The Burgundian War, 1477-1483

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Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 218 – Hedgehogs and Herons, The Burgundian War

By 1477 the rules of war that had been enshrined in the laws of chivalry are gone. The contest between the French and the Habsburgs over the inheritance of the Grand Dukes of the West gives us a foretaste of the things to come.

This war isn’t just fought between the opposing armies lining up for the decisive battle, but include wholesale starving out of the population, funding local uprisings and using propaganda and bribery to incite rebellions on the enemy’s homefront.

No one in 15^th century Northern Europe is better at this new game than the industrious spider, king Louis XI of France. But a plucky 18-year old Austrian duke who had arrived in Ghent with not much more than the clothes on his back, abundant energy and a budding military genius gave him a run for his huge amounts of money, until tragedy struck.

Lots of deception, drama and devastation today….

But before we start, let me tell you again about this History of the Germans trip that may or may not happen. The idea is to travel on a barge on the Rhine river from Aschaffenburg to Cologne, or maybe beyond. The boat looks lovely and we could see Frankfurt, Mainz, the castles of the Middle Rhine, Bonn, Cologne and of course, Aachen. Some of you have told me they would be interested, but at this point not enough for me to go ahead with it. So, if that is something you would be interested in and you are free for a week end of June/early July let me know at historyofthegermans@gmail.com. It would help me a lot to decide whether or not I want to go ahead with it.

And with that, back to the show

Last week ended on the wedding night of Maximilian of Habsburg and Marie of Burgundy, one of the rare occasions where dynastic marriages created a brilliant match. The two of them really got on. Maximilian was writing letters to his friends back home in Styria, waxing lyrically about how gorgeous his new wife was and how much fun the two had together. Marie in turn spoiled her husband with clothes, armor, tournaments, mummeries, and above all hunts, for fox, stag, boar and even bear.

Maximilian was, one can be sure, delighted, but above all, he was relieved. Because this marriage was built on false premises. Marie, her mother the duchess of York and all of Burgundy believed that Maximilian was going to bring with him a great imperial army that would beat back the attacks by the industrious spider, king Louis XI of France.

When he showed up empty handed, things could have turned sour very quickly. This was a time where violence, even against princes and mighty dukes was a common way to express dissatisfaction with someone’s behavior, level of support or simply, existence. Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy had been murdered on orders of the dauphin of France in plain sight. That was revenge for the murder of the duke of Orleans, the uncle of that same dauphin, later king Charles VII. Across the channel in England, Humphrey duke of Gloucester, George duke of Clarence and the princes in the tower disappeared in the Tower under mysterious circumstances. In Italy Giuliano de Medici and Galeazzo Maria Sforza were in the way and then got out of the way in broad daylight. And these were just the successful and obvious attempts on princely lives. Poison was an ubiquitous tool to re-arrange the line of succession or the college of cardinals, and a suitable means to remove a groom whose assets came up short.

When Maximilian rode up to Burgundy, he took his life into his own hands and hoped for the best. And somehow things had worked out really well, at least so far. The notoriously rebellious city of Ghent had received him with grand fanfare, chronicler described his appearance as that of an angel having descended from heaven and some even held up banners saying: “Whatever you tell us to do, we will do it”. Spoiler alert, that banner will not be used ever again.

But still, things had been much better than anyone could have hoped. The day after the marriage celebrations had concluded, the citizens of Ghent swore him allegiance as the new duke, and even more importantly raised 500,000 Ecu for the defence of the realm.

And Maximilian got to work immediately. He sent two of his senior generals out to relieve the cities of St. Omer and Valenciennes, halting king Louis’ advance in Artois and Picardie. As early as September 1477, merely a month after the wedding, king Louis signed a truce and handed back several small towns as well as the imperial city of Cambrai.

The reason for Louis’ hesitancy to continue the war was a letter from the emperor Friedrich III demanding the return of all imperial fiefs accompanied by the threat of imperial war. Louis was a cautious man who avoided major military conflict wherever he could and tried to achieve his objectives through what could benignly be called diplomatic means, though many of his cultural attaches were dual use operators.

Equally, the estates of the low countries were basing their contribution to the war effort on the idea that at least in time, the empire, or at least the Habsburgs would weigh in on the fighting.

