LIEGE

(French), Flemish Luik, German Lttich capital of Lige province, eastern Belgium, on the Meuse River at its confluence with the Ourthe. (The grave accent in Lige was officially approved over the acute in 1946.) The site was inhabited in prehistoric times and was known to the Romans as Leodium. A chapel was built there to honour St. Lambert, bishop of Maastricht, who was murdered there in 705. Lige became a town when St. Hubert transferred his see there in 721. Under Notger, its first prince-bishop, it grew in importance as a centre of Lige principality and of the Mosan school of art and as a major European intellectual centre. After it was granted a communal magistracy (1185) and citizens' charter (1195), and the guilds were granted representation on the city council (1303), there was a struggle for power between the guilds and the nobles. The nobles failed in a sudden attack, and their armed party was burned to death by the populace in the church of Saint-Martin in 1312, an event known as Male Saint-Martin. Political equality was granted to the labourers and to most of the trade guilds in 1313. During the 15th-century Burgundian domination of the Netherlands, Lige resisted and was sacked twice by Charles the Bold (1467, 1468). After Charles's death (1477) the city was rebuilt and experienced renewed prosperity in the 16th century under Prince-Bishop Evrard de La Marck. Renewed strife between the prince-bishops and the citizens resulted in the destruction of democratic institutions in 1684. The city was bombarded by the French in 1691 and taken by the English (1702) during the War of the Spanish Succession. A bloodless revolution ended the rule of the nobles in 1789; Lige was annexed to France in 1795 and assigned with the rest of Belgium to The Netherlands in 1815. Its citizens played an important part in the Belgian Revolution in 1830. After Belgium became independent (1830), the city expanded and became a major industrial centre. Fortified in 1891, it became the main bastion of the Meuse defenses and was occupied by the Germans in both world wars; it suffered heavy aerial bombardment in World War II. Now the commercial hub of the industrial Meuse Valley, its industries include iron and steel foundries, glassworks, coal mines, armament factories, and copper refineries. It is the third most important river port in western Europe and the second largest rail centre in Belgium; its airport is in nearby Bierset. The cathedral (the former abbey church of Saint-Paul) contains the reliquaries of St. Lambert and Charles the Bold. Among many other Romanesque and Gothic churches in Lige are Saint-Denis, Saint-Jacques, Saint-Martin, Sainte-Croix (containing a gold triptych from 1150), and Saint-Barthlemy, with a baptismal font (1108). The palace of the prince-bishops (built in the 15th century and repaired in the 18th and 19th centuries) is now the Palais de Justice. Saint-Laurent, an old Benedictine abbey, has been a military hospital since 1796. As the cultural centre of Wallonia (French-speaking Belgium), Lige has concert halls, theatres, an opera, and many fine museumsparticularly those of fine arts and of Walloon life, the Ansembourg Museum of decorative art, the archaeological museum (in the Maison Curtius, c. 1600), the arms museum, and the house of the composer Csar Franck. The state university (1817) was entirely rebuilt in the 1960s on a new site to the south. The Royal Conservatory of Music (1887) is famous for the violin school established by Eugne Ysye. There are also several national research laboratories and technical schools associated with the major industries of Lige. Pop. (1983 est.) mun., 207,496. (French), Flemish Luik province (area 1,491 sq mi [3,862 sq km]), eastern Belgium, bordering Germany on the east. It is divided into four administrative arrondissementsHuy, Lige, Verviers, and Waremmewith the capital at Lige. Primarily French-speaking, it includes the German-language territory of Eupen-et-Malmdy (q.v.), Sankt Vith, and the former neutral district of Moresnet, where German is still widely spoken. For nearly 1,000 years Lige was the focus of the independent prince-bishops of Lige, dependencies of whom then extended from Upper Gelderland to the French frontier (Champagne), but the borders of the bishopric were deeply indented and enclosed dependencies of neighbouring states. Its position between the northwestern and southeastern areas of the Burgundian Netherlands lent the province particular importance in the 15th century. From the 16th century its prince-bishops generally collaborated with the Habsburg rulers of the Netherlands. The French encroached on the territory during the next century and annexed it (1795) during the French Revolutionary Wars. Assigned to The Netherlands in 1815, the lands became Belgian in 1830. Drained by the Meuse, Amblve, Ourthe, and Vesdre rivers, its soils support varied agriculture. The Hesbaye, a chalk plateau in the northwest with its overlay of clay loams, produces cereals and sugar beets, and supports cattle. The humid clay loams of the Pays de Herve Plateau in the northeast support grazing lands, orchards, and syrup and cheese production. The Meuse Valley provides market garden and dairy produce. In the south and southeast are the Condroz and Hautes Fagnes areas of the Ardennes (q.v.), where agriculture is limited; pigs and dairy cattle are bred on the uplands, and dairy farming and the cultivation of oats, rye, wheat, clover, and potatoes are carried on in the valleys. Tourism at Spa (q.v.) and along the Ourthe and Amblve rivers contributes to the province's economy. Parts of the Ardennes are thickly wooded, particularly in the Eupen-et-Malmdy district; and parts of the wild Hautes Fagnes heathlands are set aside as natural reserves. There are two major industrial regions: along the Meuse Valley centred on Lige and its satellite towns and in the Vesdre Valley around Verviers. The most easterly basin of the Sambre-Meuse coalfield occurs around Lige, and collieries, coke ovens, steelworks, and chemical and metallurgical factories extend along the Meuse Valley; coal exploitation has, however, been reduced. The Verviers region is the hub of the Belgian wool industry. Other population centres are Huy, in the Meuse Valley, and the market and resort towns of Eupen, Spa, Stavelot, and Sankt Vith in the Ardennes. The province is served by the canalized Meuse, the Albert Canal, six main roads, and several international railway routes. There are many old castles and monasteries, particularly in the Amblve and Ourthe valleys. Pop. (1983 est.) 995,576.