The most famous structure in Flanders dates from this epoch in the town’s history. This is the Belfry that has looked down on the red roofs of Ghent for nearly six hundred years. The first Belfry was begun in 1183, but the present structure was built in 1313-1339, since when it has been several times modified and “restored”—not always successfully. The latest restoration was carried out by the municipal authorities as a preparation for the International Exposition held at Ghent in 1913 and was carefully and intelligently done. There are three hundred and fifty-five steps in the staircase by which visitors ascend the tower, and the climb is one that richly repays those who make it. On a clear day one can see beyond Bruges to the northwest, as far as Antwerp to the east and Audenaerde to the south. So densely peopled is the Flemish plain that these great cities lie almost close enough together to be within sound of great Roland.

This was the renowned bell which the burghers of Ghent had cast and hung high on their Belfry as an emblem of the city’s freedom from tyranny and a tocsin to summon the sturdy guildsmen to its defence when danger threatened. It bore the following inscription in Flemish:

Freely translated, this is what the bell gave as its autobiography:

The original Roland was cast in 1314, or twelve years after the Battle of the Spurs. It weighed twelve thousand, five hundred pounds and was the pride of the city, but was destroyed by order of Charles V when he forced the burghers abjectly to submit to his despotism in 1540.

In the lower part of the tower is the “secret room” where from 1402 the burghers kept, behind triple doors as at Bruges, the charters and privileges of the city. The famous dragon at the tip of the spire was for centuries said to have been brought from the Orient at the time of Baldwin of Constantinople, but recent researches in the archives of the city have shown that it was made at Ghent in the year 1377-78. Adjoining the Belfry is the Cloth Hall erected for the most important of the city’s four hundred guilds. The upper hall is now used as a Bureau of Information for Tourists, while the lower one is a Rathskeller. Here the columns and vaulted roof greatly resemble the crypt of Girard the Devil’s castle, save that the little tables and excellent Munich and Pilsen to be had there make it decidedly more cheerful. The edifice was begun in 1425 and finished, or, at least, the work was stopped, in 1441. Behind the Cloth Hall, but nestling close against it, is the quaint little entrance to the communal prison, which was built in 1741 when the prisoners were confined on the lower floor of the Cloth Hall. Over the door at the top of the façade is the celebrated bas-relief representing the legend of the Mammelokker. The carving really tells all there is to the story; which is, in brief, that, on one occasion, when an old man was condemned to die of starvation, his daughter—who just then had a baby whom she was nursing—secretly gave the breast to her aged parent, thus saving his life.

While the Belfry was being built by the burghers of Ghent, France and England were drifting into the Hundred Years’ War. The Count of Flanders, Louis de Nevers, was ardently loyal to France and utterly blind to the interests of the great woollen manufacturing communes over which he ruled and to those of his own dynasty. In 1336, no doubt at the instance of the King of France, he ordered all the English merchants in Flanders to be arrested and their goods confiscated. The King of England, Edward III, promptly retaliated by prohibiting the exportation of wool from England to Flanders and the sale of Flemish woollens in his Kingdom. In a few months the Flemish communes of Ghent, Bruges and Ypres found themselves facing utter ruin as a result of this economic conflict. The spinners and weavers were idle, the markets deserted, actual starvation existed, and many of the guildsmen were forced to wander off into the countryside to beg for food.

It was at this critical moment that the great figure of Jacques Van Artevelde appears upon the stage of Flemish history. Son of a rich wool and cloth merchant who had been long prominent among the Clauwaerts, or foes of French domination, Jacques Van Artevelde was a man of wealth and position who by ancestry and calling was inclined to the popular rather than the aristocratic side. On December 28, 1337, he harangued the men of Bruges in behalf of peace with England, in spite of the obstinate and fatuous policy of the Count. As a result of his eloquence, abundantly enforced by the ruin and misery then prevailing on every side, the people decided unanimously to establish a revolutionary government, which was accomplished peacefully on the third of the following month. Van Artevelde was recognised as the foremost of the five captains then chosen to administer the government of the city, and was given a larger guard than his colleagues. The helpless Count of Flanders, unable to resist, was obliged to ratify the new policy of the burghers, and by the middle of the year 1338 the embargo was formally raised on both sides, the woollen industry started up once more, and Flanders was declared to be neutral as regarded the contest between its two powerful neighbours. In short, the wise policy of Van Artevelde was completely triumphant and the country again placed on the road to renewed prosperity.

Under the direction of the great tribune the weavers were now the dominant factor in the government of Ghent, and soon the influence of Van Artevelde made itself felt in Bruges, Ypres and all the other Flemish communes, where the guild leaders became likewise the heads of the magistracy. The Count strove to reassert his power, but Van Artevelde stormed the Castle and the prince was forced to accompany the men of Ghent to the annual procession at Tournai wearing their colours. The “White Hoods,” as the warriors of the popular party were called, destroyed the castles of several of the lesser nobility who dared to resist their authority and throughout all the land Van Artevelde reigned supreme. Edward III, after vainly endeavouring to win the Count of Flanders to his side by flattering matrimonial offers, ended by treating directly with Van Artevelde as if with a sovereign prince.

