Though Lambert Longbeard was the first hereditary Count of Louvain, he was certainly not the founder of the city of Louvain, or even of the Castle and its dependencies—the 'Old Bourg of Louvain,' as it was called in later days—which he made his capital.

The city dates from a much later period than Lambert's day, and there is a tradition that some Merovingian noble had built himself a home on the site of the Old Bourg soon after the Frankish invasion. Certainly since Arnulph's victory over the Danes there had been a fortress there, which, until Lambert's day, was held in the Emperor's name by a series of provincial governors, one of whom was Bruno's friend St. Ansfried. This building, which has long ago disappeared, and of the site of which even we are ignorant, is said to have stood on an island formed by two branches of the Dyle, and there is little doubt that it was for a time at least the home of Lambert I., but the Counts of Louvain did not long continue to dwell there. Most likely, on account of the frequent floods and the dampness of the situation, they soon migrated to a new castle, built on the height now called CÆsar's Hill—some vestiges of it still remain—and which, in all probability, was built by Lambert II.—Lambert Longbeard's younger son, Lambert surnamed Balderick. A name to be remembered this, for the man who bore it was the real founder of Louvain: it was Lambert Balderick who built and munificently endowed the great Collegiate Church of St. Peter, the church around which, as we have already seen, the city grew up, and which in its early days was its nursing mother. The collegiate chapter was invested with all the rights and privileges of a great monastic corporation, and the yeomen and serfs who dwelt on their lands, and who formed what was called St. Peter's family, participated in their immunities, and were submitted only to their jurisdiction—no small boon, for the conditions of life on an ecclesiastical estate were far more conducive to liberty and progress than were those on lay domains. There was no taille, nor droit de gite, nor forced labour for the maintenance of ramparts; Church land was universally held to be the patrimony of the saint to whom it was dedicated, to violate it was sacrilege, a crime which the greediest feudal robber was generally loth to commit, and thus, amid the turmoil and warfare with which the surrounding country was so often vexed, its inhabitants for the most part enjoyed the blessing of peace. Further, justice was administered by themselves, and they were altogether free from State exactions. Indeed, so jealous was the Provost of Louvain of this privilege that he would suffer no civil officer to sojourn within his borders.

Though the landed estate of the collegiate chapter was not a large one, the 'Petermen' or lay members of St. Peter's family seem to have been sufficiently numerous. The Provost had the right to admit outsiders, his conditions were not onerous—a trifling entrance fee, generally two deniers and an undertaking in the event of marriage to pay a small tribute, and upon these terms a host of free men and liberated serfs were glad enough to barter their liberty, to quote the characteristic phrase of the charters of the day, 'for a servitude freer than freedom itself.'

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The privileges and immunities of the Church of St. Peter were not peculiar to that foundation, almost all the great ecclesiastical establishments of the Low Countries were similarly favoured; but whereas in other towns which had grown up on Church land the laymen affiliated to the religious community which originally owned the soil—the Martinmen at Utrecht, for example, the men of St. Rombold at Mechlin, the men of St. Bavo at Ghent, when at last they obtained rights of citizenship, lost the ecclesiastical privileges and immunities which hitherto they had enjoyed, at Louvain this was not the case: the privileges of the Petermen survived long after their obligations to the institution which conferred them had become a dead letter, and for centuries too after they had obtained full civil rights. Indeed, by the opening of the thirteen hundreds, perhaps even earlier, their connection with the Chapter of St. Peter's had ceased to be anything but a nominal one: they remained exempt from taxation and were amenable only to their own court, but the Mayor of Louvain had taken the place of the Provost in all that appertained to their government. They were still a class apart, but these men who owed their distinction to servile descent had now become a rich, influential and aristocratic caste, the cream of the burgher nobility, and thus they continued until the close of the seventeen hundreds, and then, at last, 'the men of St. Peter' were ruthlessly swept away, along with so many other interesting and time-honoured abuses.

Such was the famous collegiate church which Lambert Balderick founded at 'the place called Looven,' and whose rights and privileges every successive sovereign of Brabant swore to maintain at his 'Joyous Entry,' until the days of Albert and Isabel.

So completely identified was it with the town which grew up around its walls that a likeness of the material fabric was graven on the city seal, its steeple was the city belfry, the gold and silver pieces coined at the city mint were called 'Peters,' and proof that a man was a 'Peterman' was held to be sufficient proof that he was a burgher and a patrician of Louvain. Without any further investigation he was at once admitted to all the rights of citizenship.