citizens to assist them a body of sworn councillors (gezworenen or jurés), whose presidents, styled “burgomasters,” had the supervision of the communal finances. Thus grew up a number of municipalities—practically self-governing republics—semi-independent feudatories in the feudal state.
The most powerful and flourishing of all Were those of Flanders—Ghent, Bruges and Yprès. In the 13th century these towns had become the seat of large industrial populations (varying according to different estimates from 100,000 to 200,000 inhabitants), employed upon the weaving of cloth with its dependent industries, and closely The Flemish communes. bound up by trade interests with England, from whence they obtained the wool for their looms. Bruges, at that time connected with the sea by the river Zwijn and with Sluis as its port, was the central mart and exchange of the world’s commerce. In these Flemish cities the early oligarchic form of municipal government speedily gave way to a democratic. The great mass of the townsmen organized in trade gilds—weavers, fullers, dyers, smiths, leather-workers, brewers, butchers, bakers and others, of which by far the most powerful was that of the weavers—as soon as they became conscious of their strength rebelled against the exclusive privileges of the patricians and succeeded in ousting them from power. The patricians (hence called leliaerts) relied upon the support of the French crown, but the fatal battle of Courtrai (1302), in which the handicraftsmen (clauwaerts) laid low the chivalry of France, secured the triumph of the democracy. The power of the Flemish cities rose to its height during the ascendancy of Jacques van Artevelde (1285–1345), the famous citizen-statesman of Ghent, but after his downfall the mutual jealousies of the cities undermined their strength, and with the crushing defeat of Roosebeke (1382) in which Philip van Artevelde perished, the political greatness of the municipalities had entered vigorous independence of Ghent, Bruges and Yprès, upon its decline.
In Brabant—Antwerp, Louvain, Brussels, Malines (Mechlin)—and in the episcopal territory of Liège—Liège, Huy, Dinant—there was a feebler repetition of the Flemish conditions. Flourishing communities were likewise to be found in Hainault, Namur, Cambrai and the other southern districts of the Netherlands, but nowhere else the Other Netherland municipalities. nor the splendour of their civic life. In the north also the 13th century was rich in municipal charters. Dordrecht, Leiden, Haarlem, Delft, Vlaardingen, Rotterdam in Holland, and Middleburg and Zierikzee in Zeeland, repeated with modifications the characteristics of the communes of Flanders and Brabant. But the growth and development of the northern communal movement, though strong and instinct with life, was slower and less tempestuous than the Flemish. In the bishopric of Utrecht, in Gelderland and Friesland, the privileges accorded to Utrecht, Groningen, Zutphen, Stavoren, Leeuwarden followed rather on the model of those of the Rhenish “free cities” than of the Franco-Flemish commune. In the northern Netherlands generally up to the end of the 14th century the towns had no great political weight; their importance depended upon their river commerce and their markets. Thus at the close of the 14th century, despite the constant wars between the feudal sovereigns who held sway in the Netherlands, the vigorous municipal life had fostered industry and commerce, and had caused Flanders in particular to become the richest possession in the world.
It was precisely at this time that Flanders, and gradually the other feudal states of the Netherlands, by marriage, purchase, treachery or force, fell under the dominion of the house of Burgundy. The foundation of the Burgundian rule in the Netherlands was laid by the succession of Philip the Bold to the counties of Flanders and Artois The Burgundian dominion. in 1384 in right of his wife Margaret de Mâle. In 1404 Antony, Philip’s second son (killed at Agincourt 1415), became duke of Brabant by bequest of his great-aunt Joan. The consolidation of the Burgundian power was effected by Philip the Good, grandson of Philip the Bold, in his long and successful reign of 48 years, 1419–1467. He inherited Flanders and Artois, purchased the county of Namur (1427) and compelled his cousin Jacqueline, the heiress of Holland, Zeeland, Hainault and Friesland, to surrender her possessions to him, 1428. On the death in 1430 of his cousin Philip, duke of Brabant, he took possession of Brabant and Limburg; the duchy of Luxemburg he acquired by purchase, 1443. He made his bastard son David bishop of Utrecht, and from 1456 onwards that see continued under Burgundian influence. Two other bastards were placed on the episcopal throne of Liege, an illegitimate brother on that of Cambrai, Philip did not live to see Gelderland and Liege pass definitively under his rule; it was reserved for his son, Charles the Bold, to crush the independence of Liege (1468) and to incorporate Gelderland in his dominions (1473).
This extension of dominion on the part of the dukes of Burgundy implied the establishment of a strong monarchical authority. They had united under their sway a number of provinces with different histories and institutions and speaking different languages, and their aim was to centralize the government. The nobility and clergy were on Philip the Good. the side of the ducal authority; its opponents were the municipalities, especially those of Flanders. Their strength had been seriously weakened by the overthrow of Roosebeke, but Philip on his accession found them once more advancing rapidly in power and prosperity. He was quite aware that the industrial wealth of the great Flemish communes was financially the mainstay of his power, but their very prosperity made them the chief obstacle to his schemes of unifying into a solid dominion the loose aggregate of states over which he was the ruler. On this matter Philip would brook no opposition. Bruges was forced after strenuous resistance to submit to the loss of its most cherished privileges in 1438, and the revolt of Ghent was quenched in the “red sea” (as it was styled) of Gavre in 1453. The splendour and luxury of the court of Philip surpassed that of any contemporary sovereign. A permanent memorial of it remains in the famous Order of the, Golden Fleece, which was instituted by the duke at Bruges in 1430 on the occasion of his marriage with Isabel of Portugal, a descendant of John of Gaunt, and was so named from the English Wool, the raw material used in the Flemish looms, for which Bruges was the chief mart. The reign of Philip, though marred by many acts of tyranny and harshness, was politically great. Had his successor been as prudent and able, he might have made a unified Netherlands the nucleus of a mighty middle kingdom, interposing between France and Germany, and a revival of that of the Carolingian Lothaire.
Before the accession of Charles, the only son of Philip, two steps had been taken of great importance in the direction of unification. The first was the appointment of a grand council with supreme judicial and financial functions, whose seat was finally fixed at Malines (Mechlin) in 1473; the other the summoning of deputies of all the provincial Charles the Bold. “states” of the Netherlands to a states-general at Brussels in 1465. But Charles, rightly surnamed the Bold or Headstrong, did not possess the qualities of a builder of states. Impatient of control and hasty in action, he was no match for his crafty and plotting adversary, Louis XI. of France. His ambition, however, was boundless, and he set himself to realize the dream of his father—a Burgundian kingdom stretching from the North Sea to the Mediterranean. At first all went well with him. By his ruthless suppression of revolts at Dinant and Liege he made his authority undisputed throughout the Netherlands. His campaigns against the French king were conducted with success. His creation of a formidable standing army, the first of its kind in that age of transition from feudal conditions, gave to the Burgundian power all the outward semblance of stability and permanence. But Charles, though a brave soldier and good military organizer, was neither a capable statesman nor a skilful general. He squandered the resources left to him by his father, and made himself hateful to all classes of his subjects by his exactions and tyranny. When at the very height of power, all his schemes of aggrandisement came to sudden ruin through a succession of disastrous defeats at the hands of the Swiss at Grandson (March 2, 1476), at Morat (June 22, 1476)
