Happy feast day to all Flemish, and to all those who carry Flanders in their hearts!
A little history
On July 11, 1302, a Flemish army, consisting mainly of peasants and militia from the free cities, completely defeated an army of French knights, the pride of the nation. This was the first times an army of knights was defeated in open battle by commoners, and it sent shock waves throughout Europe.
(5 years earlier, in 1297 the Scottish, led by William Wallace and Andrew de Morray, defeated the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, but contrary to that battle, the Kortrijk battle saw the actual destruction of the knightly element –thought to be superior- by the commoner troops). This and the battle in 1302 were only the first to mark the end of an era where knightly armies would dominate.
Another important feature was that this battle was one of the very few popular uprisings of the common people against their lords (in this case, king Philip IV from France) that was actually successful. It underscores the strong sense of freedom and justice the Flemish had, which indirectly but in an important way contributed to the writing of the Declaration of Independence.
(See my previous article, ‘The ideas behind ‘the consent of the governed’’)
Quick background: in 1278 Guy de Dampierre became Count of Flanders, at a time when the French kings (Phillips IV of France) had an active policy of expansion of their personal crown domain, imposing language and laws to unify their territory, and aimed to lessen the role of the nobility (the precursors to the post-medieval absolute monarchy).
Within Flanders, 2 factions existed: those who favored annexation to France, the Leliaerts (lily-ards, after the French royal blazon of a ‘lily’), and the Clauwaerts (Claw-ards, after the lion rampant, the Flemish flag), who favored independence. This polarization is of all times, with people wanting the security and ease that comes witih subjugation, against those who favor independence.
Flanders in the 12th and 13th century was heavily dependent on the wool trade with England, as they imported a lot of wool from English and Scottish farms. This wool was the raw material for ‘laken’, a specific form of textile, a Flemish specialty. It is made by first weaving the wool threads, and then closing the fibers together through a process similar as that to make felt.
But where felt is made from unwoven wool fibers, laken is made from woven fibers. That allowed a huge variety in high quality textiles, thicker for capes, thinner for dresses and such, or matt or glossy in appearance, in many colors, in different weaves for different effect and characteristics, etc. It was a luxury product at that time.
Flanders was one of the areas with a lot of cities, which created the ‘middle class’, merchants or tradespeople who could become more successful and richer than the nobles or landowners, upending the feudal system. As the cities demanded – and received – more and more privileges and rights, they became more independent, as well.
(The ‘Gravensteen’, the stone castle of the Flemish counts in Ghent)
The burgers of such cities were organized in guilds, one for each respective trade or profession. The laken guild was one of those, and a very influential one in each of the cities.
When the Anglo-French War of Guyenne (Gascony) broke out in 1294, the English king Edward I of England pressured the Flemish to take his side, by threatening to move the trade in wool from Bruges to Dordrecht.
Guy de Dampierre took the side of the English, took part in a military campaign with Edward I, and suffered defeat at the hands of Robert II, Count of Artois. This alliance with Edward only isolated him just a few years later, in 1297, when a truce broke out, two years later ratified in the treaty of Montreuil.
Map from 1314, about a decade after the events described in this article, but showing the location of the different players)
This treaty offered the betrothal of Edward of Caernarvon, later King Edward II of England, with Isabella of France, the daughter of Philip IV of France. The final ratification in the Treaty of Paris in 1303 ended the War of Guyenne, and brought peace for about 35 years, when the 100 year war broke out between France and England.
As a result of the truce, and the isolation that had put the Flemish Count it, French armies marched into Flanders, and the Count surrendered. He got taken prisoner, together with his sons, and Flanders was added to the French Crown Domain in 1300.
Flanders was in a rage, but could not do much yet. All their liberties were in danger, as the French court was strongly bent on centralizing power and management, and the liberties and charters of rights of the cities were obstacles to that purpose.
Then, on May 17, 1302, the French noble Jacques de Châtillon entered Bruges with his troops. Many citizens of Bruges fled town and formed a resistance. The very next day, they performed a surprise attack on the city, and under the battle cry ‘Scilt ende vriendt’ (shield and friend), they massacred everyone who could not properly pronounce those Flemish words.
