VII.  THE BELS IN BEELITZ (in East Germany).

« La chance ne sourit qu'aux esprits bien préparés »

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)

 « Luck only smiles on well-prepared minds »

There's a town in East Germany called “Beelitz”, a German variant of “Bels”, with a Polish consonance due to its proximity to the Polish border. The German border town of Frankfurt (Oder) is only 118 km to the east of Beelitz. The town, which dates to the very early 11th century, had a population of 14,800 in December 2023.

To assert that "Beelitz" has a direct connection with the “Bels” seems, at first sight, to be “nonsense” and an inclination to see “Bels” everywhere. What saves the day is the fact, rather than the supposition, that this town is in a region known as the “Land der Fläming”.

The name “Land der Fläming” means “Land of the Flemish”. It's a historic region east of the Elbe and south of Berlin. It was settled by people from Flanders (Belgium) in the Middle Ages. Their settlement is thought to date back to 1100, when the form “flamengs” was first attested.

By metonymy, the term “Flamand”, or “Vlamingen” in Flemish, is used to describe Dutch-speaking Belgians from the Belgian region of Flanders. In French, the term “Flamand” refers to an ethnic group distributed between France, Belgium and the Netherlands, whose identity is rooted in memories of the county of Flanders.

The “Land der Fläming” is therefore with certainty “The land of the Flemish”. The facts are clear: Bellitz is synonymous with Bels, and the name was given by Flemish settlers.

As the town was called “Beelitz”, these new arrivals must have included people with the “Bels” surname. They would have had, by some prerogative or right unknown to this day, the right to name, as was often the case, the place where they settled after their patronymic “Bels”. This name has then, over time, given rise to the phonetic variant “Belz” and “Beelitz” proper to the pronunciation of the German language, which is close to it.

We've already come across phonetic variants of the Bels, just about everywhere in Belgium with the “Belles” - the “Bellis” - the “Bailes” - the “Bayles” and so on. In southern France, with “Les Bels” and “Les Bayles” (Ariège) – The “Les Bels », les « Baillesats” and “Villardebelle” (Hautes Corbières) - “Ambels” - ”Cazals des Bayles”, etc. In Scotland, with “Bell” - “Balliol” - “Bayles”, etc. In England and Scotland, the Flemings were also called “The Flemings”.

History books indicate that the name “Fläming”, in Germany, is derived from the medieval “Flemish” settlers. There are two regions near Beelitz, the “hohe Fläming” a little higher up, to the west, and the “niedere Fläming” to the east. The whole area is sparsely populated and has, even today, no major industries.

Now we need to find out the reasons for this movement of people and goods. There are several: Flanders has always been, for various reasons, a land of covetousness, and therefore of armed conflict. Flanders has also repeatedly suffered catastrophic flooding due to its low-lying areas and, more recently, the wars of religion (Huguenots) broke up family nuclei, scattering people all over Europe.

But Flanders harboured also disciplined and conscientious tradesmen. Flemish people were multi-skilled and highly sought-after. So were the Flemish craftsmen and tradesmen were highly valued, especially on the other side of the Channel. Many Flemings had already settled in England and southern Scotland, centuries before the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

The Flemish people had, very early on in their history, to face the fact that with their Flemish language, they'd never get very far off their borders. This very deceptive reality triggered them to become Europe's first polyglots. In addition to Flemish, they were fluent in French, English and German (Flemish is nothing more than archaic German).

Early on in Europe's history, the Flemish distinguished themselves in many fields, with a predilection for wool and its processing, for weaving draperies, wall carpets and tapestries, of which they became the absolute and undisputed masters in Europe.

England sent its wools to Flanders for processing, and once processed, they sailed back to England. The Flemish innovated in many trades, competing with, but not rivaling the other, commercial, financial, economic, artistic and scientific hub of the Middle Ages, Florence, Italy.

Few people know that before the oil colors used to paint the magnificent pictures of the great Flemish and Florentine painters, these pictures were painted with “Tempera”, pigments mixed with egg yolk (dries quickly and lasts at least 3500 years).

t wasn't until a Flemish painter by the name of Jan van Eyck (1390-1441) that oil painting, based on linseed oil, was discovered, along with the means to dry it. Overnight, Italian artists headed for Flanders.

I won't go into too much detail about this new Beelitz discovery, as I don't know all the ins and outs. It will nevertheless be the subject of further research.

VII a.  THE BELS IN BELZ (Ex-Poland tofday Ukraine)

On voit avec les yeux, on regarde avec l'esprit, mais on ne comprend

qu'avec ce 3e œil intérieur qui perçoit au-delà des apparences.

Fra. Robert Adelsohn Bels. (°1946)

“We see with the eyes, we look with the mind, but we understand

only with the inner third eye that perceives beyond appearances.”

A recent discovery takes us further east than the well-known traces of the Bels in Beelitz. Remarkably, it again touches upon the Flemish origin of this lineage, rooted in the land that Jacques Brel immortalized in song as “Le Plat Pays qui est le mien.”

As is well established, medieval Flanders was among the most densely populated regions of Europe. Pressures of demography, compounded by feudal rivalries, recurring wars of religion, military expeditions, and broader social upheavals, pushed entire groups to seek opportunities elsewhere. This dynamic of displacement and resettlement explains why the Bels surface across a wide geography of Europe: first in eastern Flanders, then in Limburg, later in parts of Germany such as Ludwigslust and “Beelitz”, and now, astonishingly, in “Belz”, a settlement deep in what is today western Ukraine.

