not only the modern Belgian provinces of _East_ and _West Flanders_, but
also _French Flanders_, that is to say the Department of the _Nord_ and
part of the _Pas de Calais_. As early as the Treaty of Verdun (843), the
land of Flanders was assigned to Neustria. But the county, as we know
it, really grew up from the possessions of a noble family at Bruges and
Sluys, the head of which was originally known as Forester or Ranger. In
862, the King of France, as suzerain, changed this title to that of
Count, in the person of Baldwin Bras-de-Fer (Baldwin I.). Baldwin was
also invested with the charge of the neighbouring coast of France
proper, on tenure of defending it against the Norman pirates. In 1006,
his descendant, Baldwin IV., seized the Emperor’s town of Valenciennes;
and having shown his ability to keep his booty, he was invested by the
Franconian Henry II. with this district as a fief, so that he thus
became a feudatory both of France and of the Empire. He was also
presented with Ghent and the Isles of Zealand. Baldwin V. (1036) added
to the growing principality the districts of Alost, Tournai, and
Hainault. The petty dynastic quarrels of the 11th century are far too
intricate for record here; in the end, the domains of the Counts were
approximately restricted to what we now know as Flanders proper. A bare
list of names and dates must suffice for this epoch:—Baldwin V.
(1036-1067); Baldwin VI. (1067-1070); Robert II. (1093-1111); and
Baldwin VII. (1111-1119).
After this date, the native line having become extinct, the county was
held by =foreign elective princes=, under whom the power of the towns
increased greatly. Among these alien Counts, the most distinguished was
Theodoric (in French, Thierry; in German, Dietrich; or in Dutch,
Dierick) of Alsace, who was a distinguished Crusader, and the founder of
the Chapel of the Holy Blood at Bruges (which see).
Under Baldwin of Hainault (1191-1194) Artois was ceded to France,
together with St. Omer and Hesdin. Henceforth, =Ghent= superseded Arras
as =the capital=. Baldwin IX. (1194-1206) became a mighty Crusader, and
founded the Latin Empire of Constantinople. Indeed, the Crusades were
largely manned and managed by Flemings. He was followed in Flanders by
his two daughters, Johanna and Margaret, under whose rule the cities
gained still greater privileges. Margaret’s son, Guy de Dampierre, was
the creature of Philippe IV. of France, who endeavoured to rule Flanders
through his minister, Châtillon. The Flemings answered by just revolt,
and fought the famous Battle of the Spurs near Courtrai, already
described, against the French interlopers (see Bruges). In 1322, Louis
de Nevers (Louis I.) became Count, and provoked by his Gallicising and
despotic tendencies the formidable rebellion under Van Artevelde (see
Ghent). The quarrel between the league of burghers and their lord
continued more or less during the reigns of Count Louis II. (1346) and
Louis III., who died in 1385, leaving one daughter, Margaret, married to
Philip the Bold (Philippe-le-Hardi) of Burgundy.
The political revolution caused in Flanders and Brabant by the accession
of the =Burgundian dynasty= was so deep-reaching that a few words must
be devoted to the origin and rise of this powerful family, a branch of
the royal Valois of France. The old Kingdom of Burgundy had of course
been long extinct; but its name was inherited by two distinct
principalities, the _Duchy of Burgundy_, which formed part of France,
and the _County of Burgundy_ (Franche Comté), which was a fief of the
Empire. In the 14th century, a new middle kingdom, like the earlier
Lotharingia, seemed likely to arise by the sudden growth of a
practically independent power in this debateable land between France and
Germany. In 1361, the _Duchy_ of Burgundy fell in to the crown of
France; and in order, as he thought, to secure its union with the
central authority, John the Good of France (Jean-le-Bon), during the
troublous times after the Treaty of Bretigny, conferred it as a fief
upon his son, Philippe de Valois (=Philip the Bold=, or
Philippe-le-Hardi) who married Margaret of Flanders, thus uniting two of
the greatest vassal principalities of the French crown. In 1385, on the
death of Louis III., Philip succeeded to the County of Flanders, now
practically almost an independent state. After him reigned three other
princes of his family. John the Fearless (Jean-sans-Peur, 1404-1419)
will be remembered by visitors to Paris as the builder of the Porte
Rouge at Notre-Dame de Paris. Philip the Good (Philippe-le-Bon,
1419-1467) was the patron of Van Eyck and Memling. (His portrait by
Roger van der Weyden is in the Antwerp Gallery.) Charles the Bold
(Charles-le-Téméraire, 1467-1477) raised the power of the house to its
utmost pitch, and then destroyed it. (His portrait by Memling is in the
Brussels Gallery.) Contrary, however, to the belief of John the Good,
the princes of the Valois dynasty in Burgundy, instead of remaining
loyal to the crown of France, became some of its most dangerous and
dreaded rivals.
