FROM SAINT AMAND TO CHARLEMAGNE
Pursuing their conquests in Gaul, the Frankish kings soon abandoned
Clodion's capital and established themselves in Paris. Clovis and his
successors, surrounded by their warriors, could not resist the
Gallo-Roman influences to which they were subjected. They gave their
name to the country they conquered, but adopted its customs and paid
but scant attention to their old companions left behind as settlers on
the banks of the Scheldt. With the Belgo-Roman population, Christianity
had been swept from Northern Belgium, and it took the Church two
centuries, after the baptism of Clovis (496), to reconquer the ground
she had lost.
This long delay is easily accounted for. The conversion of Clovis and
of his followers, which affected so deeply the course of French
history, scarcely reacted on the creeds and customs of the Pagan
Frankish tribes established in the northern plain. The organization of
the Church, which had had no time to consolidate itself, had been
utterly shattered by the invasions. Between the fourth and the seventh
centuries, the shadow of Paganism spread again across the land in
Northern Belgium as in Britain, and when St. Amand arrived in Flanders,
he found the Franks as little prepared to receive him as the Saxons had
been, a few years before, to receive Augustine.
In Northern Belgium, as in Britain, the work of rechristianization had
to be undertaken from outside. The regular bishops, confined to their
towns, could not possibly cope with it. Their influence was limited to
a small area, and their frequent change of residence suggests that
their situation was rather precarious. During the sixth century, the
bishops of Tongres established themselves at Maestricht, those of
Tournai at Noyon, and those of Arras at Cambrai. Later, Maestricht was
abandoned for Liege (early eighth century). The old titles of "episcopi
Tungrorum" and "episcopi Morinorum" had lost all meaning since the
disappearance of the old Celtic tribes, but the bishops, in preserving
them, showed that they still hoped to increase their influence towards
the north.
This ambition would have remained an empty wish but for the action of a
few ardent missionaries who undertook to convert the German conquerors,
in the seventh century, as the vanquished Celts had been converted in
the third. We have already drawn the attention of the reader to the
simultaneous events occurring on both sides of the sea, in Britain and
Belgium, during the early stage of their history--Roman conquest,
German raids, retreat of the Celtic population among the forests and
the hills--but none of these concomitant events is more striking than
the appearance, almost at the same time, of St. Augustine in Kent and
St. Amand in Flanders.
[_ST. AMAND_]
The latter's mission, however, was not official. On his way to Rome, he
saw in a vision St. Peter, who ordered him to preach the Gospel to the
Northern Pagans, and forthwith he established himself at the confluence
of the Lys and the Scheldt. In this place he founded two monasteries,
which were to be the origin of the city of Ghent (610). Emboldened by
his first successes, he attempted, supported by the king, to render
baptism compulsory, which caused the Franks to revolt against him.
After long wanderings among the Danube tribes, he came back to Flanders
as Bishop of Tongres in 641, but soon gave up the cross and the mitre
to resume the monk's habit, and sought martyrdom among the Basques. The
palm being refused him, he again took the road to Belgium, where he
died at the monastery of Elnone, near Tournai, towards 661.
For fifty years, with some intervals, he had worked unceasingly, as a
monk and as a bishop, for the conversion of Northern Belgium. His
efforts were not nearly so systematic as those of Augustine. He did not
organize in the same way his spiritual conquests. He contented himself
with bringing Pagans into the fold of Christianity, but did little to
retain them there. His burning enthusiasm, however, set an example to
many disciples and followers, who wandered after him through the
country--St. Eloi along the Scheldt, St. Remacle along the Meuse, St.
Lambert among the barren moors of Toxandria and St. Hubert through the
forests of the Ardennes. Beside these, English and Irish missionaries
took a large share in the conversion of Northern Belgium. The fruit of
these individual efforts was reaped by the various bishops who had
never ceased to claim the northern plain as an integral part of their
dominions, according to Roman tradition. All that was necessary, after
Christianity had been reintroduced, was to render again effective a
bond which for four centuries had remained purely nominal. The
bishopric of Liege extended between the Meuse and the Dyle, within the
limits occupied formerly by that of Tongres; that of Cambrai, between
the Dyle and the Scheldt (Nervii); that of Noyon, between the Scheldt
and the sea (Menapii); and that of Terouanne, along the Yser valley
(Morini). Thus were re-established, through the action of the Church,
the old frontiers of the Celtic tribes, adopted by the Roman
"civitates," long after the disappearance of the Celts and the fall of
Rome. Liege was attached to the archbishopric of Cologne, the three
others to Rheims, reviving, for ecclesiastical purposes, the old
division between "Belgica Secunda" in the west and "Germania Inferior"
in the east. This division never changed until the sixteenth century,
when the northern part of the country ceased to be under the religious
influence of the episcopal cities of the south.
