Bruges

bru'jez, a city in the western extremity of Belgium, seven miles from the port of Ostend. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Bruges was the headquarters of the Hanseatic League, and was the busiest commercial city in the world. Its population was rated at 200,000. Its merchant princes vied with royalty. Twenty foreign ministers resided within its walls. The queen of Philip the Fair of France was received in such state that she declared, "There are a hundred here who have more the air of queens than myself." At the height of its prosperity it was the silk and wool and cloth market of the world. Over 50,000 weavers were employed. The Duke of Burgundy instituted the Order of the Golden Fleece in honor of the wool merchants. An unsuccessful insurrection against the Archduke Maximilian in 1488 resulted in harsh measures. Commerce was driven to the rival city of Antwerp; manufactures were driven to England, laying the foundation of the country's superiority in cloth and cutlery. Bruges still has manufactures of silk, linen, cotton, and woolen goods, lace, leather, soap, starch, beverages, bells, and pottery, but the population has fallen to about 50,000.

To one who likes to ponder amid the associations of the past, Bruges is a more interesting city than Brussels. The finest chimes in Europe hang in the town belfry.

In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown.

Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.

The wood carvings of the court of justice and the town hall, darkened with age, are unsurpassed. Stained glass, paintings by the masters, towers, spires, and halls where fashion once held revel are on every side. Poets, historians, and thoughtful people find Bruges an interesting city. Longfellow climbed the belfry one morning ere the city was awake:

I beheld the pageants splendid that adorned those days of old;

Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of Gold.

Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies;

Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and ease.

Wordsworth, too, walked about the old market, musing on the changes.

See Belgium; Antwerp; Ghent