_Dierick of Alsace and the Precious Blood_
It was to the cities and to the people of Flanders that Dierick of
Alsace owed his crown. When Ivan of Alost and Daniel of Termonde
renounced their homage to William Cliton, they did so in the name of the
burghers of Ghent. When Louis interposed on behalf of his kinsman, it
was the burghers of Bruges who hurled back the proud reply,--'Be it
known to the King and to all princes and peoples, and to their posterity
throughout all time, that the King of France hath no part in the
election of a Count of Flanders.'
When William persuaded Archbishop Simon to lay Ghent and Bruges under
interdict, it was owing to the fear inspired by the people that 'no
clerk was found hardy enough to proclaim it,' and when Dierick repaid
him in his own coin by sentence of excommunication, the bolt was hurled
by all the clergy of Bruges, assembled together in the Church of Notre
Dame, in the presence of all the burghers.
The triumph of Dierick then meant the triumph of the people, the triumph
of liberty, the triumph of nationalism as opposed to the centralizing
and imperialist ideals of France. In a word, the triumph of all that was
good in the great cause for which Bertulph and his comrades had died.
The new Count was a Fleming of the Flemings. He had been brought up
amongst them; their habits and customs were familiar to him, his speech
was their speech, his thoughts were their thoughts, and his ways were
their ways. 'Men called him wise,' says an ancient chronicler, 'and he
was all his life kindly, upright, loyal, brave, and great withal in the
art of governing men.' Indeed, his whole career shows what skill and
tact he possessed alike in conciliating the goodwill of his own
opponents and in settling the disputes of others.
As early as May 31, Arnulph of Denmark resigned his claims in his favour
(_see_ Wegener, note on p. 169), later on he purchased the acquiescence
of another rival, Baldwin of Mons, by giving him his daughter to wife.
Even William of Ypres in the end acknowledged his right to the throne,
and was content to end his days obscurely as simple Lord of Löo. His
first act as prince was to bring about peace between the Isegrins and
the free landholders of the seaboard, and by his reconciliation with
Hacket, whom he again reinstated in the châtelaincy of Bruges, the legal
right of the Karls under his jurisdiction to the title of freemen was
publicly acknowledged. Henceforth, until the Revolution, they were the
_Francq Hostes_ or _Francons_ of the Liberty of Bruges. At his
coronation, Dierick had solemnly sworn to respect the lawful rights and
liberties of all his subjects, and he loyally kept his word. Throughout
his long reign of forty years he always showed himself a good friend to
commerce, a staunch upholder of popular institutions, and a generous
supporter of the down-trodden and the oppressed. To him, says a Flemish
writer, the greater number of the communes of Flanders are indebted
alike for their origin and their development. During his reign were
inscribed in the charters of the Flemish cities the germs of those
rights and liberties which are to-day guaranteed by the Belgian
Constitution.
Like all good and wise men of his day, Dierick was profoundly impressed
with the truths of Christianity, and after the manner of his age, he on
more than one occasion took up the sword of the Crusader. On his return
from one of these expeditions, he brought back with him to Bruges a
treasure which has had no little influence on the architectural, and
artistic, and religious development of the city; a vial of dark,
ruby-coloured fluid, which tradition said was some of the water in which
Joseph of Arimathea had once washed the blood-stained body of Christ.
The early history of this precious memorial of Our Lord's Passion is
veiled in mystery, but from the day when Dierick of Alsace brought the
famous relic to Bruges the thread of its story is unbroken. The
circumstances which led to his possession of it are well known. It was
the time of the second Crusade. Dierick, roused perhaps by the preaching
of St. Bernard at Furnes, or possibly moved thereto by reason of his
kinship with Baldwin, King of Jerusalem--they had married two
sisters--resolved to serve under the banner of the Cross, and in the
month of June 1147, along with the Emperor Conrad and Louis VII. of
France, set out for Palestine; but the campaign was almost barren of
results. What with the perfidy of the Greeks, and the pettiness and
jealousy of the European leaders, it could hardly have been otherwise.
