Based on the “Essai sur l’origine des patronymes Bailleul-Belle-Bels et leurs variantes” from Robert Adelsohn Bels (deposited in the Royal Library in Brussels under the Nr 9896/Auteur/Editeur 1996) with subsequent amendments and inputs.

Trying to write the summary of our 1054 years old (in 2014) Dynasty and of the much older Lineage of the Bels (at least 1600 years old) is a very serious challenge indeed! If in addition to that, we consider the fact that the members of this Dynasty were, for centuries, instrumental in the history of Flanders, France Flanders, Normandy, England, Scotland, and other countries in the Middle East, before and during the Crusades, then we realise the enormity of the work that faces the writer.

As writings are the only ways to have historical facts survive the untameable march of Time, I decided to lay down on paper, the result of my research. As one said, “Words go, writings remain”. Mr Robert Wace, a Middle Ages Norman Poet, from Caen (France), put it in old French and in a more elegant way. He wrote, in anno 1150, the following verses in his “Le Roman de la Rou”, novel that was most devoted to the Duke William the Conqueror and the Norman Conquest.

It is evident that such a condensed historical work as this Essay must be rather superficial and so will miss some details. I also decided not to mention the countless sources and references. This Essay, not being primarily a scientific work, permits me to handle that way! However, the reader interested in sources and references will have no big difficulties to find the most relevant listed at the end of this Essay (Chapter XVIII).

As we have seen earlier, if the Lineage of the “Bels” goes at least back until anno 843 and even further, at the court of Charlemagne and there are some very serious speculations to see it running as far back as to the very first court of the Merovingians Dynasty. More on this in a subsequent Chapter.

Our medieval Dynasty goes, at least, as far back as the year 960. That year, in Europe and more precisely in Flanders (that was part of Belgium), Arnuldius Grameninis and his wife, Gertrui van Valkenberghe, became Lord and Lady of Balliol (Bailleul). North of France, some 20 km southwest from Ypres, Flanders). He was an officer appointed by the Count of Flanders to take charge of his Seigneurial estates and of the fortress erected to defend the city from Norsemen invasions.

Once settled in Belle (Belgis, Belsch, Balliol), the “Grameninis” family gave their children the name of their Seigneurie "Balliol" instead of its own name. The exact reason for that is still unknown. It is speculated that the inheritance of the Seigneurie may have, to a certain extent, led to it since other lords of “Grameninis” kept their patronymic.

We have for instance a Siher de Gramines who had a daughter named Suzanne de Gramines. This Lady married the Count Eustache de Guines who died in 1052. Eustache was son of Rodelphus 3d Count de Guisnes (997-1036) x Lady Rosetta de St. Pol. The County of Guines (Gizene) such as the county of Boulogne (Bonen) were two Flemish Counties.

Let us now extrapolate the year of birth of her father in order to look for the contemporaneousness of her father and the first Balliol.

We speculate logically when we attribute a minimum age of 16 for Eustache when he died in 1052. This seems a little bit young to get married, to inherit some estates and is definitively much too young to be a Knight. If we assume that, he married at 21 we will then have his year of birth circling around the year 1031. His wife Suzanne may have been 19 years old.

We must know accept the probability that Suzanne’s father must have been at least 19 years old when he procreated Suzanne. What brings the year of his birth around anno 1015. However, if he procreated Suzanne at an age of 35, his birth date must then be brought down to the year 997.

That year is very close indeed to the events in Balliol in anno 960. So close that we may even speculate Suzanne’s father being a brother or a cousin of the first Lord of Balliol, Arnould Ist Balliol. Remember, he is the one that used to carry the patronymic “Gramininis” before he changed it into Balliol.

More than two centuries later from the time when Arnould x Plectrude de Faucquemberghes were charged with the defence of the city of Balliol, the Patronymic “Gramines” was still in use. I found, in other old documents, a confirmation of the privileges accorded by the Counts of Flanders to the town of Saint-Omer. This confirmation was signed, in 1202, by Gérardinus II of Balliol and by Balduinus Grameninis (de Gramines) who was the first husband of Katarina van Belle (fa. Gerardinus II Balliol x Vergina). She later married Gillis Berthout.

