Murder of Charles the Good

March 2, 1127

The Count of Flanders, kneeling at Mass in the church of Saint-Donatian in Bruges, was cut down by a cabal of knights whose family he had been investigating for serfdom. The assassination sparked a Flemish civil war and produced one of the twelfth century's most vivid contemporary chronicles, Galbert of Bruges's day-by-day account of the political chaos that engulfed one of Europe's richest trading regions.