The Story of Bruges

From time immemorial the culture of the arts, and notably of the art of painting, has largely entered into the lives alike of the people of Flanders and of the kindred folk of t...

Upon the death of Marie of Burgundy the storm for a moment lulled. Philip of Hornes had fled the country; the Estates-General had assembled at Bruges to provide for the administ...

We have said that Bruges never recovered from the blow which Maximilian had dealt her. She had no chance of doing so. Misfortune followed misfortune. Most of her foreign merchan...

Louis of Nevers, the eldest son of Count Robert of Bethune, inheriting from his grandfather Guy alike his brilliant qualities and his grave defects, was destined, like him, to b...

The advent of the House of Burgundy found the communes of Flanders crippled and humbled by the disasters which had recently befallen them--disasters which, as we have seen, were...

From the commencement of the fourteen hundreds until the dawn of the struggle with Maximilian, which ended in the final catastrophe of 1490, the city of Bruges was growing almos...

Meanwhile Charles's friends had been scouring the country far and wide, and wherever they went crying vengeance, and that not vainly. A bevy of thirty knights at once took up ar...

Among the tragedies enacted at Bruges--and their number is legion--not one is so weird, so mysterious, so repulsive, and at the same time so enthralling, as the blood-stained le...

During the short reign of that sombre and fantastical hero Charles the Terrible, or, as he is generally called, Charles the Bold, things went on at Bruges in something of the sa...

The great struggle with the communes of Flanders was continued by Philippe l'Asseuré, who ascended the throne upon the death of his father, John the Fearless, in 1419, but from...

Louis of Maele, the eldest son of Louis of Nevers, so called from the place of his birth, was a beautiful stripling of sixteen years when the old Count died. He too had fought a...

The story of the long chain of discords and disasters which make up the reign of the grandson and successor of Count Arnulph the Great is not graven in the stones of Bruges.

Before proceeding further with the story of Bruges, it will be necessary to go back to the time when Baldwin first disappeared from men's view (1205), blotted out by the thick m...

Upon Philip's death in 1191, without children, the country finally devolved on his sister Marguerite, who, as we have seen, had married Baldwin of Mons, the representative of th...

The victory was not yet won, Flanders was not yet free, but the massacre which took place at Bruges on Friday, May 13, 1302, and which the burghers for centuries after with brut...

William of Löo, as we have seen, was the legitimate heir to the throne of Flanders, and if, when Charles fell, he had acted with energy and determination, there can be no doubt...

Although the city on the Roya had been in great measure responsible for the success of the French arms--at the very commencement of the war she had opened her gates to Philippe...

It was to the cities and to the people of Flanders that Dierick of Alsace owed his crown. When Ivan of Alost and Daniel of Termonde renounced their homage to William Cliton, the...

Descended from a poor but illustrious family of the best nobility of Champagne, and nearly allied to the royal house of France--a man of great natural abilities, no less courage...

It is not to the stalwart Celtic tribes which Cæsar found scattered about the low-lying sandy plain which stretches along the coast from the mouth of the Rhine to the Canche tha...

Strange as it may seem, not only during the civil conflicts in the early days of Guy's reign, but during the turmoil and warfare which succeeded them, Bruges increased alike in...

From a very early date, perhaps since the time of the Romans, there had stood some nine leagues west of Ghent, on a small, oblong-shaped island, formed by the confluence of the...

Philip of Alsace reigned over Flanders from 1168 till 1191, and notwithstanding his frequent wars the land prospered under his rule. In his method of government he followed the...

Of the actual buildings of Charles's day only a few fragments remain: the Chapel of St. Basil, the lower part of the tower of the present cathedral, and perhaps some portion of...

Some six years before the death of Baldwin Calvus, his suzerain, Charles the Mild, had endeavoured to buy off Rolf the Ganger, a pirate chief who about this time had carved out...