It was the genius of the great Ghent captain that conceived the brilliant idea of overcoming the reluctance of the Flemish communes to take sides with England against their feudal suzerain, the King of France, by having Edward claim the crown of France, and it was in consequence of his arguments that the English monarch finally took this bold but adroit step. On the 26th of January, 1340, the communes formally recognised Edward as their suzerain on the Marché du Vendredi at Ghent—one of the many great events that have taken place on that historic spot. The King made Ghent his headquarters, and it was in the old Castle of the Counts that his third son, known in English history as John of Gaunt (Ghent), was born. In the same year occurred the great Battle of Sluys, in which Edward III led the English ships of war into the harbour of that town where the French King Philip had assembled a vast fleet. The defeated Frenchmen leaped overboard in hundreds only to be slain by the Flemings as they swam ashore. No man dared tell the King of France of this great disaster until the royal jester broke the news by exclaiming, “The English cowards! Oh, the English cowards!” On the King’s inquiring what he meant by this, the jester replied, “They were afraid to jump into the sea as our brave Frenchmen did at Sluys!”

This brilliant year, however, saw the climax of the power of Van Artevelde. Already the other Flemish communes were beginning to grumble at his rule, outbreaks occurring at Audenaerde, Dendermonde and Ypres. King Edward began to besiege Tournai with the aid of Van Artevelde, but on the French King agreeing to a truce he returned to England, leaving his faithful ally to take care of himself as best he could. To make matters more difficult, he failed to pay the subsidies he had promised, and the tribune was violently accused of having played the people false. Meanwhile the guildsmen began to dispute between themselves, and on Monday, May 2, 1345, in spite of the entreaties of Van Artevelde, the fullers and weavers engaged in a bloody battle on the Marché du Vendredi in which the former with their Doyen, or leader, were massacred. This sad day was called the Kwade Maendag, or Bad Monday.

Early in July Van Artevelde had a last interview with Edward at Sluys. On his return to Ghent a mob of malcontents, led by men in the pay of Count Louis of Nevers, besieged the great tribune in his house, crying that he had betrayed the country. After vainly trying to argue with them, he reluctantly permitted himself to be drawn away from the window by his followers, who sought to persuade him to seek safety in flight. It was too late, however, as the mob had already burst into the house and one of them struck Van Artevelde dead on his own threshold. For nearly nine years he had been virtually a king in Flanders, his policy bringing unexampled prosperity to the country and to his native city.

Although often called a demagogue and a tyrant, Jacques Van Artevelde ranks as one of the foremost statesmen of his time. He died the “victim of a faction” and of treachery rather than a popular revolt against his policies, for the English alliance was steadfastly continued after his death. To-day his statue stands on the Marché du Vendredi, where, in 1340, he burned the papal interdict against Flanders. It represents him in the act of delivering the famous speech by which he won the allegiance of his fellow citizens to the English alliance. Count Louis profited little by his treachery, for a little over a year later, August 26, 1346, he fell in the great battle of Crécy where the English archers, fighting by the side of many Flemish guildsmen, gave the death blow to mediæval chivalry and utterly crushed the power of France.

The weavers, who under Van Artevelde had become the dominant power in all of the Flemish communes, soon had good reason to regret his fall, for the new Count, Louis of Maele—named like most of the Counts of Flanders from the place where he was born, the great castle of Maele—was able by liberal promises and the restoration of ancient charters and privileges to win the support of most of the cities. At Ghent the butchers, fish merchants, and boatmen’s guilds submitted, followed by the fullers and minor industries. The weavers, although their numbers had been greatly reduced by the plague, held out stubbornly, but were massacred on the Marché du Vendredi, Tuesday, January 13, 1349, their captain and their Doyen, Gérard Denys—the man who had slain Van Artevelde—being flung into the Lys. The victors called this bloody day De Goede Disendach, or Good Tuesday, and it certainly amply revenged the Bad Monday four years before when the weavers were the aggressors. The members of the unfortunate guild were now hunted down like dogs throughout all Flanders, great numbers fleeing to England where they established the weaving industry—King Edward wisely welcoming the exiles and giving them every aid in his power to settle in his Kingdom. Later the competition of these fugitives and their descendants gave Flanders good cause to rue the folly of the internal strife that thus drove away some of the best workmen in the country.

The numerical superiority of this guild, however, and the fact that its members were necessarily more skilled than the fullers, led to its gradual recovery, and by 1359 the weavers were again admitted to a share in the government of the communes and the fullers were relegated to the inferior position to which their smaller numbers and less skilled work entitled them. Louis of Maele made Bruges virtually his capital, but during the greater part of his reign of forty years was able to continue on fairly peaceful terms with the turbulent city of Ghent by means of a careful and detailed adjustment of the order of precedence between the various guilds which was devised about the year 1352 and continued in effect for nearly two centuries. In 1369 the daughter of the Count married Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy and brother of the King of France—an event full of dire significance for the guildsmen as it led to their having, in after years, the powerful Dukes of Burgundy as their over-lords instead of the comparatively feeble Counts of Flanders. In 1377 Count Louis held a great tournament in the Marché du Vendredi. Despite the long conflict between the guilds the city was at this period very prosperous.

