Last modified: 2007-10-20 by ivan sache
Keywords: bekkevoort | lion (yellow) |
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![[Flag of Bekkevoort]](../images/b/be-vbrbk.gif)
Municipal flag of Bekkevoort - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 4 September 2006
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The municipality of Bekkevoort (5,926 inhabitants on 1 January 2007; 3.717 ha), located near Leuven and Diest, is one of the smallest and most rural municipalities in Flemish Brabant. The municipality of Bekkevoort is made since 1976 of the former municipalities of Bekkevoort, Assent and Molenbeek-Wersbeek.
The Prince's Wood (Prinsenbos) belonged to the Prince of Orange, lord of Diest since the XVIth century. In the middle of the XIXth century, the lawyer Cluckers from Diest built on the edge of the wood a neo-classic cottage known as "Cluckers-kasteel".
Ivan Sache, 4 September 2006
The municipal flag of Bekkevoort is blue with a semy of yellow billets and a
yellow lion with red tongue and claws.
According to Gemeentewapens in België - Vlaanderen en Brussel,
the flag and arms were adopted by the Municipal Council on 16 April
1980, confirmed by the Executive of Flanders on 9 December 1980 and
published in the Belgian official gazette on 29 January 1981.
The flag is a banner of the fourth quarter of the municipal arms, showing the
arms of the Nassau family. The flag is similar to the banner of arms of
the French province of Franche-Comté, except that the lion is
crowned there.
The arms of Bekkevoort are quite complicated. According to Servais,
they were granted on 28 August 1935. These were the arms of Prince
Willem-Hendrik of Orange-Nassau as lord of Bekkevoort, as shown on the
oldest known seal of Bekkevoort, dated 1694. They are:
Quarterly Nassau and Saarbrücken (that is Nassau-Saarbrücken) a canton
quarterly Loon and Heinsberg.
The arms of Heinsberg (Gules a two-tailed lion argent crowned of the
same) refer to Johanna of Diest and Heinsberg, owner of Bekkevoort in
1436. Heinsberg is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany), whose lords have used the lion arms since the XIIIth century. There were also used on municipal seals and arms and were confirmed as the municipal
arms on 2 October 1974.
After Johanna's death, Bekkevoort was transferred to Johan of Loon,
therefore the arms of Loon (Barrulet of ten pieces or and gules).
Bekkevoort was later acquired by the Counts of Meissen-Saarbrücken,
therefore the lion of Saarbrück.
In the early XVIIth century, the village was transferred to the house
of Nassau-Dillenburg, later Orange-Nassau, therefore the arms of Nassau.
Ivan Sache & Pascal Vagnat, 4 September 2006