make their buildings, and especially their religious buildings, the
incarnation of this mandate--_Sursum corda_. Almost always they
succeeded, but often, and this is notably the case in England, their
most successful efforts are cramped and narrow, or at all events from
their great height seem so. The Gothic architects of Brabant set
themselves a harder task, which, in spite of its difficulty, they not
infrequently accomplished. Their churches should, indeed, sing _Sursum
corda_ as loudly as the rest, but they should add to it no less loudly
this other refrain--_In loco spatioso_. The builder of the cathedral at
Ghent in this respect triumphed magnificently: Saint Bavo soars like an
archangel, and it would be hard to find a church which more emphatically
preaches breadth. Not only is the building in reality broad and high, it
looks so; nay, it has the appearance of being broader and higher than it
actually is. In order to invest it with a large atmosphere the architect
who designed it not only gave breadth to his ground plan but made all
his openings broad, taking care that those most in evidence should be
broader in proportion than the rest. Thus the surface covered by the
nave and aisles is almost a perfect square. Indeed, the distance from
north to south is slightly greater than that from east to west. Of this
vast space the central avenue embraces, roughly speaking, two-fifths,
the adjacent avenues each about one-fifth, and each of the outer avenues
one-tenth. In other words, the nave is twice as broad as the inner
aisles, and these bear much the same proportion to the outer aisles.
Also, in order to give them greater breadth, he economised his openings,
and in the case of windows reduced the intervening masonry to a minimum.
Thus the nave, notwithstanding its great length, has only four bays--the
object of this was no doubt to give breadth to the cross vistas--and
consequently in its clerestory there are but eight windows, four on each
side, and the same number in the walls of the outer aisles. In spite of
the vast span of the arches, the several arcades have by no means a
stunted appearance. They are too lofty for that, and also in the case of
the central avenue the rich moulding which adorns them springs from the
bases of piers without capitals, and thus we have a series of unbroken
lines ascending from plinth to apex, which marvellously increases their
height.
Arcades are often thus treated in tertiary Brabant work, and even too
sometimes in buildings of the second period. Not that the architects who
designed them despised capitals, or were ignorant of their æsthetic
value, but they knew where they could be suppressed with advantage and
where they could be added with effect. None of their buildings are
wholly devoid of them, and at Saint Bavo's they are numerous and highly
developed, a very noteworthy feature in the scheme of ornament: alike in
transept, nave and aisles, the ribs of the vault spring from them. They
are all of like fashion: bell-shaped, considerably larger above than
below, and adorned, but not over adorned, by closely clinging
conventional leaves. They crown cylindrical columns, sometimes single,
sometimes in groups of three, five, or more, which, though they are in
reality of no mean girth, by reason of their great height and of the
vast bulk of the piers to which they are in each case attached, seem
slender, but not so slender as to suggest weakness. One feels quite sure
that each stately shaft can easily carry the burthen which rests on its
beautiful head.
As we have already remarked, there is no direct evidence to show who
made the plans of the western half of Saint Bavo's, or at all events, of
the nave, but the following facts are significant. It is undoubtedly the
noblest ecclesiastical structure which Brabant produced in the first
half of the fifteen hundreds; of the Brabant architects of this period
the greatest was Dominic De Waghemakere, and he was constantly at Ghent
during the early days of its construction busy with the new Town Hall.
We suspect, then, with Monsieur Louis Cloquet, that Dominic at least had
his say in the matter.[28]
[28] See _Revue de l'Art Chrétien_, 3^me livraison--Mai 1902, p. 244.
* * * * *
Glorious, however, as these late Gothic buildings are--and there are
others in Brabant no less beautiful, and how many, perhaps, still
lovelier which exist only on parchment, never realised, or by the hands
of iconoclasts cast down?--they are but the aftermath, the last and the
loveliest flowers of a tree which when it produced them, was already
almost dead. By a supreme and mighty effort it had forced the little
life that was in it into one favoured branch, which thus clothed with
fairest blossoms and with the freshness of their beauty still upon it,
withered away like the rest. If we would contemplate the tree in its
vigour we must go back to the fourteen hundreds, and more especially to
the days of Philippe l'Asseuré--to the long peace of thirty years which
followed the Treaty of Arras (September 21, 1435). Then it was that
Gothic art in Belgium reached the zenith of its magnificence, then it
was that she first became unrivalled in the abundance and in the quality
of her fruit, that each day saw some great work completed or the
foundations of some grand building laid. Many of these monuments have
perished, but such of them as remain, though they have suffered much at
the hands of enemies and of friends, bear witness alike to the genius of
the artists who created them and to the public spirit and the devotion
of the burghers and craftsmen who provided the funds with which they
were built, and who, hard-headed, close-fisted, cautious men, as many of
them were, counted it no loss to have invested so much of their capital
in these unremunerative securities. In those days Brabant was rich and
free, and possessed of the faith which removes mountains.
The years which immediately preceded the advent of the house of Burgundy
(1384) had been throughout the length and breadth of the Netherlands
evil. War everywhere and of every description, not only with alien foes,
but province against province, city against city, class against class;
the staple industry gone or fast going, and half the population swept
away by famine and pestilence. Flanders, with its fields untilled and
its dykes unmended, had become what it was a thousand years
before--morass and jungle, the home of wolves which preyed on the meagre
flocks that remained, and of vast herds of stag and boar which ravaged
the scanty patches of grain which here and there the dwindled peasantry
had made shift to raise; and though other provinces had suffered less,
there was dearth and wretchedness everywhere. Yet of these same stricken
fields some fifty years later Philippe de Commines was able to say,
'_Ils se pouvoient mieulx dire terre de promission que nulle aultres
seigneuries qui fussent sur la terre._' The geographical position of the
land, the energy and enterprise of its people, the advantages resultant
from the union of all the provinces under one prince, and, above all,
the blessing of peace; therein lies the explanation.
In no quarter was the recovery more rapid, nowhere was the meed of
prosperity so great as in the duchy of Brabant. Not only had Brabant
suffered less than the other provinces, but its soil was naturally
more fertile, and the burghers of the great towns, now that their
long-standing strife had been settled, showed themselves more apt
than their fellows in Flanders for example, in developing new
industries and in adapting their methods of trade to the changing
conditions of the commercial situation. Whilst the three _bonnes
villes_ of Flanders--Bruges, Ypres, and Ghent, were vainly striving
to foster their dying industry to the no small detriment of their
trade, by imposing exorbitant duties on foreign made goods, and at
last by altogether prohibiting the importation of English cloth, the
'good towns' of Brabant found salvation in the development of new
industries, notably the manufacture of linen and tapestry, or, as
in the case of Antwerp and Bergen-op-Zoom, by enlarging the doors
of their markets. Antwerp, indeed, found a gold mine in her free
fairs open to all the world without toll or tribute, and, thanks to
the liberal policy which she pursued in regard to aliens, presently
succeeded in diverting to her shores the foreign merchandise which
had formerly found its way to Bruges. Also, the towns of Brabant
were directly or indirectly aided by the personal action of the
princes of the new dynasty, who seem to have exerted their utmost
endeavours to promote their welfare: Louvain was indebted to Duke
John IV. for a boon not to be despised, for in planting his new
university in the ancient capital, he practically gave to her a
fresh lease of life; Mechlin was helped later on by that stern and
gloomy Sovereign, _Charles le Téméraire_, who made the city of Saint
Rombold the seat of the national parliament; the interests of Antwerp
were invariably pushed by the entire dynasty, often at the expense
of Bruges; and Brussels, which for years past had been in reality,
though not in name, the capital of Brabant, now that that duchy was
held by a prince who was also Sovereign of each of the adjoining
states, became, to all intents and purposes, the common capital of
the Netherlands, the home of a prince whose revenues were larger and
whose expenses were heavier than those of any other prince of his
day, whose wont it was to astonish the world by the splendour of his
feasts and pageants--advertisements, costly if you will, but, from
the credit they gave him, well worth the money he paid for them,
of a prince whose very economies--for if Philip knew how to spend,
he knew too how to count and how to save--were a source of wealth
to his subjects: the vast sums which he annually sank in building
operations, or invested in precious stones and precious stuffs, in
goldsmiths' ware, in sculpture, in pictures--so many gilt-edged
securities which, if need be, could be turned into cash, and, if he
had luck, at a profit--represented the sum of his savings, and much
of it found its way into the pockets of Brussels tradesmen.
