Table III.
Amongst the tangle of intricate causes which at last brought about, not, indeed, the complete discomfiture of the patricians, for to the end they were able to share in the duties and spoils of municipal government, but the shrinkage of their prestige and the loss of much of their power, three stand out pre-eminent:—the gradual diminution of their wealth after 1350, outcome of English competition in the cloth trade; the conduct of their chief officer of police, who presently, for his own ends, made it his business to foment rebellion; and the growing conviction in their own ranks that, after all, the stately edifice which they had reared was not founded on justice.
At a very early date there was a popular party among the patricians of Brussels, which little by little seems to have gained sufficient influence to modify the policy of the municipal government, for in 1306 we find Duke John II. giving discretionary powers to the College of Aldermen to admit craftsmen to the freedom of the city, and though no doubt the primary object of this grant was to enable the ruling class to purchase the goodwill of leading plebeians, the patricians would hardly have requested the right to confer such a boon, even by way of corruption, if they had been seriously opposed to the admission of commoners to the franchise.
As it was at Brussels so was it in the other towns ofBrabant, and notably at Louvain, the city, above all, where the aristocracy was the proudest and the most hated, and the proletariat the most turbulent and the most oppressed. In this hotbed of storm and suspicion, where class feeling ran the highest and class distinctions were the most sharply defined, it was in the ranks of the patricians that the people at last found a leader whom they trusted, and one who showed himself worthy of their trust. That leader was Peter Coutherele, Mayor of Louvain, and, as such, the first citizen of the first city of Brabant.
Though on the paternal side he does not seem to have been a man of ancient lineage—his father, Godfrey, who was a member of the Council of Jurors in 1328, and again in 1339, is the first of the family of whom we have any record—Peter Coutherele was enrolled in the great landlord clan of Van Redinghem, and claimed kinship, probably through his mother or his grandmother, or through both, with the oldest and noblest houses of the Commune. His enemies said of him that his love of the people was born of hatred of his own class, outcome of private spleen, and that in making himself the champion of plebeian claims his first care was to feather his own nest; but whatever may have been the motives which inspired his action, there is this much to Peter's credit: to the end he was true to the cause he had espoused and to the principles he professed, and if he received large rewards, he at least did his work well. There can be no doubt that the ultimate triumph of democracy at Louvain was in the main due to his efforts. For four hundred years the constitution which he gave to his native city was the guarantee of the rights and liberties of all sorts and conditions of men. He was no wanton shedder of blood, he was very zealous for law and order, he always showed himself a just, amerciful, and a moderate man, and at last he died poor and forgotten.
We first hear of Peter Coutherele in 1348, when, no doubt owing to the influence of his high connections, he was appointed by Duke John III. to the important office of Mayor of Louvain, a position which must not be confounded with that of a modern English or French mayor. The Mayor of Louvain was the immediate representative of the Sovereign. His office corresponded in some sense to that of the high sheriff of an English county. He was also chief constable and commander-in-chief of the civic militia, and he took precedence of all other ducal officers. At this epoch, then, Coutherele was still on friendly terms with the ruling class, for John, who was always very tender with his patricians, would never have chosen for his representative a man who was not apersona gratato them, but the break soon came. The new Mayor was no respecter of persons, and before his first year of office was out he denounced certain measures which the aldermen had taken as infringements of the ducal prerogative. The magistrates, indeed, succeeded in justifying their conduct, but from that moment between them and Coutherele there was war to the knife. Presently in their turn they denounced him: he was hatching a plot with the plebeians to overthrow their power. But they were able to furnish no proof, and Duke John maintained him in office.
Though it was common knowledge that the Mayor sympathised with the aspirations of the lesser folk, it is not probable that at this period he had translated his sentiments into action. He was shrewd enough to know that any uprising of the masses against their oppressors could have no hope of success unless it were backed at least by the tacit consent of the Sovereign, and he had already had experience of Duke John'sfriendliness to the patricians. Four years later, in 1359, the Mayor of Louvain was again at loggerheads with the magistracy, and this time the consequences were far reaching. The quarrel arose out of a very small matter. De Dynter thus relates the story of its origin:11—
'It came to pass at this time that as a certain fishmonger was on his way to Louvain, there to dispose of his wares, as was his wont, the barrow on which his fish was charged stuck fast in a deep hole full of mud, whereat he was beginning to have grave doubts whether by reason of the bad road he would be able to reach the city in time for market, when haply he espied, in a field close by, some horses grazing, one of which he caught and harnessed to his truck, and when by this means he had extricated himself from his trouble he led him back again to the pasture whence he had taken him.
'Now it so happened that a certain wicked, false ribald, who had seen all that had taken place, at once made report thereof to Myn Here Coutherele, Mayor of Louvain, and affirmed upon oath that the fishmonger had stolen the horse; and thus it came to pass that no sooner had the said fishmonger set foot in Louvain than he was arrested for a thief and cast into gaol. At last the matter was brought before the Court of Aldermen, who adjudged the accused not guilty and directed that he should be set free; whereat the Mayor refused to comply, and the magistrates were cut to the quick. In flouting their sentence Coutherele had infringed one of those very privileges which, upon taking office, he had solemnly sworn to maintain. He was no longer worthy to be their Mayor. Henceforth they would cease to regard him as such.'
In refusing to carry out the sentence of the aldermen Coutherele had no doubt acted illegally, and the magistrates,in retaliating as they did, were strictly within their rights, but if they had not been blinded by passion they would have surely held their peace. They knew very well that the Mayor of Louvain would be certain to represent the course they had pursued as a flagrant violation of the ducal prerogative; and they knew too that the man who now sat on the throne of Brabant was of other blood and of other complexion to those friends and fosterers of freedom—the princes of the House of Louvain. The last of them was John III., and when (December 5, 1355) he was gathered to his fathers the mantle of their policy did not fall on the shoulders of his son-in-law and successor. Winceslaus of Luxembourg, the new Duke, knew nothing of civic institutions. How should he? There were no great towns in the land in which he had been reared. And though it was to the burgher-nobles of Brabant that he owed his recently acquired domains, he deemed the influence and pretensions of these tradesmen a standing affront to his dignity, of which from the first he was determined to be rid. Moreover, he was aggrieved with most of them personally, for had they not welcomed Louis of Maele when that sycophant of patrician pride, under pretext of recovering his wife's portion, had invaded his domains, and was it not by their counsel that he had afterwards styled himself Duke of Brabant? Added to this, it was the lesser folk who had at last driven out the usurper, and when others of his order had deserted their prince Coutherele had stood by him manfully.
