ARTEVELDE
. A politically important family of 14th-cen-tury Ghent. A legendary figure in Flemish
history, Jacques van Artevelde (ca. 1290–1345) became extraordinary captain of Ghent in
1338, at the outbreak of the Hundred Years’ War. Ghent and Flanders were caught
between the demands of the French kings, feudal overlords of the Flem-ish counts, and
the dependence of the Flemish cities on English wool for their cloth industries. Van
Artevelde was a wealthy broker and dealer in foodstuffs, perhaps with ties to the brewers’
guild. Under his captaincy, Ghent dominated the other cities of Flanders and the
countryside, and he attempted to control Count Louis of Nevers, who managed to escape
to France. Jacques van Artevelde led Flanders into an open English alliance, but a truce
in 1340, renewed in 1342, contributed to a lessening of tensions in Flanders and deprived
him of the justification for his extraordinary magistracy. Van Artevelde had come to
power with the assistance of the weavers’ guild, the largest occupational group in Ghent,
but he associated all groups in a unity regime: the “small guilds,” whose members
worked for a local market, the aristocratic landowners, and the weavers’ often bitter
rivals, the fullers. He is for this reason often portrayed as a democratic reformer; in fact,
he became dictator in Ghent, where he maintained his position only by violence and an
enormous bodyguard. He ferociously suppressed rebellions against his authority in the
smaller Flemish towns and became a personal friend of King Edward III of England. In
1344–45, he supported weaver regimes throughout Flanders in denying a wage increase
to the less affluent fullers. He survived a coup attempt in early 1343 but was deprived of
his captaincy in the spring of 1345. Personal rivals, including the dean of the weavers’
guild, used the rumor that he wanted to recognize the Prince of Wales as count of
Flanders as a pretext for assassinating him on July 17, 1345.
The youngest son of Jacques van Artevelde, Philippe (1340–1382), had an obscure
early career in which he played no political role. He became confiscation commissioner
of Ghent in December 1381, when a rebellion against Count Louis II (de Male) had
already been in progress for more than two years. He became captain, the office that his
father had held, on January 24, 1382, as the count was on the verge of starving Ghent into
submission. Philippe’s power was based more exclusively than his father’s had been on
the support of the weavers, and he seems to have objected in principle to French
influence in Flanders. After using his first month in power to exterminate personal rivals,
notably the eldest sons of men involved in the plot to assassinate his father, Philippe
began negotiating for an English alliance, then captured Bruges in a surprise attack on
May 3 and forced Count Louis II, who had been in that city, to flee to France. Although
he controlled Flanders and styled himself “regent” from that point, the English help never
materialized. The forces of Louis II, his son-in-law and eventual successor, Philip the
Bold, duke of Bur-gundy, and King Charles VI of France invaded Flanders and crushed
the Flemings on November 27, 1382, at the Battle of Roosebeke, where van Artevelde
lost his life.
David M.Nicholas
The Encyclopedia 137