THE PERIOD OF FEUDALISM
Charles the Great died in 814. His son, Emperor Louis, was a weakling,
and after his death the mighty empire of Charles was destroyed by
internal troubles and civil war (840). Lotharius, the eldest son of
Emperor Louis, endeavored to seize the empire for himself. To prevent
this, both his brothers, Louis and Charles, leagued themselves against
him and defeated him in the terrible battle of Fontanet, which has been
characterized by contemporaries as a “judgment of God.” The peace that
was later concluded between the three brothers led to the famous Treaty
of Verdun (843), an event of the utmost importance in the history of
Belgium.
The empire created by Charles the Great was divided into three parts:
the central part, including the largest portion of Belgium, Holland,
Italy, and the eastern part of France, was allotted to Lotharius,
together with the title of Emperor; the western part of the empire,
embracing the largest part of France, and Flanders to the west of the
Scheldt, became the share of Charles; the eastern part, which included
nearly the whole of Germany and certain parts of Austria-Hungary, was
given to Louis. The Treaty of Verdun practically cut the territory of
Belgium into two parts, separated by the Scheldt, and gave each of them
to a different ruler. These two sections of Belgium remained separated
during the Middle Ages, and were not reunited until six centuries
later.
After the death of Emperor Lotharius (855) the northern part of
his central territory, located between the North Sea and the Jura
Mountains, was given to one of his sons, Lotharius II. That section
which included the entire eastern part of Belgium to the Scheldt
embraced peoples of very different race and origin: Frisians, Franks,
Alamans, Walloons. As it was impossible to name the territory after
its inhabitants--they were of too many different origins--it was named
after its sovereign: _regnum Lotharii_, “Lotharingia,” “the realm of
Lotharius.”
In 870 the Treaty of Meerssen, whereby Charles, King of France, and
Louis, King of Germany, divided between them the realm of Lotharius
II, ended the existence of that state. The second Treaty of Verdun in
879 finally settled the status of Lotharingia: the boundary between
France and Germany was declared to be the river Scheldt, and the whole
of Lotharingia was incorporated in Germany. Of course, all the parts of
the former empire of Charles the Great were once again united by the
Emperor Charles the Stout, but after all kinds of internal struggles,
Lotharingia was again--and this time for many centuries--annexed to
Germany in 925.
Belgium is thus divided into two tracts by the Scheldt: the western
part, Flanders, belonging to France and politically influenced by
that country; the eastern part, Lotharingia, which was a dependency
of Germany. As in the establishment of the bishoprics, so here, no
attention was paid to the racial differences of the inhabitants. Both
Lotharingia and Flanders included peoples of different origin: Flanders
had inhabitants of Teutonic origin in the north and inhabitants of
Romance origin in the south; Lotharingia included Flemings in the
east, the center, and the north, and Walloons in the south.
Thus, at the beginning of the feudal system, there existed no political
and no linguistic unity in Belgium. Moreover, although Flanders formed
a politically united body, Lotharingia was subdivided into several
small principalities: the duchy of Brabant, including the actual
provinces of Brabant and Antwerp, the county of Limburg, the county
of Namur, the duchy of Luxemburg, the county of Hainaut, and two
ecclesiastical principalities, Cambrai and Liège.
The absence of political unity was a consequence of the new political
constitution of most of the countries of Western Europe in the tenth
century--of feudalism, so called. In place of the former despotic and
centralized power of the King there was now to be found the locally
asserted rule of dukes, counts, viscounts, etc. These public officers
who, in the ninth century, were still subordinate agents of the King,
without any other power than that delegated to them by their master,
had succeeded, partly through the weakness of the heirs of Charles
the Great and partly on account of the invasions of the Normans in
the ninth century and the incursion of the Hungarians in the tenth,
in grasping more firmly their delegated powers and in making their
military, political, and financial perquisites hereditary. Thanks to
the custom whereby the King granted them a domain, called _beneficium_,
as a reward for their services or to insure their loyalty, they had
succeeded in getting a strong political foothold in their respective
provinces, and had continuously developed their possessions and
their influence. In the tenth century the dukes and counts, formerly
officers of the King, had won for themselves an independent and
hereditary position. The kingdom was now everywhere broken up into
small principalities, practically autonomous, where the King no longer
exercised his power and where the people were now dominated by local
dynasties. The new political organization, called feudalism, existed,
of course, in Belgium also, and contributed in a large measure to the
complete absence of political and national unity throughout the country.
