Answer

The Battle of the Golden Spurs, annually commemorated on 11 July and the official Flemish national holiday. Most obviously, narratives of this kind promoted the notion of a community with a collective history, a group of people bound together by common descent and origin. The story of the Battle of the Golden Spurs also helped create the image of the Flemings as a illustrious, belligerent people. In addition, it advanced the concept of an external archenemy (i.e. France) and an ´internal enemy´ - a fifth column represented by the Frenchified bourgeoisie –, fuelling in the process a popular fear of being taken over by these enemies and contributing to an anti-French and anti-francophone sentiment. It is worth adding that as far as the narrative of the Revolt against Spain is concerned, few within the Flemish Movement, by comparison, tried to transform these events into a Flemish myth of a similar order. This (Liberal) minority was keen to interpret the Revolt in an anti-Catholic, pro-Dutch sense. The result was that the story of the Revolt, a major event in the history of the Low Countries, had little impact on the self-image of Flemings.

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