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14th Century Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers on

The Courtrai Chest

The collection of the booty: the golden spurs

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Collecting the booty. Hardly any prisoners were taken at the battle of Courtrai. There were strict orders that everyone trying to take prisoners was to be executed at once by his comrades in arms. The battle was therefore fought in a very vicious and bloody manner. After the battle the dead bodies are searched and stripped of everything that could be useful. More than 500 golden spurs were collected from the battlefield. This gave the battle its modern name: Battle of the Golden Spurs. In the front we can observe a body with a ripped open belly, demonstrating the harshness of the battle. Above this man, two men seem to be fighting over the booty, or else they are using their daggers to remove equipment from the dead. At their right a man strips a dead man of his gambeson. Notice the heavy wounds on all the dead men.