Brussels, then, at this time had a market in her midst for the
product of her newly-developed industries: linen, tapestry, plate,
and liquor of various kinds--ale, nut brown, pale, and black,
'swart-bier,' seemingly a sort of archaic stout, and wine from her
own vineyards, some of it, amongst others, from that famous vineyard
of which a portion of the site is now occupied by the _Jardin
Botanique_. Hers was the profitable task of providing for the costly
needs and costlier follies of the richest Court in Europe, of a Court
of which not a few of its members less distinguished for length of
pedigree than length of purse, sought, after the manner of _nouveaux
riches_, to blind men's eyes to the newness of their shields by the
glamour of their new wealth; for Philip would have none but capable
officers, and in naming them did not restrict his choice to one
class. He knew how to choose, and chose where he saw ability: there
were great nobles at his council board, and beside them sat men of
humble origin; and these were, amongst the most highly placed, the
wealthiest and the most trusted, men like Chancellor Rolin, the son
of a plain citizen of Autun, or Peter Bladelin, who, from a dyer of
buckram, became Controller-General of Finance. Times had changed
since the days when at Bruges and elsewhere 'men with blue nails'
were debarred even from the rights of citizenship.
With a prince who could afford to be lavish, and whom policy and
inclination alike prompted to expenditure, and a Court made up of new
men and men of ancient race, whose pride compelled them, _coûte que
coûte_, to emulate these mushrooms, gold was poured out like water, and
Brussels flourished amazingly. Every public event and every private
happening was made the excuse for a revel, and what revels they were!
'_Convis et banquets_' to quote the words of Philippe de Commines,
'_plus grands et plus prodigues qu'en nul aultre lieu ... baignoiries et
aultres festoyements avec femmes grands et désordonnez, et à peu de
honte_;' but Philippe adds a saving clause: '_Je parle_,' he says, '_des
femmes de basse condition_.' And what strange, fantastic, grown-up
children were those who took part in them! The decoration of the great
pavilion of wood, conveyed by water from Brussels to Bruges for the
wedding of Charles the Bold and Margaret of York, in 1468, had occupied
during many months hundreds of artists and artisans from all parts of
the Netherlands, amongst them masters of the first order. One of the
features of this marvellous construction was a tower forty feet high
adorned with apes and wolves and wild boars, which, by mechanical means,
were made to dance and sing, and in the great hall there were a host of
other quaint creations, amongst them a whale sixty feet long, which was
able to move about, several elephants, a pelican, from whose beak
streamed hippocrass, and a female figure wrought in gold, with its
breasts spurting wine. These strange mechanical toys were much in vogue
in the fourteen and fifteen hundreds, and some of them have come down to
us--'the oldest citizen of Brussels, the famous "mannikin" of the _Rue
de l'Etuve_ is still doing what he did in the days of Philippe
l'Asseuré.'
Never before in the course of its history had the city of Brussels been
so prosperous. Within the circuit of its ramparts now dwelt some sixty
thousand souls--more than double the population of Louvain, and nearly
double that of Antwerp. If Brussels were not the richest city in the
Netherlands, it was at all events the city where the evidences of
wealth were the most visible, and amongst them dissipation. When men can
afford to indulge the wayward humours of 'Brother Ass' they not
unfrequently do so, and the men of Brussels at this time rode him with
an exceedingly loose rein. They drank of the joys of life to the dregs,
and some of them were nauseated: suicides were more frequent than of
yore, and so were religious vocations.
But it was not only by reason of human frailty that Brussels at this
time sinned: the days which had passed had unchained a devil which still
continued to haunt the town, albeit those evil days were now but a
memory. The wars in which so many of the inhabitants had taken an active
part, and the deeds of violence which had so often accompanied the
revolutions and counter-revolutions incident on the struggle for freedom
in almost all the great cities, had accustomed the people to horrors,
and bred in their hearts a veritable lust for blood. Hence when strife
arose the sequel was often death in some shape or other, and the chief
effect which these crimes produced on public opinion was to fill men's
minds with a morbid and universal dread of poison and of the assassin's
knife. No one knew whom he could trust, friend looked askance at friend,
and sturdy burghers abroad at night turned cold as they passed dark
corners. The highest in the land were commonly believed to have had
recourse to these methods in order to rid themselves of foes, or of
friends whose existence was a bar to the realisation of their desires,
and though these rumours were often groundless, the fact that they
should have been so widely credited, and that those whose fair names
were sullied by them should have in consequence fallen so little in
popular estimation is in itself significant, and so, too, is what
Chastelain says concerning a repast of which Duke Philip once partook
in the hut of a peasant. Riding alone and at night from Brussels towards
Hal he had lost his way in the Forest of Soignes, and the man in whose
house he took refuge believed him to be an ordinary wayfarer; the meal
which was set before him was a very humble one--cheese, black bread and
onions--but at least 'he ate,' old Chastelain notes, 'without fear of
poison.'
Here we have one side of the picture as contemporary chroniclers have
painted it. Perhaps they put in the shadows too black, and maybe the
scheme of colour is too glaring. Vice makes more stir in the world than
virtue because it is something abnormal--a monstrosity, which from its
very nature compels attention; and because, too, it is more interesting
than virtue, men talk more about it, and write more about it, and in
doing so they are often apt for the sake of effect to exaggerate its
dimensions. All this should be taken into account, and also, there is
another side to the picture.
It was not all frivolity and bloodshed in the 'good towns' of Brabant in
the days of Philippe l'Asseuré; the gold which was so lavishly poured
out was assuredly not all squandered on the pride of the flesh, and the
pride of life, and the pride of the eye. Men were by no means devoid of
public spirit, nor were they unmindful of the poor; splendid as were
some of their own habitations, their splendour was eclipsed by the
greater glory of guild hall and market and church. Somehow or other,
too, in spite of their revels, they found time for serious business:
never were the towns of Brabant so ably administered or the affairs of
the duchy in such capable hands. It was an age of much literary and
artistic activity, and the burghers showed themselves alike collectively
and, when they could afford it, individually, generous patrons of
letters and of art; also the Christian religion was still a living
reality for all sorts and conditions of men, and though many failed to
live up to its principles there were not a few, and some of them amongst
the most highly placed, who were keenly alive to the ills which
afflicted society and indefatigable in their efforts to correct them,
efforts which were presently crowned with no small measure of success.
