The Battle of the Golden Spurs

Today is officially designated the Flemish Feest Day (Vlaanderen Feestdag). It is so designated however because it commemorates the Battle of the Golden Spurs on July 11th, 1302. This event is worth noting by not only Flemings or those of us with Flemish ancestry but also by the wider world community.

For military historians, this battle was critical for demonstrating that citizen levies could defeat feudal levies (heavily armored knights) in a set piece battle. More importantly, Flemish guild members defeated France, at that time Europe's strongest power.

For students of political history, it was a victory of plural governance over absolutism. Offset by only seven days from America's own Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776), its calendar proximity underscores the continuum of Flemish contributions to the development of the United States of America.

For those of you unfamiliar with the battle and the events leading up to it, I recommend the books I cited in my posting one year ago. But a quick synopsis would go something like this:

Although Flanders just 100 years before had been larger than France, by the end of the 13th century the evil though handsome (hence the name Philip le Bel - Philip the Fair) French king sought to impose his rule on Flanders. Some Flemings sought their own self-interest (including of course, the successive Counts of Flanders) but others - especially led by strong guildmembers in Bruges/Brugge struggled against the political and cultural encroachment by France. Events culminated in an uprising of the Bruges/Brugge townsmen and defiance of the French king.

In response, King Philip of France summoned those who owed him feudal service - including Flemish knights - and marched north to 'chastise' the Flemings. The guilds of Bruges/Brugge, supported by some Flemish knights (the "vast majority" according to historian J.F. Verbruggen) joined the guilds. They faced forfeiture of fiefs, loss of income, and a painful death if they lost.

Incidentally, there were many different Dutch-speaking communities represented on the Flemish side by small levies or individuals from Dutch-speaking villages and fiefs. These included: Brugge/Bruges, Kortrijk/Courtrai, Aalst, Oudenaarde, Hondschote, Wessegem, Gistel, Erpe, Praat, Limburg, Zeeland, Holland, Rijsel/Lille, Loon, Aardenburg, Brabant, Lembeke, Gillis, Belle, Moorslede, Coudekerke, Steenland, Namen/Namur, Ieper/Ypres and Gent/Ghent. In other words, nearly the entire Dutch-speaking from north of the Scheldt west to the Rhine, south to what is now France and west as far as Calais. They were trying to live the idea: "Vlaanderen, Samen staan we sterk."

For the most part these men were armed with an inexpensive Flemish pike called the "goedendag" of about 12 feet long.

Against this levy of perhaps 10,000 Flemings - nearly all footsoldiers whose day jobs were weavers, butchers, greengrocers, etc. - was arrayed a roughly equal (but qualitatively better in terms of arms, training and experience) French crossbowmen (more than 1000), footsoldiers (6000?), and knights (several thousand). The Frenchmen were trained in warfare, protected by armor, and experienced in field tactics.

The outcome was not expected to be favorable to the Flemish. They fought as men whose backs were against the wall. Which in a very real sense they were, since the French had a garrison inside the castle walls of Kortrijk, outside of which they were arrayed. But after multiple attacks on the Flemish with both their crossbowmen and their French knights, the Flemish were victorious. More than 700 French knights left their fancy, golden spurs on the field.

In tribute to their near-miraculous deliverance from French absolutism and oppression, the Flemish hung those spurs at the Onze Lieve Vrouw Kerk in Kortrijk. There they hung for 80 years, until the French juggernaut overwhelmed the bright lights of Flemish pluralism. Today battle monuments stand on the Groeningeveld in Kortrijk to commemorate the Flemish victory.

Rather than outline in detail the moves of the battle, today I take a different approach. Below, courtesy and thanks to my friend Ray van Angeltjes (whose superb blog Angeletjes I highly recommend), are links to the movie "The Battle of the Golden Spurs". The movie is in Dutch with English subtitles.

July 11th, Flemish Independence Day (De Guldensporenslag/de Vlaamse Feestdag)

Seven days separate the Flemish national commemorative day, de Guldensporenslag/ de Vlaamse Feestdag,on July 11th from the American national Independence Day on July 4th. Seven hundred and seven years ago an unlikely combination of rebellious Flemish guildsmen from competing towns and renegade Flemish knights defeated a larger, better-equipped and more experienced army of French knights and Genoese crossbowmen just outside the walls of Kortrijk.

My intent in this posting is not to recount the battle - there are solid sources in multiple languages - but rather to point out to English-language native speakers sources around this most important of holy days for Flemish ethnic pride. For the record, I have zero financial interest, direct or indirect, in anything I mention below.

