The Spell of Flanders / An Outline of the History, Legends and Art of Belgium's Famous Northern Provinces

by Edward Neville Vose

Here, after a day of poor sport, the Count came upon a black boar of enormous strength which killed several of his dogs and even wounded one of his companions. Pursuing the savage beast eagerly the Count lost sight of his followers and when he finally brought it to bay he was alone. With a blow from his javelin he finally killed it, and then cut off its monstrous head. As he paused to get his breath he heard a slight rustle in the bushes and there was the most beautiful lady he had ever seen, seated on a palfrey. Upon his inquiring who she was, and why she was there in the forest alone, she replied that she was an Eastern princess and had come to find and wed the richest Count in Christendom, adding that she had learned that the Count of Flanders was the noblest lord in all the West, and it was therefore that Count for whom she was seeking.

To this the Count, who had already fallen deeply in love with the beautiful stranger, whose dark eyes flashed upon him with a glance at once mysterious and entrancing, replied that he was the Count of Flanders and the richest Count under Heaven. He then and there proposed to the damsel, offering to marry her at once, nor did he perceive that the wild boar he had lately slain had disappeared, and even the blood of the battle was gone, while as for the huge head that he had cut off with his own hands the palfrey upon which the Eastern princess was seated stood on the very spot. He then blew so loud a recall upon his horn that it was heard for miles through the great forest, and presently the lesser counts and knights who formed his train came riding up. To these he introduced the strange princess and, despite the prudent counsels of some that it might be well to learn more about the lady, he forthwith repaired to Cambrai where they were married in great splendour. The Countess, beautiful as she was, did not become popular, the people attributing to her the heavy taxes they had to pay. It was also whispered that she never attended the elevation of the Host at mass, always leaving before the bell was rung.

Notwithstanding her unpopularity, and the gossip of the busybodies, the Count still loved his bride who bore him two children, Jeanne and Margaret, and ever remained as wonderfully beautiful as the day they first met in the forest. As they were celebrating Easter one year at Wynandael with a great feast a pilgrim arrived from the East with news that the Saracens were besieging Constantinople. He was forthwith invited into the great hall of the castle and food placed before him, which he ate eagerly. Just then the Countess entered, with a train of ladies. At sight of her the pilgrim stopped eating and trembled, while the Countess turned deadly pale and whispered to her lord to send that stranger away as he was wicked and meant only evil by coming there. But the Count bade the pilgrim say whereat he was alarmed, whereupon the stranger rose and in a loud voice bade the devil who filled the body of the Countess to depart from it. At this the Countess rose and confessed she was indeed one of the devils cast out of Paradise who had inhabited the body of the most beautiful maiden of the East, the soul having departed from it. With this confession, at which all present were naturally appalled, she rose in all her beauty before them and vanished through a window of the hall, nor was she ever seen or heard of again.

Other chroniclers and historians deny this story, pointing out that the Count was, in fact, happily married to Marie of Champagne and that it was the beautiful French Countess and no princess of satanic origin who bore his two daughters, Jeanne and Margaret. This, in truth, was the case, but many of the superstitious Flemings believed the tale about the devil none the less, and the Count’s brilliant but tragic later career caused the story to be repeated and handed down for many generations.

Only five years after coming to the throne Count Baldwin announced his intention of going on a crusade, and in the presence of a vast throng both he and Marie took the cross in the church of St. Donatian at Bruges. This was in 1199, but the Count was not able to leave his dominions at once and in the following year he and Marie came to Ypres to dedicate the foundation stone of the great Cloth Hall. He finally set out in 1203, but the Venetians compelled the crusaders, in payment for their passage, to make a campaign which resulted in the capture of Constantinople, the founding of the Latin Empire, and the election of Count Baldwin as the first Emperor. Marie, meanwhile, had gone to Syria by another route and there she died of the plague, only learning in her last hour that her husband had become an Emperor and that she was an Empress. Her death was the first of the reverses of fortune in Baldwin’s meteoric career. A year later, in 1205, he fell wounded in a battle before the walls of Adrianople—or, perhaps, slain. Certain it is that he disappeared from the world of men and for a space of twenty years was heard of no more.

Then, in the heart of the great forest that in those days stretched from Tournai to Valenciennes, some wood-cutters found a long bearded, white-haired old man, his face covered with scars, living the life of a hermit in a hut none of them remembered ever having seen before. Gradually this wonder attracted more and more of the people thereabout to see the stranger, and men began to say that he resembled the good Count Baldwin. Some of the nobles who had known the Count heard of it, visited the hut in the forest, and declared that this was indeed Count Baldwin and the Emperor.

If he was the Count his country needed him sorely, for the King of France, Philip Augustus, had during his twenty years’ absence all but made Flanders a French province. When it became clear that Baldwin was either dead or a prisoner of the pagans Philip had seized his two daughters—Jeanne being then a girl of fourteen, and Margaret still in her cradle—claiming their wardship as the dead Count’s suzerain. Five years he kept them, nor did he permit them to return till he had married Jeanne to a kinsman of his own, Ferdinand of Portugal, who he thought would be a mere puppet in his hands. Ferdinand, however, proved to be a man of determination and resisted Philip’s seizure of St. Omer and Aire, two Flemish towns. Philip invaded Flanders with a great army, capturing Cassel and destroying Damme and all the merchandise stored there, Lille, Courtrai and many smaller towns. Ferdinand, unable to resist the superior forces of Philip single-handed, brought about an alliance with King John of England. The battle of Bouvines shattered this alliance, and for twelve years Ferdinand languished in a French prison, while King John was forced to grant the Magna Carta to his English subjects. Thus a victory for tyranny in Flanders resulted indirectly in a greater victory for the cause of freedom in England. Jeanne, while her husband was in prison, was the titular Countess of Flanders, but Philip kept her completely under the influence of his counsellors. Margaret, meanwhile, had been married, but her husband was unable to make head against the far-reaching power of the King of France.

It was under these circumstances that the hermit who men thought resembled Count Baldwin came on the stage. If he was an impostor his coup was shrewdly planned, for Jeanne was as hated by the Flemings as her father had been loved. If he was really the good Count and the Emperor his arrival in Flanders seemed to that distracted country like a direct interposition of Providence. A great delegation from Valenciennes went out to the forest and hailed him as their Count and then he at last admitted that he was indeed Baldwin of Constantinople.

His tale was a strange one, but more easily believed in those wild days than it would be now. He had, he asserted, been wounded before Adrianople and made a prisoner by the Bulgarians. While a captive a Bulgarian princess saw him, fell in love, and contrived to effect his escape after he had promised to marry her. Once free, however, he repented of his pledge to marry an infidel, and murdered his benefactress. This wicked deed was quickly followed by his recapture by the barbarians, who made him a slave and even a beast of burden. Escaping at last, after many years, he had become a hermit in penance for his great sin.

The men of Valenciennes believed this story, and pardoning his self-confessed crime as of little moment, since it affected only an infidel, proclaimed him their Count. The great towns of Flanders flung open their gates to him wherever he went, and finally he held his court in Bruges. His neighbours, the Dukes of Brabant and Limbourg, and his former ally, the King of England, acknowledged his claims, while his daughter Jeanne fled to France for protection.