_The Making of the Duchy of Brabant_
In obtaining legal recognition of his right to the county of Louvain,
Lambert I., as we must now call him, had accomplished something, but the
house of Long Col had not yet realised, nor was it ever to wholly
realise, the darling dream of its ambition--the establishment in
Lotharingia of an independent realm, although that cherished wish did,
in later days, receive some measure of fulfilment: in their long contest
with the Empire the triumph of the barons was presently assured, and
with the title of Duke the Counts of Louvain at last obtained practical
independence.
It was on the Church, as we have seen, that the emperors mainly relied
for the maintenance of their authority in Lotharingia, and by a strange
irony of fate it was to the Church that the overthrow of that authority
was in great measure due. Not that the bishops belied their trust:
against tremendous odds they held the fortress which had been confided
to their keeping for over a hundred years, and only at last surrendered
when their master's breach with the papacy gave to his turbulent vassals
what had before been lacking to them--a legitimate excuse for rebellion.
Given the conjunction of events, no other issue was possible. The
bishops had no choice: the quarrel concerning investiture broke the back
of imperial rule.
Amongst the clergy the monks alone had succeeded in endearing themselves
to the native population, and the power which they wielded was immense.
The bishops--learned, capable, God-fearing men as most of them
undoubtedly were, had never been able to gain the confidence of the
people: save to the higher clergy, whom they had formed, and to a
handful of the lay aristocracy who had received their education at Liége
or Cologne, they were almost unknown to them. It could hardly have been
otherwise, they were strangers in a strange land, they were the
standard-bearers of order amid a barbarous people, whose lawlessness
filled them with horror and contempt, and of whose very language they
were in many cases ignorant. Well might they bewail their lot in the
words of Tetdon of Cambrai, for a moment cast down at the hopelessness
of the task before him, 'O wretched man that thou art, in vain didst
thou quit thy native land for this land of savages!'
The lot of the regular clergy, and the conditions under which they
laboured were altogether different. The strong man who by his marvellous
energy, his burning zeal, his eloquence, his sweetness, his piety, and,
above all, by the example of his stainless life, had made of the
undisciplined rabble, who, calling themselves monks, scoffed at the
Evangelical counsels, and hardly believed in the Gospel, an army of
humble, hard-working men, ever ready to spend themselves and be spent in
the service of Christ, was himself nurtured in the bosom of feudalism:
Gerard of Brogne wore a coat of mail before he put on the monk's frock.
One day out hunting in his own domain along with his master, Count
Bérenger of Namur, a son-in-law of Régnier au Long Col, he had turned
into a wayside chapel to pray, whilst the rest of the party were dining.
Presently he fell asleep, and dreamed that St. Peter bid him build a
church there and dedicate it to St. Eugène. That was the origin of the
famous abbey of Brogne, and Gerard became its first abbot (923).
Presently the rumour spread abroad that a band of monks who kept their
rule had established themselves in the Forest of Namurois, and that
their leader was a saint. Strangers flocked from far and wide to see if
such things could be, and Brogne became a place of pilgrimage. Soon the
fame of Gerard's holiness outstepped the borders of Namur: at the
request of Duke Giselbert (915-939) he reformed the abbeys of
Lotharingia; later on (965-976) summoned to Cambrai by Bishop Tetdon,
and to Flanders by Arnulph the Great,[6] he accomplished a like work in
their domains; before his death, towards the close of the century, there
was hardly a religious house from the Meuse to the sea which he had not
set in order. Nor was this all, so great was his influence with the
feudal lords that many of them who held ecclesiastical appointments
resigned them, and everywhere the right of free election was restored; a
host of new monasteries were founded, some due to the munificence of the
feudal aristocracy, others to that of their political opponents, the
bishops; and so great was the religious enthusiasm of the people that
they gave their time and labour freely for the erection of these
buildings. Gerard was crowned with the aureole of sanctity--that was the
secret of his success: he loved God with his whole heart and his
neighbour as himself; he was inspired by 'that wisdom which proceedeth
from the mouth of the Most High, and reacheth from end to end, and
mightily and sweetly setteth all things in order.'
[6] See _The Story of Bruges_, ch. iii.
The great reformer's interpretation of the rule of St. Benedict, a rule
which leaves much to the discretion of local superiors, was large, mild,
tolerant, without exaggerated asceticism. His disciples, like their
master, in touch with baron and bishop, were careful not to compromise
their good relations with the Episcopate by any expression of sympathy
with the ideals of feudalism. Indeed, St. Gerard's anonymous
biographer, who most likely was a monk of his own abbey at Brogne, does
not even spare Duke Giselbert, his master's chief benefactor, averring
that his untimely end was a just punishment for his rebellion:--'Sicque
completur vaticinium psalmigraphi qui dicit _Homo cum in honore esset,
non intellexit_. Ob ambitionem quipe regni circa eos istud obvenit.'
