dukes of Burgundy

Serving the state. The regional officers of Holland and Zeeland in the Burgundian period (1425-1482).

This is a summary of my phd-thesis, a prosopographical study into the officers of the Council and Chambre des Comptes of Holland and Zeeland in the Burgundian period (1425-1482)

In de jaren 1425-1433 kreeg de Bourgondische hertog Filips de Goede via een diplomatiek en militair offensief de graafschappen Holland en Zeeland in handen. In dit boek beschrijf ik op welke manier de ambtenaren van de hoogste bestuurlijk-juridische en financiële instellingen van Holland en Zeeland, de Raad en de Rekenkamer, hebben bijgedragen aan de integratie van deze gewesten in de Bourgondische personele unie. In het eerste deel wordt onderzocht welke institutionele vernieuwingen het gewestelijk staatsapparaat onderging in de vijftiende eeuw en passeren alle ambtenaren de revue. In het tweede deel bekijk ik welke strategie de vorst volgde bij de recrutering van zijn ambtenaren en met welke middelen hij trachtte hun dienstbaarheid en loyaliteit te bevorderen. De intermediaire positie van de ambtenaren - ingeklemd tussen de belangen van de hertog en die van de onderdanen - is het onderwerp van het derde deel. In een bijlage zijn biografische notities van 170 ambtenaren opgenomen met gegevens over hun herkomst, familie, carrière en netwerk.

This article aims to analyse how the Burgundian dukes managed to control the political process in Holland and Zeeland and get a grip on the noble elites of the counties in the period 1425-1477. During the fourteenth and fifteenth century, noble networks in Holland competed continuously for princely favours and official positions. In the Burgundian period, from 1425 onwards, some fundamental changes in this competition took place. In the Bavarian period princes normally favoured especially one of the competing networks. Moreover, the ruler was nearby and could be approached relatively easily. The Burgundian duke, however, hardly ever visited his northernmost territories. The rivalling noble networks were not integrated into the central institutions but were given material compensations and influence at a regional level in exchange for allegiance. Subsequently, in Holland and Zeeland the Burgundian court did not have a stabilising and integrating function.

Whereas tournaments of the late thirteenth century were infused with cross-channel contact, whether in reciprocity of form or in the international composition of the participants involved, by the early fifteenth century, tournament forms in England and the Netherlands had significantly diverged. As has been thoroughly explored by recent historians, English tournaments became increasingly socially exclusive, whilst retaining an international dimension in the interests of diplomacy. However, this essay demonstrates that this development was by no means typical of all late medieval tournaments. The case of the Low Countries demonstrates that the more socially inclusive style tournaments did continue into the fifteenth century, and provided an opportunity for the ducal household and noblemen to come into contact with patrician townspeople and even more diverse urban audiences.

The Burgundian duke Charles the Bold (1433-1477) was not particularly well known for his liberality. According to De Barante, the nineteenth century historian of the Burgundian dukes, he was seen by his officers and the nobles as ‘bien avare et peu liberal pour un prince si jeune et si nouveau’. One of this article’s purposes is to investigate this claim, but my larger concern is to make sense of the patterns of gift-giving evidenced by the available sources. Although we do not have complete records of all Charles’s gift giving, the account of the highest financial officer, the argentier, combined with the household ordinances and a few narrative sources, provide a good overview of the importance and nature of gift-giving in Charles’s court. These texts reveal a charged and unstable culture of gift-giving, one in which the category of ‘gift’ itself is in some disarray and where bureaucratic pressures both distort the gift and ntensify Charles’s need to deploy gifts in order to secure his power.

From 4 to 7 May 1439 a massive tournament (235 participants) was organized at the Grote Markt in Brussels, in which the Burgundian duke Philip the Good himself participated. This tournament was maybe one of the last in the massive (urban) melee-style in the fifteenth century. This article demonstrates that both the town and the duke had an interest in the organization of this tournament. The duke and his household officers were happy to exhibit the splendor of the court to the citizens of Brussels, the nobility of Brabant and the international community. The town considered the tournament as a stimulus for the local economy. At the same time the chivalric event would position Brussels as an attractive residence for the Burgundian duke.

