JAN RUYSBROECK
The mystic treatises of Jan Ruysbroeck (1292-1381), who may be considered as the founder of Flemish prose, just as van Maerlant is the founder of Flemish poetry, are far more important than the rhymed chronicles of Boendaele. Not only do they rank among the most inspired religious writings of the Middle Ages, but they are the expression of a deep-rooted religious movement which animated the Flemish bourgeoisie at the time, and which had its origin in the foundation of the institution of the Béguines and the Beggards, so active and so influential during the twelfth century. This movement aimed at bringing religion closer to the common people through the work of laymen who, though deeply attached to the Church, were conscious of its limitations and of the barrier which aristocracy and privilege had built around it. One of Ruysbroeck's disciples, Gérard de Groote (1340-84), founded the Order of the "Frères de la Vie Commune" (Brothers of the Common Life), and the "Sustershuysen," which contributed so much to the revival of religious studies and general education in the early days of the fifteenth century. Like the Beggards, the Brothers did not strictly constitute a religious order, they did not pronounce any binding vow and retained their lay character. Refusing any gift or endowment from outside, they had to provide for their own needs, but, while the Beggards devoted most of their time to the weaving industry, the Brothers gave themselves up to copying manuscripts, learning and teaching. Under Florent Radewyn, one of de Groote's early disciples, they acquired a very complete organization and founded numerous schools, specially in Brussels (1422) and in Ghent (1432), their influence spreading as far as Germany. Thierry Maertens, the first well-known Belgian printer, was one of their pupils. This educational and religious revival is closely connected with the foundation of the University of Louvain in 1426. De Groote and his disciples were frequently attacked, chiefly by the monks, who became jealous of their success, but their strict orthodoxy and the unimpeachable character of their life made their position unassailable. De Groote was equally well known for his criticism of the abuses among the clergy, his denunciation of the luxury displayed by the rich and the mystic character of his preaching. He was equally severe against heretics, and was called by his contemporaries "malleus hereticorum." Another of his followers founded the celebrated monastery of Windesheim, where, half a century later, the Imitation of Christ was written.
While the Flemish writers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries wrote mostly for the bourgeoisie and the people and kept in close contact with the religious aspirations of the time, the authors belonging to the Walloon part of the country were nearly all attached to some court and confined themselves to the production of chronicles and mémoires destined for the aristocracy. Though extremely limited, this genre was cultivated with great success by the Walloon writers and is typical of the Belgian branch of the French letters of the period. As early as the fourteenth century, Jean Le Bel of Liége had related with extraordinary vividness his adventures at the court of Hainault and the part played by his master, Jean de Beaumont, in the expedition led by Edward III against the Scots. Le Bel writes in French, but as far as his political views are concerned remains impervious to French influence and chooses an English King, "le noble roi Edowart," for his hero, while he has nothing but harsh words for Philip de Valois.
JEAN FROISSART
Jean Froissart, of Valenciennes, who continued the work of Le Bel and served as a link between him and the Burgundian school of chroniclers, had a much wider field of vision. Attached successively to Albert of Bavaria, Queen Philippa of England and Wenceslas of Luxemburg, he had many opportunities to study European affairs, and, as a Belgian, was able to consider them from an independent and even a sceptical point of view. Though generally considered as a French writer, he remains independent of French influence. With Monstrelet, Chastellain, Jean Molinet and Jean Lemaire de Belges, who wrote for the dukes of Burgundy, this independent attitude is still further strengthened. All these writers extolled the Burgundian régime and supported the duke's policy, whether friendly or antagonistic to France. From a literary point of view, they are greatly inferior to their predecessors and often lapse into rhetorical eloquence. Their style, which appears to be overloaded with flowery images, excited great admiration at the time, especially in the case of Chastellain, who was hailed by his contemporaries as a "supreme rhetorician."
