Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 114 - The Battle of the Golden Spurs

Episode Date: July 26, 2020

Stupid sexy Flanders. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Sources: DeVries, Kelly (2006). Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteenth Century: Discipline, Tactics, and Technology. The Boydell Press.

Hey everybody, Joe here from the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. If you enjoy what we do here on the show and you think it's worth your hard-earned money, you can support the show via Patreon. Just a $1 donation gets you access to bonus episodes, our Discord, and regular episodes before everybody else. If you donate at an elevated level, you get even more bonus content. A digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a sticker from our Teespring store. Our show will always be ad-free and is totally supporter-driven. We use that money to pay our bills, buy research materials that make this show possible, and support charities like the Kurdish Red Crescent, the Flint Water Fund, and the Halo Trust. Consider joining the

Legion of the Old Crow today. And now, back to the show. Okay, don't panic. Remember what the instructor said. If you ever get into trouble, all you need to do is... Feels like I'm wearing nothing at all. Nothing at all. Nothing at all. Stupid sexy Flanders. Hello, and welcome to yet another episode of the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. I'm Joe, and with me as always is Nick. What up?

That's me. Do it. Welcome to the dunk, boys. That that sounds bad i'm not great at intros uh so nick it's been a long time since we've talked about like knights and medieval warfare right little shit we're gonna talk about a whole lot of knights getting brained you ready for that let's do it because This is the Battle of the Golden Spurs. If there is if there's any Belgians

or French, I guess, out there, they're probably like, oh, hell yeah, right now. I don't think we've ever made the Belgian contingent of our listeners happy. Today's the day. Hopefully we'll do an episode about waffles soon. I like waffles

now if you remember back a couple dozen episodes i'm not gonna look it up what the episode number was probably like 50 ago or something we we talked about the time a massive army of french knights was shot to hell by british longbowmen and drowned in fields of mud and shit during the battle of episode ashen core yes thank you nate battle of Agincourt. Agincourt. Yes. Thank you, Nate. We'll buckle up. Also, if you didn't get that joke, go back and listen to the episode. Because this time we're going to be talking about more French knights getting

completely owned, this time by a bunch of Flemish militiamen during the Battle of the Golden Spurs. And no, we're not talking about cowboy boot titty tassels. Actually, I guess we kind of are, but whatever. Before we get there,

we do have to touch on the Franco-Flemish War and how it got started, because it's equally dumb. Like all wars, like all wars of the day, this one boils down to inbred white dudes beefing over turf.

We've been here before, right? Yes, plenty of times. It's one of our greatest podcasting rules that most conflicts are just about old white people beefing over turf. Burfing over burf. Can't fucking speak. I got shack brain. I got Shaq brain. Though in this case, it's mostly just one Ed Bread guy,

and that is the French king, Philip IV, also known as Philip the Fair, which I will not be calling. Philip the Fair. Yeah, I will not be calling him that because he's dumb. Who gave him that name? Was it him? Probably. Can I go with, you know, Philip the Fair? Can I go with Dragon?

I want to be i want to be king dragon in uh science in high school it was a general science she said uh put your names and then uh any uh nickname you might like to be called and i was like oh fuck it this is my chance because you know how much i like nicknames or like team names it is a common thread with you that's for sure so one i wanted to go with dragon she didn't like it immediately gave up but fucking dragon that would be the shit call me dragon knight uh now old phil had come to the throne yeah i'm gonna call him phil because i don't know why i find that name funny when it comes like because nobody's like gonna tremble before King Phil King Phil yeah like anyway old Phil had come to the throne not by being born into it

by marrying the Queen Regent Joan I so don't think this is some kind of rag to riches story or something Phil was a nobleman from a very powerful family and like most marriages of people like that it was one of political convenience and power consolidation

that ended up creating a dynasty he ended up becoming king at 17 years old so what were you doing at 17 you fucking slob failing at school yeah i was in basic training so phil really owned me fucking weird flex man i was kind of hoping he was going for that 90 day fiance thing this is more of a married at first sight type deal because they're like hey phil you're getting married to this one chick and he was like yeah okay it's all he is he can say no true though it turned out when you give the throne to a 17 year old he's gonna act like one he uh he was desperate to strengthen the French throne as much as he could.

I thought he was going to be masturbating all over the throne. He's just wandering through the halls, honking people on their chests and calling them dicks. He wanted to strengthen the French throne, but he wasn't great at it. He set up

a dense bureaucracy that involved several layers of ministers to do most of his job for him. While that might sound like a best case scenario for a boy king, it really wasn't. He pretty much just had it in place for plausible deniability.

You know what I mean? He would do something and then fail. And then he'd be like, well, this minister did it, not me. Yes. And then he'd just fire the minister. Oh, he's one of those types of leaders. Yeah, but if something good happens and the minister actually had something to do with it, he's like, that was all Phil, baby.

Everything's coming up Phil. So he was every E7 in the United States military, I guess. Yes. So he was every E7 in the United States military, I guess. Yes. When Phil took the throne, France's forever enemy, England, was actually ran by Edward I, which might be ringing a bell in some people's head, but he was also run by Edward the Longshanks of Braveheart fame.

That guy. He was a vassal to the French king. So in the very beginning, Longshanks had to listen to Philshanks. And most of this was based on the fact that the French crusader armies and kings were pretty powerful. And it was all based on crusader-type power and the crusader states. And I'm not going to go into it too far just know that the French king controlled England at the time but by 1291 the two sides

pretty much began to fall apart and only three years later they'd be at war because Phil sucks at his job I mean all Phil had to do is like not fuck up he couldn't do that which like I get it I guess I mean it's hard to do was like not fuck up he couldn't do that which like I get it I guess

I mean it's hard to do when maybe he had some like a conscious say hey hey don't fuck this up I got that going on in my head and then I end up

fucking it up yeah imagine that voice doesn't exist because you're a king and you can do whatever you want that's how I see this kind of going

you know what I mean I don't have that king mindset so I don't know you don't have that king mindset. You don't have that big king energy. Would love a throne, though. That'd be pretty sweet.

