_The Norsemen and Louvain_
The victory of Louvain (Sept. 10, 891) marks an epoch in the history of
Brabant. The Danes under Rolf the Ganger, who later on became first Duke
of Normandy, were utterly routed, and though they succeeded in rallying
their forces and for a few months continued their devastations in the
Ardennes, Brabant at least was free of them, and after the storming of
'a certain stronghold newly constructed upon an exceeding high mountain
whither a vast multitude of them had taken refuge,' the Pagan host was
disbanded and as if by enchantment melted away.
Perhaps the peasants, descendants of men who had been driven to the
font, had at first lent assistance to the invaders, and that now at last
convinced that Thor was not mighty enough to withstand Christ they had
withdrawn their co-operation.
For well-nigh a century the storm had raged and the brunt of its fury
had fallen on the Church, for it was not greed alone which had driven
forth these fierce pirates from their homes in the north, but, and in
the first place perhaps, a fiery zeal for their time-honoured traditions
and their time-honoured faith: they would have rebuilt their broken
altars and brought back the old gods to the lands from which they had
been banished.
It was toward the close of the year 880 that the Danes, who had ere this
made themselves masters of Holland and Friesland, for the first time
visited Brabant. Coming up the Scheldt in their long black boats, they
presently ascended the Dyle as far as 'a place called Lovon,' as a
contemporary writer has it, where the river ceases to be navigable. This
is the first time that Louvain is mentioned in history; it was then what
its name signifies--forest and fen. Here they made camp on a little
island formed by two branches of the stream, and the site of the future
capital of Brabant became their headquarters. From thence they issued
daily, and the usual consequences followed--churches and monasteries
went up in flames, altars were cast down, and those who served them
tortured and slain; whilst the most cherished objects of Christian
worship were profaned and trampled in the dust.
In the vast diocese of Liége, which embraced at this time the whole
country between the Meuse and the Dyle, hardly a sacred building was
left standing. At Mechlin, the only one of the five great towns of
Brabant which had as yet begun to exist, there was not a church but was
reduced to ashes. So, too, further afield at Tongres, St. Trond,
Maestricht, where the Danes had another camp. In the episcopal city
itself they fired the church and the monastery of St. Caprais, and cut
the throats of the monks. The monks of St. Peter's fared worse: they
were nailed by their heads to the walls of their cloister, and there
left to die. The Cathedral of St. Lambert, too, was invaded, rifled for
treasure, and then burnt to the ground; and a host of other sanctuaries
shared a like fate. As for Francon, the bishop, though after events
showed that he was in reality no coward, when he heard that the Danes
were approaching, he packed up his relics and his treasures, and made
for Huy, on the banks of the Meuse between Liége and Namur, where there
was an impregnable fortress.
At first, indeed, very little resistance seems to have been made; at all
events, there was no organised and concerted action, and in some cases
no opposition whatever was offered. Panic laid hold of whole
populations, and not only clerks and monks, but stalwart knights and
sturdy burghers, turned tail and fled. Presently, Charles the Fat was
summoned from Italy in order to prevent, if might be, the complete
demoralisation of the people; but though in due course that weak and
vacillating monarch arrived with the largest army that had ever been
seen in the Pays de Liége, he showed himself utterly unable to cope with
the situation, and it was not till the advent of his successor, Arnulph
I., that matters began to mend. In 884, after more than one engagement,
in which his troops had not been worsted, Charles had made terms with
the Norsemen, and the invading host had withdrawn; but the following
spring saw their long black boats once more on the Dyle, soon the
marauders were again encamped 'in the place called Lovon,' and soon they
were again vexing the surrounding country. But for some reason or other
the natives now seem to have plucked up their courage. In the
skirmishes, which were of almost daily occurrence, they were sometimes
able to hold their own; and when presently the Emperor Arnulph appeared
at the head of an army of Germans, so great was the enthusiasm of the
urban populations that crowds of townsfolk flocked to his
standard--Francon of Liége amongst the rest, and his example was
followed by a host of monks and not a few of his canons. 'He was the
first of our bishops to draw the sword,' notes an old Liége chronicler;
but when the excitement was over and the battle had been won, Francon's
conscience pricked him, and he sent messengers to Rome begging to be
relieved of his episcopal functions. 'It were not meet,' he said, 'that
hands stained with blood should have the administration of holy things.'
Great was the joy of the men of Lotharingia at the triumph of Louvain,
and King Arnulph ordained that on the first day of October 'solemn
litanies should be chanted by way of thanksgiving, and he himself and
his whole army joined in the procession, singing praises to God who had
given them the victory.'
Though cities had been pillaged and the country laid waste, though heaps
of ashes and tottering walls were all that remained of the monuments
with which Charlemagne and his successors had adorned the cradle of
their race, though art and culture had been well-nigh wiped out, the
Church laid low and the State shattered almost beyond hope of repair,
there was one body of men in the old kingdom of Lotharingia whose
interests had been singularly favoured by the coming of the Danes--the
great lay proprietors. Thrifty men who for years past by purchase, by
marriage, by promises of protection, by means of loans in times of
stress, by hook or by crook, by fair means sometimes, and sometimes by
foul, had been gradually gathering into their own hands the freehold
tenements of their weaker brethren; strong men who, instead of turning
tail when Hungarian or Dane threatened them, bared their breasts to the
foe, and with their swords in their hands defended alike their own
property and the property of their neighbours; astute men, who knew very
well, from personal experience, what an exceedingly profitable pastime
it sometimes is to fish in troubled waters. For them the coming of the
Danes had been almost a godsend; at all events, a blessing in disguise;
and their departure left them free to reap the rich harvest which these
rude northerners had unwittingly sown--to obtain, that is, a vast
increase of their landed estates and a no less vast increase of
privileges, immunities, authority, and of political and social prestige.
In the first place they had little difficulty in making themselves
masters, in fact if not in name, of the abbey lands. Many of the monks
had been slain or had fled, and so fearful were the remnant that
remained of further depredation that they were glad enough to hand over
the administration of their estates to the only men who were strong
enough to defend them. Thus, by the close of the eight hundreds almost
all the monastic domains of Lotharingia had in reality become the
property of laymen who, as the monks' _avoués_ or stewards, took up
their abode in their cloisters, received and expended their revenues,
became participators in their rights and immunities, and exercised
jurisdiction in their name over their vassals and dependants.
To obtain control of the secular clergy was a matter no less easy of
accomplishment, for although the cathedral chapters still retained the
right to choose their own bishops, so great was the power and influence
of the landowners that they had become practically irresistible, and
were almost always able to secure the election of their own nominees,
and thus were enabled, through them, to rule the Church.
But this was not all, such of them as were invested with civil authority
now began to exercise it in their own names, and the emperors, whose
power and prestige had long ago been impaired by the fratricidal strife
of the children of Louis the Mild, had been so enfeebled by the recent
invasions that they were unable to offer any effectual resistance. Thus
were laid on the ruins of Imperialism the foundations of that feudal
system which was destined later on to play so great a part in the
civilisation of Europe.