Читать книгу Belgium: From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day - Émile Cammaerts - Страница 7

Table of Contents

Pursuing their conquests in Gaul, the Frankish kings soon abandoned Clodion's capital and established themselves in Paris. Clovis and his successors, surrounded by their warriors, could not resist the Gallo-Roman influences to which they were subjected. They gave their name to the country they conquered, but adopted its customs and paid but scant attention to their old companions left behind as settlers on the banks of the Scheldt. With the Belgo-Roman population, Christianity had been swept from Northern Belgium, and it took the Church two centuries, after the baptism of Clovis (496), to reconquer the ground she had lost.

This long delay is easily accounted for. The conversion of Clovis and of his followers, which affected so deeply the course of French history, scarcely reacted on the creeds and customs of the Pagan Frankish tribes established in the northern plain. The organization of the Church, which had had no time to consolidate itself, had been utterly shattered by the invasions. Between the fourth and the seventh centuries, the shadow of Paganism spread again across the land in Northern Belgium as in Britain, and when St. Amand arrived in Flanders, he found the Franks as little prepared to receive him as the Saxons had been, a few years before, to receive Augustine.

In Northern Belgium, as in Britain, the work of rechristianization had to be undertaken from outside. The regular bishops, confined to their towns, could not possibly cope with it. Their influence was limited to a small area, and their frequent change of residence suggests that their situation was rather precarious. During the sixth century, the bishops of Tongres established themselves at Maestricht, those of Tournai at Noyon, and those of Arras at Cambrai. Later, Maestricht was abandoned for Liége (early eighth century). The old titles of "episcopi Tungrorum" and "episcopi Morinorum" had lost all meaning since the disappearance of the old Celtic tribes, but the bishops, in preserving them, showed that they still hoped to increase their influence towards the north.

This ambition would have remained an empty wish but for the action of a few ardent missionaries who undertook to convert the German conquerors, in the seventh century, as the vanquished Celts had been converted in the third. We have already drawn the attention of the reader to the simultaneous events occurring on both sides of the sea, in Britain and Belgium, during the early stage of their history—Roman conquest, German raids, retreat of the Celtic population among the forests and the hills—but none of these concomitant events is more striking than the appearance, almost at the same time, of St. Augustine in Kent and St. Amand in Flanders.

ST. AMAND

The latter's mission, however, was not official. On his way to Rome, he saw in a vision St. Peter, who ordered him to preach the Gospel to the Northern Pagans, and forthwith he established himself at the confluence of the Lys and the Scheldt. In this place he founded two monasteries, which were to be the origin of the city of Ghent (610). Emboldened by his first successes, he attempted, supported by the king, to render baptism compulsory, which caused the Franks to revolt against him. After long wanderings among the Danube tribes, he came back to Flanders as Bishop of Tongres in 641, but soon gave up the cross and the mitre to resume the monk's habit, and sought martyrdom among the Basques. The palm being refused him, he again took the road to Belgium, where he died at the monastery of Elnone, near Tournai, towards 661.

For fifty years, with some intervals, he had worked unceasingly, as a monk and as a bishop, for the conversion of Northern Belgium. His efforts were not nearly so systematic as those of Augustine. He did not organize in the same way his spiritual conquests. He contented himself with bringing Pagans into the fold of Christianity, but did little to retain them there. His burning enthusiasm, however, set an example to many disciples and followers, who wandered after him through the country—St. Eloi along the Scheldt, St. Remacle along the Meuse, St. Lambert among the barren moors of Toxandria and St. Hubert through the forests of the Ardennes. Beside these, English and Irish missionaries took a large share in the conversion of Northern Belgium. The fruit of these individual efforts was reaped by the various bishops who had never ceased to claim the northern plain as an integral part of their dominions, according to Roman tradition. All that was necessary, after Christianity had been reintroduced, was to render again effective a bond which for four centuries had remained purely nominal. The bishopric of Liége extended between the Meuse and the Dyle, within the limits occupied formerly by that of Tongres; that of Cambrai, between the Dyle and the Scheldt (Nervii); that of Noyon, between the Scheldt and the sea (Menapii); and that of Térouanne, along the Yser valley (Morini). Thus were re-established, through the action of the Church, the old frontiers of the Celtic tribes, adopted by the Roman "civitates," long after the disappearance of the Celts and the fall of Rome. Liége was attached to the archbishopric of Cologne, the three others to Rheims, reviving, for ecclesiastical purposes, the old division between "Belgica Secunda" in the west and "Germania Inferior" in the east. This division never changed until the sixteenth century, when the northern part of the country ceased to be under the religious influence of the episcopal cities of the south.