The Count, however, who was always short of money, sold to the citizens of Bruges the right to construct a canal from their port to the River Lys. At this Ghent, headed by the Boatmen’s Guild, flew to arms and a civil war broke out in 1379, the men of Ghent fearing that they might lose their monopoly of the grain traffic. After various successes and reverses the Count besieged the city and had very nearly reduced it by starvation when Philip Van Artevelde, son of the famous tribune, came forward and was made Captain-General of the city, in 1382. The new leader, and a motley crowd of five thousand half-starved followers, marched on Bruges, where the Count, at the head of a host of over forty thousand, attacked them under the walls of the city. The larger army, however, was a mere rabble—over-confident and half intoxicated—and Van Artevelde won a complete victory. The Count of Flanders was compelled to hide for the night under a heap of straw in a poor woman’s hovel, and later escaped to Lille and so to France. Van Artevelde treated the captured city with generosity and was soon captain of all Flanders. His next battle was with the King of France, but this time he was less fortunate, and at Rosbecque, November 27, 1382, the Flemish host was cut to pieces and its leader slain. Louis of Maele himself died two years later, leaving the reputation of being the worst and weakest of the line of Flemish Counts, as well as the last. It was at his request that the French had invaded the country, which they swept with fire and sword after the defeat of the Flemish guildsmen, but the victory was of no benefit to the broken-down old man who no longer dared to show himself in Flanders and died at Paris in poverty and neglect.

As an offset to these remarks regarding the weakness of Louis of Maele it is only fair to that worthy to relate a little legend generally attributed to his reign. It is said that on a certain occasion the magistrates of Ghent—which was at the time renowned as the most opulent city in Europe—were invited to a great feast given in honour of some foreign king. Those in charge of the arrangements forgot, however, to put cushions on the chairs and the men of Ghent accordingly threw their richly embroidered cloaks upon them, and retired when the feast was over without putting them on again. When reminded of this the Chief Magistrate replied, “The Flemings are not accustomed to carry their cushions with them.” Not only the grandees but the bourgeois citizens at this period were said to wear purple and fine linen. The baths, “stooven,” frequented by both sexes, became the scenes of great vice and disorder and one ancient chronicler reports an incredible number of murders as occurring during a single year at gaming tables and drinking places. All this would seem to show that Louis of Maele was not so bad a sovereign—for at least the country prospered under his rule—but in reality he had, as we have seen, very little to do either with the actual government or public policy during his long reign.

No visitor to Ghent fails to take a look at De Dulle Griete, or “Mad Margery,” Philip Van Artevelde’s big cannon that stands in the Mannekens Aert. According to Froissart, Van Artevelde took with him to the siege of Audenaerde “a bombard which was fifty feet in length, and shot stones of immense weight. When they fired off this bombard it might be heard five leagues off in the daytime, and ten at night. The report of it was so loud, that it seemed as if all the devils in hell had broken loose.” Mad Margery seems to have shrunk considerably since Froissart’s time, for she is now nineteen feet long and three feet in diameter at the mouth. The gun was made of wrought iron and weighs thirty-four thousand, one hundred and sixty-six pounds, and was capable of throwing a stone weighing seven hundred and eight pounds.

Another interesting monument dating from the same period in the city’s history as the Belfry is the Hospital of the Biloque or Biloke. Some of the buildings are of much more recent construction, but the Gothic chapel was built early in the thirteenth century, apparently about 1228, with a double gable and immense timber roof. The former Refectory offers an example of early brick work at one of its ends, le beau pignon, that is a joy to architects, and has often been described and illustrated in the technical books. The timber roof of this structure is also noteworthy. It is now used as a hospital for old men. This edifice is a century later than the chapel, while some of the other buildings date from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Ghent contains two Béguinages, a circumstance that gives not a little trouble to visitors who in trying to visit one are about always—at least that was our experience on two occasions—directed to the other. Both are large, but one is more notable for its antiquity and the other for its size and the perfection of its appointments. The first Béguinage in Ghent was founded by Jeanne of Constantinople in 1233 as a place of refuge for women disciples of the church who in those evil days felt the need of protection, but did not desire to enter the conventual life. Little houses sprang up and the institution proved so popular that a second Béguinage was soon established which came to be called the Petit Béguinage. Protected by the successive Counts, and particularly by the patronage of the Countesses of Flanders, both institutions flourished and expanded steadily. The present Petit Béguinage de Notre Dame dates largely from the seventeenth century, and the Chapel and streets of tiny houses inhabited by the Béguines are most picturesque. It has accommodations for three hundred sisters. The Grand Béguinage de Ste. Elisabeth was confiscated during the French Revolution and the property presented to the almshouses of the city of Ghent. The Committee in charge of the almshouses suffered the Béguines to remain undisturbed, however, until 1872 when strained relations resulting from this arrangement led to the Béguines giving up their establishment, which was modernized by the authorities and many of its interesting features destroyed. The church remains, having become a parish church, and the rue des Prébendières retains its original appearance. Meanwhile, the Duke of Arenberg purchased ground for a new Grande Béguinage at Mont St. Amand, and here a little city of small houses, designed in fifteenth-century Flemish style, and a new chapel were erected, the work being completed in 1874.

