Mediæval town series

The Story of Brussels

Probably there is no quarter of Europe more thickly studded with medival towns than that embraced by the Flemish provinces of Belgiumthe old Duchy of Brabant and the old County of Flanders. Curious places they are, some of them, little changed from what they were at the close of the fourteen hundreds; and some of them, so modernised that hardly anything is left to prove their identity but their geographical position and their names. All of these cities, however, have this in common, and this it is which makes them so interesting: we know something of their general history, and something too of the intimate lives of the men and the women who inhabited them, five hundred years agohow they were lodged and clothed, what they drank and ate, the way in which their food was dressed and their tables served, something of their distractions and their business pursuits, how they loved and hated, what they thought of this world, and what of the next. These things are set forth by three distinct classes of contemporary witnesses:Pictures, a host of them, minutely detailed, with almost photographic accuracy; furniture of every descriptionecclesiastical, domestic, personal; written documents of various kindschronicles, private letters, books of devotion, guild registers, town accounts. Many of these have been carefully examined, and a very considerable number of them printed; also, especially in recent years, some of the most accredited Belgian historians [Pg viii] have busied themselves by writing monographs of their native towns, or treatises on their ancient municipal institutions: notably Pirenne, Vander Linden, Wauters, Henne, Piot, Van Even. From their works and from other sources, ancient and modern, I have gathered the material for my Story of Medival Brussels, in the following pages, and which necessarily includes, for the two cities were intimately connected, a considerable portion of the Story of Medival Louvain. To this I have added some notes on Brabant painters and pictures, and also on Brabant architecture, with descriptions of the chief medival monuments in Brussels and in the neighbouring towns, and such information as I have been able to obtain concerning the great masons who built them. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 44314
Author: Gilliat-Smith, Ernest
Release Date: Nov 30, 2013
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Gilliat-Smith, Guy , Kimball, Katharine, 1866-1949