What is unknown is under what circumstances the “Grameninis” became lords of Balliol and why this Lineage was chosen, by the Counts of Flanders, instead of another one, to defend the city against the Vikings’ incursions? This lineage will become, for centuries to come, the most trustworthy “right arms” of the Counts. Were there some strong Lineage relationships between them that dated long before the Counts (Marquis) of Flanders settled in Bruges and Ghent (Flanders)?

The “Grameninis” and the “Faucquemberghes” belonged to very ancient Flemish medieval families, whose nobility must go beyond the year 960. Historians recurrently encounter, in very old texts, some mentions of many ancient families. However, there are no traces of the “de Gramines” in whatever form, Latin, Diets or German, before the year 960! Nothing is known of their past before the year 960, when they simply appeared, coming from nowhere! Nevertheless, the Count of Flanders must have had total confidence in them to entrust them the defence of the City of Belle (Balliol), of its fortress and of the ship against the wild and disastrous Norman invasions.

• As said earlier, other traces of the Grameninis were found in Flanders, but none prior to 960!
• Traces of the Valckenberghe were even found in 1255, in England, with a certain Walter de Fauconberg (Glover Role of Weapons). In Flanders, the name was found in several old documents. Also interesting to note is the patronymic variations of the name in Flanders, exactly as happened to the Balliol.

In 980,       de Fauquenberg           Plectrude

In 1119,     de Falchemberga          Otone

In 1142,     de Falkenburga             Hugonis

In 1146,     de Falkenberge             Amalriaus

In 1173,     de Faulquemberga        (Castellani…)

In 1177,     de Falcumberga            Ebrardi

In 1188,     de Faukemberghe         (Seigneur…).

In 1194,     de Falcomberghe          Adam

In 1194,     de Fauquenbergues      Adam

In 1199,     de Falcoberga               Willelmus (castellanus ...)

In 1319,     de Faukenberghe          Name of the City at that time.

And according to the second form of the old German genitive form:

In 1145,     Hugone Falkenbergensi.

In 1194,     Sigillum Willelmi castellani et dominum Falkenbergie.

"Pagus Flandrensis", or Vlaanderen (Flanders), meaning "Flooded land", was originally one of several "gouwen" (districts) near the coast of present-day Belgium, with Bruges as its centre. It developed into a much larger and more important county that had its centre in Atrecht (Arras), north of present-day France (French Flanders).

Waltbert of Steenland, about whom almost nothing is known, was the founding father of this “younger branch” that became Counts of Flanders.

Waltbert's son Odakar married the daughter (name unknown) of Ingelram II of Flanders who belonged to the “old branch” and she apparently inherited the title because there were no other heirs left.

Around 800, the Counts of the biggest cities and the Marquis of certain provinces began to create local Dynasties, which were, in principle, subject of the emperor Charlemagne and later of the King, but much too powerful to obey them. The Count of Flanders was one of them. Feudality starts around that period.

In 860, Balduinus Ist of Flanders, nicknamed Baldwin Iron-arm (Baudouin Bras-de-Fer, in French) was at the time of King Charles II the Bald, of West France, a daring warrior against the Norseman invasions. One day, he fell in love with the King's daughter Judith, the youthful widow of two English Kings, and married her without the consent of her father. Balduinus Ist had to flee with his bride to Lorraine (France). He then forced the King to recognise him as his son in law. If he refused, he threatened to make an alliance with the Norsemen who were menacing France. King Charles II was trapped.

In 862, King Charles II le Chauve (the Bald), at last conciliated and made the astute Balduinus Ist his son-in-law, with the title of Margrave (Marchio Flandriae) of Flanders, which he held as a hereditary fief. The new Margrave, who will later be called “Count”, had his first seat in Tournai (by order of King Charles II), later in Bruges.

What made the successive Margraves and Counts of Flanders so successful, for centuries, was the fact that they were, since the very beginning of their leadership, wise enough to entrust the management and government of their rich towns and estates, to magistrates who themselves belonged to powerful Lineages.

Balduinus Ist Count of Flanders must have had for his own security, for the continuity of his particular social status and for the stability of his county, very good reasons to entrust men issued from well-known powerful Lineages. He must have known that people, who were not used to power, always had severe difficulties to cope with it! In addition, knowing the pitfalls of power he and all his successors was perfectly aware that delegating power to strangers would be a suicidal operation!