For strangely enough the ebullition of evil which characterised this
epoch was synchronal with one of those marvellous outbursts of religious
fervour which occurred periodically in the Netherlands all through the
Middle Age. Perhaps it was not so strange after all, for each was the
outcome in some degree of the turmoil and wretchedness which, as we have
seen, formed the keynote of the preceding period. These things act
differently on different natures: some under their influence become
devout, others seek relief in dissipation.
No people throughout the whole course of their history have continuously
shown themselves more deeply impressed by sentiments of faith and
Christian piety than the inhabitants of those lands which are now
embraced by the kingdoms of Belgium and Holland.
We have seen how eagerly in the early days the nobles of Brabant and
Hainault and Flanders helped on the work of Gerard of Brogne, how
staunch they were later on in their support of the Cluniac movement, and
to what excesses they were sometimes led by their intemperate zeal in
furthering it. So, too, when Peter the Hermit preached his first
crusade, nowhere did he find so many recruits as in this quarter of
Europe, and in no other land did the sons of Saint Francis obtain a
heartier greeting: they were received with open arms by all classes of
the population; even the patrician burgher, who often warned off monks,
for he dreaded their wealth and influence, opened alike his doors and
his purse for the followers of 'the poor man of Assisi.'
Again, no cities in Christendom were so richly endowed with charitable
institutions as the great commercial centres of the Low Countries. They
were all of them served by religious, but, mark this, all of them, or
nearly all of them, under municipal control. For the burgher would be
master in his own house, and, to tell the truth, in spite of his faith
and his good works, was something of an 'anti-clerical'--very keen to
resent the interference of the clergy in his affairs, no less eager,
whenever he could, to trench on their domain. He always read between the
lines in interpreting the charter of his own privileges, but
scrupulously adhered to the letter of the law when theirs were called in
question.
Albeit, though now and again there was a sharp tussle, like that for the
management of the schools, in which he proved himself the better man, as
a rule his relations with the priesthood were fairly cordial: the
secular clergy, cut off from their chiefs, whose Sees for the most part
were in foreign lands, were too feeble to resist aggression; the great
monastic houses were nearly all of them without the towns, and thus it
rarely happened that their interests clashed with his; as for the
Franciscan friars, in spite of their democratic tendencies and their
sympathy undisguised for the toilers whom he so often oppressed, he
could not afford to quarrel with them: the services which they rendered
to the sick and the poor were not to be dispensed with, and also he
found them a useful check on the secular clergy whose labours and whose
profits they shared, and with whom, from the force of circumstances,
they were naturally often at loggerheads.
This independence of spirit, this impatience of ecclesiastical control,
was not peculiar to the patrician class. Outcome of the national love of
liberty, it manifested itself in various ways in all classes of the
urban population: the trade companies provided themselves with private
chapels, and seem to have claimed the right of naming their own
chaplains; a host of religious confraternities were formed, more or less
free from ecclesiastical control, and, for those who were inclined to be
more devout, numerous lay communities of both sexes, as we shall
presently see, and, in at least two cities of Brabant--Tirlemont and
Léau--there were regularly constituted chapters of canons composed
exclusively of married laymen.
The influence of these lay institutions--of these, so to speak, half-way
houses between the world and the cloister, was far-reaching and
profound. Their members were held in higher esteem than either the monks
or the secular clergy; hand in hand with the mendicant orders they
directed the current of religious thought.
Curiously enough, too, there seems to have been something in the
temperament of these people which, in spite of their anti-clericalism,
their phlegm, their commercial pursuits, rendered them strangely
susceptible to the fascination of the interior life: in the spiritual
complexion of the towns there was an undercurrent of mysticism which
waxed and waned intermittently all through the Middle Age. Now it would
flow so deep down and so sluggishly that it seemed almost to die away,
and then it would suddenly swirl to the surface and become a rushing
stream, which sometimes surged over the bounds of orthodoxy and produced
the wildest extravagancies. Its normal _rôle_ was to do for the foolish
things of the Gospel--for poverty, for purity, for meekness, what
chivalry did for the pride of life and the pride of the eye, and what
minstrelsy did for the pride of the flesh: surround them with a halo of
romance; but it acted differently on different temperaments, and in
divers times manifested itself in divers ways, according to the
circumstances which called forth its energy and the various kinds of
material with which it came in contact.
Thus it peopled the forests with hermits, humble, harmless, prayerful
folk, who, working out their own salvation as best they could alone with
nature and with God, saw visions and dreamed dreams, always marvellous,
often beautiful, sometimes grotesque--if they did nothing else for their
fellow-men they at least put a little poetry into their lives--and it
raised up too, false prophets, or, by assuring them a following, made
false prophets possible--fiery zealots, some of them, who before they
deceived others had first made dupes of themselves, and some of them
mere impostors with one object--pelf.
To which class Tanchelm belonged who shall say? The only contemporary
account of him which has come down to us was not written by his friends.
Fool or knave, in this man we have a picturesque personality, and an
interesting one, too, in several respects. He lived in those days of
stress and whirl when the atoms which were presently to form the great
communes of Brabant were striving to come together: we first hear of him
at Antwerp somewhere about the year 1113. Who he was, whence he came,
what his calling, no man could tell, but the women whispered it about
that the mysterious stranger was a prophet, and at last Tanchelm broke
silence and publicly proclaimed in the market-place that he was indeed a
prophet, and more than a prophet--the incarnation of the Paraclete. Half
the population believed him. Churches were consecrated in his honour.
He lived in royal state, and when he came forth he was attended by a
bodyguard of armed men.
Riot and bloodshed were the outcome, and in the midst of it he fled,
disguised as a monk, to Rome, where, strangely enough, he was not
molested. When the storm had had time to lull he set out on the homeward
journey, but at Cologne he was arrested by the Archbishop, who, less
complaisant than the Pope, or perhaps better informed, set him in gaol.
Somehow or other he contrived to escape to Antwerp, where he did as he
had done before, like results followed; Duke Godfrey meditating his
arrest, the fanatic got wind of it, and again determined on flight; but
as he was on his way to the wharf, whence he would have taken shipping
for England, he was stabbed by a man 'full of zeal,' as an ancient
writer has it. Thus did Tanchelm end his chequered career. His fate was
not unmerited, for he himself had slain Alaric, Burgrave of Antwerp, but
in the eyes of his disciples he was a martyr, and the sect which he had
founded did not die with him.
It was not till the close of the eleven hundreds that religious peace
was at last established throughout the length and breadth of the land,
for the movement at Antwerp was not an isolated one. Heresy was
everywhere in the air. The infection was carried from place to place by
merchant and artisan, and fierce outbreaks were continually occurring,
sometimes in one place and sometimes in another, all through the
century. 'The social and moral disturbance provoked by the communal
movement,' notes M. Pirenne, sufficiently explains this state of
things,'[29] and doubtless he is right; but the fewness and the
incapacity of the parochial clergy must also be taken into account.
[29] See _Histoire de Belgique_, vol. i. p. 337.