Hence during the winter of 1477, Maximilian found himself in some sort of precarious limbo. On the one hand, his father’s letter and the decisive moves on St. Omer and Valenciennes had reduce the military conflict to a trickle of border skirmishes. On the other hand, if he could not mobilise the empire and/or his family to send military aid by the spring, his complete lack of resources would become apparent to everyone. King Louis would redouble its efforts and the estates may well withhold further support for the war.

Maximilian wrote to his father that though he was now a mighty lord and owned many lands and cities, all this could be gone in 10 to 14 days. If he, his father does not send him support soon, they would likely never meet again. He and Marie had already pawned their jewels for 100,000 gulden, even the famous golden coat that Charles the Bold had worn when he entered Trier in 1473, gone. There will not be peace here unless the emperor comes and sends this king of France back beyond Paris. There is no bigger and more cowardly villain in the whole world, wrote Maximilan. He never gives battle, but keeps his troops on the border to wear us out financially.

All this begging was however to no avail. The King of Hungary, Matthias Hunyadii had formally declared war on Friedrich III and invaded Styria; meanwhile the Turks continued to raid the emperors homeland, as they had been doing for years now; a peasant revolt had kicked off in inner Austria and feuds over the archbishopric of Salzburg and the bishopric of Passau were raging. Friedrich was indeed in no position to send help.

His cousin, Sigismund of Tyrol, owner of the richest silver mines in Europe, was equally reluctant to help. He had arguably benefitted most from the demise of Charles the Bold, having first received the purchase price for the Habsburg lands in Alsace from the duke, and then regained those thanks to the league of Constance. But instead of passing on these funds, Siegmund sent Maximilian a bill for 150,000 gulden of reparations for the damages caused by the wars of Charles the Bold. Sigismund’s reluctance was in part caused by the annual subsidy of 50,000 gulden he received from Louis XI. But there was also something else. Sigismund was in the process of selling the Tyrol and further Austria to the House of Wittelsbach, specially Albrecht IV of Bayern-Munchen. We covered these shenanigans in episode 197. The Wittelsbachs, who had managed their lands much, much better than the hapless Sigismund were rich enough to buy him out, and if they had succeeded, the Bavarian-Tyrolian complex would have outearned the remaining Habsburg lands by factor 2 or even 3. Had Maximilian then failed in Burgundy, the Wittelsbachs would have ended up on the imperial throne and Munich, not Vienna would have become the capital, most likely of all of the German speaking lands.

Bottom line, powerful forces prevented the house of Habsburg to come to the aid of their sole remaining male heir. And as for the other princes in the empire, they looked at the conflict, which at this point concentrated on Flanders, Artois and Picardy, aka on French fiefs, and regarded it as a private matter of the house of Habsburg. There was no national awakening here, as had appeared when Charles the Bold besieged Neuss.

There was however one person, Maximilian could rely on to rally power to his side, and that was his mother in law, Margaret of York. The sister of king Edward IV was dragging her brother kicking and screaming into first a commercial and over the years into a military alliance with Burgundy. This return of the Anglo-Burgundian alliance, which included a promise to Edward IV of a coronation in Reims naturally terrified king Louis XI of France, which further entrenched the conflict.

With Edward IV, or indeed even before that alliance was firmed up, came duke Francois of Brittany. Brittany was at this point still independent from France.

And last but not least Margaret and Maximilian established diplomatic ties with a new major power that had emerged in the south, Spain. Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile had married in 1469 and thereby unified Spain – to the degree that Spain is unified. With Castille a traditional ally of France and Aragon a rival, the political leanings of a unified Spain could go either way. Thanks to Maximilian and Margaret’s diplomacy Spain swung behind the empire and against the kingdom of France.

Some historians date the beginnings of the European political landscape that lasted until the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756 to these events in 1477. For centuries European politics were dominated by an alliance of Spain, the Habsburgs, the Empire and England pushing against the richest, most populous and most expansionist country in Europe at the time, France. And in a way this lasted into the 20^th century, when France was the “Erbfeind”, the hereditary enemy of the Germans.

As always in history, the protagonists themselves are at best vaguely aware that their actions may result in fundamental changes to the balance of power on their continent. Maximilian’s concerns were not about some major geopolitical shifts, he was just trying to make it through, and have some fun in the process.

