Vanished Kingdoms

by Norman Davies

  Charles II of Navarre was a grandson and heir to Margaret of Burgundy, eldest daughter of Duke Robert II of Burgundy. John II of France was a son and heir to Joan of Burgundy, second daughter of Duke Robert II of Burgundy. John was first cousin of Philip’s father i.e. a cousin once removed, whereas Charles was the son of a first cousin of Philip’s father i.e. a second cousin himself. Charles’s mother Joan had died already in 1349. John’s practical position was helped by his being the stepfather of the young duke having been married to the widowed Joan of Auvergne…87

  This, one suspects, is not the way to explain it – even if it’s correct.

  Another way is to leave the finer points of the genealogical tangle to the specialists, and to probe the nomenclature and the politics. It would help if it were clarified at the outset that three separate women all used the same style of ‘Margaret of Burgundy’; and that three individual men were all called ‘Philippe de Valois’. One of them, otherwise known as Philippe de Rouvres (1347–61), thoughtlessly started the crisis in 1361 by dying prematurely during a recurrence of the plague and in an unconsummated marriage. Had he lived, he might painlessly have fused his own claims to the duchy and those of his wife to the county-palatine. Instead, all his titles were deemed to have reverted to rival claimants. What is more, the French king, Jean le Bon, decided to ignore the principle of primogeniture and, again for purely political reasons, to earmark the Duchy of Burgundy for his fourth son.

  The bold actions of this fourth son, Philippe de Valois, le Hardi (Philip the Bold), who had won his spurs as a teenager at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356 against England’s Black Prince, provide the key to all subsequent developments. Despite his modest ranking in the French line of succession, he managed to dominate the long-running Council of Regents that ran France for decades after his father’s death in 1364.88 Also, by marrying the widow of Philippe de Rouvres, Marguerite de Dampierre, heiress to Flanders (where she was known as Marghareta van Male), he rescued a bevy of claims and titles that had earlier been dispersed. Among them was the vital claim to the County-Palatine of Burgundy, which finally reverted to Marguerite in 1384 after the death of her father. The result was a newly reunited Burgundian polity, centred on the union of duchy and county, which came together in the last two decades of Philippe le Hardi’s long life. It does not figure separately on Bryce’s list, but arose from a combination of Nos. X and VII.

  To no one’s surprise, the emergence of the duchy-county, which could only have been realized through the simultaneous weakness of France and Germany, caused severe friction. In France, it provoked a fierce and protracted civil war between two court factions, the ‘Burgundians’ and the ‘Armagnacs’, whose intrigues quickly became entangled with the politics of the Hundred Years War. The former favoured good relations both with the successors of Philippe le Hardi and with Burgundy’s English allies. The latter, the French patriots, deplored the activities of their breakaway duchy and its treacherous alliance with the hereditary English enemy. From 1418 to 1436, forces from Burgundy participated in the English occupation of Paris. The imperial Germans, hopelessly divided by their own quarrels, were in no state to intervene until the Habsburg era began in the 1430s. Everyone, except perhaps the clerks of the imperial chancery, forgot that the Kingdom of Burgundy had not officially expired. In the interval, the duke-counts enjoyed a free run.

  The astonishing new creation which flourished from the late fourteenth to the late fifteenth century is generally and inaccurately called the ‘Duchy of Burgundy’, or sometimes just ‘Valois Burgundy’; it was ruled by a line of French dukes, who briefly threw off the tutelage of Paris in order to create a brilliant, wealthy and cultured civilization of their own.89 Yet the dominant French perspective is not necessarily the best one, and the historical term of the ‘States of Burgundy’ is definitely to be preferred: so, too, for its rulers is the double title of ‘duke-counts’. The success of the enterprise derived from the fact that the French duchy and the imperial county, having been fused at the head in a personal union, were merged into a new entity that was neither French nor German. Philippe le Hardi’s family was only half-French; it was equally half-Flemish, and since Philippe’s Flemish wife, Marguerite de Dampierre, had been born a subject of the emperor, at least partially imperial. Furthermore, behind the extraordinary small empire which the duke-counts assembled, from Boulogne to the Black Forest, lay the romantic idea that they were reassembling the long-lost realm of Lotharingia.