A throne's just a fancy chair. You've got a fancy chair. I do not. My chair's in the bees, technically. There's chunks missing from it. Does it have a cushion on it? Barely. Man, you're good to go, then. You're have a cushion on it? Barely. Man, you're good to go then.

You're king of the barracks. Fuck that. I'm about to go back home. No, like, this didn't go great for Phil and the French. They pretty much did nothing during the war except lose and then take over a little bit of territory only to lose it again. So not only did he not strike a decisive win like he wanted uh he he took what like had been a budget surplus that uh that the last king had left and rapidly tanked the french economy by fighting wars and built up an endless deficit

uh which forced him to raise taxes which made more people hate him. Phil was also very bad at diplomacy. The two sides eventually came together at the peace table at 1303. And one way to bring the sides together was to marry the families into one another, as was custom at the time. You know, like the old thing, like, I just want to be treated like a princess

or a prince or whatever. that turns out you just that means you get like human human trafficked into a marriage that you don't want to be in i just want to be treated like a princess that's i say that sometimes yeah i'm gonna tell uh someone that i'm gonna treat you like a princess i'm gonna marry you off to my neighbor so I can control his flower garden. It's a shitty flower garden, but I fucking want it. But it's mine. This meant... So, Phil married his daughter Isabella

off to Edward's son, Edward II. But all this did was press pause on a much worse war because Edward II and Isabella would eventually produce a claimant to the French throne, which would then go on to trigger the Hundred Years' War. I thought you meant a divorce battle. Those wars can...

Those are devastating. The battle of every other weekend. Fuck, that was me growing up. Damn it. I'll see you at the fields of the family or the friend of the court, sir. Now, while all this is going on, things were also heating up between the French and the Flemish. Now, the county of Flanders. Stupid.

Stupid, stupid, sexy Flanders. Stupid. Stupid sexy Flanders. Feels like I'm wearing nothing at all. Nothing at all. Nothing at all. That's the intro. That's the fucking intro. I can't help it. I'm sorry Flanders and the people of

Belgium. We're mocking your entire history based on The Simpsons, and it's not going to stop, so just log off now. That's who we are. You must be new here. So the county of Flanders had technically been part of France for a very long time at this point, since the Treaty of Verdun signed back in 843,

which was the treaty that split apart Charlemagne's empire amongst his sons. But the county always kept a bit of self-determination. They pretty much ran their own affairs. Much like the time that Flanders attempted to get or attempted to look

after the Simpson children when they were taken away by the court and kept their independence. See, this is working. I'm making this work. Yes, it works perfectly. The fucking, the Flemish ran their own newspaper in the house

and it was the Todd News or whatever. I fucking can't remember. I fucked that up because I'm forgetting Flanders was independent. It doesn't work anymore. news or whatever i fucking can't remember i i fucked that up because i'm forgetting flanders was independent uh it didn't it doesn't work anymore i ruined it moving on instead of kneeling to the throne and just kind of going along with the whole thing the flemish kind of did their own thing the county became incredibly rich as the rest of france suffered under idiocy of a few kings for instance instance, Phil's dad ran up a debt,

which he then blew up and inherited. And yeah, he made it better for a couple months, but then made it way worse because he couldn't handle anything. Yeah, it wasn't great. But Flanders just kept on living its best life. They had their own circle of nobility that ran all their major

cities, and they all were doing pretty well. One Flemish ruler, Count Philip of Alsace. A lot of Philips in this one. It's Philips all the way down. Came to power in the area. He pulled a straight-up Crusader Kings game move and leveraged his wife's inheritance to take over

an entire neighboring county. Oh, you know how pissed I would be if my husband took my inheritance? Well, it didn't... He didn't take it. She inherited something there, but this is

the 1300s or whatever. The guy's going to end up ruling it. It almost sounds like he took it. Oh, it was definitely a bit of theft here. Women don't exactly have agency back then. This meant that Flemish counts territory

spread to only 25 kilometers away from the capital of France, Paris, you know, which is where the king is. So power is rapidly approaching him. And so this is kind of hard to explain the king of france was himself a feudal lord that controlled all over all other feudal lords right but he also controlled his own fiefdom right like that he inherited from his own

lineage but that his own fiefdom was not the entirety of france does that make sense no okay perfect so consider it this way um if you own a house you own your land right right mostly you own your house you're gonna pay taxes on your house uh and the the government over you is gonna inherit is gonna take the tax they're gonna use it probably for stupid shit um but like and they're taxing all this other stuff right at the same time but the government doesn't own your house they just like own like the shitty city hall building down the street right but like some really big wealthy landowners gonna come in and buy up like half the fucking town like the cult that owns yelm yes like the government of yelm owns very little of yelm

does that does that make sense yeah you got me there i like that okay so in this situation the king of france is the city government right and uh philip of alsace is an incredibly rich landowner and he now owns significantly more land than the king himself. That's a flex from where I'm from. That's a huge fucking flex. And this pissed off Phil a lot. The French Phil,

I mean. Especially after his war with England was going to shit. It pissed off the French king and things weren't going great in france all right it's hard to say he was successfully bringing more power to the throne as the county of flanders stupid sexy flanders was doing much better than like the all of france right right and this all happened much before Phil came to the throne, but it was not getting any better. Flanders is getting more and more powerful.

