A short history of Belgium

by Léon van der Essen

In the valley of the Meuse, cities like Saint-Trond and Huy, where the cloth industry flourished in smaller degree, were unable to rival those of Flanders. The city of Dinant, on the Meuse, which, as stated before, was, from the end of the tenth century, engaged in the copper industry, may be singled out. The products of Dinant, called dinanderie, were exported throughout Europe. The merchants of Dinant had a storehouse in London and were members of the Hanseatic Association.

Finally, there remains the city of Liège in Eastern Belgium. This was a city of priests, the residence of the bishop-prince. It was filled with churches, convents, and chapels. The land was owned largely by religious communities. But the priests were more numerous than the burgesses.[11] There was no thought here of industry until the end of the Middle Ages, when this part of the country became the seat of collieries and ironworks.

Under the influence of such commercial and industrial conditions as we have recited, the life of the country people and the control of the soil were entirely transformed. After the twelfth century the old agricultural régime broke down and servitude became an exception; generally speaking, the peasant was thenceforward a free man, like the burgess. This important change came in connection with the crisis introduced by the new economic conditions of the twelfth century. At this time the value of money decreased rapidly and both the ecclesiastical and lay landlords found themselves threatened with bankruptcy. The methods of the old economic organization had to be changed if ruin was to be averted. New methods, therefore, were introduced by the Cistercian monks. The houses of this monastic order were very numerous at the beginning of the twelfth century; they constituted a class of an entirely new type. Most of their establishments were located among the marshes and heaths, which they were obliged to convert into fertile soil. For that work the monks alone were insufficient; they needed the help of so-called lay-brethren, who cultivated and fertilized the land. Round the monasteries themselves they established large farms, which became centers of new agricultural methods. The raising of cattle and the culture of corn were now their main business, and the crops were not merely intended for the consumption of the convent but a large part was sent to market to be sold. The peasants employed for this work were no longer “serfs,” but free workers coming from outside. Servitude did not exist on the territory owned by the Cistercians. The monks soon became wealthy capitalists, but they utilized their means in clearing the heaths of the Campine, the forests of Hainaut, and in creating the “polders” of the Flemish coast. At the end of the thirteenth century the clearing of the land was finished and the farms and “polders” were rented out to free farmers. That system was likewise followed by the other monastic orders, and the class of free farmers soon grew more and more numerous. The example given by the Cistercians was followed by laymen. A large part of Brabant, Hainaut, Flanders, and Namur was covered with heaths, woods, and marshes. The dukes and counts, seeing what had been accomplished, began to order this wild land to be cleared. Along with the clearing of the soil came the foundation of new cities. The Belgian cities whose names contain the suffix -sart, -rode, or -kerke[12] date from this time. In order to get workers enough for clearing the land, the princes sought to attract them by granting special privileges, such as complete personal freedom and cession of land subject to a very small payment. A new type of peasant was born in Flanders—the peasant who was a freeman and who also owned his land. The peasants of Hainaut, Namur, and Ardennes were, of course, less in touch with the modern spirit; the different commercial and industrial conditions operated to keep them longer in servitude. Since the thirteenth century most of the Belgian peasants have been free, whereas in Germany servitude appeared even at the end of the Middle Ages.

As to the literary life and the respective positions of the French and Flemish languages at this time, the next chapter, which deals with the political conditions of Belgium in the period of the communes, will show the increasing influence of France, both in Flanders and in Brabant. It will not be surprising, therefore, to find that France exercised an influence upon Belgium from a literary and artistic point of view also. Flanders, a fief of France, was the first to feel that influence, and to feel it in a greater degree than any other Belgian principality. As a spoken language, French made a strong advance in the thirteenth century, albeit the conquest was a peaceful one. The wealthy communes of French or Walloon Flanders, like Arras, became real centers of French literature and culture. The Cistercians spread the knowledge of French in the monasteries, their order being originally French. The aristocracy also took part in the movement, following the example of the princes. The counts were all of Romance descent. The house of Alsace came from France; Baldwin VIII and Baldwin IX were Walloons; the countesses Jeanne and Marguerite were educated in Paris; the counts of the house of Dampierre came originally from Champagne. The language of the court as well as the language officially used was French. The wealthy burgesses sought to imitate the noblemen, and it was necessary for the merchants to know French to enable them to visit the fairs of Champagne.

