 1515, albeit in a much milder form than in Spain. It could only act on the basis of solid evidence, not rumours and unsubstantiated accusations. Any Jew, including converts, who wished to leave Portugal needed a special licence and was not allowed to take anything with him.

Antwerp also successfully manoeuvred between the Habsburgs and the Ottomans. Both claimed succession to the Holy Roman Emperor. The Ottomans, who considered themselves the successors of Timur-Lenk and Genghis Khan, were ruled at the time by Sultan Suleiman I, known as Suleiman the Magnificent. Under him, the Ottoman Empire was also in its golden age, and they wanted to extend the Muslim Caliphate far into Western Europe. As rulers of Constantinople, formerly the capital of the eastern part of the Roman Empire, they saw themselves as the legitimate successors of the Roman Empire. On the other side were the Habsburgs in Madrid. They too considered themselves the only true successors of the old Rome, and Charles V had himself crowned Emperor.

Antwerp cooperated with both empires and both wanted it on their side. Madrid for the money, the Ottomans for the Habsburgs. They offered him ships and access to the Mediterranean, but the Habsburg guns were still too close to dare to challenge them too much. Against their will, they were forced to swear allegiance to the Spanish Crown.

Faith, power and money as the ultimate curse

On the morning of 10 September 1549, an army stood outside the walls of Antwerp. But the four thousand troops were deployed in such a way that it was clear that they were not preparing for an attack. They were waiting to receive their official monarch, not the enemy. For Charles V was on his way from Madrid to Antwerp to introduce his son and successor, Philip, to the city and to present him with the difficult city he was about to inherit.

The citizens of Antwerp were also to take a formal oath of allegiance to the Spanish Crown. They did not resist, but they were not impressed either. The city did its best, even though it did not like being ruled by foreigners. This made the relationship between the Spanish and the city difficult, as they did not enforce the imperial anti-heretical laws – for it was the heretics on whom the city depended for its well-being. For example, the Emperor proposed the death penalty for dealing in false religious books, and Antwerp saved its printers by ignoring an imperial edict.

They also feared the succession, as Philip was to be even more fervently Catholic and more difficult than his father. While Catholic extremism, including through the Inquisition, grew in the wake of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and a wave of heresy swept out of Germany, Antwerp was the epitome of religious freedom. But the delicate balance managed to hold for a while, as Philip too was primarily interested in money and the abundance of his northern provinces.

But in order to maintain their special privileges, they pretended to give the royal family a spectacular reception in the style to which they were accustomed. This meant a show and pomp similar to those in ancient Rome after a major victory. The city had to be mobilised – some 1700 craftsmen were working to clean up the streets, and if they didn’t work fast enough, they were threatened with punishment. Everything had to be cleaned up and the normal everyday life of the city had to be hidden.

A palace was built in the middle of the main square, where Charles, Philip and their wives were entertained at banquets. Everything was megalomaniacal and made of wood so finely that it looked as if it were made of stone. Once again, the skill and ingenuity of the townspeople came to light. From the balcony, where they watched the performances and the duels with spears, it was as if a new city had grown up in the middle of the city.

But the spectacle, the fireworks and the fabulous constructions did little to help the transfer of power to the new ruler in 1556. The city waited nervously for Philip, knowing his religious frenzy but not his character, as he spoke neither Dutch nor French.

It soon became clear that they had good reason to fear. Already in 1550, his father had issued a ‘standing edict against heresy’, the so-called ‘bloody edict’, which required proof of orthodoxy from anyone who wanted to settle in the city. With Philip’s arrival, however, tensions only grew. The streets were put under heavy police surveillance. A Catholic bishop was imposed on the city.

Philip tightened the belts of his subjects even more in the face of war with France, bankrupting many a merchant. Money slowly ran out and in 1566 there were violent riots. Philip sent an army to Antwerp under the notorious Duke of Alba and in 1568 there was a general Dutch revolt against the Spanish. Trade activity was declining and many people began to move their businesses, especially towards Amsterdam, but also Hamburg and Frankfurt.

The year 1576, however, will go down in the annals of Antwerp as the bloodiest in its history. It was then that angry Spanish soldiers, who had not been paid by the Spanish Crown for many months, laid waste to unsuspecting Antwerp citizens. The event, known as the Spanish Fury, turned into a massacre.

Although the soldiers had no grudge against the city, they served themselves Antwerp’s wealth instead of the money Philip owed them. In their march of plunder, they looted what they could, destroyed and burned at least eight hundred houses and killed around seven thousand people. The city was never the same again.

The revenge that followed a year later was also short-lived. The Dutch, under William of Orange, drove out the Spaniards and banned Catholic rites, but the Spaniards returned a few years later and retook the city in 1585 after a long siege. They closed access to the city via the Schelde and the bustle of the city slowly died down. The population halved in a few years. Antwerp’s golden age was over.

Today, it is once again a vibrant and modern city, known for its thriving and innovative fashion industry, and it is still one of the so-called diamond cities. It is once again cosmopolitan and welcomes everyone and everything with open arms. Its architecture and monuments are reminders of its glorious past, and in the main square, the façades and roofs of the former guild buildings, still beautiful today, show the remnants of a time that has forever marked the DNA of the city and its people.