Coronablog

Bibliotek display.

I am continuing as the Lone Corona Wanderer and want, briefly, to record in words and pictures, some unexpected niceties of Brugge, unnoticed before. One is the slightly nauseating tendency of the Flemish to embellish their windows, both of houses and shops, with Soft Toys. Unbelievably sentimental and cloying but here, almost universal!! There has been a soft explosion of these displays during Covoid 19 lock-down so surely, there is a widespread assumption that there is a Comfort Value supposedly conferred. I feel rather like a witch ruining a christening, but these widespread Teddies and other cuddly animals are just so irritating and juvenile and sentimental. Phew, do feel better for having owned up to those feelings but perhaps better keep them hidden from Flemish friends.

Smedenpoort today.

Another, altogether more interesting sight about which I keep intending to discover more, is the skull on the Smedenpoort. It is bound to be a felon, or a traitor of some description …. Found some info. And indeed, the original owner of the skull was a traitor. The Blacksmith’s Gate, Smedenpoort, was built in 1297 though the present gate is a re-built example from 1367 after the destruction of the original. On June 25th 1691,

hostile French troops, dispatched North by Louis X1V, approached, expected and dreaded by the citizens of Brugge who were relatively defenceless. All City gates were strictly manned during the day by armed guards and locked overnight with guards on duty inside. 

This is cheating! Could not resist!

Francois van der Straeten by

Pieter Pourbus a century before our

Francois the traitor [1567]. BUT surely

a relative? A Schepen to boot!

One of the guards at the Smedenpoort, Francois van der Straeten, had sold his services secretly to the French, arranging to unlock the Smedenpoort to let in a small advance party of French soldiers hiding in the empty barracks near the Waterhouse, outside the city. They would overpower the guards inside the gate to permit entry to the main force hiding in the woods of Tillegem for an easy conquest of the city. The plan was foiled purely by chance. Jacob Wyndekens, a skipper, docked at the Bouveriepoort on the fateful night and walked towards the Waterhouse barracks for overnight shelter, something he had often done after a late arrival. He stumbled over the advance French party in hiding there, and quickly informed the guards at Bouveriepoort. Soon afterwards, Francois van der Straeten unlocked the Smedenpoort and almost immediately realised the situation before attempting to flee. He was captured, tortured, confessed and hanged the next day, June 26, on the Burg before being taken to the Gallowsfield [Galgenveld] on the road to Dixmuide, to be hung upside down from a gallows. His body was beheaded and the head placed on a spike above the Smedenpoort after being coated in bronze, as a warning to others.

A Galgenveld, but not ours.

Indicates the bleakness and distance from town.

Also underlines the enormity of treachery in mediaeval eyes.

The skull disappeared during the French Revolution when Brugge was occupied by the French and was not discovered until 1876; the remains are now in the Archaeological Museum in Bruges. The present traitor’s skull is a replica in bronze. The story feels mediaeval but is relatively recent in historical terms; three hundred years ago only!

Smedenpoort in 1895.

Gives more a feeling of the poort as on the edge of town

through the ages.