Barlin
Encyclopedia
Barlin is a commune
Communes of France
The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...

 and seat of a canton
Cantons of France
The cantons of France are territorial subdivisions of the French Republic's 342 arrondissements and 101 departments.Apart from their role as organizational units in certain aspects of the administration of public services and justice, the chief purpose of the cantons today is to serve as...

 in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France.

Geography

A small ex-coal mining
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...

 town, now a light engineering and farming commune, situated 7 miles (11.3 km) south of Béthune and 30 miles (48.3 km) southwest of Lille
Lille
Lille is a city in northern France . It is the principal city of the Lille Métropole, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country behind those of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Lille is situated on the Deûle River, near France's border with Belgium...

, at the junction of the D57, D179 and the D188 roads.

History

We have to go back to 1141 to find the first mention of the parish
Parish
A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...

 of Barlin in a manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 now kept in the National Archives. It was then spelt Ballin or Bellin. The name changed several times over the centuries: Ballin in 1141, Bellin in 1438 and Barlaing in 1556, it was not until the next century that it became Barlin.

In the 12th century, the territory of Barlin was divided into several lordships which depended on Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise
Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise
Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. The population of the canton is 14,939.-History:The county of Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise, usually referred to as just Saint-Pol, was originally a stronghold of the Counts of Flanders and was established as a county...

, Arras
Arras
Arras is the capital of the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. The historic centre of the Artois region, its local speech is characterized as a Picard dialect...

 or Béthune
Béthune
Béthune is a city in northern France, sub-prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais department.-Geography:Béthune is located in the former province of Artois. It is situated South-East of Calais, West of Lille, and North of Paris.-Landmarks:...

. In 1207, Thomas Hasbare was seigneur
Fiefdom
A fee was the central element of feudalism and consisted of heritable lands granted under one of several varieties of feudal tenure by an overlord to a vassal who held it in fealty in return for a form of feudal allegiance and service, usually given by the...

 of Barlin. The Melun family succeeded him and one of their lords, nicknamed Le Brun, the king's chamberlain, saw his property confiscated by Duke John the Fearless, who had accused him of alliegence with his enemies. The Duke of Burgundy
Duchy of Burgundy
The Duchy of Burgundy , was heir to an ancient and prestigious reputation and a large division of the lands of the Second Kingdom of Burgundy and in its own right was one of the geographically larger ducal territories in the emergence of Early Modern Europe from Medieval Europe.Even in that...

 then donated the land and income of Barlin to Walleran de Juhaucourt.

In the mid-nineteenth century, coalmining began at Barlin and the town flourished. The mines closed in the 1960s.

Today, Barlin is a modern and dynamic place that offers its residents numerous amenities: schools, colleges, a swimming pool, a library and sports halls.

Population

Places of interest

  • The church of St.Pierre, dating from the eighteenth century.
  • The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
    Commonwealth War Graves Commission
    The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves, and places of commemoration, of Commonwealth of Nations military service members who died in the two World Wars...

    cemetery.
  • The museum

External links

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