Opposite the Belfry, in the middle of the Market-Place, is the
monument to Peter De Coninck and John Breidel, on which garlands
of flowers are laid every summer, in memory of what they did when
the burghers rose against the French in May, 1302; and amongst
the modern frescoes which cover the walls of the Grande Salle des
Echevins in the Hotel de Ville, with its roof of fourteenth-century
woodwork, is one which represents the return from the Battle of
the Golden Spurs, that famous fight in which the hardy peasantry
of Flanders overthrew the knights of France whom Philip the Fair
had sent to avenge the blood of the Frenchmen who had died on the
terrible morning of the 'Bruges Matins.'
The fourteenth century had opened. The town had now reached the
limits which have contained it ever since--an irregular oval with a
circumference of between four and five miles, surrounded by double
ditches, and a strong wall pierced by nine fortified gateways;
and as the town had grown, the privileges and liberties of the
townsmen had grown likewise. Sturdy, independent, and resolved
to keep the management of their own affairs in their own hands,
the burghers of Bruges, like those of the other Flemish towns, had
succeeded in establishing a system of self-government so complete
that it roused the opposition of Guy de Dampierre, Count of Flanders,
whose efforts to diminish the power of these communities at length
brought about a crisis which gave Philip the Fair of France an
excuse for interfering.
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