Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 1.djvu/464

 of agitation this power was sure to be swept out of their hands with all the judicial, financial, and other functions of government. Not un-frequently such outbursts of popular fury were provoked by the venality of the ruling classes, and the fear of their recurrence naturally inclined the patricians towards the ducal authority, unless when their advances were blindly repelled by the harshness of the sovereign, as in the later days of Charles the Bold. The real holders of power in the Flemish communes were now the working population at large, divided on a system varying in the several towns into trades or handicrafts (am-bachten); in Brabant these trades had before the accession of Philip effected a compromise with the lignages; in Holland and Utrecht their authority was great but not overwhelming; in Liege, as has been seen, it was paramount. In the three great Flemish towns, the great mass of the trades ordinarily asserted their power by the votes of their representatives, and on critical occasions by the organised resort to arms under their banners in the market-place (wapeninghe). By itself each trade formed not only a military, but also a social and religious unit, with its common purse for purposes of business, pleasure and charity, and often with a chapel and a hospital of its own. In the course of the fourteenth century the great craft of the Weavers had effected its predominance in each of the three cities, and became omnipotent at Ghent. Next to them came the Fullers, with whom they had many a sanguinary conflict. At Ghent there were besides these two great crafts 52 smaller crafts; and in one of them even the poorters, who constituted a guild without political power, had to inscribe themselves if desirous of becoming eligible for a magisterial office. At Bruges there were four great crafts-Weavers, Fullers, Shearers and Dyers-and the famous muster of October 10, 1436, included 48 smaller, from the butchers and bakers to the paternoster-makers; all these were combined into eight "members," with a ninth consisting of the four "free trades" of merchants, while the Ghent trades made up three "members" only. Each "member" (elsewhere called "nation") was presided over by a Grand Dean; and these officers were always, however its composition might from time to time vary, included in the representative committee (called collatie at Ghent) of the entire commune. The approval of this committee was doubtless asked by the commune, when in moments of supreme excitement hoqftmannen or captains were chosen by or for it- a term which seems in the first instance to have meant merely the heads of a poorters1 guild.

The absence of any durable league or alliance between the several communes was due to the narrow jealousy which they cherished towards one another and which has already been illustrated in the case of the relations between Bruges and Ghent. In 1423 Ghent successfully thwarted the attempt of Ypres to divert to herself the water-transport of wine and cereals; half a century later the Yprois joined the Ghenters in