CHAPTER XVI

_The Great Charter--The Belfry and the Tower of Notre Dame_

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 prosperity, and comeliness, and might. True, she lost her charters when the belfry was burned down in 1280. Some said that the Count himself had fired it with a view to their destruction, and the new law which Guy had promulgated on May 25, 1281, as the burghers bitterly complained to the French King, was not worthy of the name of law, 'seeing that amongst other errors it ordained that criminals, in certain cases, should not be served with notice of trial nor suffered to state their defence, and that all the ancient rights and liberties of the city were either abrogated or curtailed.' Nevertheless, when Guy was hard pressed by Philippe le Bel, in order to conciliate the burghers he had re-established the ancient charter, and when in 1297 Philippe annexed Flanders, he, in his turn, confirmed it. Finally, after the expulsion of the French in 1304, one of Guy's sons, Philip of Thielt, who was at that time carrying on the government in the name of his captive father, filled with gratitude at the part which Bruges had taken, granted her a new and most liberal charter, in which all her old liberties were confirmed and even extended. This charter was probably drawn up by the sheriffs of Bruges themselves. When Robert of Bethune ascended the throne, in 1305, he at once confirmed it. Every succeeding Count, when he first entered the city, solemnly swore to maintain it intact, and it remained the fundamental basis of the civil and criminal law of Bruges until 1619.

The charter in question contains seventy articles, forty-eight of which deal with criminal law, and the remainder with civil law. Many of them express a breadth of view and liberality of spirit which, considering the epoch at which they were drawn up, is not a little surprising. Gheldorf in his _Ville de Bruges_ (p. 321, etc.) gives the whole document in the original Flemish.

Note, amongst not a few prudent enactments, Article 33. It is so interesting, and denotes so clearly what progress Bruges had now made in the paths of law and order, that we cannot pass it over in silence. By it the citizen of Bruges was entirely set free from the superstitious and barbarous obligation of trial by battle. Henceforth, any man convicted of sending a challenge to a burgher was liable to a fine of sixty livres, in these days no small sum.

If such challenge had been accepted, half of the fine went to the Count, and half to the town, and the challenged burgher was also mulcted in a similar sum; if, however, he had refused the challenge he himself received a quarter of the fine, and, in that case, the Count received his full thirty livres, and the town only fifteen. Any man amenable to the city magistrates, who had lived for a year and a day within the limits of the city franchise and paid his taxes, was considered a citizen.

There were, no doubt, a number of persons living in Bruges who were not amenable to the city magistrates. The feudal lords, for example, though it was open to them, if they would, to enrol themselves as citizens, and not a few availed themselves of the privilege; persons submitted to the jurisdiction of the Franc; perhaps also the members of the Count's household, and the members of religious communities; and we know that from time immemorial there had been a large colony of foreign merchants in Bruges.

The municipal machinery by which the city was governed seems to have been, at this time, at all events, of a somewhat complicated nature. There were two distinct corporations, each presided over by its burgomaster.

The first consisted of the _écoutète_, or representative of the Count, the burgomaster and thirteen _Echevins_, who, according to Gheldorf, were the sole judges in Bruges. The manner of their appointment is uncertain; but we know that, save in the case of their having been convicted of felony or of having falsely administered justice, they were irremovable during the single year which they held office, and that convicted criminals, artisans who had not abstained from manual labour for a year and a day, and the _Echevins_ of the preceding year, were ineligible.

The second corporation consisted of its burgomaster and thirteen town councillors. It is doubtful what were the functions performed respectively by these corporations. Perhaps the first, in addition to its judicial functions, was a legislative assembly, and the second administered the affairs of the town.

Curiously enough the original Flemish version of the charter of 1304 is mute as to the method of election alike of the college of _Echevins_ and the town council, but Gheldorf has discovered among the archives of Bruges another version containing an article which gives minute directions on this head.

It was evidently drawn up in the interest of the members of the great city guilds, and awards to them the lion's share of all the appointments in question, viz.: the right to name absolutely all the town councillors and five of the thirteen _Echevins_, as well as a voice indirectly in the election of four others and in the nomination of each of the burgomasters. It allots to the burghers generally the right only to present eight persons to the Count in order that he may select from among them four more _Echevins_, and ordains that the members of the city council, and the nine _Echevins_ thus appointed, shall elect the remaining four, and furthermore that the _Echevins_ shall elect their own burgomaster, and the _Echevins_ and councillors together, the burgomaster of the city council. Gheldorf conjectures that the charter which he discovered among the archives of Bruges was only a rough draft of the charter of 1304; that for some reason or other the clause anent elections was omitted from the fair copy, but that the method of procedure therein ordained was later on sanctioned by Philip of Thiette in a separate charter. If this be so, the document in question would seem to have disappeared.

