COXYDE--THE SCENERY OF THE DUNES
The whole of the coast-line is within the province of West Flanders,
and its development in recent years is the most striking fact in the
modern history of the part of Belgium with which this volume deals. The
change which has taken place on the littoral during the last fifteen
or twenty years is extraordinary, and the contrast between the old
Flanders and the new, between the Flanders which lingers in the past
and the Flanders which marches with the times, is brought vividly
before us by the difference between such mediæval towns as Bruges,
Furnes, or Nieuport, and the bright new places which glitter on the
sandy shores of the Flemish coast. But in almost every corner of the
dunes, close to these signs of modern progress, there is something to
remind us of that past history which is, after all, the great charm
of Flanders.
One of the most characteristic spots in the land of the
dunes is the village of Coxyde, which lies low amongst the sandhills,
about five miles west from Nieuport, out of sight of the sea, but
inhabited by a race of fisherfolk who, curiously enough, pursue their
calling on horseback. Mounted on their little horses, and carrying
baskets and nets fastened to long poles, they go into the sea to catch
small fish and shrimps. It is strange to see them riding about in the
water, sometimes in bands, but more frequently alone or in pairs; and
this curious custom, which has been handed down from father to son for
generations, is peculiar to the part of the coast which lies between La
Panne and the borders of France.
Near Coxyde, and at the corner where the road from Furnes turns in the
direction of La Panne, is a piece of waste ground which travellers on
the Vicinal railway pass without notice. But here once stood the famous
Abbey of the Dunes.
[Illustration: COXYDE
A Shrimper on Horseback.]
In the first years of the twelfth century a pious hermit named Lyger
took up his abode in these solitary regions, built a dwelling for
himself, and settled down to spend his life in doing good works and
in the practice of religion. Soon, as others gathered round him,
his dwelling grew into a monastery, and at last, in the year 1122, the
Abbey of the Dunes was founded. It was nearly half a century before
the great building, which is said to have been the first structure of
such a size built of brick in Flanders, was completed; but when at
last the work was done the Abbey was, by all accounts, one of the most
magnificent religious houses in Flanders, consisting of a group of
buildings with no less than 105 windows, a rich and splendid church, so
famous for its ornamental woodwork that the carvings of the stalls were
reproduced in the distant Abbey of Melrose in Scotland, and a library
which, as time went on, became a storehouse of precious manuscripts and
hundreds of those wonderfully illustrated missals on which the monks of
the Middle Ages spent so many laborious hours. We can imagine them in
the cells of Coxyde copying and copying for hours together, or bending
over the exquisitely coloured drawings which are still preserved in the
museums of Flanders.
But their most useful work was done on the lands which lay round the
Abbey. There were at Coxyde in the thirteenth century no fewer than
150 monks and 248 converts engaged at one time in cultivating the
soil.[27] They drained the marshes, and planted seeds where seeds
would grow, until, after years of hard labour on the barren ground,
the Abbey of the Dunes was surrounded by wide fields which had been
reclaimed and turned into a fertile oasis in the midst of that savage
and inhospitable desert.
When St. Bernard was preaching the Crusade in Flanders he came to
Coxyde. On his advice the monks adopted the Order of the Cistercians,
and their first abbot under the new rule afterwards sat in the chair of
St. Bernard himself as Abbot of Clairvaux. Thereafter the Cistercian
Abbey of the Dunes grew in fame, especially under the rule of St.
Idesbaldus, who had come there from Furnes, where he had been a Canon
of the Church of Ste. Walburge. 'It has also a special interest for
English folk. It long held lands in the isle of Sheppey, as well as the
advowson of the church of Eastchurch, in the same island. These were
bestowed on it by Richard the Lion-Hearted. The legend says that these
gifts were made to reward its sixth abbot, Elias, for the help he gave
in releasing Richard from captivity. Anyhow, Royal Charters, and
dues from the Archbishop of Canterbury, and a Bull of Pope Celestine
III., confirmed the Abbey in its English possessions and privileges.
The Abbey seems to have derived little benefit from these, and finally,
by decision of a general congregation of the Cistercian Order, handed
them over to the Abbot and Chapter of Bexley, to recoup the latter for
the cost of entertaining monks of the Order going abroad, or returning
from the Continent, on business of the Order.'[28]
[Illustration: COXYDE
A Shrimper.]
