Under the influence of such commercial and industrial conditions as we have recited, the life of the country people and the control of the soil were entirely transformed. After the twelfth century the old agricultural régime broke down and servitude became an exception; generally speaking, the peasant was thenceforward a free man, like the burgess. This important change came in connection with the crisis introduced by the new economic conditions of the twelfth century. At this time the value of money decreased rapidly and both the ecclesiastical and lay landlords found themselves threatened with bankruptcy. The methods of the old economic organization had to be changed if ruin was to be averted. New methods, therefore, were introduced by the Cistercian monks. The houses of this monastic order were very numerous at the beginning of the twelfth century; they constituted a class of an entirely new type. Most of their establishments were located among the marshes and heaths, which they were obliged to convert into fertile soil. For that work the monks alone were insufficient; they needed the help of so-called lay-brethren, who cultivated and fertilized the land. Round the monasteries themselves they established large farms, which became centers of new agricultural methods. The raising of cattle and the culture of corn were now their main business, and the crops were not merely intended for the consumption of the convent but a large part was sent to market to be sold. The peasants employed for this work were no longer “serfs,” but free workers coming from outside. Servitude did not exist on the territory owned by the Cistercians. The monks soon became wealthy capitalists, but they utilized their means in clearing the heaths of the Campine, the forests of Hainaut, and in creating the “polders” of the Flemish coast. At the end of the thirteenth century the clearing of the land was finished and the farms and “polders” were rented out to free farmers. That system was likewise followed by the other monastic orders, and the class of free farmers soon grew more and more numerous. The example given by the Cistercians was followed by laymen. A large part of Brabant, Hainaut, Flanders, and Namur was covered with heaths, woods, and marshes. The dukes and counts, seeing what had been accomplished, began to order this wild land to be cleared. Along with the clearing of the soil came the foundation of new cities. The Belgian cities whose names contain the suffix _-sart_, _-rode_, or _-kerke_[12] date from this time. In order to get workers enough for clearing the land, the princes sought to attract them by granting special privileges, such as complete personal freedom and cession of land subject to a very small payment. A new type of peasant was born in Flanders--the peasant who was a freeman and who also owned his land. The peasants of Hainaut, Namur, and Ardennes were, of course, less in touch with the modern spirit; the different commercial and