Each county, each duchy, became a world apart, had its own politics
and made war on the neighboring principality, or aided it in case of
attack from others. So Flanders enjoyed friendly relations with Cambrai
and Hainaut; Hainaut was on good terms with Namur and Luxemburg.
Sometimes they fought one another: Brabant and Limburg were enemies for
a long time. Later they became united under the same princes. The same
phenomenon existed in the Northern Netherlands: Holland was friendly
toward Cleves, but fought against Gueldre on account of Utrecht,
against Flanders on account of Zealand, against Utrecht on account of
Friesland, etc.
For the most part, Flanders or the western part of Belgium was a vassal
of the French King; Lotharingia or the eastern part of Belgium was a
vassal of the German Empire. The dependency of Lotharingia, however,
was less definite than was that of Flanders to France, for the numerous
principalities into which the former was broken up introduced more
autonomy for the local dynasties and rendered intervention on the part
of the Emperor more difficult. Flanders, on the other hand, as a more
homogeneous territory, was more closely united with its feudal lord.
The ultimate fate of Flanders and Lotharingia depended, however, on
the degree of independence that their princes would be able to win.
In accordance with the general politics of all vassals, the counts of
Flanders and the dukes of Lotharingia dreamed of but one thing, namely,
of escape from the domination of their feudal lord. The result was
that, after some centuries, both parts of Belgium were brought more
and more closely together, and from this resulted that much-needed
political unity, the only hope of a real independent Belgium.
The political history of the country in feudal times (the tenth to the
twelfth century) must now be examined.
Annexed to the German Empire, Lotharingia became from 925 a sort of
German province, especially during the reign of Emperor Otto I (962),
a man of powerful personality. Otto clearly realized that no layman at
the head of Lotharingia would be loyal enough to submit entirely to his
own politics and he therefore appealed to the devotion and faithfulness
of the bishops. These were to be the agents of the German influence
and domination. In 953 Otto appointed his own brother, Bruno, as Duke
of Lotharingia and obtained for him at the same time the archbishopric
of Cologne. Having thus acquired control of both the political and
ecclesiastical power, Bruno became the intermediary by whom not only
the duchy but also the Lotharingian church was to be more and more
Germanized.
However, the domination of the imperial German church did not succeed
in breaking entirely the resistance of the local Lotharingian princes.
Those princes had no affection for the Emperor, their overlord; they
could not forget their old national dynasty, the Carolingians, who
belonged to the country and were not foreigners, as were the German
emperors. The people of Lotharingia supported those local dynasties
which claimed descent from the old Carolingian national stock;
the castles of the local counts of Hainaut, Louvain, and Limburg
became centers of political influence, whose object was to check the
domination of the feudal German lord. Since the tenth century the local
houses of Hainaut and Louvain, of Namur and Luxemburg, had attempted
to organize their political power. In the last quarter of the eleventh
century, the Germanization of Lotharingia broke down as a result of
the so-called “Struggle for the Investitures,” whereby the power of
the Emperor over the church in Germany was destroyed. The bishops of
the Empire, having to choose between loyalty to their feudal lord
and obedience to the pope, were no longer political servants of the
Emperor. The downfall of the imperial church meant the end of its
influence in Lotharingia. The local princes threw off the feudal yoke
and practically divided the whole of Lotharingia among themselves. And
thus was witnessed the end of that large imperial province that for
so long had covered the western frontier of Germany between the Rhine
and the Scheldt. We hear no more of Lotharingia: another name appears
in Belgian history, namely, Brabant. It was the Duke of Brabant, of
the local house of Louvain, who, from this time on, gradually extended
his political influence over the former Lotharingia, in that part of
Belgium lying east of the Scheldt.
The German Emperor was now no more the lord of the Lotharingian
princes: he was henceforth regarded as an ally or as an enemy,
according to the circumstances. The Lotharingian principalities no
longer played a part in events occurring on the other side of the
Rhine; they no longer sent soldiers to the feudal imperial army; they
followed the emperors no more in their expeditions against Italy;
and, in the Lotharingian literature, there is to be found hardly a
suggestion of a recollection of the existence of the Emperor.
