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Belgium – Saint Rumbold Medal
1775 Silver Medal 27mm (7.48 grams)
Reference: Louis Minard-van Hoorebeke (Description de méreaux et autres objets anciens des gildes) #386
S•RUMOLDUS MART•MECHLIN•PATRON, Bust of Saint Rumbold
PRAESULI SUO DEVOTA JUBILAT MECHLINIA.; Coat-of-arms seated figure facing.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
Mechelen (Malines, traditional English name: Mechlin) is a city and municipality in the province of Antwerp, Flanders, Belgium. The municipality comprises the city of Mechelen proper, some quarters at its outskirts, the hamlets of Nekkerspoel (adjacent) and Battel (a few kilometers away), as well as the villages of Walem, Heffen, Leest, Hombeek, and Muizen. The Dyle (Dutch: Dijle) flows through the city, hence it is often referred to as the Dijlestad (“City on the river Dijle“).
Mechelen lies on the major urban and industrial axis Brussels-Antwerp, about 25 km from each city. Inhabitants find employment at Mechelen’s southern industrial and northern office estates, as well as at offices or industry near the capital and Zaventem Airport, or at industrial plants near Antwerp’s seaport.
Mechelen is one of Flanders’ prominent cities of historical art, with Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels, Ghent, and Leuven. It was notably a centre for artistic production during the Northern Renaissance, when painters, printmakers, illuminators and composers of polyphony were attracted by patrons such as Margaret of York, Margaret of Austria and Hieronymus van Busleyden.
 Saint Rumbold (or Rumold, Romuold, Latin: Rumoldus, Dutch: Rombout, French: Rombaut) was an Irish or Scottish Christian missionary, although his true nationality is not known for certain. He was martyred near Mechelen by two men, whom he had denounced for their evil ways.
Saint Rumbold’s feast day is celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church, and Western Rite Orthodox Churches, on 24 June; and it is celebrated in Ireland on 3 July. He is the patron saint of Mechelen, where St. Rumbold’s Cathedral possesses an elaborate golden shrine on its high altar, containing relics attributed to the saint. It is rumoured that his remains are buried inside the cathedral. Twenty-five paintings in the choir illustrate his life.
Life and legend
Rumbold is assumed to have been consecrated a regionary Bishop at Rome. Aodh Buidhe Mac an Bhaird (c. 1590-1635) argued that Rumbold had been born in Ireland. He is also said to have been a Bishop of Dublin, the son of a Scottish king, and the brother of St. Himelin. He is assumed to have worked under St. Willibrord in the Netherlands and Brabant, and also to have been a close companion of the hermit St. Gummarus, and of the preacher monk Fredegand van Deurne, who, according to one tradition, maintained contact with St. Foillan (who was murdered in the Sonian Forest around 665).
St. Rumbold’s biography, written around 1100 AD by Theodoricus, prior of Sint-Truiden Abbey, caused 775 to be the traditional year of the saint’s death. The surrounding areas of Mechelen however, had been Christianized much earlier. In 2004 a state-of-the-art examination of the relics assumed to be St. Rumbold’s showed a death date between 580 and 655. This would make Saint Rumbold a Hiberno-Scottish rather than an Anglo-Saxon missionary, and not a contemporary of either St. Willibrord, St. Himelin, or St. Gummarus.
St. Rumwold of Buckingham
There has been some historical confusion between Rumbold of Mechelen and the infant Saint Rumwold of Buckingham, who died in 662 AD at the age of 3 days. The latter has become referred to as Romwold, Rumwald, Runwald, Rumbald, or Rumbold. A compilation of three saints’ lives as translated by Rosalind Love mentioned that on 15th-century records in Salisbury, an unknown author ‘corrected’ the attribution as “martyr” (possibly the Rumbold murdered in Mechelen) by annotating “confessor” (fitting in the miraculous infant Rumwold who was not a martyr). Also, the original dedication of churches to a St. Rumbold in Northern England appears uncertain.
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres (11,787 sq mi) and has a population of about 11 million people.
 Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Latin Europe, Belgium is home to two main linguistic groups: the Dutch-speaking, mostly Flemish community, which constitutes about 59% of the population, and the French-speaking, mostly Walloon population, which comprises 41% of all Belgians. Additionally, there is a small group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area, and bordering Germany.
 Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other. Its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region, officially bilingual, is a mostly French-speaking enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium’s linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of government.
 Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries; it once covered a somewhat larger area than the current Benelux group of states. The region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, the area of Belgium was a prosperous and cosmopolitan centre of commerce and culture. From the 16th century until the Belgian Revolution in 1830, when Belgium seceded from the Netherlands, the area of Belgium served as the battleground between many European powers, causing it to be dubbed the “Battlefield of Europe,” a reputation strengthened by both world wars.
Upon its independence, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. The second half of the 20th century was marked by rising tensions between the Dutch-speaking and the French-speaking citizens fueled by differences in language and the unequal economic development of Flanders and Wallonia. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Despite the reforms, tensions between the groups remain; the formation of a coalition government took 18 months following the June 2010 federal election.
Belgium is a founding member of the European Union, Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO, and a part of the trilateral Benelux Union. Its capital, Brussels, hosts several of the EU’s official seats as well as the headquarters of many major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is also a part of the Schengen Area.
Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as “very high” in the Human Development Index.
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