Jan Breydel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jan Breydel (born in Bruges in the 13th century) is credited with leading the Brugse Metten, a violent uprising against Philip the Fair.

Breydel, who was by trade a butcher, led the Bruges Matins together with Pieter de Coninc, a weaver, in May 1302. About three weeks before, on 1 May that year, they had partaken in an attack on the castle of Male and the complete annihilation of the French garrison there. The city archives of Bruges show that Jan Breydel was present from 8 July until 10 July 1302, in Courtrai, as a supplier of meat for the troops. On the basis of this record it is generally accepted that he had fought on 11 July 1302 in the Battle of the Golden Spurs.

In 1308 he helped to disengage Willem of Saeftinghe, who had fought on the same side at Courtrai six years earlier, from the church of Lissewege where Willem had barricaded himself during an uprising.

In 1309 Breydel, together with Pieter de Coninc and Jan Heem, again led an uprising in Bruges, aimed against the Treaty of Athis-sur-Orge (1305) forced upon Flanders by the French; he killed the substitute of the Count of Flanders the same year.

Jan Breydel and Pieter de Coninc have often been portrayed as patriotic heroes in Belgium because of their passion for Flemish identity. Belgian nationalists (like the historian Henri Pirenne) used to claim they and and the actions of their militia prevented Belgium from becoming an integral part of France early on. Flemish nationalists credit them with ensuring the survival of the Dutch language in the western part of Belgium. Jan Breydel himself always regretted that the retrieval of Flemish autonomy meant giving up the French-speaking but culturally Flemish town of Lille, which was later reconquered by the Burgundians, but lost for good as a result of Louis XIV's annexation wars. The statue Jan Breydel shares with Pieter de Coninc has decorated the Market Place in Bruges ever since 1887.

[edit] Trivia

The football stadium of Cercle Brugge and Club Brugge is named after him.
In 2005 he was nominated on a shortlist of 100 famous Belgians for the title of De Grootste Belg (an election of the greatest person in Belgian history), but didn't make it to the final list, ending up at #35.
Kuzma Minin, the Russian leader of a popular militia that drove the Poles out of Russia at the end of the Time of Troubles in 1612, also happened to be a butcher.