Charles the Good (1084 – 2 March 1127) was Count of Flanders from 1119 to 1127. His murder and its aftermath were chronicled by Galbert of Bruges. He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1882 through cultusconfirmation.[2]
Charles travelled to the Holy Land in 1107 or 1108 with a fleet of English, Danes and Flemings.[5] This is possibly the fleet of Guynemer of Boulogne, described similarly. Years later, he was offered the crown of the Kingdom of Jerusalem but refused,[6] according to Galbert of Bruges, at the urging of his advisors, who feared that his departure would leave Flanders completely at the mercy of the Erembald clan.
Countship of Flanders
In 1111 Robert II died, and Charles's cousin Baldwin VII of Flanders became count. Charles was a close adviser to the new count (who was several years younger), who around 1118 arranged Charles's marriage to the heiress of the count of Amiens, Margaret of Clermont, daughter of Renaud II, Count of Clermont.[7] The childless count Baldwin VII was wounded fighting at the Battle of Bures-en-Brai in September 1118, and he designated Charles as his successor before he died on 17 July 1119.[8]
In 1125, he was also considered a candidate for the election of King of the Romans after the death of Henry V, but rejected the offer. During the famine that struck Flanders in that same year, Charles ordered legumes to be planted on his own estates and given away to the starving. He often stated, according to Galbert of Bruges, that it was better for the rich of Flanders to drink only water than for a single poor person to die of starvation. He distributed bread to the poor en masse and also launched a draconian crackdown against the very common business practice of buying up and hoarding grain and other food supplies during famine to drastically drive up the price and only much later selling it off at an enormous profit.[9] For example, Charles expelled all the Jews from Flanders, attributing allegedly similar activities by Jewish merchants as a cause of additional suffering.[10] Meanwhile, at the urging of his advisers, the count launched legal proceedings to reduce the extremely wealthy, politically connected, and demonstrably non-Jewish Erembald family, who were heavily engaged in these same disreputable business activities and many others like them, to the status of serfs. As a result, Fr. Bertulf FitzErembald, the de facto family patriarch, a Roman Catholic priest, and the provost of the Church of St. Donatian, masterminded a regime change conspiracy to assassinate Charles, replace him with his more pliable kinsman William of Ypres, and execute all of the Erembald family's opponents among the Count's advisors.
Death
On the morning of 2 March 1127, as Charles knelt in prayer and with his outstretched hand filled with coins in order to give alms to passing poor people inside the church of St. Donatian. During Mass and in violation of the Catholic teaching about the Real Presence, a group of knights answering to the Erembald family entered the church and hacked Charles to death with broadswords.[11][12] The brutal and sacrilegious murder of the popular count provoked widespread public outrage, and he was almost immediately regarded popularly as a martyr and saint, although not formally beatified until 1882.[a] The Erembalds, who had planned and carried out the murder of Charles, were besieged inside the castle of Bruges by the enraged nobles and commoners of Bruges and Ghent. All the conspirators were defeated, captured, and tortured to death. King Louis VI of France, who had supported the uprising against the Erembalds, then used his influence to select William Clito of the House of Normandy as the next count of Flanders.[13]
Notes
^At the Petit Palais Museum in Paris there is a remarkable painting of his funeral by the Belgian artist Jan van Beers (1852–1927).
Galbert of Bruges (2013). The Murder, Betrayal, and Slaughter of the Glorious Charles, Count of Flanders. Translated by Rider, Jeff. Yale University Press.
Hundahl, Kerstin; Kjær, Lars; Lund, Niels, eds. (2016). Denmark and Europe in the Middle Ages, C.1000–1525: Essays in Honour of Professor Michael H. Gelting. Routledge.
Nicholas, David (1992). Medieval Flanders. Longman.