BISHOPRICS

It will be noticed that none of the ecclesiastical boundaries which we have mentioned run in an easterly direction. Instead of coinciding with the language frontier, they cross it everywhere, uniting in the same religious community "Walas" and "Dietschen," Celts and Germans. For eight centuries the Church, which was at the time the supreme moral influence, unconsciously devoted all its energy to bringing together the two groups of population. They met in the same churches, they prayed before the same shrines, they joined in the same pilgrimages, they studied and meditated within the walls of the same monasteries. No wonder if such intercourse succeeded finally in uniting those whom nature had so strongly separated, and in creating in Belgium a new type of civilization neither Celtic nor Frankish, neither romanized nor germanized, but combining some of the strongest qualities of both races and well prepared to act as a kind of intellectual, moral and artistic link between them. This rule suffers only one exception. When the progress of Christianity permitted the foundation of a new bishopric at Utrecht, this religious metropolis was not subjected to any Romanic influence. It remained purely Germanic in character, and, already at this early stage of the history of the Netherlands, gave a distinct character to their extreme northern districts, which reasserted itself so strongly at the time of the Reformation.

The Merovingian kings gave a kind of sanction to this gradual separation of the Salian Franks, established in Northern Belgium, from the bulk of the Germanic tribes. It is significant that the limit which for a time separated their kingdom into Neustria in the west and Austrasia in the east, and which followed, in Eastern Gaul, the language frontier, assumed another course in Belgium, and, instead of running from east to west, as might have been expected, ran north and south along the frontier separating the bishopric of Liége from that of Cambrai, bringing Walas and Franks together on both sides of the line. Another proof of the romanizing influence of the Church may be found in the fact that the Franks established in Belgium forgot their tribal affinities. While in the seventh century Ripuarians, Alamans and Thuringians constituted themselves into so many distinct duchies, no attempt was ever made to found a Salian duchy in Northern Belgium. The very name of Franks ceased to be applied to the Walas' neighbours, and it is as "Dietschen," or "Thiois," that they were known through the Middle Ages.

It ought not to be assumed, however, that the movement was one-sided and that the ancient Franks adopted the religion and, to a certain extent, the language of the southern people without influencing them in their turn. The romanization of the Franks was accompanied by the germanization of the Walloons, who adopted the laws and customs of their conquerors. The latter became, in many instances, the great landowners of this part of the country, while the Frankish settlers, in the North, preserved the economic tradition of their native country and remained small farmers. Even this last contrast gradually disappeared under the influence of powerful landlords and through the foundation of rich monasteries, which gradually drew towards them, as tenants or clients, the bulk of the population in both parts of the country. So that, when the Carolingian dynasty superseded the Merovingian, and when Charlemagne received the imperial crown from the hands of the Pope (800), the work of unification was very nearly accomplished. Through reciprocal influences, Dietschen and Walas lived under the same economic, political, religious and judicial régime. The linguistic distinction, on both sides of the Tournai-Maestricht line, was the only notable difference, and even this distinction tended to disappear through the common use of the Roman dialect.

CHARLEMAGNE

One thing only remained to be done in order to crown the work accomplished during the two last centuries: the creation of a strong centralizing political power. The country was prepared to play the part which she was predestined to play through natural and racial conditions in the history of Europe, but she was still without guidance, a mere borderland, forgotten and neglected, on the fringe of the Frankish kingdom. The instrument was ready, but no artisan could yet use it. As long as the centre of political activity remained on the Seine, the characteristics of Belgian civilization could not be revealed. As long as the balance between Germanic and romanized culture inclined steadily towards the West, the European qualities of this Germanic, semi-romanized people could not be tested. It would be perhaps too much to say that Charlemagne founded Belgian nationality, in the same way that Clovis established French nationality in unifying Gaul, or that Alfred revealed the English to themselves in his triumphant struggle against the Danes. But, by carrying the frontiers of his Empire as far as the Elbe and establishing his headquarters in the centre of his old domain, at Aix-la-Chapelle, in a central position midway between France and Germany, Charlemagne gave at least an opportunity to almost every trait of Belgian social life to assert itself.

