THE RISE AND INFLUENCE OF THE COMMUNES
A new epoch opens with the twelfth century in the history of Belgium.
The era is frequently called the “Time of the Communes,” because the
internal political life of the country, from then on, was dominated by
the development of the free cities (communes) and of their municipal
institutions. And it has been said that “in the part played by the
cities since the twelfth century lies the best of the history of the
Netherlands.”
Until the rise of the communes, only two classes of people, the
noblemen and the priests, were given any recognition. There remained,
of course, the peasant farmers, but they had no political or
social power. After the twelfth century, a new class sprang into
existence--the burgesses (_bourgeois, burgers_), the citizens of the
free cities--and the rise of that class exerted a tremendous influence
on the political and social development of the nation. To the tyranny
of feudalism it opposed the spirit of personal and collective freedom,
and the social construction of the nation was materially influenced by
the introduction of the new elements it represented.
The origin and development of the communes was mainly due to economic
conditions: the Belgian cities of the Middle Ages were the daughters of
trade and industry.
[Illustration: THE BELFRY OF GHENT On the right the Town Hall]
Beginning with the eleventh century many signs indicated a complete
revival of trade, which had been nearly annihilated by the
internecine struggles and the invasion of the Normans during the ninth
century. At the end of the tenth century Flanders was already in touch
with the Arab merchants trading in the Baltic; coins of the counts of
Flanders are to be found in Denmark, Prussia, and Russia. The merchants
of that time were traveling merchants, going from one town to another,
and never remaining permanently in any one spot. All along the rivers
wharves were established for discharging goods and wares, as well as
winter quarters for the traders for the period during which the rivers
were frozen. These were to be found at Valenciennes, Cambrai, Ghent on
the Scheldt, Dinant, Huy, Liège, and Maestricht on the Meuse. Bruges
became a central meeting-place for Flemish, Walloon, German, Frisian,
and Anglo-Saxon merchants, and between the Scheldt and the Thames
commercial intercourse was frequent. Little by little there grew up a
special class who depended for a living on sale and purchase. A man
became a merchant just as another became a knight, a priest, or a
farmer. All those without land, the discontented “serfs” who succeeded
in escaping from the domain to which they were attached, steadily
augmented this early nucleus of the merchant class.
The invasion of England by William the Conqueror (1066) and the large
numbers of the Flemings who participated in it strengthened the
economic ties between that country and Flanders, between London and
Bruges. In Bruges[9] vessels from all parts of Europe were loaded with
cargoes for London: wine from France and Germany, stone from Tournai,
cloth of gold and groceries sent by the merchants of Lombardy, wool and
linen cloths manufactured in Flanders. The prosperity of the Flemish
trade attracted the representatives of European commerce; fairs and
yearly markets were established at Thourout, Messines, Lille, Ypres,
and Douai.
Along with trade came the development of industry. On the Belgian coast
the sheep-raising industry goes back as far as the early days of Roman
occupation; woolen cloths were a special manufacture of the region. The
more extensive the “polders”--the meadows wrested from the sea--became,
the more the number of sheep raised on them increased, and consequently
also the number of people connected with the wool industry. As trade
developed the conditions of that industry, more and more people found
occupation in the manufacture of woolen cloths. A special class of
craftsmen was born. They deserted the countryside and settled down in
the neighborhood of the merchants; trade and industry attracted each
other. Flanders then became the seat of the cloth industry.
Another kind of industry was in process of development in Eastern
Belgium, in the valley of the Upper Meuse. This was a mountainous
region, filled with copper and tin mines along the banks of the river
between Huy and Dinant. Here was developed a metal industry, whose
products were shipped out on the river Meuse. After the tenth century
the native mines were no longer sufficient for the needs of the
country; the population of Huy and Dinant supplied its needs from the
mines of Goslar in Germany. The products of the copper and tin industry
were exported to France and England.
Brabant, the central part of Belgium, remained for a long time purely
agricultural. In the middle of the twelfth century, however, a highroad
was constructed between Cologne and Bruges, passing through Maestricht,
Saint-Trond, Léau, Louvain, Brussels, Alost, and Ghent. Trade now
flowed, not only from south to north by the Scheldt and the Meuse, but
also from east to west along the new commercial road.
