Schellebelle

Schellebelle is a village and a part of the municipality of Wichelen on the banks of the Scheldt in the Belgian province of East Flanders. About 4000 people live there. Schellebelle grew out of a settlement on the Scheldt, which certainly already existed in the Middle Ages: under the names "Belle" and "Bella" it is already mentioned in 1155. But the village may have originated in the Gallo-Roman period or even earlier; Excavations from 2020 show that there was already habitation in 1000 BC. A folk etymological imaginative explanation assumes that the village name comes from the shrill-sounding bell with which one could call the ferry, while another off-the-cuff explanation is that French-speaking skippers called the bend in the Scheldt quelle belle. Both "explanations" lack any historical basis. The origin of the place name must be sought elsewhere: 'Schelle' is a reference to the Scheldt, while 'belle' comes from the Latin baliolum, which means 'palisade/fence'. According to that statement, 'Schellebelle' is therefore a 'fenced fortification on the Scheldt'. This plausible explanation seems to confirm that Schellebelle already existed in the Gallo-Roman period.

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