Speelmansrei und Augustijnenrei

This guide to Speelmansrei and Augustijnenrei in Bruges opens with a question: why a city in the grip of civil war, right after its count was murdered inside a church in eleven twenty-seven, would spend two years digging defensive water channels through its own streets. It follows those channels through a century and a half as pure fortification, then to a stranger choice in twelve seventy to deepen the moat so boats could pass. It traces where the two canals got their names, from an Augustinian monastery founded nearby and from the city's guild of minstrels first recorded in twelve ninety-two. Stand on one of the three old bridges still crossing the water.