2 restore the fortifications of their town, | tion of the Paddenhoek, or Toads' Cor- This article will have been written in vain if the reader does not rise from its perusal with the conviction that to Jacob van Arteveld is justly applicable the eulogy which Clarendon passed upon John Hampden: "He was, indeed, a very wise man and of great parts, and possessed with the most absolute spirit of popularity, and the most absolute faculties to govern the people, of any man I ever knew." Gilles li Muisis, abbot of St. Martin's Monastery at Tournai, who died about the middle of the fourteenth century, says, under the date of 1345 — only eight years before his own death that Arteveld "regnavit per septem annos, et fuit gubernator et superior totius villæ Gantii ac totius patriæ Flandriæ, et ad ejus imperium et voluntatem obediebant, et nihil in dictâ patriâ fiebat sine eo." He adds that he was always accompanied by twenty-five to thirty armed men fortissimis et ad bella promptissimis. Et multa mala evenerunt per eum et propter eum." This small band of followers was increased to sixty or eighty by the canon Jehan le Bel, who belonged to one of the noblest families of Liége, and died about the year 1370. Describing the ill feeling that existed between Louis de Nevers and the Flemings, he proceeds to remark: Happily, at that critical moment a ru- "Alons, alons oyr le bon conseil du saige homme," Il y avoit ung homme à Gand qui avait nom | rendering of the commonly accepted text Jacques d'Artevelle, et avoit este brasseur de of the gossiping old chronicler : mies (miel). Celluy Jacques estoit entré en si grande fortune et grâce envers les Flamens que c'estoit tout fait et bien fait quanques il vouloit deviser ou commander par toutes Flandres, de l'ung costé jusques à l'aultre ; et n'y avoit cil, combien grand qu'il fust, qui osast trespasser son commandement.* From the canon of Liége we may pass at a bound to Sir John Froissart, the authority quoted, directly or indirectly, by nearly all subsequent historians. Sev-non though he were neuer so great yt durst eral editions of these famous chronicles passed under the hands of their author, and underwent material modifications in the process. The manuscript of Amiens is the oldest and most complete: that of the Vatican includes only the first portion of the series. These manuscripts have been most carefully collated by M. Simon Luce in the great edition of Froissart published by the Société de l'Histoire de France, which far surpasses all its predecessors and is a work of great merit. M. Kervyn de Lettenhove, however, relies on the manuscript preserved in the Vatican Library, in which it is written: "Avoit à Gand un bourgeois qui se nommoit Jaquemon Dartevelle, hauster homme, sage et soutil durement, et fist tant par sa poissance que toute la ville de Gand fu encline à luy et à ses volontés." It is further said that Van Arteveld was alarmed at the fate of Sohier de Courtrai, and was seized with the apprehension that he himself would be the next victim to the count's jealousy. He therefore made himself master of Ghent, and took care to be always surrounded by a guard of one hundred to one hundred and twenty "varlès tous armés." His next step was to raise "une sexste de compagnons en Gand que on nommoit les Blans Caperons, et en fist à tous livrée et estoient bien sys mille, et tous les jours mouteplioient-il et portoient volontiers les blans caperons, car il avoient mieuls titre de faire mal que li aultre qui nul n'en avoient, et n'en portoient nuls se il n'estoit tout fin hors mauvais." In this season (A.D. 1337) there was great dyscorde betwene the erle of Flaunders and the Flemynges; for they wold nat obey him, nor he durst nat abyde in Flaunders, but in great parell. And in ye towne of Gaunt there was a man, a maker of honey,* called Jaques Dartvell, he was entred into such fortune and grace of the people that all thynge was done that he dydde; he might commaunde what he wolde through all Flaunders, for there was disobey his commaundement. He had alwayes goying with hym up and downe in Gaunt LX or fourskore varlettes armed, and amonge them there were thre or foure that knewe ye secretnes of his mynde; so that if he mette a parsone that he hated, or had hym in suspectyon, incontynent he was slayne; for he had commaunded his secret varlettes, that whannesoeuer he mette any persone and made such a sygne to theym, that incontynent they shulde slee hym, whatsoeuer he were, without any wordes or resonynge; and by yt meanes he made many to be slayne, wherby he was so thynge that he wolde haue done, so that every doughted that none durst speke agaynst any man was gladde to make hym good chere. And these varlettes whan thei had brought hym home to his house, than they shulde go to dyner where they lyst, and after dyner returne agayne into the strete before his lodgyng, and there abyde tyll he come out, and to wayt on hym tyll souper tyme. These souldyours had eche of them foure grotes flemmyshe by the day, and