THE TOWN HALLS

The most characteristic monument of the fifteenth century in Belgium is the Town Hall, just as the most characteristic monument of the two preceding centuries is the belfry, with, or without, its Cloth Hall.

the town hall, bruges.
(Fourteenth-fifteenth century).
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Ph. B.

GOTHIC TOWN HALLS

It may seem strange that it should be left to great municipal palaces to express the spirit of a period of centralization, when local privileges were progressively sacrificed to the general interest of the State, and when the prince gathered under one sway the various States among which the Netherlands had been divided. When looking at the Gothic Town Halls of Brussels, Louvain and Bruges, with their flowered traceries and luxury of ornament, one might be misled into taking them for the palaces of the prince rather than for the expression of municipal freedom. There is nothing about them of the strength and defiance expressed in the great "halles" and belfries of Ypres, Bruges and Ghent. The latter were, as we have seen, erected for two purposes. They were, so to speak, a central citadel raised in the middle of the town, from the towers of which the sentinel sounded the alarm and called the citizens to arms to defend their privileges and protect their homes against the attacks of any enemy from outside, not excluding the prince himself. Behind their thick walls and battlements, the archives and charters of the towns were jealously preserved. On the other hand, the "halles" afforded a meeting-place for foreign and local merchants and a warehouse where their goods were stored. They constituted fortified covered markets, and the combination of these military and economic characteristics is visible in every outline of the building and reveals the dominant aspirations of an age which succeeded in emancipating the city from the autocratic rule of the suzerain and in safeguarding the trade and industry of its inhabitants.

None of these features is apparent in the "hôtels de ville" of the Burgundian period. Their slender outline and small proportions exclude any idea of defence. Compare, for instance, the graceful spire of Brussels with the proud and massive belfry of Bruges, and the almost feminine aspect of the Louvain Town Hall with the forbidding masculinity of the destroyed Ypres Cloth Hall. Again, the profusion of ornament and statuettes, the delicate flanking towers, especially in Bruges and Louvain, contrast with the austerity of the old "halles." These luxurious mansions were built neither for military nor for economic purposes. They are far too small to be of any use as covered markets. In fact, the new municipal buildings of the fifteenth century only preserved one characteristic of their predecessors. They were still the seat of the "échevinage," and it was within their walls that the magistrates of the town met the duke's representative, the "bailli."

Economic activity had left the central hall and migrated to the Exchange. The achievement of the Hôtels de Ville of Brussels (1454) and Louvain (1463) coincides with the foundation of the first European Exchange in Antwerp (1460). In this transformation of the municipal buildings from the Middle Ages to the early Renaissance, we may read a parallel transformation in political and social institutions. The municipal spirit was still predominant, and the resistance made by Bruges in 1436, and still more energetically by Ghent from 1450 to 1453, to the increasing influence of Philip the Good, shows clearly that the communal spirit was still prevalent, especially in the old towns. But the relatively more modern towns, such as Brussels and Antwerp, were ready to accept the beneficial protection of the princes. The villages and the country, which had suffered for a long time from the tyranny of the large towns, were all on his side. The transformation of industry and trade contributed to break down local mediæval customs and privileges, to the greater benefit of the State. The result was a compromise, and it is that compromise which is revealed by Burgundian municipal architecture. The town was still exalted, but it was no longer the free defiant town which wrested its charters from a reluctant suzerain; it was, if one may so express it, a tamed town, developing its resources under the protection and the control of its master, while still keeping alive its pride by a great display of luxury. The failure of the Ghent revolt marked the decline of the communal militias, which were no longer able to resist the well disciplined ducal mercenary army. The defeat of Gavere (1453) sealed the fate of citizen armies, just as the Battle of the Golden Spurs (1302) had revealed their strength.

POLICY OF THE DUKES

It must, however, be remarked that this success was only obtained by a complete change of policy on the part of the dukes. They no longer, like their mediæval predecessors, opposed the development of the towns by oppressive measures. On the contrary, they did all in their power to protect and expand this prosperity, not only by securing peace and commercial liberty, but also by taking special measures in case of emergency. Philip the Good, on several occasions, attempted to arrest the decadence of Ypres caused by the development of the English cloth industry. In spite of the opposition of Ghent and Ypres, Charles the Bold undertook important works in order to dredge the estuary of the Zwyn, which was rapidly silting up, and thus to keep open, if possible, the port of Bruges. At the same time, the dukes encouraged the trade of Antwerp and gave the first impulse to the maritime activity of the ports of Holland. The Burgundian princes did not live isolated in their feudal castles; they made it a rule to reside in their large towns, either Ghent, Bruges or Brussels, where they held their courts and where they contributed, by their display of luxury, to the general prosperity. This solicitude for the welfare of the large towns was not altogether disinterested. The dukes realized that their power rested not so much on their military forces as on their wealth, and that their wealth depended on the riches of their towns. They understood, according to a contemporary historian (Chastellain), that "in the fullness of substance and money, not in dignities and highness of their rank, lay the glory and the power of princes."