From the middle of the twelfth century on, the national life of
the eastern part of Belgium displayed more and more cohesion and
individuality; little by little it broke down the geographical
barrier of the Scheldt that the Treaty of Verdun had erected between
Lotharingia and Flanders.
Meanwhile the western part of Belgium, the county of Flanders, had
developed also in its own way. Assigned by the Treaty of Verdun to the
kingdom of France, Flanders did not seek a separation from a country
to which it was geographically attached and on whose territory were to
be found the seats of its bishoprics and most of its monasteries. The
political power of the house of Flanders dates from the time of Count
Baldwin I, called Baldwin of the Iron Arm (879), an adventurous ruler,
who violently took the daughter of the King of France, his lord, and
made her his wife, notwithstanding the vehement protest of her royal
father. That marriage brought to the count the rich possessions of
his wife and furnished to his heirs an excellent pretext for meddling
in the politics of France. The kings of France at the time of the
first counts of Flanders were weaklings; moreover, the bishops of
Noyon-Tournai, Arras, and Térouanne were not as loyal to their lord as
those of Lotharingia were to the Emperor. The political conditions were
thus quite different in Flanders, and at a time when the iron policy
of Otto I and his heirs subdued the Lotharingian princes, the counts
of Flanders succeeded in developing their independence and political
influence without much opposition. Baldwin II (910) enlarged his domain
by conquering the wealthy regions of Walloon-Flanders[7] and Artois and
formed an alliance with England by marrying an Anglo-Saxon princess.
Count Arnulf (918) took the title of marquess and tried--though
vainly--to overpower the Duke of Normandy, who checked his advance in
the south and with it the extension of Flemish conquest beyond the
river Canche. Effectively blocked in their efforts to extend their
power in the south, the Flemish counts next turned their attention to
the north and the east. Successively the islands of Zeeland, the “Four
Métiers,” and the county of Alost were subjugated, although already
under the feudal authority of the German Empire. The result was that
the Count of Flanders became at once a vassal of the King of France and
of the German Emperor.
By the conquest of the county of Alost, Count Baldwin V was enabled
to cross the Scheldt and to advance into Lotharingian territory. The
marriage of his son with a princess of Hainaut resulted in uniting both
Flanders and Hainaut under the same dynasty. Here again the barrier
erected by the Treaty of Verdun was broken down, and for the first time
political ties were established on both sides of the Scheldt, between
the two parts of Belgium.
Coincident with the first signs of a tendency to union between Eastern
and Western Belgium, Flanders began to come into closer contact
with foreign countries and powers. As the daughter of Baldwin V was
married to William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, many Flemish
troops took part in the conquest of England by the Normans (1066),
and these remained in the British Isles for purposes of colonization.
Diplomatic and commercial relations between Flanders and England
were the happy result. Under Count Robert (1070), Flanders came into
contact with Denmark and with the court of Rome; a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem undertaken by Robert brought him into touch with the Emperor
of Constantinople, and the Count of Flanders happened to be the first
prince of Europe to consider a crusade against the Turks.
In the twelfth century, however, the political expansion of Flanders
came to a standstill. To the weaklings of the former period in France
there had now succeeded kings of stronger character, whose policy led
them to subdue their restless vassals and to centralize their own
power. They sought, therefore, to check the expansion of Flanders
and to dominate the powerful county, attaching it more closely to
the French domain. The road to the south was thus no longer open
for eventual conquest; the road to the east also was barred by
the Lotharingian princes. The influence of the German Empire had
practically disappeared in Lotharingia. Brabant and Hainaut now became
the centers of a strong political life. It is a curious phenomenon of
history that, when Flanders was threatened by the growing strength of
France, Lotharingia became practically independent of the influence of
the German Empire.
There was, therefore, as has been seen, no political unity in Belgium
during the feudal period: east and west each developed in its own way
and political conditions in each section were very strongly influenced
by their powerful neighbors. There did exist, however, a common
tendency toward autonomy and freedom, Flanders trying to escape from
the influence of France and, to some extent, that of England;[8]
Lotharingia struggling against the hegemony of Germany. That tendency,
it must be admitted, is not a purely characteristic Belgian movement.
