It is true that the bishops of Tournay had no temporal authority, since the period of their city being ruined by the Normans. But those of Liege and Utrecht, and more particularly the latter, had accumulated immense possessions; and their power being inalienable, they had nothing to fear from the caprices of sovereign favour, which so often ruined the families of the aristocracy. Those bishops, who were warriors and huntsmen rather than ecclesiastics, possessed, however, in addition to the lance and the sword, the terrible artillery of excommunication and anathema, which they thundered forth without mercy against every laical opponent: and when they had, by conquest or treachery, acquired new dominions and additional store of wealth, they could not portion it among their children, like the nobles, but it devolved to their successors, who thus became more and more powerful, and gained by degrees an authority almost royal, like that of the ecclesiastical elector of Germany.

Whenever the emperor warred against his lay vassals he was sure of assistance from the bishops, because they were at all times jealous of the power of the counts, and had much less to gain from an alliance with them than with the imperial despots on whose donations they throve, and who repaid their efforts by new privileges and extended possessions. So that when the monarch, at length, lost the superiority in his contests with the counts, little was wanting to make his authority be merged altogether in the overgrown power of these churchmen. Nevertheless, a first effort of the bishop of Liege to seize on the rights of the count of Louvain, in 1013, met with a signal defeat, in a battle which took place at the little village of Stongarde.* And five years later, the count of the Friesland marshes (comes Frisonum Morsatenorum) gave a still more severe lesson to the bishop of Utrecht. This last merits a more particular mention, from the nature of the quarrel and the importance of its results.

* Ann. Duc. Brab. tom. i.

FORMATION OF HOLLAND.

27

CHAP. IV.

10181384.

FROM THE FORMATION OF HOLLAND TO THE DEATH OF LOUIS DE MALE.

THE district in which Dordrecht is situated, and the grounds in its environs which are at present submerged, formed in those times an island just raised above the waters, and which was called Holland or Holtland, (which means wooded land, or, according to some, hollow land.) The formation of this island, or rather its recovery from the waters, being only of recent date, the right to its possession was more disputable than that of long-established countries. All the bishops and abbots whose states bordered the Rhine and the Meuse had, being equally covetous and grasping, and mutually resolved to pounce on the prey, made it their common property. A certain count Thierry, descended from the counts of Ghent, governed about this period the western extremity of Friesland, the country which now forms the province of Holland; and with much difficulty maintained his power against the Frisons, by whom his right was not acknowledged. Beaten out of his own territories by these refractory insurgents, he sought refuge in the ecclesiastical island, where he intrenched himself, and founded a town which is believed to have been the origin of Dordrecht.

This count Thierry, like all the feudal lords, took advantage of his position to establish and levy certain duties on all the vessels which sailed past his territory, dispossessing in the mean time some vassals of the church, and beating, as we have stated, the bishop of Utrecht himself. Complaints and appeals without number were laid at the foot of the imperial throne. Godfrey of Eenham, whom the emperor had created duke of Lower Lorraine, was commanded to call the whole country to arms. The bishop of Liege, though actually dying, put himself at the head of the expedition, to revenge his brother prelate, and punish the audacious spoiler of the

church property. But Thierry and his fierce Frisons took Godfrey prisoner, and cut his army in pieces. The victor had the good sense and moderation to spare his prisoners, and set them free without ransom. He received in return an imperial amnesty; and from that period the count of Holland and his posterity formed a barrier, against which the ecclesiastical power and the remains of the imperial supremacy continually struggled, to be only shattered in each new assault.*

As the partial independence of the great vassals became consolidated, the monarchs were proportionally anxious to prevent its perpetuation in the same families. In pursuance of this system, Godfrey of Eenham obtained the preference over the counts Lambert and Robert; and Frederick of Luxembourg was named duke of Lower Lorraine in 1046, instead of a second Godfrey who was nephew and expectant heir to the first. But this Godfrey, upheld by Baldwin of Flanders, forced the emperor to concede to him the inheritance of the dukedom. Baldwin secured for his share the country of Alost and Waas, and the citadel of Ghent; and he also succeeded in obtaining in marriage for his son the countess Richilde, heiress of Hainault and Namur. Thus was Flanders incessantly gaining new aggrandisement, while the duchy of Lorraine was crumbling away on every side.