We spent a very charming afternoon visiting the Grande Béguinage. Passing through the lofty gateway we were greeted by the pleasant-faced Béguine who receives all visitors and who directed us how to reach the buildings we were permitted to see. As at Bruges, the cells were not shown to visitors. Altogether at St. Amand there are fourteen “convents” and eighty houses, the former accommodating twenty or thirty inmates and the latter two or three, with occasionally some lady from the outer world who is taken as a lodger. Each little house is numbered and also has a name, usually that of some saint. Arriving at the convent we had been permitted to visit we were first conducted down a long, clean corridor, painted a glaring white, to a parlour or reception room, of which there appear to be several. Then, after the Lady Superior had been notified of our presence and had come to welcome us, we were taken to the refter, or dining-room. The inventor of the kitchen cabinet could have taken points from this curious apartment. Along the walls and between the windows are a dozen or more cupboards, of which one belongs to each Béguine. Here she keeps her napkins, dishes and cooking utensils, and even her bread and provisions. A board can be pulled out near the middle, which serves as a table. These cupboards are so constructed that no Béguine can see into that of her neighbour, and apparently they take their meals one at a time, as one was eating her frugal repast when we entered, and when we passed through the room again a little later her little private refectory was closed and another one was seated at her little shelf or table. Adjoining this queer dining-room was a large kitchen, with an extremely big cook stove, on which a half-dozen little pots were simmering gently. One Béguine, we were told, has the duty of attending to the kitchen for three weeks, then another, each taking turns. The Béguines prepare their own meals to suit themselves, the one in charge of the kitchen merely looking after the actual process of cooking.

We next visited the workroom, where a group of Béguines were busily engaged in making lace. The bright sunshine streaming through the large windows on the silent group of workers, each clad in her sombre garb of black and white, made a pretty picture. All seemed to be care-free and contented, though the expression on their faces could hardly be described as one of happiness. As in all conventual institutions, the inmates are required to go through quite a series of devotional exercises from morning mass to the Benediction Night Prayers. The scene in the little chapel attached to each convent, or in the large chapel of the entire Béguinage, when the sisters are assembled for service is a very picturesque one and gives the visitor an impression likely long to be remembered.

Speaking of the peculiar dining customs of the Béguines reminds me that in Flanders the judicious should not overlook the importance of doing justice to the culinary treats that are provided by even the little hotels. For those travellers who look upon eating as one of the disagreeable necessities of existence, to be shirked or evaded as far as possible, and, in any event, to be hurried through with quickly lest something be overlooked that the immortal Mr. Baedeker said must be seen, this is one feature of Flemish life that will make no appeal. On the other hand, for those who are neither mentally nor bodily dyspeptic; who agree with the French aphorism that “the animals feed, while man eats”; and who are still able to enjoy a good meal well planned, well cooked, and well served, a trip through Flanders will bring a new pleasure every day. A peep into any Flemish kitchen will convince the most sceptical that here, at all events, one’s stomach is not likely to be forgotten. Pots and kettles, casseroles and pans, pitchers and jugs, large and small, hang around the walls or rest upon long shelves—all of brightly polished copper and ready for instant service.

The great meal of the day in all parts of Flanders is the dinner, and it cuts the day in two—coming between noon and two o’clock and usually lasting an hour or more. The evening meal, or supper, is much less important, save in a few hotels catering largely to tourists. To get up a real Flemish dinner, cooked and served in the best style of which the Flemish cooks are capable, the housewife first ascertains when the local butcher has fresh-killed meat and plans accordingly. Vegetables in Flanders are always good, in their respective seasons, but to get the finest quality of meats one must buy just after the butcher has made a killing. To Americans, who have been accustomed all their lives to eat meat that has been kept on ice, it almost seems as though one has never tasted a roast of beef or a shoulder of mutton before—so deliciously sweet, tender and juicy are they when cooked and eaten before the ice has robbed them of their richness and flavour.

