The Spell of Belgium

by Isabel Anderson

Transalpine Gaul was, by its conqueror, formed into a single province, of which the land of the Belgae was the northern part, but under Augustus it was divided into three provinces, the most distant one named Belgica. The people of southern Belgica, being nearer to the Roman civilization of Gaul, lost their primitive customs, their energy and courage. The people of the north, less under the influence of the conquerors, kept their love of independence, their frugal, industrious habits, added trade with England to their fisheries as a means of livelihood, and developed a strong stock, to which the future growth of the country was due.

Three hundred years after Cæsar’s conquest, the Salian Franks, a confederacy of German tribes, invaded the country and settled between the Rhine and the Waal. They were resisted by most of the Gauls but welcomed by the Menapians of the Belgic coast.

There was, however, no real bond of union between the peaceful, hard-working people of the lowlands and the warlike Franks. The shore dwellers north of the Rhine formed with the tribes on the coasts of the German Ocean the Saxon League, which after a time renewed the warfare between Frank and Saxon, a warfare destined to endure till the twentieth century and to be waged then as fiercely as in the fourth. Driven by the Saxons from the coast districts, the Franks gradually made themselves masters of southern Belgica and northern Gaul, and the Romanized people of that section were submerged. Finally, toward the end of the fifth century, Clovis, King of the Franks, succeeded in extending his rule over the greater part of Gaul.

At this early date the limits were already sharply marked out of the two great divisions of Belgium that have persisted until today—Flanders and the Walloon country. Flanders received continual additions from the German tribes who, worsted in the struggle with Rome, fled across the Rhine, and became the land of the Flēmings (the “e” at first pronounced long), or fugitives. Retaining their Teutonic traits, these kept steadily at their difficult task of winning comfort and civilization from the hard conditions in which they were placed. Even today they cling tenaciously to their Flemish tongue, which is a variety of Low German, differing but little from Dutch.

The Franks of southern Belgica, on the other hand, like their neighbours in Gaul, became to all intents and purposes, transformed into French, and adopted for their language not a corrupt French, as we understand that term, but a dialect of the langue d’oïl, the old Romance tongue which was the speech of Gaul in that age.

The successors of Clovis had many a struggle with the people of the Low Countries, but gradually the Frankish, or Merovingian, kings yielded to the Roman luxury that surrounded them and became a race of “do-nothings.” Then arose those mayors of the palace, of whom Pepin of Heristall, the Belgian, was the father of Charles Martel, the “Hammer” whose vigorous blows crushed the Saracens and drove them from French soil.

The year 800 found Charlemagne, mightiest of the Franks, in possession of the Western Empire. The steady progress of the Netherlands was seen in the rise of the towns of Bruges, Ghent, Courtrai and Antwerp, not alone as trading centers but as seats of manufacture. The system of dikes for the protection of the lowlands from the sea had at that time been established by the united efforts of all the people of the region, who had thereby learned in some measure the value of coöperation.

Christianity, introduced in the reign of Clovis, had gained much power. It is impossible to overestimate the work of monks and nuns, whose religious houses were at once schools, hospitals, book marts and universities. Tournai and Liège were the seats of bishops, who were even more powerful than the counts who played such a great part in the history of the period.

The count was at first only an officer of the king, not an hereditary noble, and received as his salary the revenue of the lands which he held during his term of office. The tenants on these estates were completely in his power. If he could muster a sufficient force of armed men he might even defy the king, and thus retain his office for a longer time.