Part 4 (1/2)

The latter belonged to the last national dynasty ruling in the country and were therefore particularly popular. The Battle of Woeringen (1288), in which Duke John I succeeded in defeating the powerful Archbishop of Cologne and his allies, established his supremacy between the Meuse and the Rhine and gave him the full control of the road from Cologne to Ghent, through Louvain and Brussels, which brought Brabant into line with Flanders's trade and industry. Brabant became thus the national bulwark against foreign influence and the political stronghold of Belgium, a position which it never completely relinquished, even through the cruel vicissitudes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

[_BRABANT_]

If the prosperity of Brabant did not yet equal that of Flanders, the dukes possessed greater authority over their subjects and enjoyed far more independence. Edward I, when preparing for war against France, fully appreciated these advantages, and gave his daughter Margaret in marriage to the son of John I. Antwerp benefited largely from the Anglo-Brabanconne alliance, since, when the English kings forbade the importation of wool into Flanders, following some conflict with France, the English merchants found a suitable market in the Scheldt port in close communication with the centres of Brabant's cloth industry, Louvain, Brussels and Malines.

The cities of Flanders, however, were not prepared to see their trade ruined to suit the plans of the French. The economic reasons which forbade a hostile att.i.tude towards England would have afforded sufficient ground for an anti-French reaction. The crisis was hastened by internal trouble. The merchants and the craftsmen of the Communes had not remained united. The rich and influential merchants had gradually monopolized public offices and formed a strong aristocracy opposed by the craftsmen. Count Guy de Dampierre declared himself for the artisans, Philip the Fair of France, seizing the opportunity of interfering in the affairs of Flanders, declared himself in favour of the aristocracy. At the same time, he opposed the projected marriage of the count's daughter with King Edward's eldest son. The popular party, or ”Clauwaerts” (the claw of the Flemish lion), was not sufficiently organized to resist the ”Leliaerts” (partisans of the lily), helped by Philip's forces, and for five years the land remained under French occupation, Count Guy being imprisoned in France. In July 1302 a terrible rising, known as ”Matines brugeoises” and led by the weaver Pieter de Coninck, broke out in Bruges, when all the French in the town were murdered in the early hours of the morning. Philip immediately sent a powerful army to punish the rebels, which was defeated under the walls of Courtrai by the Flemish militia, which some n.o.bles, partisans of the count, had hastily joined.

The consequences of the Battle of the Golden Spurs were considerable.

It reversed the situation created, a century before, by Bouvines. From the social point of view, it gave a tremendous impulse to democratic liberty throughout Belgium. As a result, the people of Liege obtained, in 1316, their first liberties, symbolized by the erection of the ”Perron.” The ”Joyeuse Entree” of Brabant was published in 1354 and became the fixed const.i.tution of the central princ.i.p.ality. Charters were enlarged and confirmed even in the least industrial districts of Hainault and Namur, Luxemburg remaining practically the only purely feudal State in the country. Duke John of Luxemburg, who became King of Bohemia and who fought at Crecy, was considered at the time as one of the last representatives of mediaeval chivalry. The Prince of Wales's motto ”I serve” was supposed to have been borrowed by the Black Prince from this n.o.ble enemy.

[FLANDERS AND ENGLAND]

From the national point of view, the Battle of Courtrai is no less important. Had the Flemings again failed in their bold bid for liberty, the principle of Belgian nationality might have been irretrievably jeopardized on the eve of the period when it was to a.s.sert itself, and the efforts of centuries towards the reconst.i.tution of political unity might have become useless. It is, of course, entirely wrong to attribute the rising of 1302 to purely patriotic motives, as some romantic Belgian historians have endeavoured to do; but one may legitimately believe that part at least of the blind and obstinate heroism displayed during the struggle may have been inspired by an obscure instinct that Flanders was, at the moment, waging the battle of Belgium--that is to say, of all the lands lying between France and Germany, and which, if permanently annexed by one or other of the Powers, must necessarily upset the balance of Europe and wreck all hope of European peace based on national freedom.