All these Dukes, as French princes, played at the same time an important
part in the affairs of France. They also won, by marriage, by purchase,
by treaty, or by conquest, large territories within the Empire,
including most of modern Belgium and Holland, together with much that is
now part of France. They were thus, like their Flemish predecessors,
vassals at once of the Emperor and the French king; but they were really
=more powerful than either of their nominal over-lords=; for their
central position between the two jealous neighbours gave them great
advantages, while their possession of the wealthy cities of the Low
Countries made them into the richest princes in mediæval Europe. It was
at their opulent and ostentatious court that Van Eyck and Memling
painted the gorgeous pictures which still preserve for us some vague
memory of this old-world splendour. At the same time, the increased
power of the princes, who could draw upon their other dominions to
suppress risings in Flanders, told unfavourably upon the liberties of
the cities. The Burgundian dominion thus sowed the seeds of the Spanish
despotism.
Jean-sans-Peur was murdered by the Dauphin, afterwards Charles VII.; and
this cousinly crime threw his son, Philippe-le-Bon, into the arms of the
English. It was the policy of Burgundy and Flanders, indeed, to weaken
the royal power by all possible means. Philip supported the English
cause in France for many years; and it was his defection, after the
Treaty of Arras in 1435, that destroyed the chances of Henry VI. on the
Continent. The reign of Philippe-le-Bon, we saw, was the Augustan age of
the Burgundian dynasty. (Fully to understand Burgundian art, however,
you must visit Dijon as well as Brabant and Flanders.) Under =Charles
the Bold=, the most ambitious prince of the Burgundian house, the power
of the Dukes was raised for a time to its highest pitch, and then began
to collapse suddenly. A constant rivalry existed between Charles and his
nominal suzerain, Louis XI. It was Charles’s dream to restore or
re-create the old Burgundian kingdom by annexing Lorraine, with its
capital, Nancy, and conquering the rising Swiss Confederacy. He would
thus have consolidated his dominions in the Netherlands with his
discontinuous Duchy and County of Burgundy. He had even designs upon
Provence, then as yet an independent county. Louis XI. met these
attempts to create a rival state by a policy of stirring up enemies
against his too powerful feudatory. In his war with the Swiss, Charles
was signally defeated in the decisive battles at Granson and Morat, in
1476. In the succeeding year, he was routed and killed at Nancy, whither
the Swiss had gone to help René, Duke of Lorraine, in his effort to win
back his Duchy from Charles. The conquered Duke was buried at Nancy, but
his body was afterwards brought to Bruges by his descendant, the Emperor
Charles V., and now reposes in the splendid tomb which we have seen at
Notre-Dame in that city.
This war had important results. It largely broke down the power of
Burgundy. Charles’s daughter, =Mary=, kept the Low Countries and the
_County_ of Burgundy (Imperial); but the _Duchy_ (French) reverted to
the crown of France, with which it was ever after associated. The scheme
of a great Middle Kingdom thus came to an end; and the destinies of the
Low Countries were entirely altered.
We have next to consider the dynastic events by which the Low Countries
passed under the rule of the =House of Hapsburg=. In 1477, Mary of
Burgundy succeeded her father Charles as Countess of Flanders, Duchess
of Brabant, etc. In the same year she was married to =Maximilian of
Austria=, King of the Romans, son of the Emperor Frederic III. (or IV.).
