_The Great Charter--The Belfry and the Tower of Notre Dame_
Strange as it may seem, not only during the civil conflicts in the early
days of Guy's reign, but during the turmoil and warfare which succeeded
them, Bruges increased alike in prosperity, and comeliness, and might.
True, she lost her charters when the belfry was burned down in 1280.
Some said that the Count himself had fired it with a view to their
destruction, and the new law which Guy had promulgated on May 25, 1281,
as the burghers bitterly complained to the French King, was not worthy
of the name of law, 'seeing that amongst other errors it ordained that
criminals, in certain cases, should not be served with notice of trial
nor suffered to state their defence, and that all the ancient rights and
liberties of the city were either abrogated or curtailed.' Nevertheless,
when Guy was hard pressed by Philippe le Bel, in order to conciliate the
burghers he had re-established the ancient charter, and when in 1297
Philippe annexed Flanders, he, in his turn, confirmed it. Finally, after
the expulsion of the French in 1304, one of Guy's sons, Philip of
Thielt, who was at that time carrying on the government in the name of
his captive father, filled with gratitude at the part which Bruges had
taken, granted her a new and most liberal charter, in which all her old
liberties were confirmed and even extended. This charter was probably
drawn up by the sheriffs of Bruges themselves. When Robert of Bethune
ascended the throne, in 1305, he at once confirmed it. Every succeeding
Count, when he first entered the city, solemnly swore to maintain it
intact, and it remained the fundamental basis of the civil and criminal
law of Bruges until 1619.
The charter in question contains seventy articles, forty-eight of which
deal with criminal law, and the remainder with civil law. Many of them
express a breadth of view and liberality of spirit which, considering
the epoch at which they were drawn up, is not a little surprising.
Gheldorf in his _Ville de Bruges_ (p. 321, etc.) gives the whole
document in the original Flemish.
Note, amongst not a few prudent enactments, Article 33. It is so
interesting, and denotes so clearly what progress Bruges had now made in
the paths of law and order, that we cannot pass it over in silence. By
it the citizen of Bruges was entirely set free from the superstitious
and barbarous obligation of trial by battle. Henceforth, any man
convicted of sending a challenge to a burgher was liable to a fine of
sixty livres, in these days no small sum.
If such challenge had been accepted, half of the fine went to the Count,
and half to the town, and the challenged burgher was also mulcted in a
similar sum; if, however, he had refused the challenge he himself
received a quarter of the fine, and, in that case, the Count received
his full thirty livres, and the town only fifteen. Any man amenable to
the city magistrates, who had lived for a year and a day within the
limits of the city franchise and paid his taxes, was considered a
citizen.
There were, no doubt, a number of persons living in Bruges who were not
amenable to the city magistrates. The feudal lords, for example, though
it was open to them, if they would, to enrol themselves as citizens,
and not a few availed themselves of the privilege; persons submitted to
the jurisdiction of the Franc; perhaps also the members of the Count's
household, and the members of religious communities; and we know that
from time immemorial there had been a large colony of foreign merchants
in Bruges.
The municipal machinery by which the city was governed seems to have
been, at this time, at all events, of a somewhat complicated nature.
There were two distinct corporations, each presided over by its
burgomaster.
The first consisted of the _écoutète_, or representative of the Count,
the burgomaster and thirteen _Echevins_, who, according to Gheldorf,
were the sole judges in Bruges. The manner of their appointment is
uncertain; but we know that, save in the case of their having been
convicted of felony or of having falsely administered justice, they were
irremovable during the single year which they held office, and that
convicted criminals, artisans who had not abstained from manual labour
for a year and a day, and the _Echevins_ of the preceding year, were
ineligible.
The second corporation consisted of its burgomaster and thirteen town
councillors. It is doubtful what were the functions performed
respectively by these corporations. Perhaps the first, in addition to
its judicial functions, was a legislative assembly, and the second
administered the affairs of the town.
Curiously enough the original Flemish version of the charter of 1304 is
mute as to the method of election alike of the college of _Echevins_ and
the town council, but Gheldorf has discovered among the archives of
Bruges another version containing an article which gives minute
directions on this head.
It was evidently drawn up in the interest of the members of the great
city guilds, and awards to them the lion's share of all the appointments
in question, viz.: the right to name absolutely all the town councillors
and five of the thirteen _Echevins_, as well as a voice indirectly in
the election of four others and in the nomination of each of the
burgomasters. It allots to the burghers generally the right only to
present eight persons to the Count in order that he may select from
among them four more _Echevins_, and ordains that the members of the
city council, and the nine _Echevins_ thus appointed, shall elect the
remaining four, and furthermore that the _Echevins_ shall elect their
own burgomaster, and the _Echevins_ and councillors together, the
burgomaster of the city council. Gheldorf conjectures that the charter
which he discovered among the archives of Bruges was only a rough draft
of the charter of 1304; that for some reason or other the clause anent
elections was omitted from the fair copy, but that the method of
procedure therein ordained was later on sanctioned by Philip of Thiette
in a separate charter. If this be so, the document in question would
seem to have disappeared.