For six years the canons of Antwerp had vainly striven to bring back
their wandering sheep. Not matter, perhaps, for wonderment. When the
Tanchelm trouble began there was only one parish priest in the city, a
man of loose life. At last they gave up the task in despair, and invoked
the aid of a stranger--Norbert, the famous mystic of Laon, who had
lately founded a missionary order which the world was beginning to talk
about.
This man, who was born at Xanten on the Lower Rhine, of a rich and
powerful family, had taken orders because he thought that for one of his
brilliant parts and with his wealth and influence the shortest road to
distinction was by way of the Church. And the Church did something for
him: she assured him a lasting reputation, she presently set his name
down in her register of canonised saints. That was not the kind of fame
which Norbert had in those days looked for, but if earthly glory escaped
him he had only himself to thank for it.
Shortly after his ordination he was named Court chaplain to the Emperor
Henry V., later on he obtained a canon's stall at Cologne, and then one
sultry afternoon he took it into his head to ride over to a neighbouring
village. A storm arose, a flash of lightning struck him from his saddle,
and when he came to himself he was a changed man. He resigned his
prebend, bestowed his goods on the poor, and for two years, ragged and
barefoot, wandered about France and Germany preaching penance. He spoke
well, had the gift of address, the charm of personal beauty; he was all
things to all men, as his biographer says of him, and he reckoned his
converts by thousands.
But Norbert was not satisfied. Of all the sheep he had brought to the
fold how many would have never strayed if the shepherds had been
faithful! The carelessness and incompetency of the parochial clergy,
that was the crying evil of the day, and he would do what he could to
remedy it.
To this end he withdrew to the forest of Coucy, near Laon, with a little
band of disciples, and presently there rose up in the midst of a
secluded valley which Norbert called _Prémontré_ because, as he said,
the place had been pointed out to him in a dream, a rude habitation with
a church alongside of it and a few outbuildings. It was the first home
of the great Premonstratensian Order, an order whose members, whilst
leading the lives of monks, devoted themselves, at the same time, to
pastoral work and to preaching.
Such was the man and such were the men who now undertook to convert
Antwerp, and thanks to their indefatigable labours the Ghost of Tanchelm
was at last laid. Whereat the canons, loth to lose their services, ceded
to them their own collegiate church and themselves migrated to the
Chapel of Saint Mary, a very humble structure in those days, without the
city walls, and it will be interesting to note it gradually grew into
Antwerp Cathedral.
Two of the monasteries with which Norbert's White Canons were about this
time endowed are still standing, and are still in the possession of the
order: the Abbey of Tongerloo, in the heart of the Campine, founded by
Duke Godfrey Longbeard in 1130, and the great Abbey of Parc, hard by
Louvain, founded by the same Sovereign a few years earlier. This is a
most picturesque and charming spot and is well worth a visit. Very
little of the original work remains, but the Gothic cloisters date from
the close of the fifteen hundreds and they are exceedingly beautiful,
so, too, the chapter-house and a most delightful old water-mill of the
same period; also there is a large and valuable collection of ancient
manuscripts, amongst them the original charter of endowment signed by
Godfrey Longbeard, and in the church and in the guest-house there are a
few good pictures.
BEGUINES AND BEGHARDS
The national tendency to mysticism was fostered rather than thwarted by
the new evangelists: when the people returned to orthodoxy they were
more than ever inclined to the interior life, and soon the Béguinage
appeared--that manifestation _par excellence_, as a recent writer has
it, of urban religiosity clothed and in its right mind.
In the early days of the eleven hundreds, perhaps even before Norbert
began to preach, there were women in Belgium who lived alone, and
without taking vows devoted themselves to prayer and good works. At
first there were not many of them, but as the century grew older their
numbers increased: it was the age of the Crusades, and the cities teemed
with desolate women--the raw material for a host of neophytes. These
solitaries lived, not in the forest, but on the fringe of the town,
where their work lay, for they served Christ in His poor. Presently,
somewhere about the beginning of the twelve hundreds, some of them, for
the sake of mutual protection, grouped their cabins together, and the
little community thus formed was the first Béguinage.
Whence the name is hard to say. Various explanations have been
suggested. Maybe it is derived from the old Flemish word _beghen_, in
the sense of to pray, not in the sense of to beg, for the Beguine never
asked alms; maybe from Saint Begga of Nivelles, where, it is said, the
first institution of this kind was established; maybe, again, from
Lambert le Bègue, a zealot of Liége, who died in 1180, after having
expended a fortune in founding on his own estate a church and cloister
for women whom the Crusades had deprived of their natural protectors.
The cloister has long since disappeared, but the church is still
standing, it is dedicated to Saint Christopher, and is a very beautiful
specimen of transition work.
The Beguine was only half a nun. The vows which she took were not
irrevocable; she could return to the world when she would, nor did she
renounce her property. If she was without private means she neither
asked nor accepted alms, but supported herself by her spindle, or by
taking in needlework, or sometimes by teaching the children of burghers.
During the time of her novitiate she lived in the house of the 'Grand
Mistress' of her cloister, but afterwards she had her own dwelling, and,
if she could afford it, was attended by her own servants. The same aim
in life, kindred pursuits and community of worship were the ties which
bound her to her companions. There was no common rule, each Béguinage
fixed its own order of life, and was submitted only to the jurisdiction
of its own superior, though later on many of them adopted the rule of
the third order of Saint Francis. Nor were these communities less varied
as to the social status of their members: some of them, like the
Béguinage of Bruges, only admitted ladies of noble birth; others, like
the little Béguinage of Louvain, were exclusively reserved for persons
in humble circumstances; others, again, opened their doors wide to women
of every condition, and these were the most densely peopled--several of
them, like the Great Béguinage of Ghent, numbering their inhabitants by
thousands.
Such was this semi-monastic institution. Admirably adapted to the
spiritual and social needs of the age which produced it, it spread
rapidly throughout the land, and soon began to exercise a profound
influence on the religious life of the people. By the close of the
twelve hundreds there was hardly a commune in Belgium without its
Béguinage, whilst several of the great cities had two, or three, or even
more, and, mark this, each of these institutions was an ardent centre of
mysticism. There was a Béguinage at Brussels before the year 1245.
Witness a Bull of this date of Pope Innocent IV., authorising the
Beguines of that city to recite the Divine Office, and by the close of
the century it seems to have attained considerable prosperity. It
occupied a large tract of land, says Wauters, between the Chaussée de
Laeken and the Couvent des Dames Blanches, and contained several streets
and spacious gardens. It possessed its own church, which, by concession
of the Dean and Chapter of Molenbeke, was, in 1252, made
extra-parochial, its own water-mill, granted by Duke John I, in 1290,
and a hospital for sick poor, founded by the same Sovereign four years
later. The community was suppressed at the time of the French
Revolution, and no relic of it remains save the church--not the original
building, but a reconstruction of 1657. It now serves as a parish
church, and is dedicated to Saint John the Baptist.
