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The Dukes of Burgundy
Charles the Bold: The Last Valois Duke of Burgundy
Erudite but highly readable.... An attractive and timely repackaging of an unrivalled classic of Burgundian studies. MEDIUM AEVUM
Charles the Bold (1467-1477) was the last of the great Dukes of Burgundy. This historical and biographical work assesses his personality and his role as a ruler, and discusses his relationship with his subjects and his neighbours. It describes and analyses his policies, giving particular attention to his imperial plans and projects and his clash with the Swiss. The armies, the court and Burgundian clients and partisans are given separate treatment.
Charles the Bold (1467-1477) was the last of the great Dukes of Burgundy. This historical and biographical work assesses his personality and his role as a ruler, and discusses his relationship with his subjects and his neighbours. It describes and analyses his policies, giving particular attention to his imperial plans and projects and his clash with the Swiss. The armies, the court and Burgundian clients and partisans are given separate treatment.
523 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
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October 19, 2025
British Historian Richard Vaughan Studies The Life & Reign Of Charles The Bold, Last Of The Valois Dukes Of Burgundy.
In the closing paragraphs of the first chapter in what is perhaps the most famous & highly lauded entry in Professor Richard Vaughan's historic series chronicling the reigns of the four preeminent dukes in France's Burgundy region, Charles the Bold: The Last Valois Duke of Burgundy, the author makes a significant statement regarding his motives for composing what may very well be his literary career's magnum opus -- "It is high time that the history of Charles the Bold which was in the first place created by Chastellain & de Commynes in terms of a violent & dramatic clash between two opposing personalities, each full of scorn & hate for the other, that is, the king of France & the duke of Burgundy, was rewritten in more realistic & accurate terms." Bold words from an undeniably gifted historian, & now an updated edition of a book which likely entailed a decade or more of comprehensive research & grueling hard work can be studied & enjoyed by modern readers in this exquisitely composed volume on who is perhaps the most controversial & well-known of the Valois dukes of Burgundy. Charles the Bold fits perfectly the literary archetype for the brooding, melancholy lordling who nursed the injustices, real or imagined, which had been dealt to him with cold deliberation & well-rehearsed theatricality, taking into his inner circle such individuals as Anthony, the famous Bastard of Burgundy, who aptly reflected his own disenchanted attitudes & political views on lordship & on the king of France, Louis XI, as well as sharing his sullen, taciturn personality. Charles the Bold reigned for a total of ten tumultuous, war-torn years from 1467-1477, & his tenure in power was fraught with short-lived alliances, clandestine intrigues, bloody rebellions, & most of all, costly & ill-fated military expeditions that ended more often than not in utter disaster for Charles & for Burgundy. He did manage, through a series of purchases & conquests, to unite the northern & southern areas of his dominions with his acquisition & subsequent occupation of the Alsace & Lorraine regions in south-central France, but after sustaining terrible defeats fighting against René II of Lorraine & the Swiss Confederation at Grandson & Morat, Charles's imperial ambitions were finally shattered on 5 January 1477 when he lost his campaign as well as his life in the frigid winter tundra at the Battle of Nancy.
This 2002 edition of Richard Vaughan's 1973 monograph, Charles the Bold: The Last Valois Duke of Burgundy was published in Great Britain by Boydell Press, & features a 432-page main text which is divided into eleven chapters, with most pertaining either to Charles's territorial acquisitions, his suppressions of revolts in Flanders & other regions, or his various military campaigns. The volume is also supplemented with a new introduction written by Werner Paravicini of the German Historical Institute in Paris, as well as an updated supplemental bibliography of suggested reading that was current up to 2002. There is an array of special features provided herein, including 13 well-articulated maps depicting territorial treaties & important battles such as The Liège campaigns of 1467-1468, The grand alliance against Charles the Bold, & the Battles of Grandson, Murten, & Nancy, as well as a pair of genealogical charts which display The dukes of Lorraine in the fifteenth century & The house of Savoy in the fifteenth century. Also featured is a staggering 34-page bibliography of French, Dutch, German, & English sources located at the end of the book, as well as an index.
