captive to Paris, and Flanders came under direct French rule. The extreme measures of
the French officials provoked a reaction, and in 1302 the French army was defeated in the
famous “Battle of the Golden Spurs” near Courtrai. The French returned to the fight,
however, and the treaties of Athis (1305) and Pontoise (1312) decreed a huge Flemish
indemnity payable to the French, the surrender of the “Walloon” Flemish castellanies of
Lille, Douai, and Orchies to the crown, and the restoration of the “Leliaert” (French-
sympathizing) patricians who had been overthrown in 1302, but many of whom gradually
worked their way back into the town magistracies.
Count Robert III de Béthune (r. 1305–22), Gui’s son and successor, was able to restore
much of the independence of Flanders, but only at the cost of frequent French military
and diplomatic interventions. His grandson and successor, Count Louis de Nevers, came
to power after a dispute within his family, was imprisoned by the French briefly at the
beginning of his rule, and evidently thought that he owed his position to French help.
Louis faced a rebellion in maritime Flanders, including Bruges, between 1323 and 1328,
which he was able to crush only with the help of Ghent and the French in 1328. But
during the 1330s Louis’s entente with Ghent ended as the count tactlessly meddled in
municipal affairs. The coming of the Hundred Years’ War between England and France
caught Flanders between the French sympathies of the count and many wealthy
townsmen and the reliance of the great cities on English wool for their draperies. The
great cities had taken a leading role in the political affairs of Flanders as early as the
crisis of 1127–28, and by the 13th century the “good towns” were meeting in consultation
with the counts on all matters of public policy. As an extension of this principle, the cities
claimed the right to govern Flanders through the count after 1338, and without him after
he fled Flanders in late 1339. Jacques van Artevelde, the captain of Ghent who became
the virtual dictator of Flanders, carefully maneuvered Flanders into an English alliance
but evidently hoped to convince the count to recognize Edward III of England as king of
France. The English hoped to use Flanders as a base from which to invade France, but
this hope failed at the siege of Tournai in 1340. The cities themselves, dominated but not
controlled completely by weavers, maintained their rebellion until Ghent was stormed in
January 1349.
The new count, Louis de Male (r. 1346–84), imposed loyal regimes in all the cities,
generally giving considerable authority to the fullers, a less revolutionary element than
the weavers. He gave privileges to foreign merchant colonies in Bruges and confirmed
rights given earlier to numerous smaller communities to manufacture certain types of
cloth. But there was a disastrous commercial war with the German Hanse between 1358
and 1360, and Flanders had to submit to the Germans’ demands after a blockade. Louis’s
debasements of the coin also contributed to severe inflation and to the problems of
Flemish drapers in maintaining their overseas markets. The control of the
counterrevolutionary regimes began to fail in 1358, and weaverdominated regimes were
back in control by 1361.
In contrast to what had happened in 1349–50, however, there was no mass
proscription of political opponents, and the relations of the cities with the count generally
remained correct, although the count did show some favoritism to the fullers, notably in
giving them wage increases. Throughout the 14th century, Flanders had become
increasingly dependent on imported grain from Germany and France. Louis de Male
permitted Bruges, which by now was better disposed to him than was Ghent, to try to
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