Graafschap Vlaanderen, AR Groot

Lodewijk van Male, also known as Louis II of Flanders, was Count of Flanders from 1346 to 1384. He was the son and successor of Count Louis I of Flanders and Countess Margaret I of Burgundy (daughter of King Philip V of France).

After taking part in the Battle of Crécy on 26 August 1346, where his father was killed, he succeeded as count and moved away from his father’s pro-French policy. He favoured a course more attuned to the interests of his subjects, carefully balancing between the rival kings of France and England, who were then at war.

He ruled in a turbulent age shaped by the Hundred Years’ War and is remembered both for strengthening princely authority and for his long conflicts with the powerful Flemish cities, especially Ghent.

Louis of Male introduced significant administrative reforms that strengthened the machinery of government in Flanders and helped pave the way for later Burgundian rule. Yet in private he lived with notable splendour, keeping a lavish court, staging tournaments, and maintaining a menagerie, while also fathering numerous illegitimate children. The financial pressures of such princely display led to increasing taxation, which stirred resentment in the major Flemish towns and formed part of the background to the great urban revolt that ended with the defeat of the Ghent rebels at Roosebeke in 1382.

Hhis daughter Margaret was married to Philip the Bold of Burgundy in 1369, a dynastic move that helped pave the way for the later union of Flanders and Burgundy.