He was only 19 years old, freshly married to the woman of his dreams who had made him not just happy, but also rich beyond his wildest dreams. As Marie introduced him to the treasures of Burgundy, to the 20 cities in her lands that were bigger than Vienna, the grand festivities of their entrees into Brussels, Antwerp, Liege, and of course Bruges. There were the magnificent castles and palaces in the cities, all infinitely larger and more ornate than Wiener Neustadt, 2 dozen moated country seats, so many venerable monasteries, that just one of his counties, Hainault had 20 of them larger than anything in Austria.

Then the court life, the dresses and robes made form silk and the famous Flemish cloth, the precious ornaments worn by both women and men. The rooms decorated with tapestries from Arras, Tournay and Brussels and the jewel-like images of van Eyck, Memling and all the other so disparagingly called primitives. Libraries full of the most accomplished miniatures and armories that took his breath away.

Art and music were a shared passion for Maximilian and Marie, alongside the hunting, the tournament and the mummeries. And so the winter of 1477/78 was filled with dread about the increasingly precarious situation of the low countries but at the same time resonated with the laughter and thrill of an endless sequence of tournaments, dances and hunts.

What is truly impressive is Maximilian’s energy. Despite the constant reveling and the exigencies of young love, he worked his way through the rather dull accounts of the Burgundian state. And he came to the almost inevitable conclusion that Charles the Bold, or to give him the proper translation of his moniker, Charles the Reckless, had indeed been reckless. He may as well have left a note saying “I am afraid, there is no money left, best of luck”.

Charles the Bold had already pushed up taxes to near breaking point leaving very little what the treasury would today call “headroom”. As for the gold and silver treasures that in Trier had impressed the Habsburgs to the point of irritation, all of those, even the silver table service, had already been sent to the mint.

And there were two other headwinds Maximilian faced as went up to the Estates, asking for fresh funds. One was that by now everybody realized that no help would come from the empire, that Maximilian had brought with him no more than the clothes on his back. And the second was that Louis’ agents spread the rumor that all these taxes would end up in the pockets of Germans who were taking the cash out of the country. This unfounded story became so persistent, it hampered Maximilian’s efforts for the entirety of his reign.

The war that began again in the spring of 1478 had to be fought in four separate theatres. One was the official war, which was fought in the Artois and Picardie between the armies of Louis XI and the Burgundian forces. The second theatre was in Holland, where Louis’ money had rekindled the eternal conflict between Cods and Hooks we had hears about in episodes 198 and 199. These factions, like the Guelfs and Ghibellines in Italy no longer reflected any economic or political differences but were built on hatred passed on from one generation to the other, which made them so persistent.

Theatre three was the duchy of Guelders. Charles the Bold had occupied Guelders using a conflict within the ducal family. Now that Charles was gone but several of the Guelders claimants were still around or had heirs and successors, the province rose up. What did not help at all was that Guelders was rammed full of strong castles and surrounded by rivers and marshland, leaving it a thorn in Maximilian’s side for decades to come.

There are other conflicts that flare up from time to time, like for instance in Liege and Utrecht, the true fourth theatre of war was public opinion. I keep mentioning it and will continue talking about the fact that the printing press was rapidly changing the world. News and pamphlets, printed in one of the 1,000 printing presses that had sprung up in the five decades after Gutenberg, spread facts and opinions further and faster then ever before. And that was even more the case in the densely populated and broadly literate society of the cities of the low countries, of Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, Brussels, Ypres, Lille, Amsterdam, Nijmegen, the Hague, Delft, den Bosch and the dozens and dozens I have not mentioned.

And as so often with new technologies the systems and safeguards that ensured the accuracy of the information and the honesty of the opinions were not yet in place, leaving ample room for propaganda, lies and deception. Louis XI was a man of the early modern period and he wasn’t shy of using these new tools, alongside the more traditional methods of bribery and incitement.

That being said, Maximilian had some serious shortcomings in the eyes of his new subjects. He was a foreigner, no doubt, and he brought in some of his and his father’s trusted allies, friends and advisers. And these allies, friends and advisers took over some important and lucrative jobs, fueling fear of a German takeover. Further the presence of three theaters of war, each separated by a distance of several days ride meant Maximilian was constantly moving from one place to the next. And once there, he was under enormous time pressure to resolve conflicts quickly. One way to accelerate things is extreme brutality. Maximilian’s tactics did include execution of his opponents after surrender, the burning of the suburbs as cover for his attacks and the cutting down of fields as a means to starve out the defenders.

