Abstract
On 2 March 1127 the count of Flanders, Charles the Good, was murdered in his own church in Bruges, the seat of his government, by a group of desperate conspirators, people of unfree origin whom he had threatened to reclaim as his serfs. As the count, whose father King Canute IV of Denmark had been murdered in the church of St Albans at Odense in 1086, was childless, a fierce struggle for the succession in the rich and powerful county of Flanders followed. It was won in the summer of 1128 by Thierry of Alsace, who enjoyed the support of the English king, Henry I, as against William Clito, a son of Robert Curthose, who had the support of King Louis VI of France. The deplorable murder and the ensuing bloodshed caused a deep political and constitutional crisis and much debate on the ‘democratic’ issues that I hope to analyse in the course of this chapter.
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Notes
There are two modern editions of Galbert’s Latin narrative: H. Pirenne (ed.), Histoire du meurtre de Charles le Bon, comte de Flandre (1127–1128) par Galbert de Bruges (Paris: Picard, 1891)
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R.C. Van Caenegem (ed.), Galbert van Brugge, grafelijk secretaris: De moord op Karel de Goede: Dagboek van de gebeurtenissen in de jaren 1127–1128, trans. A. Demyttenaere (Antwerp: Mercatorfonds, 1978),
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For the oldest extensive Flemish borough charter, see R.C. Van Caenegem, ‘The Borough Charter of Saint-Omer of 1127, Granted by William Clito, Count of Flanders’, in R.C. Van Caenegem, Legal History: A European Perspective (London and Rio Grande: Hambledon Press, 1991), pp.61–70.
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H.P.H. Camps, Oorkondenboek van Noord Brabant, I (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1979),
See the comparative-historical comments in B. Lyon, ‘Fact and Fiction in English and Belgian Constitutional Law’, Medievalia et Humanistica, 10, 1956, pp.82–101.
See, for a survey in English by a famous historian, P.C.A. Geyl, The Revolt of the Netherlands 1555–1601 (London: Williams and Norgate, 1932);
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The reader will find an interesting collection of texts (1570–87) in M. Van Gelderen (ed.), The Dutch Revolt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought).
C. Brinton, The Anatomy of Revolution (New York: Random House, 1965).
H.G. Richardson and G.O. Sayles, Parliaments and Great Councils in Medieval England (London: Stevens, 1961);
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G.O. Sayles, The Functions of the Medieval Parliament of England (London and Ronceverte: Hambledon Press, 1988).
D. Lambrecht and J. Van Rompaey, ‘De staatsinstellingen in het Zuiden van de Ilde tot de 14de eeuw’, in Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, III, Haarlem, 1982, pp. 129–34.
For Thierry, see Nationaal Biografisch Woordenboek, XIII (Brussels: Paleis der Acadamiën, 1990), cols 224–42 (by Th. De Hemptinne).
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© 1999 John Pinder
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Van Caenegem, R.C. (1999). Mediaeval Flanders and the Seeds of Modern Democracy. In: Pinder, J. (eds) Foundations of Democracy in the European Union. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333982716_2
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