Floris

Real Name: Floris van Rozemondt

Identity/Class: Normal human

Occupation: Knight, squire, sailor, soldier.

Affiliations: Sindala, Philip the Handsome (Philip IV of Burgundy, his lord and liege), Countess Ada van Couwenberg (lover), Wolter van Oldenstein, and other Burgundians.

Enemies: Charles of Guelders, Maarten van Rossum, Lange Pier.

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: Brother Florisius, Floris von Rosemund (BRD-remake)

Base of Operations: Oldenstein, a castle owned by Wolter.

First Appearance: Floris #1: Het Gestolen Kasteel "The Stolen Castle"(broadcast 5th October 1969)

Powers/Abilities: Floris is a great fighter with sword, two swords or bare handed. Claims never to miss with the crossbow. Floris is seriously rich, even after having lost his castle.

History: (Back-story to TV series) Floris is the third son of a noble family, so he went to sea and sailed on Portuguese ships to Africa and India and such. He made a friend there, a fakir/doctor/alchemist with the name Sindala. Receiving a message that after his father both his brothers had died without issue, in 1500 AD or so he returned home to claim his title and possessions. Sindala accompanies him.

(TV-series starts) Floris and Sindala were captured, and learned Castle Rosemondt had been taken over by Guelders and used as a tollhouse. Floris escaped to Oldenstein. Oldenstein came under siege but the siege was broken by Sindala's planting of false information. A weapon transport disclosed the presence of a traitor, whose identity discovered with a trick. A series of similar adventures followed. Floris and Sindala managed to liberate Countess Ada, kept prisoner by Lange Pier. Ada and Floris fell in love, and eventually Ada saved Floris' life.

(comic continuation of TV series) Floris and Ada had persuaded the city Averenduur to join the Burgundian side. Maarten van Rossum thought up a plan to steal the city's riches, involving disease and such, but Sindala came up with a solution which thwarted Maarten's scheme, Floris prevented manslaughter and the city retained its full wealth for Burgudy's cause. More adventures followed, including the discovery of high treason, until Castle Rosemondt was returned to Floruis by means of medieval diplomacy. Floris had achieved his goal, but the war still continued.

Comments: Created and written by Gerard Soeteman. Floris was played by Rutger Hauer. The newspaper comics were drawn by Gerard Stapel, who also wrote the dialogue, but employed unused scripts Soeteman had written for the TV-series. The feeling of the TV series: violent, dead serious and light-hearted does- depending on perspective- herald movies like Robocop or Starship Troopers, both works by the same director. The series was broadcast in the Netherlands, Belgium (where it had been partly filmed too), the D.D.R. and Scotland. A 19 episode remake of the series was made - in which Rutger Hauer played Floris again - by the West German television. With 12 Dutch TV-episodes (11 scripts), 19 German TV episodes, 3 books, 2 audioplays and 15 newspaper comic adventures (with a number of daily strips in the range between 84 and 141) many adventures have been told more than once. Floris was quite a hype in the Netherlands.

The war serving as background to Floris was the war uniting the Netherlands under one ruler, very fitting for a Dutch historical production, but Floris is set long before the end of that war and his involvement is personal, he fights for his rights, his friends, justice in the lands under their control, his beloved countess, his liege, his honour as a judge in a tournament, so he is just serving his own interests without being ruthless.

The spelling of Rosemondt varies a lot: the first o may be double or single, followed by either an s or a z, a t after the d is optional and an n can be inserted before the m. The original series did not show that name in writing more than once, probably causing that variability by the “omission”, which itself rather adds to the Medieval feeling of the character. Rozemondt is the spelling used by the comics and as the writer of that is the creator of the character, it might be assumed that is the “most correct” version for a website with most interests for comics, however the one time “Floris van Rosemondt” is shown written down in the TV-series (just for a moment, on a document which has just been pinned to the table with a dagger, easy to miss if one cannot freeze the image) it is definitely with an “s”. "Floris" is the only TV-series ever directed by Paul Verhoeven.

Profile submitted by Theodoor Westerhof.

CLARIFICATIONS: None.

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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