Hoogstraten

Geschiedenis

Hoogstraten is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Antwerp. The municipality comprises Hoogstraten, Meer, Meerle, Meersel-Dreef, Minderhout and Wortel (Meersel-Dreef includes the northernmost point in Belgium).Hoogstraten (originally Hoogstraeten) has a population of over 20,000, and lies in Flanders at the northern border of Belgium within an enclave surrounded on three sides by the Netherlands. Today, about 15% percent of the population consists of Dutch people. The town is named after the hoge straat or "high road" – a military highway that linked the old towns of Antwerp and 's-Hertogenbosch. In the town’s early days, little trade existed. Villages and towns produced just enough for their own support, with little or no surplus to be ‘sold’ to other areas. Thus, most travelers along this high road were soldiers and armies.Today Hoogstraten is internationally known for its strawberries. Veiling Hoogstraten (auction) is one of the largest of the Benelux. Every year more than 30000 tonnes of strawberries are traded there. However its main agricultural crop is the tomato.HistoryMedieval periodOriginally Hoogstraten probably existed as a small group of thatched cottages, with perhaps one which served as an inn. Passing travellers would pay for a meal of bread and stew and the opportunity to lie on a straw pallet in an upper room for the night while their horse was tended in a stable attached to the cottage. Apart from the innkeeper who probably also sold beer, most of the men in Hoogstraten laboured for the principal landowner while their wives tended to the family, to the garden and perhaps to chickens and a pig or a sheep that they might own. The animals and children ran free in the town along its earthen street. There was no natural lake or hill around which the cottages might have been grouped so the town’s focus was the main street, the "Vrijheid". There was a small river, the Mark, but given the tendency for rivers to overflow in this flat land, townspeople were wise to avoid building too close to it.