Rivalités et dépendances entre villes : l'exemple de Douai du Moyen Âge à nos jours

Abstract

Monique Mestayer, Rivalries and Inter-City Dependence : the Example of Douai from the Middle- Ages to Today. Cities that are close to one another tend to develop feelings of rivalry. The example of Douai through the centuries demonstrates these feelings : commercial rivalries, sporting rivalries going as far generating a real war between the Douai and Lille citizens in the xmth century, trading rivalries between cloth merchants or between the Gent or Condé bargemen, between competing grain merchants (Lille, Valenciennes), and above all institutional rivalries. This is how Douai will fight against Lou vain for the creation of a university in the xvith century, then for its refoundation in the xixth century though it will have at first to share it with Lille before this latter eventually snatches its last two faculties. Finally, Douai will get a Law school in 1993, in spite of Lille's opposition. Lille had in time supplanted Douai as the department's capital city in 1804. These struggles are often fought for the honour of the city, but also for its development, as the documents here published testify.