Stupid, sexy. I really wish I had a soundboard. God damn it. We should all be thankful that I do not have a soundboard. I'm getting a soundboard. It's official. But so while all this is going on and Phil is tanking

all of France there's this one county that's just like that sucks they're fucking thriving yeah and he's like god damn I'm supposed to be king of I'm supposed to be their king too god damn it they're supposed to be suffering like everybody else

but this conflict was not specifically just between the French king and the Flemish count. Flemish society itself was largely split between French-speaking loyalists called Lillies and Flanders nationalists called Claws. Those are both short for local words, which I am not going to try to pronounce. But they're also popularly known as those kinds.

And you actually can see a lot of this today from Wallonians and Flemish people in Belgium. They're completely split in half, and some people want Flanders to be a thing, and some people want Wallonia to be a thing. This kind of exists to this very day, but with significantly less murder. So that's good.

Oh, yeah. That's an upside. It's more of a polite disagreement these days rather than, like, I i'm gonna brain you with this hammer let me get my broad sword out yeah so this was more of a split between the the royalty and the aristocracy of flanders rather than peasants peasants didn't really give much of a shit and most of the peasants were natives and land being the flemish um some people probably strongly disagree with me on that, and that's fine. I have no horse in this fight, except

it doesn't matter. I don't care. So if you're like a Wallonian that's like, we were here first! Cool, man, I believe you. Whatever. I don't give a shit. I don't have a dog in this fight, man. But just know that society is pretty well split, along with the

aristocracy, cool glad we hashed that one out the french knew this as well and attempted to win over local aristocrats over to their side while the count did the same thing for his side long story short flanders is a land of contrast and we're going to move on from that because of their wealth the king attempted to tighten his control over flanders citing a fact that they were not paying enough taxes, which is something that he just kind of changed out of nowhere. Because, like, France did benefit from Flanders being so successful. They just didn't benefit, like, a lot. Like, as much as the king wanted because, you know, they kind of did their own thing.

Anyway, after hundreds of years of being left to do their own thing and... Oh, wow, they lasted that long? Oh, God, yeah. Pretty much from the time the treaty was signed all the way up until the 1300s. Jeez. France kind of sort of just was like,

okay, you guys keep doing Flanders stuff, we're going to be over here. Nice. There's some flare-ups here and there, but they were largely on their own. Now, the king's overstretching of his power pissed off the Count of Flanners at the time, the Guy of Damphier.

So Guy attempted to talk things over with King Phil, who straight up refused to have an audience with him, saying that he was not a high enough ranking noble to deserve a audience with the king oh yeah not good so with nothing else to do and nothing else to leverage guy or gee went over to king edward of england longshanks i mean and attempted to arrange a political marriage of his own with his daughter and Edward II. Now, this is before Phil did the same thing. The war is still going on.

Political moves are being made. Yeah. So Phil got a tip off and quickly arrested Guy and his sons until they were forced to call off the wedding. So like, look, you can sit in jail all you want, but we're not letting you out until you call this marriage off. And you can't give away your daughter at the marriage because you're in jail. So you're fucked.

So they're like, okay, fine. We call off the marriage. Then Phil arrested Guy's daughter and threw her in prison until she died. Yikes, my man. Not how you make friends. Yeah, it's not great. If that wasn't bad enough, Guy was called before the king and told that all of the key cities of flanders which fell under got uh gee's personal control would be taken to royal protection because

clearly he couldn't be trusted finally saying that he was done fucking around gee straight up went to edward through all the marriage and the political marriages all the way uh who was remember in the middle of war with france and asks for an alliance to fight the French. Like, all right, let's just do this. I thought he was going to say, can I marry you instead? How about a political marriage between us? Because, damn, son.

You're dummy thick. Oh my fucking God. That's actually, he said that. Guy, that historical figure definitely said sir you're a dummy thing let me get them sheets now I'll be your Mr. Little Cum Dumpster too far

now Edward agreed because obviously right like why wouldn't he and so the response that the French king found out pretty fast. And so he annexed the entirety of Flanders to be held under royal domain rather than the count. This alliance with the English king would not mean a whole lot, unfortunately, for the people of Flanders or Guy, for that matter.

As old Edward Longshanks found himself balls deep in the Scottish War of Independence of Braveheart fame at the same time that he was fighting France. So he didn't have a lot of troops to send over and reinforce Flanders. Though he did try. I'm not going to go into it

because not a whole lot happened with him. He's busy with Mel Gibson. Yeah, this guy just keeps screaming at me about freedom. I don't get it. Freedom! After limited successes, so, like, the war started, France invaded, and the Flemish were

doing pretty good, kicking out the French invaders. What they knew was, like, the weight of numbers is not on our side here. A temporary truce was signed between the two sides, and the Count was hoping that they could use that time to negotiate a lasting peace. And maybe forget about this whole, you know, that time that I joined up with your most hated enemy to stab you in the back and everything will be cool again.

But Phil had other plans. The same day that the truce expired in January of 1300, the French invaded again. But Phil had other plans. The same day that the truth expired in January of 1300, the French invaded again. And this time, the Flemish would not be able to hold them off. By May, the entire county of Flanders was under

French control, and Guy was arrested. Damn it. I thought the fucking Flanders would hold them off. It's an army of Neds. Operation Diddly Diddly did not work out. Damn it. I thought the fucking Flanders would hold them off. It's an army of Neds. Yeah. Operation Diddly Diddly did not work out. No. It's like that episode where Flanders gets fucking mad.

Oh, goddamn Diddly. Dig dog crap. This sucks. Phil toured the county and, like, you know, just a county-wide dab on the haters there because like look you tried to fight me and i took you over now look at how cool i am so he installed his own local ruler uh to to run it all before fucking off back to france to king stuff and uh uh the noble patricians of the rich flemish cities quickly threw in their lot with the king in order to make sure likeish cities quickly threw in their lot with the king in order to make sure, because they were really worried

that the king was going to swoop in and just kind of noble domain everything, and they would lose all their money, like they had Dinda Guy or Guy. So they're like, yeah, we're totally on the king's side now. We're cool, right? I can keep running Bruges or whatever.

