(French; Flemish, Brugge—literally, bridge), a city in Belgium. Administrative center of the province of West Flanders. Population in 1969, 51,300. A seaport with outlying ports on the North Sea at Zeebrugge and Ostend. It has a network of shipping canals: the Bruges-Zeebrugge canal, the Bruges-Ostend canal, and the Bruges-Ghent canal. Its industries include metalworking, ship repair, textiles, food, and the ancient art of lace-making. It is a tourist center.
The city was first mentioned in the seventh century; it acquired the status of a medieval city in the tenth century. At the end of the 11th century it became the residence of the counts of Flanders. During the 11th—13th centuries, Bruges, which lay at the crossroads of important trade routes, became one of the most important European centers for guild handicrafts (weaving of English wool) and international trade and later for international credit operations as well. From the middle of the 13th century and in the 14th century the trade of Bruges passed into the hands of foreign merchants. Bruges was the largest entrepôt of the Hanseatic League. In the bitter political struggle that took place in medieval Flanders, Bruges often played a decisive role—for example, the Bruges matins in 1302 and the part played by the guilds in the Battle of Courtrai in 1302. The struggle between the guilds and the nobles continued. Success fluctuated between the two sides: thus the guilds were successful in 1302 but were defeated in 1328. In the 15th century, when capitalist relations began to develop in Flanders, Bruges, which had basically preserved its feudal forms of production, lost its former economic and political importance.
The special architectural appearance of Bruges is the result of its artificially maintained medieval appearance—for example, old narrow houses and Gothic edifices, churches, and belfries combined with many canals (from which rise the walls of the houses) and curved bridges.
The Halles with the town belfry (1283-1482) dominates the main square, the Grote Markt. The town hall (1376-1421) and the Chapel of the Holy Blood (c. 1480) are on Burg Square. Bruges’ churches include the cathedral of St. Salvatorskerk (12th-18th centuries), and the Church of Notre Dame (1210-1549), with Michelangelo’s Virgin and Child and the bronze coffin of Mary of Burgundy and Charles the Bold (16th century). The Halles, the Gruuthuse (1420-1470), and the Potterij Hospital (1276) are museums of Netherlands art; the H. Memling Museum is in the assembly hall of the Hôpital of St. Jean; and the Municipal Gallery contains a valuable collection of Dutch paintings.