The Grand Béguinage at Louvain was probably founded early in the twelve
hundreds. Two inscriptions rudely carved in stone, and now placed on
each side of the northern doorway of the church, respectively attest
that the cloistral buildings were commenced in 1234, and the church
itself a year later. This structure consists of a long rectangular nave,
with a clerestory, but no triforium, and single lean-to aisles, which
are of the same length as the nave. There is no steeple, but a small
bell turret marks the entrance to the choir, which is lighted by a huge
east window filled with beautiful tracery. The interior is singularly
plain, and, save for the capitals, rudely carved with foliage and
grotesque figures, there is no sculpture, or at all events there is none
visible, though doubtless if the plaster were removed from the walls
some relics of stone carving or moulded brick would be brought to light.
We have here a typical Béguinage church of the latter half of the twelve
hundreds. The Church of the Béguinage of Bruges, for example, which
dates from the same period, is almost a _facsimile_, and this type
prevailed, at least in its main outlines, until the end of the Gothic
period, and even in some cases until later.
[Illustration: From the Béguinage Louvain]
The Béguinage of Louvain is one of the most picturesque in Belgium. It
is situated on either side of the Dyle, here a narrow stream, which
winds through a labyrinth of crooked streets, and presently, after
passing through a little bridge, disappears behind the hospital, which
gives on the churchyard, where there are yew trees and a great stone
crucifix. It is a very quiet, homely spot this Béguinage, full of
old-world memories, and the widows and maidens who dwell there while
away their lives in much the same way as their predecessors did in the
thirteen hundreds.
There were Beguines at Mechlin as early as 1207. At this epoch their
cloister was in the centre of the town, but its exact site is not known.
In 1259 they migrated to a spot beyond the ramparts, on the western
side of the city, between the Dyle and the Chaussée d'Anvers. This
cloister was totally destroyed during the religious troubles of the
fifteen hundreds. Towards the close of the century, when order was once
more established, the Beguines, having obtained permission of the civic
authorities, returned to the centre of the city and erected for
themselves the cloister which they at present inhabit, and later on
(1629-1647), the imposing temple in which they still worship. This
Béguinage was again suppressed at the time of the French Revolution, and
again re-established during the opening years of the eighteen hundreds,
but only a portion of their property was restored to the community, and
at present the greater number of the houses are occupied by private
individuals.
Many other Béguinages still exist in Brabant, and, indeed, all over
Belgium, but many more have been suppressed, and the buildings which
once sheltered the religious are now used for secular purposes. The
largest of the existing communities of this kind is that of Ghent, which
numbers nearly a thousand members, and the smallest is probably that of
Dixmude, which has only three.
The religious movement of which the Béguinage was the outcome brought
forth also, about the same time, or perhaps a little later, several
similar institutions for men. Of these the Beghards, or, as they were
sometimes called, the Brethren of Penance, were the most widespread and
the most important. Their members were all of them laymen, and, like the
Beguines, took no vows, observed no fixed rule of life, and were subject
only to their own superiors, but, unlike them, they had no private
property: the brethren of each cloister had a common purse, dwelt
together under one roof and ate at the same table. They were, for the
most part, of humble origin--weavers, dyers, fullers and such like, and
were often men to whom fortune had not been kind--men who had outlived
their friends, or whose family ties had been broken by some untoward
event, and who, by reason of failing health or advancing years, or
perhaps on account of some accident, were unable to stand alone. Each
establishment was self-supporting; the members plied their wonted
trades, and lived as best they could on the meagre product of their
united toil. If, as Monsieur Pirenne observes, 'the mediæval towns of
Belgium found in the Béguinage a solution of their "feminine question,"'
the establishment of these communities afforded them at least a partial
solution of another problem, which pressed for an answer--the difficult
problem of how to deal with the worn-out working-man.
It should be borne in mind, however, that the primary object of all
these institutions was not a temporal but a spiritual one. Their
members, who for the most part had received so small a share of this
world's good things, had banded together, not, in the first place, that
they might be able to keep the wolf from the door during the few years
of life that remained to them, but in order to ensure for themselves in
the next world, as they confidently believed, an eternity of bliss. Nor,
whilst working out their own salvation, were they unmindful of the
spiritual welfare of their neighbours, nor, for the matter of that, of
their temporal welfare either. The Celites, a kindred community to the
Beghards, were wholly occupied in tending the sick and burying the
dead--and, thanks to their intimate connection with the trade companies,
they were able to largely influence the religious life, and to a great
extent to form the religious opinion of the mediæval towns of Belgium,
or, at all events, in the case of their working population, during more
than two centuries. They did not, however, escape the fate which,
sooner or later, overtakes all human institutions: before the close of
the Middle Age they were, most of them, in full decadence. Not, as so
often happens, that their life was crushed out by the weight of gold:
though, as time went on, they acquired endowments, they never attained
to wealth or anything like it; they waned with the waning of the cloth
trade, and, when that industry died, gradually dwindled away. Their
crazy ships were sorely tried by the storm of the fifteen hundreds. Some
of them went to the bottom, some weathered its fury, but were so
battered that they afterwards sank in still water; a few, somehow or
other, managed to keep afloat till another and a fiercer hurricane at
last dashed them to pieces.
The Brethren of Penance rapidly spread all over the Low Countries, and
even penetrated into France and into the provinces beyond the Rhine.
There were Beghards in Brussels as early as 1274, perhaps even at a
still earlier date, and they observed no fixed rule till 1359, when they
became Franciscan Tertiaries. They earned their livelihood by weaving
cloth; indeed, until 1474, when the cloth trade was practically dead, no
man could join the order unless he were a member of the Weavers'
Company, and, naturally enough, they lived in the weavers' quarter
behind the Town Hall. Their convent was situated in the street which
still bears their name, or rather in the _Rue des Alexiens_, a
continuation of the _Rue des Beghards_, and which at one time seems to
have formed part of it. It stood at the foot of a steep hill, and the
brethren called their home _Mariendael_, or Mary's Valley. Beghards and
Beguines were everywhere renowned for their tender devotion to the
Madonna--a devotion which they sometimes liked to emphasise in the
mystical names they gave to their dwellings. Thus the Béguinage of
Vilvorde, for example, was 'Our dear Lady's Consolation,' '_Onze Lieve
Vrouw-ten-Troost_,' '_Solatium Sanctæ Mariæ_.'
The Zacites or Brethren of the Sack were also established in Brussels at
a very early date; they were never a numerous community, and in 1480,
having dwindled down to seven aged brethren, their convent was
suppressed by the civic authorities, and its revenues bestowed on the
new Carthusian priory which the city was at this time founding at
Scheut. As for the expelled Zacites, six of them were placed in
charitable institutions, and the seventh, who was by profession a
surgeon, received a small life pension. Their chapel still remains; it
is situated in the _Rue de la Madeleine_, and is well worth
visiting--not so much on account of its architectural beauty, for it can
never have been anything else than a very plain and unpretentious
building, and, moreover, it has been spoiled by clumsy restoration; but
it is interesting from its great age--it dates from the close of the
twelve hundreds--and because it is the last remaining relic in Brussels
of a very curious group of religious communities composed entirely of
laymen.
