Marollen

The (French, ) or (Dutch, ) is a popular historic neighbourhood of downtown Brussels, Belgium. It is situated between the Palace of Justice to its south-east, the Church of Our Lady of the Chapel to its north and the Halle Gate to its south. Its inhabitants are called in French and in Dutch.

Lying at the heart of the Marolles are the Place du Jeu de Balle/Vossenplein, home to the Old Market, and the Cité Hellemans collective housing complex. Major arteries of the district include the /, the / and the /. This area is served by Brussels-Chapel railway station and Brussels-South railway station, as well as by the metro and premetro (underground tram) station Porte de Hal/Hallepoort on lines 2, 4, 6 and 10.

The traditional Brabantian dialect of Brussels (known as Brusselian, and also sometimes referred to as Marols or Marollien) was widely spoken in the Marolles until the 20th century.Template:Sfn It still survives among a small minority of inhabitants called BrusseleersTemplate:Sfn (or Brusseleirs), many of them quite bi- and multilingual in French and Dutch.Template:Sfn

History

Early history

The area now occupied by the Marolles lay, during the Middle Ages, in the first circumvallation of Brussels. The first mention of a Walsche Plaetse (1328), literally "Walloon Place", probably indicates an early presence of French-speaking traders and craftsmen in the neighbourhood, as it was a logical arrival place for migrants from the south. In 1405, a fire broke out in the neighbourhood and destroyed some 2,400 homes.Template:Sfn

At the end of the 16th century, the part of the Marolles crossed by the /, called Bovendael at that time, was frequented by prostitutes.Template:Sfn Lepers were also exiled to this area, and from 1691, they were cared for by the Apostoline sisters, a religious congregation from which the toponym Marolles is thought to be derived (from in Latin ("those who honour the Virgin Mary"), later contracted to /, and finally /).Template:Sfn The sisters' presence was short-lived, as they relocated in 1715 to the / in the Quays or Maritime Quarter. Their name, however, remained attached to their old district, with the current / being called Op de Marollen in Brusselian.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the nobility and the bourgeoisie of Brussels built mansions along the /.Template:Sfn The Marolles became a working class district in the succeeding centuries.

19th century

File:Bruxelles (1910) (14773620895).jpg

The / at the foot of the Palace of Justice, c. Template:Trim

In 1860, during the reign of King Leopold I, a royal decree announced the construction of a new Palace of Justice (the old one located on what is today the / having quickly deteriorated and exceeded its capacity), and an international architectural competition was organised for its design.Template:Sfn After several failed proposals, the then-Minister of Justice Victor Tesch appointed the architect Joseph Poelaert to draw plans of the building in 1861.Template:Sfn The first stone was laid on 31 October 1866,Template:Sfn and the building was inaugurated on 15 October 1883, four years after Poelaert's death in 1879.Template:Sfn The Palace's location is on the Galgenberg hill (Template:Langx; "Gallows Mount"), where in the Middle Ages convicted criminals were hanged, hence its name.

For the Palace of Justice's construction, a section of the Marolles was demolished, while most of the park belonging to the House of Merode was also expropriated.Template:Sfn The 75 landlords belonging to the nobility and the high bourgeoisie, many of whom lived in their homes,Template:Sfn received large indemnities, while the other more modest inhabitants, about a hundred, were also forced to move by the Belgian Government, though they were compensated with houses in the Tillens-Roosendael garden city (Template:Langx) in the Quartier du Chat in the Uccle municipality.Template:Sfn

Poelaert himself resided in the Marolles, only a few hundred metres from the building, on the Rue des Minimes, in a house adjoining his vast offices and workshops and communicating with them.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn It is thus unlikely he saw himself as ruining the neighbourhood. Nonetheless, many angry citizens personally blamed Poelaert for the forced relocations, and the expression schieven architect (meaning "shameful architect") became one of the most serious insults in the dialect of the Marolles.

20th and 21st centuries

File:1939 les Marolles derrière le Palais de Justice dessin par Léon van Dievoet 13 juillet 1939.JPG

Sketch of the Marolles in 1939 by Léon van Dievoet

Many Jews resided in the neighbourhood before the first Nazi arrests and deportations in the summer of 1942. Many of them had arrived there after fleeing the pogroms that accompanied the 1905 Russian Revolution, with others following between 1933 and 1938, after Hitler's accession to power in Germany. At that time, their population was estimated at about 3,000 people. A first synagogue had been built on the /, where a commemorative plaque now recalls the deportations. At the end of the war, a mock funeral procession for Hitler was held in the Marolles, during which funds were raised to support the victims of Auschwitz.

In some areas of the Marolles, the ensuing poverty left its mark on the urban landscape and scarred the social life of the community, leading to rising crime rates and pervading cultural intolerance. In 2006, riots began in this area. However, from the / to the Place du Jeu de Balle/Vossenplein, where a daily flea market known as the Old Market has been held since 1873, along the / and the /, second-hand and popular shops have for some years given way to antique dealers, marking a profound transformation of the district.

Sights

• The Church of Our Lady of the Chapel or Chapel Church, a Gothic Roman Catholic church dating from the 12th–13th centuries.
• The Halle Gate, the only remaining gate in a series that allowed passage inside the second walls of Brussels.
• The /, one of the city's longest and oldest streets, follows the course of an old Gallo-Roman road, and runs along Saint Peter's Hospital, which was itself built in 1935 on the site of a leprosium.
• The Palace of Justice, the most important court building in Belgium, also reputed to be the largest building constructed in the 19th century.
• The Cité Hellemans, a remarkable example of an early 20th-century collective housing complex, was built to replace the neighbourhood's many squalid cul-de-sacs.

• Church of Our Lady of the Chapel
  Church of Our Lady of the Chapel
• Halle Gate
  Halle Gate
• Brigittines Chapel
  Brigittines Chapel
• Place du Jeu de Balle/Vossenplein, end of a market
  Place du Jeu de Balle/Vossenplein, end of a market
• Palace of Justice
  Palace of Justice
• Cité Hellemans, Script error: No such module "Lang"./Script error: No such module "Lang".
  Cité Hellemans, /

See also

• Neighbourhoods in Brussels
• History of Brussels
• Culture of Belgium
• Belgium in the long nineteenth century

External links

• Template:Sister-inline
• Daily flea market (Voddenmarkt/Marché aux puces) at the Place du Jeu de Balle in the heart of the quarter
• Lewis, Barbara. "From lepers to art lovers, an ever-changing Brussels district." Reuters. Friday August 28, 2015.