_Reform_ versus _Revolution_
When the revolution of 1360 broke out the city of Louvain was, in name
and in fact, the first city of Brabant. The cluster of cottages around
the church which Lambert Balderic had founded on the banks of the Dyle
three centuries before had grown into a great industrial and commercial
centre, with a population of something like 70,000 souls. In the number
of its inhabitants, in the extent of its trade, in political influence,
in social prestige, in the splendour of its public and private
buildings, it eclipsed at this time every town in the duchy. Among the
burgher nobles of Brabant none were so rich and so powerful as the
Petermen of Louvain: not only did they enjoy the dignities and
privileges common to all patricians, but they participated, as we have
seen, in the immunities of the Church, and that, without being irked by
correlative duties. Also, they shone alone, there were no brighter stars
in their firmament: the Sovereign had long ago left Louvain, and there
were no Court nobles to rival their glory or to dispute their right to
pre-eminence. As they were human, of course they were puffed up--proud
of their wealth, proud of their race, proud of their solitary grandeur
and of the consideration which these things gave them; exceedingly
jealous of their privileges, very swift to resent any attempt at
aggression, whether it came from above or from below; and of course they
contemned the seething mass of shame and misery beneath them--a mutinous
army of workers, many thousands strong, as eager and determined to
obtain liberty as their masters were to keep them in bondage.
Such was the social complexion of Louvain during the fifty years which
preceded the revolution of 1360. Paint the picture on a smaller scale
and in less glaring colours, and you will have some idea of the social
complexion of Brussels during the same period.
Brussels, like Louvain, was at this time divided into two hostile camps;
here, too, patricians and plebeians were biting their thumbs at one
another; but neither side was so strong or so violent as in the sister
city. The patricians were not so rich, and perhaps in consequence not so
selfish, and the plebeians were less numerous, and probably on this
account less exacting; and too, though they were not born on a bed of
rose leaves, they had less cause for complaint. High and mighty as were
the merchant princes of Brussels, they were not so high and mighty as
the descendants of Saint Peter's serfs. Their splendour was not enhanced
by a semi-ecclesiastical aureole; they had no title to distinction but
that which their money gave; and though, like the patricians of Louvain,
they owned the freehold of the town which they administered and
governed, they were not alone in their glory. When the Duke was not at
the Coudenberg he was at his hunting-lodge at Tervueren, just outside
the city gates, and the burghers were in frequent contact with the
nobles of the Court, who, though often poor and often in their debt,
were, for all that, socially their superiors. For these or for some
other reasons the local aristocracy at Brussels was less overbearing
than at Louvain, class distinctions were less sharply defined, and the
plebeians were treated with more consideration.
On the whole, then, Brussels was a less turbulent town than the capital,
and the road to reform, as might be expected, led through smoother ways.
The great struggle began about the same time as at Louvain, and, as at
Louvain, the Duke's action precipitated events. In the year 1356
Winceslaus, in order to reward the plebeians for driving the Flemings
out of Brussels, and also to mark his displeasure at the disloyal
conduct of the patricians, who had welcomed them with open arms, granted
to the trade companies by charter an equal share with the patrician
clans in the government of the city; but this boon, which the people had
so long coveted, and which at last they had obtained, was theirs only
for a day: the ink of the new charter was hardly dry when Winceslaus
revoked it.
No record has come down to us of the motives which inspired his action,
nor do we even know the exact date of the cancelling of the charter.
This event, however, can hardly have taken place earlier than 1357 nor
later than 1360, and most likely the reactionary party in the patrician
camp by means of bribes or promises had purchased the Duke.
Naturally the people were profoundly irritated. Secret meetings were
held, and presently matters came to a crisis. It was just at this time
that Coutherele was meditating his _coup d'état_, and perhaps there was
some understanding between the craftsmen of the two cities: it is
significant that the rebellion at Louvain began on the 21st of July, and
that at Brussels the mob was out on the night of the 23rd. The
craftsmen's plan of action was to surprise the patricians in their beds,
and if they had been able to keep it close perhaps they might have
accomplished something, but at the last moment they were betrayed, and
thus it came about that whilst they were seeking their banners their
opponents took possession of the market-place.