And how can a Lineage be trusted other than by being known and by having strong, if not privileged, ties among themselves? Trusting Members of a Lineage is a long process that requires the severe test of the passing of time! So, why not putting in place some well-known families rather than stranger that crossed by chance the pathway?

It was speculated that these “special” ties between the Count of Flanders, the “Belle”, the “Bels”, the “Grameninis” and the “van Valkenberghe”, may have gone as far as during the reign of Karolus Magnus (Charlemagne). King of the Franks and of the Lombards, Carolus was crowned Emperor, in the Basilica Saint-Peter in Rome by the Pope Léon III, on Christmas day of the year 800. He died January 28, 814. However, according to the events described in this essay, one must admit that these speculations become more and more evidence!

There is evidence as far as the Bels lineage is concerned, with the Knight Hrvotland Bels, anno 843, and the ancestors of the Knight Bels, reported in Vacarisses (Spain) anno 1014, who went south on the marriage of a Spanish Count with a daughter of a Count of Flanders (See further development in this Essay and “in 1014”).

As we saw earlier, we know absolutely nothing about the Lineage of the “Grameninis” before they were charged with the defence of the ship of Belle (Balliol). They must however have belonged to the nobility of the time. Idem for the Lineage of the Fauquemberghes for I found the blazon (see the blazon Nr 65 in previous part of the study) of a certain Walter de Fauconberg, in the Glover Role of Weapons, dated around anno 1255. This document shows the blazons of some 225 English (sic) lords of the time.

Anyone who approached the incredibly rich and tormented history of Belgium will soon recognize, in the names listed in “The Chronological Abridgment” that follows in Chapter Id, the main pawns of the huge relational scene that controlled, for centuries, Europe’s Medieval History.

For all these reasons, it is almost certain that the appearance of the Lineage of “Balliol”, in Balliol (or Belle), did not get in Belle (Bailleul) by pure chance.

In the following centuries, Flanders greatly expanded its area and its sphere of political and economic influence, which of course resulted in many conflicts with its neighbouring rivals, especially Holland and the Kings of France, who realised that they progressively lost grip on Flanders.

The Counts of Flanders could however not prevent France and Holland, who often combined forces, from taking control of considerable pieces of Flanders' area. Flanders remained one entity until the XVIth century but during the XVIIth century, several treaties parcelled out its southern part such as the treaties of the Pyrénées (1659), of Aix-la -Chapelle (1668), of Nimègue (1678) and of Rijkswijk (1697). It is after the treaty of Nijmegen (Netherlands) that the denomination “French Flanders” appeared.

The largest part of what used to be the County Flanders is now in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium.

In the XIth century, as we will see later in this document, the Counties of Flanders and Hainaut came under the combined rule of Boudewijn VI / Ist but were separated again after the death of Boudewijn's young son Arnulf III. Being pro French, the nicknamed "The Unfortunate" is killed at the battle of Cassel in 1071, by the Flemish troops under his uncle Robert the Frison, the “real” Count of Flanders, command.

Later, Flanders and Hainaut were recombined under Balduinus VIII / V, who also became Count of Namur.

In a remarkable series of events during the Fourth Crusade, his son Balduinus IX-VI became "Emperor" of Constantinople (today’s Istanbul in Turkey) on May 9, 1204, in the short-lived "Latin Empire". Baudouin (known as Baudouin IX of Flanders, Baudouin VI of Hainaut as well as Baudouin Ist of Constantinople) was son fs. of Baudouin VIII x Countess Marguerite of Alsace.

Within a year, in 1205, he died after a battle against the Bulgarians. He was succeeded in Constantinople by his brother Hendrik II and later by his sister Yolanda. Yolanda's two sons also became Emperor, the last one ruled until the "Latin Empire" was brought back again under Greek rule in 1261.

Meanwhile, in Flanders and in Hainaut, the Count of Namur Philippe, the brother of the "Emperor" Balduinus, was appointed Regent.

In 1244, Balduinus sole surviving child Margareta became heir. She had offspring from two marriages, but the legality of her first marriage was disputed. This complication resulted in the Avesnes and the Dampierre families fighting bitterly over the right of succession for almost a century, not accepting the rule of the King of France in 1246 (repeated in 1256) ordering Flanders to go to the Dampierres and Hainaut to the Avesnes, as was in practice already the case.

In 1323, the rival families were finally ready to accept the formal separation between Flanders and Hainaut.