1.  His origins.

In the year of our Lord one thousand one hundred and twenty-seven, during the fifth indiction, on March 2, peace was taken from our land, honesty carried off, and all happiness nearly extinguished by the detestable outbreak of death, war, travail,  foulness and all unhappiness.  Indeed, on that day of that year the lives of many people were jeopardized through the life of one man and, according to God’s just judgement, the deserved deaths of many men were engendered in a kind of horrible breeding by the undeserved death of one man.  For then, as the prophet said, the iniquities of our fathers were remembered before the Lord [Ps 108.14, Vulg.] and our old sins were castigated with a new punishment, so that–when the man upon whom, second only to God, the people’s welfare had until then been founded was taken from them–the censure of divine judgement, which had formerly lain concealed in God’s prescience, was revealed and made public.  On that day indeed, Charles, count of Flanders, the son of the martyr Knut, the former king of Denmark, and Queen Adele (whom Roger, duke of Apulia, later married) was murdered in the church of Saint Donatian in Bruges through the wickedeness of a few men but to the ruin of many. . . .

32.  The count’s burial.

On which day [Friday, March 4, 1127], a few of his vassals and dependants came together and buried him in a tomb that had been constructed out of stones and cement upon the floor in the place where he had been killed.  The priests and clergy then commended him to God with the solemn rites of masses and prayers in another church because reason and authority did not allow them to do so in a place that had been desecrated with murders and human blood.  The provost and his men, however, exulted as if they had defeated an enemy and discussed and pondered how they might take over the county and whether they would meet with any resistance, all the while ignoring what sentence was being prepared for them by the fearful judgement of a divine severity.  While they were rejoicing in blood and the looting of the count’s strongboxes, which they had seized, the just Judge and most fair Avenger was secretly arranging their punishment.  O ineffable goodness and justice of God!  He waited mercifully until Lent of the second year after His passion, granting His impious Jewish persecutors this time to repent, but since they did not repent - too inattentive to realize that God’s patience was calling them to repent, storing up His wrath against them for the day of wrath - they died horrible deaths that same year.  He justly shortened the delay for these persecutors of a just man, however, and put off their punishment hardly a week.  God’s Jewish persecutors, I believe, indeed deserved to be given mercifully more time because the early church grew up among them; the count’s persecutors, however, were judged more quickly, and rightly so, because the mature church was scandalized among and by them.

33.  The siege of the men from Bruges.

For behold! exactly a week after the count’s murder, as if Lord Charles had in a way risen up to avenge himself, a certain Gervase, a neighbor of the traitors and an honest and upright man, gathered about thirty of his knights and attacked and entered the town of Bruges.  Overrun by the fear of God, the traitors did not have the courage to fight back, and Gervase forced them to take refuge in the inner stronghold.  I have no doubt whatsoever that this was achieved through divine virtue since the traitors were far superior in number, strength and position.  Truly God’s hand strengthened the hearts of these few faithful men and sapped the strength and courage of the many faithless ones.  Celestial grace likewise so altered the hearts of the citizens of Bruges that not only did they not unjustly favor or offer help to their lords’ faction, but, on the contrary, altogether refused to have anything to do with them and, allied with Gervase, immediately besieged them in the stronghold into which they had fled.  Two of those who were accomplices to the murder of Lord Charles were run down, captured, and tortured, as was right, in various and shameful ways in the sight of the others and to their pain, certainly, and confusion.  They were finally killed and one of them was hung from a gibbet, while the other was thrown in a sewage ditch where he could be seen by his lords looking out from the walls of the castle. . . .

36.  The growth of the siege and the invasion of the castle.

After Gervase and Didier had begun the aforementioned siege in Bruges, as was described above, Baldwin of Ghent and Daniel of Dendermonde, from the east, and Walter of Lillers, Richard of Woumen, and Thierry of Dixmude, from the west, gathered their forces, joined the siege, and swore an oath that they would not leave there until the murderers had been captured and punished.  And so when a few days had gone by and some assaults had been attempted, the besiegers scaled the southern wall one day and hurled themselves boldly inside, rushing upon the traitors and forcing them all to flee inside the church of Saint Donatian, which they had already defiled with foul murder.  This was just what they deserved.  For it was fitting retribution that they be forced to endure unwillingly the hardships of vigils, hunger and thirst and the constant fear of looming death throughout the weariness of the long siege in precisely that place which no respect had prevented them from desecrating cruelly in contempt of God and His saints. . . .

43.  The disorder after the count’s death and the peace.

But we should now turn back in time and report some events which took place before this but which we have omitted until now, because everything that occurred at one time could not be told at the same time.  When the marquis had been killed at Bruges, therefore, as was described above, the news of such an evil deed spread immediately in all directions and was known that same day at a distance of almost thirty leagues.  There was, therefore, mourning everywhere, sighs everywhere, and great sorrow among the clergy, monks, the country folk, the poor, among all those ultimately who wanted to live in peace and tranquility and maintain and enjoy order.  All thieves and wicked men, however - who, it then became clear, had been restrained by a fear more of Charles than of God - were loosed as if the chains by which they had been restrained had been shattered, and they began to throw everything into disorder, to rob merchants and travellers of their possessions, and often to bind them and throw them into prison.  Such was the madness and the wickedness of those malicious men that they were not held in check even by reverence for a holy time, for it was then Lent.  But their insanity was quickly repressed with the help of omnipotent God’s mercy.  The very day that the aforementioned William, lord Charles’ cousin, learned of the count’s death from a messenger, he claimed the county for himself, albeit unsuccessfully, occupied the strongly-fortified castle of Aire and made all the occupants swear loyalty to him.  And when he had likewise taken control of Saint Venant, Cassel, Bailleul, Ypres, and the land around Bergues and Veurne, he quickly repressed the activity of the thieves in these areas and commanded that peace be maintained.  Other barons of the land, too, having conferred with one another, were inspired by God to agree to maintain peace and each saw to the defense of his region.

