Rebels from Liège besiege Maastricht in the late Middle Ages

In the Emperor’s Room of the council chambers in Rothenburg on the Tauber, there used to hang a painting, three metres high and six metres wide, representing rebels from Liège besieging Maastricht in 1408. The prince elect of the Walloon city, John of Bavaria, had entrenched himself in Maastricht, to keep his furious subjects at arm’s length. One sees in the background of the painting a burning city and a mountain on the left, and in the foreground fighting knights. The painting now hangs in Burghausen castle, but visitors should bear in mind that the depicted city is a fanciful rendering of Maastricht.

These days the inhabitants of both neighbour cities behave far more amicably towards each other, although the Walloon capital of Liège is more directed towards Paris. We don’t of course think that they would still attack each other with swords and sever heads. So what was going in 1408? To understand the situation, we begin our story back in the seventh century, before Liège even existed.

The origin of the city of Liège
In the seventh century, when the Roman founders of Mosae Trajectum had lain already 700 years beneath the daisies, Bishop Lambert was born in Maastricht. He was the last but one in a sequence of twenty-five holy bishops of Maastricht, where Saint Servatius had established a Christian society about three hundred years earlier. But why did Lambert settle 30 kilometres to the south of Maastricht in Wallonia? It must have been because of the Frankish major-domos, such as Pépin of Herstal, who were born and living in the area.

I don’t know whether Lambert used to speak Frankish with the major-domos or Latin. In any case, they didn’t speak Walloon. But if Bishop Lambert hadn’t rebuked Pepin so recklessly for his indecent conduct, probably nobody would have murdered the Bishop. Then Bishop Hubert wouldn’t have moved the Episcopal seat from Maastricht to the grave of his predecessor. And thus, the city of Liège would never have come into being next to the grave of Saint Lambert.

The origin of the prince-bishopric Liège
The Frankish king Charlemagne, who was born in this same region, had been worrying about threats of invasion from the Vikings and the Muslims. Therefore, he wished to revive the Roman empire and the peace belonging to it, the pax Romana, but in a Christian version. The pope found this an excellent idea. In 800, he crowned king Charles emperor of the whole of the Occident.

However, after the death of Charles’ son Louis the Pious, the Frankish empire was divided among the three main heirs. Two of these three parts were to evolve into present-day France and, very roughly speaking, Germany. In the tenth century, the Limburg region belonged to the German controlled holy Roman empire. The bishops of Liège received the surrounding country as a feudal tenure from the German emperor. Henceforth, they were called prince-bishops.

The first of them, Notger, built beautiful churches and a residential palace (however this palace is not the present one). There is a well known saying: “Liège owes Notger to God and the rest to Notger”. About one century later on, the first wall around the town was erected. Liège blossomed into a centre of culture and was called “Athens of the north”.

Causes of the wars
After Charlemagne, the power of the emperors gradually crumbled. This was partially due to the Frankish hereditary rights. Marriage was a mere tool to gather rights. Whenever a sovereign needed support from a feudal tenant in a succession war, the tenant grew independent of the sovereign, because the latter owed the tenant for his services. On the other hand, the inhabitants of the towns became ever richer, especially after the crusades. Whenever a city supported a noble with manpower or money, it gained more independence in exchange. After the Battle of the Golden Spurs, in which farmers with morgensterns and hay forks beat knights on horseback, the citizens knew that the nobles were no longer unassailable.

With this recounting of events, you may think there was war every day. That is of course not the case. The knights were often hunting or taking part in a tournament, the monks were usually engaged in praying and chanting, and the citizens in working and… feasting. In the Middle Ages, there were many more church festivals than now. People made joyful use of these opportunities.

Troubles in Liège in the second half of the Middle Ages
After the eleventh century, the prince-bishopric suffered quite a lot, even apart from the bubonic plague. First, the popes and the emperors fought for earthly power at the cost of the poor, because the popes did not yet restrict themselves to spiritual affairs. Thereafter, the bishops fought against the dukes of Brabant, who wished to add parts of the Liège country to their own domain. Finally, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, the citizens of the Walloon town had enough of it. They began to free themselves from the tyranny of the corrupted canons and bishops.

