United States or Djibouti ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
De Coninck, who had been joined by John Breidel, Dean of the Guild of Butchers, was busy rousing the people in all parts of the country. He visited Ghent, amongst other places, and tried to persuade the magistrates that if Ghent and Bruges united their forces the whole Flemish people would rise, crush the Leliarts, and expel the French.
Their sudden appearance in the midst of Belgian towns was not the result of official zeal, but the living symbol of the gratitude of new to old Belgium. Jacques van Artevelde in Ghent, Breydel and De Coninck in Bruges, Egmont and Horn in Brussels came into their own at last.
At the same time, he opposed the projected marriage of the count's daughter with King Edward's eldest son. In July 1302 a terrible rising, known as "Matines brugeoises" and led by the weaver Pieter de Coninck, broke out in Bruges, when all the French in the town were murdered in the early hours of the morning.
In 1338 the people rose against their count, and Jacques Van Artevelde of Ghent became the acknowledged leader of the movement. These risings differed from the "Matines brugeoises" in that the aristocracy took part in them as well as the craftsmen. Van Artevelde was not a workman like De Coninck. He was a rich landowner and had great interests in the cloth trade.
In the Market-Place, close to where the monument to De Coninck and Breidel stands, a party of soldiers, under a gallant French knight, Gauthier de Sapignies, made a stand; but they were overpowered and slaughtered to the last man.
They were divided into two parties, one of which, led by De Coninck, made for the Porte Ste. Croix, while the other, under Breidel, marched to the Porte de Damme, a gateway which no longer exists, but which was then one of the most important entrances, being that by which travellers came from Damme and Sluis.
In challenging King Albert and his ministers, the German Government challenged at the same time all the leaders of the Belgian people, from De Coninck to Vonck and De Mérode, and the reply of the Belgian Government was stiffened by an age-long tradition of stubborn resistance and by the ingrained instinct of the people that this had to be done because there was nothing else to do.
It was a day of terror in Bruges, and when evening came some of the burghers slipped out, made their way to Damme, and told De Coninck what was passing in the town.
At this time Peter De Coninck was Dean of the Guild of Weavers, a man of substance, popular and eloquent. There was a tumultuous gathering in the Market-Place, when, standing in front of the Belfry, with the leaders of five-and-twenty guilds around him, he declaimed on liberty, and attacked the magistrates, calling on his fellow-townsmen to resist the taxes.
Opposite the Belfry, in the middle of the Market-Place, is the monument to Peter De Coninck and John Breidel, on which garlands of flowers are laid every summer, in memory of what they did when the burghers rose against the French in May, 1302; and amongst the modern frescoes which cover the walls of the Grande Salle des Échevins in the Hôtel de Ville, with its roof of fourteenth-century woodwork, is one which represents the return from the Battle of the Golden Spurs, that famous fight in which the hardy peasantry of Flanders overthrew the knights of France whom Philip the Fair had sent to avenge the blood of the Frenchmen who had died on the terrible morning of the 'Bruges Matins.
Word Of The Day