were truely payd, wekely. Thus he had in euery towne souldyers and seruauntes and to espy if there were any person that at his wages, redy to do his commaundement, wolde rebell agaynste his mynde, and to enfourme hym thereof; and as sone as he knewe any suche he wolde neuer cease tyll they were banysshed or slayne, without respyte. such great men as knyghtes, squires, or burgesses of good townes as he thought fauourable to therle in any manner, he banysshed them out of Flaunders, and wolde leuey the moyte of their landes to his owne vse, and thother halfe to their wyues and chyldren, such as were banysshed; of whome there were a great nombre abode at saynt Omers. † To speke properly, there was neuer in Flaunders, nor in none other contrey, prince, duke, nor other that ruled a countrey so pesably, so long as Jaques Attention is particularly requested for Dartvell dyd rule Flaunders. He leueyed the the mention of these "Blans Caperons," rentes, wynages, and rights that pertained to as it furnishes an easy explanation of the therle throughout all Flaunders, and spended character of the guard which waited upon all at his pleasure, without any accompt makVan Arteveld. That point will be dealtyng; and whan he wold say yt he lacked money, they beleued hym, and so it behoued them to with sufficiently in its proper place, and in the mean while it may be convenient to extract Lord Berners' quaint and vigorous * Brasseur de miel; more correctly translated by Colonel Johnes of Hafod as "a man that had formerly been a brewer of metheglin"-mead. † These refugees, according to Froissart, were called Les Vrayes Chroniques de Messire Jehan le Bel, les avolez; according to Jehan le Bel, les aveuiès, or ch. xxvi. Bruxelles, 1863. les oultre aveulès. A do, for none durst say agaynst hym; whan he | trusted for dates, it is hard to say whether The portrait stands out clear and palpable, but that it is not the true presentment of Jacob van Arteveld will presently be shown. Moreover, the hands may be the hands of Froissart, but the voice is the voice of Jehan le Bel. The former has amplified and exaggerated the narrative of his predecessor, just as Hume has improved upon the romance of the latter. A contemporary writer, Jan de Klerk, of Antwerp, whose rhymed chronicle has been rendered into modern French by the late M. Octave Delapierre, appears to have expressed himself far more moderately: At Ghent there arose all at once a man who was neither rich nor noble, but who acquired such an influence that very soon the whole country obeyed him. He spoke well, was very courageous, and was named Jacques d'Artavelde. Assisted by numerous partisans, he op: posed the Count of Flanders, and was minded to take measures to resist him, as well as Philip of Valois, both of whom hated him mortally. He succeeded in forming an alliance between Edward, King of England, Flanders, Brabant, and the Count of Holland. 66 Still more favorable is the evidence of the without the sanction of the count, to promise The men of Ghent were the first, though assistance to the English, and chose for themselves a tribune and leader in James Arteveld, a brave man and especially distinguished for his eloquence, of gentle rather than of noble blood, who had resided at the court of the king of the French, and on returning to his own house had taken to wife a woman of some opulence, a maker of mead, and was elected president of the operatives. Further on, indeed, he is spoken of as a low-born, factious citizen, who gave to the flames the town and country houses of those who had fled with the count. His civic position will be explained hereafter, but under the date of 1337 he appears as the duly elected and, so to speak, constitutional president of the three great towns, Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres. The royal power, however, was held in check by three towns of Flanders, who claimed for themselves in all things the supreme military and civil authority, having appointed Arteveld to Flanders as a senate or a dictator, and the their president and captain. That triad was whole of Flanders was compelled to obey their decrees and statutes. A few of the nobles also were arrested by Arteveld, whom he kept as hostages, in order to render the nobility less actively hostile to himself. Van Arteveld was, in fact, the captain of In the first continuation of the Chroni- the civic militia, raised by the chief men cle of Guillaume de Nangis, Jacob van of the "three good towns" to defend Arteveld is mentioned as the leader of their liberties alike against foreign and the Flemish insurgents, but it is acknowl- internal foes. Like Sohier de Courtrai, edged that their object was not to re- he belonged to the "milites burgenses," nounce their allegiance to the French who were constantly coming into collision king, or even to their own count, but with the territorial nobles, whose symparather to compel the latter to refrain from thies were all with the count and king, his evil ways, and to govern