It was while we were browsing around Ghent that the ladies discovered a bit of handicraft that seems worth mentioning. We subsequently saw the same thing at Brussels and Antwerp, so that it appears to be distinctly a Belgian industry. In a large window they noticed two women engaged in what from over the way might have been taken for lace-making. Mrs. Professor hurried across at once to investigate and she and the Madame spent half an hour watching the operation. Each of the two women was engaged in repairing, the one a pair of trousers and the other an overcoat. In each case the repair consisted of literally weaving a new segment of cloth in place of the damaged portion. First cutting out all of the latter they frayed out an edge of the goods at some point where there was sufficient material turned under for their purpose. This done they took short strands of each of the various coloured yarns and, with infinite patience and skill, wove them together in an exact reproduction of the design of the original textile. So cleverly was the work done that when completed the reparation could not be detected. It is possible that repairing of this kind is done in America but none of us had ever seen or heard of it. In Belgium it seemed to be fairly common, being styled Reparation invisible, and the price varying from one to three or four francs for each hole repaired, according to the nature of the goods and the design. We also saw rugs being repaired in the same manner, as well as ladies’ dress goods of every description.

It is one of the most deplorable features of the war that its most fearful destructiveness should have been wreaked upon a little country where every small economy and patient utilisation of trifles had been practised for centuries. All Belgium is pre-eminently a land of thrift, of painstaking husbanding of small resources, and to beggar half the population of such a country means a calamity to each family group and individual far more poignant than would be the case where frugality was less deeply ingrained as a national characteristic.

CHAPTER XI
PHILIP THE GOOD AND THE VAN EYCKS

As the sunset is often the most beautiful hour of the day, so the splendour of the old Flemish communes reached its zenith at the moment when many of them were about to sink into their long sleep. This was the period of Burgundian rule. Upon the death of Louis of Maele the County of Flanders ceased to be a separate sovereignty, as it had been since Baldwin of the Iron Arm, for the husband of Margaret, the old Count’s daughter, was Duke of Burgundy and brother of the King of France—a foreign prince whose interests in France far out-weighed in his mind his interests in Flanders. The new ruler, Philip the Bold, was acknowledged as Count of Flanders in 1384, but was only able to enter Audenaerde by stratagem after a siege, and was defied openly by the sturdy burghers of Ghent. The following year, however, Philip effected a family union by which he virtually controlled the two important States of Brabant and Hainaut. His eldest son was married to Margaret, daughter of the Regent of Hainaut, while the latter’s son married Philip’s daughter. These marriages were celebrated at Cambrai, in April, 1385, and at the same time the Duchess of Brabant recognised Philip’s second son as heir to the Duchy. Brabant at that time was less rich and powerful than Flanders, but its chief cities, Brussels and Louvain, were growing rapidly. Hainaut, on the other hand, had been termed by one of its leaders “a poor country of proud men”—its chief cities, Mons and Valenciennes, being places of third-rate importance, and its present vast mineral wealth then undreamed of. The marriages of Cambrai are worth remembering, however, as explaining the rapidity with which the House of Burgundy extended its sway over nearly all of what is now Belgium.

Ghent still resisted its new Count, but an army of one hundred thousand French and Burgundians—gathered primarily to invade England—destroyed the seaport of Damme, which had been rebuilt since its previous destruction by the French, and plundered “the Four Trades,” as the fertile region thereabout was called. Ghent, however, had suffered enough to make it sue for peace and acknowledge Philip’s sovereignty. The invasion of England project came to nothing—as have so many others before and since—but it had at least enabled Philip to establish his power in Flanders.

On Philip’s death in 1404, he was succeeded by his son, John the Fearless (as the old chroniclers call him). The life of this prince belongs to the history of France rather than Flanders, as he had little use for his Flemish towns except to extort money from their burghers—who granted him such sums as he required on his renewing acknowledgment of their liberties and privileges. In 1407 John caused the murder of his great rival in the government of France, the Duke of Orleans. Then came the battle of Agincourt, where the power of France was ruined by Henry the Fifth, and in 1419 the son of the Duke of Orleans avenged the murder of his father twelve years previously by murdering John the Fearless at Montereau.

The son of John the Fearless was Philip, called by the chroniclers “the Good.” A better term would have been “the Magnificent,” for goodness was hardly his chief characteristic. The murder of his father caused Philip to take the side of England in the long conflict between that country and France that was still raging—a policy that pleased his Flemish communes, which depended for their prosperity on the wool trade. Meanwhile Philip took advantage of the matrimonial difficulties of Jacqueline of Bavaria, Countess of Hainaut and Holland, to compel that beautiful but unfortunate princess to abdicate in his favour. The dungeon in the Castle of the Counts at Ghent, where the fair Jacqueline was for a time confined, has already been mentioned. He also succeeded in making himself Duke of Brabant, thus uniting in his own person the government of these rich provinces with that of Flanders and Burgundy and his other possessions in France.

In 1430 Philip married the Princess Isabel of Portugal, a great-granddaughter of John, Duke of Lancaster. This marriage cemented the English alliance, and the English made Philip Regent of France, over which they still claimed sovereignty. It was Philip who captured and indirectly caused the execution of Jeanne d’Arc at the darkest period of French history.

