Every quarter of the city exhibits traces of the former wealth of the burghers, and every building has some tradition characteristic of the fiery turbulence of this little municipal republic. Bruges and Ghent are, in this regard, by far the most interesting towns of Flanders. Brussels, Liege and Ypres, are all of more modern date and infinitively less historical importance, during the stormy period of the Flemish annals from the 12th to the 16th century. Ghent was a fortified town a thousand years ago, when its citadel was erected by Baldwin of the Iron Arm, but it was only with the rage for the Crusades, that the wealth and importance of the towns of the Low Countries arose; when the Seigneurs, in order to obtain funds to equip them for their expeditions to the Holy Land, released the inhabitants of the towns from their vassalage, and sold to them the lands on which their cities were built, and all the rights of self government, privileges which subsequently assumed the form of a corporate constitution. Ghent thus obtained her independence from Philip of Alsace, in 1178, and for the first time secured the right of free assembly, the election of her own provosts, a common seal, and belfry, always an indispensable accompaniment of civic authority, and important in sounding the alarm and convoking the citizens upon every emergency.
It was in consequence of these momentous concessions, that whilst the lords of the soil and their agrarian followers were wasting their energies in distant war, or subsisting by rapine and violence against one another, the inhabitants of the towns, secured within their walls and fortified places, were enabled to devote themselves to manufactures and to commerce, and thus to concentrate in their own hands, the largest proportion, by far, of the monied wealth of the Netherlands.
But, coupled with their high privileges, there were also some restrictions, to which we of to-day are indebted for the vast and magnificent edifices which the burghers of these flourishing communities have left for our wonder and admiration. The rights accorded to them by their Seigneurs were rigidly confined to the limits of their own walls, no free burgher could purchase or hold landed estate beyond the circuit of his municipality; and thus, whilst driven to accumulate capital in the pursuit of trade and traffic, they were equally constrained to invest it, not in land, like the retired merchants of modern times, but in the construction of these vast palaces and private mansions, and in the decorations of their dwellings, and the adornment of their cities.
It is to this political circumstance of their position that we are to refer, in order to account for the extent and splendour of those ancient houses which we meet at every turning in Bruges and Ghent—for the costly carvings and sculptured decorations of their fronts and interiors, and for the quantity of paintings and ornaments in which they abound.
The accumulation of their municipal resources, too, required to be similarly disposed of, and was applied to the erection of their lofty belfries, the construction of those gigantic towers which are elevated on all their churches, and to the building of their town halls and hôtels-de-ville, whose magnitude and magnificence, are a matter, equally of admiration of the genius which designed, and astonishment at the wealth which was necessary to erect them.
As the towns increased in prosperity and wealth, money always sufficed to buy from their sovereigns fresh privileges and powers, and fresh accessions of territory to be added to their municipal districts, till, at length, the trades became so numerous as to enroll themselves in companies, half civil and half military, whilst all united to form those trading commandaries or Hansen, the spread of which, over the north-west of Germany, forms so remarkable a feature in the history of commerce and civilization. Foremost in the Netherlands in the race of prosperity was Ghent, which, within a century from its enfranchisement, by Philip of Alsace, rendered itself, in effect, the capital of Flanders, with an extent and importance even greater than the capital of France, whence Charles V subsequently ventured upon his bon mot, that he could put all Paris in his glove “dans mon gant.”
But with this increase of prosperity, increased, also, the troubles and cares of these republican communities; their excessive wealth at once engendering internal rivalries and faction, and inviting foreign cupidity and invasion. “Never,” says Hallam, “did liberty wear a more unamiable aspect than among the burghers of the Netherlands, who abused the strength she gave them, by cruelty and insolence.” The entire history of Bruges and Ghent, but especially the latter, is, in fact, a series of wars, to repel the aggressions of France, or to suppress the turbulence and insurrectionary spirit of their own citizens. These were not the mere tumultuous skirmishes which have been dignified by the title of wars amongst the rival cities and states of northern Italy about the same period, and in which it not unfrequently happened that no blood was spilt; but in the battles of Courtrai, Rosebeke and Everghem, the citizens could send 20 to 40,000 soldiers into the field, and conducted their hostilities almost upon the scale of modern warfare. At Courtrai, “the men of Ghent” carried off seven hundred golden spurs from the defeated nobles of France. When Charles VII was preparing to expel the English from Calais, Philip the Good was able to send him 40,000 men as a subsidy, of whom 16,000 were from Ghent alone.
Nor were these internal feuds upon a minor scale. Jacques van Artevelde, the Masaniello of Flanders, and more generally known as “the Brewer of Ghent,” from his having joined the guild of that trade, from which he was afterwards chosen by fifty other corporations of tradesmen, as the head of each, was enabled to organize such an army of the city companies, as to render his alliance an object of importance to Edward III of England, when making his preparations for invading France.
Under this extraordinary “tribune of the people,” Ghent was enabled, virtually, to cast off its allegiance to the courts of Flanders, to elect Artevelde as their Ruwaert or Protector, and to bid defiance to their native sovereign, backed by all the power of France. Artevelde became the personal friend and counsellor of the English King, who sent ambassadors to his court, and entered into alliance with the city he commanded in conjunction with that of Bruges and Ypres. It was at the suggestion of Artevelde, that Edward quartered the arms of France and assumed the fleur de lis, which for so many centuries was borne upon the shield of England; and it was in the palace of the Flemish demagogue, that Queen Philippa gave birth to a son, whose name has made Ghent familiar in the annals of England:—
“Old John of Gaunt, time honoured Lancaster.”