As early as the ninth century, under the rule of Charlemagne, these characteristics began to show themselves. The Emperor chose Aix-la-Chapelle for his capital, not only because he possessed vast domains in the region, but also because, from this central position, he was better able to keep in contact with the governors of a vast Empire which extended from the Elbe to Spain and Italy. Aix-la-Chapelle, "the Northern Rome," became the metropolis of commerce as well as the political capital. The various intellectual centres created in the neighbourhood, at the monasteries of Liége, Tongres, and Maesyck attracted English, Irish, French and Italian poets, musicians, lawyers and theologians.
Later, in the twelfth century, when the free Communes developed all over Western Europe and succeeded in breaking the power of feudalism, it was left to Ghent and Bruges to raise the free city to a standard of independence and prosperity which it did not attain in other countries, placed under a stronger central power. In the shadow of their proud belfries over 80,000 merchants and artisans pursued their active trade, and Bruges, "the Venice of the North," became the principal port of Europe and the centre of banking activity.
The part played by the Burgundian Dukes in European politics during the Hundred Years' War is well known in this country, but the importance of their action in unifying the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands is not sufficiently realized. In fact, in spite of their foreign origin, their policy was so much inspired by the interest of the country that they may be considered as national princes. The "Great Dukes of the West" did for Belgium, in the fifteenth century, what Louis XI did for France, and what Henry VIII did for England, half a century later. They succeeded in centralizing public institutions and in suppressing, to a great extent, local jealousies and internal strife which weakened the nation and wasted her resources. Under their rule the Belgian provinces rose to an unequalled intellectual and artistic splendour and gave to the world, by the paintings of the brothers Van Eyck and their school, one of the most brilliant expressions of the early Renaissance.