Flanders did not, however, reap the full benefits of her victory. The peace concluded in 1319, after further military operations, took away from the county all the Walloon district, considerably reducing the cattle grazing area and making Flemish industry more dependent than ever on England for its raw material. From the beginning of the fourteenth century, the counts, who had, up to then, sided with the people, went over to the French party, so that, when the Hundred Years'

War broke out, Flanders found herself again faced by the cruel alternative of breaking her allegiance and being exposed to the disasters of an armed invasion from the South, or keeping it and seeing her industry ruined owing to the stoppage of her trade with England.

As early as 1336, Count Louis de Nevers having ordered the arrest of English merchants, Edward III, as a reprisal, interrupted all intercourse between the two countries. This measure was all the more disastrous for Flanders because, helped by the immigration of some Flemish weavers and fullers to England, an English cloth industry had been started across the Channel. The English were therefore far less dependent on the Flemings than the Flemings on the English, and it was to be feared that the new industry would greatly benefit from the monopoly created by the stoppage of trade. The prosperity of Bruges was further threatened, since the prohibition did not include Brabant, and Antwerp remained open to British trade.

[VAN ARTEVELDE]

In 1338 the people rose against their count, and Jacques Van Artevelde of Ghent became the acknowledged leader of the movement. These risings differed from the ”Matines brugeoises” in that the aristocracy took part in them as well as the craftsmen. Van Artevelde was not a workman like De Coninck. He was a rich landowner and had great interests in the cloth trade. His aim was not only to preserve the country's independence, but to safeguard its prosperity. Approached by Edward III's delegates, he tried at first to maintain a purely neutral att.i.tude, but, when the English king landed in Antwerp with supplies of wool, he was obliged to side with England. The ”Wise Man of Ghent”

suggested, however, that in order to relieve the Communes of their oath of allegiance to Philip of Valois, who had succeeded the Capetians, Edward should declare himself the true king of France. The struggle which followed the destruction of the French fleet at Sluis (1340) was protracted, no decision being reached at the siege of Tournai. Edward was called back to England by the restlessness of his own subjects, while the Flemish artisans were unwilling indefinitely to hold the field against the French armies. The departure of the English forces caused great bitterness among the people, who accused Van Artevelde of having betrayed them, and in the course of a riot the once popular tribune was killed by the mob (1345). Froissart, his enemy, pays him a generous tribute: ”The poor exalted him, the wicked killed him.”

His son Philip, Queen Philippa's G.o.dson, vainly endeavoured to succeed where his father had failed. After leading a revolt against the pro-French Count Louis de Male, he was defeated by the French in 1382 and died on the battlefield.

All these struggles had weakened Flanders considerably. By chasing German merchants from Bruges (1380), Louis de Male had brought about the decadence of this port in favour of Antwerp, where the English were soon to transfer the wool market. Political persecutions had driven a great many of the artisans to England, to the great advantage of English industry. Hundreds of houses in Bruges remained empty, Ypres was half destroyed, and Ghent had lost a considerable part of its population. Civil war had exhausted the country's resources during the last years of the fourteenth century. In the country-side the d.y.k.es were neglected, great stretches of ”polders” were again flooded by the sea, and wolves and bears infested the woods. The restoration of Flanders to its previous prosperity did not take place before the middle of the fifteenth century, as a result of the wise rule of the dukes of Burgundy.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CATHEDRAL OF TOURNAI

Literature is perhaps nowadays the most characteristic expression of civilization, just as painting was the most striking mode of expression in the Renaissance and architecture in the Middle Ages. We have seen that, in the Netherlands, civic monuments const.i.tute a typical feature in mediaeval architecture, but, though it is important to insist on the conditions which favoured and inspired the building of belfries and cloth-halls, the important part played by churches in the Netherlands, as in France and England, must nevertheless be acknowledged. It is true that, considering the intense religious life of the Low Countries from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries, the number of well preserved old churches still existing is rather disappointing, but this impression would be greatly altered if it were possible to revive the buildings which have fallen victim to destruction or to a worse fate still, wholesale restoration.