This remarkable development of trade and industry was mainly
responsible for the origin and growth of the communes. Of course, for
many centuries episcopal residences (_civitates_), castles and manors
(_castra_), churches and monasteries had been centers of civilization
and an attraction for the population of the neighborhood. And under
the protection of their walls were grouped many wealthy villages.
The latter, however, would probably never have developed into cities
except for the presence of a colony of merchants and craftsmen. These
colonies established themselves in neighborhoods where they could
find favorable conditions for trading as well as protection for their
commerce. Naturally, therefore, they settled in the vicinity of
castles and convents (the castles affording military and the convents
moral protection), at the confluence of two or more rivers, along a
commercial highroad, in the curve of a gulf, or at the mouth of a
stream. In this manner the cities of Bruges, Ghent, Brussels, Louvain,
Liège, Malines, etc., were born, for it is an interesting point of
Belgian history that nearly all the cities originated during the
Middle Ages, very few of them dating back to the Roman times. Those
colonies of merchants and craftsmen grouped together in professional
and religious associations were called “guilds,” and introduced an
entirely new spirit among the people of the growing town. The unfree
population dependent upon the convent, the church, or the castle had
no means of changing its conditions of life, bound as it was by the
numerous ties of feudal and other obligations. But the traders had
to secure for themselves a certain degree of liberty, safety, and
autonomy. The feudal régime or the rules of the manor were intolerable
to them. The operation of the system was too tyrannous; it acted too
much as a restraint on private liberty and would have rendered the free
development of commercial and industrial enterprises impossible.
The guilds, therefore, formerly purely professional associations, soon
began to meddle in politics and to become political organizations
as well. Their members discussed in their guild-halls, built for
their business meetings, the changes desired in the existing social,
economic, and political conditions of the community, and carried on
propaganda in support of their demands.
At the same time the members of the guilds began to build walls around
the settlement, in order to protect the new city against attack from
the outside. Such a fortified town was called _burgus_, _bourg_,
“borough,” and the inhabitants were called _burgenses, bourgeois_,
“burgesses.”
When the burgesses began to work for changes in the existing régime
of the territory in which the town had developed, the princes and
landlords to which that territory belonged naturally showed opposition.
In some cases they resisted the demands of the guild, but the people
were frequently induced to rebel and, by a revolutionary method, to
wrest from their overlords the rights they demanded. In most cases the
princes recognized the justice of the claims and granted the burgesses
a new law, better suited to the needs of commerce and industry. This
new law, the city law, different from the feudal law and the law of the
manor, was called _Keure_ in Flemish, _charte de commune_ in French.
It contained the political, social, and financial privileges granted
by the landlord and the prince to the burgesses. When the city law was
granted, the commune came into existence. One of the most important
privileges of the commune was a special tribunal, called _échevinage,
schepenhank_, composed of citizens and presided over by an officer
appointed by the lord.
The commune possessed political and judicial autonomy and its
inhabitants were personally free. A man from a neighboring country or
a foreigner who had dwelt in the city for one year and one day became
a burgess and enjoyed all the privileges of citizenship. Although
politically autonomous, the commune still owed certain obligations
to its lord. These were mainly an oath of allegiance and the duty
of assisting the lord with its army of citizens. This latter duty
sometimes created curious situations. At the battle of the Golden Spurs
in 1302, when King Philip IV of France was defeated by the Flemish
communists, the inhabitants of Louvain fought on the side of the French
King against their Flemish brethren, because their lord, the Duke of
Brabant, was a partisan of Philip.
Although the commune owed certain duties to the lord, it had also, as
a politically autonomous body, some important rights: the right to
have a special seal to be appended to the official documents issued by
the commune; the right to build a city hall and a belfry, the belfry
being a tower, usually erected in the market-place, where the bell that
called the burgesses to arms was hung, and where the archives of the
city were carefully kept in iron safes. As the commune exercised the
right of life and death over its members, it erected as symbols of that
right the pillory and the gallows, generally at the gate or outside the
city wall.