Belz itself is both a toponym and a patronymic. Located in the Lviv Oblast, it began as a Polish village before being annexed in 1030 by Prince Yaroslav “the Wise,” as recorded in the Povest’ vremennykh let. By 1170, “Belz” had become the capital of a principality under the Rurikid dynasty. The timing of its emergence is striking: both “Beelitz” in Germany and “Belz” in Poland appear in written sources around the early eleventh century. For “Belz”, we even have the precise year of annexation, 1030.

It is well known that the Rurikid and Piast princes actively encouraged immigration: foreign settlers, artisans, farmers, town-builders, and even knights were welcomed. Flemish migrations into Poland are documented in Poznań, Wrocław, and Gdańsk. In the twelfth century, the Hungarian kings, particularly Géza III (1141-1162), invited colonists from the West to secure Transylvania’s frontier. These settlers, recorded as Saxons, Walloons, Flemings (Flandrenses), and groups from Lorraine and the Mosel valley, were valued for their skills.

The Andreanum charter of 1224 issued by King Andrew II confirms their privileges, explicitly mentioning Flandrenses (Flemish people) among the hospites. Similar dynamics were at play in Galicia-Volhynia, where German merchants and Flemish colonists are documented from the twelfth century onward.

This phenomenon suggests that the spread of the Bels name eastward may follow a familiar modus operandi: a family name, whether of noble, patriarchal, knightly, or artisanal origin, became embedded in the toponymy of the new settlement. Such naming practices are well attested across medieval Europe.

The coincidence of “Belz” in today’s Ukraine with the surname-toponym Bels, found in Flanders, Occitanie, eastern Germany, and the Netherlands, is too striking to ignore. These patronymic forms belong among the oldest in the Low Countries. Evidence also shows that Flemings migrated south into France and northern Spain from the High Middle Ages onward, and even earlier, as further developments of this essay will demonstrate.

Some historians, however, prefer to interpret such toponyms as purely local in origin. In southern France, for instance, the Flemish-sounding “Les Bayles” is often explained as a derivation from baillies, the plural of “bailli”, denoting the royal or seigneurial officer entrusted with administering a district. This explanation fits neatly within the framework of medieval French administration.

Yet the evidence for an alternative reading remains striking. “Les Bayles” stands in immediate juxtaposition to another village named “Les Bels”. The pairing of these two names, side by side, and both recalling Flemish patronyms, constitutes a unique case in which the geography itself seems to preserve a memory of northern migration. That two such forms should coexist in such close proximity strongly suggests that the explanation cannot be reduced to administrative terminology alone, but may indeed bear witness to the settlement of Flemish families in the region.

Traditional historiography, following established patterns, tends to insist on a Slavic etymology for Belz, usually deriving it from the Old Slavic Bewz, meaning “marshy ground.” This explanation is linguistically coherent and sits well within the local context.

And yet, the remarkable persistence of the Bels name, with its numerous variants, across widely separated parts of Europe invites, and indeed justifies, a parallel hypothesis. It is entirely plausible that Flemish settlers, moving eastward as they had to so many other frontiers, carried their family designation with them, inscribing it not only into the rolls of nobility and charters, but also embedding it permanently in the toponymy of the regions where they settled. In this way, Belz may stand not solely as a Slavic hydronym, but as a silent testimony to the diffusion of a Flemish lineage across the continent.

Why did so many leave Flanders? The answer lies in a combination of pressures and opportunities. By the High Middle Ages, Flanders had become one of the most densely populated regions of Europe. Land hunger, compounded by cycles of local warfare and recurring religious strife, created strong incentives for emigration. At the same time, the very skills that Flemings had perfected at home made them highly sought after abroad.

Master of Agriculture, they were especially renowned for draining marshes, raising sheep, and developing a flourishing wool industry. These techniques held immense value for rulers in regions as diverse as Poland, Hungary, and beyond, who were eager to attract Flemish settlers to improve their lands and economies.

Yet it would be misleading to imagine that every Flemish family who left their homeland did so out of need or compulsion. Some, such as the Bels, the Belle, and the Balliol, were not only skilled but also prosperous and politically significant. Their heirs can be traced accompanying military expeditions of nearly every kind: serving under the Merovingians, following the Counts of Flanders, Hainaut, and Boulogne, riding in the ranks of the Carolingians and Charlemagne’s campaigns against the Arabs and during the Reconquista, with supporting the Dukes of Normandy in their conquests, and marching eastward on the great Crusades.

For such families, emigration was rarely about exporting agricultural knowledge. Rather, their movements followed the paths of chivalry, dynastic politics, and economic opportunity. It is within this context that the Bels appear in the South of France, as well as in northern England and Scotland. Their story reflects not only the demographic realities of Flanders, but also the ambitions of a knightly lineage seeking honour, influence, and fortune on the shifting frontiers of medieval Europe.

The Bels of “Belz” also brought with them urban skills that contributed to the structuring of towns under the Magdeburg and Lübeck models of civic law. In later centuries, Belz itself followed this trajectory: it received Magdeburg law in 1377 (renewed in 1509) and rose to prominence as the capital of the Belz Voivodeship under Poland until 1772.

Thus, from a Flemish perspective, the story of Belz is not merely a Slavic or Rurikid tale. It forms part of the broader European saga of Flemish migration and settlement, a movement that imprinted the Bels name across the continent, from the Low Countries to the very edge of the Carpathians.