[_SECOND CRUSADE_]

All through the Middle Ages, Belgium was an extraordinarily active centre of religious teaching and mysticism, and nowhere else perhaps in Europe did the Christian faith penetrate so deeply among the common people. Quite apart from the intellectual and aristocratic movements favoured in the tenth and eleventh centuries by the imperial bishops of Liege and their celebrated schools, from the deeper influence exerted in other parts by the Clunisian monks (eleventh century) and by the Cistercians and Premontres (twelfth century), the enthusiasm aroused by the crusades is a sufficient proof of the country's religious fervour. Not only did the n.o.bles play a predominant part, G.o.dfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lotharingia, being the leader of the first crusade and the counts of Flanders, Robert II, Thierry of Alsace, Philip of Alsace and Baldwin IX, taking a large share in the same and in subsequent expeditions, but the lower cla.s.ses enlisted with the same enthusiasm and flocked around the cross raised by Peter the Hermit and his followers. It is reported that, during the second crusade, certain localities lost more than half their male population.

Later, with the development of the Communes, the bourgeois and the townspeople endeavoured to nominate their own priests and chaplains, civil hospitals were founded, and, in the thirteenth century, the mendicant orders enjoyed an enormous popularity, owing to the familiarity with which they mixed with the people. They followed the armies in the field, and it was among them that the citizens found their favourite preachers in times of peace.

The great concourse of merchants and artisans in the towns favoured the spreading of heresies, and, for a time, the Manicheans, under their leader Tanchelm, made many converts among the Antwerp weavers; but the Church was strong enough, at the time, not to appeal hastily to forcible repression. The heretic preachers were fought, on their own ground, by Franciscans, Dominicans and other ecclesiastics, who succeeded in defeating them by their personal prestige. One of these preachers who was honoured as a saint, Lambert le Begue (the Stammerer), greatly influenced spiritual life in Liege and the surrounding districts. The foundation of the characteristically Belgian inst.i.tution of the ”Beguines,” or ”Beggards,” can, at least partly, be traced to his religious activity.

This inst.i.tution, which spread all over the country during the thirteenth century, shows once more the success of all attempts in the Netherlands to bring the inspiration of religion into the practice of everyday life and into close contact with the humble and the poor. It was specially successful among the women, and absorbed a great many of the surplus female population. The ”Beguines” did not p.r.o.nounce eternal vows and could, if they liked, return to the world. They led a very active life, settled in small houses, forming a large square planted with trees, around a chapel where they held their services. All the time not devoted to prayer was given to some manual work, teaching or visiting the poor. From Nivelles, the movement spread to Ghent, Bruges, Lille, Ypres, Oudenarde, Damme, Courtrai, Alost, Dixmude, etc., and even to Northern France and Western Germany. The accomplished type of the ”Beguine” is Marie d'Oignies, who, after a few months of married life, separated from her husband, spent many years among the lepers, and finally settled, with a few companions, in the little convent of Oignies, near Namur.

[_ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE_]

Such was the spirit which inspired the builders of the Belgian churches. Certainly the most typical and perhaps the most beautiful is Notre Dame of Tournai, with its romanesque nave, built in the eleventh century, its early Gothic choir (thirteenth century) and its later Gothic porch (fourteenth century). It ill.u.s.trates admirably the succession of styles used in the country during the Middle Ages and the series of influences to which these styles were subjected from the East and from the South. Most of the romanesque churches of the tenth and eleventh centuries were built either by German architects or by their Belgian pupils. Though the best examples of the period are now found either at Tournai (cathedral and St. Quentin), at Soignies (St.

Vincent) and at Nivelles (Ste. Gertrude), the centre of the school was at Liege, where St. Denis, St. Jacques, St. Barthelemy and especially Ste. Croix still show some traces of this early work. The main features of these buildings, in their original state, are, beside the use of the rounded arch, round or octagonal turrets, with pointed roofs, over the facade and sometimes over the transept.

Ill.u.s.tration: THE CATHEDRAL, TOURNAI (TWELFTH-FOURTEENTH CENTURY).