Bruges and the Flemish Cities

Bruges, the great emporium of the North, was the principal market for the goods of the Baltic in the West, and it was the city where the merchants of the League met the merchants of Italy, France, and Spain. The city was not a member of the League, but it was the League’s principal trading partner, and the kontor at Bruges, established in the 1250s, was one of the four great kontore of the League. The relationship between the League and the Flemings was, in many ways, the most important foreign relationship of the League, and the relationship was often tense.

This article describes the relationship between the League and the Flemish cities, beginning with the great fairs of Bruges and the kontor at Bruges, continuing with the wars between the League and the dukes of Burgundy, and ending with the decline of Bruges and the rise of Antwerp.

The great fairs of Bruges

Bruges was, in the late Middle Ages, one of the most important commercial centres of Europe. The city’s great fairs, the Foires de Bruges, were held twice a year, in the spring and in the autumn, and they attracted merchants from all over Europe. The fairs were the principal market for the cloth of Flanders, the wool of England, and the goods of the Baltic, and the fairs were the principal meeting point for the merchants of the League and the merchants of the Italian and Iberian peninsulas.

The great fairs of Bruges were, in the first instance, a Flemish institution. They had been established by the counts of Flanders in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and they were protected by a series of privileges that the counts granted to the merchants who attended. The privileges included the right to be judged by their own law in disputes with the Flemings, the right to be exempt from most customs duties, and the right to be protected from arbitrary arrest. The privileges were valuable, and they were the principal attraction of the fairs for foreign merchants.

A useful note on the timing: the great fairs of Bruges were held in March (Easter) and October (Michaelmas), and they were, in effect, the seasonal climax of Flemish commercial life. The League’s Hansetag sometimes timed its own meetings to coincide with the fairs, so that delegates could attend both — a pattern that began in the late 13th century and continued through the 15th.

The kontor at Bruges

The kontor at Bruges, established in the 1250s, was one of the four great kontore of the League. The kontor was located in a designated quarter of the city, and it was governed by a council of aldermen, elected by the merchants of the participating cities. The kontor had its own warehouses, its own hostels, and its own church, and the merchants of the kontor were governed by Hanseatic law in disputes with the Flemings.

The kontor at Bruges was the principal channel through which the League’s merchants conducted their trade in the West. The kontor’s merchants were the principal buyers of the cloth of Flanders, the principal sellers of the goods of the Baltic, and the principal source of credit for the Flemish cloth industry. The kontor was also the principal channel through which the League’s relations with the counts of Flanders and, later, with the dukes of Burgundy were managed.

A specific note: the Bruges kontor is the least documented of the four great kontore in the primary sources. The Steelyard in London, the Peterhof in Novgorod, and the Bergen kontor all have substantial archives, but the Bruges kontor is known mainly from the secondary sources (Flemish chronicles, Italian merchant reports). The reason is partly that the kontor’s records were not preserved when the kontor declined in the late 15th century, and partly that the kontor was the most cosmopolitan of the four, drawing merchants from all over the League, and so had no single archive to be preserved in.

The wars with Flanders and Burgundy

The relationship between the League and the Flemings was not always peaceful, and the League fought several wars with the counts of Flanders and the dukes of Burgundy. The first major conflict was the embargo of 1280–81, in which the Wendish towns closed their markets to the merchants of Flanders in retaliation for a series of attacks on Hanseatic merchants. The embargo was effective, and the count of Flanders was forced to renew the privileges of the Hanseatic merchants.

The second major conflict was the war of 1358–60, in which the League and the count of Flanders clashed over the privileges of the kontor. The war was inconclusive, and the privileges of the kontor were largely preserved.

The third and most serious conflict was the war with the duke of Burgundy in the 1460s and 1470s. The war began as a dispute over the herring trade and the privileges of Hanseatic merchants in Bruges, and it escalated into a full-scale war between the League and the duke of Burgundy. The League’s fleet was defeated for the first time in a major naval engagement at the Battle of Reimerswaal in 1473, and the Peace of Cadzand in 1477, although not catastrophic in its terms, marked the end of the League’s commercial dominance in the West.

The other Flemish cities

Bruges was the principal Flemish city for the League’s merchants, but the merchants also traded in the other great cities of Flanders: Ghent, Ypres, Antwerp, Brussels, and Mechelen. Each of these cities had its own cloth industry, its own merchant class, and its own privileges, and each had a different relationship with the League.

Ghent was, in the late Middle Ages, the largest city in the Low Countries, and it was an important centre of the cloth trade. The city’s merchants were, however, often at odds with the counts of Flanders and the dukes of Burgundy, and the city was frequently in revolt. The relationship between Ghent and the League was therefore more variable than the relationship between Bruges and the League.

A specific note on Ghent: Ghent was, by the 15th century, the second-largest city in northern Europe (after Paris), with perhaps 60,000+ inhabitants. The city’s cloth industry was the largest in Flanders, and the city was a principal supplier of the Hanseatic cloth trade. The city’s political turbulence, however, made it a less reliable partner for the League than the more orderly Bruges.

Ypres was, in the late Middle Ages, an important centre of the cloth trade, and it was a major exporter of fine woollens. The city’s merchants had close relations with the merchants of the League, and the city’s cloth was among the most prized in the Baltic.

Antwerp was, in the late Middle Ages, a relatively small city, but it grew rapidly in the sixteenth century as the centre of the new Atlantic trade. The city’s rise was, in part, the product of the decline of Bruges, and the League’s relations with Antwerp were, in the early modern period, increasingly important.

The decline of Bruges

Bruges began to decline in the late fifteenth century, and the decline was marked by a series of crises that gradually eroded the foundations of the city’s prosperity. The first of these crises was the silting up of the Zwin, the waterway that connected the city to the sea. The silting, which had been going on for several centuries, accelerated in the fifteenth century, and the great ships could no longer reach the city’s quays. The merchants of the city began to move to Antwerp, which had a better harbour and which was becoming the new centre of the Atlantic trade.

The second crisis was the wars with Burgundy, which disrupted the city’s trade and which damaged the kontor at Bruges. The merchants of the League were reluctant to return to Bruges after the wars, and they preferred to trade in Antwerp, where the privileges were more secure.

The third crisis was the religious troubles of the sixteenth century, which divided the city along confessional lines and which disrupted the city’s trade. The city’s economy never fully recovered, and Bruges declined from one of the most prosperous cities in Europe to a relatively small provincial city.

A useful note: Bruges’s decline is a case study in how commercial primacy can shift when geography and political conditions change. The silting of the Zwin was a natural process that could not have been reversed at reasonable cost; the Burgundian wars were a political event that the city could not have avoided; the religious troubles were a continent-wide phenomenon. The combination of the three was enough to end the city’s commercial primacy, and the city has been a relatively quiet provincial capital ever since.

The historic centre of Bruges today

The historic centre of Bruges is today a UNESCO World Heritage Site (inscribed 2000), recognised for its outstanding example of a medieval historic settlement that has maintained its historic fabric to a remarkable degree. The city’s principal tourist attractions are its medieval architecture, its museums, and its chocolate shops. The city’s Hanseatic past is a major part of its identity, and the city is a major tourist destination.