Maximilian was afterwards elected Emperor on his father’s death. The
children of this marriage were Philip the Handsome (Philippe-le-Beau, or
le-Bel; Philippus Stok), who died in 1506, and Margaret of Austria.
Philip, again, married Johanna (Juana) the Mad, of Castile, and thus
became King of Castile, in right of his wife. The various steps by which
these different sovereignties were cumulated in the person of Philip’s
son, Charles V., are so important to a proper comprehension of the
subject that I venture to tabulate them.
Frederic III. (or IV.) Charles the Bold.
ǁ ǁ
Ferdinand = Isabella Maximilian = Mary
(of Aragon) ǁ (of Castile) (of Austria) ǁ (of Burgundy)
ǁ ǁ
Johanna the Mad = Philippe-le-Beau
(of Spain) ǁ (of Burgundy and Austria)
ǁ
Charles V.
During the lifetime of Maximilian, who was afterwards Emperor, Mary, and
her son =Philippe-le-Beau=, ruled at first in the Low Countries (for the
quarrel between Maximilian and Bruges over the tutorship of Philippe,
see p. 27). After the death of Isabella of Castile, Ferdinand retired to
Aragon, and Philippe ruled Castile on behalf of his insane wife, Juana.
Philippe died in 1506, and his sister, Margaret of Austria, then ruled
as Regent in the Netherlands (for Charles) till her death in 1530.
Charles V., born at Ghent in 1500, was elected to the Empire after his
grandfather, Maximilian I., and thus became at once Emperor, King of
Spain, Duke of Austria, and ruler of the Low Countries. (In 1516 he
succeeded Ferdinand in the Kingdom of Spain, and in 1519 was elected
Emperor.)
The same series of events carried the Netherlands, quite accidentally,
under =Spanish rule=. For Charles was an absolutist, who governed on
essentially despotic principles. His conduct towards Ghent in 1539
brought affairs to a crisis. The Emperor, in pursuance of his plans
against France, had demanded an enormous subsidy from the city, which
the burgesses constitutionally refused to grant, meeting the unjust
extortion by open rebellion. They even entered into negotiations with
François I^{er}; who, however, with the base instinct of a brother
absolutist, betrayed their secret to his enemy the Emperor. Charles
actually obtained leave from François to march a Spanish army through
France to punish the Flemings, and arrived with a powerful force before
the rebellious city. The Ghenters demanded pardon; but Charles, deeply
incensed, entered the town under arms, and took up his abode there in
triumph. Alva, his ruthless Spanish commander (portrait in the Brussels
Gallery), suggested that the town should be utterly destroyed; but the
Emperor could not afford to part with his richest and most populous
city, nor could even he endure to destroy his birth-place. He contented
himself with a terrible vengeance, beheading the ringleaders, banishing
the minor patriots, and forfeiting the goods of all suspected persons.
The city was declared guilty of _lèse-majesté_, and the town
magistrates, with the chiefs of the Guilds, were compelled to appear
before Charles with halters round their necks, and to beg for pardon.
The Emperor also ordered that no magistrate of Ghent should ever
thenceforth appear in public without a halter, a badge which became with
time a mere silken decoration. The privileges of the city were at the
same time abolished, and the famous old bell, Roland, was removed from
the Belfry.
Thenceforth Charles treated the Netherlands as =a conquered Spanish
territory=. He dissolved the monastery of St. Bavon, and erected on its
site the great Citadel, which he garrisoned with Spaniards, to repress
the native love of liberty of the Flemings (see Ghent). In subsequent
risings of the Low Countries, the Spaniards’ Castle, the stronghold of
the alien force, was the first point to be attacked; and on it depended
the issue of freedom or slavery in the Netherlands. Charles also
established the Inquisition, which is said to have put to death no fewer
than 100,000 persons.
