Qualla: Battle of Beverhoutsveld

Battle of Beverhoutsveld: Introduction

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Froissart, chronicles, book III, miniatuur: copy by Paul Hermans, Public domain. The militia of Bruges that marched out on the morning of 3 May 1382 had been to mass. Specifically, they had been to the annual Procession of the Holy Blood, the most important religious holiday in the city. After the procession the inns and taverns of Bruges had done a roaring trade. Many of the men marching east toward the open field of Beverhoutsveld had stopped at one tavern, then another, then a third, fortifying themselves with the kind of courage that comes out of a tankard. Eight kilometres away, on a flat field between Beernem and Oostkamp, the army of Ghent was waiting for them. Among the things waiting were several hundred small wheeled cannon called ribauldequins. Almost nobody in 1382 had ever fought against massed gunpowder artillery before. By sundown, fewer would want to.

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Image: Froissart, chronicles, book III, miniatuur: copy by Paul Hermans | Public domain

Battle of Beverhoutsveld: Two Cities at War

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kramer, W. (Fotograaf), CC BY-SA 4.0. The fourteenth-century Flemish economy ran on cloth. Wool came from England, was woven in the great cities of Flanders, and sold across Europe. Ghent and Bruges were the two largest looms in the room, and they cordially despised each other. Ghent's powerful guilds had risen again...

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Image: Kramer, W. (Fotograaf) | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Beverhoutsveld: Ribauldequins on the Field

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Davidh820, CC BY-SA 3.0. Artevelde's army did not march on Bruges directly. They stopped at Beverhoutsveld, an open heath about an hour's march from the city walls, and drew up in a defensive line with the artillery placed on one flank to rake any approaching enemy. The artillery was the surprise. A riba...

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Image: Davidh820 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Beverhoutsveld: The Discipline of Strong Beer

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit EmDee, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Bruges contingent came up the road in the late afternoon. They had been fortified, the contemporary accounts agree, by long stops at every inn between the cathedral and the city gates. Their order was poor; their courage was loud. The Ghent line waited. When the Bruges militi...

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Image: EmDee | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Beverhoutsveld: A Dragon and a Tower

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Trougnouf (Benoit Brummer), CC BY 4.0. Legend - and only legend, but the kind of legend Flemish cities cherish - says that the Ghent victors stripped a metal dragon from St Donatian's Cathedral in Bruges and dragged it home to mount on top of their own Belfry tower, where it sits as a triumphal trophy to this day. Whe...

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Image: Trougnouf (Benoit Brummer) | CC BY 4.0

Battle of Beverhoutsveld: Six Months to Roosebeke

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Froissart, chronicles, book III, miniatuur: copy by Paul Hermans, Public domain. The hope lasted six months. King Charles VI of France could not allow a successful guildsman's republic in Flanders, not with his own cities watching closely. A royal army marched north. On 27 November 1382, at Westrozebeke - now Roosebeke - the king's knights and crossbows broke...

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Image: Froissart, chronicles, book III, miniatuur: copy by Paul Hermans | Public domain