History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 57

The saltire was a known device of Flanders and in the 12th century, it was borne by a
noble family of Flanders called Praet. In the early years of the 11th century they were
castellans of Bruges, known to be “noble and rich” though their ancestry is
unrecorded. Robert de Brus himself may once have been known as Robert de Bruges,
since a man of that name and title holds the castellany from 1046 and probably earlier,
until he disappears from Flemish records in 1053. That was the year in which Matilda
of Flanders married William, Duke of Normandy. It is certain that many nobles of her
country attended Matilda into the Duchy, and there is no reason why Robert de
Bruges of the princely houses of Louvain and Boulogne should not have been among
them. Did one of his sons, Adam, build a castle at Brix, near Cherbourg, and another,
Robert, came to England after Domesday to claim the lands awarded here to his
father for loyalty to the Conqueror’s wife?
We may note that the arms of the city of Bruges, adopted by its burghers in the 13th
century and said to have been taken from the bearings of its castellans, show a lion
rampant azure. It is possible to trace the castellans of Bruges back in time from the
family of Nesle, who took over the office in 1134. Ralph de Nesle’s predecessor was
Gervaise de Praet (of the saltire), who was given the office after the murder of Count
Charles the Good by the Erembalds in 1127. The Erembalds were an ignoble family
who brought great scandal to Flanders, culminating in the murder of its Count. They
had held the Bruges castellany from 1067, having acquired it through another murder,
this time of the incumbent