| Added by |
 jcalder
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| General Description | Castle Gravensteen - Ghent Castle of the Counts of Flanders |
| Front Description | Flanders no longer exists as a country, now the northeastern part of Dutch speaking Belgium. It’s medieval capital of Ghent was once the largest city in Europe after Paris, built by the wool trade and evidenced by its many grand medieval structures divided by the River Lys which flows through its old center. In 1180, after his travels on the First Crusade, Count Philip of Alsace returned to the lowlands of Flanders and found himself at the point of war with Picardy in northern France. He built a stone fortress on the site of an earlier wooden defense at the edge of the river in the heart of Ghent, based on the ideas of the castles he had seen of his fellow crusaders. Philip died in Jerusalem on the Second Crusade, but for the next 300 years the successive Counts of Flanders based themselves in the strong walls of Gravensteen, which in Dutch literally means the Count’s Castle. |
| Height | 102.00 mm |
| Width | 147.00 mm |
| Catalog prices | No catalog prices set yet |
