Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/620

588 BELGIUM AND HOLLAND.

CHAPTER I.

CONTENTS.

Historical Notice — Old Churches — Cathedral of Tournay — Antwerp — St. Jacques at Liege.

HE little kingdom of Belgium forms an architectural province as distinct and in many respects as interesting as any in Europe. Its style does not, it is true, possess that simplicity, combined with grandeur, which characterizes the one great united effort of Central France, but it is more varied and picturesque, and as fully expressive of the affinities and aspirations of the people.

As we may learn from their language, the dominant race during the Middle Ages spoke a dialect very closely allied to the pure German, which proclaimed their affinity to their neighbors on the Rhine; but what their architecture tells us, though their language does not, is that there was a very strong infusion of Celtic blood in their veins which expresses itself in almost every building they erected.

Shortly after the departure of the Romans the German immigrants seem to have completely overpowered the original Belgæ, and, like true Aryans, to have divided themselves into a number of separate and independent municipalities, with no established capital and acknowledging no central authority. At times these communities did submit themselves to the rules of Dukes and Counts, but only to a very limited extent; and for particular purposes they occasionally even sought the protection of some powerful monarch; but they never relinquished their right of self-government nor fell under the power of feudal chiefs, or of a dominant hierarchy, to the same extent as prevailed throughout nearly the whole of the rest of Europe. This spirit of independence was sustained throughout the Middle Ages by the immense extension of commercial industry which the fortunate position of Belgium, combined with the energy which her inhabitants