Such was the monasticism of Gerard of Brogne and such was the spirit
which for half a century after his death inspired his disciples. The
work which they accomplished was immense. The influence which they
exercised is almost incredible. The Low Countries became for the time
more devout than any other region of Europe; in the eyes of the people
the monk alone was the true servant of God, the incarnation in his own
person of the mystical body of Christ. A wave of religious enthusiasm
swept over the land, and it prepared men's minds to receive later on a
more drastic reform of which the consequences were momentous.
Lavish in alms-deeds, given to hospitality, a loyal friend to the poor
and oppressed, upright, virtuous, dogged, keen, ever ready to do battle
for justice sake, contemned and worshipped, beloved and loathed, such
was the monk of Cluny. Uncompromising in his championship of the rights
of the clergy and of the rights of the apostolic See, clerical laxity
and lay interference alike stank in his nostrils, for him the bishop
whom the Emperor had named was a Simonist, and the married clerk an
adulterer. Gentle to others sometimes, always stern to himself, strait
was the gate and narrow the way by which he went to Paradise. To fast,
to labour, to keep silence, to submit, these things were to him meat and
drink; his one earthly consolation was in the sweetness of his psalmody
and the splendour of his ritual, and in magnifying the glory of the
priesthood collectively he perhaps found some compensation for his
complete abasement of self. His manner of life, he averred, was in
strict accord with the spirit of the old Benedictine rule, he alone of
the monks of his day had discovered its true meaning, but for better or
worse the reform of Cluny constituted in fact a new order, for one
essential feature of Benedictine life, the family tie, was all but
blotted out: wherever Cluniac discipline prevailed the local abbot
ceased to be his own master, he obeyed the Abbot of Cluny, and the monk
no longer regarded his own monastery as his only home--he was a member
of a vast international community, and in each of the hundred homes of
his Order he was sure of a welcome as a son of the house.
Inaugurated at the beginning of the nine hundreds by William of
Aquitaine, who had exchanged a ducal coronet for a monk's cowl,
perfected by a series of capable rulers, who were possessed of that
faith which removes mountains and whose consistency of life inspired
respect, the new order rapidly spread from province to province and
realm to realm till at length it became a power in Christendom.
Early in the ten hundreds 'the sweet savour of its good report' began to
fascinate the monks of the Netherlands, and though some of the elder
brethren who remembered St. Gerard or had been trained by his immediate
disciples had little liking for these new-fangled French ways, monastery
after monastery adopted them. A wave of enthusiasm swept the land and
bore down all opposition. The people from honest conviction were heart
and soul with the movement, the lay lords who saw in Clunyism a weapon
to further their own ends favoured it with no less zeal; the bishops, in
spite of their imperialism, were carried along with the stream, and by
the close of the century there was hardly a religious house in the
Netherlands which had not adopted the new rule.
Notwithstanding their conversion to Clunyism the bishops were still at
heart true to their old political creed, or may be their ingrained
loyalty to the Empire was stronger than their religious belief, certain
it is that they did not at first translate their new theories into
action. When the investiture quarrel broke out, they were among the
staunchest of the Emperor's adherents, but as the relations between
their master and the Holy See became more and more strained they began
to falter, uncertain which road to take, and at last the time came when
no further choice was left them--in spite of themselves they were
constrained to separate their cause from his: the lay aristocracy were
in open rebellion, the people aroused by the preaching of the monks were
raging against the married clergy and 'those Simonists the bishops,'
with a violence past belief; Godfrey the Hunchback, the one man who
might perhaps have quelled the storm, had been struck down by the hand
of an assassin.
If that rickety, misshapen dwarf had lived, the course of events might
have been different. Duke Godfrey was a man of marvellous enterprise,
undaunted courage and indomitable will; a man, too, of infinite
tact--shrewd, long-headed, keen, and withal a convinced believer in the
justice of the imperial cause. Through good report and evil report he
had been true to Henry; he was his intimate counsellor and devoted
friend, and the only man who had any influence over him for good. He
always showed himself a staunch supporter of the bishops, and during the
six years of his government of Lotharingia (1070-1076), with their aid
he had kept the feudal lords at bay. If he had lived out his days he
might perhaps have been able to curb alike the violence of Henry and of
his vassals, and thus have averted the terrible chastisement which
afterwards overtook his master's misdeeds. He was the last Duke of
Lotharingia who exercised, as such, any real power in the land, and his
death was the deathblow of imperialism in this quarter of Europe, but
the agony was not a short one: it was prolonged for thirty years, and
then came the funeral.