The little that had been accomplished, however, was due to the courage
and perseverance of Dierick, and by way of recompense King Baldwin
bestowed on him the relic in question.
It was enclosed in a tube of crystal, with chains of silver and stoppers
of gold, and Dierick received the gift on his knees from the hands of
the Patriarch of
[Illustration: Hôtel de Ville and the Chapel of the Holy Blood]
Jerusalem, but he said that a rough soldier like himself was not fit to
be the bearer of so holy a thing, and hung it round the neck of his
chaplain, Leo of St. Omer, who never parted with it, night or day, until
on the evening of April 7, 1150, he returned with the Count to Bruges.
Then, with much solemn pomp, the relic was consigned to the Court
chaplains, who placed it in the old chapel which Baldwin of the Iron
Hand had built, adjoining his palace in the Bourg, where it still
remains, and is still preserved in the same crystal vial in which
Dierick of Alsace received it. The burghers of Bruges have on more than
one occasion been near losing their much-prized treasure, but somehow or
other it has always come back to them.
During the troubles with Ghent in the days of Van Artevelde, the relic
was one May morning being carried in solemn procession round the
ramparts. Presently the band of monks and friars encountered a band of
soldiers; the two processions became entangled, and during the confusion
some one cried out, 'the Ghenters are upon us.' Panic followed, and when
the panic was over the relic had disappeared. Three days later some nuns
from the Beguinage saw something shining at the bottom of the stream
which runs through their cloister. It was the reliquary of the Holy
Blood. Then again, during the troublous times which closed the fifteen
hundreds, when Calvinism triumphant held the town, and churches and
monasteries were sacked, it was only through the prudence of Juan de
Malvenda that the precious treasure was saved. Malvenda, who was one of
the church-wardens of St. Basil's, secretly conveyed the relic to his
own house--an old-fashioned, red-brick turreted mansion, still standing
in the rue _aux Laines_ (No. 18), where he concealed it in the cellar
till the storm had passed. Again, for over twenty years, from October
13, 1799, till April 20, 1819, the relic was hidden in the houses of
various citizens, in order to preserve it from the fanaticism of the
Jacobins. For the same reason the annual procession on the Feast of the
Precious Blood had to be discontinued, and it was only resumed in 1819.
This procession was first instituted in 1303, in memory of the
deliverance of the town from the French by Breidel and De Coninck. At
first it was of a grave and solemn character, the faithful of both sexes
following chanting litanies and psalms. Little by little it grew
spectacular. In 1395 the apostles and evangelists were introduced, the
next year King Herod and his Court, in 1405 the Nativity, the tree of
Jesse, and so forth. At length, in the fifteen hundreds, the profane and
the sacred were mingled together, giants, clowns, jugglers followed, the
corporation of Bruges thinking by this means to give the procession a
popular character, and thus to draw visitors to their town.
The great procession of the Holy Blood has long since resumed its
decorum, and thousands of strangers from all parts of Europe annually
throng the town to witness it.
Like the Sainte Chapelle at Paris, and the old city church of St.
Etheldreda (Holborn), the Sanctuary of the Precious Blood at Bruges
consists in reality of two distinct churches, one set over the other.
The lower storey, dedicated to St. Basil, was founded, as we have seen,
by Baldwin, Bras de Fer, and is in all probability the most ancient
building in the city. There can be little doubt that this chapel was
originally the private oratory of the Counts of Flanders, adjoining
their primitive palace. The four great columns which support the vault,
the western and southern walls, and the annex, erroneously called the
Baptistry Chapel, with the adjoining buildings,
[Illustration: The Minne Water Bridge and Round Tower]
none of which were originally included in the chapel but formed part of
the Count's palace--these are the oldest portions of this most
interesting structure. In 1095 Count Robert of Jerusalem, on his return
from the Holy Land, placed here the relics of St. Basil which he had
brought with him from Cæsarea in Cappadocia; hence the dedication. Later
on, his nephew, Dierick of Alsace, in gratitude for some marvellous
answer to prayer obtained through the intercession of the saint,
restored and embellished the church; hence the erroneous tradition which
makes him its founder.