But also, there's a lot of internal fighting between feudal lords and the count over the the the amount of local control that they were supposed to have so like the the patricians of the city were in kind of in the same kind of fight that the that the count was in with the king where no no we should be able to control everything set our own taxes and then the overall county just kind of gives what we give you and the count was in with the king where no no we should be able to control everything set our own taxes and then the overall county just kind of gives what we give you and the count was like no this is how things should be there it was a a smaller version of the bigger fight pretty much okay but at the same time all these count or all these uh patricians just kind of chucked their lot in with the king because now obviously the the count is powerless now uh though some not all flemish nobles remained on the side of uh of gee a small amount really a very small amount which will become smaller which we'll talk about uh long story short the uh the populace of Flanders

is pretty pissed. And the nobles largely supported the French kings. The largely rural working class hoped that no matter how shitty the situation was, and it was rapidly getting worse,

that they'd at least get a fair deal out of the whole thing. Because the patricians of the city really controlled several different monopolies. There was no equal distribution of wealth or food. They'd be busting their ass

and these people were incredibly rich while peasants were medieval peasants and having a horrible, horrible, horrible life. All the time. Yeah. Well, unfortunately for them, there would be no fair shake. A guy named Jacques de Chantillon was appointed the governor of the county,

and Jacques was a world-renowned asshole. Yeah, with that name, it just sounds like one. Jacques. He was an aristocrat. That was actually my grandpa's legion name. I do remember that. And he was an asshole, so yeah. It tracks.

remember that and he was an asshole so yeah it tracks um now jacques was not a statesman he was an aristocrat who had won his glory in battle like over in the i think the aragonese crusade so like he was a soldier he had no business running a county uh and he he yeah he he saw the ledgers and was like we could we could rise taxes so like he he started raising taxes over and over and over again but he but the the french king was careful to make sure that he didn't piss off the nobles so pretty much all of these taxes were on people who were subsistence farmers for the most part so like yeah he's literally taxing people who are starving. What an asshole. Yeah, he's not great.

It didn't take long for the people of Flanders to get so pissed that they just decided they weren't going to take this lying down. Enter the guilds of Flanders. Yes. What? Yeah. Now, the easiest way to explain guilds is that they're, I'm just going to compare them to unions, though this is a very imperfect comparison, I know. Don't yell at me. But it's an easier way to explain this. being a member of the guild meant that the guild made sure you weren't exploited. Once the guild exploited you, then you were kind of up shit's creek without a paddle, which did happen.

But by doing this, they accumulated large amounts of wealth and political power. So like, the guilds weren't necessarily nobles, but they could sway nobles' opinions because of how powerful they were. Oh. Yeah.

Furthermore, the guilds were the main organizational method of military power within Flanners, which is badass. So local militia, the local Flemish militia units, would organize, train, and march within the ranks of their guild rather than any unifying group. Yeah. So it's like if the UAW had a fucking militia it's awesome this got better this is awesome yeah it's gonna get even better for the guilds uh and like the

guilds did a lot to make sure that their militias were powerful and like they trained like they trained a lot um they made sure like um in most armies, you'd have to pay for your armor and weapons. The guilds paid for most armor and all weapons. All right, guild members, go ahead and gather around for this annual training we got going on. Everybody, sit down. We're going to do cyber awareness training. Sir, computers have not been invented yet. Anyway, this is the slideshow on fishing okay uh but yeah

so like it's pretty cool uh guilds aren't great and like they're full of bastards too but like cooler than the count i guess but these were the powers that the french eventually pissed off and tipped the scales into uh like the war, which is a supremely bad idea. If you remember back to the claws and lilies, this is where that split really starts to happen. As the guilds from all over Flanders approach the claw nobles, which this time were very, very few, as most nobles had thrown their lot in with the French,

and the guilds wanted the claw support, the noble claw support, to show the French that they were not going to put up with their shit. And these few claw nobles agreed. Oh, wow. Through the leadership of the Flanders guilds. Fuck, let me try that again. Though the leadership of the Flanders guilds militias and their, I don't know, insurgents?

Aren't they raised greatest rebels, maybe? Would not fall under nobles, but rather a weaver named Pierre de Connick and a butcher named Jan Bridell. Did you pronounce any of those names correctly? Yeah, probably. Oh, nice. The tipping point for this whole thing was actually wool. Sheep's wool.

Yep, that was it. All right. This is definitely a straw that broke the camel's back situation, but it's always really funny to see what the breaking point is. Yeah. So for years, the bourgeoisie trades classes of Bruges had a monopoly on the trade of wool.

So by that I mean the tradesmen are, some of them are aristocrats, a lot of them are just rich dudes but they controlled a monopoly on the trade of wool within the city of Bruges because they had a deal with the king of England that they'd have to deal directly with them

rather than selling it into the market or to the people that would actually use it for like weaving and I don't know wool crafts wool craftsmanship and these happen to be the same people that threw their lot in with Phil and, I don't know, war crafts. War craftsmanship? Yeah. And these happen to be the same people that threw their lot in with Phil. These rich and aristocratic types.

