IN DAYS OF KNIGHT AND VILLAIN
Many centuries ago, there was fierce fighting in the glorious Meuse
valley, where history seems to have a fancy for repeating itself. Then,
as today, Dinant was a center of events, and it is good to know that the
Belgians are strong and full of courage, as in the days when Cæsar
called them "the bravest of all the Gauls."
When the victorious Roman legions reached this outpost of Gaul, they
found themselves opposed by men of two different races--the fishermen of
the coast and the hunters of the hills and valleys further inland. In
the first shock of battle, it was only the personal bravery of Cæsar
that saved the legionaries from defeat, and eight years of campaigning
were required before the Roman general could report the province
subdued. The warlike tribes of the south were well-nigh destroyed.
Those, on the other hand, who lived on the sand dunes or in hovels
raised on piles above the tides, were more fortunate. Cæsar himself with
five legions finally reduced these men of the swamps to merely nominal
submission.
Transalpine Gaul was, by its conqueror, formed into a single province,
of which the land of the Belgae was the northern part, but under
Augustus it was divided into three provinces, the most distant one named
Belgica. The people of southern Belgica, being nearer to the Roman
civilization of Gaul, lost their primitive customs, their energy and
courage. The people of the north, less under the influence of the
conquerors, kept their love of independence, their frugal, industrious
habits, added trade with England to their fisheries as a means of
livelihood, and developed a strong stock, to which the future growth of
the country was due.
Three hundred years after Cæsar's conquest, the Salian Franks, a
confederacy of German tribes, invaded the country and settled between
the Rhine and the Waal. They were resisted by most of the Gauls but
welcomed by the Menapians of the Belgic coast.
There was, however, no real bond of union between the peaceful,
hard-working people of the lowlands and the warlike Franks. The shore
dwellers north of the Rhine formed with the tribes on the coasts of the
German Ocean the Saxon League, which after a time renewed the warfare
between Frank and Saxon, a warfare destined to endure till the twentieth
century and to be waged then as fiercely as in the fourth. Driven by the
Saxons from the coast districts, the Franks gradually made themselves
masters of southern Belgica and northern Gaul, and the Romanized people
of that section were submerged. Finally, toward the end of the fifth
century, Clovis, King of the Franks, succeeded in extending his rule
over the greater part of Gaul.
At this early date the limits were already sharply marked out of the two
great divisions of Belgium that have persisted until today--Flanders and
the Walloon country. Flanders received continual additions from the
German tribes who, worsted in the struggle with Rome, fled across the
Rhine, and became the land of the Flemings (the "e" at first
pronounced long), or fugitives. Retaining their Teutonic traits, these
kept steadily at their difficult task of winning comfort and
civilization from the hard conditions in which they were placed. Even
today they cling tenaciously to their Flemish tongue, which is a variety
of Low German, differing but little from Dutch.
The Franks of southern Belgica, on the other hand, like their
neighbours in Gaul, became to all intents and purposes, transformed into
French, and adopted for their language not a corrupt French, as we
understand that term, but a dialect of the _langue d'oïl_, the old
Romance tongue which was the speech of Gaul in that age.
The successors of Clovis had many a struggle with the people of the Low
Countries, but gradually the Frankish, or Merovingian, kings yielded to
the Roman luxury that surrounded them and became a race of
"do-nothings." Then arose those mayors of the palace, of whom Pepin of
Heristall, the Belgian, was the father of Charles Martel, the "Hammer"
whose vigorous blows crushed the Saracens and drove them from French
soil.
The year 800 found Charlemagne, mightiest of the Franks, in possession
of the Western Empire. The steady progress of the Netherlands was seen
in the rise of the towns of Bruges, Ghent, Courtrai and Antwerp, not
alone as trading centers but as seats of manufacture. The system of
dikes for the protection of the lowlands from the sea had at that time
been established by the united efforts of all the people of the region,
who had thereby learned in some measure the value of coöperation.
Christianity, introduced in the reign of Clovis, had gained much power.
It is impossible to overestimate the work of monks and nuns, whose
religious houses were at once schools, hospitals, book marts and
universities. Tournai and Liège were the seats of bishops, who were even
more powerful than the counts who played such a great part in the
history of the period.