In Chapter 1, The Duke & the Towns: Ghent & Liège, Professor Vaughan describes Charles the Bold's military campaigns against the rebellions of the Flemish city of Ghent & the church-controlled town of Liège, augmenting his analyses by utilizing excerpts from contemporary sources of major events including Jehan, Lord of Haynin's battlefield accounting of Charles's surprise attack on the Liègeois-held town of Huy, & a passage from the memoirs of the Burgundian court-writer, Philippe de Commynes, describing the aftermath of Charles the Bold's disastrous procession into Ghent on 28 June 1467. At the end of the chapter Vaughan posits an interesting theory regarding the nature of what he believed to be Charles the Bold's true adversary during his turbulent, ten-year reign, which surprisingly is not the 'Universal Spider' of western Europe that many historians, such as Paul Murray Kendall, feel strongly in favor of -- "The real enemy of Charles the Bold, opposing him with a bitter & consistent hatred, was urban. It was not as the chroniclers & many modern historians would have us believe, King Louis XI of France; it was the towns. In particular, it was that mosaic of city-states which had been brought into existence by the avaricious grasping & dynamic merchant communities of the great borderland of the Europe of those days, where the French & German speaking worlds met & merged. It would be going too far to see Duke Charles as the first of a new generation of European rulers, intent on smashing the power & demolishing the privileges of the medieval cities, but it is nonetheless true that his sweeping ambitions & radical policies were stubbornly opposed by these communities or elements in them."
Charles the Bold's diplomatic relations with King Louis XI of France & King Edward IV York of England, as well as his dealings with influential French & European potentates such as Duke Francis II of Brittany & Galleazo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, are the primary areas of focus in Chapter 2, Burgundy, France & England: 1467-1472. This chapter includes an interesting analysis of the political climate which led to Charles's betrothal & subsequent marriage to Edward IV's sister, Margaret of York, despite the fact that the duke of Burgundy was himself a diehard Lancastrian. Among the most important deciding factors was a purely economic issue -- with the unstable international situation in western Europe there was no room for lost revenues, & neither the Burgundians nor the English could afford to continue adhering to Duke Philip the Good's debilitating statues of 1463 & 1464 which prevented the import onto English soil of Burgundian manufactured products. There was, as a result, a much welcome abolition of these edicts in a treaty which coincided with Charles & Margaret's marriage betrothal in 1467. The author also includes the French chronicler Jehan de Haynin's fascinating accounting of the ducal couple's wedding festivities, which is, according to Vaughan's remarks, 'Among all the eyewitness accounts perhaps the most lively & charming', with an excerpt from the first passage as follows -- "I, Jehan, lord of Haynin & of Louvignies, knight, intend to pass the time by writing down here what I have seen & discovered of the departure, welcome, entry, wedding, festivity, jousts, tournament & banquets which occurred in the town of Bruges because of the alliance & marriage of the most excellent, high & mighty prince, my most redoubted lord Charles, by the grace of God duke of Burgundy...& the most high & mighty princess Madame Margaret of York...subject to the correction of those who were present & who saw & found out more about them better or more certainly than I. I hope I may be forgiven if I write anything false for I certainly do not wish to include anything except pure & certain truth." Many of the translations of memoirs & accountings chronicled in this study do not appear in the English language outside of Vaughan's monograph, rendering it an important resource for English audiences unable to read French, Dutch, or German.
Chapter 3, Territorial Aggrandizement, 1469-1473: Alsace, Lorraine, Frisia & Guelders describes the manner in which Duke Charles the Bold, vis à vis a series of purchases, treaties, & military operations, was able to successfully join the north & south regions of his vast dominions, a challenging goal that would have been all but impossible had it not been for the shrewd political acumen of his father, Philip the Good, particularly in the old duke's acquisitions of the Holland, Hainault & Luxembourg regions during his own reign, which lasted from 1419-1467. Vaughan expertly canvasses the chain of events which led to Sigmund, Archduke of Austria, mortgaging a large part of the Upper Rhine Vorlande to Charles the Bold for an astounding sum of 50,000 Rhenish florins, as a way to protect his own holdings in the Tyrol against the repeated incursions of the Eidgenossen, a close-knit coalition of the Eight Cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy. Although the deal was in theory a veritable bonanza for Charles, in practice the reality of the situation was quite convoluted & very much imperfect, compromising the Burgundian duke's immediate territorial gains, as this excerpt from Vaughan's analysis aptly explains -- "In actual fact, what Charles now acquired in mortgage was a miscellaneous collection of rights rather than a group of territories. Moreover, Sigmund had the right to redeem this mortgage at any time, though Charles made it as difficult as possible for him to do this by insisting on adding all his administrative expenses in the meanwhile to the original loan. He also laid it down that if Sigmund wanted to repay the loan & redeem the mortgage the entire sum must be handed over in a single payment at Besançon: repayment by instalments was disallowed." Also included in this chapter are several helpful maps depicting the approximate areas of the territories gaged to Charles, known as the Sundgau & Breisgau regions, in addition to the Friesland territory which was located in the far north of Holland, as this was a dependency that Charles endeavored to possess but his aspirations were never fully acted upon. Finally, Vaughan covers Charles's focused efforts to expand Burgundian influence to the Duchy of Guelders, with its vassal dependency of Zutphen, by using his own stewardship of the Order of the Golden Fleece as a diplomatic pretense to exploit discord between Arnold of Egmond, the reigning duke of Guelders, & his heir, Adolf, as both father & son were members of the illustrious knightly order. After much political wrangling Duke Arnold finally mortgages Guelders to Charles for the astronomical sum of 300,000 Rhenish florins, who immediately begins installing his own government in the region, but it would take a full-scale invasion for him to actually gain control of it. His campaign's most famous encounter began on 28 June 1473 with the three-week siege of the town of Nijmegen.
