The Development and Dissemination of the Walloon Method of Ironworking

Abstract

The use of iron cannon and cast-iron shot developed significantly during the protracted conflict between France and England known as the Hundred Years' War. Within the context of the demand for iron for artillery, important technological developments in ironworking occurred in Wallonia, the French-speaking part of the southern Low Countries (present-day Belgium). These were of particular importance in the county of Namur (annexed to Burgundy in 1429) and made that county, together with Hainaut (annexed to Burgundy in 1433) and the principality of Liege, important suppliers of munitions to combatants in the war. Through his marriage to Margaret de Male, Duke Philip the Bold of Burgundy became the son-in-law of Count Louis of Flanders, brother-inlaw of Count Willem I of Namur, and uncle to the count's son Willem II who served Philip in military capacities in the Low Countries.1 On the death of Count Louis in 1384 Philip inherited Flanders and other lands in the north, as well as the counties of Nevers and Burgundy that flanked his own duchy of Burgundy in the south. In 1388, the town walls of Namur had been remodeled to deploy cannon, probably the earliest in Europe to be reconfigured in that way. The first known manufacture of cast-iron shot in Europe came in the county of Namur in 1414, when Danekin Le Feron cast sixty-eight cannon balls at