Music was not hampered, like literature, by the division of languages, and might, under different circumstances, have given a more accurate expression to the Belgian national spirit. Its style was, unhappily, still so formal that national characteristics cannot immediately be recognized in the works of Guillaume Dufay, of Chimay (1350-1432) and Giles de Binche, Chapelmasters to Philip the Good, and those of the Fleming Jean Ockeghem (dec. 1494-6) and of Josquin des Prés, of Hainault (c. 1450-1521). These musicians, who enjoyed European celebrity and exerted a widespread influence on the musical movement in France and Italy, are well known to musical historians as having largely contributed to the development of polyphonic music as opposed to the monody of the Gregorian chant. They were thus pioneers in the art of musical ornamentation, and their method may be associated with the flowery images of Chastellain's style, the architectural luxury of Burgundian Gothic and the display of colouring of the early Flemish painters. In all branches of intellectual activity, Belgium enters decidedly, from the beginning of the fifteenth century, into the Renaissance period. But, unlike the Italian, the Belgian Renaissance was at first only very slightly affected by the study of the classics. It was more realistic in its aims than the mediæval period. It revelled in the display of harmony, whether in sound, colour or form, and abundance of tracery, but as far as the subject was concerned it remained essentially and profoundly Christian.
SOCIAL LIFE
Though the works of Belgian writers and artists of the period are very remarkable, they are somewhat misleading if we want to form an accurate idea of social life in the fifteenth century. Neither the Libri Teutonici, published by Ruysbroeck's followers, nor the great paintings of the brothers Van Eyck, Van der Weyden and Memling, suggest for one moment the laxity of morals prevalent at the time and revealed by the writers of the Chronicles. The number of illegitimate births was extraordinarily high, the example being set by the dukes themselves, Philip the Good alone being responsible for eighteen bastards and Jean de Heinsberg, Bishop of Liége, for nearly as many. It must be pointed out, however, that the illegitimate character of their birth did not stand in the way of many prominent men of the time, such as the Chancellor Rolin, the Dean of St. Donatian of Bruges, the great financier Pierre Bladelin, the Bishop of Tournai and many high officials. All these had, of course, received their letters of legitimation. Numerous edicts made by the dukes were unable to check gambling, prostitution and prodigality. The scant effect of the regulations relating to the latter may be easily understood when we read that, on the occasion of the marriage of Margaret of York to Charles the Bold, Belgian artists and artisans were ordered to prepare and to decorate a large wooden house which was subsequently transported by water from Brussels to Bruges. In a tower 41 feet high attached to this house, the noble company invited to the ceremony witnessed the movements and heard the cries of a number of mechanical animals, monkeys, wolves and boars, while a whale 60 feet long moved around the hall together with elephants, amid thirty large trees, a fountain of crystal and a pelican "spouting hippocras from his beak." The fact is that the situation in the Netherlands, in the second half of the fifteenth century, was very much the same as that in Florence at the same time, the people being swayed between an exuberant enjoyment of life and a severe asceticism. There are many points of contact between Charles the Bold and Lorenzo the Magnificent, and no figure comes closer to Savonarola than that of the Carthusian, Thomas Conecte, who stirred public feeling to such a pitch that the people crowding to listen to his fiery speeches, in market-places, threw into the braziers burning before his platform all the instruments of their worldly life—chessboards, cards, dice, skittles, silks and jewels.
Strangely enough, no religious order benefited more from the sympathy and generosity of the people than the ascetic Carthusians. Philip the Bold erected in Dijon the famous Chartreuse of Champmol; Philip the Good and Margaret of York corresponded with the celebrated Carthusian Denys de Ryckel, the "doctor extaticus," and the Chartreuse of Louvain was endowed by rich bourgeois of the duke's entourage. Unless this apparent contradiction is fully realized, it is impossible to understand the spirit of an epoch which, though deeply absorbed by its worldly life, produced works almost entirely devoted to Faith, and in which luxurious garments and colours are only employed to enhance the glory of God.