44.  The king’s arrival and the choice of a new count.

When Louis, the august king of the French, heard that his cousin Charles had died and that William had seized an honor that was not his, especially since the king had not agreed to it, he was gravely concerned and traveled to the city of Arras around the middle of Lent, wanting as much to strip William of the authority he had usurped as to avenge the death of his friend.  He ordered young William Clito, called the count of Normandy – who, as we noted in the beginning of this little work, had been impiously disinherited by his uncle, King Henry of England, and had recently married the sister of the queen – to come to Arras as well.  When they had stayed in that city about two weeks and several men who claimed the countship of our land – namely, Arnulf, the nephew of Lord Charles, Baldwin of Mons, and numerous messengers demanding the countship on behalf of the aforesaid William, who had already seized that part of our land mentioned above – had come to the king, the queen finally prevailed thanks, I believe, to God’s hidden but nonetheless just Providence, and, having very deftly gained the support of certain of the leading men, obtained the countship for her brother-in-law, the count of Normandy, on March 23.

45.  The impediments opposed to the royal decision and the count’s progress.

Fearing that William’s power would grow to his detriment, his uncle strove to weaken it with all his might and by whatever means he could.  He therefore solicited the support of many powerful men–sending his nephew, Stephen of Blois, count of Boulogne and Mortain, and distributing a great deal of money through him and other loyal representatives, and promising yet more – and claimed that Flanders was his heritage and belonged to him by right of inheritance from his uncle, Robert of Cassel.  He won them over to his side in this way and formed an alliance with his father-in-law, the duke of Leuven, and the count of Mons, and Thomas of Coucy, and also the aforementioned William of Ypres.  He goaded and urged all of them and their followers to oppose the will and the decision of the king and to hinder the new count in every way, not so much because he himself wanted to obtain Flanders, which he perhaps already despaired of winning, but in order to weaken and destroy the count’s strength, which he believed dangerous to him. 

Accompanied by the count, the king left the city of Arras a few days later and proceeded – with difficulty, however, for the English supporters hindered him almost everywhere – first to Lille, then to Ghent, and then to Bruges, where he strengthened the siege with his presence.  The count left Bruges after Easter and, passing through Lille and Béthune, came to our city of Thérouanne where he was welcomed with great joy by the clergy and people and remained two days.  He eventually passed through Thérouanne again on his way back to Lille after he had taken possession of the town called Saint Omer and been welcomed joyously by its castellan and burghers (once certain conditions had been agreed upon) and stayed there for a few days.

46.  The surrender of the men from Bruges, and the miracle of the food, and the cleansing of the church.

In the meantime, the king had forced Robert and the other remaining murderers of Bruges to come out of the tower into which they had fled and give themselves up and had locked them all up in prison and chains. . . .

48.  The royal expedition and the surrender of Ypres.

When all these things had been performed solemnly and with due honor, the king set out for Ypres with the army he had been able to assemble and arrived there around the sixth hour of the next day, April 26, where the count, as they had arranged, quickly rushed to meet him with an army raised elsewhere.  A short time later, the oft-mentioned William, the son of Philip, revering the highness of royal majesty less than he ought and supported by the arms and courage of the many strong men he had recruited, rushed boldly out of the town towards them and began to fight fiercely against their combined armies.  But the wretched man was unaware of the pit of adversity and earthly misfortune that had been dug for him while he – who judged himself to be acting bravely when he fought against his enemies as stubbornly as possible – established and arranged his battle line against his adversaries.  For well before this, some of the burghers, who had sworn oaths of loyalty to him not once but many times, had plotted with some other of his men to betray him, had sent messengers to the king, and had pledged that they would open the gates to him and betray William. 

Woe to the world for temptations to sin! [Mt 18.7] or rather woe to Flanders for traitors!  It is wondrous and no less pitiful that the unhappy land that had lost its lord to treachery could not obtain another except through treachery.  Only a few men of Ypres, it is true, had arranged this betrayal, because they had judged it more advantageous to comply with the royal will than to be subject to William’s orders and a power they mistrusted.  For they did this, so they said, not because they found any fault with him, but because they feared the intemperate lordship of certain of the men close to him.

49.  William is captured, Ypres burned, Flanders subdued.

And so after the fighting had gone on from the sixth to the ninth hour of the day with various attacks from both armies from the north and east, the traitors summoned the enemy troops by means of a standard they had raised on the very top of Saint Peter’s church as the agreed-upon signal for the treachery they were preparing, opened the southern gate, and welcomed them into the town.  They ran throughout the whole town without stopping and laid everything to waste with theft and fires.  Only then did William of Ypres realize that he had been betrayed, and he took flight, since that seemed to be the only thing he could do, but he fled too late.  Daniel of Dendermonde followed and captured him as he fled, disarmed him, and handed him over captive to count William.  That same day, when Ypres had been plundered and burned from the northern to the southern gate and an innumerable crowd of knights had been captured, the king and count led the captive William away with them to the abbey of Messines.  They placed him in the custody of the castellan of Lille the next day, then continued on to Aire and, having received its surrender, easily subjugated Cassel and the rest of lower Flanders.  They then finally returned to Bruges to avenge the death of the honorable Charles.

50.  The execution of the prisoners from Bruges.