In 1555, the Emperor abdicated in favour of his son Philip, known as
=Philip II. of Spain=. But his brother Ferdinand, to whom he had
resigned his Austrian dominions, was elected Emperor (having been
already King of the Romans) as Ferdinand I. From his time forth, the
Empire became more exclusively German, so that its connexion with Rome
was almost forgotten save as a historic myth, degenerating into the mere
legal fiction of a Holy Roman Empire, with nothing Roman in it. Thus,
the Netherlands alone of the earlier Burgundian heritage remained in the
holding of the Austrian kings of Spain, who ruled them nominally as
native sovereigns, but practically as Spaniards and aliens by means of
imported military garrisons.
Philip II.—austere, narrow, domineering, fanatical—remained only four
years in the Netherlands, and then retired to Spain, appointing his
half-sister, =Margaret of Parma= (illegitimate daughter of Charles V.),
regent of the Low Countries (1559-1567). She resided in the Ancienne
Cour at Brussels. Her minister, Granvella, Bishop of Arras, made himself
so unpopular, and the measures taken against the Protestants were so
severe, that the cities, ever the strongholds of liberty, showed signs
of revolution. They objected to the illegal maintenance of a Spanish
standing army, and also to the Inquisition. In April, 1567, as a
consequence of the discontents, the =Duke of Alva= was sent with 10,000
men as lieutenant-general to the Netherlands, to suppress what was known
as the Beggars’ League (Les Gueux), now practically headed by the Prince
of Orange (William the Silent). Alva entered Brussels with his Spanish
and Italian mercenaries and treacherously seized his two suspected
antagonists, Count Egmont and Count Hoorn. The patriotic noblemen were
imprisoned at Ghent, in the Spaniards’ Castle, were condemned to death,
and finally beheaded in the Grand’ Place at Brussels. (For fuller
details of the great revolutionary movement thus inaugurated, see
Motley’s _Rise of the Dutch Republic_, and Juste’s _Le Comté d’Egmont et
le Comté de Hornes_.) Alva also established in Brussels his infamous
“Council of Troubles,” which put to death in cold blood no less than
20,000 inoffensive burghers. His cold and impassive cruelty led to the
=Revolt of the United Provinces= in 1568—a general movement of all the
Spanish Netherlands (as they now began to be called) to throw off the
hateful yoke of Spain. Under the able leadership of William of Orange,
the Flemings besieged and reduced the Spaniards’ Castle at Ghent. In the
deadly struggle for freedom which ensued, the Northern Provinces
(Holland), aided by their great natural advantages for defence among the
flooded marshes of the Rhine delta, succeeded in casting off their
allegiance to Philip. They were then known as the United Netherlands.
The long and heroic contest of the Southern Provinces (Belgium) against
the Spanish oppressor was not equally successful. A desperate struggle
for liberty met with little result, and the Spanish sovereigns continued
to govern their Belgian dominions like a conquered country. In 1578,
Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma (son of Margaret), was sent as
Governor to the Netherlands, where he remained in power till 1596. In
the prosecution of the war against the Northern Provinces (Holland) he
besieged Antwerp, and took it after fourteen months in 1585. In the
“Spanish Fury” which followed, Antwerp was almost destroyed, and all its
noblest buildings ruined. Nevertheless, under Parma’s rule, the other
cities recovered to a certain extent their municipal freedom; though the
country as a whole was still treated as a vanquished province.
The next great landmark of Belgian history is the passage of the Spanish
Netherlands under =Austrian rule=. The first indefinite steps towards
this revolution were taken in 1598, when Philip II. ceded the country as
a fief to his daughter the Infanta Isabella (Clara Isabella Eugenia) on
her marriage with Albert, Archduke of Austria, who held the provinces as
the Spanish Governor. (Portraits of Albert and Isabella by Rubens in the
Brussels Gallery.) The new rulers made the country feel to a certain
extent that it was no longer treated as a mere disobedient Spanish
appanage. After the troubles of the Revolt, and the cruel destruction of
Antwerp by Parma, trade and manufactures began to revive. Albert and
Isabella were strongly Catholic in sentiment; and it was under their
_régime_ that the greater part of the rococo churches of Antwerp and
other cities were built, in the showy but debased taste of the period,
and decorated with large and brilliantly-coloured altar-pieces. They
also induced Rubens to settle in the Netherlands, appointed him Court
painter, and allowed him to live at Antwerp, where the trade of the Low
Countries was still largely concentrated. During their vice-royalty,
however, Brussels became more than ever the recognised capital of the
country, and the seat of the aristocracy.
