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12-588: The town of Zaltbommel was first mentioned as "Bomela" in the year 850. Zaltbommel received city rights in 1231 and these were renewed in 1316. In 1599 during the Eighty Years War , Zaltbommel was besieged by Spanish forces but was relieved by an Anglo-Dutch force led by Maurice of Orange . The bridge over the Waal at Zaltbommel (which has since been replaced) features in a celebrated twentieth-century Dutch sonnet, De moeder de vrouw , by Martinus Nijhoff . Zaltbommel

24-670: A population of 29,447 in 2021. City rights in the Netherlands City rights are a feature of the medieval history of the Low Countries , and, more generally, the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation . A liege lord , usually a count , duke or similar member of the high nobility, granted to a town or village he owned certain town privileges that places without city rights did not have. In Belgium , Luxembourg , and

36-756: The Netherlands , a town, often proudly, calls itself a city if it obtained a complete package of city rights at some point in its history. Its current population is not relevant, so there are some very small cities. The smallest is Staverden in the Netherlands, with 40 inhabitants. In Belgium, Durbuy is the smallest city, whilst the smallest in Luxembourg is Vianden . When forced by financial problems, feudal landlords offered for sale privileges to settlements from around 1000. The total package of these comprises town privileges . Such sales raised (non-recurrent) revenue for

48-526: The authority they had previously had: law-making and the judiciary had become part of the state . After the Constitution of 1848 and the Municipal Law of 1851, the differences between the legal privileges of cities, towns, and villages were permanently erased. In the early 19th century, when several important towns (especially The Hague ) wanted to call themselves cities, the custom of granting city status

60-604: The development and centralization of a national government. In the Netherlands the last city to receive real city rights (as defined above) was Willemstad in 1586. During the Dutch Republic , only Blokzijl gained city rights (in 1672). After the Batavian Revolution in 1795, municipalities were styled after the French model and city rights were abolished by law. Although partially restored after 1813, cities did not fully regain

72-619: The feudal lords, in exchange for the loss of power. Over time, the landlords sold more and more privileges. This resulted in a shift of power within the counties and duchies in the Low Countries from the aristocracy to the bourgeoisie, starting in Flanders . Some of these cities even developed into city-states . The growing economic and military power concentrating in the cities led to a very powerful class of well-to-do merchants and traders. Privileges Freedoms Governance Note several of

84-530: The following were first granted city rights during the medieval period. The first community in the contemporary Kingdom of the Netherlands to receive city rights was Deventer in 956. It can be argued that some cities have older rights: for instance Nijmegen may have been granted city status during the Roman Empire . Another case is Voorburg , which is built on the site of the Roman settlement Forum Hadriani and

96-431: The picturesque harbour were built during 17th century. Blokzijl received city rights in 1672, but was stripped of them a few years later. Until 1973, it was a separate municipality, when it became a component of the new municipality Brederwiede ; it is now part of Steenwijkerland . One the interesting sights of the city is an old cannon , located on the harbour quay. This cannon was not used for defense purposes, but as

108-640: The province of Overijssel , the Netherlands . The city is a major tourist destination near the De Weerribben-Wieden National Park and attracts many water sports enthusiasts. Blokzijl was founded in the 1580s as a trading post for peat . After the Siege of Steenwijk (1580–81) in the Eighty Years' War , the Dutch built a fortified lock or in local dialect zijl or siel . The monumental houses around

120-552: Was briefly revived. The last grant of city status in the Netherlands was to Delfshaven in 1825. But the city status granted during this period was quite different from the privileges bestowed in the Middle Ages, and were merely symbolic. This is also the case for cities such as The Hague and Assen , which received their status during the Napoleonic period. Blokzijl Blokzijl is a small city located southwest of Steenwijk in

132-503: Was expanded to its current size on 1 January 1999, by a merger of the municipalities of Brakel , Kerkwijk and Zaltbommel. The municipality is situated in the heart of the Netherlands, close to the A2 Motorway, the railway line from Utrecht to 's‑Hertogenbosch and the rivers Waal and Maas . [REDACTED] Dutch Topographic map of Zaltbommel (municipality), Sept. 2014 The municipality, consists of 13 population centres and had

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144-512: Was granted city status in about AD 151, but was abandoned in the late 3rd century: thus the current settlement is not considered an uninterrupted continuation of the Roman city. At the end of the Middle Ages , the number of grants of city status fell dramatically. The strong position of merchants and traders allowed the Netherlands to become the first modern republic in the 16th century. The institution of city status gradually came to an end with

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