FROM THE CONQUEST OF FRIESLAND TO THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND
A.D. 800--1000
Even at this advanced epoch of foreign domination, there remained
as great a difference as ever between the people of the high
grounds and the inhabitants of the plain. The latter were, like
the rest, incorporated with the great monarchy; but they preserved
the remembrance of former independence, and even retained their
ancient names. In Flanders, Menapians and Flemings were still
found, and in the country of Antwerp the Toxandrians were not
extinct. All the rest of the coast was still called Friesland. But
in the high grounds the names of the old inhabitants were lost.
Nations were designated by the names of their rivers, forests, or
towns. They were classified as accessories to inanimate things;
and having no monuments which reminded them of their origin,
they became as it were without recollections or associations;
and degenerated, as may be almost said, into a people without
ancestry.
The physical state of the country had greatly changed from the
times of Cæsar to those of Charlemagne. Many parts of the forest
of the Ardennes had been cut down or cleared away. Civilization
had only appeared for a while among these woods, to perish like
a delicate plant in an ungenial clime; but it seemed to have
sucked the very sap from the soil, and to have left the people
no remains of the vigor of man in his savage state, nor of the
desperate courage of the warriors of Germany. A race of serfs now
cultivated the domains of haughty lords and imperious priests.
The clergy had immense possessions in this country; an act of
the following century recognizes fourteen thousand families of
vassals as belonging to the single abbey of Nivelle. Tournay and
Tongres, both Episcopal cities, were by that title somewhat less
oppressed than the other ancient towns founded by the Romans; but
they appear to have possessed only a poor and degraded population.
The low lands, on the other hand, announced a striking commencement
of improvement and prosperity. The marshes and fens, which had
arrested and repulsed the progress of imperial Rome, had disappeared
in every part of the interior. The Meuse and the Scheldt no longer
joined at their outlets, to desolate the neighboring lands; whether
this change was produced by the labors of man, or merely by the
accumulation of sand deposited by either stream and forming barriers
to both. The towns of Courtraig, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp,
Berg-op-Zoom, and Thiel, had already a flourishing trade. The
last-mentioned town contained in the following century fifty-five
churches; a fact from which, in the absence of other evidence,
the extent of the population may be conjectured. The formation of
dikes for the protection of lands formerly submerged was already
well understood, and regulated by uniform custom. The plains
thus reconquered from the waters were distributed in portions,
according to their labor, by those who reclaimed them, except
the parts reserved for the chieftain, the church, and the poor.
This vital necessity for the construction of dikes had given to
the Frison and Flemish population a particular habit of union,
goodwill, and reciprocal justice, because it was necessary to make
common cause in this great work for their mutual preservation.
In all other points, the detail of the laws and manners of this
united people presents a picture similar to that of the Saxons of
England, with the sole exception that the people of the Netherlands
were milder than the Saxon race properly so called--their long
habit of laborious industry exercising its happy influence on
the martial spirit original to both. The manufacturing arts were
also somewhat more advanced in this part of the continent than in
Great Britain. The Frisons, for example, were the only people
who could succeed in making the costly mantles in use among the
wealthy Franks.
The government of Charlemagne admitted but one form, borrowed
from that of the empire in the period of its decline--a mixture
of the spiritual and temporal powers, exercised in the first place
by the emperor, and at second-hand by the counts and bishops. The
counts in those times were not the heads of noble families, as
they afterward became, but officers of the government, removable
at will, and possessing no hereditary rights. Their incomes did
not arise from salaries paid in money, but consisted of lands,
of which they had the revenues during the continuance of their
authority. These lands being situated in the limits of their
administration, each regarded them as his property only for the
time being, and considered himself as a tenant at will. How
unfavorable such a system was to culture and improvement may be
well imagined. The force of possession was, however, frequently
opposed to the seigniorial rights of the crown; and thus, though
all civil dignity and the revenues attached to it were but personal
and reclaimable at will, still many dignitaries, taking advantage
of the barbarous state of the country in which their isolated
cantons were placed, sought by every possible means to render
their power and prerogatives inalienable and real. The force
of the monarchical government, which consists mainly in its
centralization, was necessarily weakened by the intervention
of local obstacles, before it could pass from the heart of the
empire to its limits. Thus it was only by perpetually interposing
his personal efforts, and flying, as it were, from one end to the
other of his dominions, that Charlemagne succeeded in preserving
his authority. As for the people, without any sort of guarantee
against the despotism of the government, they were utterly at
the mercy of the nobles or of the sovereign. But this state of
servitude was quite incompatible with the union of social powers
necessary to a population that had to struggle against the tyranny
of the ocean. To repulse its attacks with successful vigor, a
spirit of complete concert was absolutely required; and the nation
being thus united, and consequently strong, the efforts of foreign
tyrants were shattered by its resistance, as the waves of the
sea that broke against the dikes by which it was defied.
