Lot, Ferdinand. Les derniers carolingiens: Lothaire, Louis V, Charles de Lorraine (954–991).
Paris: Bouillon, 1891.
LOUIS, COUNTS OF FLANDERS
. Louis I de Nevers (r. 1322–46), also known as Louis de Crécy, showed himself a loyal
French vassal through a turbulent reign, when the powerful Flemish cities generally
opposed him. His clumsiness in limiting the privileges of Bruges at Sluis ignited the
rebellion of maritime Flanders in 1323, which most of the county except Ghent joined at
some point. Only with the help of King Philip VI was Louis able to end the rebellion in
1328. As tensions heightened between France and England in the mid- 1330s, the English
used a wool embargo to try to force a change of position on Louis de Nevers. The cities
were caught between their count’s French allegiance and their need for the wool. After
Jacques van Artevelde took power in Ghent in January 1338, Louis de Nevers fled to the
French court. Except for two brief periods, he remained away from Flanders until his
death at the Battle of Crécy in 1346.
Louis II de Male (1330–1384) was the son and successor of Louis de Nevers and last
count of the house of Dampierre. In 1347, the year after his accession, he married
Marguerite, daughter of Jean III, duke of Brabant, and by 1349 had ended the rebellion of
Ghent. The disputed succession of his father-in-law in Brabant after 1355 involved Louis
in a costly war. His fiscal demands placed serious burdens on the cities. To protest
Louis’s inability to control piracy, the German Hanseatic League, which controlled much
of Flanders’s foreign supply, blockaded Flanders, and Louis had to agree to the Germans’
demands in 1360.
Forced by the strength of representative institutions in Flanders to consult with the
cities before levying taxes, Louis had recourse to ruinous devaluations of the coinage,
contributing to rampant inflation. A talented administrator who strengthened and
professionalized the central court, he confirmed the privileges of numerous small towns
throughout Flanders, particularly their right to make textiles that did not imitate those of
the great cities, and gave charters to foreign merchants allowing them to maintain
resident colonies at Bruges. He favored Bruges over Ghent, and when he allowed Bruges
to dig a canal that would cut into the Lys River south of Ghent, challenging the latter
city’s monopoly on shipping from France, Ghent began a civil war that would last until
1385. Louis died on January 30, 1384, and was succeeded by his son-in-law, Philip the
Bold, duke of Burgundy, who in fact had been directing policy in Flanders from 1382.
David M.Nicholas
[See also: DAMPIERRE; FLANDERS (genealogical table); PHILIP THE BOLD]
Blockmans, F. and W.P. “Devaluation, Coinage and Seignorage Under Louis de Nevers and Louis
de Male, Counts of Flanders, 1330–84.” In Coinage in the Low Countries (880–1500), ed.
Nicholas J.Mayhew. Oxford: B.H.R., 1979, pp. 69–94.
Nicholas, David. Town and Countryside: Social, Economic, and Political Tensions in Fourteenth-
Century Flanders. Bruges: De Tempel, 1971.
Pirenne, Henri. Histoire de Belgique. 4 vols. Brussels: Lamertin, 1908–12, Vols. 1–2.
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