They were pulled down in the beginning of the seventeenth century,
and replaced by the stone edifice, in the style of the Spanish
Renaissance, which now goes by the name of the Nieuwerck, with its
ten shapely arches supported by slender pillars, above whose sculptured
capitals rise tiers of narrow windows and the steeply-pitched roof
with gables of curiously carved stone. Ypres had ceased to be a
great commercial city long before the Nieuwerck was built; but the
Cloth Hall was a busy place during the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, when Ypres shared with Bruges the responsibility of
managing the Flemish branch of the Hanseatic League.
The extensive system of monopolies which the League maintained
was, as a matter of course, the cause of much jealousy and bad
feeling. In Flanders, Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres defended their own
privileges against other towns, and quarrelled amongst themselves.
The merchants of Ypres had a monopoly which forbade all weaving for
three leagues round the town, under a penalty of fifty livres and
confiscation of the looms and linen woven; but the weavers in the
neighbouring communes infringed this monopoly, and sold imitations of
Ypres linen cloth on all hands.
Pages:
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105