II.--Genealogical Table of the Counts of Louvain Lambert Longbeard _d._ 1015. (_See_ Table I.) | +------------------+------------------+ | | Henry I., Lambert II. (Balderic), _d._ 1038 _d._ 1063 | | | | Otho, _d._ 1041 Henry II., _d._ 1079 | | Henry III., _d._ 1095 | | Godfrey Longbeard, Count of Louvain from 1095, Duke of Brabant from 1106, _d._ January 15th, 1140 CHAPTER V _The Rise of Brussels and Louvain_ The cities of Belgium, unlike the cities of Italy or of the Rhine-land, or of France, which often go back to Roman times, and trace their descent to great administrative centres, date nearly all of them from the Middle Age, and are the children of industry and commerce. Bruges, Ypres, Ghent, the three _bonnes villes_ of Flanders, were not towns in the modern sense of the word until the beginning of the ten hundreds, and it was almost a century later before the farmers of Brussels and Mechlin and Louvain became manufacturers and merchants. Its geographical position between France and Germany, its long coast line, its nearness to England, its numerous navigable streams--all these things rendered the Low Country a region peculiarly adapted to mercantile pursuits; nor was it less favourably situated with regard to that industry which afterwards became, and for centuries remained, the staple trade of the country: the herbage of the seaboard was naturally suited to sheep, from time immemorial vast flocks of them grazed on the polders, and their wool was of the finest quality; thus there was at hand the raw material for the fabrication of cloth.