Cet article étudie l’enquête judiciaire comme une technologie d’information et de communication. Il se concentre sur le duché de Bourgogne pendant le milieu du XIIe siècle et la première moitié du XIIIe. L’objectif est d’analyser les moyens et les techniques d’information ainsi que les formes de communication mis en œuvre dans le contexte d’une enquête judiciaire. Cela est valable pour ce qui concerne non seulement la phase de l’investigation judiciaire, mais aussi la légitimation postérieure de ses résultats et la prononciation et ratification de la sentence.
Dans cette optique, l’enquête sera abordée comme un mécanisme complexe actionnant plusieurs techniques d’information et communication. Son but étant de réguler la circulation des capitaux symboliques et sociaux, mais aussi d’imposer l’autorité de ceux qui détiennent la juridiction.

This paper analyses two late sixteenth-century armorials with the coats of arms of the 235 participants of a tournament organized in May 1439 on the central market square, the Grote Markt, of Brussels. The armorials, trustworthy copies of a now lost original, record the performance of an exclusive social category in public space, and express in a distinctive visual way the internal hierarchy of the tourneying society: team leaders, leaders of large companies, leaders of of small companies, and 'ordinary' participants. The heraldic elements that were essential to this hierarchic arrangement - banners, pennons, shields – were actually used during the tournament, as well as the depicted helmets and crests.
It goes without saying that these occasional rolls were important for the nobility of the Low Countries, both at the time of the tournament and at the time of their creation in the last decades of the sixteenth century. Inclusion of their coats of arms in the armorials ensured the participants of a place in the collective memory. The compilers of the armorials played an essential role in defining the nobility as a social category since participating in a tournament meant that you lived nobly and that your peers considered you as a nobleman. The two copies of the original armorial in the last decades of the sixteenth century reproduced the social classification within the nobility in the second quarter of the fifteenth century. It shows that the same mechanisms of social distinction still played a role at that time.

This article treats the first entry of a new prince as the start of a series of exchanges between the prince and his subjects. On the occasion of an entry, gifts in all kind of forms, subsistence, luxury and symbolic goods, were exchanged with the intention of establishing a bond between the new ruler and the subjects. These gifts were not standardized in the Burgundian Low Countries. There was a wide range of gifts, from wine to silverware and from money to horses. Some gifts can be linked to the princely right of lodging in places he passed on his itinerary, whereas others refer to marks of honour offered by the host. However, not all gifts were given spontaneously, but were the result of a negotiating process between the town and the prince’s officials on the one hand and between the different towns of a principality on the other. Those officials benefited as well from entry gifts that trickled down to lower levels in the official hierarchy. Therefore, the gifts can be considered as personalized items in a bigger process of exchange and as a confirmation of the outcome of political negotiations.

Although the Habsburgs never actually ruled the duchy of Burgundy, they persisted in using that ducal title from the late fifteenth until the opening years of the nineteenth century. This article explores four ways in which the title remained useful for the dynasty: to claim a preemi- nent place among the ruling dynasties of Europe, strengthen its posi- tion in the Holy Roman Empire, obtain diplomatic precedence, and secure its hold on the Order of the Golden Fleece. By exploring the resilience of the Burgundian claim it demonstrates the long-term importance of such empty titles in the construction of dynastic identity.

In this article I give a comprehensive view of the relationship between Margaret of York (1446-1503), the wife of the Burgundian duke Charles the Bold, and Voorne, from 1477 onwards her dower lands in the south of the county of Holland. I will concentrate on three different aspects of this relationship. First, I will demonstrate the economic importance of the isle for the duchess. At the same time I will show the interests of the inhabitants of Voorne and explain how they benefited from the patronage of their new lady. Finally, I will treat Margaret’s charitable and devotional works on the isle. I will demonstrate how these fit into a pious tradition of the lords of Voorne on the one hand and into the devotional practises of Margaret and other members of the Burgundian-Habsburg dynasty on the other.