From the time of Charlemagne, the people of the ancient Menapia,
now become a prosperous commonwealth, formed political associations
to raise a barrier against the despotic violence of the Franks.
These associations were called Gilden, and in the Latin of the
times Gildonia. They comprised, besides their covenants for mutual
protection, an obligation which bound every member to give succor
to any other, in cases of illness, conflagration, or shipwreck.
But the growing force of these social compacts alarmed the
quick-sighted despotism of Charlemagne, and they were, consequently,
prohibited both by him and his successors. To give a notion of
the importance of this prohibition to the whole of Europe, it is
only necessary to state that the most ancient corporations (all
which had preceded and engendered the most valuable municipal
rights) were nothing more than gilden. Thus, to draw an example
from Great Britain, the corporative charter of Berwick still
bears the title of Charta Gildoniæ. But the ban of the sovereigns
was without efficacy, when opposed to the popular will. The gilden
stood their ground, and within a century after the death of
Charlemagne, all Flanders was covered with corporate towns.
This popular opposition took, however, another form in the northern
parts of the country, which still bore the common name of Friesland;
for there it was not merely local but national. The Frisons succeeded
in obtaining the sanction of the monarch to consecrate, as it
were, those rights which were established under the ancient forms
of government. The fact is undoubted; but the means which they
employed are uncertain. It appears most probable that this great
privilege was the price of their military services; for they held
a high place in the victorious armies of Charlemagne; and Turpin,
the old French romancer, alluding to the popular traditions of
his time, represents the warriors of Friesland as endowed with
the most heroic valor.
These rights, which the Frisons secured, according to their own
statements, from Charlemagne, but most undoubtedly from some
one or other of the earliest emperors, consisted, first, in the
freedom of every order of citizens; secondly, in the right of
property--a right which admitted no authority of the sovereign
to violate by confiscation, except in cases of downright treason;
thirdly, in the privilege of trial by none but native judges, and
according to their national usages; fourthly, in a very narrow
limitation of the military services which they owed to the king;
fifthly, in the hereditary title to feudal property, in direct
line, on payment of certain dues or rents. These five principal
articles sufficed to render Friesland, in its political aspect,
totally different from the other portions of the monarchy. Their
privileges secured, their property inviolable, their duties limited,
the Frisons were altogether free from the servitude which weighed
down France. It will soon be seen that these special advantages
produced a government nearly analogous to that which Magna Charta
was the means of founding at a later period in England.
The successors of Charlemagne chiefly signalized their authority
by lavishing donations of all kinds on the church. By such means
the ecclesiastical power became greater and greater, and, in those
countries under the sway of France, was quite as arbitrary and
enormous as that of the nobility. The bishops of Utrecht, Liege,
and Tournay, became, in the course of time, the chief personages
on that line of the frontier. They had the great advantage over
the counts, of not being subjected to capricious or tyrannical
removals. They therefore, even in civil affairs, played a more
considerable part than the latter; and began to render themselves
more and more independent in their episcopal cities, which were
soon to become so many principalities. The counts, on their parts,
used their best exertions to wear out, if they had not the strength
to break, the chains which bound them to the footstool of the
monarch. They were not all now dependent on the same sovereign;
for the empire of Charlemagne was divided among his successors:
France, properly so called, was bounded by the Scheldt; the country
to the eastward of that river, that is to say, nearly the whole
of the Netherlands, belonged to Lorraine and Germany.
