_The Battle of the Golden Spurs_
The victory was not yet won, Flanders was not yet free, but the massacre
which took place at Bruges on Friday, May 13, 1302, and which the
burghers for centuries after with brutal irony delighted to call their
'good Friday,' was the beginning of the end.
A few days before that event, William of Juliers had sought out the Lord
of Moerseke and demanded of him the sword which Guy had entrusted to his
keeping when he set out for France. At first the knight refused, but the
war-like prelate seized it roughly from his hands, saying, as he did so,
'This is now my pastoral staff; henceforth the battlefield shall be my
school, and soon Philippe le Bel shall rue his treachery to Guy of
Dampierre'; and William kept his word. Remaining at Bruges for a few
days to recruit his forces, he sallied forth into the country round, and
soon Ghent alone of all the towns of Flanders was in the hands of the
French; and early in June Guy of Namur, a younger son of Guy of
Flanders, reached the capital, where he was welcomed with costly
presents and garlands and clashing bells, and appointed
Commander-in-chief of the Flemish host and Regent of the county.
Meanwhile Châtillon had brought to Paris the news of the Bruges
massacre, and by the end of June Philippe had gathered together an army
to be wondered at. 'So great was the number of chariots and horsemen,'
says Matthew of Westminster, 'that the surface of the earth was hid by
them.' Every baron in France who could take the field was there, and
mercenaries from Spain and Italy, and Hainault and Brabant. Their leader
was the Count of Artois. Presently they set out for the Netherlands, and
towards the close of June they reached Lille.
Nor was the army of resistance which the Regent had assembled one worthy
of contempt. In addition to his own German auxiliaries and a handful of
volunteers from Zealand, he had collected recruits from every commune
and châtelaincy in Flanders. Even from Ghent, the only town which still
held to France, came seven hundred men headed by two sheriffs. In the
foremost rank were the burghers of Bruges, each man ranged under the
banner of the guild to which he belonged and gorgeous in its rich
livery--purple, blue, gold, or white embroidered with crimson crosses.
Their leaders were Breidel and De Coninck and the redoubtable Provost of
Maestricht. Hard-by, under Eustace Sporkin, one of the last of the old
Saxon chiefs, stood the yeomen of the Liberty of Bruges; half naked,
bare headed, sinewy of limb, carrying no weapon but the rude _scharmsax_
of their ancestors, but for all that a force not to be contemned. From
time immemorial the fathers of these men had borne the brunt of every
foreign invasion and of every native tyranny. 'So far as they are
concerned,' as Kervyn notes, 'the history of the fourteenth century is
the history of every century which had preceded it.' Jacques de
Châtillon, like so many tyrants before him, would fain have reduced them
to slavery, and they had sworn to prevent it.
The Count of Artois set out from Lille during the early days of July,
and, leaving behind him a long red streak, for in order to terrorize the
peasant folk he had spared neither women nor children, he presently
pitched his silken tents on a knoll of rising ground about two leagues
from Courtrai. Before that time this hill had been called _Mossenberg_
(the Mossy Mount), but on account of the revelry which then took place
it has since been known as the _Berg van Weelden_, or the Mount of
Feasting.
It took two days for the French force to assemble, and meanwhile the
scouts, whom Artois had sent out to ascertain the position of the
Flemish, brought back word that they were spread out in a single phalanx
in the plain before the Abbey of Groeninghe, to the east of the town
on the road to Ghent; that the river Lys on the north covered their
rear; that on the west they were protected by the entrenchments of
Courtrai, and on the south and east by the river Groeninghe, and that
their position was impregnable; that, so far from showing fear at the
approach of the enemy, as Artois had confidently expected, 'they were
drawn up man to man with their arms raised above their heads like
valiant huntsmen awaiting the charge of the wild boar.'
Those of the French knights who best knew Flanders besought their chief
to put off the battle till the morrow. The Flemish, they urged, were not
accustomed to remain long in camp, and want of supplies would soon
disperse them; but Artois rejected the counsel with disdain. 'What!' he
cried. 'We outnumber these men by half as many again; we are on
horseback, they on foot; we are well armed and they are without weapons;
shall we remain, before such a foe as this, rooted to the ground in
terror?'