The ardent spirit of mysticism, which had raised up in the course of the
twelve hundreds the Beguines and the Brethren of Penance, waxed rather
than waned as time went on, fostered and nourished by these
institutions; nor is it surprising that some of their members,
untrammelled as they were by ecclesiastical control, should presently
have developed opinions not in harmony with the Christian faith. Amongst
them, in the opening years of the thirteen hundreds, Sister Hadewych,
who, in the vulgar tongue, wrote glowing prose and frenzied verse, in
which she illustrated the Divine charity by profane comparisons, couched
in the language of earthly and carnal love; and--unless she were the
same individual, which is not unlikely--the famous Brussels mystic,
Bloemardine, who boldly proclaimed that man in this life could attain to
such a state that sin would be impossible to him, and likewise progress
in virtue, and that then he could give free rein to his passions without
fear of incurring guilt. Crowds were captivated by her burning
eloquence; even at Court she had numerous disciples; they gave her a
silver throne, which, when she had sat in it, was said to be invested
with miraculous powers; it was currently believed that she was attended
by two seraphim when she approached the Holy Table; and it is
significant of the trend of public opinion, that the opposition of Jan
van Ruysbroek, himself a mystic, but of a very different order, and at
this time the best beloved and most influential of the Brussels secular
clergy--we shall have much to say of him later on--gained for him only
the contempt and ridicule of the people, who made him the subject of
ribald songs, which were howled after him in the streets.
Nor was Bloemardine the only devotee whom an extravagant mysticism had
deprived of mental ballast: there were Beghards and Beguines all over
the country who were the victims of like delusions; the wildest opinions
were held and publicly proclaimed to be orthodox--opinions, some of
them, which seem to have differed little from the religious and
political opinions professed by anarchists to-day. Of course the people
gave ear to them, in all the great towns of the Netherlands these
fanatics had numerous disciples, and the violent outbreaks against the
Jews, which occurred periodically all through the thirteen hundreds,
were in great measure due to their teaching. The bulk of their adherents
were among the most abject of the population--weavers, dyers, fullers
and such like, who, underpaid and without resources, living from hand to
mouth, were often compelled, when sickness came or when work was slack,
to have recourse to Shylock, and sometimes they made him pay the penalty
of his extortions. If to slay the Jew were no sin, why not thus obtain
freedom? Why not wipe out the debt in the blood of the man whose fathers
had shown as little pity to Christ as he himself had to them? A riot of
this kind occurred in 1308, and it needed all the energy and decision of
Duke John II., who, like most of the sovereigns of Brabant, favoured the
Jews, to hinder a general massacre. Their houses were pillaged and
wrecked, but they themselves escaped to the Castle of Genappe, which
John had placed at their disposal; and he at last succeeded in quelling
the mob which was clamouring round its walls for their lives.
After the great pestilence of 1348, when the poverty and wretchedness of
the lesser folk had increased tenfold and the people had been lashed to
frenzy by the preaching of the Flagellants, a more serious outbreak
occurred. A certain Jewish convert was at this time one of the most
trusted servants of Duke John III. Aware of the peril which threatened
his compatriots, he commended them to his master's protection. 'Be of
good heart,' said John, 'not a hair of their heads shall perish.' But it
was beyond his power to make his words good. Prince Henry, in order to
curry favour with the people, placed himself at their head, a score of
Hebrews were cut down, and amongst them, despite his conversion, John's
servant; and twenty years later the advent of the Dancers, a kindred
sect to the Flagellants, was the signal for a fresh massacre.
The trouble which overtook the Jewish colony at Brussels in 1370 must
probably be placed in a different category: it seems to have been the
direct outcome of the bigotry and fanaticism, not of the Christians, but
of some of the Jews themselves. Albeit, this should be borne in mind:
we have only the Christian version of what took place. If some Hebrew
scribe had recounted the story he would doubtless have given it a
different complexion. The only official document which has come down to
us anent this affair was drawn up some thirty years after the event; but
since the redactors had themselves presided at the trial of the
incriminated Jews, they must have been at least acquainted with the main
outlines of the case, though possibly their memory may have failed them
as to details. Doubtless they shared the prejudices and superstitions of
the age in which they lived, but there is no reason to suspect their
good faith, they were educated men of high social standing in the city
of Brussels, and they seem to have enjoyed the respect and confidence of
their fellow-townsmen. The following is the gist of the story of the
famous Miraculous Hosts as they relate it. Towards the close of the year
1370 a certain Hebrew fanatic, one Jonathan of Enghien, furious at the
numerous conversions which had recently taken place amongst his
co-religionists, determined to show his contempt for the Christian faith
by outraging that which those who believed in it held to be most sacred.
To this end he purchased the assistance of John of Louvain, a Jew who
had lately discarded the Hebrew faith. This man contrived to purloin
from the Parish Church of Saint Catherine at Brussels sixteen
consecrated wafers which, as had been agreed, he brought to Jonathan at
Enghien, who forthwith summoned his friends, and in their presence made
the Sacred Species the subject of his scorn. Three days afterwards he
was found dead in his garden--slain by a dagger thrust. His widow,
believing that this misfortune had come upon her on account of the
stolen wafers, had them secretly conveyed to the synagogue at
Brussels--perhaps that strange old house in the Rue Ter Arken which
from time immemorial has been called La Maison des Juifs--where soon a
great throng of Hebrews assembled to examine the Christians' sacred
bread; and some of them with the points of their daggers pricked the
Hosts, whereat, so runs the legend, there spurted out drops of blood.
Dismayed at the prodigy, they took counsel as to how they might best be
rid of 'this bread of evil omen,' and at last persuaded a Jewess named
Catherine who had recently become a Christian, to carry it to Cologne.
Hardly had she set out on the journey, however, than she was seized with
qualms of conscience and retraced her steps, sought out the priest of
Saint Catherine's, told him all that had happened, and restored to him
the consecrated wafers which John van Loven had stolen six months before
from his church.
Presently the matter was brought before Duke Winceslaus. Such of the
Jews whom Catherine had denounced, and who had not already fled, were at
once put under arrest, and in due course tried, found guilty, and
sentenced, some to lifelong exile, others to be burnt at the stake, and
all of them to the forfeiture of their estates. Accounts vary as to the
number who suffered the death penalty--three, five and seven being
severally mentioned.
As for the informer Catherine, she was kept in close confinement by way
of precaution until the whole matter had been cleared up. Her prison, it
is said, was an upper chamber above the baptistery of the Church of
Saint Gudule, in which it was at one time customary to detain suspicious
characters. It will be interesting to note that this cell is still in
existence, and that the east wall is pierced by a little window giving
on the interior of the north aisle, by means of which prisoners were
able to assist at Mass without leaving their place of confinement.
Bearing in mind the punishments in vogue at this time--to be buried
alive, for example, was the penalty due to treason, and the vintner
found guilty of falsifying his wine was burned in the vat containing the
adulterated liquor--the Hebrew fanatics, whose excesses we have just
recounted, do not seem to have been treated with any extraordinary
harshness on account of their nationality. If any Christian burgher had
committed a like offence, no less severe a penalty would assuredly have
been meted out to him.
[Illustration: SAINT CATHERINE'S, BRUSSELS.]
The city of Brussels still contains a memorial in stone of this weird
tragedy: the beautiful Sacrament Chapel which was added to the Church of
Saint Gudule in 1535 was built as a shrine for three of the 'Miraculous
Hosts.'[30]
[30] See p. 206.
