[A transcriber's note is after the text.] _The Story of Brussels_ _The Mediæval Town Series_ ASSISI.* By LINA DUFF GORDON. [_4th Edition._ BRUGES.+ By ERNEST GILLIAT-SMITH. [_3rd Edition._ BRUSSELS.+ By ERNEST GILLIAT-SMITH. CAIRO.+ By STANLEY LANE-POOLE. CAMBRIDGE.+ By CHARLES W. STUBBS, D.D. CHARTRES.+ By CECIL HEADLAM. CONSTANTINOPLE.* By WILLIAM H. HUTTON. [_2nd Edition._ EDINBURGH.+ By OLIPHANT SMEATON. FERRARA.+ By ELLA NOYES. FLORENCE.+ By EDMUND G. GARDNER. [_8th Edition._ LONDON.+ By HENRY B. WHEATLEY. [_2nd Edition._ MOSCOW.* By WIRT GERRARE. [_2nd Edition._ NUREMBERG.* By CECIL HEADLAM. [_4th Edition._ PERUGIA.* By MARGARET SYMONDS and LINA DUFF GORDON. [_5th Edition._ PRAGUE.* By COUNT LUTZOW. ROME.+ By NORWOOD YOUNG. [_4th Edition._ ROUEN.+ By THEODORE A. COOK. [_2nd Edition._ SEVILLE.+ By WALTER M. GALLICHAN. SIENA.+ By EDMUND G. GARDNER. [_2nd Edition._ TOLEDO.* By HANNAH LYNCH. [_2nd Edition._ VERONA.+ By ALETHEA WIEL. [_2nd Edition._ VENICE.+ By THOMAS OKEY. _The prices of these (*) are 3s. 6d. net in cloth, 4s. 6d. net in leather; these (+) 4s. 6d. net in cloth, 5s. 6d. net in leather._ [Illustration: GEORGE ZELLE, PHYSICIAN. Painted by Bernard van Orley, Brussels, 1519.] _The Story of_ Brussels _by Ernest Gilliat-Smith_ _Illustrated by Katharine Kimball and Guy Gilliat-Smith_ [Illustration: Monogram] _London: J. M. Dent & Co. Aldine House, 29 and 30 Bedford Street Covent Garden, W.C. * * 1906_ _All Rights Reserved_ PREFACE Probably there is no quarter of Europe more thickly studded with mediæval towns than that embraced by the Flemish provinces of Belgium--the old Duchy of Brabant and the old County of Flanders. Curious places they are, some of them, little changed from what they were at the close of the fourteen hundreds; and some of them, so modernised that hardly anything is left to prove their identity but their geographical position and their names. All of these cities, however, have this in common, and this it is which makes them so interesting: we know something of their general history, and something too of the intimate lives of the men and the women who inhabited them, five hundred years ago--how they were lodged and clothed, what they drank and ate, the way in which their food was dressed and their tables served, something of their distractions and their business pursuits, how they loved and hated, what they thought of this world, and what of the next.