The count was at first only an officer of the king, not an hereditary
noble, and received as his salary the revenue of the lands which he held
during his term of office. The tenants on these estates were completely
in his power. If he could muster a sufficient force of armed men he
might even defy the king, and thus retain his office for a longer time.
About the middle of the ninth century, Baldwin, a Fleming of great
power, who had defended the coast against the Normans, carried off
Judith, daughter of the French king, Charles the Bald. Much against his
will, Charles was obliged to give his consent to the marriage, and
settled upon Baldwin all the land between the Scheldt and the Somme.
Baldwin, named _Bras-de-fer_ (of the Iron Arm), was thus the first Count
of Flanders. Some authorities consider this the oldest hereditary title
of nobility in Europe. It is borne today by the second son of the King.
Other powerful vassals of this period were the counts of Louvain and
Namur. Still mightier was the Bishop of Liège, who felt himself so
strong that he even made an attempt--unsuccessful, however--to seize the
domain of the Count of Louvain.
Under Baldwin II, son of _Bras-de-fer_, who married the daughter of
Alfred the Great of England, the cities of Bruges, Ghent, Courtrai and
Ypres were fortified, and thus insured the opportunity of becoming the
great mediæval centers of freedom and progress.
After cloth weaving was begun, the first markets were opened at Ghent,
Courtrai and Bruges. The word _kermesse_, the Belgian name for fair or
fête, is linked in an interesting way with these markets of the Middle
Ages. They were called _kerk_ (church) _messe_ (market), because held
around the church or cathedral, and only the inconvenient letter _k_
needed to be dropped out to give the word _kermesse_.
At first sight, the history of the Netherlands from about the tenth
century down to the nineteenth appears a confused and confusing story of
wars and uprisings, of conspiracies and persecutions--count against
bishop, city against city, nobles and even, in one instance, a king,
against the Emperor. But if we look more closely, we discern, three
great forces at work through all the turmoil. These were feudalism, the
Crusades, and the rise of the towns, or _communes_. A fourth influence,
the power of the Church, was closely associated with these, sometimes as
a direct impelling force, sometimes as a guiding or restraining hand,
and again battling for its own temporal power with little more regard
for the well-being of the masses than was manifested by the lay barons
themselves.
[Illustration: COMTE DE FLANDRE, SECOND SON OF KING ALBERT.]
After the break-up of the Roman Empire, when there were no strong
central governments in Europe, when practically the only law was the
will of the strongest, it was inevitable that a vast number of petty
chieftains should gather about them as many followers as possible, both
in order to protect themselves and to plunder others. The ablest of
these, by waging a continual warfare, either killed off many of their
rivals and took possession of their lands, or reduced them to submission
and made them tenants of their own. These tenants held their land only
on condition of furnishing a certain number of men for their lord's wars
and paying certain taxes, later called "aids," for his support. When
this state of society became finally organized as the feudal system,
the king or emperor was the overlord, the counts swore allegiance to
him, the petty nobles and knights were tenants in their turn. By the
twelfth century, the counts and bishops were little kings in their own
domains. They had gradually acquired all the rights of the crown. They
coined money, established markets, acquired the rights of fishing,
hunting, brewing and milling, and collected the tolls. They were vassals
of the king in little more than name.
Below this landed aristocracy were the two classes of villains and
serfs, who led a miserable existence, possessing scarcely one of what we
consider the inalienable rights of man. Both villains and serfs were
slaves, bound to the soil, but the servitude of the latter was hopeless
and irremediable. Serfs must always be serfs. But the villains had the
privilege of earning their freedom.
When Peter the Hermit, a Walloon of the province of Liège, made his
impassioned appeals to Christendom to rescue the Holy Sepulcher from the
Saracen, it was Godfrey of Bouillon, another Walloon, who laid aside his
titles and sold his possessions that he might equip an army for the
conquest of the Holy Land. Godfrey was made "Advocate" of Jerusalem,
and was the first Western ruler of the sacred city. His brother Baldwin
became King of Edessa, in Mesopotamia, and his descendants were kings of
Jerusalem. Next to Godfrey, both as knight and leader, stood Count
Robert of Flanders.
