2.--Count Ferdinand of Portugal orders the Magistrates to fortify the town in 1214. 3.--Countess Jeanne of Constantinople setting prisoners free on Good Friday, 1206. 4.--5.--The Magistrates give the Countess Margaret the ransom of her son William, who was made prisoner during the 7th Crusade. 6.--Building the West wing of the Guild Hall in the time of Guy of Dampierre, 1285. 7.--8.--Return of the armed forces of Ypres in 1302 after the Battle of the Spurs. 9.--The Plague, known as la Morte d'Ypres, in 1347. 10.--11.--Banquet offered in this very hall to Mahaut, Countess of Flanders, and Matthew, Duke of Lorraine on their marriage in 1314. 12.--An episode of the siege of Ypres by the English and the men of Ghent in 1383. As will be noted, the pictures are not arranged in exact chronological order, but, taken together, they form a wonderful pictorial summary of the city's history--down to the Fall of 1914, which merits a separate gallery by itself. To us the most impressive of the series was the vast picture in two sections showing the triumphant return from the Battle of Courtrai and the tragic representation of the Black Death, which swept through all the densely populated Flemish towns; but was more destructive at Ypres than elsewhere. The visitation here represented was by no means the only one in the city's history, and for centuries _la morte d'Ypres_ was a name of terror throughout the countryside. In the section of the Great Hall beyond the belfry the mural paintings are the work of Louis Delbeke, a painter of Ypres. His pictures were the subject of violent criticism when they were first exhibited, and are entirely unlike those in the other portion of the chamber. The artist endeavoured to give his work an archaic appearance, in keeping with the antiquity of its surroundings, and it was his intention to symbolise the various manifestations of the public life of the city--Civic Freedom, Commerce, Industry, Charities, Literature and so on. The work was interrupted by his death and has never been completed.