The decisive contest took place on Wednesday the 11th of July. The
Flemish began the day with fasting and prayer. 'Behold before ye,' cried
that militant prelate William of Juliers, 'behold before ye men armed
for your destruction! Our hope is in the name of the Lord, invoke His
aid.' Then, when a priest had raised the Sacred Host high above the
kneeling throng, William of Renesse made known the battle cry--'Flanders
for the Lion,' and then each man took up a handful of earth and pressed
it to his lips, by way perhaps of spiritual communion, perhaps to
testify their love for the soil of Flanders and that they were sworn to
defend it.
Before the battle commenced, a frugal repast was served out to the men.
The town archives of Bruges have preserved for us the bill of
fare--fish, eggs, mustard and sorrel. Nor were omens lacking which
presaged the fortune of the coming fray. A flock of doves hovered about
the heads of the Flemish host, whilst over the French squadrons there
wheeled ravens. Rumour said too that the Count of Artois had risen from
his bed full of evil forebodings, that his favourite hound had attacked
him and almost fastened to his throat, and that when he sprang into his
saddle, his charger had reared three times before he would start. A more
certain augury of misfortune was the impatient ardour which fretted his
soul, and some grey-headed knights called to mind that fifty-three years
before his father's impetuous temper had, at the battle of Mansourah,
wrecked another French host.
Amongst the mercenaries whose assistance the French King had bought was
a band of famous archers recruited in Genoa. These men at the opening of
the conflict, stealthily advancing along the road to Sweveghem,
presently espied on the other side of a thick hedge which skirted the
banks of a stream a company of Flemish bowmen, and in less than the
twinkling of an eye the arrows of the Italians were playing havoc with
them. But if the foreigners' sharpshooting discomfited their opponents,
it afforded no consolation to their French paymasters, and one of them
appealed to Artois. 'Sire,' he burst out in the bitterness of his soul,
'sire, if these villains do so much, the day will be theirs, and what
share will the nobles have in the glory?' 'Then let them charge,' was
the reply. In vain that shrewd old fox Flotte pointed out that when once
the Italian archers had broken the Flemish ranks and constrained them to
quit their entrenchment, the nobles alone would have the glory of
putting the enemy to flight. Artois refused to hear him. 'By the devil,'
he cried, 'Pierre, you have still the wolf's skin,' and the knights
rushed forward, trampling under their horses' hoofs the Italian archers,
and even cutting their bow-strings with their swords.
There is some consolation in the thought that the littleness of these
fine gentlemen was the cause of their overthrow. The marshy land--the
_Bloed Meersch_, as it was afterwards called--in the foreground of the
Flemish camp was everywhere intersected by streams, and deep and broad
dykes, with hedges on their banks thick and high. (Such is still the
character of the landscape in many parts of Flanders). These the
Flemings had cut down, and with the felled brushwood they had concealed
the water. The Frenchmen, unacquainted with the nature of the country,
failed to perceive the trap which had been laid for them, and in an
instant hundreds of men and horses were struggling in a watery grave,
and the few who succeeded in reaching land were received by their
opponents on the points of their spears. Then followed a hardly-fought
contest, for though the knights who had first charged had been nearly
all slain those behind them were legion, and the streams, now choked up
with dead bodies, no longer barred the way. For a moment the Flemish
were driven back and for a moment panic was imminent, but Guy of Namur,
turning round to the great Abbey Church of St. Mary which towered
behind him, cried out with a voice which echoed over the battlefield,
'Great Queen of Heaven, help us,' and with that cry he so heartened his
wavering forces that they returned with renewed courage to battle.
