The nobles--especially the lay nobles--protected the traders. At a time when landed property diminished considerably in value, they were a source of revenue. They paid tolls on the rivers, on the roads, at the fairs. They provided all lingeries, silks, spices, furs, jewels, etc.; their ships could be equipped for war. These were sufficient reasons for the princes to grant the wandering traders a certain freedom and a privileged position in the State, and even to fight any noble who persecuted them and robbed them of their wares. At the beginning of the twelfth century, trade not only moved from south to north, on Belgium's many navigable streams; it ran also from east to west along a new road connecting Bruges with Cologne, through Maestricht, St. Trond, Leau, Louvain, Brussels, Alost and Ghent, all these places occupying some favourable geographical position. The origin of the prosperity of Antwerp dates from this period, a certain part of the wares being transported to this spot by the Scheldt from Ghent. The Bruges-Cologne road eventually ruined the trade of the latter place, to the great advantage of agricultural Brabant, which was, by this means, drawn into the economic movement then revolutionizing social conditions on the Meuse and the Scheldt. [_ARTISANS_] Had this movement continued to be purely commercial, social conditions would not have undergone such a rapid change, for the number of settlers would have remained relatively small. But, already in the eleventh century, the "porters" and "emporia" proved a centre of attraction, not only to discontented serfs and would-be merchants, but to skilled artisans, mostly clothmakers in Flanders and metal-workers on the Meuse. From the early days of the Menapii the inhabitants of Northern Belgium had a reputation for working the wool of their sheep. Under Charlemagne, it had already become their principal industry. In the eleventh century, with the conquest of new "polders" upon the sea and the extension of the area of rich low meadows, the quantity of wool increased considerably, and, more raw material becoming available, the cloth industry developed accordingly. From the building of a protective dyke to the weaver bending over his loom and to the ship carrying valuable Flemish cloth from Bruges to London or any other part of the European coast, there is a natural chain of thought. But the progress accomplished along the coast may also be connected with the foundation and development of the first towns and the chimes of the belfries.