BURGUNDY

BURGUNDY. The early modern state of Burgundy was the product of a historical accident. When Charles the Bold (1433–1477), the last Valois duke of Burgundy (1467–1477), was murdered in 1477, his various and sundry lands and estates were divided up between the king of France and the Holy Roman emperor. While the large duchy of Burgundy was soon incorporated into the kingdom of France, the free county of Burgundy just across the Saône River (Franche-Comté) was quickly absorbed into the empire. Moreover, all the territories that made up the Burgundian Netherlands—the counties of Flanders, Holland, Zeeland, Hainaut, and Namur as well as the duchies of Brabant, Limburg, and Luxembourg—also swore allegiance to the emperor. Thus what had once been a politically powerful buffer state that separated France and the empire and stretched from the North Sea to the Franco-Swiss border was now divided between these two European powers. With its twin courts at Brussels and Dijon permanently separated, Burgundy's political influence was no longer as significant as it had once been, when it held the balance of power between England and France in the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453).

These Franco-Habsburg tensions intensified less than two decades after Charles the Bold's death, when the French king Charles VIII (ruled 1483–1498) invaded Italy in a dispute over the emperor's claim to the vacant duchy of Milan, starting the Habsburg-Valois Wars (1494–1559). Charles V (1519–1556), the grandson and heir of Maximilian I (ruled 1493–1519), later tried to reunite the duchy to the rest of the Burgundian state under Habsburg control. Having captured King Francis I of France (1515–1547) on the battlefield at Pavia in Italy in 1525, Charles succeeded in getting him to renounce the duchy of Burgundy as part of the deal to release him. Francis reneged on his promise once he acquired his freedom, however, and the duchy remained in French hands. Moreover the Burgundian political elites of the duchy made it known to all that they were loyal Frenchmen and had no desire to be transferred to the sovereignty of the emperor to reunite with the other former Burgundian territories in the empire. Although neither Francis I nor Charles V managed to gain any permanent territorial advantage in Italy from the Habsburg-Valois Wars, this conflict served as a backdrop to the foreign policies of both states for the rest of the early modern period. Indeed even after the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis formally ended the wars in 1559, Habsburg-Valois tensions continued to ferment, a situation not helped by the advent of Protestantism in both states.

With the coming of the Reformation in France, the duchy of Burgundy became a bastion for the traditional religion and a bulwark against the new Calvinist faith, which most Burgundians, like most French Catholics, tended to see as heresy. The royal governor of Burgundy from the 1530s to the 1590s was a member of the militantly Catholic Guise family, so the many patronage networks of the Guises worked long and hard in the province to prevent the spread of heresy. Calvinism nevertheless managed to gain a foothold in some of the principal Burgundian towns by 1560, and tensions between the two faiths broke out in violence, as it did in many towns throughout the kingdom in the early 1560s. Most Burgundians had supported the attempts of Kings Henry II (ruled 1547–1559) and Francis II (ruled 1559–1560) to suppress Protestantism, by force if necessary. But they were explicitly hostile to the edict of January 1562, since it gave legal recognition to the French Protestants for the first time. When the French Wars of Religion officially broke out in 1562, Burgundy fought against both the Protestants and the crown's continuous attempts to make peace with them over the next four decades. Burgundy remained a bastion of Catholicism and became a stronghold of the Catholic League after the death of the last Valois heir in 1584 made Henry of Navarre (Henry IV; ruled 1589–1610), the leader of the French Protestants, presumptive heir to the throne.

The battles with the crown over religion in the sixteenth century turned to politics in the seventeenth century. First Henry IV began to intervene in local elections for mayor in several Burgundian towns in 1609, altering a process of independence that had originated under the Valois dukes. Then in the 1630s his son and successor, Louis XIII (ruled 1610–1643), attempted to take away the province's traditional right to assess and collect its own taxes through its provincial Estates. When Louis tried to suppress the Estates and replace them with royal tax officials, many in the province fought back. A band of citizens in Dijon—mainly winegrowers and artisans—actually burned down the houses of several members of Dijon's parlement (sovereign court) who spoke out in favor of the king's plan. Louis went in person to Dijon to punish the culprits as well as to chide the elites for not fully supporting his venture. By the time of the Fronde in 1648, Burgundy's elites had been won over to the crown's wishes on virtually all political matters, as the king continued to reward them handsomely for their cooperation. As a result there was no opposition to the crown in Burgundy when parlements in other regions revolted in 1648. And for the most part Burgundy's elites continued to support French kings right up to the Revolution of 1789.

