The Story of Bruges

by Ernest Gilliat-Smith

of the manufacturer and the merchant, he ever showed himself a generous patron of letters and of art. So, too, his countess, Elizabeth of Vermandois. She delighted in the company of minstrels and troubadours, and herself presided over a Court of Love. To Bruges, in the days of Philip and Elizabeth, flocked half the literary men in Europe. Grave theologians like Andreas Silvius, or Philip of Harveng; historians like Lambert of Ardres, or Hugh of St. Victor; poets like Chrétien de Troyes, or Colin Muset, and a host of the most famous authors of the day. Here, in the Loove Palace, or in the pleasaunce of Winendael hard-by, they were wont to read aloud to the assembled Court the romances of chivalry then in vogue. Erec, Enide, Clegès, Le Chevalier au Lion, Yseult, Tristan de Léonnois, and the rest. The nameless authors of these two last dedicated their works to Philip himself, and Chrétien de Troyes wrote his famous Saint Graal—‘the Church’s counterblast,’ as Green calls it, ‘to the whirlpool of Arthurian romance’—

Por le plus preud homme
Qui soit en l’Empire de Rome
C’est le quens Philippe de Flandres.

That the Count himself was a man of some literary attainment, the following interesting letter seems to indicate: ‘Knowledge is not the exclusive privilege of clerks,’ writes Philip of Harveng to his friend and patron, Philip of Flanders. ‘It is well to be able to lay aside strife and politics, and go and study in some book, as in a mirror. The lessons that illustrious men find in books, add to their nobility, increase their courage, soften their manners, sharpen their wit, and make them to love virtue. The prince who possesses a soul as lofty as his dignity loves to hear wise counsel. How thankful you ought to be to your parents that from your childhood they had you instructed in letters’ (Epist. XVI., p. 81).

There is another circumstance in connection with Philip which it will be interesting to note. When St. Thomas à Becket fled before the fury of Henry II. he for a time found shelter at the Flemish Court. The memory of his sojourn there still lingers at Bruges. The chapel which he consecrated in Philip’s château at Maele is still standing, and the well at Tilleghem, where legend says he once slaked his thirst, is still called by the country folk St. Thomas’s Well.

CHAPTER XI
Baldwin of Constantinople

UPON Philip’s death in 1191, without children, the country finally devolved on his sister Marguerite, who, as we have seen, had married Baldwin of Mons, the representative of the dynasty of Baldwin the Good. She only reigned three years, and was succeeded by her son Baldwin of Constantinople, who thus united the rival dynasties in his person.

The old Flemish chroniclers linger lovingly over the story of Baldwin of Constantinople, the last representative in the direct male line of the house of Baldwin of the Iron Hand, and the last Fleming who ruled over Flanders. They like to represent him as a prince of unblemished character, devout, austere, and adorned with all the virtues befitting his state. His figure is undoubtedly a picturesque and an interesting one. He was a man of brilliant parts—shrewd, quick-witted, eager, possessed of no ordinary mental activity and of a wonderful aptitude for business. During the short period of his reign he found time to reform the criminal procedure of his own patrimony—Hainault; to readjust the tolls and custom tariffs of Ghent and of Bruges; to abrogate in the latter city the iniquitous law ‘de vino Comitis,’ which ordained that the town should furnish wine for the Count’s household at a fixed price, often below the market value; to concede to Bruges, on August 14, 1200, the right to annually hold, during the month of May, a fair—a greater boon in those days than it is now; to busy himself with compiling sundry histories—really the chronicles of his native land—which afterwards went by the name of Histoires de Baudouin; to abolish many abuses; to cut the claws of usurers, and to purge, alas! by fire, his domain of heresy. He was not only a lover of learning and of learned men, but a ready writer himself, as witness the letters he addressed from Constantinople to the King of France and to the Pope—letters replete with valuable information concerning the Latin Conquest of that city.