Such was the complexion of affairs at the moment when the patricians of Louvain defied their enemy, and such was the man into whose jaundiced ears that aggrieved individual now poured the story of their aggressions.
Nor was Coutherele without allies in the ducal council—amongst them Reynold, Lord of Schoonvorst, a personal friend who shared his own opinions anent the plebeian question, and one of his Sovereign's most trusted advisers. This man plainly told the Duke that if he would be master in Louvain he must find some means of raising the people and of abasing their proud taskmasters. As for Winceslaus, he made no sign, and promptly withdrew to Luxembourg, as though unwilling to interfere in the quarrel; but when Coutherele returned to his native city, men noted that he was in nowise cast down—he had no doubt received some private assurance that he was free to act as he would.
For a little while there was calm at Louvain, calm before the storm, and the patricians had almost begun to hope that their trouble with Coutherele was over, when presently it was rumoured abroad that his nephews were tampering with the weavers. Employers of labour, comparing notes, called to mind that of late their men had shown themselves idle beyond wont, sullen, fractious, insolent; they had wondered what this meant, now they knew the reason. When the days grew longer, and honest merchants came forth after supper to cool themselves with the evening breeze, they noted that the loungers, muttering together in market-place and at street corner, leered at them as they passed with evil eyes, and scarce vouchsafed to lift their hats.
Mischief, it was clear, was brewing. At last the plot was discovered, and then the crisis came. Edmund De Dynter tells us how it all happened.
On the evening, he says, of the Feast of St. Mary Magdalen (July 21), in the year of Our Lord 1360, it came to pass that a certainmeschinein the service of one of our magistrates, having been sent by him to a certain tavern to fetch a flask of wine, fell in with her sweetheart, who in confidence told her that the people,egged on by Peter Coutherele, intended to rise that night against the patricians, take possession of the Town Hall, and make a pretty piece of mischief (faire aulcune mauvaise oevre). Of course she divulged the secret to her master, and he without delay imparted the same to his brother aldermen, who forthwith betook themselves to the Town Hall, and arrived there amazed and confounded at the manifest evidence of commotion which they had witnessed on the way, for by this time the night was restless with the tumult of a gathering mob: men were hurrying from all sides to the great market behind the Cloth Hall, where the Mayor of Louvain was already addressing a crowd of weavers, 'with arms in their hands and anger in their brains.'
And what had Myn Here Coutherele to say for himself? If we may trust De Dynter, who wrote indeed more than fifty years afterwards, he began by enlarging on the misery of the people, and on the pride, the wealth, the corruption, of those who held them in bondage, and who fattened on their toil and on their tears. Was it not the people who paid the taxes, and the patricians who had the spending of them? Did not the poor man have to bear the heat and the burthen of the day whilst the rich were growing richer on the spoils of administration? And what right had these men to lord it over them? Were they not their fellow-citizens, of like birth and of like origin with themselves? And when he saw that he had enkindled their ire, he said that now was the time to strike; their oppressors were at their mercy, they had mortally offended the Duke, he would close his eyes and close his ears to aught which might be attempted against them. It were madness to lose so favourable an opportunity, let them then take up arms for dear liberty's sake.
It chanced that a certain great feudal lord, oneGerard of Vorsselaer, was in town that day along with a band of retainers. This man seems to have been esteemed in Louvain, and having no personal interest in city affairs, he was on friendly terms with the leaders of each party. Having vainly endeavoured to dissuade Coutherele from his purpose, he made his way, as best he could, to the Town Hall and offered his services to the patricians. 'Let them come forth like men and face the mob, and he and his followers would help themde bon coer et de bon courage. For,' said he, 'the people have not yet had time to muster; if we go forth now, I doubt not that with God's help we shall put to shame the handful that are already in the market-place, and when the rest behold their discomfiture they will run to cover like poulets that have spied a hawk.'
Sound advice probably, 'but thosehommes de loywere men of such frail and meagre courage' that they deemed it too hazardous. Whereat Vorsselaer, disgusted, incontinently leapt into his saddle and made for Brussels, where we shall presently meet him. Meanwhile the mob was increasing each moment in fury and in numbers, and the patricians, thus left to their own devices, very soon came to the conclusion that no other course was open to them but to treat with Myn Here Coutherele. They did so, and with this result. To their envoy he made reply that the people would fain be assured that the city accounts were in order. Let the doors of the Town Hall be opened, and he and his friends would enter and examine their books, and, when they had done so, withdraw. The patricians complied, and Coutherele kept faith to the letter, nay, he went even beyond his bond, for not only did he examine the account books, he made a bonfire of them, and added thereto the charters of patrician privileges and all other parchments he could set hands on;and when at last he and his friends withdrew, they took care to bring their opponents with them disarmed and under arrest.
Thus did the oldrégimeat Louvain come to an inglorious end. The patricians had not struck a blow in defence of their privileges, and the fact that the revolution was accomplished without bloodshed bears witness not only to the humanity and moderation of Coutherele, but to the marvellous influence which he must have had over the mob. Next morning Coutherele himself, who was now practically dictator, named a new magistracy, consisting of four patricians, men who were known to favour the people, and three plebeians. It was the first time that a commoner had been named alderman in any town of Brabant.
Meanwhile the men who had been captured in the Town Hall were still in prison, and presently their friends made private appeal to Duchess Jeanne, who opened communications with Coutherele with a view to their liberation. Perhaps it was the policy of neither party to come to an understanding; in any case, after several weeks had elapsed and nothing had been effected the negotiations were broken off. Whereat the prisoners, fearing for their lives, which after all hung by a thread, proceeded themselves to treat with the all-powerful dictator, and with better results, for after some haggling they purchased their freedom upon undertaking to quit the city as soon as they should be set at liberty.
The ransom which each man paid was assessed in proportion to his means, but the sum-total thus realised amounted to a very large figure, and his enemies said that, by this transaction, Coutherele had made himself one of the richest men in Brabant, but in reality he expended the whole of this fund, or, at all events, the greater portion of it, in the purchase of the new charterwhich Duke Winceslaus granted to the city of Louvain in the month of September 1360.
In this remarkable document, which was no doubt drawn up by Coutherele himself, the Duke gave legal sanction to the changes accomplished in July. He fully recognised the claim of the plebeians to participate in the government of the city; he decreed that henceforth three aldermen and eleven jurors should be chosen from among their ranks, and that all other municipal functions should be equally divided between the two classes. The elections were to take place annually, the plebeian members being named by the patricians and the patrician members by the plebeians—a very prudent regulation, calculated to secure in each case the return of moderate men.
