During the fourteenth century Flanders was annexed by
France. The Flemish cities resisted bravely, and on more than one occasion
their citizen levies, who could handle sword and ax, as well as the loom,
defeated the French armies, thus demonstrating again that foot soldiers were a
match for mailed cavalry. Had the cities been able to form a lasting league,
they might have established an independent Flanders, but the bitter rivalry of
Ghent and Bruges led to foreign domination, lasting into the nineteenth
century. [30]
[30] In 1831 A.D. the two provinces of East Flanders and
West Flanders became part of the modern kingdom of Belgium.
THE CITIES AND CIVILIZATION
The great cities of Flanders, Germany, and Italy, not to
speak of those in France, Spain, and England, were much more than centers of
trade, industry, and finance. Within their walls learning and art flourished to
an extent which had never been possible in earlier times, when rural life
prevailed throughout western Europe. We shall now see what the cities of the
Middle Ages contributed to civilization.
