INTRODUCTION.

IN the fourteenth century the Flemish towns were the most opulent and considerable in Europe; and of these, Ghent and Bruges were, in size, wealth, and population, perhaps scarcely inferior even to Venice. They were of right subject to the Earl of Flanders, and in ordinary times he exercised by his bailiffs the powers of sovereignty in them: but they had secured various franchises and immunities, which they guarded with jealousy, and which, when need was, they rose in arms to defend. On such occasions they were seldom all joined in a league together; for the trading interests of several of them were in some respects opposite, and some would generally remain subject to the Earl, and at war, therefore, with those which leagued against him.

These towns were not only asunder one from another, but each one was commonly divided by parties within itself. The towns consisted each of various crafts or guilds, as the weavers, the fullers, the clothiers, the mariners, &c., and some of these crafts were occasionally well affected towards the Earl, at

the same time that others were disposed to rebellion. But the chief opposition was between the rich inhabitants and the poor. The rich wished for peace and repose; the poor were eager for war, which, in that age, when most men were warlike, was perhaps the best trade that a poor man could follow. When therefore any of these towns was in rebellion, there was generally a peace-faction within it, which rose or fell in importance according to the varying circumstances of military success or failure.

In the year 1381, the inhabitants of Bruges made themselves friends with Lois, Earl of Flanders, and under the countenance of his authority, which they purchased, began to cut a channel which would have opened to them a direct communication with the river Lis, the navigation of which was otherwise only accessible to them by passing through Ghent. Ghent was, however, by no means willing to lose her exclusive possession or control of the navigation up the Lis. Like the " Crowning City" of more ancient days, "the harvest of the river was her revenue."

"There was at this time in Ghent a burgess called John Lyon, a sage man, cruel, hardy, subtle, and a great enterpriser, and cold and patient enough in all his works." This John Lyon (the Flemish name is Heins, but it is thus Englished) was a dismissed officer of the Earl, and he took the opportunity of the discontent occasioned by the proceedings of the Earl and the people of Bruges, to revive an old usage of Ghent, by which all the disaffected were accustomed to form themselves into a corps, distin

guished by white hoods, and subordinated to one ruler. Such a corps was now formed, and John Lyon, being chosen their chief, conducted a party of them to attack the pioneers from Bruges who were digging at the Lis. But the pioneers retreated, and desisted without fighting.

The professed object of forming the corps was accomplished therefore; "but notwithstanding that, John Lyon did not abandon his office, but the WhiteHoods went daily up and down the town, and John Lyon kept them still in that state, and to some he would say secretly,' Hold you well content; eat and drink, and make merry, and be not concerned at any thing you spend; for hereafter such shall pay you as will not now give you one penny.'

For men thus organised and thus disposed, a fresh cause of quarrel was easily to be found. "In the same week that John Lyon had been thus at Deinse, to have met with the pioneers of Bruges, there came many out of the Franc of Ghent, to complain to them that had then the rule of the law, and said, 'Sirs, at Erclo, near here, which is within the Franchise of Ghent, there is one of our burgesses in the Earl's prison, and we have desired the Earl's bailiff there to deliver him; but he hath plainly answered that he will not deliver him, which is evidently against the privilege of this town of Ghent; and so thereby your privileges will be by degrees broken, which have hitherto been so nobly and so highly praised, and besides that, so well kept and maintained that none durst break them, and that the most noble Knight

of Flanders considered it an honour to be a burgess of Ghent.' Then they of the Law answered and said, that they would write to the bailiff desiring that the burgess may be delivered; for truly his office extendeth not so far as to keep our burgess in the Earl's prison.' And so they wrote to the bailiff for the deliverance of the burgess who was in prison in Erclo. The bailiff answered, 'What needeth all these words for a mariner? Say,' quoth the bailiff, who was named Roger d'Auterne, 'to them of Ghent, that though he were ten times richer than he is, he shall never go out of prison unless my lord the Earl command it. I have power to arrest, but I have no power to deliver.'"

They of Ghent were ill content with this answer, and complained loudly to the Earl, who agreed to release the prisoner and redress their grievances, on condition that the White-Hoods should be disbanded. But John Lyon maintained that it was only by keeping up the White-Hoods that they would ever have any security for their privileges; and in spite of all the Earl's remonstrances, the White-Hoods increased in number and were formed into companies with captains over them. The Earl then sent his bailiff to Ghent with two hundred men, to seize and execute John Lyon and other captains. This brought on an encounter in the market-place, where the bailiff was slain and the Earl's banner torn in pieces by the White-Hoods.

Such was the beginning of a war which continued for several years between the Earl of Flanders and

the town of Ghent, and in which the principal towns on the part of the Earl were Bruges, Oudenarde, Dendermonde, Lisle, and Tournay; and those on the part of Ghent were Damme, Ypres, Courtray, Grammont, Poperinguen, and Messines :-A war which in its progress extended to the whole of Flanders, and excited a degree of interest in all the civilised countries of Europe for which the cause must be sought in the state of European communities at the time. It was believed that entire success on the part of Ghent would bring on a general rising almost throughont Christendom, of the Commonalty against the Feudal Lords and men of substance. The incorporation of the citizens of Paris known by the name of "the Army with Mallets," was, according to the well-known chronicler of the period, "all by the example of them of Ghent." Nicholas le Flamand deterred them from pulling down the Louvre, by urging the expediency of waiting to see what success might attend the Flemish insurgents. At Rheims, Chalons on the Marne, at Orleans, Beauvoisin, the like designs were entertained. "The rebellion of the Jacquerie," says Froissart, was never so terrible as this was likely to have been." Brabant, Burgundy, and the lower part of Germany, were in a dangerous condition; and in England Wat Tyler's rebellion was contemporaneous and not unconnected with what was going on in Flanders.

I have related by way of introduction, the origin of the war,-not that the incidents in which it originated are immediately connected with those of my