In Flanders, Menapians and Flemings were still
found, and in the country of Antwerp the Toxandrians were not
extinct. All the rest of the coast was still called Friesland. But
in the high grounds the names of the old inhabitants were lost.
Nations were designated by the names of their rivers, forests, or
towns. They were classified as accessories to inanimate things;
and having no monuments which reminded them of their origin,
they became as it were without recollections or associations;
and degenerated, as may be almost said, into a people without
ancestry.

The physical state of the country had greatly changed from the
times of Caesar to those of Charlemagne. Many parts of the forest
of the Ardennes had been cut down or cleared away. Civilization
had only appeared for a while among these woods, to perish like
a delicate plant in an ungenial clime; but it seemed to have
sucked the very sap from the soil, and to have left the people
no remains of the vigor of man in his savage state, nor of the
desperate courage of the warriors of Germany. A race of serfs now
cultivated the domains of haughty lords and imperious priests.
The clergy had immense possessions in this country; an act of
the following century recognizes fourteen thousand families of
vassals as belonging to the single abbey of Nivelle. Tournay and
Tongres, both Episcopal cities, were by that title somewhat less
oppressed than the other ancient towns founded by the Romans; but
they appear to have possessed only a poor and degraded population.

The low lands, on the other hand, announced a striking commencement
of improvement and prosperity. The marshes and fens, which had
arrested and repulsed the progress of imperial Rome, had disappeared
in every part of the interior. The Meuse and the Scheldt no longer
joined at their outlets, to desolate the neighboring lands; whether
this change was produced by the labors of man, or merely by the
accumulation of sand deposited by either stream and forming barriers
to both. The towns of Courtraig, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp,
Berg-op-Zoom, and Thiel, had already a flourishing trade. The
last-mentioned town contained in the following century fifty-five
churches; a fact from which, in the absence of other evidence,
the extent of the population may be conjectured. The formation of
dikes for the protection of lands formerly submerged was already
well understood, and regulated by uniform custom. The plains
thus reconquered from t