In the shadow of the Bruges belfry, amid English, French, German and Italian traders, a new civilization was born, which, combining the Latin and Germanic influences to which it was subjected, was soon to assert its own originality. Belgium had definitely broken down the barriers of feudalism. The same causes which had liberated her people had brought them into contact with the outside world. CHAPTER VII THE GOLDEN SPURS The political history of the last centuries of the Middle Ages is entirely dominated by the development of the Communes. Their influence is twofold. On one hand, they prevented the absorption of the country by the French kings; on the other, they delayed its unification under national princes. By safeguarding local liberties, they checked foreign ambitions, but, through their efforts to maintain their privileges and through their petty rivalries, they impeded, for a long time, the establishment of central institutions. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries they fostered trade and industry by affording due protection to the burgesses and forcing the princes to follow a policy in accordance with the interests of the country. During the fourteenth century they were weakened by internal struggles between classes and cities, and, through their trade restrictions, became an obstacle to the free development of the economic life of the nation. [_FLANDERS' INFLUENCE_] The cardinal event of the period is the Battle of Courtrai (1302), also called the Battle of the Golden Spurs, owing to the great number of these spurs collected on the battlefield after the defeat of the French knights by the Flemish militia. It was hailed at the time as a miraculous triumph for the commoners, the disproportion between the opposing forces being somewhat exaggerated by enthusiastic contemporary chroniclers. But its influence was not only social, it was national, for it definitely secured the independence of Flanders and of the other Belgian principalities against the increasing power of the French kings, and this rendered possible the unification of the country, which was accomplished, a century later, under the dukes of Burgundy. Illustration: SEAL OF THE TOWN OF DAMME. (1376). Illustration: SEAL OF GUY DE DAMPIERRE, COUNT OF FLANDERS (1278-1305).