By 1307, a Liège bishop had already fled from his subjects to Maastricht, and, before long, some criminals set fire to a Liège church full of nobles - the infamous mal Saint-Martin. So it’s quite appropriate that people call Liège the “ardent city” (”la cité ardente”).

Wise men could still hush up the troubles: eventually, a treaty was signed between the prince-bishop and his subjects. Henceforth, the prince-bishop was responsible to a tribunal, consisting of twenty-two representatives of the people. That was the beginning of democracy in the city and in the prince-bishopric.

The overall situation in Maastricht
By 1350, Maastricht was beginning to resemble our present historic centre: the stone bridge of Saint Servatius, both city walls, the three large churches, the house called ‘Dinghuis’, and some monasteries already existed. However, most of the houses were made of wood and loam, with thatched roofs. There was no town hall at the Market yet, nor any fortification outside the city walls. At the eastern riverside, the district Wijck was still very small, with a primitive Saint Martin church. There was no significant garrison yet, except in times of war. There was no large scale industry, and hence there were no industry workers. Women largely outnumbered men.

The composition of the population was complex: as an inhabitant of Maastricht, you could be a noble or a monk, a free or unfree citizen. The free citizens were united in guilds, like the Cloth Weavers’ Guild and the Tanners’ Guild.

Things were even more complicated because there were two Lords: the duke of Brabant and the prince-bishop of Liège. Hence the saying: “Trajectum neutri Domino, sed paret utrique” (or “Maastricht belongs to neither of both Lords, but to both of them”). Unless you were a monk or a nun, you were subject to either Liège or to Brabant. Independently, you could live in the bishop’s domain, in the duke’s domain, or in the domain that belonged to both Lords together. Mostly there were many pilgrims and other strangers in the town, because the holy grave of Saint Servatius attracted many visitors. Whenever the soldiers caught a criminal, it was quite a puzzle to know which authority should judge of him.

John of Arkel
The prince-bishops were ever more often at loggerheads with their own citizens. The guilds stood up again for their rights and liberties, and for the old customs and traditions, dating from heathen times. Of course, they made use of party strife among the nobles. In 1374, Bishop John of Arkel fled to Maastricht. The following year, his revolting subjects seriously besieged Maastricht for the first time.

John of Arkel requested support from his highest master on earth: the pope. The Bishop contended that the citizens were very ungrateful. Indeed, he had always been careful with money, and he acquired only recently the Loon countship (which, roughly speaking, corresponded to today’s Belgian Limburg). Pope Gregory XI excommunicated the evil-doers. The siege was lifted.

Within a year, John of Arkel destroyed the surroundings of his rebellious civilians. The bishop and his people made a provisional new arrangement: the people couldn’t directly call the bishop to account.

John of Bavaria
In 1390, the canons of Liège elected John of Bavaria their prince-bishop. He was a rough fellow. He refused the ecclesiastical ordinations and left the church affairs to an auxiliary bishop. He terrorised his ministers, appeared in armour before the canons, and used to throw his sword on the table whenever decisions seemed to be difficult. The man also argued about hereditary questions with his niece Jacoba of Bavaria, who became in later years a well known countess of Holland. This quarrel was an important part of the so-called quarrels of the Hooks and the Codfishes. The Cods (often the citizens) got this name because of their alleged gluttony, and the Hooks (often the nobles) were the fishing hooks with which people angle for cods.

In 1402, the prince-bishop fled to Maastricht, where the loyal citizens gave him hospitality. He settled in the castle of the Teutonic Knights, where the old paper factory is now located. The famous painter Jan van Eijck also shared this domicile. Only five years later, in the winter of 1407, the godless rebels from Liège came before Maastricht to bring the bishop to heel. They not only revolted against their lawful prince-bishop, but they also supported the antipope of Avignon.

The siege of Maastricht
It was an extremely cold winter. The rebels arrived with an army of tens of thousands, raised in the city of Liège and in the whole prince-bishopric. From a high wooden staging, a so-called cat, they threw stones, fire bombs, faeces and even corpses into the city. But it was so cold that their horses froze to death, and the attackers retired. The bishop pursued them and took revenge in a terrible manner in the villages of the prince-bishopric. Then the bishop travelled to the Rhineland, where he recruited some fifteen hundred Bavarian horsemen.

