ARNULF

. Name of three counts of Flanders. Arnulf I the Great (885-965, r. 918-65), also known in his last years as “the Old,” “the Rich,” or “the Lame,” was the son of Count Baudouin II. After the death of his younger brother in 933, he ruled an area that included his family’s ancestral lands in western and southwestern Flanders, Boulogne, Tournai, territories around Saint-Omer and Therouanne, and perhaps Ghent. A reformer of the Flemish abbeys and a skilled diplomat, he allied with the counts of Vermandois to check the rising power of the dukes of Normandy. The west Frankish king Lothair gave him the title princeps, previously held only by Hugues le Grand, count of Paris, and established the principle that all feudal bonds in Flanders passed through the princeps and ultimately to the king. Arnulfs son, Baudouin III, predeceased him, and Lothair arranged the succession of Baudouin’s son, Arnulf II (ca. 961-988, r. 965-88). Arnulf Il’s rule witnessed the beginning of serious conflicts in Flanders between the counts’ two feudal lords: the king of France, who occupied southeastern Flanders as a condition of permitting Arnulfs accession, and the Holy Roman emperor, lord of the territory east of the Scheldt. Arnulf II married the daughter of King Berengar II of Italy in 976 and died prematurely in 988. Arnulf III (r. 1070-71) was the son of Count Baudouin VI. He ruled only a few months before being killed in battle by his uncle Robert the Frisian, who usurped the countship.

David M. Nicholas

[See also: FLANDERS]

Ganshof, Frangois L. La Flandre sous lespremiers comtes. Brussels: Renaissance du Livre, 1943. Koch, A. C.F. “Het graafschap Vlaanderen van de 9de eeuw tot 1070.” In Algemene Geschiedenis

Der Nederlanden. 2nd ed. Haarlem: Fibula-van Dishoeck, 1982, Vol. 1, pp. 354-83.