Calais
Calais is a French major port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Calais is the largest city in Pas-de-Calais. The population of the city proper is 67,544; that of the urban area is 144,625. Calais overlooks the Strait of Dover, the narrowest point in the English Channel, which is only wide here, and is the closest French town to England. The White Cliffs of Dover can easily be seen from Calais on a clear day. Calais is a major port for ferries between France and England, The Channel Tunnel has connected Calais and Folkestone since 1994.
Because of its position, Calais has been a major port and an important centre for transport and trading with England since the Middle Ages. Calais came under English control after Edward III of England captured the city in 1347, followed by a treaty in 1360 that formally assigned Calais to English rule. Calais grew into a thriving centre for wool production, and came to be called the "brightest jewel in the English crown" because of its importance as the gateway for the tin, lead, lace and wool trades. Calais remained under English control until its recapture by France in 1558.
During World War II, the town was virtually razed to the ground. In May 1940, it was a strategic bombing target of the invading German forces, who took it during the siege of Calais. The Germans built massive bunkers along the coast, in preparation for launching missiles at England.
The old part of the town, Calais-Nord, is on an artificial island surrounded by canals and harbours. The modern part of the town, St-Pierre, lies to the south and south-east. In the centre of the old town is the Place d'Armes, in which stands the Tour du Guet, or watch-tower, a structure built in the 13th century, which was used as a lighthouse until 1848 when a new lighthouse was built by the port. South east of the Place is the church of Notre-Dame, built during the English occupancy of Calais. Arguably, it is the only church built in the English perpendicular style in all of France. In this church, former French President Charles de Gaulle married Yvonne Vendroux. South of the Place and opposite the Parc St Pierre is the Hôtel-de-ville, and the belfry from the early 20th century. Today, Calais is visited by more than 10 million annually. Aside from being a key transport hub, Calais is also a notable fishing port and a centre for fish marketing, and some 3,000 people are still employed in the lace industry for which the town is also famed.
Names and etymology
The name Calais first appears in the historical record late in the twelfth century AD in a mention by Count Gerard of Guelders of a charter by his father Matthew of Alsace, Some references mention the Latin name Calesium being used as early as the ninth century but without providing sources for the claim. Medieval Latin Calesium derives ultimately from Latin Caletum, in turn from Caletes, a Belgic or Gallic tribe dwelling in Pays de Caux, in present-day Normandy. The Gaulish ethnonym Caletoi literally means "the hard ones", that is to say "the stubborn" or "the tough" and derives from the Proto-Celtic stem *kaletos- Early French sources use a bewildering array of spellings from Kaleeis to Kalais to Calays together with Latin-based Calaisiacum, Calesetum and Calasium. The modern French spelling of Calais first appeared in 1331.The earliest English name for the city was the Anglo-Norman Caleis. In Middle and Early Modern English, variants including Caleys, Calais, Calays, Callis and Cales were used. In later Middle English, the name of the city was most commonly spelt Cales, and this spelling survived well into the modern period, but Shakespeare for example used the spelling Callice. Confusingly, the name Cales found in the sarcastic rhyme beginning "A gentleman of Wales, a knight of Cales" and the ballad "The Winning of Cales" collected by Thomas Percy refers not to Calais, but to Cadiz in Spain.
The Cales spelling was also used in other European languages at the time, including Spanish, Italian and German and it is reflected in the city's name in the local Picard language, Calés.
Other archaic names for the city are Portuguese Calêsio and German Kalen. Kales, the city's historic name in Dutch and West Flemish was retained until more recently in the name for the Strait of Dover, Nauw van Kales, and is still used in Dutch sources wishing to emphasise former linguistic ties to the area.
Though the modern French spelling of Calais gradually supplanted other variants in English, the pronunciation persisted and survives in other towns named for the European city including Calais, Maine, and Calais, Vermont, in the United States. In "De Gustibus", Robert Browning rhymes Calais with malice.
The pronunciation shift can be seen in the 19th century where the pronunciation with the s ending was prescribed through much of the century, but was disappearing by the end. In the beginning of the twentieth century, the English pronunciation with stress on the first syllable was firmly established.