And the king of England, who wanted to spite the king of France, decided, fuck those guys, I'm going to sell it directly to the tradesmen at the bottom, completely cutting out the middleman. So the main reason that this is important is that these trade that these bourgeoisie tradesmen on the top would make their riches by

jacking up the price of wool and then selling it and then skimming that off their gain so uh by selling it directly into the people that needed it uh that they could get it for much cheaper which immediately pissed off all these guys who then called up the King of France like, hey, the King of England's fucking up our sweet deal. You need to force them to stop. So Phil deployed French troops to Bruges to force this trade from stopping,

which shocked and terrified the entire population of Bruges. So during the initial stages of the war, before the treaty and before everybody got thrown in prison, the French troops had gotten a very earned reputation for being pretty much butchers and terrorists during the invasion of Flanders. They would slaughter anyone they came across, men, women, or child soldiers.

It did not fucking matter. It was just like, just destroy everything. So, you know, the people of Bruges seeing, like, French troops there were like, oh, fuck, it's gonna happen again. We're fucked. Yeah. So, Jan and

Pierre decided, sorry, it's not Pierre, it's Peter. Wait, what? Jan and Peter. No fucking way, it's Peter. Yeah, it's Peter Deconic. It's not Pierre. It's Peter. Wait, what? Jan and Peter. No fucking way, it's Peter. Yeah, it's Peter DeConnick. It's not Pierre? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right.

So Jan and Peter decided they would have to beat the French to the punch of all this slaughter, right? Like, we got to kill them first before they come for us. Ooh, I like that mindset. Slaughter first. No mercy. The only thing that stops a work, a bad war criminal is a good war criminal. Am I right folks?

Am I right? Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey. Anyway, this is the, uh,

the first day of the Robert Bale standup. Um, that was dark even for us. That's dark even for us that's dark even for us so uh yon and peter rallied their guild allies and took to the streets of bruges on the night of may 18th 1302 so one of the weapons that they were armed with was a strange specifically flemishish weapon that they had built themselves. Belgian waffle irons. It's nunchucks with waffles on the end. That is making me hungry for some reason.

Right? So it was a combination of a metal club with a spike on top of it. What? Yeah, and the spike was specifically made so it could target the weak spots in knight's armor and they could use the hammer or the club to fucking smack them and get them on the ground then mob them and stab them through the like the weak parts in the armor god so this weapon got its

name which we'll get to because they were while they were armed with this weapon the town was uh flooded with frenchmen and and like people that came from France to trade and French troops, just French people in general. All of these were valid targets to the guilds. But because white people all looked the same, the guildsmen couldn't be sure of who was who. They would enter homes, every home in the city, and then speak to them in Flemish, which is the greeting of the day, which was Godendog or Gudendog, one of the two.

It pretty much translates to good day. If they could not correctly answer in Flemish, they would get fucking brained by this weapon, which gave the weapon its name, the Godendog. Oh my god. Which is, you know, it's like Goot and Tog, but slightly different. It's like the easiest way to explain it,

but it means good day. So the weapon is literally named Good Day. Now there is other apocryphal stories of how this weapon got its name. I choose to believe this one. That's a good one. I like that one. I mean, not the weapon.

Yeah. It's used. I mean, I good one. I like that one. I mean, not the weapon. Yeah. It's used. I mean, I'm a pretty big fan of it. I mean, wouldn't it... All right, boys, cover your flappy folds. Here they come with the gun and talk. Everybody cover your soft spots. Here come the stabby boys.

Oh, and they come in like West Side Story with the snapping. I feel like that's how all claw and lily debates were settled. So, through the course of the night, Flemish insurgents using this method killed around 2,000 people. What? What if they were fucking up the greetings and people were just like, huh?

And just, wham! Sir, I'm from Germany. Hit him with the stick! Yeah, like, what the fuck? Now, this is specifically in the city of Bruges. Which is funny. Have you ever seen the movie In Bruges. So, which is funny. Have you ever seen the movie In Bruges?

No, I haven't. So it's a really weird movie, but like Colin Farrell's the main character. And the whole time he just talks about how boring the city of Bruges is. Colin Farrell's in it? Yeah, he plays an assassin with like PTSD. It's kind of an interesting movie. But like, whenever he says he's like's like fucking Bruges this place fucking sucks. But apparently

used to be cool. So that's nice. Yeah. We should go stopping over to Belgium and start saying why. Why are these

people in a strange accent keep saying good day to me with a spear in their hand. But one person they were not able to get was the

governor himself who ran with the few surviving French nobles. Yeah, you wouldn't catch me in Bruges. I'd be out of there. After the slaughter, the cities of Flanders centralized the rebellion, coming under the command of John

I, who was Guy's son. Though the city of Ghent took the side of the French, deciding not to join the rebellion and saying that they were not going to send any troops. We're just not going to do anything. I guess they forgot they didn't control them, and we'll get to that. The few noble claws that had leaned in the direction of Guy's side were terrified at the vast slaughter of the French and ran to the French.

and ran to the French. Now, a lot of this had to do with the fact that what they watched was a whole bunch of commoners slaughter noblemen throughout the course of a night. So they were like, wait, this has nothing to do with the French. They're coming for all the nobles! Which, admittedly, that was some of their... There's no centralized theme of rebellion here. Like, some people are like, yeah, fuck the nobles.

And other people are like, yeah, fuck the nobles and the French. And then some people are like, fuck everyone who isn't us. So it's like, yeah, Big Ten, I guess is a good way to put it. Big Ten. Now, at this point, Phil knew he would have to send forces to crush this little Flemish club spear party. So he dispatched Robert II with a massive army behind him to do this job. Now, Robert had about 3,500 knights and men-at-arms, which, if you remember, is just kind of a different kind of knight. Not really going to go into that too much.

Not important. Heavy-armored stab a lot and thousands on horseback which is the which is the important part here is the is the the importance of of heavy night mounted knights in medieval warfare okay now um he also had about 3 500 other other infantry, 1,000 pikemen, and 1,000 crossbowmen, some of whom were mercenaries that he purchased in Italy. Oh, wow. Hey, got a goal. I don't know. I mean, I guess they got their bow hand. I don't fucking know.

