On a hot July day, in the year 1302, there took place, just outside the ancient walls of the city, the most famous event in the history of Courtrai. This was the great "Battle of the Spurs." In order to understand the significance of this conflict--which justly ranks as one of the decisive battles of the world--it is necessary to go back three-quarters of a century to the Baldwin of Constantinople, or the impostor who assumed his name and came to an ignominious end on the gibbet at Lille. This was in the year 1225. The following year Philip Augustus forced or persuaded Margaret, Baldwin's younger daughter, to leave the loyal Fleming to whom she had been married almost since childhood and wed one of his retainers, William of Dampierre. Then, during a period of more than fifty years, the Kings of France were able to exert a steadily increasing influence in Flanders and reduce the country more and more completely to a French province. Finally, in 1296, the exactions of the French monarch--who, at that time, was Philip the Fair--became so humiliating that Margaret's son, Guy of Dampierre, then the reigning Count, rebelled. A brief war followed, ending in Guy's utter defeat and imprisonment, and in 1300 all Flanders was formally annexed to the French crown. Instead of submitting tamely to this act of aggression, the Flemish burghers were roused to fight more furiously for their fatherland than they had ever done for their Count. At Bruges a true leader of the people appeared in the person of Peter de Coninck, the dean of the then all-powerful Guild of the Weavers, and one of the most picturesque figures in mediæval history. Small and ill-favoured in face and figure, with only one eye, and speaking no language but Flemish, he was able to arouse the citizens to the wildest pitch of fury against their aggressors. Another popular hero of the hour was John Breidel, Dean of the Butchers' Guild, and reputed to be one of the richest men in Bruges; while a third was William of Juliers, Provost of Maestricht--a Churchman turned soldier for the cause of liberty. These three raised the standard of the Lion of Flanders to which rallied the Clauwaerts, as the Nationalist partisans were called; while the friends of France were named--after the Lily of France--the Liliaerts. The latter naturally included the magistrates and office-holders of the leading towns, and in 1301, when Philip made a triumphal progress through the chief cities of his new dominions, he was everywhere received with much outward pomp. [Illustration: STATUE OF PETER DE CONINCK AND JOHN BREIDEL, BRUGES.]