This motet is the second "Salve Regina" motet composed by Alexander Agricola.
For a recording and score-video of Salve Regina II see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoQLA3BXvQs

For a transcription of his first Salve Regina see here:
https://www.academia.edu/21795600/Alexander_Agricola_Salve_Regina_I_Brussels_Bibliotheque_Royale_MS_9126_fol._138v-143r_
For a recording and score-video of Salve Regina I see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3B-j3fUbqc

"Salve Regina II" is not only based off the classical "Salve Regina" (solemn tone) chant. The tenor of this piece is derived from Walter Frye's (d. 1474?) Marian motet, "Ave Regina".

For information and a video-score on Frye's motet see the link here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH43f-yd9oA
For a transcription see here:
https://www.academia.edu/31933857/Walter_Frye_-_Ave_Regina_tenor_for_Agricola_Salve_Regina_II_-_Full_Score.pdf

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Ave Regina (Latin text):

Ave Regina coelorum mater Regis angelorum.
O Maria flos virginum velut rosa, velut lilium.
Funde preces ad filium pro salute fidelium.
O Maria flos virginum velut rosa, velut lilium.


Hail Queen (English translation):

Hail, Queen of heaven, Mother of the King of angels.
O Mary, flower of virgins, like the rose, like the lily.
Pour out prayers to the Son for the salvation of the faithful.
O Mary, flower of virgins, like the rose, like the lily.

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Salve Regina (Latin text):

Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiæ,
vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.
Ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevæ,
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
in hac lacrimarum valle.
Eia, ergo, advocata nostra, illos tuos
misericordes oculos ad nos converte;
Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui,
nobis post hoc exsilium ostende.
O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.


Hail, holy Queen (English translation):

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,
Our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To you do we cry,
Poor banished children of Eve;
To you do we send up our sighs,
Mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn then, most gracious advocate,
Your eyes of mercy toward us;
And after this our exile,
Show us the blessed fruit of your womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving,
O sweet Virgin Mary.

Pierre Cockshaw (1938-2008), a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium (Class of Letters), was a romanist and a historian who specialized in the Duchy of Burgundy both as a numismatist and a codicologist. Along with a full bibliography of his writings (including 84 papers), one gives the main turns of his rich career entirely spent at the Royal Libray of Belgium (starting at the Coin Cabinet [1967-1972] before to join the cabinet of the manuscripts [1972-1986] and to become later chief curator [1992-2002]). He teached different matters at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and was president of the Société royale de Numismatique de Belgique.

Maximiliano I de Austria (1459-1519), como otros nobles y caballeros de su tiempo, empleó divisas o empresas como forma de representación personal, al margen de su escudo de armas o blasón que lo identificaba como individuo miembro de una estirpe. En este artículo se analizan las divisas que, según testimonios textuales e iconográficos, sabemos que empleó el emperador a lo largo de su vida y se da una explicación del posible sentido de la combinación de las imágenes y los motes de cada divisa.
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Maximilian I of Austria (1459-1519), like other nobles and knights of his time, used decives or imprese as a form of personal representation, apart from his coat of arms or blazon that identified him as a member of a lineage. This article analyzes the devices that, according to textual and iconographic testimonies, we know that were used by the emperor throughout his life, and offers an interpretation of the meaning of the combination of images and mottoes therein.

An English version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/2183/27937.

This essay offers a new perspective on the cult of Scheut with the identification of several pilgrims’ badges. The badges from Scheut form a welcome addition to the written documents in which the pilgrimage cult is hardly mentioned. The metal souvenirs reveal that the simple wooden statue of the Virgin was incorporated in a significant arrangement revolving around spiritual transformation, probably based on the example of Champmol. When miracles started to happen, Brussels’ authorities transformed Scheut into a cult that tied the house of Burgundy to the city, and Champmol seems to have provided a model they aspired to emulate. From the badges it becomes clear that the Carthusians worked in line with the magistrates’ ambitions when they modelled the cult site after Champmol.

This paper is a study of the oldest inventories of the ducal archives of Burgundy, dating back to 1330. It begins with a comparative analysis of the five medieval inventories. In so doing, we seek to determine several different stages in the evolution of the ducal archives. Immediately afterwards, we examine the process of document centralisation undertaken by the ducal officers at the end of the 14th century. This process lasted all throughout the 15th century and ended with the consolidation of the ducal archives in the mid-17th century. We aim mainly at clarifying the role that the reform in document administration might have played in articulating and effecting the administrative apparatus of the duchy.