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Origins to the 10th century[edit]
The name Dinant comes from the Celtic Divo-Nanto, meaning "Sacred Valley" or "Divine Valley"; it can also be translated as "Celestial Gorge" or "Luminous Gorge" (as in modern Welsh Nant Dwyfol).
The remains of a prehistoric woman, known as the 'Margaux Woman', were found near Dinant in 1988. She is estimated to have been buried in the mid-ninth millenium B.C (part of the Mesolithic period).
The Dinant area was already populated in Neolithic, Celtic, and Roman times. The first mention of Dinant as a settlement dates from the 7th century, when Perpète of Maastricht, Bishop of Tongeren, moved his principal residence from Maastricht to Dinant and founded the church of Saint Vincent.
Dinant was a part of the Frankish kingdom of Middle Francia from its creation in 843 by the Treaty of Verdun until its dissolution in 855 with the Treaty of Prüm. Like most of Middle Francia, Dinant then became part of the newly formed Kingdom of Lotharingia within the Carolingian Empire. The Kingdom of Lotharingia was abolished in 869–870 and was divided by the Treaty of Meerssen in 870. With this, Dinant passed to West Francia, ruled by king Charles the Bald. With this passing of territory, he gave part of Dinant to be administered by the Count of Namur, with the rest as a part of the Bishopric of Tongeren, which was by that time based in Liège. West Francia eventually lost significant territory and no longer contained Dinant by the 10th century.
In the 11th century, the emperor Henry IV granted several rights over Dinant to the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, including market and justice rights. From that time on, the city became one of the 23 ‘‘bonnes villes’’ (or principal cities) of the Prince-Bishopric. The first stone bridge on the Meuse and major repair to the castle, which had been built earlier, also date from the end of the 11th century. Throughout this period, and until the end of the 18th century, Dinant shared its history with its overlord Liège, sometimes rising in revolt against it, sometimes partaking in its victories and defeats, mostly against the neighbouring County of Namur.
Late Middle Ages[edit]
Its strategic location on the Meuse exposed Dinant to battle and pillage, not always by avowed enemies: in 1466, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, uncle of Louis de Bourbon, Prince-Bishop of Liège, and Philip’s son Charles the Bold punished an uprising in Dinant during the Liège Wars, by casting 800 burghers into the Meuse and setting fire to the city. The city's economic rival was Bouvignes, downriver on the opposite shore of the Meuse.
Late Medieval Dinant and Bouvignes specialised in metalwork, producing finely cast and finished objects in a silvery brass alloy, called dinanderie and supplying aquamaniles, candlesticks, patens and other altar furniture throughout the Meuse valley (giving these objects their cautious designation "Mosan"), the Rhineland and beyond.
Henri Pirenne gained his doctorate in 1883 with a thesis on medieval Dinant.
The Old Regime[edit]
Map of Dinant (circa 1770)
View of Dinant by Pierre Tetar van Elven[need quotation to verify]
Dinant's destruction in World War I
In the 16th- and 17th-century wars between France and Spain, Dinant suffered destruction, famine, and epidemics, despite its neutrality. In 1675, the French army under Marshal François de Créquy occupied the city. Dinant was briefly taken by the Austrians at the end of the 18th century. The whole Bishopric of Liège was ceded to France in 1795. The dinanderies fell out of fashion and the economy of the city now rested on leather tanning and the manufacture of playing cards. The famous couques de Dinant also appeared at that time.
World War I[edit]
Main article: Sack of Dinant
The city suffered devastation again at the beginning of the First World War. On 15 August 1914, French and German troops fought for the town in the Battle of Dinant; among the wounded was Lieut. Charles de Gaulle. On 23 August, 674 inhabitants were summarily executed by Saxon troops of the German Army – the largest massacre committed by the Germans in 1914. Within a month, some five thousand Belgian and French civilians were killed by the Germans at numerous similar occasions.
World War II[edit]
During World War II, the city was again captured by German forces during the invasion of Belgium. German forces of Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division took the town on 13 May 1940, after crossing the River Meuse and defeating the French forces defending the town.
