as divided into factions,--the partisans and enemies of
France. Prominent were the _Clauwaerts_ and the _Leliarts_, from the
lion's claw and the _fleur-de-lis_ which they respectively wore on
their badges. The country, which has ever been one of the
battle-fields of Europe, was abandoned to all the horrors of civil
war. The Duke of Brabant was childless. The Count of Flanders gave his
daughter, his only legitimate child, in marriage to the Duke of
Burgundy; and the provinces soon came into the hands of those
ambitious and restless enemies of the Court of France. It may easily
be imagined that these events were not without their influence on a
language deteriorated on the one hand by constant contact with a
Romanic idiom, and in Holland by the transmission of the sovereign
crown to the House of Avesnes.

The "Chambers of Rhetoric," an institution peculiar to the Low
Countries, reached their highest point of prosperity under the
Burgundian rule. The wandering life of poets and authors had nearly
ceased. The _Gezellen_, settled in towns, and moved by the prevalent
spirit which prompted men of one calling to unite into bodies,
naturally fell into corporations analogous to the Guilds. Without
attaching any very definite or clear idea to the term Rhetoric which
they employed, these associations exerted great influence upon the
whole literature of the Netherlands. Many would date their origin as
far back as the early part of the twelfth century. In Alost, the
Catherinists claimed to have existed as early as 1107, on the mere
strength of their motto, AMOR VINCIT. At any rate, we are left
entirely to conjecture with regard to the first beginnings of these
literary guilds, which seem in many respects an imitation of the
poetical societies of Provence. Every poet of note was a participant
in them. In Flanders there was scarcely a town or village that did not
possess its Chamber. Brabant, Holland, Zealand soon followed in the
movement. One of the principal, the Fountain of Ghent, seems to have
exercised a certain supremacy over the other confraternities of art.

The proceedings of these companies, protected at first by princes,
were carried on with great magnificence. They were in constant
communication with each other throughout the country. Their _facteurs_
or poets composed songs and theatrical pieces, which were performed by
the members. They had a long array of officers, with princely names;
and none was complete without a j