medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Charles the Good (Bl.; d. 1127) was the son of St. Knud the King (of Denmark; 10. July) and of Adela of Flanders. An infant at the time of his father's assassination in 1086, he was raised at the court of Flanders, where he succeeded as count in 1119. Personally devout, he made benefactions to churches and abbeys and protected some of these from depredations by assertive lords. Charles also had a reputation as a protector of the poor. He was murdered while at prayer in his castle chapel of St. Donatian at Bruges / Brugge. Proclaimed a martyr who had been slain while performing a religious duty, he enjoys a cult that was confirmed papally at the level of Beatus by Leo XIII in 1882.
Some period-pertinent images of Bl. Charles the Good:
a) as depicted (his murder) in a later fourteenth-century copy of the _Grandes chroniques de France_ (ca. 1375-1380; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 2813, fol. 206v):
http://tinyurl.com/ju3h54v
b) as depicted in a fifteenth(?)-century portrait (gouache on paper) in the Sint-Salvatorskathedraal / cathédrale Saint-Sauveur in Brugge / Bruges:
http://static.flickr.com/109/283886143_b28131428a_o.jpg
c) as depicted (second register from bottom, kneeling in the chapel; his murder) in a later fifteenth-century copy of the _Grandes chroniques de France_ (1471; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 2609, fol. 158r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10507341p/f327.item.zoom
In the foreground Louis VI condemns Bertulf of Bruges, the provost of St. Donatian and the instigator of Charles' murder.
Best,
John Dillon
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