Although the lion has been in use for almost nine hundred years as the arms of the Count of Flanders, it only became the official symbol of the Flemish Community in 1973.
[1] When the county of Flanders was inherited by the Dukes of Burgundy in 1405, the Flemish lion was placed on an escutcheon in their dynastic arms.
The choice of the Flemish lion was primarily based on the popular historical novel De leeuw van Vlaanderen (1838) of Hendrik Conscience, that forged the Battle of the Golden Spurs of 11 July 1302 into an icon of Flemish resistance against foreign oppression.
It was enhanced even further when Hippoliet van Peene wrote the anthem De Vlaamse Leeuw in 1847.
Notwithstanding the criticism, these arms were adopted by the Flemish Community (Decree of 30 March 1988) when it took over the attributions of the Cultuurraad.
This controversy originated when part of the Flemish movement started to take an increasingly anti-Belgian stand after the First World War.