This was called ‘de Brugse Metten’, and is depicted on a very rare and interesting relic, the Chest of Oxford (a wooden box with carved reliefs showing the different parts of this story of the Battle of the Golden Spurs).
On a side note: in 1150 Thierry of Alsace, Count of Flanders, returned from the Second Crusade, and brought with him the relic of the Holy Blood, a crystal phial with blood, said to be a relic of the Blood of Christ. He had received it from his brother-in-law, Baldwin III of Anjou, King of Jerusalem, as a reward for his bravery.
The Relic was housed in the Holy Blood Basilica in Bruges, where it was venerated. It was said that the blood in the phial became liquid every Friday, a miracle that ended after the ‘Brugse Metten’, as a sign of judgement over the massacre.
Also interesting, and showing the importance of the Relic, is the fact that in 1297, when the truce between France and England started, the French king signed an official certificate in which he ensured the citizens of Bruges that he would never take away the Relic from their city.
(The yearly Holy Blood Procession in Bruges, a parade with historical and Biblical depictions that started in 1303 to commemorate the Flemish victory, was added to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.)
In any way, the Bruggse Metten were the flash point of the resistance, which now came to open hostilities. The different Flemish towns and their allies gathered troops, and French occupied outposts and castles were taken. The French King responded by sending Robert II of Artois to Flanders, at the head of a large army of knights, the pride of the French nobility.
They arrived near Kortrijk, a town close to the current day border with France, on July 8, 1302. Here, the Flemish army was encamped in front of the Castle of Kortrijk, which was held by a French Garrison, besieging in since June 26, without success. For 2 days, the French troops tried to take the town, but to no avail.
Realizing that they had to take on the Flemish on open field to break the siege, the next day, on the 11th, they went around the city to the Flemish camp.
The Flemish army consisted of about 8000-10,000 infantry from various militias (some formal, paid, trained and equipped by guilds, most makeshift units from men who had heeded the call to arms, but to all accounts, not a trained or experienced force), and about 400 men-at-arms (which would be cavalry, or at least mounted soldiers, who were extensively trained and equipped, usually noblemen and knights, or people from their retinues).
(Guild unit)
The French army, on the other hand, was about 8000-8500 strong, and had a very different make-up: 1000 pikemen, 1000 crossbowmen, 3500 various infantry, and the core of their army, about 2500-3000 men-at-arms (comprised of the who’s who from the French elite at the time, battle hardened and very well trained knights on horseback).
Now the Flemish army was stuck between the city walls and the French-held castle, the river Leie, and the French army. They took position behind two brooks and marshy fields, awaiting the French.
The French crossbow troops opened the battle, attacking the Flemish ranged troops, roughly similar in size, and managed to beat them back. Next, they started to take aim on the main troop formation of the Flemish army. From here on, accounts diverge a bit.
Some say that the French commander, Robert II, wanted to avoid his outnumbered infantry being run over by the Flemish infantry, and that those Flemish formations would close the gap with the brooks, making it harder for his heavy cavalry of knights to regain momentum after crossing them.
Others say that the Flemish lines started to waver a little, helpless under the volleys of the crossbowmen, and that the French knights did not want to give the glory of the victory to those crossbow troops.
Perhaps a combination of both.
Either way, he ordered his knights to attack, even before his infantry could clear the way, trampling some to death as they hurried through. The brooks slowed their attack, unhorsing some.
They managed to regain some speed again, but the Flemish archers fell back behind their lines of pikemen, armed with ‘goedendags’. Those were short, sturdy spears, with a heavy metal cylinder on the front end, crowned with a long, sharp spike.
The heavy weight and sturdy built could stop the charging steeds, and the sharp spike was ideal to stab through chain mail hauberks or between the plates of armor worn by the knights.
(Actual ‘goedendags’ excavated from the battlefield)
The French could not break through in most places, being knocked off their horses and killed by the Flemish soldiers.
Normally, knights in battle would surrender and be taken hostage, to be released in exchange for money or recognition, but now, fighting commoners (who had an axe to grind with the French for their perceived cruelty), pretended to not understand the French knights surrendering and pleading for their lives, killing as many as they could.