It is told of Philip of Alsace, Count of Flanders, that he challenged
and defeated a mighty Saracen in single combat. The device on his
shield, which Philip bore away as a trophy, was a black lion on a field
of gold. This became the emblem of Flanders.
But Philip of Alsace was noted not alone for his prowess in battle; he
was an enlightened ruler for his age. He resigned the privileges of
"mainmorte" and "half-have." By "mainmorte," if a man died without
leaving direct heirs, his property went to the count. By "half-have,"
half of all the property left by any of his vassals went to the count.
In the year 1200, Baldwin, Count of Hainault and Flanders, led the fifth
crusade. Turning aside from the road to Jerusalem, he captured
Constantinople, and was crowned Emperor in St. Sophia. During the fifty
years that Baldwin and his descendants reigned in Constantinople, ships
from Flanders brought the luxuries of the Orient to Western Europe. Many
cargoes of silks and spices, of linen, damask and carpets, and other
Eastern products, were landed on the wharves of Ghent and Bruges, which
became the greatest centers of European commerce.
The influence of the Crusades upon social progress in Belgium was not
less marked than upon commerce. Shrewd townsmen who furnished their lord
with means to equip his followers exacted in return a pledge of
additional freedom. While the powerful nobles were in the Holy Land,
moreover, their tenants were relieved from their demands, and made
progress in all the arts of life.
When, after the death of Charlemagne, the river Scheldt was made the
boundary of France, to the west of that river lay West Francia, which
became France; to the east stretched Lotharingia, shortened to Lorraine,
the land of Lothaire, a narrow strip separating France and Germany. As
the various counts who possessed the Netherlands grew stronger the Duchy
of Lorraine grew weaker. Flanders especially, under the rule of counts
descended from Baldwin the Iron-Armed, made great progress--lowlands
were protected by dikes, forests were cleared away, and towns were
built. It was easily the most powerful part of Belgium. The Normans,
who for a century had been the terror of the Netherlands, now visited
Flemish towns to dispose of the booty they had won upon the sea, and
Bruges became the chief seat of this trade.
The townspeople of this period fared rather better than those in the
rural districts. Many of the towns had originated as a cluster of
peasants' huts, grouped around a monastery for protection. The
inhabitants were tenants of the abbot, who in time became one of the
powerful lords of the land. But the necessary organization of town life
gave the citizens the habit, to some extent, of working together.
Consequently, when a body of townsmen presented their plea for more
privileges, they were able to obtain better terms than could be gained
by single peasants pleading separately.
So great was the prosperity of the towns that, by the year 1066,
Flanders was able to assist William the Conqueror, who had married
Matilda, daughter of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders, and Flemish knights
fought side by side with the Normans at Hastings. On the famous Bayeux
tapestry--which, however, is not real tapestry--wrought by Matilda, is
pictured the story of the Conquest of England.
Woolen cloths, the work of Flemish weavers, were already famous
throughout Europe, and were carried by the sailors of the Netherlands to
western and southern ports, with the jewelry, corn and salt, also
produced in Flanders.
But the sturdy people of these thriving towns were very jealous of the
fundamental rights which had come down to them from their German
ancestors. A painting by the Belgian artist, Hennebicq, depicts a
landmark in the history of the Netherlands--Baldwin VI, Count of
Flanders, granting a charter of rights to the citizens of Grammont,
whose representatives stand before him with drawn swords. Baldwin, a
kingly, dignified figure, stands on a low platform, his left hand
resting on his sheathed sword, while the townsmen before him swear
allegiance in return for the guarantee of their liberties. The story is
this: Count Baldwin bought the land belonging to one Baron Gerard, and
laid it out as a town, to which the name Grammont was given, meaning
Gerard's Mont, or hill. To the men of this town the Count gave, in 1068,
the first charter of liberties ever granted in Europe. Not until 1215
was England's Magna Charta wrung from King John.
By the charter were granted "(1) individual liberty; (2) the right to
hold, buy, sell, inherit, or devise property; (3) the privilege of
being judged by a tribunal of '_échevins_' (councillors) elected in
accordance with local statutes, of giving evidence and of being exempt
from the judicial ordeals that still obtained throughout Belgium." The
townsmen were also allowed the ownership of the neighbouring forest and
the use of the meadows to pasture their cattle. A single reading of this
summary, while it shows how very elementary were these provisions, yet
makes it plain that this was the germ of those later charters
guaranteeing the fundamental rights of man.
