But the sturdy people of these thriving towns were very jealous of the fundamental rights which had come down to them from their German ancestors. A painting by the Belgian artist, Hennebicq, depicts a landmark in the history of the Netherlands--Baldwin VI, Count of Flanders, granting a charter of rights to the citizens of Grammont, whose representatives stand before him with drawn swords. Baldwin, a kingly, dignified figure, stands on a low platform, his left hand resting on his sheathed sword, while the townsmen before him swear allegiance in return for the guarantee of their liberties. The story is this: Count Baldwin bought the land belonging to one Baron Gerard, and laid it out as a town, to which the name Grammont was given, meaning Gerard's Mont, or hill. To the men of this town the Count gave, in 1068, the first charter of liberties ever granted in Europe. Not until 1215 was England's Magna Charta wrung from King John. By the charter were granted "(1) individual liberty; (2) the right to hold, buy, sell, inherit, or devise property; (3) the privilege of being judged by a tribunal of '_échevins_' (councillors) elected in accordance with local statutes, of giving evidence and of being exempt from the judicial ordeals that still obtained throughout Belgium." The townsmen were also allowed the ownership of the neighbouring forest and the use of the meadows to pasture their cattle. A single reading of this summary, while it shows how very elementary were these provisions, yet makes it plain that this was the germ of those later charters guaranteeing the fundamental rights of man. In the words of an eminent writer, the Belgian _commune_ of this period was essentially "a confederacy of the inhabitants of a town, living within the gates, who bound themselves by an oath to lend advice and a helping hand and to be true to one another, mutually and individually." The most striking prerogatives of this free association, says the same author, were "(1) a municipal counting-house; (2) a common house, or town hall; (3) a seal; (4) a belfry (_belfort_ in Flemish), a lofty tower which contained the town bell, and which ordinarily served as a prison or a repository for the archives; and (5) an arsenal." Besides these communal rights, there were individual, property and judicial rights guaranteed by the charters of the towns, as was mentioned in connection with the charter of Grammont. Serfs became freemen. The vexatious _droit de halle_ was done away with, by which all kinds of goods must be sold in a given place and were subject to heavy duties. From this came, it is said, those immense _halles_, most of which were built before the towns received their charters. Henceforward, justice was to be administered by councillors drawn from the wealthy burghers and "juries" representing the trade guilds, and fines and penalties were no longer arbitrary impositions but were fixed by law.