Jan de Lichte

Joannes "Jan" De Lichte (7 April 1723 – 13 November 1748) was an 18th-century Flemish outlaw and gang leader. Motivated by poverty during the upheavals of the Austrian War of Succession (1740–48), de Lichte led a gang of bandits who committed burglaries, robberies, and several murders in Flanders. Captured and executed in 1748, he was subsequently rehabilitated in the fictional works of Louis Paul Boon in 1958 and has subsequently inspired a sculpture and film series.

Biography Jan De Lichte was born on 7 April 1723 in Velzeke in the County of Flanders to an impoverished peasant family with a long criminal history. The Austrian War of Succession started in 1740 and lasted until 1748. In 1743, De Lichte and his gang shot at two pilgrims in Zottegem during a robbery. Jan De Lichte used the dense forests of the Munkbosbeek valley, part of the Flemish Ardennes, as a hiding place.

The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle of 1748 ended the hostilities. The ceasefire resulted in a greater emphasis on internal problems in the region. On 28 September, the French occupying forces organized a manhunt against De Lichte and his gang. which presents De Lichte as not merely a highwayman but as a champion of the oppressed lower classes, a kind of Flemish Robin Hood.

was commissioned to create a statue of Jan De Lichte by the Louis Paul Boon Society. It was supposed to be placed on the market in Aalst, however the municipality refused to honour a criminal. Next it was offered to Zottegem only to be refused again. In 1987, it was placed in the Middelheim Open Air Sculpture Museum. In 2009, the statue was finally publicly displayed in front of the Palace of Justice in Antwerp.

Since 2005, Jan De Lichte is honoured by a dubble witbier brewed by De Glazen Toren Brewery in Mere in the municipality of Erpe-Mere.

The Flemish channel VTM made the 10-part historical costume series Thieves of the Wood, which was released on Flemish television and Netflix on 2 January 2020.