The Burgundians: A Vanished Empire

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That the rise of the Burgundian dukes and their ultimate incorporation into larger realms all happened within 150 years, makes the story as dramatic as intriguing. Bart van Loo appears to be one of the best-suited authors to present this rollercoaster of burgeoning bourgeoisie, feudal ambitions, artistic innovations, commercial expansion, and fledgling administration – coupled, alas, with a lot of strife, pestilence and war. We think The Burgundians is a work of art in itself. Dit non-fictie werk leest als een wervelende roman. Bart Van Loo neemt ons mee naar de feestelijke banketten, de paleizen vol pracht en praal en laat ons van op de eerste rij meegenieten. Door zijn levendige beschrijvende schrijfstijl worden al je zintuigen geprikkeld en kan je als het ware alles zien, proeven, ruiken, en meebeleven. Ik weet niet of ik een heel ander boek dan de rest van enthousiast Nederland heb gelezen, maar mijn allesomvattende reactie is helaas slechts "meh". Het boek zelf is prachtig, vol met relevante illustraties. Het meeste vond ik ook erg boeiend, en mooi geschreven, echter die combi werkte niet helemaal ofzo. De Volkskrant heeft perfect kunnen verwoorden wat ik ook voelde en me ook nog steeds afvraag (Sander van Walsum): It tells the tale of the Burgundians from its beginnings in the mist of the 4th century to its heyday in the 14th and 15th century. The focus lies on the four Valois Dukes (+-1363-1477) and on the Burgundian rule of the Low Countries, with Bruges, Ghent and Brussels as the main cities. You basically get four biographies in one: Philips the Bold, John the Fearless, Philips the Good and Charles the Bold. And they are all the stuff of legends. Legends that we don't know, or at least I didn't, despite being Dutch. Our history classes tend to start with the 80 years' war against the Spanish that started in the 16th century. This is also a book about the rise and fall of cities... my own hometown of Ghent was more important in those days than we can fathom today... it was a rebellious city (🥰) and took other cities often with it into battle against dukes and kings (read all about it in this book)

Please note that this book falls under the category of traditional/old school history books, meaning that it's history from the top-down (versus bottom-up) or as some say 'history of rulers'. If you're interested in 'history from below' or microhistory (like me), lower your expectations. It's true the author does occasionally write about eating habits, feasts/bankets, clothes, trade, art, etc. but these are all in connection with the Burgundian court. But to be fair, I shouldn't have assumed that the author would follow the new trend when writing history. This in the end didn't affect my rating however the below did. On a sidenote, if you discuss the Burgundian dukes in a group, it's only a matter of time before someone (including myself) asks "which duke came first?" or "I'm confused, can someone rank the dukes?" To make it easier (for myself) I'm going to list these powerful dukes below: But Champmol, like the dynasty that founded it, proved less than durable in early modern Europe’s tussles for power. Suppressed by French revolutionaries in 1791, the monastery’s contents were destroyed or scattered, and the name all but forgotten. The remains of Sluter’s Well of Moses – perhaps the most significant single sculpture of the Middle Ages – now stand in the grounds of a psychiatric hospital, a ready-made metaphor that seems almost too apt to be true. Thereafter, the Burgundian holdings disintegrated piece by piece until, divvied up between France and the Holy Roman Empire in the 16th century, what had once been a nascent northern kingdom existed only as a splintered set of titles argued over by Habsburgs and Bourbons.Please do not let me deter you from reading this book, I just wasn't the target audience for it. It might work for you. I'm actually glad when people read history books even the not well written ones. In fact, those feasts are a recurring theme of the book, each duke seeming to want out to outdo his predecessors. After a while, one absurdly over the top feast started to merge into another and I began to find it all a little tedious, as I'm sure a few of the guests did as well. The dukes no doubt would be appalled by my standard evening meal of shredded wheat with semi skimmed milk. Killing and getting killed Het boek bestaat uit grofweg 3 delen, waarbij het eerste deel het oude Bourgondische koninkrijk van Gundobad, het tweede deel uit de heerschappij van Filips de Goede en als laatste die van Karel de Stoute. Het is onder de eerste waarbij de grondslag wordt gelegd voor de huidige Lage Landen, en onder de tweede waardoor de onafhankelijke heerschappij van de hertogen wordt beëindigd. Ik heb er vele loze uren in hotels, cruiseboten en vliegtuigen mee gevuld, tijdens een reis door Egypte. Het spreekt vanzelf dat een e-reader daar handzamer was dan the real thing. Maar zodra ik terug in het vaderland was, ben ik met volle overtuiging de gebonden, geïllustreerde versie alsnog gaan kopen.

