Bavon
at Ghent, the genius which coloured that matchless altar-piece
found its inspiration within the walls of Bruges.
The history of Bruges for many long years, especially under the
rule of the House of Burgundy, was, in the midst of war, turmoil,
and rebellion, the history of continuous progress. But all this
prosperity depended on the sea. So long as the Zwijn remained open,
neither war nor faction, not even the last great rising against
the Archduke Maximilian, which drove away the foreign merchants,
most of whom went to Antwerp, and so impoverished the town that
no less than 5,000 houses were standing empty in the year 1405,[*]
could have entirely ruined Bruges. These disasters might have been
retrieved if the channel of communication with Damme and Sluis had
not been lost; but for a long time the condition of this important
waterway had been the cause of grave anxiety to the people of Bruges.
The heavy volume of water which poured with every ebbing tide down
the Scheldt between Flushing and Breskens swept past the island of
Walcheren, and spread out into the North Sea and down the English
Channel, leaving the mud it carried with it on the sands round the
mouth of the Zwijn, which itself did not discharge a current strong
enough to prevent the slow but sure formation of a bank across its
entrance.
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