It has been conjectured above that the _Echevins_ of Bruges were not only magistrates, but also legislators, but even if this were so, the power which they wielded was less than it at first sight appears, for overshadowing the might of the _Echevins_ was the might of the Colossus which appointed them, and the trade guilds had a practical veto over all their acts. These to be legal and valid must first have been stamped with the city seal, and the city seal was stored up along with the city archives in a strong chamber in the thickness of the belfry walls, secured by four wrought-iron doors with ten locks and ten keys, eight of which were in the hands of the guildsmen. Butchers, bakers, shoemakers, tailors, weavers, brokers, carpenters, smiths, the deans of each of these companies possessed a key without which it was impossible to open the doors of the municipal treasury, and these were the men who in reality governed Bruges when she was at the zenith of her power, and who continued to do so until her glory had faded away and she

was rapidly sinking to the position of a second-rate provincial town. To-day the old archive chamber is without its rolls, and without its great seal, but it is still closed by the wrought-iron gates which once secured them, though they are now seldom locked, and whosoever will may come and go at pleasure. It will be interesting to note anent these gates that the town accounts for the year 1290 has the following entry: _Item, Erembaldo fabro, pro januis ferreis ad thesaurarium in Halla, lxxxi. lb._ The name then of the smith who forged them was Erembald, and he received for his labour the sum of eighty-one livres, not on the whole an exorbitant fee.

The mention of the archive chamber brings us naturally enough to the great tower which contains it, to that belfry of Bruges which had just risen from its ashes more beautiful than of yore, the belfry of Bruges as it is now, without indeed its crowning glory, the octagonal lantern of the later fourteen hundreds, but without also the sorry disfigurements inflicted by the hand of the restorer a hundred years after.

The original structure was built in the days of the first Counts of Flanders, perhaps before the close of the eight hundreds, not of wood, as was formerly supposed, but probably of rough _velt_ stone, the material employed for nearly all the buildings of that period. Whether any portion of the first belfry was left standing after the great fire of 1280 is a moot point, but maybe the foundations of the lower portion of the walls were spared, and that these were incorporated into the new building. Monsieur Gilliodts, who at present holds the office of city archivist, and probably knows more about his native town than anyone else, is of this opinion. Whether or no it be well founded is a question for experts to decide, if they can. In any case there can be no doubt as to the appositeness of the learned archivist's remark anent the present building. 'For six hundred years,' he says, 'this belfry has watched over the city of Bruges. It has beheld her triumphs and her failures, her glory and her shame, her prosperity and her gradual decay, and, in spite of so many vicissitudes, it is still standing to bear witness to the genius of our forefathers, to awaken alike memories of old times and admiration for one of the most splendid monuments of civic architecture which the middle age has produced.'

The other great tower of Bruges dates also from this period. It equals the first in comeliness and, calmly rising into the heavens some hundred feet above the highest point of the Bell-tower, surpasses it in the unadorned majesty of its grand proportions, for the sublime steeple of Notre Dame is in itself beautiful, and neither possesses nor requires embellishment. It is the first object which meets the eye of the Ostend fisherman as he nears his native coast, and seems more completely to dominate the old Flemish city, and the fair emerald landscape which surrounds it, than does the Belfry itself.

It took the men of Bruges, it is said, a hundred years to pile up this huge mass of tawny stone and golden-hued and blushing brick, and so marshy and unstable was the site on which they placed it, that as much material was needed for the foundations as is contained in that portion of the structure which rises above the soil, and the tower of Notre Dame, be it noted, measures from base to weathercock no less than four hundred and eleven English feet. It is said to be slightly out of the perpendicular, and a story is told--it is probably only a story--that the architect, on its completion, perceiving this defect, in despair threw himself from the summit and so was dashed to pieces; but for all that they buried him in consecrated ground, and his mausoleum was the splendid monument which he himself had erected.

The Church of Notre Dame was without the city boundary until the year 909. Up to that date it formed part of the domain of the lords of Sysseele. This ancient manor was submitted to the jurisdiction of Bruges towards the close of Guy's reign. The great square tower which was formerly the home of the lords of Sysseele is still standing, pleasantly situated on the outskirts of Maele Woods. With its Gothic gateway, its corner turrets, and its high-pitched roof it still forms a sufficiently picturesque group, but alas! it has recently been restored, and has thereby lost all trace of its conflict with time.

Bruges obtained also during the reign of Guy of Dampierre recognition of her disputed right to exercise jurisdiction over Sluys and Damme, and in 1289 a concession of less moment, but nevertheless one not to be despised. At the instance of his Countess, Isabelle of Namur, and 'in consideration for services rendered,' Guy made over, at this time, to the city for ever his right to succeed to the property of bastards dying without issue.