The bit which follows is then very confusing, but essentially from the 9th century onwards the name 'Burgundy' got attached to a duchy within the Frankish realms which overlapped, in part, with the historic kingdom established by the Germanic Burgundians. It is that duchy which correlates, more or less, with the region of France known as Burgundy today. In the mean time I've added the book The Waning of the Middle Ages to my TBR which has been cited by the author as well as critics comparing the two works. Hopefully that book will work better for me than The Burgundians. Because despite being disappointed by this book I still want to learn more about the Burgundians. That being said, once I digested this reading experience, I will try to listen to Van Loo's podcast.In 1363, the duchy was given by King John 'the Good' of France to his fourth son, Philip 'the Bold' (an appellation he earned at the age of 14 in 1356, fighting next to his dad at the Battle of Poitiers). Act 4: The heart of the book – the four megastar dukes On top of the chronological main storyline there are countless interesting digressions neatly woven into the text, for instance on art (Jan van Eyk, Rogier van der Weijden), church, chivalry, economy and trade, the role of women, warfare, nobility vs merchants - all in flux as traditional structures at the end of the middle ages start to shift. Wat kan de lezer verwachten? Een helder verhaal over de politieke geschiedenis in de Bourgondische periode (1360-1500, grofweg) met een ruime inleiding over de duizend jaar die eraan vooraf gingen en een afwikkeling over hoe daarna de Bourgondiërs Habsburgers werden met Keizer Karel als brugfiguur en wij, de Lage Landen, mee naar het Spaanse rijk verhuisden, u weet wel, waar de zon nooit onder ging. Dus veel berekende huwelijken van Karels, Filipsen, Maria's, Margaretha's en een Lodewijk of een Jan gecombineerd met een kluwen van wisselende allianties en feodale obediënties. En heel de tijd slag leveren ook, tenzij er vrede gesloten werd. Maar geen angst, Van Loo voorziet de protagonisten van vlees en emotie, zodat ze niet alleen door hun naam herkenbaar blijven maar wat lijken op personages in een roman. Ik heb niet de indruk dat Van Loo hier de Rubicon naar de fictie oversteekt richting historische roman omdat alle anekdotiek en innerlijke toestand van de hoofdrolspelers ogenschijnlijk terug te voeren zijn naar geschreven bronnen waarnaar hij verwijst. Maar aan de historici om daarover te oordelen. Het boek beschrijft de vele uitvoerige banketten waarvoor de Bourgondische leefstijl zo bekend staat. We lezen over de verschillende vermaarde huwelijken met banketten met complete deegwerken, met daarin verstopte zangers en complete orkesten: It's been a couple of days but I finally made peace with this book and my rating. Even though I tried, I cannot force myself to like it despite its popularity.

I enjoyed reading the prologue. It was clear the author wanted to research and write about what the Burgundian rule meant for the Low Countries. How it shaped our identity and culture, the reason why we even today refer to our food & culture as 'Burgundian'. I was really looking forward to that (myself being a bilingual belgian living in France). Who were these rich, powerful dukes, constantly in rivalry with their cousins, the French kings (see the Armagnacs vs Burgundians), in the midst of the Hundred Years' War? What does this Flemish-Burgundian alliance mean for the average citizen? How was life in the Burgundian Netherlands ? The more I read the less I trusted the story, this is also largely due to the colourful storytelling. It became quite noticable when the author assumed things like someone's feelings around events or when he uses "might have been", "most probably", "in all likelihood" etc. I understand using it when trying to reach a conclusion that you can't 100% prove but not every chapter.A good example of the importance of editing to a history book; sometimes, less is more. But this book will reward any reader with an enjoyable read, and its raw materials are made up of a wealth of fascinating insights and information.