During the _mêlée_ which followed, Rudolphe of Nesle was struck down--a
three-fold traitor this man; a traitor to his country, for he was a
Fleming of pure blood; a traitor to the traditions of his own house, for
in his veins flowed the blood of Dierick of Alsace, and the nobler blood
of Erembald; and a traitor to his wife, for she was a daughter of the
Count of Flanders. But in spite of it all he was a brave knight; he had
gone farther that day than any Frenchman, and he preferred to die rather
than to yield up his sword. By a strange coincidence, Jacques de
Châtillon, who had been Rudolphe's successor in the government of
Bruges, was fighting by his side when Rudolphe fell, and he too was cut
down by the Flemish pikes. Not far off an old man was seen to throw
himself on his knees. He had that day put on mail for the first time,
thinking when he did so, not to take part in the conflict, but to have
his share in the triumph which every Frenchman believed that morning
would be its issue. Somehow or other he had been drawn, in spite of
himself, into the thick of battle, and now loudly cried to his friends
to carry him out, but no man had pity on him, and he was presently
trampled to death by his own comrades.
Thus perished Chancellor Flotte, the foremost of Philippe's law lords,
of that new _noblesse de robe_ which he had raised up to counterbalance
the might of the old _noblesse d'épée_, of that band of _chevaliers ès
lois_, as they loved to style themselves, by whose astute aid he was
gradually changing monarchy into despotism, and who, as Kervyn notes,
'under the grandson of St. Louis, became the tyrants of France.'
Philippe had found him on the dunghill, and he made him to sit among the
princes of his people. He was a shrewd, hard-headed man of business, and
of good qualities, at least, he possessed these: fidelity to the cause
he served, and loyalty to the man who made him. He had sworn not to
return to France until he had wiped out the indignity which had been put
on him by Bruges, and, as we have seen, he kept his word.
On the other side it had gone hard with the Provost of Maestricht, who
was carried out of the battle with his temples streaming with blood. If
it had not been for the presence of mind of his esquire, this
circumstance would perhaps have caused a panic. He, swiftly buckling on
his master's armour and galloping into the thick of the fight, cried
out, 'It is I, William of Juliers, come back to do battle,' and so saved
the situation.
It was not yet noon when the Count of Artois dashed to the front, crying
out as he did so, 'Let those who are faithful follow.' Presently he came
to a great dyke. Digging his spurs into his horse's flanks, he cleared
it at a bound, and was alone in the midst of the Flemings. In an instant
he had seized the banner of Flanders and torn it to shreds, but in
bending forward to grasp it, his foot slipped out of his stirrup, and
William Van Sæftingen, a monk of Hacket's abbey at Lisseweghe, who had
fled from his cell to join the fight, dragged him from his saddle, and
at the same moment someone wrenched away his sword.
'I surrender, I surrender,' he cried, but with brutal irony his
assailants feigned not to understand, and before Guy of Namur could
interfere to save him, the Count of Artois was dead.
Although deprived of their leaders, the French knights fought with their
wonted valour, but amid the slime and dykes of the _Bloed-Meersch_
cavalry was worse than useless, and before nightfall the first and
second lines of the great army of invasion were cut to pieces. The third
battalion--the reserve force--had taken no part in the engagement, and a
handful of the men who formed it succeeded in making their escape, but
they fled in the greatest disorder, and their retreat was nothing less
than a rout.
For the rest, seventy-five noblemen, a thousand knights and three
thousand esquires were among the slain, and the sum-total of the French
losses are said to have amounted to twenty thousand, whilst the Flemish
estimated theirs at a hundred all told.
So great was the number of the golden spurs which the conquerors
wrenched from the heels of the French knights who had fallen that they
measured them by the bushel, and be it noted that the cavaliers of the
period in question wore but one spur. Some of these trophies William of
Juliers sent to his church at Maestricht, and the rest were hung up in
the Church of St. Mary at Courtrai.
This brilliant victory which the tradesmen of Flanders had gained over
the flower of French chivalry made such an impression on the hearts of
the people that to this day there is hardly a Fleming who is ignorant of
the battle of the Golden Spurs. Nay, at the news of the victory of
Courtrai, on all sides hope was re-born in the breast of the people, and
the cry of liberty resounded throughout Europe. In France, at Toulouse
and Bordeaux, the citizens took heart and drove out Philippe's officers.
In Italy, while Florence showed signs of restiveness, Bologna, Mantua,
Parma and Verona made solemn treaty together to defend their rights. In
Switzerland the echoes of Morgarten responded to the shout of triumph
which had gone up from the battlefield of Groeninghe. In Hainault, at
Liège, in Brabant, in Holland, a like enthusiasm was shown, and it was
the same elsewhere. Thus Kervyn poetically,[26] and it is worthy of note
that at Rome Pope Boniface VIII., who seems to have held the Flemish in
no little esteem, caused public rejoicing to be made in honour of this
triumph of democracy.
