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Updated: May 15, 2025
Pol in all some six thousand knights. Louis of Clermont and one or two others escaped, to the damage of their reputation. This battle of Courtrai was fought on July 11, 1302. Had the war not been one exclusively of defence on the part of the Flemings, or had they had ambitious and adventurous chiefs, such a disaster might have endangered the throne of France.
He astonished no less the army when he arrived at Courtrai, where it had stationed itself. Having gained all the information he sought, Chamillart returned to Versailles on Friday, the 4th of June, at about eight o'clock in the evening, and at once went to the King, who was in the apartments of Madame de Maintenon.
On Whit Sunday, May 23, at Ramillies the allies encountered the enemy under the command of Marshal Villeroi and the Elector of Bavaria. The French were utterly defeated with very heavy loss; and such was the vigour of the pursuit that the shattered army was obliged to retire to Courtrai, leaving Brabant and Flanders undefended.
And, all the while pressing forward the equipment of a large fleet collected at Calais for the invasion of England, he entered Flanders, besieged and took several of the richest cities in the country, Cassel, Ypres, Bruges, and Courtrai, and pitched his camp before the walls of Ghent, "to lower," as he said, "the pride of the men of Ghent and make them bend their necks beneath the yoke of kings."
It approaches; everywhere are old church spires. They are delightful, seen thus from above. Where are we? Is this Courtrai? Is it Ghent? We are already very near it, and we see that it is surrounded by water and crossed in every direction by canals. One might think it a Venice of the north.
If Courtrai had given the first hint that these iron-clad knights were not invincible in war, it was soon followed by another. The Swiss peasants formed among themselves a league to resist oppression. This took definite shape in 1308 when they rebelled openly against their Hapsburg overlords.
The English arms owed much of their force to the class of the free yeomen; and the success of the infantry, especially of the archery, largely stood for that popular element which had already unhorsed the high French chivalry at Courtrai.
The tyranny of the count, and the French party which supported him, became so intolerable to Artaveldt, that he resolved to assail them at all hazards, unappalled by the fate of his father-in-law, Sohier de Courtrai, who lost his head for a similar attempt, and notwithstanding the hitherto devoted fidelity of his native city to the count. One only object seemed insurmountable.
As a result of the battle of Courtrai the French nobility were nearly destroyed, and Philip found it necessary to recreate his titled bodies. The Flemings prepared to resist the storm. They chose Guy of Juliers, grandson of the Count of Flanders, to be their commander. Though a cleric, he did not hesitate to obey the call, in order to avenge his family, so cruelly betrayed by the French King.
This part of West Flanders, which lies wedged in between the coast, with its populous bathing stations, and the better-known district immediately to the south of it, where Ghent, Tournai, Courtrai, and other important centres draw many travellers every year, is seldom visited by strangers, who are almost as much stared at in some of the villages as they would be in the streets of Pekin.
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