Flanders

Flanders, medieval principality in the southwest of the Low Countries, now included in the French département of Nord (q.v.), the Belgian provinces of East Flanders and West Flanders (qq.v.), and the Dutch province of Zeeland (q.v.). The name appeared as early as the 8th century and is believed to mean “Lowland,” or “Flooded Land.”

The origins of Flanders lay in the pagus Flandrensis, an area composed of Brugge (Bruges) and its immediate environs under the administration of the Frankish empire. At first Flandrensis was an inconspicuous district, but beginning in the 9th century, a remarkable line of Flemish counts succeeded in erecting a quasi-independent state on the borders between the French and German kingdoms.

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When Charlemagne’s empire had been divided up under the Treaty of Verdun (843), the Schelde River had been made the dividing line between the Western and Eastern Frankish kingdoms. The rise of Flanders began when the official administrator of the pagus, Baldwin I Iron-Arm, married the Western Frankish king Charles II the Bald’s daughter in 862 and was appointed count of Flanders. His successors as count, among them Baldwin II (ruled 879–918), Arnulf I the Great (918–965), Baldwin IV the Bearded (988–1035), and Baldwin V (1035–67), gradually expanded their domain southward to the towns of Douai and Arras and eastward across the Schelde River to Ghent and Antwerp. These counts were vassals of the French king for what they held west of the Schelde (Crown Flanders, or Kroonvlaanderen, the most important part of the kingdom), and vassals of the German king for what they held east of it (called Imperial Flanders, or Rijksvlaanderen, as part of the Holy Roman Empire). The Flemish counts enjoyed virtual independence from weak French kings during this time. The first dynasty of counts died out in 1119, but Flanders rose to the height of its power and wealth under a later line of counts whose principal members were Thierry of Alsace (1128–68) and his son Philip (1168–91).

The population of Flanders, though politically united under the rule of their counts, was far from homogeneous. In the southernmost area it was mainly Romance-speaking; farther north the Frankish settlement had been denser, so that the language was Germanic; and the coastal areas had been settled with people of Saxon and Frisian origin. The counts of Flanders effectively united these peoples into one nation. From the 12th century onward, they substituted for the old feudal structure an orderly administration and fiscal organization, set up a centralized judicial system (using Roman law), and began extensive legislation. Thierry and Philip granted charters to a number of wealthy towns, and the commune (q.v.) movement developed independently during this same period. This led to the establishment in many towns of municipal governments that had a considerable measure of independence.

At the outset the Flemish economy had been agricultural, but about the 12th century Flemish trade and industry became of real international importance. A crisis in the old manorial organization of agriculture and an expansion of the money economy coincided with the rise of towns as centres of trade and industry. The cloth industry, which was soon working mainly with English wool and producing high-quality textiles, had its largest centres at Ghent and at Ypres. Until the 13th century Flemish merchants conducted their trade abroad, especially at the fairs of Champagne, but later merchants of all nations came to Flanders, and the seaport of Brugge became a centre of world commerce. Flanders profited from its geographic situation, being an intermediary between the Mediterranean and the Scandinavian and Baltic countries and also between England and the Rhineland (especially Cologne).

Flanders had a tumultuous history in the 13th and 14th centuries. Philip’s successor, Baldwin VIII (1191–95), lost Artois and other southern domains to France, and Flanders was fatally weakened by the departure of his successor, Baldwin IX, to become Latin emperor of Constantinople (as Baldwin I) in 1205. The French king Philip II Augustus seized the chance to influence the succession in Flanders, and when the Flemings resisted and formed an anti-French alliance with John of England and the Holy Roman emperor Otto IV, Philip defeated the coalition at the Battle of Bouvines (1214).

Flemish resentment of French influence continued, however, and in 1297 the count of Flanders, Guy of Dampierre (1278–1305), entered an alliance with Edward I of England against Philip IV of France. Philip was nevertheless able to invade Flanders in 1300 and take Guy prisoner. In 1302 the Flemings of Brugge massacred the town’s French garrison (an event known as the Matins of Brugge), and Philip sent a powerful French army into Flanders to take revenge. The Flemings, however, inflicted a disastrous defeat on this army at the Battle of the Golden Spurs (July 11, 1302). This victory saved Flanders from French occupation, and France formally recognized Flemish independence in 1305.

In the 14th century a new political problem arose: the large towns, especially Ghent, began trying to establish communal autonomy against the counts in the manner of independent city-states. In consequence, the counts looked for support to the French kings. When the Hundred Years’ War between England and France broke out, the count of Flanders, Louis I (1322–46), sided with the French while the weavers of the Flemish towns, under the leadership of Jacob van Artevelde, sided with England, knowing as they did that the continued supply of English wool was indispensable to their prosperity. Artevelde and Louis I died within one year of each other (1345–46), and the next count of Flanders, Louis II, established peace in the country and pursued a course midway between France and England. The weavers of Ghent briefly rose against him under the leadership of Philip van Artevelde but were defeated by a French royal army at the Battle of Rozebeke (1382).

Louis II died in 1384, leaving Flanders to his daughter Margaret, whose second husband, Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, thereby succeeded to the county of Flanders. This event was the starting point for the eventual political unification of the Low Countries under the dukes of Burgundy (and later under the Habsburgs). The Flemish economy had begun to decline by the late 15th century, but Flanders remained a rich country that was important to the revenues of the Burgundian dukes. In 1477 Mary of Burgundy married Maximilian of Austria (later Emperor Maximilian I), thus bringing Flanders under the Habsburgs. Protestantism won many adherents in Flanders during the Reformation, but the military occupation of the country by the Spaniards reversed this development. Flanders remained with the other southern provinces of the Netherlands under Spanish rule in the 17th century and then (from 1714) under Austrian rule until it disappeared as a political entity during the French Revolutionary Wars. The title count of Flanders remains in use, however, for princes of the Belgian royal family.