Laarne across Centuries
In the beginning, there was nothing apart from a swamp that built up an open clearing in the forest. Around 1200 A.D. a building on piles was erected there. Then, the ground floor was lifted further up and a new, more solid building was added. But it is only around 1300 A.D. that the first stone building rose; this initial construction would later be used as the entrance compound. Later, the castle evolved to take – in less than a century and a half – the shape of the present castle surrounded by a moat.
Beatrix van Massemen, daughter of Diederik, was formally introduced as the Lady of Laarne between 1213 and 1222. She was the wife of Gerard van Zottegem, the second son of Walter, Lord of Zottegem, with whom she had at least ten children. Their son Giselbrecht van Zottegem survived his older brothers and became Lord of Ressegem, Leeuwergem, Massemen, Laarne and Kalken. On the occasion of his marriage to Mathilde van Bethune, daughter of the Lord of Dendermonde, he received the seignories of Laarne and Kalken in 1228-1229. According to E. Balthau, a little later, the man ordered the construction of the “Hof van Laarne”, the ancestor to the present castle. The man is also famous for his military deeds: in 1214-1215, he was – with two of his brothers and other Flemish noblemen – a mercenary at the service of English king John Lackland and fought in the revolt of the English nobility that led to the drafting and signing of the Magna Charta in 1215. In 1217-1218, he took part in the fifth crusade to Egypt that ended in the defeat of the Christian army in Damietta in 1218.
A deed dating back to 1294 mentions the words “int hof te Laerne”; this is the first written reference to the existence of a proper residence in this location. 68 years later, a castle is mentioned for the first time in a document talking about Gerard van Ressegem, Lord of Laarne, and his overlord, the Count of Flanders. In this document, it is mentioned that in times of war or riots, the castle would go to the Count of Flanders. The castle was besieged and occupied twenty years later, when the city of Ghent revolted against the Count’s authority. The remains of the fire of September 22nd, 1382 are by the way still visible. It’s only in 1390 that Jan van Massemen, the son of Geraard, was able to regain ownership of his castle.