In Chapter 4, The Duke & the Empire, 1467-1473, Vaughan limns for his reader the uncompromising territorial ambitions of Charles the Bold as he struggles to realize his late father's grandiose imperial aspirations of becoming the first Burgundian Holy Roman Emperor via his successful annexation by statecraft or by warcraft of multiple domains that fell within the empire's boundaries, which at that time was ruled by Frederick III of the house of Habsburg. Philip the Good had established a suitably impressive precedent during his long reign by employing his own shrewd form of diplomatic warfare to acquire Hainault, Holland, & Luxembourg, while his son Charles either preferred or was necessitated to utilize a more direct, brute method in his efforts to obtain Alsace, Lorraine, Guelders & Frisia which inclined toward heavy-handed intimidation at the negotiation table & armed military force on the battlefield. Charles had a vested economic interest in many of these key regions, even prior to his acquisition of them, particularly in the exportation down the Upper Rhine River of Burgundian wine. The duke's correspondence from this period speak to his concern for the overall security of the river as well as to his chagrin at the unreasonably steep taxes & tariff duties levied on the wine by the local lords, as can be evinced by the following excerpt from the chapter's beginning -- "Almost every autumn in the early part of his reign, Charles the Bold's letters on the subject of the general security of the river, or on the tolls levied on wine shipped along it, were sent out to interested parties. On 24 November 1467 the dukes of Guelders & Cleves & the archbishop of Cologne were asked to protect trade on the river. On 26 October 1469 Charles the Bold wrote to rulers of Guelders, Cleves, & Jülich & the civic authorities of Cologne complaining of the exorbitant tolls being collected on wine shipments, which had caused the merchants to transfer the wine to wagons & transport it by land instead." Charles's dreams of becoming Holy Roman Emperor ran so deep that he actually attempted to enter into negotiations with Frederick III to have himself coronated using the hand of his daughter, Mary of Burgundy, as a bargaining chip to sweeten the proposition, & members of his court began composing literature & music to fuel his insane obsession with the concept. In 1469 one of his court doctors wrote a manual for autocratic rule, De custodia principum, that was styled in a similar vein to Niccolò Machiavelli's famous treatise, The Prince, which at that time had not yet been written, as the Florentine statesman had just been born that same year.
Later chapters in Professor Vaughan's study discuss such topics as the diverse, colorful composition of Charles the Bold's court, the organization & leadership of his formidable Burgundian army upon the field, the duke's vast reservoir of allies, retainers, & partisans, & the savage revolt which occurred in Upper Alsace while the duke was busy solidifying his newly-established power base in the region. Chapter 10, Savoy, Grandson & Murten, analyzes the devastating defeats sustained by Charles while conducting his doomed campaign fighting the Swiss Confederation in the battles of Murten & Grandson, which occurred on 22 June 1476 & 2 March 1476, respectively, & the final chapter, entitled The Collapse of Burgundian Power, discusses the duke's extreme unpopularity which pervaded not only at the end of his time in power, as is often the case with rulers who garner the ire of their subjects, but throughout his entire reign, & to assist in illustrating his arguments the author provides a robust group of contemporary correspondence, the most prominent of which is a letter penned by Charles the Bold that was probably intended for municipalities in Ghent or Bruges, attempting to exculpate himself from taking blame for his unhappy populace. Among the duke's arguments is his staunch refusal to accept responsibility for the onerous taxes, called aides, many of which were levied by his father, Philip the Good, & the excerpt provided speaks both to this effect as well as it does to Charles's undeniable talent for wordcraft -- "Concerning which, in regard to the said aides, we are utterly amazed at what is being said & even more at those who are saying these things, especially as all the aides that we take in our said lands by no means total more than 200,000 good livres per annum, which is not much considering the estate & the great expenses & charges which we have to maintain, support & undertake. And, as you know, those aides which were granted to our said late lord & father which have fallen to us through his decease were only to run for a further two or three years at the most & when they expire, the sum total of our said aides, ordinary & extraordinary, will not amount to more than 150,000 good livres per annum, which is very little considering the great riches & wealth of the said lands in which, apart from the said aides, we have not levied a single penny to our profit, nor charged or taxed our subjects in any way for whatever affair we have been involved in whether it be the armies we have raised, led & paid at our own expense both in France & in Liège, or anything else." The end of the chapter provides an appraisal of the pivotal Battle of Nancy, where on 5 January 1477 Charles lost his life fighting in the frozen forests of the Duchy of Lorraine, & while trying to stem the enormous tide of Swiss infantry, he was said to have gloomily remarked, "I struggle against a spider who is everywhere at once".