The substitution of the Renaissance Hôtel de Ville for the old Cloth Hall is also the symbol of the decline of the cloth industry. The wool industry in Flanders had passed through three consecutive stages which directly affected the relationships between Belgium and England. We have seen how, during the early Middle Ages, Flemish wool being sufficient for Flemish looms, the cloth industry was almost entirely independent, and how, as the industry increased, Flemish weavers depended more and more on the imports of English wool during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. During the fourteenth century, however, owing partly to the immigration of Flemish weavers encouraged by Edward III and partly to the natural course of events, which must induce a country to work up its own raw material, the English cloth industry had become very active, and the quantity of wool available for Flanders consequently decreased, while its price increased, and the Flemish industry was faced by the double difficulty of preserving its market from the import of English cloth, through Hanseatic ships, and of obtaining the necessary raw material. The restrictive measures taken against the import of English cloth proved ineffectual, and Spanish wool, which was tried as a substitute for English, was of inferior quality. Ypres was the first to suffer, in spite of the solicitude of the dukes, who reduced commercial taxes in its favour. Its population fell from 12,000 in 1412 to 10,000 in 1470, and in 1486 one-third of its inhabitants were reduced to begging. Bruges succeeded in maintaining herself for a time through her banking establishments, while Ghent benefited from the staple of grain, Brussels from the presence of the dukes, Malines from its parliament, Louvain from its newly created university and Antwerp from its rising trade.

LINEN AND TAPESTRY

Besides, when the resistance to English rivalry proved fruitless, in spite of the repeated prohibitions decreed by Philip the Good, the country turned, with extraordinary adaptability, to the linen industry as a substitute for the woollen. Linen replaced cloth, and the same processes and looms which had been applied to the old industry were successfully applied to the new. Clothmaking took refuge either in the Flemish country districts, where the wages were lower, or in some remote parts of the Walloon country. The existence of Verviers as a clothmaking town dates from 1480. The decline of the cloth industry was also to a certain extent compensated for by the introduction in Northern Flanders and in Brabant of tapestry, whose centres, until then, had been in Arras and Tournai.

I have already alluded to the ornamental character of Burgundian Gothic contrasting with the severity of the communal period. Luxury rather than strength is aimed at by the architects of the hôtels de ville and other well-known monuments of the period, such as the Hôtel Gruthuse and the Chapelle du Saint Sang in Bruges. This richness is real, and not artificially confined to the prince and the upper classes of society.

At the beginning of the Burgundian régime, under Philip the Bold, Flanders was partially ruined by internal and external wars. Its towns were depleted of their craftsmen, its polders converted into marshes by the incursions of the sea, and wolves and wild boars again wandered through the country as in the early Middle Ages. Brabant, Holland, Zeeland and Liége, though less severely affected, passed through a time of strife and civil war. Fifty years later (about 1430), the Low Countries were again the most prosperous States of Europe, and the historian Philip de Commines was able to call them "a land of promise," while Gachard contrasts them with the southern domains of the duke, "Burgundy, which lacks money and smells of France." Chastellain eloquently vaunts their banquets and gorgeous festivities. The dukes themselves took every opportunity to display their wealth, especially in the presence of foreign princes. It seems as if they wanted to make up for the title of king which they vainly coveted by an ostentatious luxury which no king of the time could have afforded. When, in 1456, the Dauphin Louis visited Bruges with the duke, the decoration of the town amazed the French, "who had never witnessed such riches" (Chastellain), and when Margaret of York entered the town, on the occasion of her marriage with Charles the Bold, in 1469, the streets were covered with cloth of gold, silks and tapestries, and the procession had to stop ten times before reaching the market-place to admire tableaux vivants illustrating the periods of sacred and profane history: "By my troth," wrote John Paston, one of the English gentlemen who attended Margaret's wedding, "I heard never of so great plenty as there is, and, as for the duke's court, as for lords, ladies and gentlewomen, knights, squires and gentlemen, I heard never of none like to it save King Arthur's court."

MANNERS OF THE TIMES

This astounding economic recovery must not, it is true, be attributed only to the beneficial action of the dukes' administration, but it seems evident that a long period of peace, guaranteeing order, security and free communication with other countries, combined with wise administrative and financial measures, contributed greatly to hasten it. Measures were taken to lighten the restrictions and monopolies of towns and corporations and to regulate and control the minting of money. As early as 1483, Philip the Good was able to boast that his money was better than that of any of his neighbours. The right of coining money was no longer farmed out, but entrusted "to notables well known for their wealth, who could provide the country with gold and silver money and exchange any money which might be brought to them by the merchants." In 1469 Edward IV of England and Charles the Bold agreed to call a conference in Bruges to determine a common currency for both countries and to suppress the exchange.

