The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Spell of Flanders, by Edward Neville Vose

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Spell of Flanders

An Outline of the History, Legends and Art of Belgium's Famous Northern Provinces

Author: Edward Neville Vose

Release Date: January 12, 2013 [eBook #41830]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPELL OF FLANDERS***

E-text prepared by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)
from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive/American Libraries
(http://archive.org/details/americana)

THE SPELL OF FLANDERS

THE SPELL SERIES

Each volume with one or more colored plates and many illustrations from original drawings or special photographs. Octavo, with decorative cover, gilt top, boxed.
Per volume $2.50 net, carriage paid $2.70

THE SPELL OF ITALY
By Caroline Atwater Mason

THE SPELL OF FRANCE
By Caroline Atwater Mason

THE SPELL OF ENGLAND
By Julia de W. Addison

THE SPELL OF HOLLAND
By Burton E. Stevenson

THE SPELL OF SWITZERLAND
By Nathan Haskell Dole

THE SPELL OF THE ITALIAN LAKES
By William D. McCrackan

THE SPELL OF TYROL
By William D. McCrackan

THE SPELL OF JAPAN
By Isabel Anderson

THE SPELL OF SPAIN
By Keith Clark

THE SPELL OF FLANDERS
By Edward Neville Vose

THE SPELL OF THE HOLY LAND
By Archie Bell

L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
53 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASS.

Cathedral of St. Sauveur, Bruges

(See page 47)

The Spell of Flanders

An Outline of the History, Legends and Art
of
BELGIUM’S
Famous Northern Provinces

Being the story of a Twentieth Century Pilgrimage
in a Sixteenth Century Land
just before the Outbreak of the Great War

BY
Edward Neville Vose

ILLUSTRATED

BOSTON
THE PAGE COMPANY
MDCCCCXV

Copyright, 1915,
By The Page Company All rights reserved

First Impression, April, 1915

THE COLONIAL PRESS
C. H. SIMONDS COMPANY, BOSTON, U. S. A.

To
ALBERT I.,
King of the Belgians,
the guiding star of a brave nation
and
the hero of the Battle of Flanders
in the Great War,
this book is dedicated

PUBLISHERS’ NOTE

Lord Beaconsfield once said: “Flanders has been trodden by the feet and watered by the blood of countless generations of British soldiers.” This famous passage—which has received a new confirmation to-day—is typical of many references among English writers and statesmen to Flanders as a general term covering all of what is now known as Belgium. Among the citizens of that brave little Kingdom, however, and among most Continental writers, Flanders is recognised as being the name of only the northern part of Belgium. Small as that country is, it has for centuries been bi-lingual, the northern portion speaking Flemish, the southern French; and for centuries the history of the Flemish provinces was as distinct from that of the Walloon province to the southward as the early history of California or Texas was from that of New England.

Although eventually united under one Government with the Walloons and with what is now Holland, it was during the long period of their semi-independence that the Flemings achieved many of the artistic and architectural monuments that have made Flanders for all time one of the most interesting regions in the world.

While this book, therefore, does not attempt to describe the whole of Belgium, it does present a pen picture of the northern part of the country as it existed almost at the moment when the devastating scourge of the Great War swept across it.

FOREWORD

This book is the record of a vacation tour in the beautiful old Flemish towns of Northern Belgium beginning in May and ending in July of the Summer of 1914. The assassination of the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his wife at Sarajevo took place while our little party was viewing the mediæval houses and churches of Ghent and Audenaerde, but in the many discussions of that event to which we listened there was no whisper of the awful fate which the march of events was so soon to bring upon one of the most charming, peaceful and happy countries in the world.

Many of the descriptions in the following pages were written in or near the towns described, and within a day or so after the visit narrated. Then each old Flemish “monument” was in as perfect a state of preservation as the reverent pride and care of the Belgian populace and the learned and skilful restorations of the Belgian government could together accomplish. The fact that since these accounts were written many of these very towns have been swept by shot and shell, have been taken and retaken by hostile armies, have formed the stage upon which some of the direst tragedies of the world’s greatest and most terrible war have been enacted, will—it is hoped—give them a permanent interest and value. As a painting of some famous city as it appeared many years or centuries ago is of the utmost