The Story of Brussels

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GEORGE ZELLE, PHYSICIAN.
Painted by Bernard van Orley, Brussels, 1519.

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PREFACE

Probably there is no quarter of Europe more thickly studded with mediæval towns than that embraced by the Flemish provinces of Belgium—the old Duchy of Brabant and the old County of Flanders. Curious places they are, some of them, little changed from what they were at the close of the fourteen hundreds; and some of them, so modernised that hardly anything is left to prove their identity but their geographical position and their names.

All of these cities, however, have this in common, and this it is which makes them so interesting: we know something of their general history, and something too of the intimate lives of the men and the women who inhabited them, five hundred years ago—how they were lodged and clothed, what they drank and ate, the way in which their food was dressed and their tables served, something of their distractions and their business pursuits, how they loved and hated, what they thought of this world, and what of the next.

These things are set forth by three distinct classes of contemporary witnesses:—Pictures, a host of them, minutely detailed, with almost photographic accuracy; furniture of every description—ecclesiastical, domestic, personal; written documents of various kinds—chronicles, private letters, books of devotion, guild registers, town accounts. Many of these have been carefully examined, and a very considerable number of them printed; also, especially in recent years, some of the most accredited Belgian historians have busied themselves by writing monographs of their native towns, or treatises on their ancient municipal institutions: notably Pirenne, Vander Linden, Wauters, Henne, Piot, Van Even. From their works and from other sources, ancient and modern, I have gathered the material for my Story of Mediæval Brussels, in the following pages, and which necessarily includes, for the two cities were intimately connected, a considerable portion of the Story of Mediæval Louvain. To this I have added some notes on Brabant painters and pictures, and also on Brabant architecture, with descriptions of the chief mediæval monuments in Brussels and in the neighbouring towns, and such information as I have been able to obtain concerning the great masons who built them.

Constrained by the narrow limits of this volume to curtail and compress, I have been content to set down facts, clearly I hope and coherently, but for the most part without comment or criticism.

Intended as it is for the general reader, I have done my utmost, and my first care has been, to make this pocket-book readable. I cannot venture to hope that I have escaped all error; but I think that upon the whole I have been able to outline a sufficiently faithful sketch, which I trust may be of some service to those into whose hands it may fall.

E. G.-S.

Bruges, February 1906.

CONTENTS

•  
• CHAPTER I In the Days before Brussels was Built
• CHAPTER II The Norsemen and Louvain
• public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@44314@[email protected]#CHAPTER_III"