Louis XIV (ruled 1643–1715) managed to reunite the free county of Burgundy with the duchy in 1674, when his troops occupied Franche-Comté and brought the county under French control. Thus the two Burgundies, as contemporaries were still referring to the duchy and the county, were both under the authority of one prince for the first time since 1477. Like their fellow subjects in the duchy, the elites of Franche-Comté tended for the most part to be willing, loyal subjects of the king of France in return for largesse, rewards, and perquisites. From one-time enemies of France during the Hundred Years' War, Burgundians by the late seventeenth century had become some of the most ardent defenders of the Catholic Church and the French crown.

See also Charles the Bold (Burgundy) ; Habsburg-Valois Wars ; Holy Roman Empire ; Valois Dynasty (France).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Drouot, Henri. Mayenne et la Bourgogne: Étude sur la Ligue, 1587–1596. 2 vols. Dijon and Paris, 1937.

Farr, James R. Hands of Honor: Artisans and Their World in Dijon, 1550–1650. Ithaca, N.Y., 1988.

Holt, Mack P. "Wine, Community and Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Burgundy," Past and Present 138 (February 1993): 58–93.

Vaughan, Richard. Valois Burgundy. London, 1975.

Mack P. Holt

Burgundy , Fr. Bourgogne , historic region, E France. The name once applied to a large area embracing several kingdoms, a free county (see Franche-Comté ), and a duchy. The present region is identical with the province of Burgundy of the 17th and 18th cent. It is now administratively divided into the departments of Yonne, Côte-d'Or, Saône-et-Loire, Ain, and Nièvre. Dijon is the historic capital; other cities are Autun, Auxerre, Beaune, Bourg-en-Bresse, Chalon-sur-Saône, and Mâcon.

Burgundy west of the Saône River is generally hilly; the southeast includes the southern spurs of the Jura Mts.; the center is a lowland, extending south almost to the junction of the Saône and Rhône rivers (see Bresse ). A rich agricultural country, Burgundy is especially famous for the wine produced in the Chablis region, the mountains of the Côte d'Or, and the Saône and Rhône valleys. There is some heavy industry and mechanical equipment manufacturing.

History

The territory, conquered by Caesar in the Gallic Wars , was divided first into the Roman provinces of Lugdunensis and Belgic Gaul, then into Lugdunensis and Upper Germany (see Gaul ). It prospered, and Autun became a major intellectual center. In the 4th cent. Roman power dissolved, and the country was invaded by Germanic tribes. It was finally conquered (c.480) by the Burgundii, a tribe from Savoy. The Burgundii accepted Christianity, established their Lex Burgundionum, and formed the First Kingdom of Burgundy, which at its height covered SE France and reached as far south as Arles and W Switzerland.

Conquered (534) by the Franks , it was throughout the Merovingian period subjected to numerous partitions. Burgundy nevertheless survived as a political concept, and after the partitions of the Carolingian empire two new Burgundian kingdoms were founded, Cisjurane Burgundy, or Provence , in the south (879) and Transjurane Burgundy in the north (888). These two were united (933) in the Second Kingdom of Burgundy (see Arles, kingdom of ). A smaller area, corresponding roughly to present Burgundy, was created as the duchy of Burgundy by Emperor Charles II in 877. In 1002, King Robert II of France made good his claim to the duchy, but his son, Henry I, gave it in 1031 as a fief to his brother Robert, whose line died out in 1361.

The golden age of Burgundy began (1364) when John II of France bestowed the fief on his son, Philip the Bold , thus founding the line of Valois-Bourgogne. Philip and his successors, John the Fearless , Philip the Good , and Charles the Bold , acquired—by conquest, treaty, and marriage—vast territories, including most of the present Netherlands and Belgium, the then extensive duchy of Luxembourg, Picardy, Artois, Lorraine, S Baden, Alsace, the Franche-Comté, Nivernais, and Charolais.