  Only four duke-counts of the States of Burgundy reigned in more than a century: Philippe le Hardi/Filips de Stoute (r. 1364–1404), Jean sans Peur/Jan zonder Vrees (r. 1404–19), Philippe le Bon/Filips de Goede (r. 1419–67) and Charles le Téméraire/Karel de Stoute (r. 1467–77). Dutch and Flemish historians have their own nomenclature, of course. When they talk of rulers who were simultaneously duke (hertog) and count (graaf), they are thinking of Burgundian outsiders who were also counts of Flanders and Artois. The full list of the Burgundian States, however, cannot be limited to two Burgundies, Flanders and Artois. Charles le Téméraire, for instance, held fifteen titles: count of Artois, duke of Limburg, duke of Brabant, duke of Lothier, duke of Burgundy, duke of Luxembourg, count-palatine of Burgundy, margrave of Namur, count of Charolais, count of Zeeland, count of Flanders, count of Zutphen, duke of Guelders, count of Hainault and count of Holland.90

  None of the duke-counts were kings. Coronations lay in the gift of the pope, and no pope would have braved the wrath of both the king of France and the German emperor in order to elevate a king of Burgundy. But in the brilliance of their courts, the wealth of their cities and the opulence of their patronage, the Burgundians outshone almost all the crowned heads of their day, and were kings in all but name.91

  The territorial base of the new political complex differed substantially from that of all previous Burgundies. Although anchored in the duchy and the county, the greater part of the agglomeration lay in the coastal region far to the north, and did not include most of historic Burgundy. The personal inheritance of Marguerite de Dampierre, born at Bruges, was considerably larger and wealthier than her husband’s. It stretched all the way from the ex-French counties of Vermandois and Ponthieu to the ex-imperial counties of Holland and Gelderland, and comprised all the great cities of the Low Countries: Amiens, Arras, Bruges, Ghent, Brussels and Amsterdam. Several gaps in the patchwork – at Utrecht, Cambrai, Liège and Luxeuil – were filled by dependent bishoprics. One of the fragments of imperial Burgundy that the German emperors hung on to was the county of Neuchâtel (now a canton in north-western Switzerland). This was made possible because the Emperor Rudolf I took Neuchâtel into his personal possession before handing it in fief to one of his supporters. Its proximity to Germany ensured the emperors’ continuing care and attention, and it evaded the clutches both of the Valois duke-counts and of the Swiss Confederation all the way to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.92 From 1707 to 1806, it belonged, eccentrically, to Prussia.

  The fifteenth century saw the heyday of medieval cities. They flourished most ostentatiously in two centres, northern Italy and the Low Countries – that is, in the States of Burgundy – and were the true habitat of the Renaissance. Art and learning went hand in hand with commerce:

  Bruges, at this time the most international mercantile town in north-west Europe, was undoubtedly [Burgundy’s] beating heart. Hundreds of foreigners had their residence there… At least twelve ‘nations’ of foreign merchants enjoyed… legal protection… Forty or fifty Hansa merchants resided in the city throughout the year. The northern Italians… were even more numerous. There were also… Catalans, Castilians, Portuguese, Basques, Scots, and English.

  Bruges was the centre of a complex network… During the six-week-long Whitsun fair… all the foreigners left Bruges… for Antwerp. There they controlled the trade in expensive textiles such as linen and velvet, and… in goods from overseas like spices, wine, oil, tropical fruits, sugar, and furs… Thus, we can imagine Bruges at the top of a pyramid, w
ith… Antwerp in the second place and Ghent and Ypres, regional mercantile centres.

  From the thirteenth century on, Italian firms had extended credit to rulers in the Low Countries… Duke Philip the Bold had close connections with Dino Rapondi, a banker from Lucca… Dino settled in Flanders and lent large sums of money to the duke and to the towns… With a bill of exchange for sixty thousand francs, payable in Venice, and a large loan, Dino provided the ransom for John the Fearless when he was captured by the Turks… in 1396.93