It's a crossbow, so you just got to cock it and load it full of dry spaghetti. Oh, yeah, that's true. Fuck, their trigger guard has to be giant. Probably. Shove their giant bread has to be giant. Probably. Shove their giant breadstick hands in there. Yeah. Now, everybody thought this battle or this war was going to be a bit of a joke. Not because the Flemish were thought to be pushovers, everybody did know them to be good fighters, but because of warfare of the day.

of the day. If you remember back during our Agincourt episode, the way of the war of the day was sending in heavily armored knights and horseback as shock troops to break up enemy infantry formations and then sending in infantry to exploit the breaks once you break up the enemy formation.

Cavalry was expensive as the men would bring their own armor, their own horses, etc. They were all on the hook for their own expenses. Yeah, a lot of logistics go into fucking feeding the army, not to mention the horses that come with the army. Yeah, and this meant all of the heavy-mounted horsemen were knights, therefore nobility.

Oh, fuck. Yeah. Remember how I talked about the nobility drain leaving the Flemish effort and setting with the French? french yes that means the rebels lost all of their heavy cavalry as well leaving them with as few as 10 knights oh fuck two face down 2500 now sources differ on this some put the number as low as 10 um others put it around 300, some 400. But regardless of what number you throw at those, regardless of which of those numbers you believe, those odds still fucking suck. Yeah.

Life is fucking you. The thought of the day was, if you didn't have knights on horseback, you did not have much of an army. Now, facing this array of knights was the guild militia of Flanders. Don't let the name militia fool you. These are not overweight, plate-carrying douchebags that your Capitol Hill refused to even put a mask on. They are mostly very

well-armed, very well-trained, and very well-disciplined. Most had at least chain armor and metal helmets. Some had plate armor, though the guilds would not foot out the bill for plate armor. They only bought chain because they could afford it for thousands of people. Right.

They also had an assortment of the goad and dogs, some spears, pikes, and crossbows. Altogether, the militia was able to muster between 8,000 and 10,000 men. Though, numerically, this is superior to the French, but that was not thought of as a benefit at the time. Even though the city of Ghent refused to join the rebellion,

the guilds of Ghent all disagreed and sent thousands of men to meet up with John for the war against the French. The guild rep is like, sir, you don't understand. We run this motherfucking city we own you while robert moved into flanders the militia struck first laying seed to siege to a french castle nice this wasn't now there's some disagreement on whether this tactic was to bottle the french up and keep them busy or to actually take the castle. But the fact remains is it was a

like, they're trying to buy time so they could lay defensive works in a battle they knew was coming. The Flemish soldiers prepared their defenses along the banks of a river so their backs would be facing a giant bend. And the bend was so far on each side of them

that it kind of formed a peninsula. So like, they were surrounded on three sides by water. That meant if any attack came, it had to come directly at them and flanking would be impossible. In front of them, the soldiers would begin digging. They redirected streams that run through fields

in front of them, turning them to shitty marshland. They dug up dozens of ditches filling them with spiked sticks, debris, and logs and stuff. At the very least, it would stop charging horses in their tracks who would not willingly run into them, and sometimes horses

did just fall into them and, like, fuck their legs up and stop them from being effective. Yeah. You get an Agincourt vibe. Oh, yeah. After weeks of preparation, the siege failed, and the Flemish forces fell back into their defensive positions against the river. And on July 11th, which is, look at the date, Nick, today! Fuck, we did something.

God damn it. So, no shit, I wrote this over the last three days, and I had no idea we would be recording today. Nailed it, boys! Put the banner up. We did it. Put the fucking banner up. The victory banners. Yep, we got one.

So, on July 11th, the two sides faced each other down on opposite sides of the field. Now, the French weren't fucking blind. They saw what was in front of them like, wow, these Flemish people really laid a trap for us so instead of like withdrawing to fight another day uh they ordered servants forward to put planks of wood over ditches and streams and stuff that had been cut to like lay a path for the forces now this may have worked if the french sent out troops to say, protect these guys or something.

Give them weapons that offend themselves. But they didn't. So Flemish forces simply walked out and murdered them as they worked. Jesus Christ. Good day! Hey! Whap! Left with nothing else to do, the French

decided to say, fuck it, I guess we're going into battle anyway and they deployed their crossbows forward to face off against their Flemish counterpart crossbowmen now the French won by a sheer force of numbers and the outnumbered Flemish crossbowmen withdrew and Robert

was an idiot though he knew that this battle was going to be won by horses but he also knew he couldn't commit them to the field as the Flemish had arrayed themselves in a giant wedge formation with all of their pikes and gone dogs faced outwards. So he knew that the cavalry would be sprinting directly into a wall of spears, which is bad. He knew that the knights were heavily armored, and this, that,

the other, and they could probably win, but the terrain was not great for large formations of horses due to all the obstacles. So he sent in the infantry, which was good on Robert for doing that. Now, foot soldiers,

armed with swords and stuff, are also heavily armored. Now, there was some light infantry as well, but most of them were more heavily armored than their Flemish counterparts. But they were also supported by crossbowmen for, like, fire support. That combined arms warfare dough. But, like, these guys could fight the Fmish pike formations much more successfully than the horse and they did um and the flemish for their credit didn't expect this like they're gonna come at us with knights immediately uh so they were kind of unprepared to fight light infantry and

the light infantry with um with the with the crossbow support uh pretty much started winning like the flemish were breaking their fort. Their line was breaking. Yeah. And the light infantry were winning the day. It's pretty crazy. Uh, and the Flemish like,

fuck, we don't have anything prepared for this. We didn't expect this. Right. So like Robert was shrugged and said, okay, fights over time to sit on the cavalry. Now he saw his infantry making headway and decided that was

all he needed he gave the order for his infantry to withdraw and his horses to move in the problem was he gave these orders at the same time and this is the 1300s and communication is mostly screaming and flag based are they gonna so is it gonna be like a bunch of friendly fucking stomping oh yeah yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. You know that one's coming. There's no nuances to his orders. The knights didn't know that they had to wait for the infantry to move out of the way, nor did they know that the infantry were withdrawing at all.