[_BISHOPRICS_]
It will be noticed that none of the ecclesiastical boundaries which we
have mentioned run in an easterly direction. Instead of coinciding with
the language frontier, they cross it everywhere, uniting in the same
religious community "Walas" and "Dietschen," Celts and Germans. For
eight centuries the Church, which was at the time the supreme moral
influence, unconsciously devoted all its energy to bringing together
the two groups of population. They met in the same churches, they
prayed before the same shrines, they joined in the same pilgrimages,
they studied and meditated within the walls of the same monasteries. No
wonder if such intercourse succeeded finally in uniting those whom
nature had so strongly separated, and in creating in Belgium a new
type of civilization neither Celtic nor Frankish, neither romanized nor
germanized, but combining some of the strongest qualities of both races
and well prepared to act as a kind of intellectual, moral and artistic
link between them. This rule suffers only one exception. When the
progress of Christianity permitted the foundation of a new bishopric at
Utrecht, this religious metropolis was not subjected to any Romanic
influence. It remained purely Germanic in character, and, already at
this early stage of the history of the Netherlands, gave a distinct
character to their extreme northern districts, which reasserted itself
so strongly at the time of the Reformation.
The Merovingian kings gave a kind of sanction to this gradual
separation of the Salian Franks, established in Northern Belgium, from
the bulk of the Germanic tribes. It is significant that the limit which
for a time separated their kingdom into Neustria in the west and
Austrasia in the east, and which followed, in Eastern Gaul, the
language frontier, assumed another course in Belgium, and, instead of
running from east to west, as might have been expected, ran north and
south along the frontier separating the bishopric of Liege from that of
Cambrai, bringing Walas and Franks together on both sides of the line.
Another proof of the romanizing influence of the Church may be found in
the fact that the Franks established in Belgium forgot their tribal
affinities. While in the seventh century Ripuarians, Alamans and
Thuringians constituted themselves into so many distinct duchies, no
attempt was ever made to found a Salian duchy in Northern Belgium. The
very name of Franks ceased to be applied to the Walas' neighbours, and
it is as "Dietschen," or "Thiois," that they were known through the
Middle Ages.
It ought not to be assumed, however, that the movement was one-sided
and that the ancient Franks adopted the religion and, to a certain
extent, the language of the southern people without influencing them in
their turn. The romanization of the Franks was accompanied by the
germanization of the Walloons, who adopted the laws and customs of
their conquerors. The latter became, in many instances, the great
landowners of this part of the country, while the Frankish settlers, in
the North, preserved the economic tradition of their native country and
remained small farmers. Even this last contrast gradually disappeared
under the influence of powerful landlords and through the foundation of
rich monasteries, which gradually drew towards them, as tenants or
clients, the bulk of the population in both parts of the country. So
that, when the Carolingian dynasty superseded the Merovingian, and when
Charlemagne received the imperial crown from the hands of the Pope
(800), the work of unification was very nearly accomplished. Through
reciprocal influences, Dietschen and Walas lived under the same
economic, political, religious and judicial regime. The linguistic
distinction, on both sides of the Tournai-Maestricht line, was the only
notable difference, and even this distinction tended to disappear
through the common use of the Roman dialect.
[_CHARLEMAGNE_]
One thing only remained to be done in order to crown the work
accomplished during the two last centuries: the creation of a strong
centralizing political power. The country was prepared to play the part
which she was predestined to play through natural and racial conditions
in the history of Europe, but she was still without guidance, a mere
borderland, forgotten and neglected, on the fringe of the Frankish
kingdom. The instrument was ready, but no artisan could yet use it. As
long as the centre of political activity remained on the Seine, the
characteristics of Belgian civilization could not be revealed. As long
as the balance between Germanic and romanized culture inclined steadily
towards the West, the European qualities of this Germanic,
semi-romanized people could not be tested. It would be perhaps too much
to say that Charlemagne founded Belgian nationality, in the same way
that Clovis established French nationality in unifying Gaul, or that
Alfred revealed the English to themselves in his triumphant struggle
against the Danes. But, by carrying the frontiers of his Empire as far
as the Elbe and establishing his headquarters in the centre of his old
domain, at Aix-la-Chapelle, in a central position midway between France
and Germany, Charlemagne gave at least an opportunity to almost every
trait of Belgian social life to assert itself.