Charles the Bold's sole heir was his daughter, Mary of Burgundy, who had married Frederick III's oldest son, Maximilian I Habsburg, & upon the duke's death his lands were parceled out between the king of France, Louis XI 'the Prudent', & the Holy Roman Empire. Never again would the Grand Dukes of the West be considered among the European continent's preeminent & puissant lords, & never again would the richest & most prosperous region of France be led by an illustrious line of potentates such as the Valois princes of Burgundy most undoubtedly were. Though his reign was turbulent & fraught with strife & woe, Charles the Bold occupies a unique niche alongside the early Renaissance's period's distinct tapestry of noble personalities -- Cosimo de'Medici, whose pioneer financial institution paved the way to his coveted status as the affluent Florentine nouveau riche who brokered treaties as effectively as he conducted business transactions; the quintessential Renaissance tyrant, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, whose unrivaled cruelty & ostentatious high living proved to be a dark contrast to the condottiere discipline & brilliant statecraft for which his father, Francesco, was universally known & loved throughout Europe; & finally, the ruthlessly efficient, changeable Earl of Warwick, Richard Neville, whose renowned status as an experienced battle commander & respected lord could not overcome his own stubborn pride & overweening ambition, which caused him to switch his loyalties numerous times, & was to be the cause of his downfall at the decisive Battle of Barnet -- when held up next to this formidable cast of characters, Charles the Bold embodies qualities in all of them, & in none of them. His dominions commanded lucrative commercial enterprises such as the wine industry & the textile trade, generating enough revenue to make any banker uneasy; he was the last scion of a majestic line of dukes who arguably wielded more power than many kings could ever dream of; & he possessed ambitions so grandiose & inconceivable that he refused even to contemplate their failure to be realized, a tragic shortcoming which ultimately led to his final undoing, in the cold snow & ice at Nancy. I hope you enjoyed the review, thank you so much for reading!
In the closing paragraphs of the first chapter in what is perhaps the most famous & highly lauded entry in Professor Richard Vaughan's historic series chronicling the reigns of the four preeminent dukes in France's Burgundy region, Charles the Bold: The Last Valois Duke of Burgundy, the author makes a significant statement regarding his motives for composing what may very well be his literary career's magnum opus -- "It is high time that the history of Charles the Bold which was in the first place created by Chastellain & de Commynes in terms of a violent & dramatic clash between two opposing personalities, each full of scorn & hate for the other, that is, the king of France & the duke of Burgundy, was rewritten in more realistic & accurate terms." Bold words from an undeniably gifted historian, & now an updated edition of a book which likely entailed a decade or more of comprehensive research & grueling hard work can be studied & enjoyed by modern readers in this exquisitely composed volume on who is perhaps the most controversial & well-known of the Valois dukes of Burgundy. Charles the Bold fits perfectly the literary archetype for the brooding, melancholy lordling who nursed the injustices, real or imagined, which had been dealt to him with cold deliberation & well-rehearsed theatricality, taking into his inner circle such individuals as Anthony, the famous Bastard of Burgundy, who aptly reflected his own disenchanted attitudes & political views on lordship & on the king of France, Louis XI, as well as sharing his sullen, taciturn personality. Charles the Bold reigned for a total of ten tumultuous, war-torn years from 1467-1477, & his tenure in power was fraught with short-lived alliances, clandestine intrigues, bloody rebellions, & most of all, costly & ill-fated military expeditions that ended more often than not in utter disaster for Charles & for Burgundy. He did manage, through a series of purchases & conquests, to unite the northern & southern areas of his dominions with his acquisition & subsequent occupation of the Alsace & Lorraine regions in south-central France, but after sustaining terrible defeats fighting against René II of Lorraine & the Swiss Confederation at Grandson & Morat, Charles's imperial ambitions were finally shattered on 5 January 1477 when he lost his campaign as well as his life in the frigid winter tundra at the Battle of Nancy.