Though circumstances had compelled the bishops to withdraw their support
from the Emperor, there was one amongst them, Otbert of Liége, who clung
to him to the bitter end. Cut off from the society of Christian men,
deserted by his wife, a fugitive from his own son, it was in Otbert's
episcopal city that the old Emperor found a refuge during the closing
months of his chequered career. Inspired by their bishop, the men of
Liége banded together to defend him, and with such success that they
drove young Henry from the town. Nor was this all. So great was their
pity for the misfortunes of the fallen Emperor that they altogether
forgot the follies and the crimes which had produced them. In their
eyes, the sinner had become a saint; and when he died they pressed round
his coffin to touch his poor lifeless body as though it were some holy
thing, and strewed over it their seed-corn, firmly convinced that by so
doing they would insure a bountiful harvest. Henry was excommunicate,
and as such it was impossible to give him Christian burial. They laid
him to rest in a small unconsecrated chapel beyond the city walls,
without dirge or requiem, and his mournful funeral, to quote the words
of Pirenne, was the funeral of imperial rule in Lotharingia.
When Duke Godfrey the Hunchback died in 1076, Henry IV., perhaps because
at that time he mistrusted Godfrey of Bouillon, the late Duke's nephew,
and the next in the line of succession, had conferred the Duchy of
Lotharingia on his own son Conrad, a child of two years old, thus, to
all intents and purposes, leaving the throne vacant--a false move, which
Henry himself recognised too late: when, in 1089, he set the crown on
the head of the rightful heir, the feudal lords, who for thirteen years
had been accustomed to the sweets of anarchy, refused to acknowledge
him, Godfrey, who lacked what had always been the mainstay of his
predecessors--episcopal co-operation, was not strong enough to coerce
them, and the old imperial dukedom became little more than an empty
title. The man who held it was almost a nonentity in his own dominions;
and when, in 1096, he set out on that eastern expedition which gave him
a name, and from which he never returned, the barons were left to their
own devices for over five years, and then at last Henry set over them
his namesake, Henry of Limbourg, almost the only one of his Lotharingian
vassals who kept faith with him to the end. This man, when Henry V. put
on his father's crown, refused to acknowledge the usurper, who in
consequence deprived him of his duchy and conferred it on the fallen
Emperor's direst foe, Count Godfrey of Louvain--this was only a few
weeks before the elder Henry's death--and, at the same time, he gave him
the March of Antwerp, 'the land of Ryen,' as it was then called, an
imperial fief which had been held by the Dukes of Lotharingia since the
days of Godfrey the Hunchback certainly, and most likely since the days
of his grandfather, Gothelon I., and which brought the territory of the
Counts of Louvain right up to the banks of the Scheldt. Henceforth that
territory was known as the Duchy of Brabant, and the man who owned it
styled himself Duke of Brabant and Lotharingia. Thus at last did the
house of Long Col obtain the title its chiefs had so long coveted, and
for which throughout so many generations they had intrigued and fought.
It was nothing more than an empty title now--a mere name, which, perhaps
from old-time associations, added something to Godfrey's prestige, but
gave him no increase of territory, and in no way augmented his power. He
was the most redoubtable prince in the Netherlands, but he owed his
strength to his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, not to his phantom
duchy. Presently the Emperor deprived him of it in favour of the rival
house of Limbourg (1128). Matter of little moment to either dynasty: in
Louvain the imperial mandate was ignored, and in Limbourg it had long
ago been anticipated, and for more than a hundred and fifty years the
chiefs of each house continued to use the illusory title. Then, at last,
the fortunes of war gave Limbourg to John the Victorious, and henceforth
the Dukes of Brabant were the only Dukes of Lotharingia (1288).
[Illustration]
II.--Genealogical Table of the Counts of Louvain
Lambert Longbeard
_d._ 1015. (_See_ Table I.)
|
+------------------+------------------+
| |
Henry I., Lambert II. (Balderic),
_d._ 1038 _d._ 1063
| |
| |
Otho, _d._ 1041 Henry II., _d._ 1079
|
|
Henry III., _d._ 1095
|
|
Godfrey Longbeard, Count
of Louvain from 1095,
Duke of Brabant from
1106, _d._ January 15th, 1140