The action of Coutherele in this matter must not be judged by the standard of to-day. In permitting his prisoners to purchase their freedom he was only following the usage of the age in which he lived. But that Winceslaus should have exacted a heavy fine or loan or gratuity—call it what you will—from the man who had realised for him his heart's desire was conduct more questionable. The only excuse that can be made for him is this: his expenses were heavy and his purse was light. The men of Louvain, however, were too well satisfied at the success of their enterprise to grumble at the bill of costs, more especially as the cash with which it was paid had been extracted from their enemies' pockets, and so elated were they at Coutherele's management of the whole affair that the magistrates voted him, from the public funds, a large annuity for life.
If the patricians had been wise enough to recognise accomplished facts, and had accepted the new constitution, which, after all, gave them the lion's share in the government, all might yet have gone well, and the cityof Louvain would have been saved many years of strife and bloodshed; but their privileges had been so large and so profitable, and the good things which accrue to holders of office had been theirs for so long, that they would have been more than human if they had been willing at once to forego all thought of regaining their former position, and these substantial men of commerce were neither heroes nor saints. Most of them left the city in which they had once been supreme, and where now their claims were mocked at; where their very lives were, perhaps, in danger, and certainly were made a burthen to them by reason of domiciliary visits and all kinds of vexatious precautions. For the men in power were by no means sure of the stability of the newrégime—they lived in constant dread of a counter revolution. What wonder, then, that their opponents, who, if the truth must be told, were not famous for courage, found it more comfortable to plot in their country homes than amid the turmoil of their town mansions, even though their voluntary exile meant confiscation of property?
As for Duke Winceslaus, though his capital was a prey to disorder and in imminent danger of commercial ruin, it was not his policy at present to interfere. He knew very well that these purse-proud traders, who in the day of their prosperity had given themselves the airs of princes, would presently grovel at his feet, and with their caps in their hands humbly beg his assistance; for, like their brethren at Brussels and elsewhere, though it amused them sometimes to play at soldiering, they would never do battle themselves if they could find someone else to fight for them, and this was what actually occurred. When their town property had been all confiscated, and commercial ruin was staring them in the face, having vainly invoked the aid of Brussels, of Mechlin, of Liége, theyhumbled themselves before their Sovereign, and, about the middle of October 1361, with a great army he sat down before the city of Louvain.
But though Winceslaus made great show of helping the patricians, he had not the slightest intention of breaking with the people, and the details of the farce which followed had no doubt been previously arranged with Coutherele. Certain it is that no sooner had Winceslaus encamped before Louvain than that worthy, in the name of the city, professed submission. His friends, he said, were ready to accept any conditions that the Duke might dictate. Whereat Winceslaus, to save appearances, ordained that they should come forth from the city to meet him, unarmed, unhatted and unshod, and, when they had reached his presence, fall down on their knees and humbly ask forgiveness. His instructions were carried out to the letter, and when the farce had been duly performed he presented them with a new charter, a masterpiece of duplicity, in which may be clearly seen the hand of Coutherele. It restored to the patricians the whole of their confiscated property; ordained that the ransoms paid by the prisoners of 1360, the greater part of which, it will be remembered, the Duke had pocketed himself, should be refunded from the public purse; and further, and most important of all, deprived Coutherele of his mayoralty. This was probably as much, or more, than the most sanguine of them had looked for, but in reality, as the patricians soon learned to their cost, Peter Coutherele and his mob were still masters of the situation; nay, so far as they were concerned, things were worse than they had been before, for the charter of 1360 gave them a majority in the College of Aldermen, and though that body was still to contain four patricians and three plebeians, Winceslaus had now reserved to himself the right of appointment, and first among thepatricians whom he presently named was 'the renegade Peter Coutherele.' When the reactionists knew that in spite of his specious promises, the Duke had played them false, they at once declined to take any part in municipal affairs; and sooner than be compelled to do so—for the new charter made refusal to accept office, when named thereto, a crime punishable by imprisonment—shook the dust of Louvain off their feet, and again withdrew to their country strongholds..
The great tribune was now at the height of his power: his will was law in Louvain; he himself was first burgomaster; in his friend Jan Hanneman, the richest cloth merchant of the city, and one of the few patricians who favoured the popular cause, he had an able and willing lieutenant; another friend, the plebeian Gedulphe Rogge, one of his most devoted adherents, was second burgomaster; Paul Herengolys, a clerk in holy orders, was mayor, and every other municipal office was held by one or other of his creatures. Nor was this all. As a reward for his 'manifold good and faithful services' Winceslaus invested him with the ducal fief of Asten, in Limbourg, and all the rights and privileges appertaining thereto. In addition, then, to his hereditary rank of patrician, he was now a member of the feudal nobility—an anomalous position, maybe, for the leader of a democratic revolution, but presently Peter gave thanks to Heaven that the Castle of Asten was his. About the same time, too, he made a brilliant marriage for his daughter Gertrude, whom he gave to Henri de Cuyck, a brother of the powerful Lord of Hoogstraeten—a useful alliance this, and one which stood him in good stead, as we shall presently see.
Meanwhile the city finances were in sorry plight. For years past the patrician oligarchy had not only mismanaged public funds, but had systematically enriched themselves at the public cost, and though theircorruption had been one of the chief causes of complaint against them on the part of the plebeians, now that they themselves were in office they deviated no whit in this matter from the traditions of their predecessors; for years past, too, the profits arising from cloth had gradually been diminishing, and since the Revolution of 1360 all business had been practically at a standstill. Added to this, Duke Winceslaus had been paid, and paid handsomely, for the charter of 1362. Indeed the quarrels of the men of Louvain were a fruitful source of wealth to their Sovereign. His method of extorting cash seems to have been this: he first fomented disturbances, then sold his support to the highest bidder, and finally, when he was called in to arbitrate, charged a heavy fee for expenses. In this manner he succeeded in amassing vast wealth, and it was currently reported in Brabant that during the year 1361 he received more money from the men of Louvain than would have been realised had the whole city been sold with all its outlying territory. Be this as it may, the city treasury was empty, and to obtain the funds necessary to meet current expenses, Coutherele had recourse to an expedient still resorted to by communities in like straits: he invoked the aid of foreign capitalists. Jan Hanneman was dispatched to Germany to sell life annuities, and so good was the credit of Louvain, or so great, perhaps, were his powers of persuasion, that in a very short time he returned laden with treasure. Of course Peter's enemies said, judging of him by what they themselves would have done under similar circumstances, that no small portion of it found its way into his own coffers:—This were surely the fund with which he had dowered his daughter. The charge of peculation which he had hurled at them they now flung back in his teeth, and again made appeal to Winceslaus and promised him gold. Whereat he oncemore assumed therôleof arbitrator, confirmed the 'Peace of 1361,' adjured the belligerents to forgive and forget, and, as surety for their future good behaviour, demanded from each party hostages and, by way of compensation for the expenses he had incurred, a further cash payment. This was in February 1363, and shortly afterwards Coutherele himself conducted the plebeian hostages to the ducal castle at Tervueren.
