CHAPTER II

BALDWIN BRAS-DE-FER--THE PLACE DU BOURG--MURDER OF CHARLES THE GOOD

Towards the end of the ninth and at the beginning of the tenth
century great changes took place on the banks of the Roya, and
the foundations of Bruges as we know it now were laid. Just as
in the memorable years 1814 and 1815 the empire of Napoleon fell
into fragments, and princes and statesmen hastened to readjust the
map of Europe in their own interests, so in the ninth century the
empire of Charlemagne was crumbling away; and in the scramble for
the spoils, the Normans carried fire and sword into Flanders. Charles
the Bald, King of the Franks, at this crisis called to his aid the
strong arm of Baldwin, a Flemish chief of whose ancestry we know
little, but who soon became famous as Baldwin Bras-de-Fer--Baldwin
of the Iron Arm, so called because, in peace or war, he was never
seen without his coat of mail. This grim warrior had fallen in
love with the daughter of Charles the Bald, Judith, who had been
already twice married, first to the Saxon King Ethelwulf (after
the death of his first wife Osberga, mother of Alfred the Great) and
secondly to Ethelbald, on whose death she left England and went
to live at Senlis. Baldwin persuaded the Princess to run away with
him; and they were married without the knowledge of her father, to
escape whose vengeance the culprits fled to Rome. Pope Nicholas I.
brought about a reconciliation; and Charles not only pardoned his
son-in-law, but appointed him ruler of Flanders under the title of
Marquis, which was afterwards changed into that of Count. It is to
the steel-clad Baldwin Bras-de-Fer that the Counts of Flanders trace
the origin of their title; and he was, moreover, the real founder of