Strangely enough Gerard of Vorsselaer, the same who two nights before
had been busying himself with the affairs of Louvain, first essaying to
calm the mob, and when that failed, advising the patricians as to the
best means of quelling them, had now arrived at Brussels, and finding
the town in a similar predicament, he did what he could to set matters
straight. By his advice the senior alderman essayed negotiations: he
invited the dean of the butchers, who were assembled under arms in their
guild house, to a conference in the Town Hall; and presently the
messenger returned trembling--he had been treated with threats and
curses, and the dean had bade him say that 'the butchers would come in a
body soon enough.' Hardly had he finished speaking when word was brought
that the weavers were attacking the Steenporte (the city prison).[13] In
an instant the patricians were in their saddles. If only they could
intercept the butchers the situation might yet be saved, and with
Vorsselaer at their head, they made for the meat market, and _en route_
fell in with the men they were seeking. A skirmish followed, but the
patricians, who were well armed and on horseback, had little difficulty
in overcoming a handful of footmen with no weapons but pole-axes: they
were soon disarmed and driven home to their own squalid quarters.
Meanwhile the men of the spindle had been vainly hurling themselves
against the doors of the Steenporte, and now, with the assistance of
fullers and dyers, they were preparing to burn it down. Why not repay
the curs in their own coin by setting fire to their kennels? The
suggestion came from Myn Here Van Vorsselaer; it was forthwith carried
out, and the issue showed that honest Gerard was a man whose judgment
was to be relied on.
[13] A portion of this building, now called _La Tour d'Anneessens_, is
still standing. It is situated in a garden behind a tavern called _à la
vue de Steenporte_, at the entrance to the _rue Steenporte_, on the left
hand side of the way (_see_ Map). It is not visible from the street, but
the landlord is always glad to allow his customers to visit it.
When the rioters saw the redness in the sky they knew what had happened,
and with a mad rush made for home, only to fall into the arms of their
enemies, who barring the way in a narrow street halfway down the hill,
mowed them down like grass and trampled the life out of them beneath
their horses' feet; and that was the end of the rising of 1360. It does
not seem, after all, to have been a very serious affair--butchers and
clothworkers alone had taken part in it, but if the magistrates had
followed the example set them by the magistrates of Louvain two nights
before, there is little doubt that by morning things would have assumed
a very different complexion.
Thanks to the energy and determination of the patricians, revolution had
been nipped in the bud, but the city was seething with discontent, the
plebeian triumph at Louvain had inflamed the people with an unquenchable
thirst for liberty, and they were only awaiting a favourable moment to
try their luck again. Of this the patricians were well aware, and since
most of them were not yet prepared to relinquish a shred of their
authority, only one policy was open to them--a policy of stern
repression applied with energy and vigilance. Of these qualities they
gave ample proof, but they do not seem to have been guilty of wanton
cruelty or even, bearing in mind the object they had in view, of
unnecessary harshness.
The number of weavers who perished on the night of the insurrection was
indeed very considerable, but when once order had been restored they
refrained from further bloodshed. Their main object was to rid the town
of agitators, and all who were suspected of being such were condemned to
banishment. Nor were these men suffered to unduly defer the date of
their departure by taking refuge in churches: the right of sanctuary was
not violated, but the proscribed were forbidden to remain in any church
within the liberty of Brussels for more than a week, under penalty of a
prolongation of their term of banishment by as many years as they had
remained days above that period, and their fellow-citizens were
forbidden to supply such persons with provisions under penalty of a
heavy fine; but, on the other hand, all those who were willing to quit
the city within the time prescribed were at once provided with a safe
conduct.
