was a strong tendency not to let Lotharingia or Flanders be drawn into the circle of German or French policy. The spirit of independence remained alive, and when, in the eleventh century, political conditions became more favourable, an entente between the Belgian princes on both sides of the Scheldt was the natural result of the weakening of the central power. Such an entente brought about finally, in the early days of the fifteenth century, the complete reunion of both parts of the country. So that the history of Belgium, from the tenth century to the early Renaissance, may be considered as the history of a small part of France and a small part of Germany, which, after struggling for independence against their respective masters, gradually joined hands in order to submit themselves to the rule of common national princes. It would be an error to attribute the separatist leanings of the nobles in Flanders and Lotharingia to national feeling, at a time when this feeling scarcely existed in Western Europe. No doubt, the resistance offered by the Belgian nobles to their foreign sovereigns might be simply represented as the direct effect of the feudal system and of the jealous pride which every vassal entertained towards his suzerain. But, if local ambitions became supreme in Europe in the tenth century, we may at least point out that, owing to the mixed characters of language and race prevailing in Belgium, and to the peculiar position occupied by Flanders and Lotharingia, nowhere were those tendencies more evident than in these distant marches of France and Germany. Just as, at a later stage, Bruges and Ghent became the most accomplished types of the independent mediaeval communes, the counts of Flanders and the princes of Lotharingia offered the most perfect examples of the restless feudal princes.