The development of the communes was not quite the same in the various
sections of Belgium. In the principality of Liège, the cities of
Dinant, Huy, and Saint-Trond obtained their privileges sooner than
Liège itself. The charter of freedom for Huy dates from 1066. In the
ecclesiastical principality of Cambrai the commune was established
by violently revolutionary means in 1077. The merchants of Cambrai
suffered from the tyranny of the officers appointed by the bishops,
and a conspiracy was organized. On a certain day when Bishop Gerard
left the town, the citizens ran to arms, under the leadership of
the prominent merchants, and proclaimed the commune. But the bishop
returned unexpectedly and his knights killed many of the people and
pillaged the houses of the leaders. The supremacy of the bishop was
restored for a long period.
In Flanders, the counts were sincere protectors of the communes;
they regarded them as a mighty resource of their treasury and early
recognized the claims of the _mercatores_. From the end of the eleventh
century the main demands contained in the propaganda of the guilds
were accepted and special privileges were granted to the cities. From
the time of Count Charles the Good (1119-27), each city had its own
_échevins_ (sheriffs), chosen from among the burgesses; the president
alone, the _bailli_, was an officer of the lord, and responsible only
to him. The house of the counts of Alsace (1128) owed its accession to
the communes and therefore protected the cities in a special manner.
They gave to all of them the same municipal charter, a copy of the
charter of Arras, and both the Flemish and the Walloon communes of
Flanders enjoyed identically the same privileges.
In the duchy of Brabant, the communes developed more slowly, owing to
the fact that conditions for the development of trade and industry were
not so much advanced here. From the time when the commercial highroad
between Cologne and Bruges was constructed the municipal movement was
participated in more actively by the princes. Here, also, the princes
came to assume the same sympathetic attitude as in Flanders, but there
was no general organization granting the same type of constitution for
all the cities. The privileges of each city were recognized and granted
separately.
The existence of the communes exerted a powerful influence on the
internal politics of the feudal lords of Belgium. The latter were
forced to take the communes more and more into account and to change
their political attitude in accordance with the wishes of the
burgesses. The knights, almost ruined by the decline of the value
of the land, rendered military service only when paid for it. The
feudal troops were no longer sufficient in numbers. The princes were
obliged to seek the aid of the cities, to beg for taxes in order to
pay the loans they were now obliged to contract for the allowances of
the mercenary troops which they were compelled to hire. The princes
no longer governed alone; they had to respect and cultivate the
friendship of the cities. Their subjects began to take part in the
political combinations of the feudalists. As a matter of fact, war
was no longer possible without the consent of the communes, and it
resulted, therefore, that the burgesses, if in disagreement with their
lord, instead of assisting him, appealed to foreign rulers and fought
against their own prince. It may be said that, owing to these changes
in political life, the communes had succeeded in breaking the régime of
feudalism. This may be cited as a supreme instance of their importance
in Belgian history.
No less important was the influence they exerted--mainly during the
thirteenth century--in the development of the economic, industrial,
social, intellectual, and artistic life of the country. During that
period trade and industry were essentially prominent in the life
of the people. On account of their excellent location, the Belgian
seaports became the meeting-places of vessels from the North Sea, the
Baltic, the Mediterranean, the Orient. Ever since the existence of
the commercial highroad between Cologne and Bruges the trade of the
former had declined more and more. Given a shorter route by land, it
is, generally speaking, that which is selected by merchants by which to
forward their goods. Ghent became the center of commercial relations
between Flanders and Germany, and many privileges were granted to
Ghent tradesmen. Antwerp also grew little by little into an important
commercial center, being connected with the Cologne-Bruges road by
means of the Scheldt, that joins that road at Ghent.
Bruges, however, remained the commercial metropolis. It was in direct
contact with the sea. Located midway between the Sunt and the straits
of Gibraltar, it stored goods arriving from the north and from the
south. A new harbor was constructed at Damme and connected with Bruges
by a canal, whose powerful moles have been immortalized by Dante in
his _Divina Commedia_.[10] The market-place at Bruges was crowded as
much as was the Piazza San Marco in Venice. Toward the middle of the
thirteenth century Bruges was enjoying trade relations with England,
Normandy, Gascony, Spain, Provence, and the Hanseatic cities. In the
fourteenth century the development of the harbor reached its climax by
the organization of a regular transport service between the Flemish
port and Genoa and Venice.