It has been conjectured above that the _Echevins_ of Bruges were not
only magistrates, but also legislators, but even if this were so, the
power which they wielded was less than it at first sight appears, for
overshadowing the might of the _Echevins_ was the might of the Colossus
which appointed them, and the trade guilds had a practical veto over all
their acts. These to be legal and valid must first have been stamped
with the city seal, and the city seal was stored up along with the city
archives in a strong chamber in the thickness of the belfry walls,
secured by four wrought-iron doors with ten locks and ten keys, eight of
which were in the hands of the guildsmen. Butchers, bakers, shoemakers,
tailors, weavers, brokers, carpenters, smiths, the deans of each of
these companies possessed a key without which it was impossible to open
the doors of the municipal treasury, and these were the men who in
reality governed Bruges when she was at the zenith of her power, and who
continued to do so until her glory had faded away and she
[Illustration: THIRTEENTH-CENTURY IRON GATES IN BELFRY]
was rapidly sinking to the position of a second-rate provincial town.
To-day the old archive chamber is without its rolls, and without its
great seal, but it is still closed by the wrought-iron gates which once
secured them, though they are now seldom locked, and whosoever will may
come and go at pleasure. It will be interesting to note anent these
gates that the town accounts for the year 1290 has the following entry:
_Item, Erembaldo fabro, pro januis ferreis ad thesaurarium in Halla,
lxxxi. lb._ The name then of the smith who forged them was Erembald,
and he received for his labour the sum of eighty-one livres, not on the
whole an exorbitant fee.
The mention of the archive chamber brings us naturally enough to the
great tower which contains it, to that belfry of Bruges which had just
risen from its ashes more beautiful than of yore, the belfry of Bruges
as it is now, without indeed its crowning glory, the octagonal lantern
of the later fourteen hundreds, but without also the sorry
disfigurements inflicted by the hand of the restorer a hundred years
after.
The original structure was built in the days of the first Counts of
Flanders, perhaps before the close of the eight hundreds, not of wood,
as was formerly supposed, but probably of rough _velt_ stone, the
material employed for nearly all the buildings of that period. Whether
any portion of the first belfry was left standing after the great fire
of 1280 is a moot point, but maybe the foundations of the lower portion
of the walls were spared, and that these were incorporated into the new
building. Monsieur Gilliodts, who at present holds the office of city
archivist, and probably knows more about his native town than anyone
else, is of this opinion. Whether or no it be well founded is a question
for experts to decide, if they can. In any case there can be no doubt as
to the appositeness of the learned archivist's remark anent the present
building. 'For six hundred years,' he says, 'this belfry has watched
over the city of Bruges. It has beheld her triumphs and her failures,
her glory and her shame, her prosperity and her gradual decay, and, in
spite of so many vicissitudes, it is still standing to bear witness to
the genius of our forefathers, to awaken alike memories of old times and
admiration for one of the most splendid monuments of civic architecture
which the middle age has produced.'
The other great tower of Bruges dates also from this period. It equals
the first in comeliness and, calmly rising into the heavens some hundred
feet above the highest point of the Bell-tower, surpasses it in the
unadorned majesty of its grand proportions, for the sublime steeple of
Notre Dame is in itself beautiful, and neither possesses nor requires
embellishment. It is the first object which meets the eye of the Ostend
fisherman as he nears his native coast, and seems more completely to
dominate the old Flemish city, and the fair emerald landscape which
surrounds it, than does the Belfry itself.
It took the men of Bruges, it is said, a hundred years to pile up this
huge mass of tawny stone and golden-hued and blushing brick, and so
marshy and unstable was the site on which they placed it, that as much
material was needed for the foundations as is contained in that portion
of the structure which rises above the soil, and the tower of Notre
Dame, be it noted, measures from base to weathercock no less than four
hundred and eleven English feet. It is said to be slightly out of the
perpendicular, and a story is told--it is probably only a story--that
the architect, on its completion, perceiving this defect, in despair
threw himself from the summit and so was dashed to pieces; but for all
that they buried him in consecrated ground, and his mausoleum was the
splendid monument which he himself had erected.
The Church of Notre Dame was without the city boundary until the year
909. Up to that date it formed part of the domain of the lords of
Sysseele. This ancient manor was submitted to the jurisdiction of Bruges
towards the close of Guy's reign. The great square tower which was
formerly the home of the lords of Sysseele is still standing,
pleasantly situated on the outskirts of Maele Woods. With its Gothic
gateway, its corner turrets, and its high-pitched roof it still forms a
sufficiently picturesque group, but alas! it has recently been restored,
and has thereby lost all trace of its conflict with time.
Bruges obtained also during the reign of Guy of Dampierre recognition of
her disputed right to exercise jurisdiction over Sluys and Damme, and in
1289 a concession of less moment, but nevertheless one not to be
despised. At the instance of his Countess, Isabelle of Namur, and 'in
consideration for services rendered,' Guy made over, at this time, to
the city for ever his right to succeed to the property of bastards dying
without issue.
[Illustration]