Cambrai (, ; ; ), formerly Cambray and historically in English Camerick or Camericke, is a city in the Nord department and in the Hauts-de-France region of France on the Scheldt river, which is known locally as the Escaut river.
A sub-prefecture of the department, Cambrai is a town with about 31,000 inhabitants. It is in the heart of the urban unit of Cambrai with 46,000 inhabitants, and a functional area with 93,000 inhabitants.Comparateur de territoire: Aire d'attraction des villes 2020 de Cambrai (108), Unité urbaine 2020 de Cambrai (59403), Commune de Cambrai (59122), INSEE With Lille and the towns of the former Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, it is also part of the which has more than 3.8 million inhabitants.
Towards the end of the Roman Empire, Cambrai replaced Bavay as the "capital" of the land of the Nervii. At the beginning of the Merovingian era, Cambrai became the seat of an immense archdiocese covering all the right bank of the Scheldt and the centre of a small ecclesiastical principality, roughly coinciding with the shire of Brabant, including the central part of the Low Countries. The bishopric had some limited secular power and depended on the Holy Roman Empire until annexation to France in 1678. Fénelon, nicknamed the "Swan of Cambrai", was the most renowned of the archbishops.
The fertile lands which surround it and the textile industry gave it prosperity in the Middle Ages, but in modern times it is less industrialised than its neighbours of Nord-Pas-de-Calais.
Cambrai was the Duke of Wellington's headquarters, for the British Army of Occupation, from 1815 to 1818. Occupied by the German army during World War I, Cambrai suffered partial destruction in the First Battle of Cambrai from British artillery attacks on the town, including the nearby Bourlon Wood. The fighting around Cambrai, known as the Battle of Cambrai (20 November 1917 – 3 December 1917) is notable in that it is considered to be the first mass use of tanks in battle. A second Battle of Cambrai took place between 8 and 10 October 1918 as part of the Hundred Days Offensive. World War II was followed by reconstructions and a rapidly developing economy and population, abruptly reversed by the 1973 oil crisis.
Cambrai today is a lively city and, despite the past destruction, maintains a rich monumental heritage. Cambrai is affirmed as the urban centre of Cambrésis. Its economic life is strengthened by its position on the main local highway and river.
History Antiquity
Little is known with certainty of the beginnings of Cambrai. Camaracum or Camaraco, as it was known to the Romans, is mentioned for the first time on the Peutinger table in the middle of the 4th century. It became the main town of the Roman province of the Nervii, whose first Roman capital had been at Bagacum, present-day Bavay.
In the middle of the 4th-century, Frankish raids from the north threatened Bavay and led the Romans to build forts along the Cologne to Bavay to Cambrai road, and thence to Boulogne. Cambrai thus occupied an important strategic position.
In 430, the Salian Franks under the command of Clodio the Long-Haired took the town. In 509, Clovis undertook to unify the Frankish kingdomsp.12-14 by getting rid of his relatives.
Middle Ages Cambrai began to grow from a rural market into a real city during the Merovingian times, a long period of peace when the bishoprics of Arras and Cambrai were first unified, probably owing to the small number of clerics left at the time, and were later transferred to Cambrai, an administrative centre for the region. Successive bishops, including Gaugericus (in French Géry), founded abbeys and churches to host relics, which contributed powerfully to giving Cambrai both the appearance and functions of a city.p.16
When the Treaty of Verdun in 843 split Charlemagne's empire into three parts, the county of Cambrai fell into Lothaire's kingdom. Upon the death of Lothair II, who had no heir, king Charles the Bald tried to gain control of his kingdom by having himself consecrated at Metz. Cambrai thus reverted, but only briefly, to the Western Frankish Realm. In 870 the town was destroyed by the Normans.1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, "Cambrai"
In the Middle Ages the region around Cambrai, called Cambrésis, was a county. Rivalries between the count, who ruled the city and county, and the bishop, ceased when in 948 Otto I granted the bishop with temporal powers over the city.p.29-30 In 1007, Emperor Henry II extended the bishop's temporal power to the territory surrounding Cambrai. The bishops then had both spiritual and temporal powers. This made Cambrai and Cambrésis a church principality, much like Liège, an independent state which was part of the Holy Roman Empire. The spiritual power of the bishop was exercised over a vast diocese, which stretched on the right bank of the Scheldt to Mons, Brussels and Antwerp.Pierrard 1978, p.112 In 954, the Magyars under Bulcsú besieged Cambrai, which resisted all their attacks.
In 958 one of the first communal uprisings in Europe occurred in Cambrai. The inhabitants rebelled against Bishop Bérenger's power and abuses. The rebellion was severely repressed, but the discontent flared up again in the 10th and 11th centuries. Between 1077 and 1215, the burghers had a charter franchise on at least four occasions. Each time, these were eventually withdrawn by the combined efforts of the bishops and emperors. In 1227, following another period of unrest, the burghers of Cambrai had to give up their charters and accept the bishop's authority. The Loi Godefroid promulgated by the bishop, in fact or in law, left the people a number of freedoms won in the management of communal affairs.Pierrard, 1978, p.100
Cambrai is also known for its Irish homily.