Breidel and De Coninck are said to have been knighted on the field of
battle--a tradition which hardly supports that other tradition which
makes them men of noble birth. Be this as it may, the men of Bruges have
not forgotten them, and some ten years since they were sufficiently
ill-advised to set up beneath the shadow of their historic belfry a
statue in honour of these heroes, which in no way harmonizes with its
surroundings, and every year since its erection it has been their wont
to deck it with garlands, and, grouped around its base, to sing hymns in
honour of the men who rescued their city from tyranny and drove the
French out of Flanders.
Notwithstanding her enormous losses at the battle of Courtrai, France
had not yet disarmed, nor was it until July 1303 that Philippe le Bel,
in order to save Courtrai, which was at that time being threatened by
the Flemish, at last consented to liberate their Count as a preliminary
to negotiations for peace, but on condition that if terms were not
agreed on by the following spring, he would again yield himself
prisoner.
Great was the joy of the men of Bruges when, towards the close of
October, their Sovereign returned to Winendael. They had forgotten the
evil things which they themselves had endured at his hands in the days
of his prosperity, and were mindful only of his own suffering during his
long imprisonment, and many of them, says the Friar of Ghent, when they
saw him once more amongst them, were affected to tears. Guy's sojourn at
Bruges was not destined to be a long one. The negotiations with France
fell through, and he scorned to break his word. When in the month of
June (1304) the appointed day arrived, he quietly went back to his
prison at Compiègne, and Philippe once more led his troops into
Flanders, and with some measure of success. But the French King was in
reality weary of the conflict. If the campaign should be prolonged,
experience told him that in all probability fortune would favour the
Flemish, and he again consented to treat with Guy and his burghers.
Early in the new year terms had been practically agreed upon, and a
treaty of peace was on the point of being signed when, on the 7th March
(1305), the old Count died. The negotiations, however, were not broken
off. Robert of Bethune was at once released from prison, Philippe
acknowledged his right to the county of Flanders, by May he had reached
his dominions, and early in June a definite treaty of peace was at
length signed. Robert, however, was now an old man enfeebled in health
and broken in spirit by the hard captivity he had so long endured, and
the treaty to which he had set his hand, behind, it would seem, the
backs of his burghers, was presently found to contain conditions to
which they had never assented--conditions so disastrous to the interests
of Flanders that they refused to ratify it. Then followed fresh
negotiations
III.--Genealogical Table of the Counts of Flanders from Baldwin VIII. to
Guy de Dampierre.
=Baldwin VIII.= _d._ 1195 = =Marguerite= _d._ 1194
+--------------------------+----------+--------+----------------+
=Baldwin IX.= = Marie Philip = Marie Elizabeth = Philip Sybil = Guichard,
(of Constan- | of of of | Augustus, Lord of
tinople) | Champa- Namur France | King of Beaujeu
_d._ 1206 | gne | France
or 1226 | | _d._ 1223
| +---------------------+
+----+--------------------------------------+ |
=Jeanne=, Countess = Ferdinand Bourchard = =Marguerite= = William Louis VIII.
of Flanders and of Portugal d'Avesnes | Countess of | of _d._ 1226
Hainault | Flanders and | Dampierre |
_d._ 1244 | Hainault | |
| _d._ 1279 | |
+---------------------------------+--+ +-----+--+ |
John I., Count = Alix daughter and Baldwin William Guy, Louis IX.
of Hainault | heiress of Florence, _d._ 1251 Count of (St Louis)
_d._ 1255 | Countess of Holland Flanders _d_ 1270
| _d._ 1304 |
John II. of Philip III.
Hainault _d._ 1285
and Holland |
_d._ 1304 |
Philip IV.
(le Bel)
_d._ 1314
which dragged on for fifteen years, during which time Philippe himself
was gathered to his fathers, nor was it until May 20, 1320, that terms
of peace were at length agreed upon.
[Illustration: A 14th Century Chimney]