The growth of Flemish commerce was increased by the liberal free
exchange policy of the counts of Flanders, especially since the time of
Baldwin IX (1202). There was no taking advantage of foreign trade, no
heavy taxes, no stringent customs. Many privileges were granted to the
“Osterlings,” the merchants from Germany. If a war broke out between
Flanders and a Hanseatic city, the Osterlings were allowed a period of
three months in which to leave the country and to put their belongings
in safety. The same privileges were granted to merchants from Poitou,
Gascony, and Spain.
Necessarily, also, Bruges became a center of financial operations:
pawnbrokers from Cahors, Lombardy, Florence, and Sienna flocked to the
city in large numbers and soon monopolized all credit operations. The
Lombardic pawnbrokers, especially, invaded the whole country between
the Meuse and the sea, and it is an astonishing fact that in small
cities like Léau (in the neighborhood of Louvain) branch offices of
the mighty banking houses of Paris were to be found. The important
part played by the circulation of money is also proved by the many coin
reforms of that time. The Belgian coins, owing to their excellence and
high standard, were imitated in Germany by the Hanseatic cities.
At the time of the communes manufacture was even more important
than trade. The Belgian provinces became essentially an industrial
country: from Douai to Saint-Trond there is not a city which was not
connected with the cloth industry. Belgian textures became unequaled
in suppleness, delicacy, and beauty of color; they were to be found
everywhere throughout Europe, and were exported even to the bazaars of
the Orient by vessels from Venice, Marseilles, and Barcelona. It is
in the south of Flanders that the art of dyeing seems to have reached
the highest perfection. Ypres, Douai, with its famous _écarlate_, and
Arras are especially entitled to mention in this particular. The cloth
industry was soon introduced farther north, in Ghent and Bruges, and
also in Brabant. Brussels, Malines, and Louvain early rivaled the
Flemish cities.
The annexation of Walloon Flanders by France deprived the Flemish cloth
industry of one of its sources of raw material, and it became necessary
to obtain it from England. Since that time Flanders and England have
been naturally dependent on each other and in this fact is to be found
the reason for the close alliance between these countries, from a
political point of view, especially in the fourteenth century. The
commercial relations between Flanders and England were monopolized by a
powerful association of wool importers, the Hansa of London, composed
of Flemish tradesmen. After a while the cloth industry developed
to such an extent that the supply of English wool was no longer
sufficient: wool from Spain and Navarre was also employed.
[Illustration: THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF SAINT GUDULA, BRUSSELS]
Aside from the territory in which the cloth industry flourished,
Belgium possessed also an agricultural region, far less developed,
of which Hainaut was the center. Here the cities were merely large
villages: Mons, Binche, and Ath cannot be compared with the cities of
Flanders and Brabant. Namur and Luxemburg also were merely agricultural
regions with no more than 8,000 and 5,000 population, respectively;
whereas Ghent and Bruges had a populace of no less than 80,000, at
least at the climax of their development.
In the valley of the Meuse, cities like Saint-Trond and Huy, where the
cloth industry flourished in smaller degree, were unable to rival those
of Flanders. The city of Dinant, on the Meuse, which, as stated before,
was, from the end of the tenth century, engaged in the copper industry,
may be singled out. The products of Dinant, called _dinanderie_, were
exported throughout Europe. The merchants of Dinant had a storehouse in
London and were members of the Hanseatic Association.
Finally, there remains the city of Liège in Eastern Belgium. This was
a city of priests, the residence of the bishop-prince. It was filled
with churches, convents, and chapels. The land was owned largely by
religious communities. But the priests were more numerous than the
burgesses.[11] There was no thought here of industry until the end
of the Middle Ages, when this part of the country became the seat of
collieries and ironworks.
