DYNASTY AND TERRITORY

UNDER Count Philip of Alsace (1157–91), Flanders had become one of the mightiest and most progressive principalities of western Europe. Although a vassal of the king of France, Philip could compete with him, especially since the succession of his wife Elisabeth of Vermandois in 1163 had extended his territories from the mouth of the Scheldt to only twenty-five kilometres north of Paris. In fact, he held a patrimony larger and probably richer than the royal domains of France. Only the Angevin kings of England and dukes of Normandy were even more powerful vassals of the French crown. However, in 1185 Philip had to give up Vermandois after his wife’s death; he remained childless and his two brothers died before him. He sought his destiny in personal glory, taking part in the Third Crusade, and died before Acre in 1191. He had secured his succession by Baldwin V, count of Hainault, who was the consort of his sister. In order to obtain his suzerain’s approval, Philip had arranged Philip Augustus’s marriage with his niece Isabel of Hainault in 1180, for which he offered as a dowry a great number of his cities and castellanies which in 1237 were to be formed into the county of Artois.

So, in 1191, the power relations between Flanders and France had radically been reversed: the king now constantly undermined the counts’ power. Flanders lost the southern and perhaps most developed part of its territory, with such large and rich cities as Arras and Hesdin, while the final agreement in 1212 tore off Flanders the equally important cities and castellanies of Saint-Omer and Aire. Exactly one century later, Flanders would again lose to France three of its southern cities with their territories, namely Lille, Douai and Orchies. These substantial losses clearly demonstrate the constant and successful pressure the crown exerted on its peripheral fief during the whole of the thirteenth century.