This 2002 edition of Richard Vaughan's 1973 monograph, Charles the Bold: The Last Valois Duke of Burgundy was published in Great Britain by Boydell Press, & features a 432-page main text which is divided into eleven chapters, with most pertaining either to Charles's territorial acquisitions, his suppressions of revolts in Flanders & other regions, or his various military campaigns. The volume is also supplemented with a new introduction written by Werner Paravicini of the German Historical Institute in Paris, as well as an updated supplemental bibliography of suggested reading that was current up to 2002. There is an array of special features provided herein, including 13 well-articulated maps depicting territorial treaties & important battles such as The Liège campaigns of 1467-1468, The grand alliance against Charles the Bold, & the Battles of Grandson, Murten, & Nancy, as well as a pair of genealogical charts which display The dukes of Lorraine in the fifteenth century & The house of Savoy in the fifteenth century. Also featured is a staggering 34-page bibliography of French, Dutch, German, & English sources located at the end of the book, as well as an index.
In Chapter 1, The Duke & the Towns: Ghent & Liège, Professor Vaughan describes Charles the Bold's military campaigns against the rebellions of the Flemish city of Ghent & the church-controlled town of Liège, augmenting his analyses by utilizing excerpts from contemporary sources of major events including Jehan, Lord of Haynin's battlefield accounting of Charles's surprise attack on the Liègeois-held town of Huy, & a passage from the memoirs of the Burgundian court-writer, Philippe de Commynes, describing the aftermath of Charles the Bold's disastrous procession into Ghent on 28 June 1467. At the end of the chapter Vaughan posits an interesting theory regarding the nature of what he believed to be Charles the Bold's true adversary during his turbulent, ten-year reign, which surprisingly is not the 'Universal Spider' of western Europe that many historians, such as Paul Murray Kendall, feel strongly in favor of -- "The real enemy of Charles the Bold, opposing him with a bitter & consistent hatred, was urban. It was not as the chroniclers & many modern historians would have us believe, King Louis XI of France; it was the towns. In particular, it was that mosaic of city-states which had been brought into existence by the avaricious grasping & dynamic merchant communities of the great borderland of the Europe of those days, where the French & German speaking worlds met & merged. It would be going too far to see Duke Charles as the first of a new generation of European rulers, intent on smashing the power & demolishing the privileges of the medieval cities, but it is nonetheless true that his sweeping ambitions & radical policies were stubbornly opposed by these communities or elements in them."
Charles the Bold's diplomatic relations with King Louis XI of France & King Edward IV York of England, as well as his dealings with influential French & European potentates such as Duke Francis II of Brittany & Galleazo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, are the primary areas of focus in Chapter 2, Burgundy, France & England: 1467-1472. This chapter includes an interesting analysis of the political climate which led to Charles's betrothal & subsequent marriage to Edward IV's sister, Margaret of York, despite the fact that the duke of Burgundy was himself a diehard Lancastrian. Among the most important deciding factors was a purely economic issue -- with the unstable international situation in western Europe there was no room for lost revenues, & neither the Burgundians nor the English could afford to continue adhering to Duke Philip the Good's debilitating statues of 1463 & 1464 which prevented the import onto English soil of Burgundian manufactured products. There was, as a result, a much welcome abolition of these edicts in a treaty which coincided with Charles & Margaret's marriage betrothal in 1467. The author also includes the French chronicler Jehan de Haynin's fascinating accounting of the ducal couple's wedding festivities, which is, according to Vaughan's remarks, 'Among all the eyewitness accounts perhaps the most lively & charming', with an excerpt from the first passage as follows -- "I, Jehan, lord of Haynin & of Louvignies, knight, intend to pass the time by writing down here what I have seen & discovered of the departure, welcome, entry, wedding, festivity, jousts, tournament & banquets which occurred in the town of Bruges because of the alliance & marriage of the most excellent, high & mighty prince, my most redoubted lord Charles, by the grace of God duke of Burgundy...& the most high & mighty princess Madame Margaret of York...subject to the correction of those who were present & who saw & found out more about them better or more certainly than I. I hope I may be forgiven if I write anything false for I certainly do not wish to include anything except pure & certain truth." Many of the translations of memoirs & accountings chronicled in this study do not appear in the English language outside of Vaughan's monograph, rendering it an important resource for English audiences unable to read French, Dutch, or German.
