Empel
Encyclopedia
Empel is a town in the Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 province of North Brabant
North Brabant
North Brabant , sometimes called Brabant, is a province of the Netherlands, located in the south of the country, bordered by Belgium in the south, the Meuse River in the north, Limburg in the east and Zeeland in the west.- History :...

. It is located in the municipality of 's-Hertogenbosch.

Empel was a separate municipality until 1971, when it was merged with 's-Hertogenbosch. The complete name of the municipality was Empel en Meerwijk.

Points of interest

Empel was the ancient site of a temple to Hercules Magusanus. This was the Latin name of the supreme god of the Batavians
Batavians
The Batavi were an ancient Germanic tribe, originally part of the Chatti, reported by Tacitus to have lived around the Rhine delta, in the area that is currently the Netherlands, "an uninhabited district on the extremity of the coast of Gaul, and also of a neighbouring island, surrounded by the...

. Stone votives and broken weapons as symbolic offerings are at the location.
Roman ruins are in the region.

Battel of Empel

The Battle of Empel
Battle of Empel
The Battle of Empel or Miracle of Empel was a battle fought on December 7 and December 8, 1585, as part of the Eighty Years' War, in which a Spanish force miraculously escaped destruction...

 or Miracle of Empel (Milagro de Empel in Spanish) was a battle fought on December 7 and December 8, 1585, as part of the Eighty Years' War, in which a Spanish army miraculously escaped destruction after discovering a hiden Dutch Catholic image of the Immaculate Conception
Immaculate Conception
The Immaculate Conception of Mary is a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, according to which the Virgin Mary was conceived without any stain of original sin. It is one of the four dogmata in Roman Catholic Mariology...

.

The Spanish army was in a desperate situation, under siege by the Dutch Protestant navy and surrounded by the rivers. The night following the discovery of the image, the rivers freezed and the Spanish army run over the frozen rivers escaping from the siege. In Spain, the battle is still remembered as it is believed that the Spanish army was saved due to intervention of Mary of the Immaculate Conception. In memory of the battle, the Immaculate Conception is the patroness of the Spanish infantry.

External links

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