Count of Flanders murdered kneeling in his church, for trying to fix the price of grain.
Son of King Knud the Holy of Denmark, himself murdered, he was raised in Flanders by his mother and became count in 1119. He governed as a reforming prince: he had usurers prosecuted, forbade speculation on grain during the famine of 1125, obliged the powerful to sell at the price he set, and sought to return to their servile condition the Erembald family, who had taken over the chancery. These measures earned him a byname and a conspiracy. On 2 March 1127, while he knelt in prayer before the altar of the church of St Donatian at Bruges, the Erembalds struck him on the skull. His death set off a war of succession and one of the first detailed historical narratives of the Middle Ages, that of Galbert of Bruges, written as it happened. He is blessed, not canonised.
A prince in armour or comital mantle, kneeling before an altar, the murderers’ sword raised behind him.