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Updated: June 7, 2025
So soon as they saw him they began to mutter, saying, 'There goes he who is too much master, and would fain do with the countship of Flanders according to his own will; which cannot be borne. It had, besides this, been spread about the city that James Van Artevelde had secretly sent to England the great treasure of Flanders, which he had been collecting for the space of the nine years and more during which he had held the government.
At last he was caught amongst them, and killed on the spot without mercy. A weaver, called Thomas Denis, gave him his death-blow. This was the end of Artevelde, who in his time was so great a master in Flanders. Poor folk exalted him at first, and wicked folk slew him at the last." It was a great loss for King Edward.
The other way is, that every man capable of bearing arms shall muster, that we shall march to Bruges, and there either perish under the lances of his knights, or conquer and drive him headlong from the land. Which choose ye, my friends?" A mighty shout arose: "We will fight!" "You have chosen well," Van Artevelde said.
The battle began with spirit the next morning, in the midst of a thick fog. According to the monk of St. Denis, Van Artevelde was not without disquietude.
But Philip Van Artevelde was not now, as he had been a year before, ready to take hints from others, and he simply replied, carelessly, "I have no doubt that my orders have been strictly carried out, sir knight," and rode forward again. "I don't think things will go well with us, Albert," Edgar said.
Know that I would gladly aid you with all my power, you and all the country; if there were here a man who would be willing to take the lead, I would be willing to risk body and means at his side; and if the rest of ye be willing to be brethren, friends, and comrades to me, to abide in all matters at my side, notwithstanding that I am not worthy of it, I will undertake it willingly. Then said all with one voice: 'We promise you faithfully to abide at your side in all matters and to therewith adventure body and means, for we know well that in the whole countship of Flanders there is not a man but you worthy so to do." Then Van Artevelde bound them to assemble on the next day but one in the grounds of the monastery of Biloke, which had received numerous benefits from the ancestors of Sohier of Courtrai, whose son-in-law Van Artevelde was.
On April 29, 1338, the representatives of all the communes of Flanders the city of Bruges numbering among them a hundred and eight deputies repaired to the castle of Mâle, a residence of Count Louis, and then James van Artevelde set before the Count what had been resolved upon among them.
These, living in an age of chivalry, when noble blood and lofty deeds were held in extraordinary respect, had little sympathy with the brewer of Ghent, and deemed it contrary to the fitness of things that the chivalry of France should have been defied and worsted by mere mechanics and artisans. But there can be no doubt that Artevelde was a very great man.
His father, John Van Artevelde, a cloth-worker, had been several times over sheriff of Ghent, and his mother, Mary Van Groete, was great aunt to the grandfather of the illustrious publicist called in history Grotius.
In the crowded streets of modern Ghent, the busy capital of East Flanders, we seem to catch a glimpse of bold Jacques van Artevelde shouldering his way up to the Friday Market, or of turbulent burghers gathering there to set Pope, or Count of Flanders, or King of Spain at defiance.
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