The now all-powerful Duke of Burgundy signalized his marriage by establishing at Bruges the famous Order of the Golden Fleece. This consisted of himself, as founder and sovereign prince, and twenty-four knights—naturally the highest in the land—and in renown and lustre the new order quickly took rank as the very pinnacle of mediæval chivalry. Membership was an honour than which there was none higher, while members also enjoyed a personal security against the tyranny of princes in being amenable only to their comrades of the order. The head of such an institution naturally exerted powers equal, and, in some respects, superior, to those of any crowned monarch. The fêtes with which Philip celebrated the establishment of the order were without precedent in the history of Europe for magnificence, and the old city of Bruges was for days thronged with the bravest knights and the fairest ladies to be found in the Duke’s widespread dominions.

Up to this date the policy of Philip had coincided with the interests of his great communes in Flanders and his popularity throughout the county was unbounded. Not only did friendship with England protect and stimulate trade between the two countries, but the misery and ruin of France also contributed to extend the commerce of the great towns just over the frontier whose trade and industries were unmolested. In 1435 Philip concluded the treaty of Arras with Charles VII, King of France, by which, for the sake of peace, the French King ceded to him a number of counties in France and made him, during his lifetime at least, an independent prince owing no homage to the French Crown. This treaty naturally enraged the English, who at once declared war on Burgundy, destroying many Burgundian vessels and raiding its coast towns. In revenge Duke Philip marched on Calais with an army of thirty thousand Flemings whom he induced to join in the war against their ancient ally chiefly through their confidence in his good intentions and against their own better judgment. The siege proved to be a long one, and the Flemings becoming discontented finally set fire to their camp and crying, “Go, go, wy zyn all vermanden!” (“Go, go, we are all betrayed!”) marched back to Flanders, leaving their Duke raging at his discomfiture.

This fiasco determined Philip to adopt a new policy toward the communes and compel them to obey his orders. On May 22, 1437, he camped outside of the city of Bruges with a considerable force of knights and Picard footmen, informing the burghers that he was on his way to Holland. The next day, telling his men “That is the Holland we have come to conquer!” as he pointed to the city, Philip led his forces to the market-place. The tocsin in the old belfry instantly sounded the alarm, and angry guildsmen and burghers came pouring down the narrow streets in thousands. Philip’s small force, taken at a disadvantage, was forced to retreat to one of the gates. It was shut, its heavy bolts securely drawn. Already some of the French force had been killed, and in a few moments the Duke himself would have perished but for Burgomaster Van de Walle, who brought a smith and broke the lock. The Duke escaped with most of his followers, but many who were caught in the rear lost their lives. This was the Bruges Vespers—to distinguish it from Bruges Matin, the year of the Battle of the Spurs.

Philip now set about humbling the proud city in grim earnest, cutting off the commerce upon which its prosperity depended, and even its food supplies. To add to the horrors of the siege the plague broke out within the city, while leprosy was also prevalent. No less than twenty-four thousand died of pestilence and famine before the brave burghers at last gave in. Philip’s terms were hard. The city officials were required to meet him bareheaded and barefooted the next time he deigned to visit the defeated commune, and on their knees give him the keys of the city. A heavy fine was imposed and forty-two leading burghers were excluded from amnesty and beheaded—including Van de Walle, who had saved his life at the Bouverie gate. This was the “Great Humiliation,” as it is sometimes called, but—finding that continued hostility to the chief trading centre in his dominions was driving foreign traders away—the Duke now took Bruges again into his favour and never again molested it during his long reign.

The proud city of Ghent was the next to feel the weight of the powerful Duke’s displeasure. Rebelling in 1448 against the imposition of a tax on salt, called the gabelle, the city defied the Duke’s authority for five years. Meanwhile Philip gradually cut off its supplies, as he had done with Bruges. Ghent was more populous, however, and its burgher armies took the field and carried open war as far as Audenaerde, which they besieged. Several small battles were fought, the advantage resting mainly with the Duke, until on July 23, 1453, the decisive conflict took place. The Duke’s forces were encamped at Gavre, a few miles from the city. Spies within the gates told the burghers that it would be easy to surprise the camp and destroy Philip’s army. The tocsin therefore was sounded and the hosts of guildsmen and burghers marched out to attack the enemy. The Duke’s forces, aware of the manner in which the Flemings were to be betrayed, were placed where the open ground favoured the Burgundian horsemen. In spite of this advantage, the contest was a stubborn one, both the Duke and his son Charles narrowly escaping death on one occasion. At last the Flemings began to give way, and the battle became a slaughter, more than twenty thousand of the guildsmen being slain on the field, while all prisoners were hanged. This struggle was called “the red sea of Gavre.” As the men of Ghent were fleeing toward their city Philip sought to pursue them by the shortest way and intercept their flight. He accordingly called for a guide. A peasant of the neighbourhood volunteered, and, after leading the Burgundian army across fields and by-paths for several hours, conducted the victors—not to the gates of Ghent, but back to their own camp again! This nameless hero was incontinently hanged to the nearest tree, but he no doubt saved the city from pillage and rapine that night.

