Few figures in Dutch history have captured the imagination as much as Count Floris v. In 1296 he was violently murdered by noblemen from his immediate environment. New research into the protagonists' backgrounds and motives reveals that both personal revenge and political motives played a role in the Count's kidnapping.
On June 23, 1296, Count Floris V was captured by nobles from his immediate environment during an intended falcon hunt. The intention was to kidnap him and replace him with his young son Jan, who was raised at the English court. The English king, Edward I, who had had a long-standing ally in Floris, was furious that the count had joined his opponent, the French king, for all sorts of political reasons.
But the count had rightly concluded that he could expect little support from the English king in his struggle with Flanders. When Edward heard of this transition, he took advantage of the discontent among a number of nobles, including Gijsbrecht van Amstel and Herman van Woerden, to persuade them to kidnap Floris and take him captive to England. The Brabant nobleman Jan van Cuyk, closely related to the aforementioned nobles, played an important role as intermediary.
Valkenhunt
On the day of his kidnapping, Floris was in Utrecht for a meeting. He would mediate in a conflict between Gijsbrecht van Amstel and his supporters on the one hand and Zweder van Zuilen on the other. Many high nobles were present. For the conspirators, this was a suitable opportunity to carry out their kidnapping plan. The count was invited to go hunting for falcons after the discussions and the meal, a popular recreation among the high nobility.
The scene on the urban meadow of Utrecht, just outside the Catharijnepoort, is visually described to us by Melis Stoke, the contemporary chronicler. As city clerk of Dordrecht – then the principal city of the county – and then a member of the count's council (1299-1305), he was an ear and eye witness to the events before and after the murder of Count Floris. He knew the protagonists personally and was also well aware of the political background of the conspiracy.
Arriving at the town pasture, where the conspirators who had gone ahead were waiting for the count, Herman van Woerden seized the reins of the count's horse and spoke the legendary words:“Your high jumps are done. You are our prisoner whether you like it or not.” Floris thought he was dealing with a joke and said with a laugh:“Help, ic bin nochtan…”, but couldn't finish his sentence. Because Arend van Benschop, a cousin of Gijsbrecht van Amstel, grabbed the sparrowhawk that Floris was carrying on his hand.
That it was serious now dawned on the count. He wanted to draw his sword, but Gerard van Velsen snapped at him, very emotionally:“Bi Gode, if you could make that ode [you would achieve that] … ie smash your teeth into your teeth”. Melis Stoke expressed Van Velsen's uncontrolled anger by not letting him finish his sentences. The count was transferred to Muiderslot, where he was held for five days under appalling conditions.
Meanwhile, news of the count's kidnapping had spread like wildfire across the country. The population moved to Muiderslot in the hope of being able to free him, but the kidnappers managed to leave the castle with Floris before they were completely enclosed. On their escape route they encountered a group of farmers near Naarden who demanded that the count be released.
Gerard van Velsen, who rode in front, then returned to the other kidnappers, drew his sword and brutally murdered Count Floris who, tied to a horse, could not defend himself. The Naardingers found him dead. It is clear that killing the Count was not the intention of the kidnappers. It was the outcome of an escape attempt that got out of hand, with which not all kidnappers agreed.
Motifs
Who were these nobles and what was their motive? The central figure in the plot was Gijsbrecht van Amstel, with whom Floris had already had a conflict twenty years earlier. The reason for this was that Gijsbrecht had built up an independent position in the border area between Holland and Utrecht. This brought him into conflict with his liege lord, the bishop of Utrecht, who, however, did not have the financial and material resources to put a stop to this development. He enlisted the help of Count Floris for this.
He subjugated Gijsbrecht van Amstel by force and kept him in captivity from 1280 to 1285. Herman van Woerden, Gijsbrecht's brother-in-law, managed to escape the dance, but had to spend from 1280 to 1288 in exile. Although both nobles subsequently reconciled with the count and even received an honorable place in the count's council, they nevertheless remained full of rancor.
