Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- A note on language and names
- List of Abbreviations
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 State-building, historical culture and public monuments in nineteenth-century Belgium
- 2 The physical setting of the monument: Brussels’ Place Royale
- 3 The creation of the monument
- 4 The changing meanings of the monument
- 5 The monument as a lieu de mémoire I: culture and politics
- 6 The monument as a lieu de mémoire II: history and national identity
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Medievalism
3 - The creation of the monument
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 January 2024
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- A note on language and names
- List of Abbreviations
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 State-building, historical culture and public monuments in nineteenth-century Belgium
- 2 The physical setting of the monument: Brussels’ Place Royale
- 3 The creation of the monument
- 4 The changing meanings of the monument
- 5 The monument as a lieu de mémoire I: culture and politics
- 6 The monument as a lieu de mémoire II: history and national identity
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Medievalism
Summary
15 August 1848 will go down in the history of art as a truly memorable day. Belgium will remember that on that day she inaugurated the statue of one of her most illustrious children, and she will be proud to see that the work of statuary is worthy of the hero.
Alexandre Henne, writing in September 1848, on the inauguration of the monument in honour of Godfrey of Bouillon in Brussels’ Place Royale a few weeks earlier on 15 August.
This chapter investigates the commission, creation and inauguration of the monument to Godfrey of Bouillon in Brussels. In doing so, it reveals key features of the state-sponsored ‘statuomania’ of nineteenth-century Belgium. The monument functions here as a case study, one that illuminates in close detail the efforts of political elites in Belgium to use public monuments as instruments for articulating the teleological narrative of national history. Successive Prime Ministers and their administrations maintained a firm hold on the project from start to finish, and in continuity from one government to the next. Their efforts also exemplify early Belgian political Unionism, with Catholic and Liberal politicians cooperating to advance it. The mixed (that is, collaborative Catholic-Liberal) administration of Jean-Baptiste Nothomb (1841 to 1845) commissioned the monument in 1843 and committed considerable state funds to pay for it, including all but 3,000 of Simonis’ fee of 90,500 francs. The project continued under the mixed administration of Sylvain Van de Weyer (d.1874) from 1845 to 1846, and then the single-party Catholic cabinet of Barthélémy de Theux from 1846 to 1847. While the election of Charles Rogier's Liberal administration in 1847 is often framed as the end of Unionism, this project continued to benefit from bipartisan support after this point down to its inauguration the following August. The crusader had an appeal to both constituencies. The memory of a warrior who had answered the papal call to fight in defence of the faith had an obvious appeal to Catholics. Liberals also aligned him to their interests; at the monument's inauguration, for example, Rogier described him as a key figure in the history of Christian civilisation.
In the Belgian national parliament, the project was supported by Catholics (chiefly Félix de Mérode) and Liberals (including Rogier when he held no governmental positions between 1841 and 1847), regardless of who held the reins of government at any point.
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- Medievalism in Nineteenth-Century BelgiumThe 1848 Monument to Godfrey of Bouillon, pp. 65 - 102Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2023