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Horebeke (Municipality, Province of East Flanders, Belgium)

Municipal flag of Horebeke - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 20 September 2005

Presentation of Horebeke
Municipal flag of Horebeke

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Presentation of Horebeke

The municipality of Horebeke (2,054 inhabitants on 1 January 2007; 1,120 ha) is located 20 km south of Ghent, in the hilly region known as the Flemish Ardennes, between Oudenaarde and Brakel. The municipality of Horebeke was constituted in 1976 by the merging of the two former municipalities of Sint-Kornelis-Horebeke and Sint-Maria-Horebeke. It is the smallest of the new municipalities in Flanders.

Sint-Kornelis-Horebeke was mentioned in 1155 as Horembeke sancti Cornelii. The St. Cornelius parish church and the St. Gertrud monastery date back to the XVIIIth century.

Sint-Maria-Horebeke houses the Protestant borough known as Geuzenhoek, located in the village of Corsele. This is the unique Protestant enclave in Flanders. The community has a hundred of members, two churches (Oude - old - and Nieuwe - new - Kerk - church) and a small cemetary with a weeping beech. This community dates back to the XVIth century, when a rich tapestry-maker from Oudenaarde, Jacob Blommaert took the party of the Protestant rebels (Geuzen). William of Orange ordered him to liberate Oudenaarde from the Spanish troops. Blommaert seized the town and hold it for two months but discord arouse among the inhabitants and the Spaniards easily took over the town. Blommaert escaped and was killed near Eeklo. The other Protestants also left and eventually settled in Sint-Marie-Horebeke after some peregrinations. They lived there in isolation until 1782, when Emperor Joseph II granted them the same rights as the Catholics via the Edict of Tolerance (Edict van Tolerantie).

The Abraham Hans Museum is located in the Geuzenhoek. Abraham Hans (1882-1939) was the son of a Dutch school teacher who moved from Den Briel to Horebeke. Because of the school struggle, the Hans family had to move to Roeselare, but Abraham often came back to his birth village for vacation and worked there for farmer Blommaert. He got his school teacher diploma in 1903 in Doetinchem, in the Netherlands, and taught in several places in Belgium and the Netherlands. Hans was very Flemish-oriented and was confronted with the destitution of the Flemish who worked as seasonal workers in France and to the Frenchifying of teaching in Flanders. He was among the founding members of the first association for the good use of common Dutch (Vereniging voor Beschaafde Nederlandse Omgangstaal) and promoted the used of Dutch in the University of Ghent. Hans earned his life after the First World War as a journalist at Het Laatste Niews but became famous for his popular novels (more than 170).

Sources:

Ivan Sache, 20 September 2005

Municipal flag of Horebeke

The municipal flag of Horebeke is yellow with a double green border with eight green fleurs-de-lis; the four fleurs-de-lis on the corners of the borders point outwards whereas the four other ones in the middle of the border sides point inwards. There is a red chevron placed over the border so that only six fleurs-de-lis are visible; the two fleurs-de-lis located on the lower angles of the border are masked by the chevron.
According to Gemeentewapens in België - Vlaanderen en Brussel, the flag was adopted by the Municipal Council on 9 November 1985, confirmed by the Executive of Flanders on 11 March 1986 and published in the Belgian official gazette on 8 July 1986.
The flag is a banner of the municipal arms.

The municipal arms of Horebeke are "Or, a tressure fleury counterfleury vert, debruised by a chevron gules". According to Servais, these arms are identical to the arms of the former municipality of Sint-Maria-Horebeke. The arms of Sint-Kornelius-Horebeke were slightly different, but used similar elements ("Or a chevron azure a border of the same eight fleurs-de-lis of the first).

Arnaud Leroy, Pascal Vagnat, Santiago Dotor & Ivan Sache, 20 September 2005