however, by no means reached its apogee, but was to culminate with
Venice, and to sink with her decline. When the overland Indian trade
fell off with the discovery of the Cape passage, both cities withered.
Grass grew in the fair and pleasant streets of Bruges, and sea-weed
clustered about the marble halls of Venice. At this epoch, however, both
were in a state of rapid and insolent prosperity.

The cities, thus advancing in wealth and importance, were no longer
satisfied with being governed according to law, and began to participate,
not only in their own, but in the general government. Under Guy of
Flanders, the towns appeared regularly, as well as the nobles, in the
assembly of the provincial estates. (1386-1389, A.D.) In the course of
the following century, the six chief cities, or capitals, of Holland
(Dort, Harlem, Delft, Leyden, Goads, and Amsterdam) acquired the right
of sending their deputies regularly to the estates of the provinces.
These towns, therefore, with the nobles, constituted the parliamentary
power of the nation. They also acquired letters patent from the count,
allowing them to choose their burgomasters and a limited number of
councillors or senators (Vroedschappen).

Thus the liberties of Holland and Flanders waxed, daily, stronger.
A great physical convulsion in the course of the thirteenth century came
to add its influence to the slower process of political revolution.
Hitherto there had been but one Friesland, including Holland, and nearly
all the territory of the future republic. A slender stream alone
separated the two great districts. The low lands along the Vlie, often
threatened, at last sank in the waves. The German Ocean rolled in upon
the inland Lake of Flevo. The stormy Zuyder Zee began its existence by
engulfing thousands of Frisian villages, with all their population, and
by spreading a chasm between kindred peoples. The political, as well as