It is impossible within the limits of this little manual to give any
detailed account of the numerous penal laws with which the statute book
of Brussels was at this time endowed. Suffice it to say that many of
them were of an inquisitorial and vexatious character; that the dire
penalties with which all of them were sanctioned--exile, long terms of
imprisonment, in some cases even mutilation--were for the most part
commutable for fines, thus giving to the rich an advantage over the
poor, which the latter resented as a flagrant violation of right; and
lastly, that they were not evenly enforced. Measures of this kind were
not calculated to allay irritation, and though there was no open display
of sedition, the city was seething with discontent, and the patricians
knew it. Haunted by plots and rumours of plots, they were never sure
when they went to bed at night that their throats would not be cut
before morning, and, half blind with terror, they struck out wildly on
all sides, and often the guilty escaped, and a host of harmless citizens
experienced the taste of their lash.
Meanwhile the little band of patricians who from the first had favoured
a conciliatory policy were steadily making converts; but it was not
until they had preached for eight years, and when Brussels was on the
edge of revolution, that they at last succeeded in convincing the
majority that the times were ripe for reform. The first step was to
restore confidence in the administration of justice, and to this end the
city fathers (June 19, 1368), having first taken counsel with the
leaders of the people, named a commission of four patricians and four
plebeians to inquire into the numerous disputes and grievances which had
arisen from the maladministration of the coercion laws, and to make
report thereon to the magistrates, who, it was decreed, should be bound
by oath to remedy such grievances and settle such disputes in accordance
with the evidence thus laid before them, and it was further decreed that
such sentence should be final. Any man who refused to accept the same,
thereby lost all his rights and privileges until such time as he chose
to conform: if he were a patrician he ceased to be a member of his
lignage, if he were a craftsman he was expelled from his guild.
These measures proved so efficacious that before the close of the year
the aldermen had sufficiently recovered from their nerve crisis to be
able to consider finance, and that, though they had to face some
abstruse questions--how to balance the budget without increasing
taxation or having recourse to fresh loans, how to put a stop to
corruption without incurring enmity or wounding the susceptibilities of
friends, and, above all, how to pay off that terrible debt which was
crushing the life out of Brussels, outcome of so many years of
extravagance and thieving. Problems, these, not easy to solve, but again
the patricians were wise enough to consult the people, representatives
of the trade companies took part in their deliberations, and somehow or
other between them they managed to set the affairs of the town on a
sound financial basis--the following year revenue covered expenditure
and the interest of the debt, the year after that they began to pay off
the principal, and by 1386 the whole debt was wiped out. Matter this for
congratulation, and no doubt the people rejoiced, but there was
something that gladdened their hearts even more, and which they
flattered themselves accounted for the fact that the loan had been
repaid so quickly: for more than eighteen years their fingers had been
on the purse-strings, and by the grace of God they meant to keep them
there. Nor was this all, in 1368 the guild had been thoroughly
reorganised, and on popular lines. About the same time it became
customary to bestow a certain number of government appointments on
burghers of the middle class, and though the patricians were not yet
prepared to give the people any voice in the magistracy, they were
determined that justice should be administered with an even hand, and
that henceforth no man should be able to say that Brussels was ill
governed, and to this end, in 1375, a new system had been elaborated for
recruiting the College of Aldermen.
In the early days in Brussels, as in the other cities of Brabant, the
Sovereign himself had named the city magistrates. Later on some form of
election was adopted in which all the members of the patrician class
seem to have taken part, but little by little this custom had fallen
into disuse, and at the time when the reform movement set in, though the
college was still annually renewed, no election had taken place for
something like a hundred years--the outgoing aldermen had gradually
acquired a prescriptive right to name their successors. This had opened
the door to all kinds of abuses, and in order to put a stop to them and
to insure that henceforth none but honest and competent men should be
admitted to the magistracy, in 1375 the city fathers reverted to the old
system of election, and stringent rules were drawn up to regulate the
proceedings which now became exceedingly long and complicated.
