LITMIR.BIZ

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which admitted no authority of the sovereign to violate by confiscation, except in cases of downright treason; thirdly, in the privilege of trial by none but native judges, and according to their national usages; fourthly, in a very narrow limitation of the military services which they owed to the king; fifthly, in the hereditary title to feudal property, in direct line, on payment of certain dues or rents. These five principal articles sufficed to render Friesland, in its political aspect, totally different from the other portions of the monarchy. Their privileges secured, their property inviolable, their duties limited, the Frisons were altogether free from the servitude which weighed down France. It will soon be seen that these special advantages produced a government nearly analogous to that which Magna Charta was the means of founding at a later period in England.

      The successors of Charlemagne chiefly signalized their authority by lavishing donations of all kinds on the church. By such means the ecclesiastical power became greater and greater, and, in those countries under the sway of France, was quite as arbitrary and enormous as that of the nobility. The bishops of Utrecht, Liege, and Tournay, became, in the course of time, the chief personages on that line of the frontier. They had the great advantage over the counts, of not being subjected to capricious or tyrannical removals. They therefore, even in civil affairs, played a more considerable part than the latter; and began to render themselves more and more independent in their episcopal cities, which were soon to become so many principalities. The counts, on their parts, used their best exertions to wear out, if they had not the strength to break, the chains which bound them to the footstool of the monarch. They were not all now dependent on the same sovereign; for the empire of Charlemagne was divided among his successors: France, properly so called, was bounded by the Scheldt; the country to the eastward of that river, that is to say, nearly the whole of the Netherlands, belonged to Lorraine and Germany.

      In the state of things, it happened that in the year 864, Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, king of France, having survived her husband Ethelwolf, king of England, became attached to a powerful Flemish chieftain called Baldwin. It is not quite certain whether he was count, forester, marquis, or protector of the frontiers; but he certainly enjoyed, no matter under what title, considerable authority in the country; since the pope on one occasion wrote to Charles the Bald to beware of offending him, lest he should join the Normans, and open to them an entrance into France. He carried off Judith to his possessions in Flanders. The king, her father, after many ineffectual threats, was forced to consent to their union; and confirmed to Baldwin, with the title of count, the hereditary government of all the country between the Scheldt and the Somme, a river of Picardy. This was the commencement of the celebrated county of Flanders; and this Baldwin is designated in history by the surname of Bras-de-fer (iron-handed), to which his courage had justly entitled him.

      The Belgian historians are also desirous of placing about this epoch the first counts of Hainault, and even of Holland. But though it may be true that the chief families of each canton sought then, as at all times, to shake off the yoke, the epoch of their independence can only be fixed at the later period at which they obtained or enforced the privilege of not being deprived of their titles and their feudal estates. The counts of the high grounds, and those of Friesland, enjoyed at the utmost but a fortuitous privilege of continuance in their rank. Several foreigners had gained a footing and an authority in the country; among others Wickmand, from whom descended the chatelains of Ghent; and the counts of Holland, and Heriold, a Norman prince who had been banished from his own country. This name of Normans, hardly known before the time of Charlemagne, soon became too celebrated. It designated the pagan inhabitants of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, who, driven by rapacity and want, infested the neighboring seas. The asylum allowed in the dominions of the emperors to some of those exiled outlaws, and the imprudent provocations given by these latter to their adventurous countrymen, attracted various bands of Norman pirates to the shores of Guelders; and from desultory descents upon the coast, they soon came to inundate the interior of the country. Flanders alone successfully resisted them during the life of Baldwin Bras-de-fer; but after the death of this brave chieftain there was not a province of the whole country that was not ravaged by these invaders. Their multiplied expeditions threw back the Netherlands at least two centuries, if, indeed, any calculation of the kind may be fairly formed respecting the relative state of population and improvement on the imperfect data that are left us. Several cantons became deserted. The chief cities were reduced to heaps of ruins. The German emperors vainly interposed for the relief of their unfortunate vassals. Finally, an agreement was entered into, in the year 882, with Godfrey the king or leader of the Normans, by which a peace was purchased on condition of paying him a large subsidy, and ceding to him the government of Friesland. But, in about two years from this period, the fierce barbarian began to complain that the country he had thus gained did not produce grapes, and the present inspiration of his rapacity seemed to be the blooming vineyards of France. The emperor Charles the Fat, anticipating the consequence of a rupture with Godfrey, enticed him to an interview, in which he caused him to be assassinated. His followers, attacked on all points by the people of Friesland, perished almost to a man; and their destruction was completed, in 891, by Arnoul the Germanic. From that period, the scourge of Norman depredation became gradually less felt. They now made but short and desultory attempts on the coast; and their last expedition appears to have taken place about the year 1000, when they threatened, but did not succeed in seizing on, the city of Utrecht.

      It is remarkable that, although for the space of one hundred and fifty years the Netherlands were continually the scene of invasion and devastation by these northern barbarians, the political state of the country underwent no important changes. The emperors of Germany were sovereigns of the whole country, with the exception of Flanders. These portions of the empire were still called Lorraine, as well as all which they possessed of what is now called France, and which was that part forming the appanage of Lothaire and of the Lotheringian kings. The great difficulty of maintaining subordination among the numerous chieftains of this country caused it, in 958, to be divided into two governments, which were called Higher and Lower Lorraine. The latter portion comprised nearly the whole of the Netherlands, which thus became governed by a lieutenant of the emperors. Godfrey count of Ardenne was the first who filled this place; and he soon felt all the perils of the situation. The other counts saw, with a jealous eye, their equal now promoted into a superior. Two of the most powerful, Lambert and Reginald, were brothers. They made common cause against the new duke; and after a desperate struggle, which did not cease till the year 985, they gained a species of imperfect independence—Lambert becoming the root from which sprang the counts of Louvain, and Reginald that of the counts of Hainault.

      The emperor Othon II., who upheld the authority of his lieutenant, Godfrey, became convinced that the imperial power was too weak to resist singly the opposition of the nobles of the country. He had therefore transferred, about the year 980, the title of duke to a young prince of the royal house of France; and we thus see the duchy of Lower Lorraine governed, in the name of the emperor, by the last two shoots of the branch of Charlemagne, the dukes Charles and Othon of France, son and grandson of Louis d'Outremer. The first was a gallant prince: he may be looked on as the founder of the greatness of Brussels, where he fixed his residence. After several years of tranquil government, the death of his brother called him to the throne of France; and from that time he bravely contended for the crown of his ancestors, against the usurpation of Hugues Capet, whom he frequently defeated in battle; but he was at length treacherously surprised and put to death in 990. Othon, his son, did not signalize his name nor justify his descent by any memorable action; and in him ingloriously perished the name of the Carlovingians.

      The death of Othon set the emperor and the great vassals once more in opposition. The German monarch insisted on naming some creature of his own to the dignity of duke; but Lambert II., count of Louvain, and Robert, count of Namur, having married the sisters of Othon, respectively claimed the right of inheritance to his title. Baldwin of the comely beard, count of Flanders, joined himself to their league, hoping to extend his power to the eastward of the Scheldt. And, in fact, the emperor, as the only means of disuniting his two powerful vassals, felt himself obliged to cede Valenciennes and the islands of Zealand to Baldwin. The imperial power thus lost ground at every struggle.

      Amid the confusion of these events, a power well calculated to rival or even supplant that of the fierce counts was growing up. Many circumstances were combined to extend and consolidate the episcopal

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