In the spring, the stubborn mutineers appeared before Maastricht again. They dammed up the Jeker river, to render the mills useless. In substitution, the Maastricht citizens used ship mills on the tiny island Griend in the Maas river. A newly established guild of bowmen, the Sebastians, guarded these ship mills. The besieged citizens undertook sallies to the country to provide themselves with victuals.

In June, prince-bishop John of Bavaria returned to Maastricht. His riders broke through the enemy’s lines. In the mean time, the Burgundian duke John the Fearless came to the bishop’s rescue with a considerable army. He sent the insurgents fleeing away, and beat them near Tongeren in the Battle of Othée. Eight thousand rebels perished on that day. Between Liège and Maastricht there was no tree standing but that some rebel was hung on it. The burgomaster of Liège was beheaded and quartered on the Vrijthof Square.

How did it end?
John of Bavaria reversed every privilege of his subjects, and reigned relentlessly henceforth. From then on, he bore the nickname John the Pitiless. Somebody eventually poisoned him in 1425, when he was just fifty years old. So, after all, the rebellion didn’t turn out very well for his insurgent people.

In Maastricht, people triumphantly carried about the beautiful shrine of distress with the relics of Saint Servatius, which they normally didn’t bring out except in times of emergency. The citizens were allowed to fill in a form for reimbursement for war damage, because they had stayed true to John of Bavaria. At the top of the form, there was a standard text in print, saying: “… dat omme die guede stat van Tricht nyet gelijden en conde des groeten onrechtz ende honnen genedegen lieven here te hulpen stoenden … ” (or ” … because the good city of Maastricht could not bear the terrible injustice and came to the aid of their merciful good Lord …”). The Maastricht city archives still have an example of such a Claim for Damages, in which one Johan Moreez declares the loss of a certain quantity of rye.

The Burgundians
Because of the intervention of John the Fearless, the prince-bishops owed the dukes of Burgundy gratitude. In fact, all cities gradually began to support the duke of Burgundy and his policy of unification. Thus, Philip the Good could unite the Netherlands under his own power after 1430. This was the early beginning of what was to become, later on, the Republic of the United Netherlands.

In 1467, the Burgundian duke Charles the Bold thoroughly destroyed Liège once again. But in the sixteenth century, the town finally went through a long period of rest and prosperity. Bishop Everhard van der Marck began to build the prince bishop palace of today.

Liège today
Just like Maastricht, Liège constructed an elaborate system of fortifications in the seventeenth century, and in the following century, it even maintained a Dutch garrison. After the French Revolution, France annexed both Maastricht and Liège, and after the defeat of Napoleon, both towns belonged to the newly established United Kingdom of the Netherlands. However, since the separation of Belgium in 1830, they once more belong to two different countries. Nowadays, the cité ardente is the most important Walloon city of Belgium.

The Industrial Revolution started in England, and Liège was next. Industrialisation was even more drastic in Wallonia than, a bit later on, in Maastricht. The blooming Cockerill coal and steel factories made Liège a metropolis. During those years, around 1900, relations between both neighbour towns were far more intense than now. However nowadays the steel factories have become out-of-date, and it is Maastricht’s turn to be booming.

By Hennie Reuvers

Dr Reuvers (1951) is a retired teacher of mathematics from Maastricht. He likes to solve math problems, but is also interested in history. He is married and the father of four children. Check his website at http://www.petericepudding.com

Sources: (mainly in Dutch):

• Digitale bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren (Woeringen en de oriëntatie van het Maasland and Levensbericht van Hendrik Dyserinck)
• Het Vrijthof
• Schadelijst van burgers van Maastricht in het jaar 1408
• La Principauté de Liège
• Wikipedia: Jan van Arkel, Jan van Beieren, Jean de Bavière, Johann von Bayern, Hoekse en Kabeljauwse twisten
• Farwerck: Noordeuropese mysteriën en hun sporen tot heden; Ankh-Hermes Deventer, 1978
• Edmond Jaspar: Kint geer eur eige stad? Schenk-Veldeke, Maastricht, 1968
• Charles Thewissen: Oud Maastricht; Wereldvenster, Baarn, 1968
• Dr PJH Ubachs: Tweeduizend jaar Maastricht; Schenk, Maastricht, 1991
• Dr PJH Ubachs: Historische Encyclopedie van Maastricht; Walburg Pers, Zutphen, 2005