At this period the feudalists were everywhere to be found fighting
against the supremacy of the King and trying to win complete political
independence for themselves.
The one essentially Belgian factor in the diverging existence of the
east and the west, and which exerted a strong influence in favor of
unification, was the common social, economic, and religious life.
A study of religious conditions in Belgium during the tenth and
eleventh centuries reveals, even more clearly than a study of political
events, the part played by both Germany and France in imposing their
respective practices, and the ability of Belgium to incorporate and to
modify the best elements of Teutonic and Latin civilization.
After the Norman invasions of the ninth century, which left Belgium
covered with ruins and with many churches and monasteries burned, or
abandoned by their terrified occupants, the ecclesiastical discipline
suffered severely. The old prescriptions of the Benedictine rule were
no longer observed and most of the monasteries became dependents of
powerful laymen.
In the tenth century a revival of the discipline followed, thanks to
the efforts of St. Gerard of Brogne, founder of the little monastery
of Brogne, near Namur (923). Gerard excited so much enthusiasm by the
sanctity of his life and the rigor of his discipline that princes and
bishops united in asking him to restore the practice of ascetic life
both in Lotharingia and in Flanders. The number of the monasteries
to the north of the linguistic barrier, especially in Flanders, soon
increased, whereas before they were mainly to be found in Southern
Belgium. Belgium became a country of monasteries in the eleventh
century, and ever since that time the people have shown that deep
religious spirit that is one of the distinctive traits of the national
character. The monks exerted a very strong influence on the minds of
the rough feudalists, who thought mainly of war and robbery: one of
the most powerful dukes of Lotharingia, Godefrid the Bearded, desired
to be buried in the dress of a monk. The robber-knights, pursuing an
enemy or a convoy of merchants, thought only of plunder; once in sight
of the walls of a monastery, however, they would cease their pursuit
and turn back. Carrying through the country the relics of their saints,
the monks would often succeed in stopping private wars and murder. An
example of the religious spirit is the great “procession” of Tournai,
that attracted every year thousands of pilgrims and visitors, Flemish
and Walloon together, and that acted as a unifying factor for both
races of Belgium.
The Reform of Cluny found the French and German influence in serious
conflict. The reform in question, by which it was hoped to reintroduce
a very severe discipline in the monastic world, originated in French
Burgundy (1004) and soon spread through the northern countries,
especially in Flanders and Lotharingia. The monks of Cluny resolutely
resented any interference of the temporal power in religious affairs.
As a result they found themselves practically opposed to the system of
the imperial and feudal church of Germany, dominated by the Emperor.
The destruction of that system thus meant indirectly the destruction of
German influence in Lotharingia. When the Struggle for the Investitures
broke out, the Lotharingian bishops hesitated at first, but after a
while nearly all of them took sides with the papal cause against the
Emperor. Both in matters of politics and religion Lotharingia tended
more and more to break away from Germany.
Hitherto only one monastic order had influenced religious life in
Belgium, namely, the Benedictines. In the twelfth century other
orders were born--the Cistercians and the Norbertins or Premontrés.
The Cistercians, founded by St. Bernard in France, played the part,
mainly, of clearers of wild land and of colonizers; they introduced
new economic and agricultural methods and exerted a deep influence
in economic life. The Premontrés were canons, rather than monks, who
passed their time in study and in administering the parishes. But they,
too, did much for the colonization of the country, and they transformed
into fruit-bearing land the barren soil of the Antwerp Campine.
The number of parishes increased in the course of the tenth and
eleventh centuries. New chapels were founded in cases where the
nearest parish church was too far removed, or where a number of people
sufficient for the formation of a new parish were to be found dwelling
close together. Sometimes the establishment of a new parish was ordered
at the instance of a wealthy landlord, and a chapel constructed on
the domain of his manor, in order to gratify his desire for better
opportunities for attending church. Each chapel was ordinarily granted
the right to have its own parish priest, to whom was granted permission
to baptize infants and bury the dead in the parish cemetery.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL OF TOURNAI]
As for the economic organization, in ante-feudal times there existed an
important difference between the country south and that lying north of
a line drawn through Boulogne, Saint-Omer, Douai, Mons, and Maestricht.