Chapter 3, Territorial Aggrandizement, 1469-1473: Alsace, Lorraine, Frisia & Guelders describes the manner in which Duke Charles the Bold, vis à vis a series of purchases, treaties, & military operations, was able to successfully join the north & south regions of his vast dominions, a challenging goal that would have been all but impossible had it not been for the shrewd political acumen of his father, Philip the Good, particularly in the old duke's acquisitions of the Holland, Hainault & Luxembourg regions during his own reign, which lasted from 1419-1467. Vaughan expertly canvasses the chain of events which led to Sigmund, Archduke of Austria, mortgaging a large part of the Upper Rhine Vorlande to Charles the Bold for an astounding sum of 50,000 Rhenish florins, as a way to protect his own holdings in the Tyrol against the repeated incursions of the Eidgenossen, a close-knit coalition of the Eight Cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy. Although the deal was in theory a veritable bonanza for Charles, in practice the reality of the situation was quite convoluted & very much imperfect, compromising the Burgundian duke's immediate territorial gains, as this excerpt from Vaughan's analysis aptly explains -- "In actual fact, what Charles now acquired in mortgage was a miscellaneous collection of rights rather than a group of territories. Moreover, Sigmund had the right to redeem this mortgage at any time, though Charles made it as difficult as possible for him to do this by insisting on adding all his administrative expenses in the meanwhile to the original loan. He also laid it down that if Sigmund wanted to repay the loan & redeem the mortgage the entire sum must be handed over in a single payment at Besançon: repayment by instalments was disallowed." Also included in this chapter are several helpful maps depicting the approximate areas of the territories gaged to Charles, known as the Sundgau & Breisgau regions, in addition to the Friesland territory which was located in the far north of Holland, as this was a dependency that Charles endeavored to possess but his aspirations were never fully acted upon. Finally, Vaughan covers Charles's focused efforts to expand Burgundian influence to the Duchy of Guelders, with its vassal dependency of Zutphen, by using his own stewardship of the Order of the Golden Fleece as a diplomatic pretense to exploit discord between Arnold of Egmond, the reigning duke of Guelders, & his heir, Adolf, as both father & son were members of the illustrious knightly order. After much political wrangling Duke Arnold finally mortgages Guelders to Charles for the astronomical sum of 300,000 Rhenish florins, who immediately begins installing his own government in the region, but it would take a full-scale invasion for him to actually gain control of it. His campaign's most famous encounter began on 28 June 1473 with the three-week siege of the town of Nijmegen.
In Chapter 4, The Duke & the Empire, 1467-1473, Vaughan limns for his reader the uncompromising territorial ambitions of Charles the Bold as he struggles to realize his late father's grandiose imperial aspirations of becoming the first Burgundian Holy Roman Emperor via his successful annexation by statecraft or by warcraft of multiple domains that fell within the empire's boundaries, which at that time was ruled by Frederick III of the house of Habsburg. Philip the Good had established a suitably impressive precedent during his long reign by employing his own shrewd form of diplomatic warfare to acquire Hainault, Holland, & Luxembourg, while his son Charles either preferred or was necessitated to utilize a more direct, brute method in his efforts to obtain Alsace, Lorraine, Guelders & Frisia which inclined toward heavy-handed intimidation at the negotiation table & armed military force on the battlefield. Charles had a vested economic interest in many of these key regions, even prior to his acquisition of them, particularly in the exportation down the Upper Rhine River of Burgundian wine. The duke's correspondence from this period speak to his concern for the overall security of the river as well as to his chagrin at the unreasonably steep taxes & tariff duties levied on the wine by the local lords, as can be evinced by the following excerpt from the chapter's beginning -- "Almost every autumn in the early part of his reign, Charles the Bold's letters on the subject of the general security of the river, or on the tolls levied on wine shipped along it, were sent out to interested parties. On 24 November 1467 the dukes of Guelders & Cleves & the archbishop of Cologne were asked to protect trade on the river. On 26 October 1469 Charles the Bold wrote to rulers of Guelders, Cleves, & Jülich & the civic authorities of Cologne complaining of the exorbitant tolls being collected on wine shipments, which had caused the merchants to transfer the wine to wagons & transport it by land instead." Charles's dreams of becoming Holy Roman Emperor ran so deep that he actually attempted to enter into negotiations with Frederick III to have himself coronated using the hand of his daughter, Mary of Burgundy, as a bargaining chip to sweeten the proposition, & members of his court began composing literature & music to fuel his insane obsession with the concept. In 1469 one of his court doctors wrote a manual for autocratic rule, De custodia principum, that was styled in a similar vein to Niccolò Machiavelli's famous treatise, The Prince, which at that time had not yet been written, as the Florentine statesman had just been born that same year.
