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Last modified: 2019-01-27 by ivan sache
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Flag of Destelbergen - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 12 November 2005
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The municipality of Destelbergen (17,239 inhabitants on 1 January 2007; 2,660 ha; municipal website) is located in the heart of the province of East Flanders, a few kilometers east of Ghent. The municipality of Destelbergen was established in 1976 as the merger of the former municipalities of Destelbergen and Heusden. Destelbergen is a residential area, formerly enjoyed by the nobles and burghers from Ghent who own there manors with parks.
Some episodes of the medieval legend of Reinaert de Vos take place in
Destelbergen. Reinaert is a main character of the Flemish medieval
tradition. The oldest known written trace of the legend is Vanden vos
Reinaerde (About Reinaert the Fox), written in 1272-1279 by Willem,
probably a clerk from the region of Ghent. The 3,469-verse text
describes the trial of nasty Reinaert at the court of king Nobel.
Heinric van Alcmaer republished Willem's legend with his own additions,
as Reinaert II, in Gouda in 1487. This version of the legend was
translated into Middle Low German, as Reynke de Vos, and published in
Lübeck in 1498. It was the main source of Goethe's Reineke Fuchs
(1793). The French version of the legend, known as Roman de Renard,
seems to have been inspired by another "branch" of the legend,
Ysengrimus, written by Nivaard van Ghent in 1152. The tale was so popular
that the name of Renart, later Renard, replaced the word goupil
then used to designate a fox in French .
The legend is recalled in the Reinaert's park of Destelbergen by the
statue "Reinaert and Bruin", Bruin being a bear (Bruin de Beer).
The site of Destelbergen was already inhabited in the Mesolithic
(10000-5000 BC). The name of the town is also very ancient: it was
early known as Thesel, referring to sandy hills, then partially
levelled, located in the middle of the village. The suffix -bergen
(mountains) has clearly the same origin.
In 962, Wichman, Count of Hamaland, ceded Destelbergen to the
Saint-Peter abbey in Ghent, which kept it until the French
Revolution. Being close to Ghent caused a lot of troubles to
Destelbergen in wartime: the town was sacked three times in 1675-1677
during Louis XIV's wars.
In the Middle Ages, extraction of peet from the banks of the Scheldt was
fairly successful. A few industries were set up in Destelbergen in the
19th century, for instance, tileries and oil mills.
The site of Heusden was also settled in the Prehistoric times. The
oldest known mention of the town dates back to the 11th century, when
Abbot Othejbold wrote that Heusden belonged to the Sat. Bavo abbey
in Ghent before the Northmen invasions. Later, the domain of Heusden
belonged directly to a feudal family. After the marriage in 1212 of
Beatrix van Heusden with Zeger III, Burgrave of Ghent, the seat of the
Burgravate of Ghent was transferred to Heusden, which belonged to the Burgravate until the French Revolution.
The Cistercian abbey of Nieuwenbosch was founded in Heusden in 1247. It
was very successful until 1578, when the abbey was destroyed by the
Iconoclasts and the nuns fled to Ghent. Like
Destelbergen, Heusden was often sacked because of its close location
to Ghent.
Ivan Sache, 12 November 2005
The flag of Destelbergen is vertically divided in two parts:
on left, a red field with three yellow keys placed 2 and 1; on right, a
black field surmounted by a thin white stripe with seven black ermine
spots.
According to the Gemeentewapens in België - Vlaanderen en Brussel [w2v02], the flag, adopted on 19 May 1987 by the Municipal Council, is prescribed by a Decree issued on 13
October 1987 by the Executive of Flanders and published on 16
September 1988 in the Belgian official gazette.
The flag is based on the municipal arms of Destelbergen, adopted at the
same dates: it shows the first and second quarter of the arms, "Quarterly, 1. and 4. Gules three keys or 2 + 1, 2. and 3. Sable a chief argent seven ermines 4 + 3".
The arms are a combination of the arms of the former municipalities of Destelbergen and Heusden. According to Servais [svm55a], the arms of Destelbergen were granted by Royal Decree on 25 October 1954. They are based on the single known seal of the village, dating from 1782. The three keys refer to the St. Peter abbey in Ghent, owner of the village until the French Revolution.
Arnaud Leroy, Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 6 November 2005
![[Flag of Haenhout]](../images/b/be-vovha.gif)
Flag of Haenhout - Image by Jarig Bakker, 3 October 2004
Haenhout is a ward of the municipality of Destelbergen, actually a ward of the agglomeration of Gent. The flag of Haenhout is bright blue with a narrow horizontal yellow stripe placed just above the lower edge of the flag, on which stands a white rooster in front of a red sun outlined in white; the name of the ward is written in yellow capital letters in the upper right part of the flag; in the lower right part of the flag, a white, four-petaled flower with a red heart outlined dark blue is placed over the yellow stripe. The flag is canting, since haen means "rooster" in Dutch.
Source: Haenhout website
Jarig Bakker, 3 October 2004