North of this line we find the system of isolated farms; south of the
line the system of villages. But during the tenth century the landlords
extended their possessions in farm lands as well as in the villages,
and the same economic organization, directed by the same principles,
prevailed throughout the country. Each domain was divided into two
parts: a central part, including the manor of the landlord and that
portion of the land exploited by himself by means of unfree “serfs”
or agricultural laborers; and another part, surrounding the central
domain, divided into small lots, given to free farmers.
The domain of the ecclesiastical landlords, bishops or abbots, was
exceedingly well administered and the conditions of life of the people
depending upon these landlords were very favorable; the ecclesiastical
“serfs” frequently asserted that they preferred their servitude to
freedom, as less burdensome than freedom itself. The ecclesiastical
“serfs” were grouped in families, _familiae_, within whose limits
justice was administered by the mayor of the community in the name of
the abbot.
The lay landlords, on the other hand, were bad administrators. Dealing
only with politics and war, they ignored agricultural problems; they
did not come into contact with their laborers, and they left with
their officers, _ministeriales_, the care of ruling and judging their
servants. They preferred attendance at “tournaments,” which might be
regarded as a sort of military training and as a means of learning the
profession of bearer of arms. They undertook long and distant journeys
in order to fight the knights of Vermandois, Champagne, and Picardy in
France. And as a result both Walloons and Flemings came in contact with
their French brethren in arms.
The upper landlords, the dukes and counts, gave much attention,
however, to the colonization and the economic improvement of the
country. Northern and Western Flanders and Northern Brabant were
covered with sandy soil and marshes, and thick woods were to be found
in some parts as late as the end of the eleventh century. In the early
part of that century, the counts of Flanders began to engage the
unemployed for agricultural purposes. They turned the unproductive
parts of the country into fertile meadows, suitable for pasturing
cattle. Canals and dykes were constructed in order to increase the
productivity of the soil. In the course of the twelfth century a sturdy
populace of land laborers was attracted into Germany by the landlords
of the countries of Bremen, Holstein, Thuringia, and Silesia. It was
the Flemings and the people of Brabant who colonized the right bank
of the river Elbe and who turned the marshes of Eastern Germany into
fertile soil. Many villages still remind us today of those Flemings,
and are still known as _Flämingdörfer_.
On the Flemish seacoast the people were engaged in raising cattle,
especially sheep and cows; another large element was employed in
herring and cod fishing in the North Sea. These people were mostly of
Frisian or Saxon origin; they were not descendants of the Franks. They
spoke another language; they had other customs and laws; they were
socially free men. When the French influence increased in Flanders,
they alone retained their Germanic characteristics, and it was among
them, in the fourteenth century, that were found the fiercest opponents
of France.
As affecting the artistic life of Belgium in the tenth and eleventh
centuries, we find the same influences at work which have been
mentioned as operative in political and religious spheres. The Romance
and Germanic ideas were absorbed, mixed, and transformed by the Belgian
artists of that time.
Lotharingia, the eastern part of Belgium, possessed, of course, no
cathedrals comparable with those of Worms, Speyer, and Mainz. However,
the literary movement developed by the Lotharingian bishops was
accompanied by an artistic revival. As most of the Lotharingian bishops
were of German descent, the direction of the work was intrusted to
German architects. The oldest examples of romantic architecture in the
regions of the Meuse reveal German influence. Not only the architects,
but also the sculptors, the painters, etc., were Germans, though
sometimes recourse was had to Italian artists, who came over the Alps
to seek their fortunes. The frescoes on the walls of St. James’s Church
at Liège are the work of a painter called Giovanni.
The Lotharingian artists soon began to imitate the German methods and
to use material native to the country. Supplies for walls and columns
were no longer brought from Germany, but from the valley of the Meuse.
Until the twelfth century, German traditions, however, prevailed in
architecture, and at no time prior to the beginning of that period can
there be said to have been any Lotharingian style.