After Albert’s death in 1621, the Netherlands =reverted to Spain=, and a
dull period, without either art or real local history, supervened,
though the wars of the 17th and 18th centuries were in great part fought
out over these unfortunate provinces, “the cockpit of Europe.” The
campaigns of Marlborough and Prince Eugene are too well-known as part of
English and European history to need recapitulation here. At the end of
the =War of the Spanish Succession=, the Peace of Rastadt, in 1714,
assigned the Spanish Netherlands to =Austria=, thus entailing upon the
unhappy country another hundred years of foreign domination.
Nevertheless, the =Austrian Netherlands=, as they were thenceforth
called (in contradistinction to the “United Netherlands” or Holland),
were on the whole tolerably well governed by the Austrian Stadtholders,
who held their court at Brussels, and who were usually relations of the
Imperial family. Few memorials, however, of Maria Theresa, of Joseph
II., or of Léopold II. now exist in Belgium, and those few are not
remarkable for beauty. It was during this relatively peaceful and
law-abiding time, on the other hand, that the Upper Town of Brussels was
laid out in its existing form by Guimard. As a whole, the Belgian
provinces were probably better governed under Austrian rule than under
any other _régime_ up to the period of the existing independent and
national monarchy.
The =French Revolutionists= invaded Belgium in 1794, and committed great
havoc among historical buildings at Bruges and elsewhere. Indeed, they
did more harm to the arts of the Netherlands than anybody else, except
the Spaniards and the modern “restorers.” They also divided Belgium into
nine departments; and Napoleon half sneeringly, half cynically,
justified the annexation on the ground that the Low Countries were the
alluvial deposit of French rivers. The Belgian States formed part of
Napoleon’s composite empire till 1814, when these Southern Provinces
were assigned by the Treaty of London to Holland. In 1815, during the
Hundred Days, the Allied Armies had their headquarters at Brussels, and
the decisive battle against Napoleon was fought at Waterloo. The
Congress of Vienna once more affirmed the union of Belgium with Holland;
they remained as one kingdom till the first revolutionary period in
1830. The Southern Provinces then successfully seceded from the Dutch
monarchy: indeed, the attempted fusion of semi-French and Catholic
Belgium with purely Teutonic and Protestant Holland was one of those
foredoomed failures so dear to diplomacy. A National Congress elected
Léopold of Saxe-Coburg as _King of the Belgians_ (Roi des Belges), and
the crown is now held by his son, Léopold II. For nearly seventy years
Belgium has thus enjoyed, for the first time in its history, an
independent and relatively popular government of its own choosing. The
development of its iron and coal industries during this epoch has vastly
increased its wealth and importance; while the rise of Antwerp as a
great European port has also done much to develop its resources. At the
present day Belgium ranks as one of the most thickly populated, richest,
and on the whole most liberal-minded countries of Europe. Its neutrality
is assured by the Treaty of London, and its army exists only to repel
invasion in case that neutrality should ever be violated.
I N D E X
Académie des Beaux-Arts, 46.
Adoration of the Lamb, The, 81-88.
Adoration of the Magi, The, 41, 201.
Alva, Duke of, 124, 225.
Antiquities, 48, 96.
Antwerp, 164-215.
Armour, Collection of, 150.
Assumption, The, 173.
Austrian Netherlands, The, 227.
Battle of the Spurs, 67.
Béguinages, 45, 32.
Belfries, 25, 70.
Bol, 134, 137.
Boulevards, 149.
Bouts, Dierick, 52, 116, 120, 161, 162.
Brabo, Legend of, 206.
Bruges, 22-64.
Brussels, 98-163.