The Lord of Asten went forth from Louvain exulting in the glory of his might, he was accompanied by a train of seventy horsemen, the cavalcade was a brilliant one, the people cheered him as he passed; his popularity had not one whit abated, he was still their idol, the saviour of the city, the valiant champion who had broken the yoke of slavery from off their necks; but in reality his sun had set: the triumphant ride to Tervueren was but the aftermath. He knew it when he had seen Winceslaus, and he knew too that lurid storm clouds were rolling up with the night. He was as sure that the Duke had joined the enemy as if he had learned it from his own lips. For him Louvain had ceased to be a safe abode: if haply he escaped the headsman's axe, he would sooner or later be stabbed in the back by a muffled ruffian lying in wait for him at the corner of some dark street; and if his lamp were put out, the cause for which he had so long suffered would at the same time die, for who could take the place of Peter Coutherele? Prudence and duty, then, counselled flight, and he fled to his manor at Asten, where he was presently joined by Hanneman and Herengolys.
If Peter had been content to lie low for a while, the natural course of events must have presently restored him to his former position: he had powerful friends at Court, he was still in possession of his barony, Winceslaus, satisfied at his voluntary exile, seems atthe present juncture to have had no intention of wholly breaking with him. The Duke's policy was a policy of expedience: at Louvain the name of Coutherele was still one to conjure with, and the force of circumstances must have presently compelled him to fall back on his former ally, for, as after events showed, the patrician reaction was only a passing phase; in reality the flowing tide was still with the people.
But it was impossible for a man of Peter's temperament to sit with folded hands whilst vandals were wrecking his 'house Beautiful' and threatening to pull it down. That this was the case there was, unfortunately, no room for doubt. He was in constant communication with Louvain, and each day his envoys returned with tidings which lashed him to fury. They told him how these men of Belial, not content with corrupting the Duke, had corrupted also some of his own followers—plebeians, in whose integrity he had placed implicit confidence; how Winceslaus, whilst cynically confirming their charter of rights, had twisted it into an instrument of torture, by naming these renegades representatives of the people in the city council; how the patricians, thus free to act as they would, had not only compensated themselves largely from the public purse for property of which they had been most righteously deprived in 1360, but had deemed it no shame to draw from the same source the huge sum they had promised Winceslaus, and this at a time when the city was honeycombed with debt, when all business was at a standstill, when thousands of men were out of work, and their wives and little ones starving. Nor did even this complete the sum of their iniquity: foreseeing that the victims of their evil deeds would at last be goaded to turn on them, they had meanly deprived them of the power to do so by taking away their weapons.
That was the last straw. Coutherele was beside himself. He would hesitate no longer. Not one of these men should escape the sword of his vengeance. His plan was to advance on Louvain under cover of night with what men and arms he could muster, enter through one of the city gates, which, at a given signal, friends within would open, join forces with the craftsmen, stealthily break into the Town Hall, where he knew there were weapons, and then, when each man had armed himself, fall on their adversaries unawares, and slay them in their beds. The plot was doubtless suggested by the Bloody Matins of Bruges, and if it had been possible to carry it out a like result might have followed; but at Bruges the craftsmen were true to one another, at Louvain there was a traitor in the camp, and on the appointed night, when Coutherele and his little band were nearing the Castle of Heverlé,12on the outskirts of the city, they found themselves confronted by Winceslaus and an army of knights and burghers; a desperate encounter followed, and the rebels were put to flight.
Even now Winceslaus seems to have been loath to resort to extreme measures against his former friends and accomplices. Coutherele had fled the country, and was beyond his reach, Hanneman and Herengolys had also disappeared, and if he had been left to his own devices he would most likely have found it convenient to follow the advice of his friend Schoonvorst and take no further action in the matter, but the patricians, as was natural, objected.—As long as thesemurderous ruffians lived they were not safe in their beds; let a price be set on the head of each one of them, and warrants issued for their arrest. And they used another argument, one which experience told them would prove convincing: they jingled their moneybags. And Winceslaus signed the required edict and pocketed 300florins d'or.This transaction had notable results. Herengolys was presently captured, condemned to death by the city magistrates, and in due course brought to the block; but the aldermen had reckoned without their host, the ex-mayor of Louvain was a clerk, and, as such, not amenable to their jurisdiction, and John of Arkel, who at this time ruled the Church of Liége, no sooner heard of his fate than he set Louvain under interdict. He would never suffer the rights of his clergy to be trampled on with impunity, and moreover he seems to have shared, at all events to a certain extent, Herengolys's political opinions. In his own principality he consistently favoured the aspirations of democracy, and in the struggle at Louvain he more than once intervened, and always on behalf of the people. Perhaps his action in the Herengolys affair was inspired by Peter Coutherele, who, immediately after the disaster of Heverlé, had fled to Liége.
Nothing daunted by the fate of his friend, Coutherele at once set to work to concoct new measures for the deliverance of his beloved city. Having ingratiated himself with Albert of Holland, he now took up his abode in that country, where presently a great conference was held of outlaws from every town in Brabant, during which was planned another attack on Louvain; but this scheme, like the last, was betrayed, and failed miserably.
For years the great agitator led a restless and vagabond life, sometimes in Holland, sometimes in Germany, sometimes in France, never long in one place,always intriguing wherever he went, and making plans which he could never carry out, and hatching plots which, for some reason or other, he could never bring to maturity. At last, at the intercession of his son-in-law, Henri de Cuyck, Winceslaus granted him a free pardon, and permitted him to return to his native city (March 1369), but he was a broken-down, worn-out old man, and he came back to Louvain to die. The few months he had to live he passed in strict retirement in his house in the Rue de la Fontaine, where he died the following year, poor and forgotten.
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The flight of Coutherele and the failure of his subsequent efforts left the reactionary party a free hand, and by 1375 they had so consolidated their position that they were able to compel Winceslaus to cancel the charter of 1361 and grant in its place a new charter, which gave back to the old ruling class its former monopoly of political power. The result may be surmised: mismanagement and corruption were the order of the day; no accounts were published, and justice had to be bought; any manifestation of discontent was put down with cruel vigour, and even the right of sanctuary was not always respected. Once, after some abortive rising, when a score of trembling wretches, who had taken refuge in the cloister of Notre Dame, were dragged forth by order of the magistrates and put to death, the Bishop of Liége interfered and imposed a heavy fine; and no doubt the patricians laughed in their sleeves when presently the account was settled, for it was not they, but the people, who bore the brunt of the imposts.