Economic activity
In the Middle Ages, the city grew richer and larger thanks to its weaving industry which produced woollen cloth, linen and cambric. Cambrai, and in particular the drapery, experienced an economic decline from the 15th century. Cambrai then belonged to a commercial hansa of seventeen low country cities whose aim was to develop trade with the fairs in Champagne and Paris. By the 11th century, the city walls had reached the circumference they would keep until the 19th century.
Music history
Cambrai has a distinguished musical history, particularly in the 15th century. The cathedral there, a musical centre until the 17th century, had one of the most active musical establishments in the Low Countries; many composers of the Burgundian School either grew up and learned their craft there, or returned to teach. In 1428, Philippe de Luxembourg claimed that the cathedral was the finest in all of Christianity, for the fineness of its singing, its light, and the sweetness of its bells. Guillaume Dufay, the most famous European musician of the 15th century, studied at the cathedral from 1409 to 1412 under Nicolas Malin and Richard Loqueville, and returned in 1439 after spending many years in Italy. Cambrai cathedral had other famous composers in the later 15th century: Johannes Tinctoris and Ockeghem went to Cambrai to study with Dufay.p.93-94. Other composers included Nicolas Grenon, Alexander Agricola, and Jacob Obrecht. In the 16th century, Philippe de Monte, Johannes Lupi, and Jacobus de Kerle all worked there.
Early Modern era
As the economic centre of northern Europe moved away from Bruges, the area became poorer, with an associated period of cultural decline. Cambrai's neutrality and its position between the possessions of the Habsburg Empire and France made it the venue of several international negotiations, including the League of Cambrai, an alliance engineered in 1508 by Pope Julius II against the Republic of Venice, concluding in the .
In 1510, the alliance collapsed when the Pope allied with Venice against his former ally France. The conflict is also referred to as the War of the League of Cambrai and lasted from 1508 to 1516. Cambrai was also the site of negotiations in 1529, concluding in the Paix des Dames, which led to France's withdrawal from the War of the League of Cognac.
In 1595, Cambrai was taken by the Spanish in the eighth and last French Wars of Religion.
In December 1623, the community of nuns of the English Benedictine Congregation was founded at Cambrai. Expelled in 1793 as a result of the French Revolution, its successor community in 1838 was Stanbrook Abbey, near Malvern and later Wass in Yorkshire.
In 1630, Richelieu, wishing to counter the power of the Emperor and Spain, renewed the alliance of France with the United Provinces. The main effort of France had to focus on the Spanish Netherlands, and a sharing plan was established with the Dutch, with France to receive the Hainaut, Cambrésis, Artois, a large part of Flanders and Luxembourg and the County of Namur.Pierrard, 1978, pp.207–208 War was declared against Spain in 1635: It was followed by a long series of wars which, compounded by subsistence and epidemics, caused crises which would bruise the Cambrésis.pp.144–145
Mazarin tried unsuccessfully, in 1649, to seize Cambrai, which was being besieged by Henri de Lorraine-Harcourt and the Vicomte de Turenne. A Spanish regiment, which came from Bouchain, succeeded in entering the city and the siege was lifted. In 1657, the Vicomte de Turenne captured Cambrai. Again 4,000 horsemen under the command of Condé, in the service of the Spain, manage to penetrate, and Turenne abandoned the city.pp.145–146
In 1666, in the greatest secrecy, Louis XIV prepared new conquests by making plans of the Spanish fortifications, and then began the War of Devolution. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle from 1668 allowed the Kingdom of France to obtain a large number of strongholds, but Cambrai was not a part of them, nor were Bouchain, Valenciennes or Condé-sur-l'Escaut.
The annexation by France In 1672, hostilities resumed against the Protestant Republic of the Netherlands and continued in the following years. In 1676, Louis XIV, in an effort to "safeguard the tranquility of his borders for ever" ("assurer à jamais le repos de ses frontières"), focused most of his efforts against Spain and occupied Condé and Bouchain. On 17 March 1677, the French troops stormed Valenciennes and moved toward Cambrai, the strongest place of the Netherlands,p.147 which was reached on 20 March.Pierrard, 1978, p.217 On 22 March, Louis XIV was in the city in person.p.149
On 2 April, the French invested in a part of the place. By 5 April, Cambrai surrendered, given the same benefits as Lille in 1667, but the Spanish garrison took refuge in the citadel and the siege continued until 17 April. After 29 days of siege the king made his entry into the city, on 19 April, Easter Monday.p.151 Louis XIV named the Marquis de Cesen as governor, and appointed 14 new aldermen while keeping the same provost. The Hôtel de Ville (town hall), in its current style, dates from 1786.
The French Revolution
Cambrai suffered from the Revolution: Joseph Le Bon, sent by the Comité de salut public, arrived in Cambrai in 1794. He was to set up an era of "terror", sending many to the guillotine, until he was tried and executed in 1795. One of his most famous victims was François III Maximilien de la Woestyne, 3rd Marquess of Becelaere.
Most of the religious buildings of Cambrai were demolished in that period: in 1797, the old cathedral, which had been dubbed the "wonder of the low countries", was sold to a merchant on 6 June 1796 who left only the tower,p.410 after exploiting the cathedral as a stone quarry. The main tower was left standing until 1809, when it collapsedp.424 in a storm. The cathedral's archives have been preserved, they are now at the Archives Départementales du Nord in Lille, and a new cathedral was later provided.
19th century