CHAPTER VI

THE BELFRIES

On several occasions in the course of the eleventh century, the constitution of Belgian unity seemed to come within sight. The Scheldt no longer divided the country into two distinct political units. The powerful counts of Flanders were still practically independent of their French suzerain, while the Struggle for the Investitures had ruined the emperors' authority in the Meuse region, where the native nobility was again exerting its supremacy. Both parts of the country were brought more and more into contact by military alliances and dynastic intermarriages. In spite of these tendencies, three centuries were still to elapse before the reunion of the various counties and duchies under the same house and the foundation of what may be considered as the Belgian nation, in the modern sense of the word. While in France and England the central power was making great progress against the separatist tendencies of the feudal barons, in Belgium the work of political centralization was delayed by the considerable influence exerted on social conditions by the towns, or communes.

cloth hall and belfry, ypres (destroyed 1914).
(Thirteenth century.)
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Ph. B.

FIRST COMMUNES

The development of urban institutions in the twelfth century was not peculiar to Belgium. Almost in every European country the progress of trade and industry had the same result, but, just as Feudalism had been more feudal in the region of the Meuse and the Scheldt than in any other part of Northern Europe, Communalism became more communal. The same reasons which favoured separatism from the point of view of the feudal lords allowed the spirit of the guilds to assert itself more energetically than in the neighbouring countries. The very remoteness of any strong centralizing influence, the linguistic and racial differences, favoured the new régime, while the resources of the country and its geographical position on the map of Europe gave to its trade and industry an extraordinary efflorescence. The communes found in Belgium a well prepared ground. Politically, they met with a minimum of resistance; economically, they benefited from a maximum of advantages.