HUY

town, Lige province, south central Belgium, situated in the Meuse Valley at the confluence of the Meuse and Hoyoux rivers, 19 mi (30 km) southwest of Lige. First mentioned in a document dating from 636, the town was part of the Bishopric of Lige from 985 to 1794. A prosperous crafts (including metalworking, cloth making, tanning, wine making, and brewing) and commercial centre in the Middle Ages, Huy was the first place in the Holy Roman Empire to receive a civic charter, the Charte de Thoduin, in 1066. Peter the Hermit, after the Council of Clermont, preached the First Crusade in Huy in 1095 and later founded the abbey of Neufmoustier (now in ruins) nearby. The town declined in prosperity during the 15th century despite the development of ironworking. In the 1600s, it was embroiled with the rest of the Meuse Valley in the wars between Louis XIV of France and the Habsburgs. Joseph Lebeau, a statesman influential in the founding of the Kingdom of Belgium in 1831 and later prime minister of foreign affairs to Leopold I, was born in Huy. Today steel, machinery, paper, pewter, and pottery are manufactured in the town and wheat, oats, and rye are grown nearby. Coal mines are also found in the area. Huy is dominated by its citadel, the Chestia, built by the Dutch (181823) on the site of a 10th-century episcopal castle (demolished in 1717) around which the town grew. The citadel was used by the Germans as an internment camp in World War II. The Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame (built 13111536) is a Gothic structure with a noteworthy rose window. Pop. (1983 est.) mun., 17,544.