Under the influence of such commercial and industrial conditions
as we have recited, the life of the country people and the control
of the soil were entirely transformed. After the twelfth century
the old agricultural régime broke down and servitude became an
exception; generally speaking, the peasant was thenceforward a free
man, like the burgess. This important change came in connection with
the crisis introduced by the new economic conditions of the twelfth
century. At this time the value of money decreased rapidly and both
the ecclesiastical and lay landlords found themselves threatened
with bankruptcy. The methods of the old economic organization had
to be changed if ruin was to be averted. New methods, therefore,
were introduced by the Cistercian monks. The houses of this monastic
order were very numerous at the beginning of the twelfth century;
they constituted a class of an entirely new type. Most of their
establishments were located among the marshes and heaths, which
they were obliged to convert into fertile soil. For that work the
monks alone were insufficient; they needed the help of so-called
lay-brethren, who cultivated and fertilized the land. Round the
monasteries themselves they established large farms, which became
centers of new agricultural methods. The raising of cattle and the
culture of corn were now their main business, and the crops were not
merely intended for the consumption of the convent but a large part was
sent to market to be sold. The peasants employed for this work were no
longer “serfs,” but free workers coming from outside. Servitude did
not exist on the territory owned by the Cistercians. The monks soon
became wealthy capitalists, but they utilized their means in clearing
the heaths of the Campine, the forests of Hainaut, and in creating the
“polders” of the Flemish coast. At the end of the thirteenth century
the clearing of the land was finished and the farms and “polders” were
rented out to free farmers. That system was likewise followed by the
other monastic orders, and the class of free farmers soon grew more
and more numerous. The example given by the Cistercians was followed
by laymen. A large part of Brabant, Hainaut, Flanders, and Namur
was covered with heaths, woods, and marshes. The dukes and counts,
seeing what had been accomplished, began to order this wild land to be
cleared. Along with the clearing of the soil came the foundation of
new cities. The Belgian cities whose names contain the suffix _-sart_,
_-rode_, or _-kerke_[12] date from this time. In order to get workers
enough for clearing the land, the princes sought to attract them by
granting special privileges, such as complete personal freedom and
cession of land subject to a very small payment. A new type of peasant
was born in Flanders--the peasant who was a freeman and who also owned
his land. The peasants of Hainaut, Namur, and Ardennes were, of course,
less in touch with the modern spirit; the different commercial and
industrial conditions operated to keep them longer in servitude. Since
the thirteenth century most of the Belgian peasants have been free,
whereas in Germany servitude appeared even at the end of the Middle
Ages.
As to the literary life and the respective positions of the French and
Flemish languages at this time, the next chapter, which deals with
the political conditions of Belgium in the period of the communes,
will show the increasing influence of France, both in Flanders and
in Brabant. It will not be surprising, therefore, to find that France
exercised an influence upon Belgium from a literary and artistic point
of view also. Flanders, a fief of France, was the first to feel that
influence, and to feel it in a greater degree than any other Belgian
principality. As a spoken language, French made a strong advance in the
thirteenth century, albeit the conquest was a peaceful one. The wealthy
communes of French or Walloon Flanders, like Arras, became real centers
of French literature and culture. The Cistercians spread the knowledge
of French in the monasteries, their order being originally French.
The aristocracy also took part in the movement, following the example
of the princes. The counts were all of Romance descent. The house of
Alsace came from France; Baldwin VIII and Baldwin IX were Walloons; the
countesses Jeanne and Marguerite were educated in Paris; the counts of
the house of Dampierre came originally from Champagne. The language
of the court as well as the language officially used was French. The
wealthy burgesses sought to imitate the noblemen, and it was necessary
for the merchants to know French to enable them to visit the fairs of
Champagne.
However, we know that some of the commercial acts were written in
Flemish. Flemish was overwhelmingly the popular tongue in Ghent and
Bruges, and public officers were obliged to know and speak it, as well
as French and Latin. As before, the common people remained faithful
to the Flemish language; it was the only one they spoke. Flemish was
also the principal language spoken in Brabant. Here the dukes strongly
resisted French political hegemony, and Brabant remained the most
independent Belgian province. French was, of course, made use of by
the dukes in their private and domestic affairs, but Flemish prevailed
in all their relations with their subjects; it was the language used
by public officers. If the aristocracy was Gallicized, it was merely a
matter of custom and _bon ton_.