In the year 1066 this state of Flanders, even then flourishing and powerful, furnished assistance both in men and ships to William the Bastard of Normandy, for the conquest of England. William was son-in-law to count Baldwin, and recompensed the assistance of his wife's father by an annual payment of three hundred silver marks. It was Mathilda, the Flemish princess and wife of the conqueror, who worked with her own hands the celebrated tapestry of Bayeux, on which is embroidered the whole history of the conquest, and which is the most curious monument of the state of the arts in that age.

Flanders acquired a positive and considerable superi

* John Egmont, an old chronicler, says, that the counts of Holland were "a sword in the flanks of the bishops of Utrecht."

1071.

COMMERCE OF FLANDERS.

29

ority over all the other parts of the Netherlands, from the first establishment of its counts or earls. The descendants of Baldwin Bras-de-fer, after having valiantly repulsed the Normans towards the end of the ninth century, showed themselves worthy of ruling over an industrious and energetic people. They had built towns, cut down and cleared away forests, and reclaimed inundated lands: above all things, they had understood and guarded against the danger of parcelling out their states at every succeeding generation; and the county of Flanders passed entire into the hands of the first-born of the family. The stability produced by this state of things had allowed the people to prosper. The Normans now visited the coasts, not as enemies but as merchants ; and Bruges became the mart of the booty acquired by these bold pirates in England and on the high seas. The fisheries had begun to acquire an importance sufficient to establish the herring as one of the chief aliments of the population. Maritime commerce had made such strides, that Spain and Portugal were well known to both sailors and traders, and the voyage from Flanders to Lisbon was estimated at fifteen days' sail. Woollen stuffs formed the principal wealth of the country; but salt, corn, and jewellery, were also important branches of traffic; while the youth of Flanders were so famous for their excellence in all martial pursuits, that foreign sovereigns were at all times desirous of obtaining bodies of troops from this nation.

The greatest part of Flanders was attached, as has been seen, to the king of France, and not to Lorraine; but the dependance was little more than nominal. In 1071 the king of France attempted to exercise his authority over the country, by naming to the government the same countess Richilde who had received Hainault and Namur for her dower, and who was left a widow, with sons still in their minority. The people assembled in the principal towns, and protested against this intervention of the French monarch. But we must remark, that it was only the population of the low lands (whose sturdy

*

ancestors had ever resisted foreign domination) that now took part in this opposition. The vassals which the counts of Flanders possessed in the Gallic provinces (the high grounds), and in general all the nobility, pronounced strongly for submission to France; for the principles of political freedom had not yet been fixed in the minds of the inhabitants of those parts of the country. But the lowlanders joined together under Robert, surnamed the Frison, brother of the deceased count; and they so completely defeated the French, the nobles and their unworthy associates of the high ground, that they despoiled the usurping countess Richilde of even her hereditary possessions. In this war perished the celebrated Norman William Fitz-Osborn, who had flown to the succour of the defeated countess, of whom he was enamoured.

Robert the Frison, not satisfied with having beaten the king of France and the bishop of Liege, restored in 1076 the grandson of Thierry of Holland in the possessions which had been forced from him by the duke of Lower Lorraine, in the name of the emperor and the bishop of Utrecht: so that it was this valiant chieftain who, above all others, is entitled to the praise of having successfully opposed the system of foreign domination on all the principal points of the country. Four years later, Othon of Nassau was the first to unite in one county the various cantons of Guelders. Finally, in 1086, Henry of Louvain, the direct descendant of Lambert, joined to his title that of count of Brabant; and from this period the country was partitioned pretty nearly as it was destined to remain for several centuries.

In the midst of this gradual organisation of the various counties, history for some time loses sight of those Frisons, the maritime people of the north, who took little part in the civil wars of two centuries. But still there was no portion of Europe which at that time offered a finer picture of social improvement than these damp and unhealthy coasts. The name of Frisons extended from the Weser to the westward of the Zuyder * Van Praet, Origine des Communes de Flandres.