Though taxation had never before been so high, the treasury was empty; loan had been added to loan, and private individuals travelling abroad were on all sides being arrested for public debts. Thus export trade had become impossible, and as for industry, there was nothing doing, for sooner than submit to the exactions of their taskmasters, a third of the working population had emigrated.
At last, when Louvain was on the verge of ruin, thepatricians themselves began to suspect that there was something wrong with their methods of government, and, at their wits' end what to do, presently consulted Winceslaus, who, wise man, suggested a great conference of all the cities of Brabant to consider the situation. This was early in the year 1378. The patricians agreed, and in due course a conference was summoned. Towards the close of March the deputies met in the Town Hall of Louvain; the Duke himself presided, and almost every town in the duchy was represented.
It is not certain whether the craftsmen of Louvain took any part in the proceedings, but they were able to make their influence felt. Whilst the conference was sitting they sent in a petition to Winceslaus, humbly requesting, among other things, that a statement should be published of the town accounts from the time of Coutherele's administration to date; that such patricians as had been awarded annuities by way of indemnity for losses incurred during Coutherele's term of office should cease to receive them as soon as the sum justly due to them had been repaid, and that those who had already received more than their due should be compelled to refund the surplus; and, most important of all, that the town seal should be confided to the joint care of the patrician clans, the guild and the trade companies, so that henceforth no new loan could be negotiated without the unanimous consent of the burghers.
It is significant of the trend of public opinion that the deputies made these requests their own, and further, named a committee of eight patricians and eight plebeians to study the question of the town debt and the financial situation generally. By Pentecost they had sent in their report, and Duchess Jeanne—Winceslaus being absent in Luxembourg—at once laid itbefore the conference, which was now sitting in St. Gertrude's Abbey. It embodied many wise and prudent suggestions, some of which sound strangely modern, but they touched too nearly the rights of property to be acceptable to most of the patricians. It would have been surprising, indeed, if many of them had welcomed an income tax and death duties, or a tax on Church lands, or an all round reduction of official salaries, and these proposals, and others of a like kind, aroused such a storm of opposition that Jeanne suggested that perhaps it might be as well to leave it to the Duke and his council to solve the financial problem, but to this, naturally enough, everyone objected, and when presently Winceslaus himself returned he could only reiterate his wife's proposal, promising that he would take no step without first consulting hisbonnes villesand his brother-in-law of Flanders—Louis of Maele, whose tenderness to his own patricians was notorious throughout the Low Countries; but he might just as well have held his breath, the patricians refused to hearken and things came to a standstill. Whereat the people grew restive. Difficulties, they alleged, were being purposely raised to stave off reform, they themselves would settle the matter in their own fashion; and on the 22nd of July the mob was out, battering at the doors of the Town Hall, and clamouring to Burgomaster Van Nethen to bring forth the great seal and the town charters. To do so, he said, was impossible, he had not got the keys, and, even if he had, it were contrary to law to unlock the rolls coffer save in the presence of the whole council. Needless to say, the rioters were not convinced, and at nightfall a host of them, with arms and banners, headed by the weaver, Wouter Vander Leyden, filed into the Grand' Place, took possession of the Hôtel de Ville, arrested the aldermenthey found there, and, without much difficulty, made themselves masters of the town.
The victory was all the more easily won from the fact that a large number of patricians—all who had the welfare of the city at heart, were in reality not opposed to the rioters, perhaps even secretly leagued with them. These men were under the leadership of Alderman Jan De Swertere, a patrician of note who loved the people, his enemies said, because he hated Alderman Vanden Calstere, the chief of the ultra-reactionists. It was the time when the famous 'White Hoods' of Ghent were disporting themselves in Flanders, and the revolutionists of Louvain, patricians and plebeians alike, adopted their headgear. Wouter Vander Leyden and Hendrick Portman were chosen captains of the city, there was an exodus of reactionists, and a deputation was sent to Winceslaus, now at Brussels, begging him to come at once and legalise what had been done. It was not, however, until nearly two months had been consumed in negotiation, and until he had received from the men of Louvain more than 6000peters, that he at last consented to give them a new and acceptable charter.
The constitution with which the city was now endowed, so far as concerned the composition of the magistracy, was identical with Coutherele's constitution—the College of Aldermen and the Council of Jurors were still to contain respectively four and eleven patricians, and three and ten plebeians; but the method of appointing these officers was considerably modified: henceforth the aldermen were to be named by the Sovereign from a triple list presented to him jointly by the patrician and non-patrician members of the Merchants' Guild; the non-patrician members alone were to name the patrician jurors; and the plebeian jurors were to be chosen by the trade companies, nowgrouped together in ten corporations called nations, each nation electing a juror. Further, there were to be two burgomasters—the first chosen by the plebeians from among the patricians, the second by the patricians from among the plebeians—and four treasurers, all plebeians:—two craftsmen and two members of the Merchants' Guild. They were to have the entire management of the finances of the town, hold office for one year, and give an account of their stewardship to the College of Aldermen, the Council of Jurors and the Merchants' Guild, assembled in solemn council, every quarter-day. Satisfaction was also given to the people in the matter of the government of the guild: henceforth there were to be eight deans—four plebeians named by the patricians, and four patricians chosen by the nations; and, for the rest, all minor offices were to be equally divided among the two classes of thebourgeoisie.
Such, in its main outlines, was the constitution with which Louvain was endowed by the Great Charter—the Peace, as it was called—of 1378, and which, with some slight modification, continued to be the constitution of the city until the close of the eighteen hundreds. Never before had the people enjoyed so large a share in the government. The patricians, indeed, still retained a considerable place in the magistracy, but their voice was almost stifled in the matter of elections, though, mark this, what they had lost was not given to the proletariat, but to the middle class, as represented by the non-patrician members of the guild—rising merchants and manufacturers, men, for the most part, of moderate means and moderate opinions, in touch on the one side with the working-class, from which most frequently they had sprung, and on the other with the aristocracy, which already included some of their kinsmen, and within whose charmedcircle it was not beyond the dreams of several of them, if trade went well, to one day find admittance.