But the biggest drawback to his popularity was financial. The hope of the Habsburg marriage was that the cost of defending the Burgundian state would be shared. But that was not going to happen. The entire cost of the he effort had to be borne by the low countries and in particular the big cities. That meant even higher taxes than before and if there is one thing people do not like is higher taxes, combined with no improvement in services.

As we follow the Burgundian war, what we will see is the interconnection between these elements, the increased brutality and destruction feeding more unrest, which in turn requires more taxation, which in turn feeds more unrest and so forth and so forth. If there was a way to get out of this vicious circle it would be a decisive battle that forces the King of France to make real peace. And as we know a powerful state on its eastern border was an existential threat to the kingdom of France, meaning peace with the king of France required a truly decisive battle.

In 1478, that battle did not take place. Maximilian was constantly pacing from the French border to Holland and then to Guelders and back again. That left little room to gather a large force and challenge the French king, a French king who was not keen on the vagaries of an open battle in the first place.

Louis’ idea was to pursue a war of attrition, keeping up the pressure that required Maximilian to keep his hugely expensive army in the field, which meant he had to keep taxes up or even increase them, making him ever more unpopular. So in June 1478, Louis once again offered a truce to last one year, which Maximilian accepted. These truces never brought peace, just reduced the cost for Louis who switched to local raids, whilst Maximilian needed to maintain the full scale border defenses.

On the positive side, In June 1478 Marie gave birth to a boy, a major blow to French ambitions. Louis’ agents had spread the rumor that the child was actually a girl. Margaret of York was so concerned about these lies, she took little Philip – which was his name by the way – to the market square and showed his naked body to the people, who broke out in wild cheers.

The next year, 1479 wasn’t off to a good start. As Louis had intended, Maximilian had to go to the Estates General again and ask for more money. Meanwhile Louis’ policy of destroying the countryside by burning or cutting down fields had led to a shortage of grain in the cities. Attempts to import grain from the Baltic and elsewhere were thwarted by a fleet of French privateers. French merchants were also boycotting the fairs in Antwerp and Bruges. Economic depression and famine was engulfing the richest region in Northern Europe. Needless to say that there was still no help coming, not from Friedrich III who was caught up in wars with the Turks, not from Siegmund of Tyrol bribed by France and Wittelsbach, nor from a Holy Roman Empire that did not care.

Hostilities began as soon as the truce ran out in June 1479. Louis attacked Dole and then Douai. Maximilian, who had been occupied with the ongoing uprising in Guelders returned to his southern border, bringing along his army of 20,000, arguably the best force he had been able to gather so far. These were in part mercenaries, some Swiss, some English longbowmen, but also local men, the city guards, the countryside miitia and the knights of Burgundy, including the members of the order of the Golden Fleece, the Burgundian equivalent of the order of the garter.

They enveloped the city of Thérouanne, which forced Louis to finally accept an open battle. The French cavalry outnumbered the Burgundian horse 2 to 1, and a defeat appeared likely, so Maximilian and his generals decided to send the expensive heavy artillery away, and try their luck with just the light guns and Chutzpah.

On August 7^th 1479, a boiling hot day, the two armies came together near the village of Guinegate. Maximilian had placed his infantry, made up of pikemen, arquebusiers and longbowmen in the centre, whilst his two small cavalry detachments were covering his flanks. As the French appeared, Maximilian rose on his horse and addressed his troops, talked about the just cause of the house of Burgundy, the cruel destruction the French had inflicted on their lands, then he dismounted, kissed the earth that may receive his body today and said a prayer. All his men took his example end knelt down in the burning heat, and prayed for victory. When they rose, they shouted Long live Austria and Burgundy, the Lion of Flanders and of course, St. George. Much invigorated by this display of righteousness of their young leader, they waited.

The French kicked off proceedings by running a massive cavalry charge against the Burgundian riders on the left flank. As we heard, the French mounted forces outnumbered the Burgundians 2 to one, maybe even more in terms of heavy cavalry. The charge was a great success, Maximilian’s left flank broke and turned tail. As they rode off into the sunset, the French knights followed them, keen on the rich ransom the great Burgundian lords could surely provide. Even the overall commander of the French forces, Philippe de Crevecoer was dragged along by the excitement and temporarily left the battlefield.