In the early 15th cent. the dukes of Burgundy, through their partisans in France, dominated French politics (see Armagnacs and Burgundians ). England, at first supported by Burgundy in the Hundred Years War , suffered a crucial setback when Philip the Good withdrew that support in the Treaty of Arras (1435). A great power, Burgundy at that time had the most important trade, industry, and agriculture of Europe. Its court, a center of the arts, was second to none.

The wars of ambitious Charles the Bold, however, proved ruinous. Charles, opposed by the determined and resourceful Louis XI of France, was defeated by the Swiss at Grandson, Morat (1476), and Nancy (1477), where he lost his life. His daughter, Mary of Burgundy , by marrying Emperor Maximilian I, brought most of the Burgundian possessions (but not the original French duchy) to the house of Hapsburg. The duchy itself was seized by Louis XI, who incorporated it into the French crownlands as a province, to which Gex, Bresse, and Charolais were added later by Henry IV and Louis XIV.

Bibliography

See studies by O. Cartellieri (1929, repr. 1972), R. Aldrich (1984), E. Fried (1986), and C. Cope (1987).

Burgundy A former duchy in south-central France. The Burgundii, a Germanic tribe, settled there in the 5th century. It was under Merovingian control and then absorbed into the CAROLINGIAN EMPIRE. During the reign of strong Holy Roman Emperors most of it was under imperial control but in the late Middle Ages it was ruled by a series of strong dukes. PHILIP THE BOLD acquired Flanders and John the Fearless the Netherlands. Geographically the separation of territories made government difficult and CHARLES THE BOLD tried, but failed, to unite the northern and southern parts by annexing Lorraine. He was killed in 1477, leaving no son to succeed, and Louis XI of France claimed the duchy. The final subjection to France occurred when Louis XIV seized Franche-Comté.

During its history the duchy had achieved great power and influence, its court in the 15th century the most splendid in Europe. Certainly some of its dukes were more powerful than many kings of France and when they allied themselves with the English, as they did during the HUNDRED YEARS WAR, they posed a real threat to the security of the French monarch. The court of the dukes of Burgundy was renowned for its artistic patronage; the name Burgundian School is applied to a group of Flemish painters working for them between 1390 and 1420.

Burgundy (Bourgogne), France A region named after the Burgundians, a Scandinavian tribe, who migrated from the southern shores of the Baltic Sea between the 1st and 5th centuries. During its history parts of Burgundy have been a kingdom, a duchy, and a county. Upper Burgundy was known as Jurane Burgundy and Lower Burgundy as the Kingdom of Provence. These two were united and after passing to the German king they became known as the Kingdom of Arles from the 13th century. Cisjurane Burgundy referred to the County of Burgundy (Franche‐Comté) while the Duchy was that part of the realm west of the River Saône; it was annexed by France in 1477. The colour burgundy is probably derived from the colour of the famous red Burgundy wine produced in the region.

Burgundy (Bourgogne) Historical region and former duchy of e central France; it now includes the departments of Yonne, Côte-d'Or, Saône et Loire, Ain and Nièvre. Dijon is the historical capital. Burgundy's golden age began in 1364 when John II of France made his son, Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. The succeeding dukes created a state that extended across the Rhine and included the Low Countries. The last Duke, Charles the Bold (r.1467–77), failed to have himself crowned king by the Holy Roman Emperor, and Burgundy was divided up after his death, France annexing the largest part. The region has many Romanesque churches. It is a rich agricultural region renowned for its wine. Pop. (1999) 1,610,407.

bur·gun·dy / ˈbərgəndē/ (also Bur·gun·dy) • n. (pl. -dies) a wine from Burgundy (usually taken to be red unless otherwise specified): a glass of Burgundy. ∎  a deep red color like that of burgundy wine: warm shades of brown and burgundy.

Burgundy a region and former duchy of east central France, centred on Dijon. Under a series of strong dukes Burgundy achieved considerable independence from imperial control in the later Middle Ages, before being absorbed by France when King Louis XI claimed the duchy in 1477.

Burgundy Red and white wines produced in the Burgundy region of France (Bourgogne).

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