During the first part of the ninth century the region of the Scheldt
and the Meuse became a beehive of activity. From every part of the
world, merchants, theologians, artists and musicians crowded towards
the new economic and intellectual centre of Europe. Arnon, a pupil of
Alcuin, came to Elnone, the Irish Sedulius to Liege, the Italian
Georgius to Valenciennes, while the schools of St. Amand, under
Hucbald, acquired a world-wide reputation. Everywhere new monasteries
were established, new churches and palaces built. The arts of
illuminating, embroidery, carving and stained glass were brought to an
unparalleled degree of perfection and refinement. Bishops and abbots
competed in attracting to their courts and monasteries the best-known
doctors and poets of the time. We have lost most of the artistic
treasures and manuscripts of the period through the subsequent Norman
invasions. Every vestige of Carolingian sculpture and architecture in
Belgium has been destroyed. But, through the works accomplished in
other countries and with the help of a few documents such as the
inventory preserved in the _Chronicle of St. Trond_, we are able at
least to appreciate not only their intrinsic value, but also the
interest they awoke among clerics and laymen. That the great emperor
encouraged this movement and took a direct part in it in attracting to
the various centres of learning the best masters in Europe is
sufficiently shown by his letter to Gerbald of Liege. Under his
direction, European civilization was definitely established in the
northern plain of Europe and Aix-la-Chapelle became indeed the
"Northern Rome." The capital, with Tongres, Liege, St. Trond and other
neighbouring cities, formed a centre from which civilization spread
east and west towards Germany and France, just as it had spread, a few
centuries before, from Central Italy towards the Eastern and Western
Mediterranean.
[_FRISIAN CLOTH_]
The old Roman road, along which the monasteries founded many
hostelries, was followed by streams of travellers of every description.
The Meuse, Scheldt and Rhine were dotted with the sails of many ships
bringing foreign wares and taking away the products of home industry.
The most important of these was a special kind of cloth, "the Frisian
cloth," for which the northern plain, covered with rich pastures and
producing great quantities of wool, was already renowned. It was a
specialized industry, the natural development of the ancient
clothmaking of the Menapii mentioned above, and the predecessor of the
cloth-weaving for which Flanders acquired a world-wide reputation
during the subsequent centuries. The "Frisian cloth" was already
exported, by the Rhine, as far as Central Europe and, by sea, towards
Great Britain and Scandinavia. Pieces of money from the ports of Sluis
and Duurstede have been found in both countries, and the frequency of
intercourse with the North was such that a monastery was established at
Thourout, near Duurstede, for the special purpose of training
missionaries for the conversion of the Danish traders.
It is true that the prosperity realized under Charlemagne was
short-lived, and that, a few years later, Northern Europe, and more
especially Belgium, became the prey of the Normans, who destroyed most
of the literary and artistic treasures accumulated with such enthusiasm
during his reign. It is true also that Belgian unity was destined to
break up, and that the country was to be divided between Germany and
France and their respective vassals. But if Charlemagne came too soon,
at a time when ethnographic conditions had not yet been sufficiently
stabilized, and if his Empire did not survive him, his influence has
nevertheless been felt through many centuries. If his dream of a
European Empire could not be realized, the mission assigned to
Belgium, as a natural link between East and West, remains even to-day
one of the main features of European politics. History has shown that
no annexation, no territorial division, of the dualistic country could
ever guarantee peace between France and Germany. Such a peace is only
possible, if the intervening nation is allowed to play its part in the
concert of nations, and it has only been realized, when this part has
been played. Belgium will never be what Charlemagne made it, the
nucleus of a great Empire; but, unless it remains a free factor in the
history of Europe, as it was for the first time under the great
emperor, conflicts between the two rivals, abruptly brought together
along the same frontier, become inevitable. There is a big jump from
the ninth century to the Congress of Vienna, between the glory of
Aix-la-Chapelle and the establishment of Belgian neutrality; there has
been a great deal of ground covered since, but there is a kind of
permanency in human affairs which cannot vainly be disregarded, and the
policy of Charlemagne teaches us lessons which no modern statesman
ought to ignore.
Illustration: DIVISION OF CHARLEMAGNE'S EMPIRE.