Guînes

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This is for the commune in France. For the city in Cuba, see Güines.

Commune of Guînes

Drawbridge and canal at Guînes

Location

Coordinates

50° 52' 07" N 01° 52' 28" E

Administration

Communauté de communes des Trois Pays

Mayor

Hervé Poher

Statistics

Elevation

0 m–166 m
(avg. 6 m)

Land area^¹

26.42 km²

Population^²
(1999)

5,221

- Density

197/km² (1999)

Miscellaneous

INSEE/Postal code

62397/ 62340

¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

² Population sans doubles comptes: residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel) only counted once.

Guînes is a commune of northern France, chief town of the canton of Guînes, arrondissement of Calais, in the Pas-de-Calais département.

1 Geography
2 History
3 Population
4 Places and monuments
- 4.1 Blanchard's Column
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Geography

Guînes is located on the border of the two territories of the Boulonnais and Calaisis, at the edge of the now-drained marshes, which extend from here to the coast. The Guînes canal connects with Calais.

[edit] History

Historically, Guînes was the capital of a small county of the same name. After the Romans left, in the 5th century, there’s little known about the town. Sometime during the Dark Ages, according to legend, the territory of Guînes became the property of one Aigneric, Mayor of the Palace of the Burgundian king Théodebert II.

In 928, when the Danes invaded and seized the place, it was probably a defenceless village. A fenced mound and a double ditch would soon have been created by the Danes. This is the origin of the castle of Guînes. Arnulf I, Count of Flanders, realizing a counter-attack would be costly, arranged the marriage of his daughter Elstrude, to Sigfrid, the Danish leader, bestowing upon him the title of Count of Guînes but as vassal to him, the Count of Flanders. Under Sigfrid’s successors, the county of Guînes acquired considerable importance. At the beginning of the 11th century, Count Manassès founded a convent of the order of Saint-Benoit. This was placed under the jurisdiction of the nearby abbey of Saint Léonard. At that time, Guînes comprised three parishes within its walls, whose churches were dedicated to Saint Bertin, Saint Pierre and Saint Médard. Outside the town ramparts were the abbey of Saint Léonard, the church of Saint-Blaise, in the hamlet of Melleke, and the leper-house of Saint Quentin, in the hamlet of Spelleke (in Tournepuits).

At the end of 11th century, Baudoin II built a huge stone castle on top of Sigfrid’s old keep and enclosed the town within a stone wall, with defensive towers at each of the entrances.

On January 22, 1351, three years after the capture of Calais by Edward III, the castle of Guînes was also delivered up to the English.. In 1360, the Treaty of Brétigny surrendered the city and its county to England.