Philip by this victory completely crushed the spirit of the communes, for none dared resist when Ghent the all-powerful had failed. He seems to have had at least a fleeting realisation, however, that victories of this sort were not matters for unmitigated satisfaction. The day after the battle the women of Ghent were searching the ghastly heaps of dead for the bodies of their husbands, their brothers and their lovers when Philip exclaimed—possibly touched by the sad sight—“I do not know who is the gainer by this victory. As for me, see what I have lost—for these were my subjects!”

The privileges of Ghent were somewhat curtailed, and the dearly loved guild banners carried away by the conqueror, but Philip, on the whole, was very moderate. The obnoxious gabelle, the cause of the war, was removed, and all citizens guaranteed their individual liberties. The following year, Philip, possibly to celebrate his now undisputed supremacy, gave a series of fêtes at Lille that surpassed even those held on the occasion of his marriage at the foundation of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Upon one dining table stood a cathedral, with a choir singing within; another held a huge pie, inside of which an orchestra of twenty-eight musicians played; a third contained a pantomime representing Jason in search of the golden fleece. These fêtes and tournaments lasted for days, and were the wonder of Europe.

During the remainder of his reign of fifty years Philip never again had occasion to make war on his Flemish subjects, and while he seriously curtailed the power and importance of the communes, his rule was, on the whole, a period of great prosperity for Flanders. Both merchants and artisans were waxing rich, while the chief cities were being beautified on every hand. It was under Philip the Good that the cathedral at Antwerp was begun, and the town halls of Mons, Louvain and Brussels erected. It was also during his reign that William Caxton learned the art of printing at the house of Colard Manson at Bruges, but the prejudice of the burghers led to his banishment as a foreigner—thus depriving Bruges of the lustre of his achievements. The greatest event of Philip’s reign, however, was one of which the glory is shared by both Bruges and Ghent—the establishment in Flanders of the school of painters in oils whose masterpieces loom so large in the history of art.

Like most men whose commanding personality dominates the age in which they live, Philip the Good was many sided. The Professor admires him because he was, in his judgment, one of the greatest constructive statesmen of the Middle Ages—aiming steadily throughout his long reign to weld together, by fair means or foul, a compact Burgundian nation. On the other hand, I look upon him as a foe rather than a friend of true progress, because he crushed the self-governing communes and guilds, the bulwarks of personal liberty in feudal Europe. Mrs. Professor cares nothing for either of these aspects of his career, but looks upon him as great for all time because he was an ardent friend and patron of the fine arts.

In this she is undoubtedly right, for no greater glory belongs to any of the long line of princes who ruled over Flanders than that which is associated with his reign—the birth at Bruges of the art of painting with oils and of the wonderful school of painting represented by the early Flemish masters. In his History of Flemish Painting Prof. A. J. Wauters recounts the names and some faint traces of the work of a few Flemish painters who lived prior to the period of Philip the Good. At Ghent there are two interesting frescoes dating from about the end of the thirteenth century. At that city in 1337 the first guild of sculptors was organised, under the patronage of St. Luke, and similar corporations were instituted at Tournai in 1341, in Bruges in 1351, at Louvain by 1360 and Antwerp by 1382. To this guild from the very earliest period the painters belonged, sometimes the goldsmiths and goldbeaters being also associated with them. In the same way the illuminators of Bruges and Ghent, and the tapestry workers of Arras, Tournai, Valenciennes and Brussels were organised into guilds, and these associations of men whose work was in a high degree artistic soon resulted in the transformation of the artisan into the artist.

Philip the Good was not the first of his line to give encouragement to art and artists. One Jehan de Hasselt was court painter to Count Louis of Maele, while at the same period the better known Jehan de Bruges was peintre et varlet de chambre for the King of France. By the end of the fourteenth century not only the great Dukes of Burgundy and the Kings of France but many minor princes had their chosen painters, imagers, illuminators and tapestry workers. Philip the Bold, the first of the Dukes of Burgundy to rule over Flanders, retained his father-in-law’s painter, Jehan de Hasselt, on his pay-roll for some time, and later employed a resident of Ypres, Melchior Broederlam, whose masterpiece was an altar-piece for the Carthusian monastery at Dijon founded by his patron. Part of this has been preserved and is now in the museum of Dijon. It is of interest as the first great painting of the early Flemish school and represents the Annunciation and Visitation, the Presentation in the Temple, and the Flight into Egypt. John the Fearless, the next Duke of Burgundy, likewise had his official painter, but it was not until the reign of Philip the Good that any of these Ducal artists, with the exception of Broederlam, achieved more than mediocre results.

The reason for this may have been the medium with which all painters in those days were accustomed to work. This was called tempera, the colours being mixed with water, the white of an egg or some other glutinous substance, then dried in the sun and varnished over. The colours, however, soon became dull and pale—often fading away altogether, especially in course of restoration—and the process of drying was slow and unsatisfactory. To Flanders belongs the honour of the great discovery of the art of painting with oils that revolutionised this branch of the fine arts and made the master-works of the artists of the brush imperishable for all time.

