Blessed[1] Charles the Good | |
|---|---|
 Image of Charles I on his reliquary in the Sint-Salvatorskathedraal, Bruges, Belgium | |
| Count and Martyr | |
| Born | c. 1084 Odense, Denmark |
| Died | (1127-03-02)2 March 1127 Bruges,County of Flanders (nowBelgium) |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Beatified | 9 February 1882 (confirmation of cultus) byPope Leo XIII |
| Feast | 2 March |
| Attributes | sword |
Charles the Good (1084 – 2 March 1127) wasCount of Flanders from 1119 to 1127. His murder and its aftermath were chronicled byGalbert of Bruges. He was beatified byPope Leo XIII in 1882 throughcultusconfirmation.[2]
Charles was born inDenmark, only son of the three children ofKing Canute IV (Saint Canute) andAdela of Flanders.[3] His father wasassassinated inOdense Cathedral in 1086,[4] and Adela fled back toFlanders, taking the very young Charles with her but leaving her twin daughters Ingeborg and Cecilia in Denmark. Charles grew up at the comital court of his grandfatherRobert I of Flanders and uncleRobert II of Flanders. In 1092 Adela went to southernItaly to marryRoger Borsa,duke of Apulia, leaving Charles in Flanders.
Charles travelled to theHoly Land in 1107 or 1108 with a fleet of English, Danish and Flemish crusaders.[5] In 1124 he was offered the crown of theKingdom of Jerusalem by a faction of the nobility opposed to King Baldwin II but refused,[6] according toGalbert of Bruges, at the urging of his advisors, who feared that his departure would leave Flanders completely at the mercy of the Erembald clan.
In 1111 Robert II died, and Charles's cousinBaldwin 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 ofAmiens,Margaret of Clermont, daughter ofRenaud II, Count of Clermont.[7] The childless count Baldwin VII was wounded fighting at theBattle 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 ofKing of the Romans after the death ofHenry V, but rejected the offer. During the famine that struck Flanders in that same year, Charles orderedlegumes 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 demonstrablynon-Jewish Erembald family, who were heavily engaged in these same disreputable business activities and many others like them, to the status ofserfs. As a result, Bertulf, the head of the Erembald family, aRoman Catholic priest and provost of theChurch of St. Donatian, masterminded aregime change conspiracy toassassinate 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.
On the morning of 2 March 1127 Charles was kneeling in prayer with his outstretched hand filled with coins in order to give alms to passing poor people inside the church of St. Donatian. DuringMass and in violation of the Catholic teaching about theReal Presence, a group of knights answering to the Erembald family entered the church and hacked Charles to death withbroadswords.[11][12] The brutal andsacrilegious murder of the popular count provoked widespread public outrage, and he was almost immediately regarded popularly as amartyr andsaint, although not formallybeatified until 1882.[a] The Erembalds, who had planned and carried out the murder of Charles, were besieged inside the comital castle of Bruges by the enraged nobles and commoners of Bruges andGhent. All the conspirators were defeated, captured, andtortured to death. KingLouis VI of France, who had supported the uprising against the Erembalds, then used his influence to selectWilliam Clito of theHouse of Normandy as the next count of Flanders.[13]
| Preceded by |  Count of Flanders1119–1127 | Succeeded by |
