The earliest settlement of what is now Brussels goes back to the year 580 and the island between two branches of the river Senne (Saint-Géry island), on which Gaugericus (Gery), Christian bishop of Cambrai, built a chapel (Saint-Géry Chapel), which remained the oldest place of worship in the city until the building was demolished in the 1790s. Brussels is mentioned again in the historical record again in 695. In the year 979, Lambert the Duke of Louvain, fortified the settlement on Saint-Géry Island. From the 1100s, the Dukes of Brabant transformed the fortress into a castle. The first city walls ( première enceinte - see shaded region on map to the right), built in the 1200s, enclosed the city. By then, Brussels had developed into a substantial market town, in particular with the production of cloth. In the 1300s the "second walls" ( seconde enceinte - see outer border on map to the right) of Brussels were built, forming the proverbial "pentagon" with eight city...