But to return to Ruysbroek. His campaign in favour of orthodoxy had not
promoted his temporal weal. Bloemardine, as we have seen, had friends
at Court, and it was perhaps owing to their opposition that he still
filled, at the age of fifty, the humble post of vicar, or as we should
say, curate, of Saint Gudule's, and that, in spite of his acknowledged
worth, and the great name his spiritual writings had already made for
him. But in truth his dress, his manner of life, his whole bearing was
not such as to commend him to the friendship of the world of wealth and
fashion, often then as now the shortest road to preferment. If he were
not of the people, he lived amongst them, and fared as they did. Like
them he was squalid, ill-housed, half-clad, very often hungry. What time
he could spare from his pastoral duties he devoted to contemplation and
to writing, not in Latin, but in his own rude native tongue, some of
those marvellous mystic treatises which later on gained for him
world-wide renown and the title of Father of Flemish prose. Union with
God and to assuage the sufferings of Christ in His poor, this was his
highest ambition: fat livings and comfortable stalls were things which
he never thought of. Ruysbroek, however, was not destined to remain to
the end of his days an obscure curate: in the year 1343 a circumstance
occurred which caused him to change the scene of his labours, and
presently he was called upon to fill a more responsible and dignified
position. It happened thus.
Franz Coudenberg and Jan Hinckaert, friends of Ruysbroek's, were near
kinsmen, and each of them occupied a canon's stall at Saint Gudule's.
They sympathised with the aspirations of the people, had, perhaps, been
mixed up in one of their abortive attempts to obtain liberty, and on
this or some other ground, early in the year 1343, Coudenberg was
accused of treason to Duke John III., who, with a view, perhaps, to
ridding the town of a dangerous agitator, offered him a tract of land in
the Forest of Soignes at a place called Groenendael, which for the last
forty years had been the site of a hermitage now occupied by
Coudenberg's friend Lambert, a solitary whose family name is not
recorded, on condition that he should build a monastery there for five
brethren, of whom at least two should be priests. Perhaps the offer was
one which Coudenberg was not free to refuse, perhaps it was tantamount
to a sentence of exile, which included within its scope Hinckaert and
Ruysbroek as well. In any case, Coudenberg did not refuse it, and when
early in the following year he withdrew to Groenendael, these men went
with him. It was not, however, till five years later that the new
community was regularly organised and that the brethren adopted a
definite rule. On the 10th of March 1349 Pierre de Clermont, Bishop of
Cambrai, clothed them with the habit of canons regular of the Order of
Saint Augustine, and shortly afterwards they chose Jan van Ruysbroek for
their prior. Not only did he know how to maintain discipline in his own
monastery, but he was able to restore order in a host of others, and so
great was his influence outside the cloister that within a few years of
the founding of Groenendael a whole group of new religious houses sprang
up--Rouge Cloître, Corsendonck, Sept Fontaines, Bethléem, Ter
Cluysen--which owed their origin to one or other of his disciples, and
though they were not at first submitted to Groenendael, observed the
same rule and were intimately associated with it by ties of the closest
friendship: for the brethren of every one of them Ruysbroek was 'the
master.'
Meanwhile he did not discontinue his literary work, and as a man of
letters no less than as a theologian and a reformer, Ruysbroek deserves
to be studied. Writing in prose and in the vulgar tongue, he addressed
himself in the first place to the people, for the art of reading was at
this time sufficiently widespread, but in what he wrote there was no
tinge of grossness or sensuality. His mystical treatises breathe the
spirit of the _Imitation of Christ_, of which indeed they may be said to
be the prototype, and by reason of the loftiness of his sentiments and
the purity and the beauty of the language in which they are expressed he
merits to be placed in the first rank of the spiritual writers of the
Middle Age. He himself used so say that he wrote under the immediate
inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and a story related by his biographer and
disciple, Hendrick Bogaerden, goes to show that at least in his own
cloister such was believed to be the case.
[Illustration: Rouge Cloître]
It was Ruysbroek's custom to write as he walked in the forest, and one
day having prolonged his ramble beyond his wont, the monks grew alarmed
and dispatched one of their number to search for him, and presently this
man discovered the Prior of Groenendael. He was seated beneath a linden
tree with his tablets in his hand, and he was surrounded with rays of
light. Perhaps the sun had suddenly pierced through a dark cloud, but
the picture is none the less a pleasing one, and it shows in what
estimation Jan Ruysbroek was held by his spiritual sons. Nor was it only
in his own cloister or in his native land that Ruysbroek was regarded as
a saint. In Germany, in Flanders, in Holland, wherever his books were
read, his name was held in veneration, and Groenendael was constantly
besieged by pilgrims, many of them from distant lands, who had come
there for no other reason than to hold converse with its prior. Nor was
his head turned by so much adulation. To the end of his days he remained
the humble, gentle, unassuming priest he had been in the days when he
was an unknown Brussels curate, and it was ever his delight to perform
the most menial offices in his priory.
He died on the night of the 2nd of December 1381, in the eighty-ninth
year of his age, and 'on that night,' note the chroniclers of
Groenendael, 'the bells of the Church of Deventer, where dwelt his
friend Geert Groote, were solemnly tolled for him by invisible hands,
and another friend and disciple, the Dean of Saint Sulpice at Diest,
dreamed that his soul had passed from this world, and after remaining in
purgatory half an hour, was carried by angels to heaven'; and they also
tell us that fifty years after his death, his body having been
disinterred, was found to be still incorrupt, and that it was exposed in
the cloister of Groenendael for three days and seen by thousands of
people. Strange stories these, typical of the age in which they were
first told.
The literary and religious revival which Jan Ruysbroek had inaugurated
did not die with him. The brethren of Groenendael and of the
neighbouring monasteries at Rouge Cloître and Sept Fontaines continued
to busy themselves with spiritual writings, which were largely read by
the people, and amongst which may be found the flower of Flemish
literature of the end of the Middle Age; and Geert Groote, the most
famous of Ruysbroek's immediate disciples, in founding shortly before
Ruysbroek's death the congregation of the Brethren of the Common Life,
had placed at the disposal of fourteenth-century mysticism an
organisation no less active than the Béguinage had been two hundred
years before. Groote, who belonged to a rich burgher family, was born
in the year 1340 at Deventer in Holland. Having read at Cologne, at
Paris, at Prague, he took orders and soon obtained preferment. But his
relations with the _Gottesfreunde_ of Cologne and, too, the books of
Ruysbroek--it was not till later on that he became personally acquainted
with their author--gradually inclined him to mysticism, and on his
recovery from a dangerous illness in 1373 he resigned his rich livings,
bestowed the greater portion of his patrimony on the Carthusians of
Arnheim, and bade farewell to the world. For a time he lived in strict
seclusion, devoting himself wholly to meditation and to books, and it
seems to have been during this period that he made the acquaintance of
Ruysbroek. But for a man of Geert's exuberant energy a hermit's life was
impossible: he had found a pearl of great price and he yearned to make
it known. Moreover, he was consumed with indignation at the worldliness
of the Church, and presently he was wandering from village to village
and town to town calling men to repentance, proclaiming the beauty of
Divine love, and bewailing wherever he went the decadence of
ecclesiastical discipline and the degradation of the clergy. The effect
of his preaching was marvellous; thousands hung on his lips; the towns,
says Moll, were filled with devotees; you might know them by their
silence, their ecstasies during Mass, their mean clothes, their
brilliant eyes full of sweetness. From amongst these a little band
attached themselves to Groote, and became his fellow-workers--they were
the first 'Brethren of the Common Life.' Of course the reformer was
opposed by the clerks whose evil lives he denounced, but the cry of
heresy was vainly raised against a man no less zealous for purity of
faith than he was for purity of morals, and whose success in combating
error had gained for him the surname of _Malleus Hereticorum_. The best
of the secular clergy, to escape the contagion of the prevalent
disorders, sought refuge within the ranks of his society, which in due
course was approved by the Holy See. Geert Groote, however, did not live
long enough to perfect the work he had begun. He died in 1384, and his
mantle fell on the shoulders of his henchman, Florence Radewyes. This
man founded two years later the famous Augustinian monastery of
Windesheim, which henceforth became the centre of Geert Groote's
association, and to which later on Ruysbroek's houses were also
affiliated.