Such as Dierick left St. Basil's in 1150, so it is to-day. It has
recently been carefully and conscientiously restored, and it is perhaps
the most beautiful and perfect specimen of Romanesque architecture in
Flanders. During the work of restoration, when the pavement was renewed,
an interesting discovery was made:--the vault in which had lain, since
1412, the mortal remains of Ian Van Oudenaerde, the architect who
restored the belfry in 1396 or thereabouts, and who added the four
beautiful turrets at the angles of its second storey. The _Porte de Ste.
Croix_ and the _Porte de Gand_ are also his work, as well as the massive
round tower at the head of the Minne Water. The nave of St. Basil's has
from time immemorial been known as the Masons' Chapel. Here, until the
Revolution, the members of the Guild of Masons were wont to perform
their devotions and to celebrate annually, with great pomp, the feasts
of their patron saints, and it was doubtless on this account that Ian
Van Oudenaerde, that great Master Mason, was laid to rest in St.
Basil's.
The upper chapel, which is probably the place where Dierick enshrined
his priceless relic, was almost entirely rebuilt towards the close of
the fourteen hundreds, and of the original Romanesque structure little
now remains save the two round-headed bays which separate the naves. The
work of reconstruction was not yet finished in 1482, but as during the
following year the first stained window was put in, it would seem that
it was at this time approaching completion.
Both the upper and lower chapel suffered much during the religious
troubles under Philip II., and again at the time of the French
Revolution. Indeed, when the _Septembriseurs_ had sated their fury on
the old building, there was little left but the bare walls, and into
such a state of decay had it fallen that when Napoleon visited Bruges in
1810, the civic authorities were thinking of pulling it down.
[Illustration: Crypt of the Chapel du Saint Sang]
'That,' said the Emperor, 'shall never be,' when the question was mooted
in his presence. 'When I look at those graceful minarets, I fancy myself
in Egypt. To destroy a monument like that would be a sin crying for
vengeance.' Thus the old church was saved. Presently it was restored to
public worship, for from the time of the riots until 1818 the lower
chapel had been used by the police as a prison for drunken and
disorderly persons, and a place in which to confine stray
[Illustration: PORCH OF THE CHAPEL OF ST. BASIL]
dogs, and during the same period the upper chapel, roofless, windowless,
a veritable wreck, had served no purpose whatever. The present elaborate
scheme of decoration was carried out in 1856 from the designs of two
English architects, William Brangwyn and Thomas Harper King, and the old
church is now gorgeous with colour and gold. But though the general
effect is on the whole pleasing, the details are not happy. Thanks to
the late Baron Béthune's _Lucas Schoolen_, native artists could by this
time do something better, and it is much to be desired that the wealthy
confraternity of the Holy Blood would undertake the redecoration of
their chapel. The lower sanctuary was restored only two years ago and,
as we have already noted, most successfully.
_La Noble Confrérie du Précieux Sang_ consists of a provost and thirty
titular members, all of whom must be Flemings of noble, or, as we should
say, gentle birth, in memory of Count Dierick and the thirty Flemish
knights who in 1150 brought the precious relic to Bruges. In addition to
these there are a certain number of honorary members of other
nationalities, for the most part great ecclesiastics, amongst them Pope
Leo XIII., whose name was enrolled in the 'golden Register' on May 5,
1844, at which time he was Nuncio to the Court at Brussels. In addition
to these, some thousands of persons of every nationality and of all
classes are united to the confraternity under the title of affiliated
members.
The management of the confraternity, the churches, and all that
appertains thereto, is entirely in the hands of the provost and titular
members, who are laymen, but other members, of whatsoever degree,
participate equally in the Masses and devotions which are celebrated in
the Chapel of the Precious Blood.
We are indebted for the above details to the kindness of Canon Louis
Van Haecke, chaplain-in-chief of _La Noble Confrérie_. If any of our
readers should desire to know something more concerning this subject we
would refer them to his interesting work--_Le Précieux Sang à Bruges_.
[Illustration: Godshuis near the Pont des Lions]