  The court of the duke-counts was itinerant. Its home base lay in the ‘Palais des Ducs’ in Dijon, where it wintered, but it would move off every spring for its annual progress; regular destinations included the old comtal residences at Hesdin in Artois and Mechelen near Antwerp. Contemporaries always commented on its splendour and ostentation. ‘Burgundian’ has become a byword for lavish dress, conspicuous consumption and making merry. The processions and pageants and the ‘entries’ of the duke-counts and their guests were consciously undertaken as political spectacles. The Burgundian court felt itself the equal of all its neighbours, bar none:

  The king of France… took the road to Troyes, in Champagne… He was accompanied by his uncles the duke of Bourbon, the duke of Touraine… and many other knights… [when] he arrived at Dijon… he was received with every respect and affection by the duchess of Burgundy, and all who had come thither to do him honour. Grand entertainments were given on the occasion, and the king remained eight days at Dijon.94

  Burgundy’s ruling circles cultivated the art and the ethos of chivalry with unparalleled passion. The Order of the Golden Fleece, modelled on England’s Order of the Garter, was instituted in 1430. Its rituals and ceremonies outshone all others. Its badge was mounted on a jewelled collar bearing the incongruous motto: ‘Pretium Laborum Non Vile’ (‘Not a Bad Reward for Working’).95 The choice of a non-Christian theme for the Order was an outward sign of interest in the ancient world. The same can be said of the manuscripts and the literary works, such as the Épopée troyenne or ‘Trojan Epic’, which graced their libraries. William Caxton, the pioneer of English printing, published a Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye in 1473, based on the Burgundian original.96

  The Flemish School of painting, a centrepiece of the Northern Renaissance, was launched under Burgundian patronage. Painters such as Robert Campin (c. 1378–1444), Jan van Eyck (c. 1390–1441), who worked both for the count of Holland and for Philip the Bold, Roger van der Weyden (c. 1400–1464) and Hans Memling (c. 1430–94), a German who settled in Bruges, pioneered the secularization of European art. They moved with confidence into new genres, including portraits, still life, everyday scenes and landscape.97 Outstanding sculptors, too, were patronized. Claus Sluter (fl. 1380–1405), a Dutchman, became the court sculptor at Dijon. His best-known surviving work is the Well of Moses, fashioned for the ducal mausoleum at the monastery of Champol.98 Tapestries, too, were a Burgundian speciality. The costly technique of weaving gold thread into coloured designs was invented in Arras. In the fifteenth century, the tapissiers could produce huge, wall-hung panels depicting battles, historical scenes, ancient legends and intricate landscapes.99

  Music blossomed alongside the visual arts. The Burgundian School started life in the ducal chapel in Dijon, where ‘the Burgundian Spirit in Song’ could already be heard by the century’s turn.100 But it expanded both geographically and stylistically. Guillaume Dufay (c. 1397–1470), a Brabanter, may have been the most famous European composer of the day. The later Franco-Flemish School produced a bevy of talent centred on the genius of Joskin van de Velde (c.1450–1520), better known as Josquin des Prez, who brought polyphony to its peak.101

  Renaissance literature covered many fields from poetry to philosophy. Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536), the greatest humanist of his age, was a Burgundian.102 Both French and Dutch developed alongside Latin, and the intermingling of the vernaculars has been called ‘a dialogue of two cultures’. Burgundy also provided the setting for one of the most stirring works of twentieth-century scholarship, Johan Huizinga’s Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen (1919), known throughout the world as The Waning of the Middle Ages. Huizinga (1872–1945), a professor at Leiden and a pioneer of cultural history, used detailed analysis of the rituals, art forms and spectacles at the Burgundian court to formulate his theory about the rough and vividly emotional character of late medieval life, contesting the prevailing view that it was an age full of Renaissance grace, aestheticism and enlightened debate:

  When the world was half a thousand years younger, all events had much sharper outlines than now. The distance between sadness and joy, between good and bad fortune, seemed to be much greater than for us. Every event, every deed was defined in given and expressive forms; death by virtue of the sacraments, basked in the radiance of the divine mystery. But even the lesser events – a journey, a visit, a piece of work, were accompanied by a multitude of blessings, ceremonies, sayings and conventions.103

  Huizinga’s views were hugely influential, even though they provoked hostility among some Dutch colleagues, and bewilderment in his Belgian friend Henri Pirenne.104

