As with the first Flemings, with our own Saxon forefathers, and probably also with the ancestors of all nationalities of Teutonic origin, the Wehrgeld, or, as Green calls it, ‘the Blood-wite,’ or compensation in money for personal wrong, and mutual responsibility were the mainspring and corner-stone of the judicial code which Philip’s charter sanctioned. Eye for eye, limb for limb, life for life, or for each its equivalent in current coin, this is the rough-and-ready theory which runs through the whole of this remarkable piece of legislation. But it was not only for personal injury that punishment in kind or an allotted fine was exacted; it was the penalty also attached to other offences. Thus the man who had been convicted of breaking down a dyke was condemned to suffer the loss of the hand with which he had broken it, and probably, by way of compensation for the damage which he had thereby entailed, to forfeit all his goods; and it was a penal offence in the Liberty of Bruges to marry an infant without the consent of her heirs-at-law. ‘Whosoever,’ runs this curious enactment, ‘shall be convicted of wedding a girl who has not yet arrived at years of discretion, without the consent of those of her relations who are her heirs presumptive, shall be liable to forfeit all his goods, and if such an one shall have carried his infant bride out of the realm, her heirs may lawfully take possession of her goods; but if the aforesaid girl, repenting, shall presently return home, and be willing to quit her unlawful spouse, her property shall be restored to her; but if, on the contrary, she will not leave him, then shall she in no wise recover it.’
The life of each man had its allotted value, which varied according to rank and station, and curiously enough, in days, when throughout Europe the priesthood was held in high esteem, the clerk’s life was valued at only one half the price of the life of the Karl. Just as the Salic law fixes the composition for the murder of a Roman proprietor at the half of that payable for the murder of a Frank, so the law of the Liberty of Bruges valued the life of a clerk, who was considered as a Roman, at only half of the value of the life of a Karl.
As to the fines imposed, the Keurbrief ordained that they should be levied in the first place on the property of the offending party, and if this were too inconsiderable to realise the required sum, that his fellow guildsmen should make up the deficiency.
Bearing all this in mind, Hacket’s demand that the limbs and lives of Charles’s murderers should be spared becomes intelligible. It simply meant that the usual fine should be imposed in lieu of the death penalty, which, under the circumstances, was not unreasonable.
Some of the enactments contained in this remarkable code are sufficiently curious. Take, for example, the following: ‘Whosoever shall harbour a scurra[18] for more than one night, may lawfully duck such an one on the morrow if he or she refuse to quit his abode.’ Others are no less remarkable for their practical common sense. For example the prudent regulation anent weights and measures. ‘All weights and measures,’ runs the article in question, ‘shall be the same in the villages as in the towns. Any headman convicted of falsifying weights and measures shall pay a fine for each offence of three livres, any one found in possession of false weights shall forfeit a like sum, and double the damage caused thereby.’
The game laws of the Liberty of Bruges were singularly oppressive. Perhaps Philip stipulated for their insertion in the Keurbrief as the price of the large concessions he had made. In a country well-stocked with stags and boars, to say nothing of ground game, the following enactment must have been an intolerable burthen:—Whosoever shall be prosecuted for fencing in his property against game, if he refuse to undergo judgment by red-hot iron, shall submit to an inquiry by the Count, and if he be found guilty, all his goods shall be at the disposition of the Count and the châtelain, but his life and liberty shall be safe. The Flemish did not obtain complete redress of this iniquitous law until 1477.
If the reader should wish to know something more of this interesting document we would refer him to Gheldorf’s Histoire Constitutionelle de la Ville de Bruges, where the original text is given, together with a French translation and explanatory notes, p. 465.
The magistrates of the Franc administered justice to those submitted to their jurisdiction in their Landhuus on the west side of the Bourg. The building of Philip’s day has long since disappeared. It was replaced in the early fifteen hundreds by Van den Poël’s sumptuous Palais du Franc, of which a remnant is still standing, and still forms one of the most picturesque groups in the city of Bruges. The most charming view of its quaint turrets and gables is from the great fish market along the Quai Vert.
Count Philip of Alsace was not only a builder of cities, a promoter of democratic institutions, the friend