Nobody supposed that Vanden Calstere and his friends would be grateful to Duke Winceslaus for the 'Peace' of 1378, but it was probably matter of surprise to everyone that their resentment took the form it did: they remained without the city walls, not in their own strongholds, but at Aerschot, Vilvorde, Hal, in one or other of the little towns hard by Louvain, and, sallying forth from these places with what ruffians they could hire, lay in wait for stray burghers, and with such of them as fell into their clutches it went hardly—sometimes they held them to ransom, and sometimes they cut their throats. At last things came to this pass:—no foreign trader would come within measurable distance of the city, and no burgher who valued his life would venture beyond the ramparts, but it was not till Wouter Vander Leyden had been murdered that the people lost patience. This man, who was now burgomaster, had been charged by the magistrates to make complaint to Duke Winceslaus of the conduct of the reactionists, and as he was journeying to Brussels to execute the commission, or, as some say, as he was returning home at night, he was surprised in a lonely spot by Vanden Calstere himself and Willem Wilre, his henchman, and literally hacked to pieces.
Hardly had the news reached Louvain than the craftsmen flew to arms, the city gates were shut, and all patricians suspected of being hostile to the newrégimewere arrested and imprisoned in an upper chamber of the Town Hall. This seems to have been done by order of the magistrates, perhaps by way of precaution, for the people were at the end of their patience. Presently they got out of hand; a rush was made for the Town Hall, the doors were forcedand the prisoners thrown out of window, one by one as their names were called by the mob outside. Sixteen or seventeen persons perished in this manner (December 15, 1378)—innocent or guilty who shall say: they had not been placed on trial. Amongst them Jan Platvoet, a patrician of fourscore years whose only crime seems to have been that he was a kinsman of one of the murderers; and an archer of the guard, name unknown, who had formerly been his servant. This man, when the doors were forced, made his former master crawl under a bench placed against the wall, and had then seated himself on it, and perhaps old Jan might have escaped if it had not been for the sharp eyes of a weaver's inquisitive 'kint,' who said he saw something shining between the archer's legs. It was the gold-embroidered ends of poor Platvoet's necktie. They dragged him forth, and, in spite of his prayers, cast him headlong into the market; but the traitor who would have saved a patrician's life was pitched out of window first. Hitherto the craftsmen of Louvain had contented themselves with banishing or imprisoning their enemies; it was the first time in the course of their long struggle that they had stained their souls with blood.
For weeks after the murder of the patricians the rioters remained in the streets, and for months after order had been re-established men lived in a fever of anticipation, each side looking for some fresh outrage which would be sure to result in yet crueller acts of reprisal. But though Winceslaus knew all this, and seems to have been early appealed to, it was not till the close of May that he made any serious effort to restore public confidence by punishing the delinquents. Then he published an edict in which he enjoined twelve of the principal rioters to make a pilgrimage to Cyprus, sentenced to exile nine patricians who had been mixed upin the murder of Vander Leyden, and imposed on the city a fine of 4000peters.
But things were in too parlous a plight to be righted by proclamation: the White Hoods, indeed, for the moment were quiet, but the reactionists refused to submit, and forthwith proceeded to harry the country estates of the rallied patricians, whom, rightly or wrongly, they suspected of having instigated the murder of their relatives. Of course De Swetere and his folk retaliated in like fashion, and in all that they attempted and in all that they did, of course they were aided and abetted by their very good friends, the plebeians: homestead after homestead was razed to the ground, castle after castle fired, and soon the whole country round Louvain became the scene of guerilla warfare.
Meanwhile Vanden Calstere, or some of his friends, had again taken to the road. Burgomaster Oorbeke, returning from Brussels, was arrested and held to ransom; so, too, several jurors; and worse still was the fate of a notable private citizen—Myn Here Van Grave, a merchant of vast wealth: they cut off his hands and his feet, and sent him home in a waggon, bidding him tell his fellow-burghers that any one of them whom they chanced to take would be treated in like fashion.
Again and again thebonnes villestendered their good offices. Again and again the Duke did his utmost to arrange matters. Negotiations were often begun, but, for some reason or other, they always fell through. It was not till the beginning of the year 1383, after Winceslaus had been compelled to lay siege to Louvain, that the Bishop of Liége was at last able to reconcile the belligerents.
Of course, as in all such cases, the settlement was a compromise; but though it banished nineteen craftsmenfor a year and a day, opened the gates of the city to Vanden Calstere and his friends, and guaranteed them complete immunity for all their past offences, it was not these men, but their opponents, who in reality had the best of the bargain: the constitution of 1378 remained intact; the people surrendered no jot or tittle of their political rights and privileges.
Peace then was at last established; the terms of agreement were on each side loyally adhered to, and the reconciliation endured. Mutual confidence had taken the place of universal suspicion, and the craftsmen nourished no rancour against those who had formerly been their bitterest foes: when presently, in the month of June, the time arrived for the annual renewal of the magistracy, Henry Pynnock, Godfrey Utten Liemingen and Goswin Vanden Calstere were elected aldermen, and that, in spite of the fact that they had all of them been reactionists; nor, it is pleasant to note, did they belie the people's trust.
When the revolution of 1360 broke out the city of Louvain was, in name and in fact, the first city of Brabant. The cluster of cottages around the church which Lambert Balderic had founded on the banks of the Dyle three centuries before had grown into a great industrial and commercial centre, with a population of something like 70,000 souls. In the number of its inhabitants, in the extent of its trade, in political influence, in social prestige, in the splendour of its public and private buildings, it eclipsed at this time every town in the duchy. Among the burgher nobles of Brabant none were so rich and so powerful as the Petermen of Louvain: not only did they enjoy the dignities and privileges common to all patricians, but they participated, as we have seen, in the immunities of the Church, and that, without being irked by correlative duties. Also, they shone alone, there were no brighter stars in their firmament: the Sovereign had long ago left Louvain, and there were no Court nobles to rival their glory or to dispute their right to pre-eminence. As they were human, of course they were puffed up—proud of their wealth, proud of their race, proud of their solitary grandeur and of the consideration which these things gave them; exceedingly jealous of their privileges, very swift to resent any attempt at aggression, whether it came from above or from below; and of course they contemned the seething mass of shame and misery beneath them—a mutinous army of workers, many thousands strong, as eager and determinedto obtain liberty as their masters were to keep them in bondage.
Such was the social complexion of Louvain during the fifty years which preceded the revolution of 1360. Paint the picture on a smaller scale and in less glaring colours, and you will have some idea of the social complexion of Brussels during the same period.
