The annexation of Walloon Flanders by France deprived the Flemish cloth industry of one of its sources of raw material, and it became necessary to obtain it from England. Since that time Flanders and England have been naturally dependent on each other and in this fact is to be found the reason for the close alliance between these countries, from a political point of view, especially in the fourteenth century. The commercial relations between Flanders and England were monopolized by a powerful association of wool importers, the Hansa of London, composed of Flemish tradesmen. After a while the cloth industry developed to such an extent that the supply of English wool was no longer sufficient: wool from Spain and Navarre was also employed. [Illustration: THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF SAINT GUDULA, BRUSSELS] Aside from the territory in which the cloth industry flourished, Belgium possessed also an agricultural region, far less developed, of which Hainaut was the center. Here the cities were merely large villages: Mons, Binche, and Ath cannot be compared with the cities of Flanders and Brabant. Namur and Luxemburg also were merely agricultural regions with no more than 8,000 and 5,000 population, respectively; whereas Ghent and Bruges had a populace of no less than 80,000, at least at the climax of their development. In the valley of the Meuse, cities like Saint-Trond and Huy, where the cloth industry flourished in smaller degree, were unable to rival those of Flanders. The city of Dinant, on the Meuse, which, as stated before, was, from the end of the tenth century, engaged in the copper industry, may be singled out. The products of Dinant, called _dinanderie_, were exported throughout Europe. The merchants of Dinant had a storehouse in London and were members of the Hanseatic Association. Finally, there remains the city of Liège in Eastern Belgium. This was a city of priests, the residence of the bishop-prince. It was filled with churches, convents, and chapels. The land was owned largely by religious communities. But the priests were more numerous than the burgesses.[11] There was no thought here of industry until the end of the Middle Ages, when this part of the country became the seat of collieries and ironworks.