222. TOWN-HALL OF BRUGES (BELGIUM)
It is worthy of remark that civil architecture had so greatly developed by the fifteenth century as to react in its turn upon the religious art to which it owed its birth. It gave to religious architecture certain new forms, such as the elliptic arch, adopted at the close of the fifteenth and throughout the following century, at which period civil architecture reached its apogee.
The Southern communes preserved their franchises till the sixteenth century, that disastrous era of religious warfare which involved the destruction of innumerable buildings.
The town-hall of St. Antonin (Tarn et Garonne) is perhaps the only surviving one of the period. With the exception of the belfry, it is an almost perfect type of the architecture of this class in the thirteenth century, to which date it may probably be assigned (Fig. 200).
The little town of St. Antonin, which had obtained its communal charter in 1136, suffered much for its fidelity to Raymond VI., Count of Toulouse. During the war of the Albigenses it was twice taken by Simon de Montfort, whose son, Guy de Montfort, sold it to St. Louis in 1226. It was at this period, no doubt, that the present building was erected. It has the characteristic feature of the civic monument, the belfry, which, in the Middle Ages, was the architectural expression of municipal authority and jurisdiction.
The building is a simple rectangular structure, over which the square tower rises to the right. The ground-floor is a market, communicating with an adjoining market-place, and with the narrow street which passes under the belfry. The grande salle or municipal hall occupies the first story, together with a smaller apartment in the tower. The second story is divided in the same manner.
223. TOWN-HALL AT LOUVAIN (BELGIUM)