The confraternity of the Common Life resembled in several respects the
Béguinage and the Brotherhoods of Penance, now decadent. The members
took no vows, neither asked nor received alms, and earned their daily
bread; but their houses were more closely knit together, and brothers
and sisters alike busied themselves exclusively with educational work
and literature, and in the case of priests by preaching.
When Groote began his campaign learning was at a low ebb. The fame of
the schools of Liége had long since become but a memory; save for a few
clerks here and there who had read at Paris or Cologne, there were no
scholars in the Netherlands; even amongst the higher clergy there were
some who knew nothing of Latin, and the burgher was quite content if,
when his children left school, they were able to read and write. Groote
and his friends determined to change all this; their efforts were
crowned with success, and success came quickly; the schools which the
Brethren of the Common Life founded all over the land became so many
ardent centres of spiritual and intellectual life. Amongst the famous
men whom they educated, or who served in their ranks, note Thomas à
Kempis, Gabriel Biel, and the Dutch Pope, Adrian VI.; in a word, a
widespread literary and religious revival was the outcome of their
endeavour, and it had not yet begun to wane in the days of Philippe
l'Asseuré.
Such was the moral complexion of the Low Country when her art reached
the acme of its magnificence, and what a marvellous conglomeration of
anomalies and contradictions that moral complexion must have been--an
inconsequent medley of coarseness and refinement, of luxury and
restraint, of avarice and generosity, of cruelty and compassion, of
heroic virtue and crying vice, and with it all a rampant spirit of
vulgar commercialism, which somehow or other was not incompatible with
the culture of literature and music and art, nor, stranger still, with a
firm conviction of the reality of spiritual things.
The God whom the men of Brabant worshipped was no vague personification
of nature or natural forces, no hazy abstract conception of
righteousness, order, law, but a personal God, a living, loving,
life-giving God, who was the founder and father and friend of the human
race, the creator and master of heaven and earth, and of all things
therein contained--almighty, eternal, immense, incomprehensible,
infinite in intelligence, in will, and in all perfections. The saints
whom they adored were no vague, shadowy heroes who lived only in the
memory of the great things they had accomplished when they were on
earth. They had passed through the valley of the shadow of death, but
death had no dominion over them: their hand was not thereby shortened,
they were still mighty to save. Nay, the virtue in them was now greater
than it had been in the days of their sojourning: if by their charity
and their sweetness they had then been able to soothe the sick and
console the afflicted, they could now bestow health and joy. If they had
then reclaimed the desert and taught the husbandman how to tend his
flock and to handle his plough, they could now ward off pest and
murrain and assure him a bountiful harvest. So great was their love for
the children of earth that no request was too trifling to claim their
attention, and such was the efficacy of their intercession that no boon
was beyond their power to confer. They held the first place in the
heavenly court, they were the ministers and the intimate friends of the
Most High, and He delighted to manifest His glory in them. Even their
bones, and the clothes that they had worn, and the things that they had
touched, were believed to be endowed with miraculous powers. They were
always close at hand, and sometimes when the days were evil and the
people needed heartening, they appeared to them in visible form all
glorious in shimmering raiment and attended by cohorts of angels.
When the famous relics of Aachen were exposed in 1447, so great was the
concourse of pilgrims that it was impossible for the Estates of Liége to
assemble. The patricians of Bruges attributed the victory of Rosebeke to
the direct intervention of the Mother of God, and it was Saint Michael,
the patron of Brussels, who obtained for the craftsmen of that city the
great charter of 1421.
Whatever may be thought of the religious convictions of these people,
that their art was profoundly influenced by them is a fact which cannot
be denied: the remnant of their work which has come down to us bears
ample testimony to it, from the stateliest sanctuary to the meanest
wayside shrine and from the grandest municipal palace to the carved
lintel of some poor workman's cot. Stories from the Old and the New
Testament are sculptured on the façade of the Town Hall of Louvain, the
original statues which peopled the niches of the Town Hall of Brussels
were all of them the statues of saints, and on the highest pinnacle of
that network of stone which forms its spire stands Saint Michael slaying
the dragon, symbol of the ultimate triumph of good over ill. Nor are
these things unusual, we find them over and over again throughout the
Low Country.
This is all the more remarkable because the art of the period was in no
sense hieratic: the masons and sculptors and painters of Belgium at the
time of which we are writing were ordinary working men, members of one
or other of the craft guilds, and the patrons who employed them were not
as a rule ecclesiastics but, for the most part, plain tradesmen; and yet
their art was nothing less than the solemn profession of faith of the
burghers and the craftsmen who created it--their creed made manifest in
piled up brick and sculptured stone, in oak, in cedar, in iron cunningly
wrought, in the saffron sheen of hammered brass, in the glister of gems,
the glow of silk and in the burnished splendour of gold: a harmony
magnifical of perfect forms and perfect tints in honour of Him who is
above all and in all and through all--the Alpha and Omega of the
universe. Herein we have the secret of their success--the faith that was
in them, their vivid realisation of things unseen. This was how it was
that in an age overflowing with luxury, a nation of merchants and
manufacturers, who from the very nature of their pursuits must have been
for the most part occupied with sordid things, were able to produce an
art wholly untainted by sensualism, an art so glorious and so nearly
perfect that it has hardly ever been equalled and never yet surpassed.
Thus it has ever been and thus it will ever be. The average man is too
commonplace and too practical to be moved by an abstract notion. It
needs something which he believes to be a living reality, something
which he is convinced is immeasurably above and beyond himself to
enkindle in him the enthusiasm necessary to conceive and to carry out
any really great idea. Art for art's sake is a formula which has
sometimes hypnotised individuals of a sensitive and romantic
temperament, but it has never yet converted the herd.
Some of us have been warring against the Philistines beneath an
oriflamme emblazoned with this shibboleth for the best part of half a
century, and what has been the outcome? A modicum of success in the
matter of wall paper and a magnificent collection of pictorial bill
posters. Nor can we begin to hope for any more solid results until we
are at least as firmly convinced as were the sinners of Brabant in the
fourteen hundreds of the truth of those words which Thomas à Kempis
uttered, and which in one phrase sum up the philosophy of his great
spiritual ancestor, old Jan van Ruysbroek--'Vanitas vanitatum et omnia
vanitas præter amare Deum et illi soli servire.'[31]
[31] _De Imitatione Christi_, lib. i. cap. i. 3.