During the first part of the ninth century the region of the Scheldt and the Meuse became a beehive of activity. From every part of the world, merchants, theologians, artists and musicians crowded towards the new economic and intellectual centre of Europe. Arnon, a pupil of Alcuin, came to Elnone, the Irish Sedulius to Liége, the Italian Georgius to Valenciennes, while the schools of St. Amand, under Hucbald, acquired a world-wide reputation. Everywhere new monasteries were established, new churches and palaces built. The arts of illuminating, embroidery, carving and stained glass were brought to an unparalleled degree of perfection and refinement. Bishops and abbots competed in attracting to their courts and monasteries the best-known doctors and poets of the time. We have lost most of the artistic treasures and manuscripts of the period through the subsequent Norman invasions. Every vestige of Carolingian sculpture and architecture in Belgium has been destroyed. But, through the works accomplished in other countries and with the help of a few documents such as the inventory preserved in the Chronicle of St. Trond, we are able at least to appreciate not only their intrinsic value, but also the interest they awoke among clerics and laymen. That the great emperor encouraged this movement and took a direct part in it in attracting to the various centres of learning the best masters in Europe is sufficiently shown by his letter to Gerbald of Liége. Under his direction, European civilization was definitely established in the northern plain of Europe and Aix-la-Chapelle became indeed the "Northern Rome." The capital, with Tongres, Liége, St. Trond and other neighbouring cities, formed a centre from which civilization spread east and west towards Germany and France, just as it had spread, a few centuries before, from Central Italy towards the Eastern and Western Mediterranean.

FRISIAN CLOTH

The old Roman road, along which the monasteries founded many hostelries, was followed by streams of travellers of every description. The Meuse, Scheldt and Rhine were dotted with the sails of many ships bringing foreign wares and taking away the products of home industry. The most important of these was a special kind of cloth, "the Frisian cloth," for which the northern plain, covered with rich pastures and producing great quantities of wool, was already renowned. It was a specialized industry, the natural development of the ancient clothmaking of the Menapii mentioned above, and the predecessor of the cloth-weaving for which Flanders acquired a world-wide reputation during the subsequent centuries. The "Frisian cloth" was already exported, by the Rhine, as far as Central Europe and, by sea, towards Great Britain and Scandinavia. Pieces of money from the ports of Sluis and Duurstede have been found in both countries, and the frequency of intercourse with the North was such that a monastery was established at Thourout, near Duurstede, for the special purpose of training missionaries for the conversion of the Danish traders.

It is true that the prosperity realized under Charlemagne was short-lived, and that, a few years later, Northern Europe, and more especially Belgium, became the prey of the Normans, who destroyed most of the literary and artistic treasures accumulated with such enthusiasm during his reign. It is true also that Belgian unity was destined to break up, and that the country was to be divided between Germany and France and their respective vassals. But if Charlemagne came too soon, at a time when ethnographic conditions had not yet been sufficiently stabilized, and if his Empire did not survive him, his influence has nevertheless been felt through many centuries. If his dream of a European Empire could not be realized, the mission assigned to Belgium, as a natural link between East and West, remains even to-day one of the main features of European politics. History has shown that no annexation, no territorial division, of the dualistic country could ever guarantee peace between France and Germany. Such a peace is only possible, if the intervening nation is allowed to play its part in the concert of nations, and it has only been realized, when this part has been played. Belgium will never be what Charlemagne made it, the nucleus of a great Empire; but, unless it remains a free factor in the history of Europe, as it was for the first time under the great emperor, conflicts between the two rivals, abruptly brought together along the same frontier, become inevitable. There is a big jump from the ninth century to the Congress of Vienna, between the glory of Aix-la-Chapelle and the establishment of Belgian neutrality; there has been a great deal of ground covered since, but there is a kind of permanency in human affairs which cannot vainly be disregarded, and the policy of Charlemagne teaches us lessons which no modern statesman ought to ignore.

division of charlemagne's empire.

View larger image