As far as they knew, they were just being sent in the fight. So the knights unfurled their banners and charged right in. Look, they tell me where to go, I go. Now, the dumbest part is this wasn't even needed. But rather, it was a case of Robert doing it the quote-unquote honorable thing by allowing the victory to be

sealed by nobles rather than the commoners and not-so-noble infantry. It was... Remember during Agincourt when... Now, Agincourt happens a significant amount of time after this battle, but the line is the same. Remember how he had a...

the commander had a hard time controlling his troops because they were nobles and they wanted to go win glory? Virtually the same thing here. He knew that he had about 2,500 nobles on horseback who'd be really royally pissed off, no pun intended,

if they showed up to this battle and didn't get to do some killing and win some glory, you know? Makes sense. Why not? Yeah, it turns out Robert's actually just a big, dumb fucking idiot. And the knights charged in.

And so it's tens of different units and formations numbering around 250 men apiece. And they ran to the obstacles that had been dug for them, the marshlands, all those things that we already talked about, right? And that did exactly what it was supposed to do, which was break up their formations. So like 250 men can't move in a block through all that stuff.

So it would be like ones and twos, tens here. It wouldn't be what you need it. And in some places, the horses refused to move over the obstacles and other places they collapse into the ditches, crushing their legs and killing their knights, whatever it may be. Still other horsemen plowed right through them

and through the infantry that was trying to withdraw. Fuck. Yikes. By the time the horsemen got to Flemish lines, the groups had reduced significantly in the numbers that they would attack in groups. So the shock value is gone. There's no 250 men slamming against one specific part of a line.

So when these smaller groups of horsemen hit the line, the Flemish infantry held, and then they would hold the horsemen in place by the pikes because horses, by nature, do not want to charge through spears, right? I would hope everybody has that in them. Right, that's why pikes are so effective. And then when they did that, they would then surround individual knights, drag them off their horses, and then stab them through the eye slits with their golden dogs.

Stab, stab, stab, stab. Or just brain them. Or in other places, they would pull them down, beat them unconscious, and then stab them to death and stuff like that. Sounds like the knights are just getting jumped. Yeah, it was pretty much like fucking prison got. Like, some Flemish guy's walking up with a knife, stabbing him a couple times, and passing it off to another guy who's walking by.

And then another guy, like, gives a grip of money to a guard who's there for some reason. Yeah. Anyway, folks, we call this infantry formation the cdcr now while all this is happening robert noticed that he had been fucked uh he watched small groups of knights being mobbed by flinish infantry and getting drugged down and dehorced and stabbed over and over again he knew his horseman had no momentum and their morale was starting to go too because they're watching all their friends get fucking got so um and he also

knew that he wasn't going to break their line anymore he needed to like get his men to rally and fight these dudes hand to hand uh so as the nobles began to break robert and his guard rode into battle battle to personally rally them to the cause. Now, if you thought this was going to turn the tide of this battle, you must be new to the show. Hello, welcome. Robert and his guard, like many others, were surrounded and ruthlessly beaten and stabbed to death. Jesus. Almost immediately, yeah.

Don't worry, I'll lead you into... Someone with a fucking broken off broomstick just shoves it into his kidneys. After that, the French army broke and ran for it, and that's not where this battle ends. So, if you're familiar with medieval warfare or the show and you listen to the Agincourt episode, you know that it was very, very normal and commonplace for people to take captives in the day. So I guess POW would be an easy way to explain it. So they could ransom them off back to their noble families for large sums of cash. You remember that, right?

The French also assumed that was going to be the case here. So most of the infantry who knew who they were or people who had lost their horses had just surrendered. They're like, whatever, I'll just get ransomed off. And then they found out that the Flemish people had absolutely no time for that bullshit. They took zero captives.

They're like, yeah, you can ransom me off. Oh, God! Oh, shit! Don't you know who I am? Pierre, get the gun, dog. Do you know who my father is? Yeah, we'll kill him, too. The fucking knight wearing boat shoes and a fucking red-nosed shirt

over his knight shit. Why is there a yacht parked in the miller's field? But it's got pikes in it don't you know what think tank my father works for uh but yeah as they surrendered they're murdered in probably the most horrible gruesome way possible that can be inflicted upon them in a very quick fashion oh my god and this did not end quickly the The Flemish troops chased the French for six miles. What? Now remember, they're on foot.

They're just running them down. Have you ever seen The Other Guys? Yes. It's like the scene where Kristine and the crazy husband go after Will Ferrell. Have sex with my wife! Holy shit, that was like 20 miles away. Oh, shit. In the end, at the cost of only around 200 militiamen,

the Flemish rebels killed 2,000 Frenchmen. Holy shit. Many of whom were the nobles that made up their mounted forces. Most of the French that died were the knights. What? Which brings us to how the battles got their name. Most of the French that died were the knights. What? Which brings us to how the battles got their name. So after looting the corpses of the French,

the Flemish recovered 500 sets of golden spurs. Now golden spurs would only be owned by very high-ranking men and very rich nobles. Now the Flanders people can use as a ornaments around their rear view mirror. Just like I do. Wouldn't you know it? These, these spurs are just a God dang doodlies thing. God damn it,

Ned. Uh, some of those high ranking nobles that they killed were, uh, uh, outside of like Robert the second, which we covered were also Raul of Claremont, the constable of all of France.