them with and in whose eyes the burgher community justice and equity. It is true that, when was composed of a turbulent, seditious, Van Arteveld was encamped with Edward insolent rabble. It will have been reunder the walls of Tournai, he is spoken marked that he is classed by Van Meyer of as the captain "sectæ Flammingorum with those of gentle rather than of noble pessimæ." Similarly, in the second con-blood, while his imprisonment, as hostinuation, after an acknowledgment of his eloquence, he is pointed at as "iste Jacobus," and is accused of attempting to murder a priest, "sed Deus, qui suorum est custos obedientium, non permisit." As few of the old historians can be quite | autore Jacobo Meyero, Baliolano. Antwerp, 1561. tages, of a few members of the baronial order illustrates the difference of political views which separated the military *Commentarii sive Annales rerum Flandricarum, from the commercial aristocracy. It may be observed in this place that Meyer is corroborated by D'Oudegherst* in assigning Van Arteveld's elevation to the year 1335. Or estoit en ce temps capitaine et grand doyen de ceux de Gand un homme faict et nay à toutes séditions, appellé Jacques d'Artwelde, brasseur, lequel, par ses malicieuses practiques, usurpoit journellement et de plus en plus sur les droictz, préeminences, et authoritez du prince, dont le dict Comte Louys se plaindoit grandement, et signamment de ceux de Gand, entre lesquels et luy yssirent au moyen de ce plusieurs questions et debatz. man, Sire Jacques d'Artevelde, who governed Flanders with much success for seven years seven months and as many days, and who at the outset of his government, with a view to recommend himself the more to the said town of Ghent, said that when he began to build grand mansions and to marry his children to knights and noblemen with golden spurs, it would then be time to distrust him, and to place no more confidence in him. If we turn now to Mézeray's "History of France," we shall find it recorded how, in 1336, the Flemings governed themselves by the counsels of a certain Jaquemard Arteville, a brewer of beer in the town of Ghent, a man of great strength of mind and body, daring, and ready to commit all sorts of crimes, dreaded by the good because of his cruelties, and followed by miscreants for the sake of the impunity and the largesses with which he gratified the populace, whom he was forever exciting against the nobility. Pierre d'Oudegherst was a native of Lille, a doctor of laws, esteemed for his general familiarity with public affairs, and much consulted by reason of his special knowledge of jurisprudence. Naturally enough, a man of his training and peculiar reading, who flourished in the latter half of the sixteenth century, would be unfavorably biassed in treating of a move- According to this writer, Van Arteveld ment which he could only regard as a never ventured abroad without a guard of revolt against the divine right of kings fifty to sixty armed men. French histoand princes. It is much to be regretted rians of later times are content to quote that the majority of the old chroniclers Froissart as an unquestionable authority, and historians, being for the most part and tread in one another's steps without churchmen connected with noble families, the slightest attempt to exercise their were inevitably warped by their early critical faculties. Rapin calls Van Artereading and habitual associations, and veld "a brewer," and evidently regards filled with ineradicable prejudices against him as a mere firebrand. all popular movements, and whatever might seem to imperil the existing order or things. It must be confessed, however, that Professor Lesbroussart's footnotes are not less bitter than the text they profess to elucidate, and it may be that the agitated condition of the neighboring kingdom of France in 1789 may have disturbed the serenity of the learned commentator. Be that as it may, a still earlier date than is given by Meyer and D'Oudegherst is set forth by a writer who has been a good deal quoted within the last thirty years by local vindicators of Van Arteveld's memory. M. de l'Espinoy asserts that it was in 1333 that the Flemings elected as their " Rewaert, Gouverneur, et Capitaine, un homme très valeureux, sage, et subtil, nommé Jacques d'Artevelde." In 1337 he confers upon him this high distinction for the second time. There was elected as Captain and Rewaert, or Governor, of Flanders that valiant and wise Annales de Flandre de Pierre d'Oudegherst, par M. Lesbroussart. Gand, 1789. † Recherche des Antiquitez e: Noblesse de Flandres, par Philippe de l'Espinoy, Viscomte de Therouenne. Douay, 1632. "The credit of that burgher," he remarks, "was so great in Flanders that he had caused the principal cities to revolt against the earl." It was excusable in Rapin de Thoyras that he could not enter into the broad, statesmanlike policy sketched by "that burgher," but Sismondi might surely have been expected to institute a searching 'examination into the proofs