However, we know that some of the commercial acts were written in Flemish. Flemish was overwhelmingly the popular tongue in Ghent and Bruges, and public officers were obliged to know and speak it, as well as French and Latin. As before, the common people remained faithful to the Flemish language; it was the only one they spoke. Flemish was also the principal language spoken in Brabant. Here the dukes strongly resisted French political hegemony, and Brabant remained the most independent Belgian province. French was, of course, made use of by the dukes in their private and domestic affairs, but Flemish prevailed in all their relations with their subjects; it was the language used by public officers. If the aristocracy was Gallicized, it was merely a matter of custom and bon ton.

As to the Romance literary movement, its productions were to be found in those regions where trade and industry tended to the increase of wealth. Luxemburg did not produce anything and Liège very little; in the latter city, moreover, the persons in the entourage of the bishop were largely German or Flemish. Romance literature flourished in Flanders, Brabant, and Hainaut; it was written in Picard, the original dialect that the writers themselves preferred, in opposition, so to speak, to French. The literature in question consisted partly of translations into the vernacular of Latin works written on science, partly of historical productions, and partly of poetry. The historical genre was much cultivated, but was more and more limited to castles and convents. Although the burgesses of the communes, eager to know as much as possible, found interest and pleasure in the historical writers (and it may be pointed out that the valuable chronicle of Philip Mousket was composed, about 1240, for the townspeople of Tournai), the citizens of the communes preferred the new genre introduced in literature, the poésie bourgeoise, wherein animals played a large part as personages; the épopée of Rinehart the Fox is particularly famous.

The rich development of Romance literature in Flanders and Hainaut prevented to some extent the early birth of an original and independent Flemish literature. Flemish literature had modest origins: it consisted at first merely of translations from the French, but it is highly interesting to note that it was through the intermediary of Flemish translations that French productions were introduced into Germany. The Legend of Saint Servais and the Enéide, composed by the Flemish knight, Hendrik Van Veldeke, following Latin sources, enjoyed an immense success and were promptly imitated in Germany. The French version of Rinehart the Fox was adapted in Flemish by a certain William, who surpassed his model, localized the story to the neighborhood of Ghent and the country of Waes, and gave to his work a real Flemish color.

The spirit of the Flemish burgesses, ordinarily inclined to be jeering and satirical, nevertheless inspired the greatest poet of thirteenth-century Flemish literature, Jacob Van Maerlandt, called “the father of all the Flemish poets.” He founded in Flanders the didactical genre, adapted to the practical and sensible character of the nation. His object was to give to laymen access to the knowledge hitherto monopolized by the clergymen. His writings were in the field of natural history, politics and ethics, and sacred and profane history. He enjoyed great success and achieved the honor of seeing his works translated into French. Maerlandt, although he seemed to despise the French poets because he found their work too frivolous, was not a political writer. His greatness lay in the fact that he exercised a decisive influence on Flemish culture. He brought the Flemish language to the rank of a really literary language and developed it into an instrument capable of expressing the national genius. The soul of Flanders lives in Maerlandt’s poems.

There yet remains to be considered the artistic development during the early period of the communes. French influence was prominent in the thirteenth century in the southern and western parts of the country. Tournai, of course, remained the artistic center of Flanders, and it was through Tournai that Gothic art was introduced into Belgium, just as Romantic art had earlier been introduced through Liège. The new choir of the cathedral of Tournai (ca. 1250) is remarkably French in its plan and methods of construction. But, on the whole, the school of Tournai does not merely copy the French style. It possesses its own originality; its type is full of charm and elegance. Its influence, thanks to the use so frequently made of the stone of Tournai, is overwhelming in Flanders, especially in Ghent and Bruges and in Hainaut.

Brabant, on the other hand, has a style of its own, owing to the fact that it uses its own local materials, found in its numerous quarries. There is a wide difference between the style of St. John’s Church at Ghent and St. Gudula’s Church at Brussels, although their choirs are nearly contemporaneous. In the course of the fifteenth century the school of Brabant became dominant.