Later chapters in Professor Vaughan's study discuss such topics as the diverse, colorful composition of Charles the Bold's court, the organization & leadership of his formidable Burgundian army upon the field, the duke's vast reservoir of allies, retainers, & partisans, & the savage revolt which occurred in Upper Alsace while the duke was busy solidifying his newly-established power base in the region. Chapter 10, Savoy, Grandson & Murten, analyzes the devastating defeats sustained by Charles while conducting his doomed campaign fighting the Swiss Confederation in the battles of Murten & Grandson, which occurred on 22 June 1476 & 2 March 1476, respectively, & the final chapter, entitled The Collapse of Burgundian Power, discusses the duke's extreme unpopularity which pervaded not only at the end of his time in power, as is often the case with rulers who garner the ire of their subjects, but throughout his entire reign, & to assist in illustrating his arguments the author provides a robust group of contemporary correspondence, the most prominent of which is a letter penned by Charles the Bold that was probably intended for municipalities in Ghent or Bruges, attempting to exculpate himself from taking blame for his unhappy populace. Among the duke's arguments is his staunch refusal to accept responsibility for the onerous taxes, called aides, many of which were levied by his father, Philip the Good, & the excerpt provided speaks both to this effect as well as it does to Charles's undeniable talent for wordcraft -- "Concerning which, in regard to the said aides, we are utterly amazed at what is being said & even more at those who are saying these things, especially as all the aides that we take in our said lands by no means total more than 200,000 good livres per annum, which is not much considering the estate & the great expenses & charges which we have to maintain, support & undertake. And, as you know, those aides which were granted to our said late lord & father which have fallen to us through his decease were only to run for a further two or three years at the most & when they expire, the sum total of our said aides, ordinary & extraordinary, will not amount to more than 150,000 good livres per annum, which is very little considering the great riches & wealth of the said lands in which, apart from the said aides, we have not levied a single penny to our profit, nor charged or taxed our subjects in any way for whatever affair we have been involved in whether it be the armies we have raised, led & paid at our own expense both in France & in Liège, or anything else." The end of the chapter provides an appraisal of the pivotal Battle of Nancy, where on 5 January 1477 Charles lost his life fighting in the frozen forests of the Duchy of Lorraine, & while trying to stem the enormous tide of Swiss infantry, he was said to have gloomily remarked, "I struggle against a spider who is everywhere at once".
Charles the Bold's sole heir was his daughter, Mary of Burgundy, who had married Frederick III's oldest son, Maximilian I Habsburg, & upon the duke's death his lands were parceled out between the king of France, Louis XI 'the Prudent', & the Holy Roman Empire. Never again would the Grand Dukes of the West be considered among the European continent's preeminent & puissant lords, & never again would the richest & most prosperous region of France be led by an illustrious line of potentates such as the Valois princes of Burgundy most undoubtedly were. Though his reign was turbulent & fraught with strife & woe, Charles the Bold occupies a unique niche alongside the early Renaissance's period's distinct tapestry of noble personalities -- Cosimo de'Medici, whose pioneer financial institution paved the way to his coveted status as the affluent Florentine nouveau riche who brokered treaties as effectively as he conducted business transactions; the quintessential Renaissance tyrant, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, whose unrivaled cruelty & ostentatious high living proved to be a dark contrast to the condottiere discipline & brilliant statecraft for which his father, Francesco, was universally known & loved throughout Europe; & finally, the ruthlessly efficient, changeable Earl of Warwick, Richard Neville, whose renowned status as an experienced battle commander & respected lord could not overcome his own stubborn pride & overweening ambition, which caused him to switch his loyalties numerous times, & was to be the cause of his downfall at the decisive Battle of Barnet -- when held up next to this formidable cast of characters, Charles the Bold embodies qualities in all of them, & in none of them. His dominions commanded lucrative commercial enterprises such as the wine industry & the textile trade, generating enough revenue to make any banker uneasy; he was the last scion of a majestic line of dukes who arguably wielded more power than many kings could ever dream of; & he possessed ambitions so grandiose & inconceivable that he refused even to contemplate their failure to be realized, a tragic shortcoming which ultimately led to his final undoing, in the cold snow & ice at Nancy. I hope you enjoyed the review, thank you so much for reading!
