The history of Belgium and the Belgian people does not begin to date merely from 1830, not even from the fifteenth century. It dates in fact from the time when, during the fifth century, Gallo-Romans and Germanic invaders intermingled and laid the basis of that ethnical and linguistic duality that has been for many centuries the characteristic of the Belgian populace and has impressed its mark on the whole course of Belgian history. The real unity of the history of Belgium in ante-modern times has been brought into notice by one of Belgium’s leading historians, Henri Pirenne, professor in the University of Ghent, in his admirable work, _Histoire de Belgique_. Before the publication of this work, few scholars understood how to treat the history of Belgium during the Middle Ages. Having in mind only the political aspect of that history, they were lost in the particular history of the various duchies and counties; they saw scarcely any link between the facts of these different historical sections, and they forgot entirely to take account of the unifying factor--the common culture and civilization. Since historians have had their attention called to that unifying factor, the history of Belgium has been looked upon in a different manner. It is in the light of that method that I shall try to explain the course of the historical development of the country. The national culture of Belgium is a synthesis, if I may so call it, where one finds the genius of two races--the Romance and the Germanic--mingled, yet modified by the imprint of the distinctively Belgian. It is in that very receptivity--the fact that it has absorbed and unified the best elements of Latin and Teutonic civilization--that the originality of the Belgian national culture resides. These distinctive marks of national culture, denoting the unity of a people, and serving, both in the Middle Ages and today, to distinguish the Belgian nation from the other nations of Europe, may be described as a common desire for independence and freedom, a jealous regard for those popular rights which serve as a guaranty of the continuance of independence and freedom, and a deeply religious spirit. In the course of their history the Belgians have always cast off the yoke of those princes who, like Philip II, Joseph II, and William I of Holland, attacked their liberties and privileges, or who, like Joseph II and William I of Holland, tried to impose their own religious beliefs on them. Those characteristics of the Belgian nation, as well as its common civilization, were born during the Middle Ages. For that reason I shall deal in a special manner with the different aspects of religious, artistic, literary, and economic life during that period. After the treatment of the political unity of the Belgian provinces achieved in the fifteenth century, more attention will be given to the political aspect of events, without, however, entirely neglecting the different forms of popular life and social activity.