On the legendary origins of the City of Five Bell Towers
Extract from the dissertation submitted by Isabelle Glorieux for her doctorate "Tournai, and all the territory dependent on it, is situated along the border of French Flanders and Hainaut. The town is so old that it is said to have been founded 640 years before the birth of the Saviour of mankind. I have quite a lot to say about its name, for its explanation is obscure and the opinions of writers about it are varied and marvellous. Some believe that it was founded by a soldier of Tullus Hostilius, the third king of the Romans, and was named Hostilia after him. However, when it was destroyed and then rebuilt again, it began to be called Nervia in memory of the goddess Minerva, following an alteration and reduction of this word. At the beginning of Nero's reign, it was once again restored by one of his tribunes, Turnus, and finally called Tournai after the man who had rebuilt it. Others claim with absolute certainty that, in Julius Caesar's time, it was called Nervia and was the capital of the Nervians, who were considered to be the fiercest Gallic people at the time, and who fought Caesar himself near the river Sabis. As a result of the growing Roman threat and the destruction of their property, they fought such an energetic and continuous battle that, when they submitted to Caesar, they said that, from 600 senators, they had been reduced to barely 3 and from 60,000 men who could bear arms, to barely 500." Read more .... http://bcs.fltr.ucl.ac.be/fe/08/Tournai.html
Image source : http://www.saint-jacques-tournai.be/fr/historique/
