parade the streets whining for that bread which they could no longer win. Well might the friar preach to men set in such straits the beauty of Christian humility and of Christian resignation, and bid them despise as dross that gold which they could not obtain. The weavers and dyers who hung on his lips possessed, of earthly goods, very often only the rags they stood up in; and the wealth which they saw around them, and which they could never hope to enjoy, they knew very well was in many cases the fruit of their underpaid toil, and that the holders of it, of like origin with themselves, were not only their rulers and taskmasters, but corrupt stewards of the common-weal--the men who managed the city, and managed it in their own interests. What wonder, then, that they soon began to confound contempt for riches with contempt for the rich, and that presently contempt engendered hatred. Were not the oppressors of the poor the enemies of Jesus Christ? Was it not easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God? Had not one of their preachers[8] told them that the rich man, even if he were righteous, was less worthy of esteem than the woman of the street? [8] Guillaume Cornelius of Antwerp. _See_ Thomas de Cantimpré (a native of Brussels, born in 1201), _Bonum universale de apibus_, p. 433 (Duaci, 1605). 'Il importe de remarquer toutefois,' notes Pirenne (vol. i. p. 353), 'que ce Cornelius était hérétique, mais, même dans l'église orthodoxe, des prédications analogues à celles de Lambert le Bègue (_see_ 'Story of Brussels.' p 233) et l'ardent mysticisme des premières béguines (_see_ pp. 228 and 233) devaient agir fortement sur le peuple.' [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII _The Coelveren and the Blankarden_ Strangely enough it was the patricians themselves who placed in the hands of the lesser folk the weapon with which they presently won independence. For years past it had been cause of just complaint that municipal affairs were managed in the interest of one class only, and before the middle of the twelve hundreds things had come to this pass: the men in office considered alone their own advantage and the advantage of their kinsfolk and their friends. Hence heartburning, jealousy, strife without end, the upper classes split into factions, and sometimes the fire thus enkindled burnt so fiercely that it could only be extinguished by the shedding of blood. This was so all over Brabant, and in the year 1260 there broke out a conflict which brought forth unlooked-for results. The Coelveren and the Blankarden were two of the mightiest families of Louvain; for generations past they had been rivals, and they hated one another with 'a perfect hatred.' Whatever may have been the first cause of their mutual hostility, the quarrel was of ancient date; it had been handed down from father to son, and had become in each case a family tradition.