Biography
Godfried Coart
About Godfried Coart
Godfried Coart, also known as Godfried van Melveren, was born around 1512 in Melveren in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. He entered the Franciscan Observants and served the community at Gorkum as a priest, sacristan and confessor. A Norwegian Catholic profile remembers his work making and sharing devotional images. These ordinary duties distinguish him from another martyr named Godfried in the same group.
In 1572, during the Dutch Revolt, armed Sea Beggars captured Gorkum and imprisoned Franciscan and diocesan clergy there. The prisoners were taken to Brielle and killed on 9 July. The Holy See lists Coart by his Melveren name among the Franciscan priests in the group of nineteen. Their deaths took place amid conflict that was political as well as religious; the account should not be made into a claim about every Protestant of that period.
The nineteen were later canonized together in 1867. Their Catholic memorial is 9 July. Coart’s individual story remains anchored in his service at Gorkum and in the group’s shared fate, without assigning him words or deeds that the surviving sources cannot verify.
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