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Armies ofMedieval Burgundy 1364-1477

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I Introduction

This book deals with the organisation and

Ifunctioning of thc Burgundian armies under the Valois Dukes of Burgundy:

Philip the Bold (1342-1404; reigned 1364-1404)

■ John the Fearless (1371-1419; reigned 1404-1419) Philip the Good (1396-1467; reigned 1419-1467) Charles the Bold (1433-1477; reigned 1467-1477)

IThey are known as the Valois Dukes because Philip the Bold, the first dukc, was the son of King John thc Good of France, of the House of Valois, in | the same sense that the English ruling house at thc timc was Plantagcnet. King John the Good was

Icaptured by the English at the battle of Poitiers in 1356; his 14-year-old son Philip fought valiantly by his side until the bitter end, and as soon as be was in

I a position to do so, King John rewarded his son’s courage and devotion by designating him Duke of Burgundy, a title that by chance had just become

|extinct.

The new Duke Philip’s lands consisted only ofthe Duchy of Burgundy, whose Capital was Dijon (see ■ map), but he and his successors enlarged their ^m territory by shrewd marital alliances or by conquest _— until it became one of the greatest powers in I Europę.

Philip the Bold remained on the most friendly

Iterms with his father, the king of France, and after John’s death with his elder brother, who was crowned King Charles V in 1364. France and

■ Burgundy supported each other economically and t militarily, sending each other contingents of troops in wartime and co-operating in all respects.

1 After the first duke’s death, however, the family ^ bond between the French royal house and the dukes

I of Burgundy grew progressively weaker. Duke John the Fearless had designs on the French throne, and openly admitted murdering the‘ king’s brother,

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Louis. D’Orleans. The antagonism was such that Duke John himself was treacherously cut down in the very presence of the young king of France, and died at his feet. From then on, far from being allies of France, the powerful dukes of Burgundy were to represent the greatest threat that France was to know after the Hundred Years War. Only the violent death of the last duke, Charles the Bold, and the extinction of the małe linę, allowed the king of France (theh Louis XI) tQ sleep easy in his bed.

Philip the Bold, the first Valois duke of Burgundy, from an anonymous portrait in Versailles Museum. Philip’s immense energy, ambition, and closeness to the kings of France enabled him to increase his new duchy enormously, and to hand over a powerful political State to his son.

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