adduced by his predecessors for the statements they had so glibly propounded. The only liberty, however, he permits himself is to amplify the texts which made a common brewer" of Van Arteveld, and to enlarge his business to a scale worthy of a fourteenth century Bass or Allsopp. Let us hear what he has to say: Among the most ardent champions of the public liberties there appeared at Ghent a man endowed with rare talents and, above all, with a great force of character, who succeeded in organizing the popular party, in placing himence over the two other towns of Bruges and self at their head, and in extending his influYpres. He was named Jacquemart or Jacob d'Artevelde. He was the proprietor of a con Histoire de France depuis Faramond jusqu'au règne de Louis le Juste, par le Sieur F. de Mézeray. Paris, 1685, 2nd edition. siderable brewery of mead, and his riches, as | Biographie," in which he is acknowledged it is admitted that this great citizen, in fact, showed himself superior to the nobles and kings with whom he was called upon to negotiate. However remarkable were the popular eloquence he displayed in rousing the people, and the firmness with which he controlled them, equally great was the breadth of political views he manifested in the councils of two kings, and the valor and military talent he exhibited in the field. 66 The conventional lineaments of the burgher-statesman may be encountered in the Nouveau Dictionnaire Historique" of Messrs. Chaudon and Delandine: Artevelle, ou Artavel, Flamand, brasseur de bière, factieux, éloquent et politique, causa beaucoup de solicitude au Comte de Flandre" so much so, indeed, that the count fled for safety to the court of his overlord. Michelet is another follower of Froissart, for Jehan le Bel is seldom, if ever, quoted, and he apparently fancies himself justified in hazarding the assertion that "Jacquemart Artavelde," a brewer of Ghent, organized une vigoureuse tyrannie. He is not, however, far astray where he remarks that "avec toute sa popularité ce roi de Flandre n'était au fond que le chef des grosses villes, le défenseur de leur monopole." It is more surprising that M. Dewez, himself a Belgian, should describe Van Arteveld in his "Histoire Particulière des Provinces Belges," not only as a brewer, but as an unscrupulous intriguer, subtle and audacious, gifted, indeed, with eloquence, of which he made such use that he raised himself to a bad pre-eminence, comporting himself as a tyrant and oppressor, and displaying a vulgar, insolent luxury. It is true that, in his "Cours d' Histoire de la Belgique," he explains how Van Arteveld came to be attended by armed men when he went abroad. In his capacity of doyen des métiers, or president of the guilds, he was entitled to a guard of zweerd-draeghers or sword-bearers, while, as captain of the city, he would naturally be followed by a detachment of soldiers. This was no new thing, but a custom which existed both before and after his time. A juster view of the great citizen is taken by the compilers of the "Allgemeine Deutsche At last there arose in Ghent a man of humble family and low occupation, who made and sold mead - that is, beer made with honeywhose name was Giacomo Dartivello, and he brought himself to be master of the commune of Ghent. This was in the year 1337; and by his fine speech and frank manners he rose in a short time to such a position and influence through the favor of the common people of Ghent, that he expelled from Ghent the count and all his followers; and as from Ghent so towns of Flanders, they drove out the count likewise from Bruges, Ypres, and the other and imprisoned whosoever offered resistance. Here again the body-guard of truculent assassins comes into play, and all the hearsay traditions of the old chroniclers are reproduced as history. Far more moderate and reasonable is the estimate of Van Arteveld's character and position which is given in De Larrey's "Histoire d'Angleterre, d'Ecosse et d'Irlande" (Rotterdam, 1707). Another ally, less considerable by birth, but not so by influence, was the famous Jacques Artevelde, a brewer of beer, who acquired such power over the Flemings that their count was nothing more than a phantom, all the great towns obeying Artevelde, whose word was ab. solute. Edward raised no difficulty about negotiating with a man who had made himself arbiter of peace and war in his own country, him by withdrawing to the court of France. which its lawful sovereign had abandoned to The preceding statement is not perfectly accurate, as the count had not abandoned Flanders at the time when the English monarch began to negotiate with the citizens of Ghent; neither is it at all certain that Van Arteveld was then actually invested with the guidance of the State. We may now pass, however, to the English chroniclers and historians, who, with the honorable exception of the late Mr. William Longman, have followed Froissart as a flock of sheep follows a bell-wether, * Cronica di Giovanni Villani. Firenze, 1845. |