Published January 1916
Second Impression April 1916
Second Edition January 1920
Second Impression July 1920

Composed and Printed By
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

TO
ALBERT I
King of the Belgians
THE KNIGHT WITHOUT FEAR AND WITHOUT REPROACH

CONTENTS

PAGE
Introduction[1]
Prefatory Note to the Second Edition[7]
CHAPTER
I.The Period of Formation[8]
II. The Period of Feudalism[17]
III. The Rise and Influence of the Communes[36]
IV. The Politics and Struggles of the Time of the Communes[55]
V. The Union of the Belgian Principalities under the Dukes of Burgundy[74]
VI. Belgium under Charles V (1506-55) and the Beginnings of the House of Hapsburg[94]
VII. Philip II and the Revolt of the Netherlands against Spanish Rule (1555-96)[101]
VIII. The Reign of the Archduke Albert and Isabella (1598-1633)[120]
IX. The Last Years of the Spanish Rule (1633-1715)[125]
X. Belgium under the House of Austria (1713-89)[130]
XI. Belgium under French Domination (1792-1814)[141]
XII. The Dutch Rule and the Belgian Revolt of 1830[145]
XIII. Independent Belgium[163]
XIV. The Great Trial[170]
Bibliography[183]
Index[187]

INTRODUCTION

There has been much discussion about the time at which Belgian history should be said to begin. Belgium, as an entirely autonomous, independent kingdom, has existed only since 1830. But the Belgium of 1830 was, in a certain way, a creation of European diplomacy and the result of centuries of struggle for personal and political freedom. Belgium, as a country, and the Belgians, as a people, existed long before. Since the time of Caesar (57 B.C.), history tells us of the Belgians, “the bravest of all the people of Gaul,” and, although the Germanic invasions of the fourth and fifth centuries have added a new ethnical element to the old Belgian stock, it is from the time of the Roman conqueror that the history of the Belgian people really begins. As for Belgium as a united political body, one must go back to the fifteenth century, when the dukes of Burgundy succeeded in unifying all the Belgian duchies and counties under one dynasty. Before that time, Belgium had practically consisted of two very distinct parts, Lotharingia in the east, Flanders in the west, separated by the river Scheldt. Lotharingia was, politically speaking, a part of the mediaeval German empire; Flanders was in subjugation to the kingdom of France. Each succeeded—Lotharingia first, then Flanders—in evading the political domination of Germany and France, respectively, and drew closer and closer together during the last centuries of the Middle Ages. That work of union was achieved by the Burgundian dukes, who inherited from the local Lotharingian and Flemish dynasties, in the fifteenth century.

But in the Middle Ages not only did the increasing tendency of union between Lotharingia and Flanders exist, but there was also a strong factor of national union, the common civilization, the common culture, of Lotharingia and Flanders. The inhabitants of the different duchies and counties were united by the same religion, the same artistic and economic aims, the same political institutions, although there were, of course, some local differences of minor importance. Since early in the Middle Ages the Belgian people had possessed a distinctive though mutually common civilization, and the local differences which existed and which were more or less well defined at the outset disappeared gradually as the different parts of the country drew closer together politically.

The history of Belgium and the Belgian people does not begin to date merely from 1830, not even from the fifteenth century. It dates in fact from the time when, during the fifth century, Gallo-Romans and Germanic invaders intermingled and laid the basis of that ethnical and linguistic duality that has been for many centuries the characteristic of the Belgian populace and has impressed its mark on the whole course of Belgian history.