lege of a Hanse.1 This, which was called the English Hanse, because its counter was in London, was granted to the Brugeois when William of Normandy signalized himself in the attempt to deprive the Flemish cities of their fundamental rights. William of Normandy had acted in this the part of king Stork, having but a few months before been chosen to rule by the united will of the very cities which he now endeavoured to reduce to subjection.

The merchants of the Hanse were privileged to try their civil actions before arbitrators chosen amongst the merchants of the city. The president in London was a citizen of Bruges, who took the title of Count of the Hanse, and all the towns had members. Those which joined the company at first were Yprès, Damme, Lille, Bergues, Furnes, Orchies, Bailleul and Poperinghe; and later followed St. Omer, Arras Douai, Cambrai, Valenciennes, Peronne, St. Quentin, Beauvais, Abbeville, Amiens, Montreuil, Rheims, and Châlon.

This English Hanse, the Hanse Towns, the merchants of Lombardy and Venice, and those of Novgorod, kept up the prosperity of Bruges by their trade, and the erection of spacious counters there. The fair of Bruges was then what that of Leipzig is at present, crowded with traders from every country of the world.2

Torn, however, by internal dissensions, Bruges and the other Flemish cities had neither choice nor leisure to foster art and bring it to the high perfection which it

1 Kervyn de Lettenhove, Hist. de Flandre, 8°. Brux. 1847, vol. ii. p. 291.

2 Ibid. p. 299.

afterwards attained under the Dukes of Valois. Philip the Hardy, John the Fearless, and Philip the Good, wielding more powerful resources than the Counts of Flanders, and being backed by the agricultural districts of Burgundy, were enabled to quell, in a great degree, the turbulence of their cities, which enjoyed under them more lasting peace and quiet. The wealth which they had amassed was partly expended in the peaceful rivalry which arose between the noblesse and citizens, each contending who should carry off the palm of taste in art. Thus the School of Bruges progressed. It is true that previous to this time the civic authorities of Belgian cities were already known for their partiality to public exhibitions of their power and taste; but these were far less comprehensive than later efforts of the same description. The ceremonies incident to the arrival in Bruges of Thierry d'Alsace, with the relic of the Holy Blood, which for ages made the chapel of that name in St. Donat the rendezvous of countless pilgrims, were marked by a display of tapestries and banners creditable to the age in which they were produced;' but public taste then showed itself more frequently in sumptuous apparel and gorgeous stuffs than in works of art. Under Louis de Maele, the public appreciation of what required a more refined attention and cultivation was increased. That prince perceived the progress of this feeling, and founded the Corporation of St. Luke, at Bruges.

2

The school which then arose so rapidly to perfection

1 Hist. de Bruges, ut sup., p. 31.

2 Delepierre (O.), Galerie d'Artiste Brugeois, 8°. Bruges, 1840, p. 6. Sanderus, Fland. Illust. ut sup., tom. ii. p. 148.

under the Dukes of Burgundy, thus owed a portion of its progress to the wealth and independent spirit of the communes. The taste, power, and cultivation of a court gave it an additional spur; and the clergy, throwing in their weight, added their support in aid of art.

The monastic orders, as we have shown, had followed art with far less fervour than their neighbours. Scarce a monk in Flanders wielded brush or pencil, when Beato Angelico filled the cities of his native country with the echo of his talent. They had even then surrendered to the lay brotherhoods, or freemasonries of architecture, the building of their churches and cathedrals, and they sought the aid of the sister art to decorate internally the countless structures which had been produced by those skilful bodies. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries had seen the rise of numerous abbeys throughout Burgundy and Flanders. In those of Burgundy the rigid system of Citeaux prevailed; but in Flanders, the monks enjoyed an easier régime. The wealth of these enormous abbeys consisted chiefly in their wool, with which they served, in partnership with England, the looms of the Flemish cities. Their power grew with riches, and many of these Flemish convents were more arrogant in the exhibition of it than even the noblesse. Sithiu, the abbey of St. Bertin at St. Omer, may be mentioned as an instance. Its abbots owned large tracts in Flanders. They held the town of Poperinghe, a large and wealthy manufacturing community. Their priories were to be found in many other places, and they claimed the right of consecration from no less a dignitary than a bishop. Their richly ornamented dresses, sleek mules, and obesity of aspect, proclaimed at

once their riches and their power of enjoying the good and tasteful things of this world.1 To them the arts were much indebted for support and countenance. In the cities, the same desire to enrich their churches and cathedrals invariably procured for painters commissions from the chapters; and the guilds of art, in gratitude, invariably possessed a chapel, where the mass was sung at festivals by grateful priests. One need but point. to the numerous productions ordered by the abbeys and the chapters, from the ablest painters of the period we are noticing, to show how much the arts were then indebted to them for support.

The three great powers in the state,—the court, the clergy, and the commune,—were thus enlisted in support of art in Flanders, during the rule of the house of France in Belgium.

Not alone in painting was this result obtained. The greatest monuments of civil architecture are the produce of this period; to which we owe the great town-halls, the bourses, markets, and corporation palaces of Belgium.

The civil structures of the thirteenth and preceding centuries are the "beffrois," at the ringing of whose bells the trades assembled in the market-place. The "beffroi" was the emblem of municipal freedom. It was part of the charter of incorporation of a commune that it should have a bell, and, consequently, a belfry; but later, when the powers of the corporations became administrative and more complicated, the town-halls arose, sometimes by the

1 A. Wauters, Les Délices de la Belgique, 8°. Brux. 1846. Altmeyer, Notice sur Poperinghe. Messager des Sciences et des Arts, ut sup., 1839, pp. 22-53.

belfry's side, sometimes on its site.1 The Bruges townhall is the earliest and most perfect specimen of this early style of building, having been raised in the fourteenth century, on the model of those old mansions called "Steene," which existed at that time throughout the country. The latter end of the fourteenth, and beginning of the fifteenth, mark the erection of the town-halls of Brussels, Louvain and Gand; the end of the fifteenth, and beginning of the sixteenth, that of the town-halls of Audenarde, Mons, Courtrai, and Léau.

The building of many palaces in Bruges is also due to the exertions of foreign merchants. There were sixteen counters in Bruges, belonging to trading companies, which possessed palaces in which they transacted business. The finest of these was the counter of the German Hanseatic League, destroyed a little less than a century ago. Those of the Castilians, Florentines, and Genoese were remarkable for the beauty of their fronts. They were castellated and flanked with towers. The hotel of the Genoese was especially remarkable for its internal splendour.

Portinari, of the Florentines, patronised Van der Goes. The Genoese seem to have respected the talent of Van der Weyden. The Flemish pictures in Spain show that the Castilians appreciated Flemish art; and the pictures of the School of Bruges are numerous in Bremen, Lübeck, Danzig, and other cities of the Hanseatic League.

1 Schayes, Hist. de l'Architecture en Belgique, 8°. Brux. 1850, p. 12.

3

2 Ibid. pp. 10--33. Wauters (A.), Les Délices de la Belgique. Schayes, ut sup., pp. 41-56. Many miniatures of this period, in the British Museum, contain drawings of these castellated towers.