In the first place, each of the outgoing aldermen drew up a list of all
the members of his lineage eligible to succeed him, that is to say, of
all the married members of twenty-eight years of age and upwards who had
sufficient means to live without exercising any trade or profession. The
next step was to summon the clans, and this, too, devolved on the
outgoing aldermen, each man inviting the members of his lineage to
assemble in the Town Hall on the day fixed for the election--generally
the 23rd of June--and there select from the names on his list three
candidates for the magistracy. 'I swear,' runs the quaint and
characteristic oath which each man present was required to take at the
commencement of the proceedings, 'I swear by the Saints, and on the Holy
Gospels, that I am in no way bound or pledged to any man, and that no
man is bound or pledged to me, directly or indirectly, nor have I
purchased any man's vote, either on my own behalf or on behalf of any of
my friends. I swear, on my soul, to give my suffrages to the best man,
the wisest man, and in every respect the fittest man, the most devoted
to Holy Church, to the Duke and Duchess of Brabant, the city of Brussels
and the patrician order; consulting only my conscience and acting
according to my conviction. I swear, on my soul, not to let any personal
interest or private friendship move me, nor to suffer myself to be
carried away by hatred or anger, or by fear of loss or hope of gain; so
help me God and His Saints.'
No less curious than the preliminary oath was the process of election.
Every member of the clan was bound to be present and to take the
prescribed oath, under penalty of forfeiting all his rights and
privileges, but never more than five, and sometimes only four, members
took part in the actual voting; they were picked out from the rest by
lot, and the drawing was managed in this way. A number of waxen balls,
equal to the number of clansmen present, all without alike, but of
which four contained within a white and one a black cipher, were placed
in an urn, and, when they had been well shuffled, each member drew
therefrom one of them, and presently, when the drawing was over, broke
it. Whereupon the four men to whom the white-marked balls had fallen
withdrew to a separate apartment to consider who was the most fitting
man to represent their lineage, each man being free to propose what name
he would, provided it was not his own. If they were all of one mind the
man of their choice became a candidate for the magistracy, so too if
three of them voted for the same individual, or, if two were agreed on
one man, and each of the other two were in favour of different men. If,
however, the suffrages were equally divided, that is to say, if all four
electors cast their votes differently, or if two voted for one man and
two for another, black ball was called in to give a casting vote. When
the whole operation had been completed, it was repeated a second and
again a third time, and by this means three candidates were chosen,
whose names were afterwards submitted to the Duke, and he, in due
course, named one of them alderman of his clan for the ensuing year.
The College of Aldermen, it should be borne in mind, consisted of seven
members, each of whom was held to represent, in a special manner, one of
the seven patrician clans of Brussels.
How great had been the evil resulting from the old method of election
may be inferred from the stringency of the new rules, and the dire
penalties attached to any infraction of them, and also from the cumbrous
and complicated machinery deemed necessary to guard against corrupt
practices.
Thanks to this important measure, and to the other reforms which had
been previously inaugurated, the city was now honestly and capably
governed, and, in consequence, enjoyed peace. Indeed, for more than
fifty years after 1368--the time of the great reconciliation--patricians
and plebeians seem to have lived, if not on terms of affection, at all
events without quarrelling. The latter, it is true, had not relinquished
their high aspirations, but finding that the town was honestly
administered, and, on the whole, equitably governed, they were wise
enough to cherish their ideal in their innermost bosoms, and to take no
active steps to realise it.
No doubt the greater material prosperity which the city at this time
enjoyed was conducive, in no small measure, to the maintenance of peace.
Brussels was not dependent on cloth to anything like the same extent as
was the sister city, and, moreover, the loss which she had sustained on
this head from English competition, and the competition of the country
towns, was to a certain extent made good by the profit arising from
trade which formerly went to Louvain, but which was now, owing to the
disturbed state of that city, directed to her doors. Hundreds of
merchants and thousands of mechanics went forth from the capital between
1360 and 1382, and not a few of these took up their permanent abode in
Brussels. Linen, leather, tapestry and goldsmith's work were among the
articles for which, about this time, Brussels became famous, and, thanks
to these new industries, the loss, or rather the diminution, of her
cloth trade was a matter of little concern to the people.