In the words of an eminent writer, the Belgian _commune_ of this period
was essentially "a confederacy of the inhabitants of a town, living
within the gates, who bound themselves by an oath to lend advice and a
helping hand and to be true to one another, mutually and individually."
The most striking prerogatives of this free association, says the same
author, were "(1) a municipal counting-house; (2) a common house, or
town hall; (3) a seal; (4) a belfry (_belfort_ in Flemish), a lofty
tower which contained the town bell, and which ordinarily served as a
prison or a repository for the archives; and (5) an arsenal."
Besides these communal rights, there were individual, property and
judicial rights guaranteed by the charters of the towns, as was
mentioned in connection with the charter of Grammont. Serfs became
freemen. The vexatious _droit de halle_ was done away with, by which all
kinds of goods must be sold in a given place and were subject to heavy
duties. From this came, it is said, those immense _halles_, most of
which were built before the towns received their charters. Henceforward,
justice was to be administered by councillors drawn from the wealthy
burghers and "juries" representing the trade guilds, and fines and
penalties were no longer arbitrary impositions but were fixed by law.
It was this same Baldwin VI who granted the charter of Grammont of whom
the old chroniclers wrote: "He might be seen riding across Flanders with
a falcon or hawk on his wrist; he ordered his bailiffs to carry a white
staff, long and straight, in sign of justice and clemency; no one was
allowed to go out armed; the labourer could sleep without fear with his
doors open, and he could leave his plow in the fields without
apprehension of being robbed."
When the King of France, the nominal overlord of the greater part of
Flanders, interfered in their government in 1071, the citizens quickly
sprang to arms. Their count had died, and the King of France chose to
the vacant place his widow, Richilde, also Countess of Hainault and
Namur in her own right. The nobility and the people of the higher
grounds submitted to this French intervention, but the townsmen of the
lowlands rallied to the banner of Robert the Frisian, brother of their
late count, and inflicting upon those professional soldiers a crushing
defeat, they wrested from the Countess Richilde not only Flanders but
also Namur and Hainault. This battle has come down to us as the victory
of Cassel, in which "street men" showed that they could defend their
freedom.
The Flemish burghers of the twelfth century have the honour of
initiating a mighty forward step in civilization. In every country of
Europe, up to that time, when one man had wronged another the injured
party took justice into his own hands and punished his enemy himself.
The Church had, by the Truce of God, prohibited these blood feuds on
Friday, Saturday and Sunday of every week, and also on certain holy
days, but Philip of Alsace was the first ruler who did away with this
relic of barbarism and ordered that henceforth every man should bring
his quarrel for trial to the juries chosen by the townsmen. The glory
of demanding this reform belongs, however, to the Flemish burghers.
By 1260, the cities of Flanders had become so strong that they dared to
resist their count, and passed from his rule to that of the French king,
whose aid they had sought. Forty years later, they rose against this new
master. The townsmen of Bruges slaughtered the French garrison, and the
following year won the "battle of the spurs" at Courtrai, after which
seven hundred golden spurs were picked up on the field. Early that
morning, twenty thousand artisans of Bruges, in their working dress and
armed with boar-spears or plowshares set in long clubs, received on
their knees the blessing of the Church, raised a bit of Flemish soil to
their lips, kissed it, and vowed to die for their country, then gave
battle to sixty thousand of the steel-clad knights and men-at-arms of
France.
A few years later, Brabant compelled its duke to grant it an assembly
which should transact all legal and judicial business, and should
consist of fourteen deputies, four chosen from the nobles and the other
ten from the people. The towns soon began to join their forces. Brabant
and Flanders formed a sort of union. But the burghers owed allegiance
not to a country but only to a small bit of a country, each to his own
town. Their confederacy was bound together by self-interest alone. Ghent
was jealous of Bruges, and failed to lend assistance when the Brugeois
rebelled against their count. For lack of this support the latter were
crushed.