The English invasion of the fifteenth century destroyed the work of the
monks in their fields and gardens, but the Abbey itself was spared;
and the great disaster did not come until a century later, when the
image-breakers, who had begun their work amongst the Gothic arches of
Antwerp, spread over West Flanders, and descended upon Coxyde. The
Abbey was attacked, and the monks fled to Bruges, carrying with them
many of their treasures, which are still to be seen in the collection
on the Quai de la Poterie, beyond the bridge which is called the Pont
des Dunes. The noble building, so long the home of so much piety and
learning, and from which so many generations of apostles had gone
forth to toil in the fields and minister to the poor, was abandoned,
and allowed to fall into ruins, until at last it gradually sunk into
complete decay, and was buried beneath the sands. Not a trace of it now
remains. History has few more piteous sermons to preach on the vanity
of all the works of men.
The fishermen on the coast of Flanders have, from remote times, paid
their vows in the hour of danger to Notre Dame de Lombaerdzyde. If they
escape from some wild storm they go on a pilgrimage of thanksgiving.
They walk in perfect silence along the road to the shrine, for not a
word must be spoken till they reach it; and these hardy seafaring men
may be seen kneeling at the altar of the old, weather-beaten church
which stands on the south side of the highway through the village, and
in which are wooden models of ships hung up as votive offerings before
an image of the Virgin, which is the object of peculiar veneration. The
Madonna of Lombaerdzyde did not prevail to keep the sea from invading
the village at the time when the inhabitants were driven to Nieuport,
but the belief in her miraculous power is as strong to-day as it was in
the Dark Ages.
[Illustration: ADINKERQUE
Village and Canal.]
There is a view of Lombaerdzyde which no one strolling on the dunes
near Nieuport should fail to see--a perfect picture, as typical
of the scenery in these parts as any landscape chosen by Hobbema or
Ruysdael. A causeway running straight between two lofty dunes of bare
sand, and bordered by stunted trees, forms a long vista at the end
of which Lombaerdzyde appears--a group of red-roofed houses, with
narrow gables and white walls, and in the middle the pointed spire
of the church, beyond which the level plain of Flanders, dotted with
other villages and churches and trees in formal rows, stretches away
into the distance until it merges in the horizon. Adinkerque, a
picturesque village beyond Furnes, is another place which calls to
mind many a picture of the Flemish artists in the Musée of Antwerp and
the Mauritshuis at The Hague; and the recesses of the dune country
in which these places are hidden has a wonderful fascination about
it--the irregular outlines of the dunes, some high and some low,
sinking here into deep hollows of firm sand, and rising there into
strange fantastic shapes, sometimes with sides like small precipices
on which nothing can grow, and sometimes sloping gently downwards and
covered with trembling poplars, spread in confusion on every side.
Often near the shore the sandy barrier has been broken down by the
wind or by the waves, and a long gulley formed, which cuts deep into
the dunes, and through which the sand drifts inland till it reaches a
steep bank clothed with rushes, against which it heaps itself, and so,
rising higher with the storms of each winter, forms another dune. This
process has been going on for ages. The sands are for ever shifting,
but moss begins to grow in sheltered spots; such wild flowers as can
flourish there bloom and decay; the poplars shed their leaves, and
nourish by imperceptible degrees the fibres of the moss; some hardy
grasses take root; and at length a scanty greensward appears. By such
means slowly, in the microcosm of the dunes, have been evolved out of
the changing sands places fit for men to live in, until now along the
strip which guards the coast of Flanders there are green glades gay
with flowers, and shady dells, and gardens sheltered from the wind,
plots of pasture-land, cottages and churches which seem to grow out of
the landscape, their colouring so harmonizes with the colouring which
surrounds them. And ever, close at hand, the sea is rolling in and
falling on the shore. 'Come unto these yellow sands,' and when the sun
is going down, casting a long bar of burnished gold across the water,
against which, perhaps, the sail of some boat looms dark for a moment
and then passes on, the sky glows in such a lovely, tender light that
those who watch it must needs linger till the twilight is fading away
before they turn their faces inland. There are few evenings for beauty
like a summer evening on the shores of Flanders.
FOOTNOTES.
[Footnote 27: Derode, _Histoire Religieuse de la Flandre Maritime_, p.
86.]
[Footnote 28: Robinson, _Bruges, an Historical Sketch_, p. 176.]
EAST FLANDERS AND BRABANT
EAST FLANDERS AND BRABANT