It has already been pointed out to what a position of wealth, population, and power, industrial and commercial activity had in the thirteenth century raised the towns of Flanders, Bruges, Ghent, Lille, Ypres, Fumes, Courtrai, and Douai, and with what energy they had defended against their lords their prosperity and their liberties.

It was the struggle, sometimes sullen, sometimes violent, of feudal lordship against municipal burgherdom.

The able and imperious Philip the Handsome had tested the strength of the Flemish cities, and had not cared to push them to extremity.

When, in 1322, Count Louis de Nevers, scarcely eighteen years of age, inherited from his grandfather Robert III.

the countship of Flanders, he gave himself up, in respect of the majority of towns in the countship, to the same course of oppression and injustice as had been familiar to his predecessors; the burghers resisted him with the same, often ruffianly, energy; and when, after a six years' struggle amongst Flemings, the Count of Flanders, who had been conquered by the burghers, owed his return as master of his countship to the King of the French, he troubled himself about nothing but avenging himself and enjoying his victory at the expense of the vanquished.