Brussels, like Louvain, was at this time divided into two hostile camps; here, too, patricians and plebeians were biting their thumbs at one another; but neither side was so strong or so violent as in the sister city. The patricians were not so rich, and perhaps in consequence not so selfish, and the plebeians were less numerous, and probably on this account less exacting; and too, though they were not born on a bed of rose leaves, they had less cause for complaint. High and mighty as were the merchant princes of Brussels, they were not so high and mighty as the descendants of Saint Peter's serfs. Their splendour was not enhanced by a semi-ecclesiastical aureole; they had no title to distinction but that which their money gave; and though, like the patricians of Louvain, they owned the freehold of the town which they administered and governed, they were not alone in their glory. When the Duke was not at the Coudenberg he was at his hunting-lodge at Tervueren, just outside the city gates, and the burghers were in frequent contact with the nobles of the Court, who, though often poor and often in their debt, were, for all that, socially their superiors. For these or for some other reasons the local aristocracy at Brussels was less overbearing than at Louvain, class distinctions were less sharply defined, and the plebeians were treated with more consideration.
On the whole, then, Brussels was a less turbulent town than the capital, and the road to reform, as might be expected, led through smoother ways. The greatstruggle began about the same time as at Louvain, and, as at Louvain, the Duke's action precipitated events. In the year 1356 Winceslaus, in order to reward the plebeians for driving the Flemings out of Brussels, and also to mark his displeasure at the disloyal conduct of the patricians, who had welcomed them with open arms, granted to the trade companies by charter an equal share with the patrician clans in the government of the city; but this boon, which the people had so long coveted, and which at last they had obtained, was theirs only for a day: the ink of the new charter was hardly dry when Winceslaus revoked it.
No record has come down to us of the motives which inspired his action, nor do we even know the exact date of the cancelling of the charter. This event, however, can hardly have taken place earlier than 1357 nor later than 1360, and most likely the reactionary party in the patrician camp by means of bribes or promises had purchased the Duke.
Naturally the people were profoundly irritated. Secret meetings were held, and presently matters came to a crisis. It was just at this time that Coutherele was meditating hiscoup d'état, and perhaps there was some understanding between the craftsmen of the two cities: it is significant that the rebellion at Louvain began on the 21st of July, and that at Brussels the mob was out on the night of the 23rd. The craftsmen's plan of action was to surprise the patricians in their beds, and if they had been able to keep it close perhaps they might have accomplished something, but at the last moment they were betrayed, and thus it came about that whilst they were seeking their banners their opponents took possession of the market-place.
Strangely enough Gerard of Vorsselaer, the same who two nights before had been busying himself with the affairs of Louvain, first essaying to calm themob, and when that failed, advising the patricians as to the best means of quelling them, had now arrived at Brussels, and finding the town in a similar predicament, he did what he could to set matters straight. By his advice the senior alderman essayed negotiations: he invited the dean of the butchers, who were assembled under arms in their guild house, to a conference in the Town Hall; and presently the messenger returned trembling—he had been treated with threats and curses, and the dean had bade him say that 'the butchers would come in a body soon enough.' Hardly had he finished speaking when word was brought that the weavers were attacking the Steenporte (the city prison).13In an instant the patricians were in their saddles. If only they could intercept the butchers the situation might yet be saved, and with Vorsselaer at their head, they made for the meat market, anden routefell in with the men they were seeking. A skirmish followed, but the patricians, who were well armed and on horseback, had little difficulty in overcoming a handful of footmen with no weapons but pole-axes: they were soon disarmed and driven home to their own squalid quarters. Meanwhile the men of the spindle had been vainly hurling themselves against the doors of the Steenporte, and now, with the assistance of fullers and dyers, they were preparing to burn it down. Why not repay the curs in their own coin by setting fire to their kennels? The suggestion came from Myn Here Van Vorsselaer; it was forthwith carried out, and the issue showed that honest Gerard was a man whose judgment was to be relied on.
When the rioters saw the redness in the sky they knew what had happened, and with a mad rush made for home, only to fall into the arms of their enemies, who barring the way in a narrow street halfway down the hill, mowed them down like grass and trampled the life out of them beneath their horses' feet; and that was the end of the rising of 1360. It does not seem, after all, to have been a very serious affair—butchers and clothworkers alone had taken part in it, but if the magistrates had followed the example set them by the magistrates of Louvain two nights before, there is little doubt that by morning things would have assumed a very different complexion.
Thanks to the energy and determination of the patricians, revolution had been nipped in the bud, but the city was seething with discontent, the plebeian triumph at Louvain had inflamed the people with an unquenchable thirst for liberty, and they were only awaiting a favourable moment to try their luck again. Of this the patricians were well aware, and since most of them were not yet prepared to relinquish a shred of their authority, only one policy was open to them—a policy of stern repression applied with energy and vigilance. Of these qualities they gave ample proof, but they do not seem to have been guilty of wanton cruelty or even, bearing in mind the object they had in view, of unnecessary harshness.
The number of weavers who perished on the night of the insurrection was indeed very considerable, but when once order had been restored they refrained from further bloodshed. Their main object was to rid the town of agitators, and all who were suspected of being such were condemned to banishment. Nor were these men suffered to unduly defer the date of their departure by taking refuge in churches: the right of sanctuary was not violated, but the proscribedwere forbidden to remain in any church within the liberty of Brussels for more than a week, under penalty of a prolongation of their term of banishment by as many years as they had remained days above that period, and their fellow-citizens were forbidden to supply such persons with provisions under penalty of a heavy fine; but, on the other hand, all those who were willing to quit the city within the time prescribed were at once provided with a safe conduct.
It is impossible within the limits of this little manual to give any detailed account of the numerous penal laws with which the statute book of Brussels was at this time endowed. Suffice it to say that many of them were of an inquisitorial and vexatious character; that the dire penalties with which all of them were sanctioned—exile, long terms of imprisonment, in some cases even mutilation—were for the most part commutable for fines, thus giving to the rich an advantage over the poor, which the latter resented as a flagrant violation of right; and lastly, that they were not evenly enforced. Measures of this kind were not calculated to allay irritation, and though there was no open display of sedition, the city was seething with discontent, and the patricians knew it. Haunted by plots and rumours of plots, they were never sure when they went to bed at night that their throats would not be cut before morning, and, half blind with terror, they struck out wildly on all sides, and often the guilty escaped, and a host of harmless citizens experienced the taste of their lash.