In the state of things, it happened that in the year 864, Judith,
daughter of Charles the Bald, king of France, having survived
her husband Ethelwolf, king of England, became attached to a
powerful Flemish chieftain called Baldwin. It is not quite certain
whether he was count, forester, marquis, or protector of the
frontiers; but he certainly enjoyed, no matter under what title,
considerable authority in the country; since the pope on one
occasion wrote to Charles the Bald to beware of offending him,
lest he should join the Normans, and open to them an entrance
into France. He carried off Judith to his possessions in Flanders.
The king, her father, after many ineffectual threats, was forced
to consent to their union; and confirmed to Baldwin, with the
title of count, the hereditary government of all the country
between the Scheldt and the Somme, a river of Picardy. This was
the commencement of the celebrated county of Flanders; and this
Baldwin is designated in history by the surname of Bras-de-fer
(iron-handed), to which his courage had justly entitled him.
The Belgian historians are also desirous of placing about this
epoch the first counts of Hainault, and even of Holland. But
though it may be true that the chief families of each canton sought
then, as at all times, to shake off the yoke, the epoch of their
independence can only be fixed at the later period at which they
obtained or enforced the privilege of not being deprived of their
titles and their feudal estates. The counts of the high grounds,
and those of Friesland, enjoyed at the utmost but a fortuitous
privilege of continuance in their rank. Several foreigners had
gained a footing and an authority in the country; among others
Wickmand, from whom descended the chatelains of Ghent; and the
counts of Holland, and Heriold, a Norman prince who had been
banished from his own country. This name of Normans, hardly known
before the time of Charlemagne, soon became too celebrated. It
designated the pagan inhabitants of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden,
who, driven by rapacity and want, infested the neighboring seas.
The asylum allowed in the dominions of the emperors to some of
those exiled outlaws, and the imprudent provocations given by these
latter to their adventurous countrymen, attracted various bands
of Norman pirates to the shores of Guelders; and from desultory
descents upon the coast, they soon came to inundate the interior
of the country. Flanders alone successfully resisted them during
the life of Baldwin Bras-de-fer; but after the death of this brave
chieftain there was not a province of the whole country that
was not ravaged by these invaders. Their multiplied expeditions
threw back the Netherlands at least two centuries, if, indeed,
any calculation of the kind may be fairly formed respecting the
relative state of population and improvement on the imperfect
data that are left us. Several cantons became deserted. The chief
cities were reduced to heaps of ruins. The German emperors vainly
interposed for the relief of their unfortunate vassals. Finally,
an agreement was entered into, in the year 882, with Godfrey the
king or leader of the Normans, by which a peace was purchased
on condition of paying him a large subsidy, and ceding to him the
government of Friesland. But, in about two years from this period,
the fierce barbarian began to complain that the country he had
thus gained did not produce grapes, and the present inspiration
of his rapacity seemed to be the blooming vineyards of France.
The emperor Charles the Fat, anticipating the consequence of a
rupture with Godfrey, enticed him to an interview, in which he
caused him to be assassinated. His followers, attacked on all points
by the people of Friesland, perished almost to a man; and their
destruction was completed, in 891, by Arnoul the Germanic. From
that period, the scourge of Norman depredation became gradually
less felt. They now made but short and desultory attempts on the
coast; and their last expedition appears to have taken place
about the year 1000, when they threatened, but did not succeed
in seizing on, the city of Utrecht.