August 19, 2009
One of the best places to start, if you're looking for information on Charles the Bold. The new edition has a great survey of recent scholarship in the introduction.
September 28, 2017
Biography of Charles of Charolais, the last Duke of Burgundy, brother-in-law to Edward IV of England. There are few English books on this enigmatic duke so I was intrigued to read this. It is a well written work, although there were times when I began to suspect that Vaughan does not really like the subject of his book.
October 31, 2017
Link to my review of this book:
https://flhwnotesandreviews.com/2017/...
https://flhwnotesandreviews.com/2017/...
June 11, 2023
If you're looking forward toward the long misery of Early Modern Europe, you can see it all in Charles' reign: standing armies, fear of a strong territorial sovereign driving the lower nobility and towns into an alliance, ability to raise vast sums of money, but never quite enough to pay the men, a meandering route for mercenaries from Genoa/Milan to Luxembourg and north, even the gradual emergence of something like a national church, all crowned by the failure of centralizing project to quite remake the continent.
While Vaughan isn't really interested in the emergence of modernity out of the middle ages, the future of the Burgundian inheritance looms large over this text, which is why Vaughan's decision to end it abruptly with Charles' death is so admirable and interesting. Even as characters who carry on (almost) to the reformation enter the scene, (Commynes, Maximilian, the Swiss foot and the restive populace of Flanders) and give the feeling of a world system at its very end, Charles is still living in the world of his great-grandfather. But of course, the conflict that dominated the 16th-17th centuries was between that feudal, noble world and the dynamic world of capitalism growing within the feudal order. In Charles' time that latent conflict still seems like it could've gone the other way, leaving the reader to ask 'What if?'
As with all four of these volumes, the biggest problem is insufficient information on the economies of the Burgundian territories, especially as the dynamism of greater Flanders would prove enticing enough to force the Spanish to expend 80 years and a continent of silver trying to retain political control.
While Vaughan isn't really interested in the emergence of modernity out of the middle ages, the future of the Burgundian inheritance looms large over this text, which is why Vaughan's decision to end it abruptly with Charles' death is so admirable and interesting. Even as characters who carry on (almost) to the reformation enter the scene, (Commynes, Maximilian, the Swiss foot and the restive populace of Flanders) and give the feeling of a world system at its very end, Charles is still living in the world of his great-grandfather. But of course, the conflict that dominated the 16th-17th centuries was between that feudal, noble world and the dynamic world of capitalism growing within the feudal order. In Charles' time that latent conflict still seems like it could've gone the other way, leaving the reader to ask 'What if?'
As with all four of these volumes, the biggest problem is insufficient information on the economies of the Burgundian territories, especially as the dynamism of greater Flanders would prove enticing enough to force the Spanish to expend 80 years and a continent of silver trying to retain political control.
September 2, 2020
This is a methodical biography of Duke Charles the Bold ( Rash), a dramatic figure in the late fifteenth- century. It focuses on his military battles, but also contains chapters on how he organized his government and his military. It is an academic history, and there’s not much of an attempt at story-telling. The author has a strong viewpoint and like many academic historians strives to be iconoclastic. His main point is to show that the independent cities, not King Louis XI, were the Duke’s primary opponents. He dislikes every character - Duke Charles certainly but also less justifiably the urban commoners who strove against his dominion. He’s often highly confident to the degree that he will assert that all of the Duke’s contrmporaries were wrong in their perspective of an event.
Despite the quirks of this narrative, I still learned a lot from it. In particular, The story of the Swiss and Flemish city-states’ fight for their freedom and autonomy was new to me and very enlightening. The role of medieval cities in developing western democracy is fascinating. Also, one wonders if the Protestant Reformation, which occurred just a few years later, would have been as successful if the cities had not prevailed in their war against feudal lords.
Despite the quirks of this narrative, I still learned a lot from it. In particular, The story of the Swiss and Flemish city-states’ fight for their freedom and autonomy was new to me and very enlightening. The role of medieval cities in developing western democracy is fascinating. Also, one wonders if the Protestant Reformation, which occurred just a few years later, would have been as successful if the cities had not prevailed in their war against feudal lords.
April 26, 2020
Cool cat
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