Peter, the Weaver (Freedom In Flanders)

The Bell of the City of Bruges and Flandons, the voice of the city, the voice of the people. For what is the city but people? Today not only in Bruges but all of the Flanders, bells are ringing.

And the voice of the people speaks out after a long silence. That is why we tell this story of another time in Flanders, a time more than six centuries a goal when the Bill of Bruce ranked and the people spoke for the first time.

The NBC University of the Air presents We Came This Way, a new historical series for our listeners at home and overseas. With John W. Vander Cook as the narrator, we present Chapter 3, A Story of Freedom in Planners, In We Came This Way.

It was at the turn of the 14th century. After Granada and the reopening of the Mediterranean to Western trade, Europe saw a boom, a boom in cities. Traders with a smell of the world above them, and peddlers spreading out their packs at the great fairs, became the first promoters of cities, boasting of the places they had been.

The things they had seen. In the city of Bruges, I have seen cloth woven out of golden thread. Cloth of gold. And in the cities of the most cell I have tasted wine, such as we could never make under this cold and misty sky.

I have seen in Venice silks that shit. Serfs who followed their lords to war on the Crusades, returned to whisper in the ears of other serfs, would remain behind in landlocked villages. It is a fact. I have been there and seen it.