In my climb up the mountain of ethnic self-realization here in America, I was hindered by a poor grasp of Dutch, isolation from possible sources of reference materials, and the general ignorance of most things Flemish by the community I was in. Permit me, then, here Gentle Reader (and by this I especially mean my fellow native English speakers of Flemish extraction), to offer a brief compilation of reference points that may round out - or theoretically make the path less troublesome - for that journey.

The Battle of the Golden Spurs

If you have Flemish ancestry and have not read about the battle and have no context in which to mentally fix the events my recommendation is to start with a superb online summary of the battle here (http://www.liebaart.org/gulden_e.htm). Or, better yet, buy the best book on the subject for general readership in the English language: Randall Fegley's The Golden Spurs of Kortrijk (2002).

Fegley is not an historian (rather, a college administrator in Pennsylvania) but has a refreshingly easy to read writing style. Pleasantly for someone who is not of immediately obvious Flemish extraction (I don't know either way, but his surname does not suggest it), he gets the story right. There are parts of the book that I wish he had better footnoted (eg, p.146 he merely cites the books but no specific pages for the reference to De Beurs; and he leaves out some seminal references). But these are minor blemishes in an overall excellent effort. This is someone Flanders House New York should nominate for the Flemish-American Award.

If you are, like me, just as interested at getting behind the scenes of the battle to a solid historian's scholarly viewpoint, we are fortunate to also have in print in English an edited (by Loyola professor Kelly DeVries) and translated edition of the military historian J.F. Verbruggen's classic The Battle of the Golden Spurs (2002). There are parts of this book that are a bit tendentious but the details (eg, lists of participants, minute by minute chronicling of the battle, etc.) nicely complement Fegley's more romantic version. Verbruggen's classic was also a key source for Fegley's account.

Of course purists might point out that any research of the Battle of Golden Spurs by native English speakers interested in understanding Flanders and Flemish history whatsoever should start with the book that arguably sparked the Flemish Movement in Belgium: De Leeuw van Vlaanderen/The Lion of Flanders. First published in the midst of the Francophile elite's terror of Flemish loyalists to the Dutch king in the 1830s, the highly romantic novel is of only vague historical relevance. Nevertheless this book by the Spiritual Father of the Flemish Movement, Hendrik Conscience, remains in print in Dutch and English more than 150 years after its first printing. A tribute to its timelessness and global appeal.

If you also wish to expand your knowledge of written Dutch there is no better way than to purchase both the English translation and the modern Dutch language reprint of The Lion of Flanders. Placed side-by-side, this will enable you to read along sentence by sentence and capture the richness of the Dutch text while understanding (without the too-frequent reference to a dictionary). Is there any substitution for the opening lines: "De rode morgenzon glom aarzelend in het osten..."?

There are other paths to this happiness of adding to one's understanding of Flemish roots and simultaneously working at mastering some level of written Dutch. When one lives far from the centers of the reach of the Dutch-Flemish taalunie that may lie among what are known in English as 'graphic novels'. The above by Bob De Moor combines great illustrations with easy to follow text and action. This would be a superb piece for the Flanders Investment Trade or the Flemish cultural ministry to translate into English and present to business leaders in the Anglo-Saxon world.

Once you are sufficiently comfortable with reading Dutch a whole new world of literature on this subject opens up. The best internet-posted list I am aware of is here (http://www.liebaart.org/biblio_e.htm ).

Of course, French language skills are more common in the Anglo-Saxon world than Dutch. So if you must, the most current French-language book on the subject is understandably titled 1302 Le Desastre de Courtrai (2002). I have not read this book myself and would love to hear a reader's perspective on this book.

For those shifting to other media, why not pick up the difficult-to-find dvd "De Vlaamse Leeuw" ( ). YouTube excerpts - such as this one (mute if you do not like the heavy metal background music) - capture some of the action and the feel for the confusion of the Battle of the Golden Spurs.

There are also two board games for those with that bent. I know that this is an anachronism in the 21st century video game environment we all live in today but for the old-fashioned among you, please check out Flanders/Vlaanderen 1302 (a game that is more strategy than military) and Groeninghe Veld 1302 (a cool military/strategy board game in Dutch). Ironically, these are only available via the internet today. (Flanders House folks: here are some great stocking stuffers for your next event).

Lets assume that you have done all the above and wish to get a better fix on your cultural heritage. Why not make the trek itself? The good folks at Trabel have some preliminary material posted here (http://www.trabel.com/kortrijk/kortrijk-battle.htm).

Next week I plan to post, on the start of the festival in Gent (July 18th) the not-so-famous story of the first Flemish American Gentenaar. Stay tuned!

Ik wens jou een fijne Vlaams Feestdag!