At the junction
of the Schelde with the Lys and Lei, there grew up in the very early
Middle Ages a trading town, named Gent in Flemish, and Gand in French,
but commonly Anglicized as Ghent. It lay on a close network of rivers
and canals, formed partly by these two main streams, and partly by the
minor channels of the Lieve and the Moere, which together intersect it
into several islands.
Such a tangle of inland waterways, giving access to the sea and to
Bruges, Courtrai, and Tournai, as well as less directly to Antwerp
and Brussels, ensured the rising town in early times considerable
importance. It formed the center of a radiating commerce. Westward,
its main relations were with London and English wool ports; eastward
with Cologne, Maastricht, the Rhine towns, and Italy.
Ghent was always the capital of East Flanders, as Bruges or Ypres were
of the Western province; and after the Counts lost possession of
Arras and Artois, it became in the thirteenth century their principal
residence and the metropolis of the country....
Early in the fourteenth century, the burghers of Ghent, under their
democratic chief, Jacob or Jacques Van Artevelde, attained practical
independence.
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