The Council of Flanders (Dutch : Raad van Vlaanderen, French : Conseil de Flandres), primarily sitting in the Gravensteen in Ghent from 1407, was a court of law operating under the authority of the Count of Flanders and exercising jurisdiction throughout the County of Flanders.
The council grew from less formalised exercises of jurisdiction by the count of Flanders and his advisers, with no clear date of origin. [1] Philip the Bold attempted to found a permanent court with codified rules and jurisdiction at Lille, at the same time as establishing the Lille Chamber of Accounts to audit government expenditure. However, the cities Ghent, Bruges and Ypres, and the Franc of Bruges, refused to recognise the council as having appellate jurisdiction over their own magistrates. [2] : 10 In 1407 the council was relocated to Ghent, and on 17 August 1409 Duke John the Fearless issued the council's statutes in 44 articles. [2] : 13 Article 26 specified that in closed hearings the council was to use French, and in open hearings the choice of language was to be left to the parties. [2] : 14
During the 15th century when the city of Ghent was at odds with the Duke of Burgundy, the council often sat elsewhere – at various times in Kortrijk, Dendermonde, Ypres or Bruges. [2] : 15–17 It was finally re-established to Ghent in 1498. [3] The counts of Flanders had recognised the appellate jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris for suits arising in those parts of Flanders anciently attached to the kingdom of France (essentially those parts west of the river Scheldt), but in 1521 Charles V decreed that the Great Council of Mechelen had sole appellate jurisdiction for the whole county of Flanders. [2] : 26 By the Treaty of Cambrai (1529), Francis I of France renounced all claim to sovereignty or jurisdiction in Flanders.
During the Dutch Revolt, Calvinists seized power in Ghent in 1578. The council was reconstituted at Douai in 1580, under the presidency of Guillaume de Pamele, and remained there until 1585. [2] : 31
In 1694 Charles II of Spain disbanded the Admiralty Council and transferred maritime jurisdiction to the Council of Flanders. [2] : 38
The last sentence of death issued by the Council of Flanders was on 24 July 1772. [4]
The council ceased to exist in 1795, when the Austrian Netherlands were annexed by the First French Republic. [2] : 44
Pieter van der Zijpe (1386–1404) | Willem van Pamele (1580–1585), loyal to Spain |
Pieter van Camdonck (1404–1409) [5] | Nicholas Damant (1585), refused |
Simon van Formelis (1409–1440) | Jacob Bogaert (1587–1596) |
Goswin de Wilde (1440–1445) | Jacques Liebart (1598–1605) |
Gillis van der Woestyne (1451-) | Willem van Corenhuyse (1605–1617) |
Andries Colin (1465–1479) | Marcus de Hertoghe (1617–1626) |
Thomas de Plaine, acting [6] (1475–1477) | Guilielmus Wyts (1626–1641) |
Paul de Baenst (1479–1497) | Aurelius Augustinus van Male (refused) |
Filips Wielant, acting (1488–1492) | Filip Willem van Steenhuys (1649–1650) |
Jean le Sauvage (1497–1509) | Jean-Baptiste della Faille d'Assenede (1650–1666) |
Richard Rogier [7] | Lodewijk Errembault (1668–1679), loyal to France |
Nicolaas Utenhove (−1527) | Antoon vander Piet (1679–1706), loyal to Spain |
Pieter Tayspil (−1540) | Antoon Sersanders de Luna (1706–1721) |
Lodewijk Helleweghe (1541–1556) | François-Aloyse vander Meersch (1722–1739) |
Adriaan vander Burgh | Frederik Varendoncq (1739–1740) |
Jacob de Blasere (−1558) | Karel-Filip Patijn (1742–1772) |
Jacob Martens (−1573) | Louis de Keerle (1772–1781) |
Adolf van Meetkercke, in revolt against Spain (1580–1585) | Jan Diericx (from 1782) |
Transport in Belgium is facilitated with well-developed road, air, rail and water networks. The rail network has 2,950 km (1,830 mi) of electrified tracks. There are 118,414 km (73,579 mi) of roads, among which there are 1,747 km (1,086 mi) of motorways, 13,892 km (8,632 mi) of main roads and 102,775 km (63,861 mi) of other paved roads. There is also a well-developed urban rail network in Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent and Charleroi. The ports of Antwerp and Bruges-Zeebrugge are two of the biggest seaports in Europe. Brussels Airport is Belgium's biggest airport.
Flanders is the Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, language, politics, and history, and sometimes involving neighbouring countries. The demonym associated with Flanders is Fleming, while the corresponding adjective is Flemish, which can also refer to the collective of Dutch dialects spoken in that area, or more generally the Belgian variant of Standard Dutch.