Weirdly enough, the constable of France was also killed during the battle of Ashencore. Must be a shitty job to have. Guy the first of Claremont, the marshal of France and Pierre de Float, the king's personal chief advisor. The king's personal float. Yeah, as well as dozens and dozens of other high-ranking counts and dukes and shit. Jesus.

Unfortunately, the Flemish people won the battle, but not the war, leading to a humiliating treaty that ended the war in 1305 um and you know but this battle is you know and the the the conflict with france is one of the reasons why belgium exists today so like they they won in the long run i guess um but also the the the effects of this battle on warfare itself were very long lasting. That being warfare fought by rich dudes on horseback fell out of favor as lords realized just a bunch of poor boys with pointy sticks could royally fuck their shit up if they had a little bit of training. Which is why like now nobles continue to do dumb shit like demand that they be at the front lines so they could win glory and this, that, and the other thing. But it also turned into largely is like called the infantry revolution.

And people became like armies became much more infantry based. Right. One of the results being the Battle of Agincourt, which like you saw that what England did to revise their military, which then stomped the French. what England did to revise their military, which then stomped the French. Um, I mean, and again, killed the constable of France and the Marshall of France and the,

not that other flow. It's just a giant Macy's day parade float that show shows a floor to Lee or something. I guess what I'm saying is one, go listen to the battle of Asian corecourt episode it's one of my favorite even if even if we pronounce the battle wrong the entire time uh but how's the battle of the gold agincourt we pronounce it agincourt agincourt agincourt yeah we pronounce it wrong not good now um the battle of the golden spurs remains a milestone in the historic Flemish struggle for national liberation.

And some consider that struggle to continue to this day. So, like, way to go, Stabby Boys. You did it. Wow. So, Nick, we do a thing on this show called the Questions from the Legion. Oh, good suspense. If you'd like to ask a question from the Legion, you can donate to the show. And you can ask us one.

That one should be good. What is the most far-fetched conspiracy theory or one that is kind of your favorite? Not one that you believe necessarily, but one that is your favorite. Because we've already talked about which ones we kind of believe. Like during our, I think it was our 100th episode. It definitely was during that.

One that's so far-fetched that I think it's hilarious yeah you go first i i mean some that are so far fast are obviously like the 5g ones that we're seeing today i think my favorite one is definitely q anon and i don't say that because i believe in q anon obviously i say that because it's like this all-encompassing thing that swallows all it's like that fucking shitty anti-semitic cartoon from back in the day where shows an octopus grabbing shit um but it's like q anon snatching up other conspiracy theories and absorbing it into itself and there's a great podcast

that covers it from like mocking it called QAnon Anonymous which is amazing and I highly recommend that you listen to it no I'm not being paid to plug their show nor have I ever been on it it's that good but if you're listening boys put me on the show nick what's your favorite one as of right now it has to be the um the coronavirus fucking fluke i guess is what people say but there's so many

nuances within that conspiracy theory like there's the 5g one do you mean like it's a bioweapon one no no that it's it's all a whole cover-up just to cover up like uh election season and all that stuff and that's all it's for oh so it's not real right pretty much so coronavirus is a crisis actor amazing much and i i love it where i work all the time i oh shit caveat to my favorite conspiracy theory because this one's awful but it's so unhinged that also QAnon recently swallowed it up, was that all of the cops and the victims of police violence are all crisis actors. I fell into that rabbit hole on Twitter, and it is astounding. I heard about that one. And then the same person, I was like, well, what about

the officer who killed that guy in Bofidiz City? And they're like, Bofidiz? I never heard that. I was like, Bofidiz nuts. And then they blocked me. Nice. Fight in the good fight.

One dick joke at a time so Nick thank you for joining me everybody thank you for joining us for another wonderful edition or entry into the quarantine cast

one day I'll be out of this oh for you oh god for me it is I uh one day i'll be out of this oh for you oh god it is yeah i i i am currently on day six 14 you know it's not great um you're not even halfway no but you know what really makes it easier to get by is like i understand understand and I'm totally fine with doing it. There's a lot of people who come to Hawaii and they think that the cops aren't going to check on you or nobody's going to call you. I've already had both those things happen to me.

So they take this shit very seriously because the Hawaii health system is pretty tenuous due to living on a fucking island 2,000 miles away from the mainland. We don't have many ICUs. I think we might have like two for the whole state. The outlying islands have emergency rooms and clinics. But Oahu has, from my my understanding most of the health infrastructure so if we have a whole bunch of stupid fucking idiots come from the mainland say during tourist season this is directed towards anybody who comes here during tourist season if they open it in august like they're planning on you will kill this state stay away like i i i know i'm not sick obviously because i was i was effectively quarantined before i came

here but i'm fine when i leave to like because i can walk down my driveway to pick up like the instacart groceries i live off of i wear a mask because i'm not a fucking asshole right also it's the goddamn law so as people be doing, wear a mask out in public. Yeah, wear a fucking mask. How dumb are you? I know this has absolutely nothing to do with our podcast, but if I see one fucking person post another thing about wearing a mask or whatever. My rights.

Yeah, you know what? Americans are fucking professionals when it comes to individualism, and it's going to kill everybody. Inconvenience isn't oppression, you stupid suburbanite fucking dick. Shut up and put on a mask. God, I hate everybody. It's incredible how, like, 150,000 people are dead, but someone's like, but the, which brings us to another fucking wonderful conspiracy theory of like if i put on a mask i'll breathe in my own co2 and die health risks you know what not if that's true good

fuck you that's my rant that's all i got it's a good one um but again thank you for joining us. Everybody, thank you for listening to the show. And until next week, don't invade Flanders. I don't know. Stupid, sexy Flanders. Had to get one less one in.

Yeah.