Pieter de Coninck

A diminutive weaver blind in one eye, De Coninck possessed extraordinary rhetorical power. In 1301, he organized the urban proletariat against municipal taxes imposed by French King Philip IV the Fair and patrician 'Leliaarts', being briefly imprisoned before being freed by the populace.

Following the slaughter of the Bruges Matins in May 1302, De Coninck organized the urban militias that marched to Kortrijk. There, at the Battle of the Golden Spurs, Flemish guilds achieved one of medieval Europe's first major infantry victories over noble cavalry, securing guild governance.