“THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS.”—HUGO VAN DER GOES.
According to the Royal Commission of Art and Archeology of Belgium, Ghent contains more noteworthy antiquities than any other town in the Kingdom. The Commission, it appears, divides the “antiquities” into three classes, according to their relative importance, and credits Ghent with thirteen of the first class, ten of the second and six of the third—or twenty-nine in all. The figures for the other Flemish cities are: Antwerp, seven first, five second, six third, total eighteen; Bruges, four first, six second, six third, total sixteen; Tournai, three first, six second, six third, total fifteen; Malines, four first, eight second, two third, total fourteen. Many places are credited with two or three each. We tried to get a copy of the Report of the Commission giving the names of the antiquities in each class, and the reasons for ranking them, but were unable to do so during our stay in Belgium. It would have been a learned check on the list of places we had found most interesting. Quite likely we would have found that the Commission gave the first rank to some “antiquity” we did not see at all, and maybe never heard of! However, we saw enough to occupy every minute of our brief vacation, and the majority of those we missed—wilfully at least—were churches, of which Flanders has enough to fill three books like this were one to faithfully report them all.
In Ghent there are, as at Bruges, many interesting private houses scattered throughout the city. The Professor and I on our morning walks looked up many of these, but the list would be tedious to enumerate. One of the most famous is the “Arriére-Faucille,” formerly the home of a rich seigneur, but since 1901 used as a Royal Conservatory of Music. Its castle-like tower is very picturesque, but we saw nothing of interest in the interior. Near by are two very old houses with typically Flemish gables, called the Zwarte Moor and the Groot Moor. Built in 1481, or thereabouts, the Confrerie of St. George had its headquarters here for many years.
OLD GUILD HOUSES, QUAI AUX HERBES, GHENT.
The guilds have already been mentioned, and the façades of all of the more famous of the guild houses have been carefully restored. These include the Maison des Mesureurs de Blé and the Maison des Francs Bateliers on the Quai aux Herbes, the Maison des Maçons and the Maison des Bateliers non francs. The ancient Grand Boucherie, recently restored, is another interesting “monument.” It seems that the Butchers’ Guild at Ghent owed its prosperity to the fact that Charles V chanced one day to fall in love with the pretty daughter of a Ghent butcher. This young lady obtained for her son and his descendants an imperial monopoly of the slaughtering and meat-selling business which survived all the various dynastic changes till the French Revolution. The butchers were called Prinse Kinderen, or Prince’s Children, and seem to have made a very good thing out of the blot on their family escutcheon. Another old edifice is the Maison de l’Etape, or Staple House, a granary dating from the thirteenth century, which stands beside the guild houses on the Quai aux Herbes. In short, the tourist can easily find enough of interest in this rare old Flemish city to occupy many days of leisurely sight-seeing. Ghent, like Bruges, has thus far been spared the destruction that has overtaken so many of the smaller Flemish towns during the war and, as far as is at present known, all of its twenty-nine monuments are still intact.