We speak of the cities of the Netherlands, but in the thirteenth century
they bore little resemblance to the cities of today. They were walled
towns, to be sure, but the walls were generally ramparts of earth with
an outside covering of thick planking. Within the walls the better class
of people lived in low wooden dwellings roofed with thatch, the churches
and the houses of the noblemen and the chief citizens were often built
of stone, but the poor, we may imagine, found shelter in rude mud huts.
The "streets" were usually mere crooked cart tracks, the dumping ground
for the rubbish of the community, in which boards and straw were thrown
down in an effort to bridge the numerous holes and pools of muddy water.
In Bruges and Ghent, as we learn from the ancient records, the principal
streets were paved with stone from the quarries near the Meuse. The
squares were, perhaps, not unlike the "common" of a New England village,
open grassy places in which were pumps--the common source of water
supply for the inhabitants--and drinking troughs for the domestic
animals that were allowed to roam through the streets. There was the
ever present danger of fire in cities so rudely built, and the fires
often became great conflagrations in which whole cities were consumed.
What with the bad roads, the blackness of the unlighted streets, and the
presence in these towns of many ignorant, riotous workmen and seamen
from foreign ports, we can understand that the citizen who sallied forth
without escort for an evening stroll, having only his lantern for
protection, might well be risking his life in a dangerous adventure.
Edward III of England now laid claim to the crown of France. Jacob van
Artevelde, the Brewer of Ghent, rallied the Flemings against the tyranny
of their count, who was supported by France, and threw off his yoke.
Among the petty jealousies and rivalries of that mediæval time, the
Great Brewer--so called only because he was registered in the brewers'
guild--stands out as the lone statesman of his land. (Van Artevelde at
first belonged to the aristocratic clothmakers' guild, and perhaps
changed to that of the brewers in order to ally himself more closely
with the democracy of the city.) His outlook was broader than the narrow
circle of municipal interests. He endeavoured to unite the cities into
one commonwealth, and formed an alliance with Edward. In his first
public utterance he said, "It is necessary for us to be friends with
England, for without her we cannot live." He added, "I do not mean that
we should go to war with France. Our course is to remain neutral."
The combined English and Flemish fleets gained the great naval victory
of Sluys over the French. The Great Brewer was made ruward, or
conservator of the peace, of Flanders, and used his almost kingly power
to strengthen the alliance with England and to favour the trade with
that country. But he was too great a man for his time, and the traders
of his native city were easily stirred by a trumped-up charge that he
was plotting to deliver Flanders to the Black Prince. He met his death
in 1345, at the hands of a mob, before his own doorway.
The confederacy of Flemish towns still held together for a while. They
assisted Edward in the siege and capture of Calais, and when he left
them to their own resources, they compelled their young Count, Louis de
Maele, to recognize their right to govern themselves, and still
maintained their independence of France. The wiles of Louis and the
fierce hatred between Gantois and Brugeois once more plunged the
countship into a state of anarchy, and Ghent, in danger of starvation,
turned in despair to Philip van Artevelde, son of the Great Brewer. He
led his fellow-townsmen against the Count's forces, and took the town of
Bruges. But Charles VI of France came with a large army to punish the
rebels of Ghent, and in the battle of Roosbeke, in 1382, completely
crushed them. Philip van Artevelde was among the slain. Two years later,
by the death of Louis de Maele, Flanders passed to Philip the Bold, Duke
of Burgundy, who had married Louis' daughter.
In the period between the two Arteveldes, the Joyous Entry became the
bulwark of the liberties of Brabant and afterward of the whole country.
Duke John III of Brabant summoned to Louvain, in 1354, representatives
of all the cities of Brabant and Limburg, and, announcing the marriage
of his daughter Johanna and Wenzel of Luxembourg, asked that they might
be confirmed as rulers of the duchy after his death. The delegates were
shrewd traders. They granted his request only in consideration of a
corresponding grant on his part of a liberal charter to Brabant. The
Joyous Entry became the title of the charter because it was not
proclaimed until Johanna and Wenzel made their entrance into Brussels
with great pomp and ceremony and took a solemn oath to carry out its
provisions. Down to Leopold II every succeeding ruler was obliged to
swear conformity to this famous document.