Burgundy, Dukes of, 18, 219-222.
Cathedrals, 49-53, 77-89, 138-145, 163, 168-176.
Caxton, 214.
Charles I., of England, 89.
Charles II., of England, 27, 47.
Charles V., Emperor, 96, 97, 223.
Charles the Bold, 55, 221.
Chimney-piece, 32.
Christ à la Paille, The, 199.
Colard Mansion, 24, 46.
Cologne, School of, 17, 173.
Counts of Flanders, 17.
Coup de Lance, The, 198.
Cranach, 123.
Crucifixion, The, 202.
De Crayer, 133.
Descent from the Cross, The, 171.
De Vos, 197, 199.
Education of the Virgin, The, 200.
Edward III., of England, 67.
Egmont, Count, 147, 225.
Elevation of the Cross, The, 175.
Entombment, The, 192.
Ethnographical Museum, 150.
Flanders, History of, 217-219.
Fountain, 206.
French Revolution in Belgium, 227.
Gateways, 47, 74, 75, 150.
Gerard David, 30, 62, 63.
Gerard Dou, 134.
Ghent, 66-97.
Godfrey de Bouillon, 146.
Gossaert, 108.
Guild Halls, 47, 74, 102, 206.
Guimard, 148.
Hals, Frans, 135, 136, 203.
Hand of Antwerp, 206.
Hanseatic League, 14, 15, 22, 209.
Hobbema, 134.
Holbein the Younger, 112, 182.
Hondecoeter, 136.
Hoorn, Count, 147, 225.
Hôtels-de-Ville, 28, 71, 100, 158, 205.
Italian Pictures, 137, 138.
John of Gaunt, 75, 91.
Jordaens, 127.
Laeken, 156.
Lamb, The Adoration of the, 81-88.
Leys, 204, 206.
Louvain, 156-163.
Lucas van Leyden, 189.
Mabuse, 108, 182.
Maes, Nicolas, 133, 134.
Magi, Adoration of the, 41, 201.
Malines, 163.
Mary of Burgundy, 18, 33, 55.
Matsys, Quentin, 122, 169, 181, 184, 192.
Memling, 35, 38-44, 69, 117, 118, 182, 185, 188, 191.
Michael Angelo, 56.
Modern Belgian Pictures, 147, 204.
Moretus, 173, 207.
Orange, William of, 225.
Palais de Justice, The, 32, 148.
Parma, Duke of, 225.
Parma, Margaret of, 224.
Perugino, 138.
Philip II., 224.
Plantin-Moretus Museum, 207.
Pourbus, Peter, 50.
Rembrandt, 136, 203.
Rood-Loft, 161.
Rubens, 88, 128, 129, 131, 171, 173, 175, 177, 178, 195, 198-202, 213,
215.
Ruysdael, 134, 204.
St. Bavon, Legend of, 77.
Ste. Gudule, Legend of, 138.
Ste. Ursula, Legend of, 36, 37.
Spaniards’ Castle, The, 91.
Spanish Rule in Flanders, 222-226.
Steen, Jan, 136, 137.
Teniers, 129.
Ter Burg, 135.
Titian, 193.
Tombs, 53, 93, 153, 173, 213.
Tournai, 216.
Town Halls, 28, 71, 100, 158, 205.
Universities, 157, 163.
Van Arteveldes, The, 67, 68, 76.
Van der Weyden, Roger, 110, 118, 160, 182, 186.
Van Dyck, 130, 196, 198, 202.
Van Eyck, Hubert, 78, 81-88, 167.
Van Eyck, Jan, 34, 59, 60, 78, 81-88, 182, 185, 187.
Van Orley, Bernard, 111, 126.
Van Ostade, 204.
Van Veen, Otto, 198, 201.
Veronese, 138.
Waghemakere, 72, 169.
Waterloo, 156.
Well, with canopy, 169.
Wiertz, 151.
Zoological Gardens, 210.
Butler & Tanner. The Selwood Printing Works, Frome and London.
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in punctuation have been maintained.
Some illustrations were moved to facilitate page layout.