As to the Romance literary movement, its productions were to be found
in those regions where trade and industry tended to the increase of
wealth. Luxemburg did not produce anything and Liège very little; in
the latter city, moreover, the persons in the entourage of the bishop
were largely German or Flemish. Romance literature flourished in
Flanders, Brabant, and Hainaut; it was written in Picard, the original
dialect that the writers themselves preferred, in opposition, so to
speak, to French. The literature in question consisted partly of
translations into the vernacular of Latin works written on science,
partly of historical productions, and partly of poetry. The historical
_genre_ was much cultivated, but was more and more limited to castles
and convents. Although the burgesses of the communes, eager to know as
much as possible, found interest and pleasure in the historical writers
(and it may be pointed out that the valuable chronicle of Philip
Mousket was composed, about 1240, for the townspeople of Tournai),
the citizens of the communes preferred the new _genre_ introduced in
literature, the _poésie bourgeoise_, wherein animals played a large
part as personages; the _épopée_ of _Rinehart the Fox_ is particularly
famous.
The rich development of Romance literature in Flanders and Hainaut
prevented to some extent the early birth of an original and independent
Flemish literature. Flemish literature had modest origins: it
consisted at first merely of translations from the French, but it
is highly interesting to note that it was through the intermediary
of Flemish translations that French productions were introduced into
Germany. The _Legend of Saint Servais_ and the _Enéide_, composed by
the Flemish knight, Hendrik Van Veldeke, following Latin sources,
enjoyed an immense success and were promptly imitated in Germany.
The French version of _Rinehart the Fox_ was adapted in Flemish by a
certain William, who surpassed his model, localized the story to the
neighborhood of Ghent and the country of Waes, and gave to his work a
real Flemish color.
The spirit of the Flemish burgesses, ordinarily inclined to be
jeering and satirical, nevertheless inspired the greatest poet of
thirteenth-century Flemish literature, Jacob Van Maerlandt, called
“the father of all the Flemish poets.” He founded in Flanders the
didactical _genre_, adapted to the practical and sensible character of
the nation. His object was to give to laymen access to the knowledge
hitherto monopolized by the clergymen. His writings were in the field
of natural history, politics and ethics, and sacred and profane
history. He enjoyed great success and achieved the honor of seeing his
works translated into French. Maerlandt, although he seemed to despise
the French poets because he found their work too frivolous, was not a
political writer. His greatness lay in the fact that he exercised a
decisive influence on Flemish culture. He brought the Flemish language
to the rank of a really literary language and developed it into an
instrument capable of expressing the national genius. The soul of
Flanders lives in Maerlandt’s poems.
There yet remains to be considered the artistic development during the
early period of the communes. French influence was prominent in the
thirteenth century in the southern and western parts of the country.
Tournai, of course, remained the artistic center of Flanders, and it
was through Tournai that Gothic art was introduced into Belgium, just
as Romantic art had earlier been introduced through Liège. The new
choir of the cathedral of Tournai (_ca._ 1250) is remarkably French in
its plan and methods of construction. But, on the whole, the school of
Tournai does not merely copy the French style. It possesses its own
originality; its type is full of charm and elegance. Its influence,
thanks to the use so frequently made of the stone of Tournai, is
overwhelming in Flanders, especially in Ghent and Bruges and in Hainaut.
Brabant, on the other hand, has a style of its own, owing to the fact
that it uses its own local materials, found in its numerous quarries.
There is a wide difference between the style of St. John’s Church at
Ghent and St. Gudula’s Church at Brussels, although their choirs are
nearly contemporaneous. In the course of the fifteenth century the
school of Brabant became dominant.
In another region--that part of Flanders near the sea and known as
“maritime Flanders”--stone from Tournai was not used because of
the difficulty of access, and here there is also to be found an
independence of style. There brick was made use of in place of stone,
and, although the inspiration of the architecture came from Tournai,
the style of that school underwent some change, owing to the difference
in the materials employed. The houses of Bruges reveal the ornaments in
brick peculiar to that style.
An entirely rich and original style, a sign of the power and the
wealth of the communes, is to be found in the civic monuments,
particularly the town halls. Everyone is familiar with the hall of
Bruges and the magnificent hall of Ypres, a gem of beauty. With their
wonderful belfries, their wide rooms, and the vast proportions of the
edifices themselves, they symbolize in a wonderful manner the strength,
the pride, and the glory of the Belgian cities in the Middle Ages.
[Illustration: THE SPLENDOR THAT WAS YPRES Now destroyed by the German
bombardments (Cloth Hall, Hôtel de Ville, and Cathedral)]