Contemporary chroniclers are clear about this. The Brabant pastor Lodewijk van Velthem, who wrote a sequel to the Spiegel Historiaal by Jacob van Maerlant around 1315, puts the following words in Herman van Woerden's mouth during the detention of the count at Muiderslot:“Lord count, do you remember what happened before? You held the lord of Amstel captive for seven years, and you also drove me out of my possessions.”
After the murder, Gijsbrecht and Herman fled to Brabant, where Lodewijk van Velthem must have learned first-hand details of the events. For example, Van Velthem explicitly mentions that the expelled nobles spread the story that Floris had assaulted Gerard van Velsen's wife. So honor killing is the motive for the murder.
That the nobles spread this story is confirmed by Willem Procurator, chaplain to the distinguished Brederodes, which means that he must have been well aware of everything. He writes in his chronicle about 1322:“The knights of Amstel and van Woerden, noble in blood, but in their perverse actions savage beasts like, have tried to blacken his good name (…) with a story of all possible badness.”
Hothead
Gerard van Velsen descended from a highly aristocratic Kennemer family that played a prominent role in the succession struggle in Holland (1203-1206), the so-called Loonse war. In the nearly a hundred years that had passed since then, the significance of this genus had fallen sharply. At the time of Floris's murder he was already approaching forty, but was still 'handsome', an indication for a nobleman who had not received the knighthood and was therefore of lower rank.
He derived his place in this company of conspirators from the fact that he had married a daughter of Herman van Woerden, Hildegonde. Gerard van Velsen had already threatened to kill the count on the spot when he was captured on the city meadow in Utrecht. However, that was not the intention of the conspiracy and they were able to prevent that at the time.
From the colorful description of this and subsequent events, one gets the strong impression that Van Velsen was a hothead, someone who could not control his urges. For that reason alone, the rape story, which is said to have taken place at least ten years earlier, is completely implausible. Van Velsen does not seem to have been one who for years had the patience to take revenge.
Rather, there seems to be a kernel of truth in Lodewijk van Velthem's statement that Gerard van Velsen had bitten the count because he had his nephew executed for manslaughter. After all, manslaughter or insult could then give rise to revenge by blood relatives and relatives.
Noble networks
Here we come to a crucial fact that played an important role in the society of those days, namely the kinship and loan relationships. Members of the high nobility were closely linked through marriages. People married in a very limited circle, which resulted in the creation of a network of family relations. Recent research into these family relationships, as described in my book, paints an interesting picture of the network that underpinned the conspiracy.
In medieval relations, the relationship between feudal lord and feudal man also meant a non-negligible bond of fidelity and loyalty. As a result, clan formation emerged within the nobility, which manifested itself in quarrelsome behavior - about which the chronicler Melis Stoke regularly got excited - and played a clear role in the conspiracy against Count Floris. The names of the conspirators show that, with Gijsbrecht van Amstel as the pivot, numerous nobles as relatives or as vassals were closely involved in the execution of the plot against the count. The cohesion within this group – not the entire nobility, by the way – was apparently strong enough to form the basis for these tragic events.
Count Floris V lived in a society in which strong changes occurred in all kinds of areas. The all-determining power of the nobility was waning and an independent bourgeoisie in the cities began to claim its share of government. The shift of center of gravity from the countryside to the city, from the nobility to the citizenry, has had profound consequences for 13th-century society.
As far as we can tell, Count Floris had an open eye for the social developments of his time. Moreover, he must have been a strong personality, otherwise he would not have been able to maintain himself in the midst of the many (noble) intrigues which he had to deal with during his reign. His significance therefore lies in the fact that, by limiting the dominant, quarrelsome nobility, he has ensured order and tranquility in the county, thereby promoting economic traffic and thus prosperity. The aforementioned chronicler Willem Procurator could therefore sigh:"Let Holland mourn now that it is bereft of its count who has provided the great good of peace."