Welcome to Grand Dukes of the West
The story of Valois Burgundy is one of the most exciting of the Late Middle Ages. The four Valois Dukes of Burgundy used political intrigue, calculated splendor, economic power, and good old-fashioned violence to forge a state out of the many Duchies and Counties between France and the Holy Roman Empire. During Burgundy’s height its Dukes were seen by many as the equals of Kings and Emperors and their court was at the center of Western Europe’s cultural and political development. And then it all fell apart. Please join me as I explore the history and legacy of this forgotten kingdom.
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Episode 65: The Almost Crusade
A depiction of the Feast of the Pheasant showing many of the most important members of the Burgundian Nobility. The Feast of the Pheasant was the culmination of weeks of celebrations and court festivities. It was filled with elaborate plays, performances, and displays, and concluded with the Duke of Burgundy making a Crusading Vow on a pheasant, hence the name of the feast. All his life, Philip the Good dreamed of going on Crusade, and all his life other things kept getting in the way. But even though the Duke of Burgundy never made it on Crusade, the Crusading Ideal still played a large part in the Duke’s reign, image, and stature as a Prince.
Time Period Covered: 1421-1456
Notable People: Philip the Good, Gilbert de Lannoy, Bertrandon de la Broquiere, Geoffroy de Thoisy, Waleran de Wavrin, Olivier de la Marche, Pope Pius II, Alphonso V of Aragon and Naples, Louis the Rich Duke of Bavaria
Notable Events/Developments: Travels of Gilbert de Lannoy, Travels of Bertrandon de la Broquiere, Crusade of Varna, Fall of Constantinople, The Feast of the Pheasant, The Diet of Regensburg (1454)
Left: A woodcut depicting the Battle of Varna, which took place, in part because of Waleran de Wavrin’s failure to secure the Bosporus. Right: Bertrandon de la Broquiere presents Philip the Good with a Quaran he acquired on his journeys.
Sources
Philip the Good by Richard Vaughan
The Court of Burgundy by Otto Cartellieri
Court and Civic Society in the Burgundian Low Countries c.1420-1530 by Andrew Brown and Graeme Small
Gilbert de Lannoy and His Discovery of East Central Europe by Oscar Halecki
Writing and Imagining the Crusade in Fifteenth-Century Burgundy: The Case of the Expedition Narrative in Jean de Wavrin’s Anciennes Chroniques d’Angleterre by Robert Byron Joseph Desjardins
Report on an Imperial Mission to Regensburg [Historia de Ratisponensi Dieta], 1454, by Enea Silvio Piccolomini. Edited and translated by Michael von Cotta-Schönberg.
The Crusade in the Later Middle Ages by Aziz Atiya
The Travels of Bertrandon de La Brocquiere to Palestine, and his Return
Voyages et Ambassades by Gilbert de Lannoy
Recueil des croniques et anchiennes istories de la Grant Bretaigne by Jean de Wavrin
Memoires by Olivier de la Marche
Bourgogne et Angleterre: Relations politiques et économiques entre les Pays-Bas bourguignons et l’Angleterre. 1435-1467 By Marie Rose Thielemans
The Golden Section in Three Byzantine Motets of Dufay by Margaret Vardell Sandresky
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