History
Early history
Sources on the early history of habitation in the area is limited. It is sometimes claimed that the Romans called the settlement Caletum and that it was the departure point for Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain. However, the name Caletum does not appear in Caesar's accounts of the invasion. Caesar describes his departure point as Portus Itius, which is believed to have been near Boulogne. At that time Calais was an island in the North Sea.Calais was an English outpost for many centuries while it was an island surrounded by marshes, and difficult to attack from the mainland. At some time before the 10th century, it would have been a Dutch-speaking fishing village on a sandy beach backed by pebbles and a creek, with a natural harbour at the west edge of the early medieval estuary of the river Aa. As the pebble and sand ridge extended eastward from Calais, the haven behind it developed into fen, as the estuary progressively filled with silt and peat. Afterwards, canals were cut between Saint-Omer, the trading centre formerly at the head of the estuary, and three places to the west, centre and east on the newly formed coast: respectively Calais, Gravelines and Dunkirk. Calais was improved by the Count of Flanders in 997 and fortified by the Count of Boulogne in 1224.
The first document mentioning the existence of this community is the town charter granted by Mathieu d'Alsace, Count of Boulogne, in 1181 to Gerard de Guelders; Calais thus became part of the county of Boulogne. In 1189, Richard the Lionheart is documented to have landed at Calais on his journey to the Third Crusade.
14th–15th century; the Pale of Calais
interests and King Edward III's claims to be heir to the Kingdom of France, led to the Battle of Crécy, between England and France, in 1346, followed by Edward's siege and capture of Calais, in 1347. Angered, the English king demanded reprisals against the town's citizens for holding out for so long and ordered that the town's population be killed en masse. He agreed, however, to spare them, on condition that six of the principal citizens would come to him, bareheaded and barefooted and with ropes around their necks, and give themselves up to death. On their arrival, he ordered their execution, but pardoned them when his queen, Philippa of Hainault, begged him to spare their lives. This event is commemorated in The Burghers of Calais, one of the most famous sculptures by Auguste Rodin, erected in the city in 1895. Though sparing the lives of the delegation members, King Edward drove out most of the French inhabitants, and settled the town with English. The municipal charter of Calais, previously granted by the Countess of Artois, was reconfirmed by Edward that year.In 1360, the Treaty of Brétigny assigned Guînes, Marck and Calais—collectively the "Pale of Calais"—to English rule in perpetuity, but this assignment was informally and only partially implemented. On 9 February 1363 the town was made an English staple port. It remained part of the Diocese of Thérouanne from 1379, keeping an ecclesiastical tie with France.
The town came to be called the "brightest jewel in the English crown" owing to its great importance as a gateway port for the tin, lead, cloth and wool trades. Its customs revenues amounted at times to a third of the English government's revenue, with wool being the most important element by far. Of its population of about 12,000 people, as many as 5,400 were recorded as having been connected with the wool trade. The governorship or Captaincy of Calais was a lucrative and highly prized public office; the famous Dick Whittington was simultaneously Lord Mayor of the City of London and Mayor of the Calais Staple in 1407.
File:MarchesOfCalaisTempHenryVIII.jpg|thumb|220x220px|The Marches of Calais in the time of Henry VIII. : "Cales Market" within citadel, shown at bottom, top "Gyenes Castel", bottom left "Graveling", bottom right "Sand Gat"
Calais was an integral part of the English trading economy, though not regarded as being a part of the Kingdom of England until the days of King Henry VIII, from which time the Pale of Calais sent two members to the English Parliament. The continued English hold on Calais however depended on expensively maintained fortifications, as the town lacked any natural defences. Maintaining Calais was a costly business that was frequently tested by the forces of France and the Duchy of Burgundy, with the Franco-Burgundian border running nearby. The British historian Geoffrey Elton once remarked "Calais—expensive and useless—was better lost than kept". The duration of the English hold over Calais was, to a large extent, the result of the feud between Burgundy and France: both sides coveted the town, but preferred to see England control it rather than their domestic rivals. The stalemate was broken by the victory of the French crown over Burgundy following Joan of Arc's final battle in the siege of Compiègne in 1430, and the later incorporation of the duchy into France.