The Spell of Flanders / An Outline of the History, Legends and Art of Belgium's Famous Northern Provinces

by Edward Neville Vose

While Bruges and Ghent were in their prime as centres of Flemish commerce and industry a rival that was destined ultimately to supplant and eclipse them both was slowly growing up along the banks of the River Scheldt at a point where that important stream, which flows entirely across Flanders, becomes a tidal estuary. From the most ancient times the prosperity of Antwerp—which in French is called Anvers, in Flemish Antwerpen—has been closely connected with the river. According to the legends a giant named Antigonus once had a castle where the city now stands and exacted a toll of all who passed up or down the river. Evasion of this primitive high tariff was punished by cutting off both the culprit’s hands. Of course this giant just had to be killed by the hero, whose name was Brabo, and who was said to have been a lieutenant of Cæsar. Brabo cut off the dead giant’s right hand and flung it into the river in token that thenceforth it should be free from similar extortions. The visitor will find this legend recalled in the city’s arms—which has two hands surmounting a castle—and in many works of art. Brabo is said to have become the first Margrave of Antwerp, and to have founded a line of seventeen Margraves, all bearing the same name, but the deeds and even the existence of these princes is as mythical as those of their ancestor—or the famous legend of Lohengrin, which belongs to this period of Antwerp’s history.

Like London, Antwerp is situated sixty miles from the sea. In olden days commerce was rather inclined to seek the more inland ports, as being safer from storms and less exposed to sudden attacks. The size of ocean-going ships was, moreover, slowly but steadily increasing from generation to generation, and this increase favoured Antwerp, which had a deep, sure channel to the sea, as against its early rival Bruges, whose outlet, the little River Zwyn, was gradually silting up. The fact that the town was situated just outside of the dominions of the Counts of Flanders probably helped its early growth, for the jealous men of Bruges might otherwise have obtained from the Counts decrees restricting, and perhaps prohibiting, its expansion. As it was, the great Counts ruled all of the left bank of the Scheldt from Antwerp to the sea, and also the waters of the river as far as one could ride into it on horseback and then reach with extended sword.

The Tête de Flandre, opposite the centre of the older part of the city, marks the end of Flanders proper in this direction. As already explained by the Professor, however, Antwerp is none the less essentially a Flemish city in its art and architecture, its language and literature, and for many centuries of its brilliant history, and for these reasons deserves a place in this book.

Like the County of Flanders, the region surrounding Antwerp was an outlying “march” or frontier district of the Empire, and its rulers therefore derived their feudal title from the Emperor. About the year 1100 the Emperor bestowed the march on Godfrey of the Beard, Count of Louvain and first Duke of Brabant. To the Dukes of Brabant it thereafter always belonged until that title, with so many others, became merged in those acquired by the Dukes of Burgundy and united in their illustrious descendant, Charles V. On the whole, the Dukes, being absentees, were easy rulers—the shrewd burghers seizing upon their moments of weakness to wrest new privileges from them, and relying upon their strength for protection in times of danger. From time immemorial the burghers claimed a monopoly right to trade in fish, salt and oats. Other trading privileges followed, and by the time of the first Duke of Brabant the town was already an important one, with a powerful Burg, or fortress, surrounding five acres of land and buildings. Among the latter was the Steen, or feudal prison, a part of which still stands close to the river and is used as a museum of antiquities.

The early Dukes greatly extended the commercial rights and privileges of the town, Henry III granting a charter that allowed its citizens to hold bread and meat markets and trade in corn and cloth. Duke John I granted rights in his famous Core van Antwerpen, dated nearly five hundred years before the Declaration of Independence, that were remarkable for wisdom and liberality. “Within the town of Antwerp,” the charter read, “all men are free and there are no slaves. No inhabitant may be deprived of his natural judges, nor arrested in his house on civil suit.” In 1349 Duke John III granted a charter that not only confirmed all of its ancient privileges, but gave exceptional rights and liberties to foreigners—causing many of them to come and settle there. Among these was the right granted to any dweller within the city to sue: citizens according to local customs, foreigners according to the laws of their own lands. As at Bruges and Ghent all these precious charters were kept in a box having many locks, of which the keys were kept by delegates of the Broad Council of the city. “This box,” said Mr. Wilfred Robinson, in his valuable historical sketch of Antwerp, “might only be opened in the presence of all the civic authorities, while they stood around it bareheaded and holding lighted tapers in their hands. Truly it must have been a quaint and solemn scene!”

Some fifty years prior to the charter last mentioned Duke John II married one of the daughters of Edward I, King of England, and gave that monarch the city of Antwerp as a fief. Edward III used the city as a naval base, and in 1339 signed there with Jacques Van Artevelde a treaty of alliance with the communes of Brabant and Flanders. The Kings of England did not, however, retain their suzerainty over Antwerp very long, for it next passed—once more by marriage—to the daughter of Louis of Maele, Count of Flanders. The city sought to resist, and Count Louis was obliged to besiege it and punished the burghers severely for their disobedience. On his death it passed to Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, along with the entire County of Flanders of which it was then a part, and thereafter remained under the Burgundian Dukes and their successors.

In 1446 Philip the Good—whose policy had proved so disastrous to Bruges and Ghent—laid the foundation for the commercial greatness of Antwerp by a liberal charter which he granted to the Merchant Adventurers of England. The English merchants had already left Bruges, where the River Zwyn was fast silting up, and now came to Antwerp and established there a most extensive trade. They were followed by the merchants of the other nations, and in less than seventy-five years after the granting of the charter the population of the city had doubled twice—from less than seventeen thousand to over forty—four thousand inhabitants.

It was during this period that many of the most interesting structures of “old Antwerp”—the portion of the city between the Steen and the cathedral and north of the Hotel de Ville—were built. We spent several interesting mornings tramping these quaint old winding streets, some of which are still as mediæval in aspect as any to be seen in Europe. The Vielle Boucherie, recently restored, dates from the reign of Louis of Maele. In its time it contained stalls for fifty-three butchers. The streets surrounding this quaint structure of ragged brick are well nigh as ancient and interesting as the “monuments” which one encounters here and there while exploring them. The Steen itself dates, as we have seen, from the very earliest period of the city’s history, but is only a remnant of what it was. In the days of the Spanish Inquisition this grim old structure became a place of dread, and its gloomy dungeons—which the cheerful and smiling guide showed us by candlelight, for two cents a head—were in constant use for the entertainment of guests of the Margraves and their successors, the Burgundian Dukes, for nigh on to eight centuries.

THE VIELLE BOUCHERIE, ANTWERP.