The Seventeen Provinces were the Imperial states of the Habsburg Netherlands in the 16th century. They roughly covered the Low Countries, i.e., what is now the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and most of the French departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais (Artois). Also within this area were semi-independent fiefdoms, mainly ecclesiastical ones, such as Liège, Cambrai and Stavelot-Malmedy.
Joan, often called Joan of Constantinople, ruled as Countess of Flanders and Hainaut from 1205 until her death. She was the elder daughter of Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders and Hainaut, and Marie of Champagne.
The Flemish peasant revolt of 1323–1328, sometimes referred to as the Flemish Coast uprising in historical writing, was a popular revolt in late medieval Europe. Beginning as a series of scattered rural riots in late 1323, peasant insurrection escalated into a full-scale rebellion that dominated public affairs in Flanders for nearly five years until 1328. The uprising in Flanders was caused by excessive taxations levied by the Count of Flanders Louis I and by his pro-French policies. The insurrection had urban leaders and rural factions, which took over most of Flanders by 1325.
In the history of the Low Countries, the Burgundian Netherlands or the Burgundian Age is the period between 1384 and 1482, during which a growing part of the Low Countries was ruled by the Dukes of Burgundy. Within their Burgundian State, which itself belonged partly to the Holy Roman Empire and partly to the Kingdom of France, the dukes united these lowlands into a political union that went beyond a personal union as it gained central institutions for the first time.
Louis II, also known as Louis of Male, a member of the House of Dampierre, was Count of Flanders, Count of Nevers, and Count of Rethel from 1346 to 1384, and also Count of Artois and Count of Burgundy from 1382 until his death. He was the son of Count Louis I of Flanders and the Countess of Burgundy and Artois, Margaret I of Burgundy, the youngest daughter of the King of France, Philip V the Tall.
The Council of Troubles was the special tribunal instituted on 9 September 1567 by Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba, governor-general of the Habsburg Netherlands on the orders of Philip II of Spain to punish the ringleaders of the recent political and religious troubles in the Netherlands. Due to the many death sentences pronounced by the tribunal, it also became known as the Council of Blood. The tribunal would be abolished by Alba's successor Luis de Zúñiga y Requesens on 7 June 1574 in exchange for a subsidy from the States-General of the Netherlands, but in practice it remained in session until the popular revolution in Brussels of the summer of 1576.
A Joyous Entry is a ceremonial event marking the entry into a city by a monarch, prince, duke, or governor in parts of modern-day Belgium. Originating in the Middle Ages, it generally coincided with the affirmation or extension of the city's civic rights and privileges.
From the 15th century onwards, the Great Council of the Netherlands at Mechelen was the highest court in the Burgundian Netherlands. It was responsible for the Dutch-, French- and German-speaking areas. In Luxembourgish the phrase "mir ginn op Mechelen" still means playing one's last trump card. The Grote Raad first sat in the Schepenhuis in Mechelen then, from 1616, in the (old) palace of Margaretha of Austria on Keizerstraat.
St Martin's Church, also called St Martin's Cathedral, is a church and former cathedral in the Belgian city of Ypres. It was a cathedral and the seat of the former diocese of Ypres from 1561 to 1801, and is still commonly referred to as such. At 102 metres (335 ft) tall, it is among the tallest buildings in Belgium.
Jean Grusset dict Richardot, knight was a statesman and diplomat from the Franche-Comté, who held high political office during the Dutch Revolt and played an important role in restoring Habsburg rule in the Southern Netherlands.
The Franco-Flemish War was a conflict between the Kingdom of France and the County of Flanders between 1297 and 1305.
The County of Flanders was one of the most powerful political entities in the medieval Low Countries, located on the North Sea coast of what is now Belgium. Unlike its neighbours, such as the counties of Brabant and Hainaut, it was within the territory of the Kingdom of France. The counts of Flanders held the most northerly part of the kingdom, and were among the original twelve peers of France. For centuries, the economic activity of the Flemish cities, such as Ghent, Bruges and Ypres, made Flanders one of the most affluent regions in Europe, and also gave them strong international connections to trading partners.
Remi Drieux, Latinized Remigius Driutius (1519–1594) was the first bishop of Leeuwarden and the second bishop of Bruges.
Martin Bauwens of Riethoven or Martinus Rythovius was a Catholic theologian and the first Bishop of Ypres. He was a figure of some spiritual and political significance during the early decades of the Dutch Revolt.
Filips Wielant (1441/2–1520) was a magistrate and legal theorist in the Burgundian Netherlands, and a participant in the Flemish revolts against Maximilian of Austria.
The Burgundian State is a concept coined by historians to describe the vast complex of territories that is also referred to as Valois Burgundy.
Felix Guillaume Antoine Brenart (1720–1794) was the last bishop of Bruges prior to the suppression of the diocese in the French period.