  For all their extraordinary cultural patronage, politics was the prime métier of the duke-counts. Burgundy distinguished itself both in projects to lay the foundations of an integrated state and in the brilliance of its diplomacy. Although force could be used to suppress rebellious subjects, local particularities were respected; and it was the practice to rule by established procedure and consent. In a typical decree of 13 December 1385, Ghent felt both its lord’s heavy hand and his magnanimity:

  Philip of France, duke of Burgundy, earl of Flanders and Artois, palatine of Burgundy… to all, greeting: be it known… our well-beloved subjects… of our good town of Ghent, having humbly supplicated us, to have mercy, that [We] have pardoned and forgiven all misdemeanours and offences… and have fully confirmed all the said customs, privileges, and franchises, provided they place themselves wholly under obedience [to us].105

  The duke-counts, like the English monarchs, drew on their impossibly tangled genealogy to support their claim that they were the true kings of France, and Philip the Bold in particular was preoccupied with French affairs. When he died in 1404, his position both as a prince of the Valois blood and as an independent ruler was secure. Yet he did not neglect his ‘States of Burgundy’. He was a connoisseur of fine wine, and issued detailed decrees on matters such as the banishment of the inferior gamay grape or the sacrifice of quality to quantity through excessive use of manure. Small towns like Pommard, Nuits St George and Beaune grew up in his time as centres for the négociants, the middlemen of the wine trade. One of his properties at the Château de Santenay on the slopes of the Côte d’Or still produces wines that bear his name.106 He was also the principal constructor of the Palais de Ducs at Dijon.107

  Philip’s son, Jean sans Peur – John the Fearless – who had fought against the Turks as a young knight in the Crusade of Nicopolis, consolidated Burgundy’s power and independence. Endlessly embroiled with his French relatives, he was murdered by the entourage of the dauphin in September 1419 on the bridge at Montereau near Paris in an encounter which he had expected to be a diplomatic parley.108 John’s son, Philippe le Bon – Philip the Good – was known in his youth as the count of Charolais, and brought ‘the States’ to a high degree of prestige and prosperity. He expanded them by the purchase of Namur and Luxembourg, by the conquest of Holland, Zealand and Frisia in the so-called Cold Wars, and by the inheritance of Brabant, Limburg and Antwerp. He liked to style himself, immodestly, as the ‘grand duke of the West’.109

  Philip the Good’s funeral is often cited as the grandest of Burgundian spectacles. It was lavishly staged in Bruges in 1467 and was recorded in great detail by the court chronicler, Chastellain. Hundreds of mourners, dressed in black, were fitted out at official expense with cloaks reflecting their rank. The church of St Donation was filled with so many candles that the stained glass had to be broken to release the heat. Twenty
thousand spectators watched the torchlight procession:

  The remains of Duke Philip… were placed in a closed leaden coffin weighing more than 240 pounds. A cloth of gold measuring thirty-two ells and lined with black satin covered the coffin. Twelve Archers of the Guard carried [it], [while] the pall of gold cloth… was held by sixteen grand barons… A canopy of golden cloth mounted on four large spikes was a borne aloft by four Burgundian noblemen: the counts of Joigny, Bouquan, and Blancquehain, and the seigneur de Chastelguion. Directly behind… walking alone was Meriadez, the Master of the Horse… [and] the principal director of the funeral. [He] carried the ducal sword of his late master in its richly ornate sheath, pointed down towards the ground.110

  During the entombment, the sword was passed to the late duke’s son and heir, Charles, in a gesture borrowed from French regal ceremony. It signified the continuity of princely power – but it also gave notice of Charles’s intention of living by the sword.

  Charles le Téméraire has variously been classed, according to translation, as ‘the Bold’, ‘the Rash’ and ‘the Terrible’. He was the son of a Portuguese princess, and through successive marriages, brother-in-law to the kings both of France and of England. His warlike disposition had erupted before his father’s death, when in 1466, he ordered the slaughter of every man, woman and child in the rebellious town of Dinant. His main mistake was to assume that he could offend all his neighbours simultaneously, and in the complicated Burgundian wars of the 1470s, his enemies eventually united against him. He soon found himself pressed in the west by Louis XI of France, ‘the Universal Spider’, and in the east by the Lorrainers, the Imperialists and the Swiss.111