It is remarkable that, although for the space of one hundred and
fifty years the Netherlands were continually the scene of invasion
and devastation by these northern barbarians, the political state
of the country underwent no important changes. The emperors of
Germany were sovereigns of the whole country, with the exception of
Flanders. These portions of the empire were still called Lorraine,
as well as all which they possessed of what is now called France,
and which was that part forming the appanage of Lothaire and of the
Lotheringian kings. The great difficulty of maintaining subordination
among the numerous chieftains of this country caused it, in 958,
to be divided into two governments, which were called Higher and
Lower Lorraine. The latter portion comprised nearly the whole
of the Netherlands, which thus became governed by a lieutenant of
the emperors. Godfrey count of Ardenne was the first who filled
this place; and he soon felt all the perils of the situation. The
other counts saw, with a jealous eye, their equal now promoted
into a superior. Two of the most powerful, Lambert and Reginald,
were brothers. They made common cause against the new duke; and
after a desperate struggle, which did not cease till the year
985, they gained a species of imperfect independence--Lambert
becoming the root from which sprang the counts of Louvain, and
Reginald that of the counts of Hainault.
The emperor Othon II., who upheld the authority of his lieutenant,
Godfrey, became convinced that the imperial power was too weak
to resist singly the opposition of the nobles of the country.
He had therefore transferred, about the year 980, the title of
duke to a young prince of the royal house of France; and we thus
see the duchy of Lower Lorraine governed, in the name of the
emperor, by the last two shoots of the branch of Charlemagne,
the dukes Charles and Othon of France, son and grandson of Louis
d'Outremer. The first was a gallant prince: he may be looked on
as the founder of the greatness of Brussels, where he fixed his
residence. After several years of tranquil government, the death
of his brother called him to the throne of France; and from that
time he bravely contended for the crown of his ancestors, against
the usurpation of Hugues Capet, whom he frequently defeated in
battle; but he was at length treacherously surprised and put
to death in 990. Othon, his son, did not signalize his name nor
justify his descent by any memorable action; and in him ingloriously
perished the name of the Carlovingians.
The death of Othon set the emperor and the great vassals once
more in opposition. The German monarch insisted on naming some
creature of his own to the dignity of duke; but Lambert II.,
count of Louvain, and Robert, count of Namur, having married the
sisters of Othon, respectively claimed the right of inheritance
to his title. Baldwin of the comely beard, count of Flanders,
joined himself to their league, hoping to extend his power to
the eastward of the Scheldt. And, in fact, the emperor, as the
only means of disuniting his two powerful vassals, felt himself
obliged to cede Valenciennes and the islands of Zealand to Baldwin.
The imperial power thus lost ground at every struggle.
Amid the confusion of these events, a power well calculated to
rival or even supplant that of the fierce counts was growing
up. Many circumstances were combined to extend and consolidate
the episcopal sway. It is true that the bishops of Tournay had no
temporal authority since the period of their city being ruined by
the Normans. But those of Liege and Utrecht, and more particularly
the latter, had accumulated immense possessions; and their power
being inalienable, they had nothing to fear from the caprices
of sovereign favor, which so often ruined the families of the
aristocracy. Those bishops, who were warriors and huntsmen rather
than ecclesiastics, possessed, however, in addition to the lance
and the sword, the terrible artillery of excommunication and
anathema, which they thundered forth without mercy against every
laic opponent; and when they had, by conquest or treachery, acquired
new dominions and additional store of wealth, they could not
portion it among their children, like the nobles, but it devolved
to their successors, who thus became more and more powerful,
and gained by degrees an authority almost royal, like that of
the ecclesiastical elector of Germany.
Whenever the emperor warred against his lay vassals, he was sure
of assistance from the bishops, because they were at all times
jealous of the power of the counts, and had much less to gain
from an alliance with them than with the imperial despots on
whose donations they throve, and who repaid their efforts by new
privileges and extended possessions. So that when the monarch,
at length, lost the superiority in his contests with the counts,
little was wanting to make his authority be merged altogether in
the overgrown power of these churchmen. Nevertheless, a first
effort of the bishop of Liege to seize on the rights of the count
of Louvain in 1013 met with a signal defeat, in a battle which
took place at the little village of Stongarde. And five years
later, the count of the Friesland marshes (_comes_Frisonum_
_Morsatenorum_) gave a still more severe lesson to the bishop
of Utrecht. This last merits a more particular mention from the
nature of the quarrel and the importance of its results.