the castle of the counts, ghent.
(Twelfth century).
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Ph. B.

Up to the twelfth century, it must be remembered, only the lay and ecclesiastical aristocracy had been allowed to play a part in Belgian, and, for the matter of that, in European history. The feudal system had reduced the ancient free peasants to bondage; most of them were tied to the soil and deprived, of course, of all political rights. The foundation of large towns of 50,000 to 80,000 inhabitants, whose citizens possessed their own militia, their own tribunals and their own privileges, was nothing short of a social revolution. The merchants and artisans made their influence strongly felt in the State; they had money and military power, and the impoverished nobility became more and more dependent on them. The spirit of separatism and local individualism passed thus from the castle to the town, and it was only when some balance was re-established between the different classes of society, and when altered economic conditions necessitated a closer co-operation of the whole nation, that unification became possible in the early days of the fifteenth century.

The story of the formation of the first Communes is well known. It is the same in all parts of Western Europe, though the essential characteristics are nowhere more evident than in Belgium. Trade gave the first impulse. It had been practically annihilated by the Norman invasions and the wars of the ninth century. Using the natural waterways of the country and the sea routes, it revived slowly, and we know, through the discovery of Flemish coins in Denmark, Prussia and Russia, that the Belgian coast was already in frequent communication with Northern Europe at the end of the tenth century. The Norman Conquest was the main cause of the rapid progress of trade in the eleventh century. Many Flemings accompanied William in his expedition, many more followed as colonists, and a constant intercourse was established between the Thames and the Scheldt. The development of the trade of Bruges was the natural consequence of the increasing importance of London. Singing the Kyrie Eleison, Flemish sailors came up the Thames, bringing to England wine from France and Germany, spices from the East and cloth from Flanders.

MERCHANTS

Meanwhile, great fairs had been established in Southern Flanders at Lille, Ypres and Douai, where French and Italian merchants met the Flemish traders; so that Flanders was kept in close contact with the romanized countries by the continental routes, while the sea brought her into touch with the Germanic world. Wharves and storehouses were built on the main streams where the merchants made their winter quarters, usually in the vicinity and under the protection of some monastery or some feudal castle. Though the commercial settlements were more dependent than the latter on the geographical features of the country, most of the best situated spots, at the crossing of two main roads (Maestricht), at the confluence of navigable streams (Liége, Ghent), at the highest navigable point of a river (Cambrai), etc., had attracted the monks and the barons before the merchants. The new settlements were, however, quite distinct from the old, and their population lived under an entirely different régime. The name given to them at the time is characteristic: they were called either "porters" or "emporia" (storehouses); even after the industrial population had joined the merchants, the inhabitants remained for a long time "mercatores."

The nobles—especially the lay nobles—protected the traders. At a time when landed property diminished considerably in value, they were a source of revenue. They paid tolls on the rivers, on the roads, at the fairs. They provided all lingeries, silks, spices, furs, jewels, etc.; their ships could be equipped for war. These were sufficient reasons for the princes to grant the wandering traders a certain freedom and a privileged position in the State, and even to fight any noble who persecuted them and robbed them of their wares. At the beginning of the twelfth century, trade not only moved from south to north, on Belgium's many navigable streams; it ran also from east to west along a new road connecting Bruges with Cologne, through Maestricht, St. Trond, Léau, Louvain, Brussels, Alost and Ghent, all these places occupying some favourable geographical position. The origin of the prosperity of Antwerp dates from this period, a certain part of the wares being transported to this spot by the Scheldt from Ghent. The Bruges-Cologne road eventually ruined the trade of the latter place, to the great advantage of agricultural Brabant, which was, by this means, drawn into the economic movement then revolutionizing social conditions on the Meuse and the Scheldt.

ARTISANS

Had this movement continued to be purely commercial, social conditions would not have undergone such a rapid change, for the number of settlers would have remained relatively small. But, already in the eleventh century, the "porters" and "emporia" proved a centre of attraction, not only to discontented serfs and would-be merchants, but to skilled artisans, mostly clothmakers in Flanders and metal-workers on the Meuse. From the early days of the Menapii the inhabitants of Northern Belgium had a reputation for working the wool of their sheep. Under Charlemagne, it had already become their principal industry. In the eleventh century, with the conquest of new "polders" upon the sea and the extension of the area of rich low meadows, the quantity of wool increased considerably, and, more raw material becoming available, the cloth industry developed accordingly. From the building of a protective dyke to the weaver bending over his loom and to the ship carrying valuable Flemish cloth from Bruges to London or any other part of the European coast, there is a natural chain of thought. But the progress accomplished along the coast may also be connected with the foundation and development of the first towns and the chimes of the belfries.

In the hills of the south, industry was very likely determined by the presence of copper and tin mines. The latter, however, were rapidly exhausted, and, as early as the tenth century, the artisans of the Meuse were obliged to fetch their raw material from Germany, especially from the mines of the Geslar. The industry, however, remained in Dinant and Huy, and coppersmiths and merchants met in these places, as clothmakers and merchants met in the Flemish towns. So that, in the early Middle Ages, the contrast between agricultural and industrial Belgium was already apparent.

The migration of artisans towards trade centres in the eleventh century is as easy to understand as the attraction exerted in the present day by commerce on industry. But, in the Middle Ages, the union was bound to become closer still, owing to the resistance offered by the old régime to the social transformation and to the necessity felt by the "guilds" (either of merchants or of artisans) to unite against a common enemy.