Tapestry weaving was introduced into Flanders during the time of the Crusades, the reports of the returning crusaders regarding the splendid carpets and rugs of the Orient arousing a desire on the part of the Flemish weavers to imitate them. Castle walls, however thick and strongly built, were apt to be damp and cold and a great demand speedily sprang up for the new productions for wall coverings. Starting at Arras and Tournai, the manufacture of tapestries spread to all the cities in the valley of the Scheldt and received a particularly important development at Audenaerde, which soon became the leading tapestry centre of Flanders. The weavers adopted Saint Barbara as their patron, and in 1441 were organised into a corporation. In their original charter it was stipulated that each apprentice must work three years for his first employer. Despite the severity of this regulation the manufacture of tapestries expanded with such rapidity that in 1539 no less than twenty thousand persons--including men, women and children--were employed as tapestry weavers at Audenaerde and its environs. Among the famous Flemish artists who painted designs for the tapestry weavers of Audenaerde may be mentioned Floris, Coxcie, Rubens, David Teniers, Gaspar de Witte, Victor Janssens, Peter Spierinckx, Adolphus de Gryeff, and Alexander Van Bredael, while there were a host of others. Gradually, however, the artisans began to be discontented with their rate of pay, which the master tapestry makers kept at a low figure, and the advent of the religious wars found them eager to join any movement of revolt. After the outburst of the iconoclasts and the arrival of the Duke of Alva many fled to the Dutch provinces and to England, never to return. This emigration continued well into the seventeenth century, as various decrees passed by the magistrates between 1604 and 1621, confiscating the possessions of such emigrants, testify. [Illustration: A FLEMISH TAPESTRY OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.] Another cause that contributed to the ruin of the tapestry industry at Audenaerde was the active effort made by the Kings of France, Louis XIII and Louis XIV, to induce the best weavers and master-workmen to emigrate to Paris. Philippe Robbins, one of the most celebrated master-weavers of Audenaerde, was invited to come to France in 1622 and was afterwards proclaimed at Beavais to be the _Chef de tous les tapitsers du Roy_. Many of the weavers who went to Paris and Brussels on their own account established ateliers where they manufactured what they proclaimed to be _veritables tapis d'Audenaerde_, and this competition still further injured the industry which soon afterward disappeared entirely from the city that gave its name to this type of tapestry and has never since been re-established there. With the departure of its weavers the little city on the Scheldt rapidly declined in importance, and for the past two centuries has been the sleepy little market-town that it is to-day.