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Web site of the Ename 974 Archaeological site


 


(Picture panoramic view of the Ename 974 museum - copyright Ename 974 )

The village of Ename is part of the city of Oudenaarde. Its history, however, starts way back in the early Middle-Ages with the "Villa Ehinham", a domain stretched out alongside the right bank of the river Scheldt. The activity on this "Villa" was mainly agricultural.
The situation changed dramatically for this forgotten rural area, when the German Emperor Otto II decided to construct a defence system alongside the border with the County of Flanders ( the border being the river Scheldt ). The defence system hinged upon three important military fortifications : Antwerp, Valenciennes and Ename, of which the latter was the most important.

 The fortification in Ename consisted of a donjon, a residential building with a chapel, everything surrounded by a 140 m long, 18 m wide and more than 6 m deep moat. Very rapidly, the site developed into an almost full-blown urban settlement with two churches, the Saint Salvator Church and the Saint Laurentius Church.
(Picture aerial view © Ename 974 - H. Timmerman )

Ename soon reached the apex of its development. In 1047, Count Baldwin IV, Count of Flanders, took the fortification and the little town by force. A large part of the settlement was destroyed, but the two churches survived. In order to demilitarise the area, Count Baldwin founded an abbey in 1063, the main building of which was constructed against the Saint Salvator Church.

The Abbey belonged to the Benedictine order. After centuries of prosperity, Ename suffered the fate of many other cities in the Low Countries. The abbey and the village were repeatedly attacked, destroyed and pillaged. A lot of the art objects were destroyed during the Iconoclasm of 1566. After the French Revolution the buildings were demolished. They were, however, rediscovered during the Second World War. Since 1982 the city of Oudenaarde and the National Office voor Excavations have been undertaking archaeological researches in Ename.

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