Meanwhile the little band of patricians who from the first had favoured a conciliatory policy were steadily making converts; but it was not until they had preached for eight years, and when Brussels was on the edge of revolution, that they at last succeeded in convincing the majority that the times were ripe for reform.The first step was to restore confidence in the administration of justice, and to this end the city fathers (June 19, 1368), having first taken counsel with the leaders of the people, named a commission of four patricians and four plebeians to inquire into the numerous disputes and grievances which had arisen from the maladministration of the coercion laws, and to make report thereon to the magistrates, who, it was decreed, should be bound by oath to remedy such grievances and settle such disputes in accordance with the evidence thus laid before them, and it was further decreed that such sentence should be final. Any man who refused to accept the same, thereby lost all his rights and privileges until such time as he chose to conform: if he were a patrician he ceased to be a member of his lignage, if he were a craftsman he was expelled from his guild.
These measures proved so efficacious that before the close of the year the aldermen had sufficiently recovered from their nerve crisis to be able to consider finance, and that, though they had to face some abstruse questions—how to balance the budget withoutincreasngincreasingtaxation or having recourse to fresh loans, how to put a stop to corruption without incurring enmity or wounding the susceptibilities of friends, and, above all, how to pay off that terrible debt which was crushing the life out of Brussels, outcome of so many years of extravagance and thieving. Problems, these, not easy to solve, but again the patricians were wise enough to consult the people, representatives of the trade companies took part in their deliberations, and somehow or other between them they managed to set the affairs of the town on a sound financial basis—the following year revenue covered expenditure and the interest of the debt, the year after that they began to pay off the principal, and by 1386 the whole debt was wiped out. Matter this for congratulation, and no doubt the people rejoiced,but there was something that gladdened their hearts even more, and which they flattered themselves accounted for the fact that the loan had been repaid so quickly: for more than eighteen years their fingers had been on the purse-strings, and by the grace of God they meant to keep them there. Nor was this all, in 1368 the guild had been thoroughly reorganised, and on popular lines. About the same time it became customary to bestow a certain number of government appointments on burghers of the middle class, and though the patricians were not yet prepared to give the people any voice in the magistracy, they were determined that justice should be administered with an even hand, and that henceforth no man should be able to say that Brussels was ill governed, and to this end, in 1375, a new system had been elaborated for recruiting the College of Aldermen.
In the early days in Brussels, as in the other cities of Brabant, the Sovereign himself had named the city magistrates. Later on some form of election was adopted in which all the members of the patrician class seem to have taken part, but little by little this custom had fallen into disuse, and at the time when the reform movement set in, though the college was still annually renewed, no election had taken place for something like a hundred years—the outgoing aldermen had gradually acquired a prescriptive right to name their successors. This had opened the door to all kinds of abuses, and in order to put a stop to them and to insure that henceforth none but honest and competent men should be admitted to the magistracy, in 1375 the city fathers reverted to the old system of election, and stringent rules were drawn up to regulate the proceedings which now became exceedingly long and complicated.
In the first place, each of the outgoing aldermendrew up a list of all the members of his lineage eligible to succeed him, that is to say, of all the married members of twenty-eight years of age and upwards who had sufficient means to live without exercising any trade or profession. The next step was to summon the clans, and this, too, devolved on the outgoing aldermen, each man inviting the members of his lineage to assemble in the Town Hall on the day fixed for the election—generally the 23rd of June—and there select from the names on his list three candidates for the magistracy. 'I swear,' runs the quaint and characteristic oath which each man present was required to take at the commencement of the proceedings, 'I swear by the Saints, and on the Holy Gospels, that I am in no way bound or pledged to any man, and that no man is bound or pledged to me, directly or indirectly, nor have I purchased any man's vote, either on my own behalf or on behalf of any of my friends. I swear, on my soul, to give my suffrages to the best man, the wisest man, and in every respect the fittest man, the most devoted to Holy Church, to the Duke and Duchess of Brabant, the city of Brussels and the patrician order; consulting only my conscience and acting according to my conviction. I swear, on my soul, not to let any personal interest or private friendship move me, nor to suffer myself to be carried away by hatred or anger, or by fear of loss or hope of gain; so help me God and His Saints.'
No less curious than the preliminary oath was the process of election. Every member of the clan was bound to be present and to take the prescribed oath, under penalty of forfeiting all his rights and privileges, but never more than five, and sometimes only four, members took part in the actual voting; they were picked out from the rest by lot, and the drawing was managed in this way. A number of waxen balls, equalto the number of clansmen present, all without alike, but of which four contained within a white and one a black cipher, were placed in an urn, and, when they had been well shuffled, each member drew therefrom one of them, and presently, when the drawing was over, broke it. Whereupon the four men to whom the white-marked balls had fallen withdrew to a separate apartment to consider who was the most fitting man to represent their lineage, each man being free to propose what name he would, provided it was not his own. If they were all of one mind the man of their choice became a candidate for the magistracy, so too if three of them voted for the same individual, or, if two were agreed on one man, and each of the other two were in favour of different men. If, however, the suffrages were equally divided, that is to say, if all four electors cast their votes differently, or if two voted for one man and two for another, black ball was called in to give a casting vote. When the whole operation had been completed, it was repeated a second and again a third time, and by this means three candidates were chosen, whose names were afterwards submitted to the Duke, and he, in due course, named one of them alderman of his clan for the ensuing year.
The College of Aldermen, it should be borne in mind, consisted of seven members, each of whom was held to represent, in a special manner, one of the seven patrician clans of Brussels.
How great had been the evil resulting from the old method of election may be inferred from the stringency of the new rules, and the dire penalties attached to any infraction of them, and also from the cumbrous and complicated machinery deemed necessary to guard against corrupt practices.
Thanks to this important measure, and to the otherreforms which had been previously inaugurated, the city was now honestly and capably governed, and, in consequence, enjoyed peace. Indeed, for more than fifty years after 1368—the time of the great reconciliation—patricians and plebeians seem to have lived, if not on terms of affection, at all events without quarrelling. The latter, it is true, had not relinquished their high aspirations, but finding that the town was honestly administered, and, on the whole, equitably governed, they were wise enough to cherish their ideal in their innermost bosoms, and to take no active steps to realise it.
No doubt the greater material prosperity which the city at this time enjoyed was conducive, in no small measure, to the maintenance of peace. Brussels was not dependent on cloth to anything like the same extent as was the sister city, and, moreover, the loss which she had sustained on this head from English competition, and the competition of the country towns, was to a certain extent made good by the profit arising from trade which formerly went to Louvain, but which was now, owing to the disturbed state of that city, directedotoher doors. Hundreds of merchants and thousands of mechanics went forth from the capital between 1360 and 1382, and not a few of these took up their permanent abode in Brussels. Linen, leather, tapestry and goldsmith's work were among the articles for which, about this time, Brussels became famous, and, thanks to these new industries, the loss, or rather the diminution, of her cloth trade was a matter of little concern to the people.