If the valley of the Meuse was the artistic center of Eastern Belgium,
in the western part of the country--in Flanders--it was the city of
Tournai which dominated artistic development. The cathedral of Tournai,
the only large Romance basilica of Belgium, rivals the cathedrals of
the Rhine in majesty and harmony of form. The plan reveals the work of
an architect influenced by the German school. But in the architectural
details are to be found motifs inspired by the large French cathedrals
of Normandy. The double German and French influence resulted in the
founding of a local school of architecture at Tournai, which exhibited
great activity throughout Flanders. Tournai, the religious capital of
Flanders, became also the artistic capital. The stone of Tournai was
famous. Thanks to the Scheldt, material was easily transported, and in
the locality where it was used it was, of course, architects of Tournai
who drew the plans of the buildings. There existed also at Tournai a
local school of sculptors, whose members were very active and who may
be regarded as true artists.
There remains only the literary life in both parts of Belgium during
the feudal period to be considered.
Dating from the ninth century, there were many to be found among the
ecclesiastics and the upper classes who spoke both languages, Romance
and Teutonic, equally well. In the monasteries Flemish and Walloon
monks lived together, and in the Abbey of St. Amand, in Southern
Belgium, there has been found, written by the same hand, the oldest
poem of French literature, the _Cantilène de Ste. Eulalie_, and also
one of the oldest products of Teutonic literature, the _Ludwigslied_.
The bishops and abbots knew both languages; the abbots of Lobbes, a
Walloon monastery in the tenth century, spoke both Flemish and French.
In the diocese of Térouanne (later Saint-Omer) the bishops were
obliged to know “barbarian,” i.e., the Teutonic language. During the
eleventh century, many preachers were able to address the people of the
Walloon and Flemish sections, and abbots who knew both languages were
preferred. The lay princes were obliged at least to understand Walloon
and Flemish, for Flanders, Brabant, and Limburg included people of both
races. When the army of the crusaders started for the Holy Land, the
Lotharingian prince Godfrid of Bouillon was appointed as their leader,
because, according to the chronicle of Otto von Freising, “brought up
on the frontier of the Romance and the Teutonic people, he knew both
languages equally well.” During the twelfth century, the knowledge of
French was regarded as a necessary element of perfect culture. On the
common people, however, French civilization had no influence at all;
they knew and spoke only Flemish.
The French influence was especially strong from a linguistic point of
view; the German influence was overwhelming in the literary domain,
especially in Lotharingia. The bishops were, generally speaking, the
sole possessors of literary and scientific culture, and in Lotharingia
most of them were strongly Germanized. The center of literary life
in Lotharingia was the school of Liège, founded by the Saxon bishop
Everachar. It became a center of study, where not only Germans,
but also French, English, and Slav students were to be found. The
curriculum of the school, known as the school of St. Lambert, included
grammar, rhetoric, poetry, music, mathematics, and theology. This
institution was the means by which many new ideas were circulated
through France and Germany, as its teachers were in close touch with
all the scientific tendencies of the time. In Western and Southern
Belgium we find the influence of the school of Cambrai as paramount.
Although a Romance region, Cambrai belonged to the German Empire, and
was therefore a center of German influence. The dominating _genre_
in literature is history, and that is an especially Belgian _genre_;
history has always been much cultivated in Belgium. The historical work
of a monk, Sigebert of Gembloux, is recognized as the center of that
activity.
The Struggle for the Investitures, which destroyed the power and the
influence of the German imperial and feudal church from a political and
religious point of view, destroyed also its influence in literary life.
The schools of Liège were abandoned and, from the first quarter of the
twelfth century on, students turned their eyes toward Paris.
In Flanders, literary influence, as was the case with artistic
movements, was French rather than German. Tournai, the artistic
capital, was also the intellectual center, and Tournai was a Romance
bishopric. The school of St. Mary had only French teachers and
contributed in spreading a knowledge of the French language among the
Flemish clergy. Essentially theological and dialectical, however,
the teaching of St. Mary was less important than the teaching of St.
Lambert of Liège.
Thus, during the tenth and eleventh centuries, the civilization of
Belgium was influenced by the culture of its powerful neighbors.
Nevertheless, the elements of German and French civilization were not
simply absorbed; they were transformed, adapted, and nationalized, and
became a real part of the life of the nation.