This epoch-making discovery, which is justly looked upon as the birth of modern painting, was made by the two brothers Van Eyck about the year 1410. The early accounts attribute the invention wholly to Jean, the younger of the two brothers, relating that on a certain occasion he had placed a painting on wood, which had cost him much time and labour, in the sun to dry when the heat of the sun caused it to crack. Seeing his work thus ruined at a blow Jean sought to find some substance that would obviate the necessity of drying his paintings in the sun and, after many experiments, discovered that linseed oil and nut oil were by far the most rapid in drying. He further found that the colours mixed better in oil than with the white of an egg or glue. They also had more body, a far richer lustre, were impermeable to water and—what was best of all—dried just as well in the shade as in the sun. Later scholarship is not inclined to give the entire credit for this discovery to Jean alone, however, and his elder brother Hubert is looked upon by some as the one to whom the glory is due. Probably it was the joint result of innumerable experiments made by both, each profiting by the mistakes and successes of the other—just as was the case with the Wright brothers in perfecting the greatest invention of our own times. There were, of course, other pioneers who contributed to the great discovery.

The brothers were born at Maeseyck (Eyck-sur-Meuse) near Maestricht, and took the name of the village as their own in a way that was then very common. Literally they called themselves Hubert and Jean of Eyck. They first obtained service under the prince-bishop of Liége, and were illuminators of manuscripts and statues as well as painters. The increasing wealth and luxury of Flanders under the Dukes of Burgundy drew the two brothers to that country and they appear to have been in the employ of the Count of Charolais, afterwards the Duke Philip the Good, at about the date assigned by the early historians as that when the art of painting with oils was discovered. The Count was residing at that time in the Château des Comtes at Ghent with his young wife Michelle, sister of the Duke of Orleans. In 1419, when the news of the murder of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, by the Duke of Orleans on the bridge of Montereau arrived at Ghent, Philip rushed into his wife’s room crying, “Michelle, Michelle! Your brother has killed my father!” The shock of this terrible intelligence, and the subsequent suspicion of her husband that she knew of the plot, caused the poor little French princess to pine away and die two years later. As a tribute to her memory the guild of St. Luke was asked by the Duke to grant the freedom of the guild to her favourite painters, the two Van Eycks, which was done.

Jean, however, did not remain at Ghent, but took service for a time under John of Bavaria, whose capital was at The Hague. In 1425 he became painter and varlet de chambre of Philip the Good, a position he retained until his death. For a time he seems to have travelled about with his ducal master, but he eventually settled at Bruges, where most of his best work was done. Hubert, meanwhile, remained at Ghent, painting for the rich burghers of that prosperous city. Here he presently received an order from Jodocus Vydts for an altar-piece for a chapel he had founded in the Cathedral of St. Bavon in his native city of Ghent. Hubert began work immediately, planned the great work and lived to partially complete it when overtaken by death in 1426. Hubert was recognised as a great painter in his day, the magistrates of Ghent on one occasion going in state to his studio to inspect a picture he was painting—which was no doubt the altar-piece for St. Bavon. He was, however, wholly forgotten by early historians of art in Flanders, and it is only recently that he has been given his proper place as one of the first of the great masters of the Flemish school.

The subject chosen by Hubert for the proposed altar-piece was the Adoration of the Lamb, and the artist, while true to the conventions of the age in which he lived, achieved a work that is still full of interest and charm. Like Shakespeare’s plays this, the first great masterpiece of the Flemish school, belongs not to an age but to all time. In its entirety the work consists of twenty panels and comprises more than three hundred separate figures. How far it had been completed at Hubert’s death there is no way to tell, although it is customary to attribute to him the architectural frame, the central panel showing the lamb, and the large upper panels. Other critics believe that Jean practically painted the whole picture when he was commissioned by the donor to complete it. The books on Flemish art devote many pages to an analytical description of this picture,[1] which was finally completed by Jean in 1432. The Duke Philip, his patron, and the magistrates of Bruges visited his studio in state to inspect the finished picture, which was afterwards publicly exhibited at Ghent. When it is considered that this is the very first painting in oil that has come down to us it is in every respect a most marvellous performance. The three large central panels in the upper portion are especially noble and impressive, that of “God the Father,” in the centre, being finely expressive of majesty and repose. In the panel to the left of the Virgin Mary is a group of youthful angels singing, who are so skilfully painted that “one can readily tell from looking at them which is singing the dominant, which the counter-tenor, and which the tenor and the bass,” according to an early critic. We were told by a Belgian curé with whom we talked about this wonderful picture shortly before our visit to Ghent that the work is so fine in its details that in the case of the figures in the foreground who are holding open in their hands copies of the Scriptures the very passage at which each book is opened can be distinguished! We verified this remarkable assertion by the aid of a glass loaned us by an attendant.