The few groups that managed to break through, were quickly surrounded by the Flemish reserves, and cut down. Realizing they were stuck and had no support, the French attack ground to a halt, and they were steadily driven back to the marshes on the sides of the brooks. Without their horses, confused, shocked at the loss of initiative, weighed down by the heavy clay mud, the French knights were easy picking for the Flemish troops.
At the sight of all their knights being slaughtered, the French garrison attempted to mount a charge from behind, but a unit placed near the castle to prevent just that, intercepted them.
The whole French army was now in disarray, and fled, pursued for 10 miles by the Flemish.
The Annals of Ghent concludes its description of the battle:
And so, by the disposition of God who orders all things, the art of war, the flower of knighthood, with horses and chargers of the finest, fell before weavers, fullers and the common folk and foot soldiers of Flanders, albeit strong, manly, well armed, courageous and under expert leaders. The beauty and strength of that great [French] army was turned into a dung-pit, and the [glory] of the French made dung and worms.
2 days later, the castle garrison surrendered.
The French lost 1000-1500 men, including over 75 of their top nobles (the Constable of France, 2 Marshals of France, the chief advisor to the King, many counts, etc.), against 100-300 on Flemish side.
The victory shook Europe, and marked a change in military doctrine and practice, shifting away from the importance of the knights, in favor of easier to train and equip infantry of commoners. It preserved the cultural and linguistic identity of Flanders, even if their independence from France was short-lived.
I have to mention two people of note who were present, in roles of leadership and/or with feats of bravery. One William, named William van Saefthinge, was a lay brother at the abbey of Ter Doest. A really tall and strong man, he is said to have rushed to the battlefield when the armies gathered, donning an old rusty suit of armor he found in the barns of the abbey.
Upon reaching the site of the battle, he traded his horse for a sword, and entered the fighting. He holds the honor of being the person who threw Count Robert II of Artois, the French commander, from his horse, after which the count was killed by other soldiers.
Another was William of Jülich, one of the main leaders of the uprising, being strongly opposed to the annexation policies of the French King.
His connection to the count and his wish to avenge the imprisoning of his uncles Robert III of Bethune and William of Dendermonde by the French king presumably explains his support for the Flemish resistance.
An extra incentive for this support could have been the murder of his uncle Walram of Jülich by the French after the Battle of Bulskamp in 1297.
Legend has it that William of Jülich, who died at the Battle of Mons-en-Pévèle (August 1304) as he had broken so deeply through the ranks of the French that he and his knights were able to wound the King and made him flee the field, and whose remains were never found after the battle, will return when Flanders is in direst need.
After the battle in Kortrijk, hundreds of golden spurs -sign of knighthood- were collected from the battlefield and hung up in the nearby Church of Our Lady, giving this battle its contemporary name: the Battle of the Golden Spurs.
A modern day monument, erected near a highway leading to France, depicts a large spur in concrete, with the point of it aimed directly at Paris. (It is actually a monument commemorating Flemish day laborers who went to work in France, but the location and shape have given rise to this secondary interpretation, which I personally like much better. Look for yourself.)
So we celebrate this battle (the only major one we actually won), marking our identity and keeping at least some of that spirit of courage and independence alive. It is important to maintain such historical and cultural identity, as this grounds us, and allows us to engage others and understand where they are coming from (understanding that this doesn’t make us ‘better’, either, just different, or perhaps similar, to any other person). I am ‘Flemish-American’, if you will, and this is the culture and understanding I bring along to the United States, as a citizen of this great country: a well developed understanding of what freedom means and what place both citizen and leader have towards each other (see my previous article on the Declaration of Independence, and the Flemish roots of it!), and with that a stubborn and strong desire to be free.
And the willingness to fight what seem to be hopeless battles against what is seen as a superior enemy. You never know, and freedom is worth it. Don’t lose hope, as I don’t believe any enemy is ‘invincible’, and neither are those we face today.
But any more would be for another article.
To my Flemish friends and readers: a happy Feast Day!
To all the others: find yourself a good beer, and toast with us to Freedom on this beautiful day!
Cheers!
I would absolutely love to visit that area one day. Will you be our guide. Trip’s on us!! 😉 The whole fam. That would be such a blast.
Also what a great piece of history. Everyone knows of William Wallace and that battle. This is really amazing. My ancestry is German and Irish. Maiden name Heine and Stocksteel. So cool thank you for this story/history. I love it.