Chapter I: Preface

Few great mediæval towns possess so many memorials of the past, alike in masonry and on parchment, as does 'the ancient town of Bruges.'

They have been indited by the patience of the scribe in breviary and in charter-roll; they have been perpetuated by the art of the painter, in gold and glowing tones, in portrait and in altar-piece; they have been graven with an iron pen in wood and metal and stone; they have been handed down by word of mouth through countless generations.

The municipal rolls go back to the year 1280, and included amongst them are the annual accounts of the city from 1281 to 1789, almost complete; those of the Collegiate Church of _Notre Dame_ to early in the eleven hundreds; and there are, too, the rolls of _St. Sauveur_, of the old Cathedral of St. Donatian, of the great Abbey of Dunes, and of many other time-honoured corporations; whilst the Municipal Library and the Library of the Diocesan Seminary contain together, no less than seven hundred and thirty-four manuscripts, not a few of which were written in the city itself or in its immediate neighbourhood.

There are buildings in Bruges which carry us back to the days of Baldwin Bras de Fer, perhaps to a still more remote period; four of the seven parish churches date from the twelve hundreds; the oldest of the civic monuments to at latest 1280, and from this epoch until the close of the Middle Age almost every year is marked by the erection of stately edifices, of which very many have come down to us.

Lack of material will not hamper the future historian of Bruges, for the history of Bruges has yet to be written. The present work lays no claim to such title. It is but a bare outline, a mere sketch, and in this it resembles, in some degree, the beautiful map at the end of the volume, and many of the illustrations by which the book is adorned.

The artists who designed these fascinating pictures have succeeded by means of a few skilful touches in laying before us a faithful reflection of the beauty of Bruges, and, following in their footsteps, I, too, have essayed to render my story of the men who created it alike faithful and picturesque.

If my efforts have not been crowned with the same measure of success, the fault lies not in the material, but rather in the manner in which it has been handled; for the life's story of the builders of Bruges is no less marvellous and no less alluring than are the monuments which they reared.

E. G.-S.

BRUGES, _June 1901_.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
PAGE

_The First Flemings_ 1

CHAPTER II

_Earliest Bruges_ 9

CHAPTER III

_Arnulph the Great_ 21

CHAPTER IV

_Progress of the City_ 26

CHAPTER V

_The Murder of Charles the Good_ 38

CHAPTER VI

_Vengeance_ 57

CHAPTER VII

_Bruges in the Days of Charles the Good_ 75

CHAPTER VIII

_William Cliton_ 81

CHAPTER IX

_Dierick of Alsace and the Precious Blood_ 90

CHAPTER X

_Philip of Alsace and the Charter of the Franc_ 105

CHAPTER XI

_Baldwin of Constantinople_ 111

CHAPTER XII

_The Love Story of Bourchard d'Avesnes_ 122

CHAPTER XIII

_The French Annexation_ 136

CHAPTER XIV

_Peter De Coninck_ 144

CHAPTER XV

_The Battle of the Golden Spurs_ 153

CHAPTER XVI

_The Great Charter_ 164

CHAPTER XVII

_Louis of Nevers_ 172

CHAPTER XVIII

_Louis of Maele_ 195

CHAPTER XIX

_Bruges under the Princes of the House of Burgundy_ 210

CHAPTER XX

_The Great Humiliation_ 230

CHAPTER XXI

_The Terrible Duke and his Gentle Daughter_ 248

CHAPTER XXII

_The Final Catastrophe_ 268

CHAPTER XXIII

_The Architects and Architecture of
Bruges in the Fifteenth Century_ 306

CHAPTER XXIV

_The Painters and the Pictures of Bruges in the Fifteenth Century_ 334