repel. The more interesting question connected with the left bank is whether it does not provide, as Napoleon thought, the most natural outlet for the expansion of Antwerp. Proposals to connect the two banks by a tunnel under the Scheldt have been made from time to time in a fitful manner, but nothing whatever had been done by 1908 to realize what appears to be a natural and easy project.
Population.—The following statistics show the growth of population in and since the 19th century. In 1800 the population was computed not to exceed 40,000. At the census of 1846 the total was 88,487; of 1851, 95,501; of 1880, 169,100; of 1900, 272,830; and of 1904, 291,949. To these figures ought to be added the populations (1904) of Borgerhout (43,391) and Berchem (26,383), as they are part of the city, which would give Antwerp a total population of 361,723.
History.—The suggested origin of the name Antwerp from Hand-werpen (hand-throwing), because a mythical robber chief indulged in the practice of cutting off his prisoners’ hands and throwing them into the Scheldt, appeared to Motley rather far-fetched, but it is less reasonable to trace it, as he inclines to do, from an t werf (on the wharf), seeing that the form Andhunerbo existed in the 6th century on the separation of Austrasia and Neustria. Moreover, hand-cutting was not an uncommon practice in Europe. It was perpetuated from a savage past in the custom of cutting off the right hand of a man who died without heir, and sending it as proof of main-morte to the feudal lord. Moreover, the two hands and a castle, which form the arms of Antwerp, will not be dismissed as providing no proof by any one acquainted with the scrupulous care that heralds displayed in the golden age of chivalry before assigning or recognizing the armorial bearings of any claimant.
In the 4th century Antwerp is mentioned as one of the places in the second Germany, and in the 11th century Godfrey of Bouillon was for some years best known as marquis of Antwerp. Antwerp was the headquarters of Edward III. during his early negotiations with van Artevelde, and his son Lionel, earl of Cambridge, was born there in 1338.
It was not, however, till after the closing of the Zwyn and the decay of Bruges that Antwerp became of importance. At the end of the 15th century the foreign trading gilds or houses were transferred from Bruges to Antwerp, and the building assigned to the English nation is specifically mentioned in 1510. In 1560, a year which marked the highest point of its prosperity, six nations, viz. the Spaniards, the Danes and the Hansa together, the Italians, the English, the Portuguese and the Germans, were named at Antwerp, and over 1000 foreign merchants were resident in the city. Guicciardini, the Venetian envoy, describes the activity of the port, into which 500 ships sometimes passed in a day, and as evidence of the extent of its land trade he mentioned that 2000 carts entered the city each week. Venice had fallen from its first place in European commerce, but still it was active and prosperous. Its envoy, in explaining the importance of Antwerp, states that there was as much business done there in a fortnight as in Venice throughout the year.
The religious troubles that marked the second half of the 16th century broke out in Antwerp as in every other part of Belgium excepting Liége. In 1576 the Spanish soldiery plundered the town during what was called “the Spanish Fury,” and 6000 citizens were massacred. Eight hundred houses were burnt down, and over two millions sterling of damage was wrought in the town on that occasion.
In 1585 a severe blow was struck at the prosperity of Antwerp when Parma captured it after a long siege and sent all its Protestant citizens into exile. The recognition of the independence of the United Provinces by the treaty of Münster in 1648 carried with it the death-blow to Antwerp’s prosperity as a place of trade, for one of its clauses stipulated that the Scheldt should be closed to navigation. This impediment remained in force until 1863, although the provisions were relaxed during French rule from 1795 to 1814, and also during the time Belgium formed part of the kingdom of the Netherlands (1815 to 1830). Antwerp had reached the lowest point of its fortunes in 1800, and its population had sunk under 40,000, when Napoleon, realizing its strategical importance, assigned two millions for the construction of two docks and a mole.
One other incident in the chequered history of Antwerp deserves mention. In 1830 the city was captured by the Belgian insurgents, but the citadel continued to be held by a Dutch garrison under General Chassé. For a time this officer subjected the town to a periodical bombardment which inflicted much damage, and at the end of 1832 the citadel itself was besieged by a French army. During this attack the town was further injured. In December 1832, after a gallant defence, Chassé made an honourable surrender.
See J. L. Motley’s Rise of the Dutch Republic; C. Scribanii, Origines Antwerpiensium; Gens, Hist. de la ville d’Anvers; Mertens and Torfs, Geschiedenis van Antwerp; Génard, Anvers à travers les âges; Annuaire statistique de la Belgique. (D. C. B.)
ANU, a Babylonian deity, who, by virtue of being the first figure in a triad consisting of Anu, Bel and Ea, came to be regarded as the father and king of the gods. Anu is so prominently associated with the city of Erech in southern Babylonia that there are good reasons for believing this place to have been the original seat of the Anu cult. If this be correct, then the goddess Nanā (or Ishtar) of Erech was presumably regarded as his consort. The name of the god signifies the “high one” and he was probably a god of the atmospheric region above the earth— perhaps a storm god like Adad (q.v.), or like Yahweh among the ancient Hebrews. However this may be, already in the old-Babylonian period, i.e. before Khammurabi, Anu was regarded as the god of the heavens and his name became in fact synonymous with the heavens, so that in some cases it is doubtful whether, under the term, the god or the heavens is meant. It would seem from this that the grouping of the divine powers recognized in the universe into a triad symbolizing the three divisions, heavens, earth and the watery-deep, was a process of thought which had taken place before the third millennium. To Anu was assigned the control of the heavens, to Bel the earth, and to Ea the waters. The doctrine once established remained an inherent part of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion and led to the more or less complete disassociation of the three gods constituting the triad from their original local limitations. An intermediate step between Anu viewed as the local deity of Erech (or some other centre), Bel as the god of Nippur, and Ea as the god of Eridu is represented by the prominence which each one of the centres associated with the three deities in question must have acquired, and which led to each one absorbing the qualities of other gods so as to give them a controlling position in an organized pantheon. For Nippur we have the direct evidence that its chief deity, En-lil or Bel, was once regarded as the head of an extensive pantheon. The sanctity and, therefore, the importance of Eridu remained a fixed tradition in the minds of the people to the latest days, and analogy therefore justifies the conclusion that Anu was likewise worshipped in a centre which had acquired great prominence. The summing-up of divine powers manifested in the universe in a threefold division represents an outcome of speculation in the schools attached to the temples of Babylonia, but the selection of Anu, Bel and Ea for the three representatives of the three spheres recognized, is due to the importance which, for one reason or the other, the centres in which Anu, Bel and Ea were worshipped had acquired in the popular mind. Each of the three must have been regarded in his centre as the most important member in a larger or smaller group, so that their union in a triad marks also the combination of the three distinctive pantheons into a harmonious whole.
In the astral theology of Babylonia and Assyria, Anu, Bel and Ea became the three zones of the ecliptic, the northern, middle and southern zone respectively. The purely theoretical character of Anu is thus still further emphasized, and in the annals and votive inscriptions as well as in the incantations and hymns, he is rarely introduced as an active force to whom a personal appeal can be made. His name becomes little more than a synonym for the heavens in general and even his title as king
