We may close the list of Belgian town-halls of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries with that of Louvain. The design and general scheme of elaborate decoration are akin to those of the hall of Bruges, and it bears the same ecclesiastical impress.
It was built between 1448 and 1463 by Mathieu de Layens, master mason of the town and its outskirts, and is a rectangular building of three stories. The gable ends are pierced with three rows of pointed windows, and adorned with a rich profusion of mouldings, statues, and sculptured ornament. The steep roof has four tiers of dormer-windows. The angles are flanked by graceful openwork turrets, with delicate pinnacles, and similar turrets receive the ridge of the roof at either end. The lateral façades are adorned with three rows of statues and allegorical sculptures, covering the whole with a wealth of exquisite tracery. Its lace-like delicacy has suffered considerably from the action of weather, and it was found necessary to renovate a considerable portion of the ornament in 1840.
Belfries.—In the early days of the enfranchisement of the communes, it became customary to call the community together by means of bells, which at that period were confined to the church towers, and which it was unlawful to ring without the consent of the clergy. It may easily be conceived to what incessant broils the new order gave rise, the clergy as a body being strongly opposed to the separatist tendency of measures which attacked their feudal rights. The municipalities finally put an end to internecine warfare in this connection by hanging bells of their own over the town-gates, a custom which was superseded towards the close of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century by the erection of towers for the civic bells. Such was the origin of the belfry, the earliest material expression of communal independence.
The structure usually formed part of the town-hall, but was sometimes an isolated building. The isolated belfry was a great square tower of several stories, crowned by a timber roof protected either by slates or lead. The great bells hung in one story, and above them the little bells of the carillon.
A lodging, opening upon a surrounding gallery, was constructed in the upper story for the accommodation of the watchman, whose duty it was to warn the inhabitants of approaching danger and to give notice of fires. The bells rang at sunrise and curfew.
The chimes (carillon) marked the hours and their subdivisions, and at festival seasons mingled their joyous notes with the deep and solemn voice of the great bell.
The custom of tolling the great bell to give notice of a fire still obtains in many villages of the North, the greater number of which have preserved their belfries in spite of the modifications they have undergone at different periods.
The belfry tower usually contained a prison, a hall for the town-councillors, a muniment room, and a magazine for arms. It was long the only town-hall of a commune.