ANTWERP AND BRUGES

These financial regulations are intimately connected with the transformation which trade underwent at the time, and which was one of the main causes of the transfer of the economic centre of the country from Bruges to Antwerp. The reason generally given for this change is a geographical one. It is pointed out that while, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, the widening of the western branch of the Scheldt through inundations in Zeeland afforded a direct road from Antwerp to the high-seas (formerly ships had to go round the island of Walcheren), all the efforts made to prevent the silting up of the Zwyn from 1470 to 1490 were fruitless. In 1506, it was possible for carts to drive safely at low tide across the end of the harbour. The progress of navigation, increasing the tonnage of ships, and the Spanish and Portuguese discoveries acted also in favour of the deeper and safer harbour, but there are other reasons which might have ruined Bruges in favour of Antwerp, even if the geographical advantages of both ports had remained equal.

From the beginning of the fifteenth century the conditions of trade underwent complete transformation. Powerful companies, disposing of large capital and wide credit, took the place of the old local merchant companies. Transactions became so considerable and involved that mediæval regulations, instead of controlling commerce, only hampered it. Any protective measure detrimental to foreigners became fatal to home trade. Antwerp, which then appeared as a new metropolis, had no difficulty in adapting itself to modern capitalist conditions. At the end of the fourteenth century the town had already lost its Brabançon character and had become almost cosmopolitan. It had adopted economic liberty. Foreign merchants meeting at its fairs were protected by safe conducts. The positions of brokers and money-changers were open to all, and citizenship easily accessible. Bruges, on the other hand, hampered by old regulations and closely attached to its privileges, was not able to adapt itself to the new situation. As late as 1477 measures were taken to prevent foreigners from introducing on the market wares purchased elsewhere, and their position was no longer in accordance with the principle of free trade. It thus happened that, while the population of Antwerp increased by leaps and bounds, from 3,440 families in 1435 to 8,785 in 1526, the trade of Bruges decreased steadily, owing to the emigration of foreign merchants. Protective measures against the import of English cloth estranged the Hanseatic merchants, and, in 1442, the "Merchant Adventurers" established themselves definitely in Antwerp, where they were soon followed by the Italians, Spanish and Portuguese. It is true that Bruges remained, for a time, the centre of banking activity, which accounts for the fact that it preserved its architectural and artistic splendour at the very time when its trade was failing. But in the natural course of events the financiers had to follow the merchants, and at the end of the century the decadence of Bruges as a great seaport was almost as complete as that of Ypres as an industrial centre. It was characteristic of the new trade conditions that no "halles" were built in Antwerp, the mediæval emporium being replaced by a modern exchange.

Antwerp, however, possessed with Bruges one common feature. It was, like its predecessor, the great clearing-house of Western Europe, and derived its prosperity not from the goods either consumed or manufactured in its own country, but from its position as an open market where all merchants could conveniently sell their own wares and buy those of distant lands.

the first antwerp exchange.
From an old print (1531).
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It must also be noticed that, while Bruges resisted as far as lay in its power the centralizing influence of the dukes and of the princes who succeeded them, Antwerp remained loyal to the new political régime which brought it so many advantages. The troubles which arose in Bruges under Maximilian may be considered as the death-blow to the prosperity of the old town.

the town hall, oudenarde.
(Fifteenth century).
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Ph. B.

The rule of the dukes was equally beneficial to the smaller towns and villages of the country-side. It put an end to the mediæval régime and to feudal and ecclesiastical dues. The nobility had no longer the monopoly of landownership, and many bourgeois enriched by trade bought large estates. This change contributed, to a certain extent, to decrease the number of small landowners and to create a larger class of farmers and agricultural labourers. This was, however, partially compensated for by the reclamation of land from the sea (polders) through the building of dykes and by the impulse given to cattle breeding, which rendered more intensive cultivation possible. It was at that time that the old system of leaving a third of the land fallow was to a great extent abolished through a larger use of manure. With the exception of the famine of 1348, due to bad crops, the Burgundian régime was free from the terrible calamities which had never ceased to devastate the country during the previous centuries.

POPULATION

Through the census made for Brabant in 1435 and for Flanders in 1469, it is possible to estimate the total population of the Burgundian States in the Netherlands at two millions, to which 700,000 ought to be added if we include Liége. This, considering the size of these States and the economic conditions of the period, is a very high figure, and implies an economic activity at least equal to that of modern Belgium. How far such a rise in the population was due to the wise administration of Philip the Good is shown by a closer inspection of the facts. The years from 1435 to 1464 are marked by a steady increase, while the period from 1464 to 1472, when Charles the Bold imperilled the prosperity of the country by his foreign wars, shows a slow decrease, which becomes far more accentuated after the death of the duke and during the troubled period which succeeded the Burgundian rule.

CHAPTER XI