All through the Middle Ages, Belgium was an extraordinarily active centre of religious teaching and mysticism, and nowhere else perhaps in Europe did the Christian faith penetrate so deeply among the common people. Quite apart from the intellectual and aristocratic movements favoured in the tenth and eleventh centuries by the imperial bishops of Liége and their celebrated schools, from the deeper influence exerted in other parts by the Clunisian monks (eleventh century) and by the Cistercians and Prémontrés (twelfth century), the enthusiasm aroused by the crusades is a sufficient proof of the country's religious fervour. Not only did the nobles play a predominant part, Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lotharingia, being the leader of the first crusade and the counts of Flanders, Robert II, Thierry of Alsace, Philip of Alsace and Baldwin IX, taking a large share in the same and in subsequent expeditions, but the lower classes enlisted with the same enthusiasm and flocked around the cross raised by Peter the Hermit and his followers. It is reported that, during the second crusade, certain localities lost more than half their male population.

Later, with the development of the Communes, the bourgeois and the townspeople endeavoured to nominate their own priests and chaplains, civil hospitals were founded, and, in the thirteenth century, the mendicant orders enjoyed an enormous popularity, owing to the familiarity with which they mixed with the people. They followed the armies in the field, and it was among them that the citizens found their favourite preachers in times of peace.

The great concourse of merchants and artisans in the towns favoured the spreading of heresies, and, for a time, the Manicheans, under their leader Tanchelm, made many converts among the Antwerp weavers; but the Church was strong enough, at the time, not to appeal hastily to forcible repression. The heretic preachers were fought, on their own ground, by Franciscans, Dominicans and other ecclesiastics, who succeeded in defeating them by their personal prestige. One of these preachers who was honoured as a saint, Lambert le Bègue (the Stammerer), greatly influenced spiritual life in Liége and the surrounding districts. The foundation of the characteristically Belgian institution of the "Béguines," or "Beggards," can, at least partly, be traced to his religious activity.

This institution, which spread all over the country during the thirteenth century, shows once more the success of all attempts in the Netherlands to bring the inspiration of religion into the practice of everyday life and into close contact with the humble and the poor. It was specially successful among the women, and absorbed a great many of the surplus female population. The "Béguines" did not pronounce eternal vows and could, if they liked, return to the world. They led a very active life, settled in small houses, forming a large square planted with trees, around a chapel where they held their services. All the time not devoted to prayer was given to some manual work, teaching or visiting the poor. From Nivelles, the movement spread to Ghent, Bruges, Lille, Ypres, Oudenarde, Damme, Courtrai, Alost, Dixmude, etc., and even to Northern France and Western Germany. The accomplished type of the "Béguine" is Marie d'Oignies, who, after a few months of married life, separated from her husband, spent many years among the lepers, and finally settled, with a few companions, in the little convent of Oignies, near Namur.

ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE

Such was the spirit which inspired the builders of the Belgian churches. Certainly the most typical and perhaps the most beautiful is Notre Dame of Tournai, with its romanesque nave, built in the eleventh century, its early Gothic choir (thirteenth century) and its later Gothic porch (fourteenth century). It illustrates admirably the succession of styles used in the country during the Middle Ages and the series of influences to which these styles were subjected from the East and from the South. Most of the romanesque churches of the tenth and eleventh centuries were built either by German architects or by their Belgian pupils. Though the best examples of the period are now found either at Tournai (cathedral and St. Quentin), at Soignies (St. Vincent) and at Nivelles (Ste. Gertrude), the centre of the school was at Liége, where St. Denis, St. Jacques, St. Barthélémy and especially Ste. Croix still show some traces of this early work. The main features of these buildings, in their original state, are, beside the use of the rounded arch, round or octagonal turrets, with pointed roofs, over the façade and sometimes over the transept.

the cathedral, tournai.
(Twelfth-fourteenth century).
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Ph. B.

With the decline of German political and intellectual influence, Gothic was introduced into the country by French architects. In the last years of the twelfth century, Tournai thus became the meeting-place of the two currents, and, owing to its favourable position on the Scheldt and to the material available in the district, dominated the whole religious architecture of Flanders. The period of transition lasted over a century and produced some of the most characteristic religious buildings of the country, in which both the rounded and pointed arches are happily combined. To this period belong St. Jacques and Ste. Madeleine of Tournai, St. Nicolas and St. Jacques of Ghent and the pretty little church of Pamele, built by Arnold of Binche (near Tournai) between 1238 and 1242, where beside the romanesque turrets of the façade may be found a short central octagonal Gothic tower. The well-known Church of St. Sauveur at Bruges, begun in 1137, belongs to the same period, but brick instead of Tournai stone has been used for its erection. The same feature is found in a good many Gothic churches in maritime Flanders and Holland, which were too distant from the Hainault quarries.

Tournai again, in the choir of its cathedral, furnishes a good example of Belgian early Gothic (thirteenth century), of which the destroyed cathedral of Ypres, St. Martin, was considered the masterpiece. All trace of the round arch has now disappeared and the columns are formed by massive pillars.