Historical Significance
The battle was the first major example (though with more minor precedents such as the Battle of Ane in 1227) of a string of late medieval battles in which heavily-armoured aristocratic men-at-arms, previously dominant in western European warfare, were defeated by armies consisting largely of infantry drawn from the lower orders (other important instances include Bannockburn, Crecy, Sempach, Agincourt, Grandson and the battles of the Hussite Wars).
It is also a landmark in the development of Flemish political independence and the day is remembered every year in Flanders as the Flemish Community's official holiday.
The battle was romanticised in 1838 by Flemish writer Hendrik Conscience in his book The Lion of Flanders (Dutch: "De leeuw van Vlaanderen"). Another unusual feature of this battle is that it is often cited as one of the few successful uprisings of peasants and townsmen, given that at the time most peasant uprisings in Europe were quelled.
| “ | The uprising originated from the people, without being provoked by a lord (the Flemish count and his most important lords were in French captivity). Only when the uprising became widespread, the count's relatives who still were free rushed in to aid. In the first place this was a struggle of people against a lord (the French king), not the struggle between two lords. | ” |
Barbara Tuchman describes this as a peasant uprising in A Distant Mirror. Though the winning army was well armed, the initial uprising was nonetheless a folk uprising. Eventually, however, the Flemish nobles did take their part in the battle—each of the Flemish leaders was of the nobility or descended from nobility and some 400 of noble blood did fight on the Flemish side.
The outcome of the battle—the fact that a large cavalry force, thought invincible, had been annihilated by a relatively modest but well-armed and tactically intelligent infantry—was a shock to the military leaders of Europe. It contributed to the end of the perceived supremacy of cavalry and triggered a deep re-thinking of military strategies and tactics.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of The Golden Spurs
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