Meanwhile Maximilian’s centre remained under pressure from French artillery and light cavalry forces. The situation was extremely dire. If the main part of the heavy French cavalry returned, they could outflank the remainder of the Burgundian forces and  annihilate them. Maximilians advisers suggested to call it a day and run to save his life. The chroniclers do not mention it, but Maximilian may well remember the last time a member of the House of Habsburg was in a similar situation, Leopold III at the battle of Sempach. And like his ancestor, Maximilian refused to leave the men who were prepared to fight and die for his cause. He stayed with them, up on his horse, below his banner, drawing the enemy fire, ready to die, just as Leopold III had done. He asked his noblemen to dismount and fight with the infantry. They were now all equals and would be victorious together or go down together.

He ordered the carts up from the camp and formed a Wagenburg studded with pikes, which stalled any French attack, may it be by riders of firearms. This giant hedgehog slowly moved forward, engaging the enemy centre, the longbowmen and harquebusiers constantly shooting at the French soldiers. Maximilian was fighting in the front line without regard for his personal safety, an example that encouraged his men. Where have you ever seen a noble lord staying with his foot soldiers after his knights have fled. Encouraged by the progress of their comrades, the Burgundian cavalry regrouped and re-entered the fray.

The battle lasted from Midday to sunset around 08:00, at which point the French withdrew to the city of Hesdin. The French cavalry weighed down by loot passed the battlefield on their return from that fateful chase, but did not even engage.

Maximilian erected his tent on the battlefield, and as per a tradition that went back to Alexande the Great, celebrating his first great victory by spending the night in total control of the field.

The victory of Guinegate was Maximilian’s first major success and though he had some experienced generals around him, displayed many of the traits he would show throughout his career. He was bold, even when outnumbered, able to quickly find creative and clever solutions to challenges and he had this almost magical impact on his troops. His personality, the “leutseiligkeit”, the ability to charm everyone, from peasant to prince, combined with his personal courage to the point of risking his life, inspired the men who followed him through thick and thin.

In the aftermath of his success, his popularity reached a temporary highpoint, in particular in Brabant and Hainault. There were processions and te-Deums all across the Burgundian lands, and given this is the new world of the printing press, he had tales and songs published that spread the news of his great victory, the eternal humiliation of the French.   

But despite all the great proclamations and personal bravery, the reality was not quite as rosy. Louis’ army was damaged, but not at all defeated. And Maximilian himself had suffered severe losses. There was no chasing the French all the way to Paris. Instead, Maximilian had to go back to Ghent and once more, ask the Estates General for money. Meanwhile Louis’ forces kept up the pressure on the border, his agents were inciting rebellions in Holland and Guelders and were now stirring things up in the city of Ghent itself.

The brutality of warfare increased, if that was at all possible. When Maximilian took the fortress of Malannoy, he had the French commanders hanged. The French responded by executing fifty Burgundian captives. One of the issues was that the French had no scruples destroying the countryside and starving the Burgundians, whilst Maximilian was reluctant to do the same on territory he hoped would one day return to the Burgundian state.

1479 ended without much progress for either side. The sound of weapons was muffled by the snowfall of the extraordinarily cold winter of 1479/1480. Another reminder that behind all these political events the so-called Little Ice Age was progressing unabated to its climax that gave us Breughel’s delightful pictures of ice skating peasants but also severe food shortages and wide spread deprivation.

The political situation became even more tense when Maximilian introduced a beer tax in the spring of 1480 that resulted in a string of rebellions, even in regions so far loyal. These uprisings and the reluctance of the estates to properly fund the defense of the realm convinced Maximilian and the political party that formed around him, that he had to resume the centralization policy of Charles the Bold. He appointed a new chancellor and took sole charge of matters of war and foreign policy.

As one can imagine, this went down like a ton of bricks in the brick built cities of Ghent and Bruges. The estates demanded that Maximilan and Marie rein in their spending for all the tournaments and mummeries. They responded by celebrating the baptism of their daughter Margaret with all the pomp and circumstances the Burgundian court was still able to muster.

In some ways 1480 and 1481 brought some improvements. The French advance slowed down as they reformed their army. The battle of Guinegate as well as the long string of victories of the Swiss and Hussites prove the usefulness of infantry forces. The French, always reliant on the prowess of their knights faced up to the changing times. Swiss mercenaries became the mainstay of the French army. This restructuring gave Maximilian some breathing space and then, in February 1481, king Louis XI suffered a stroke from which he never fully recovered.

The other theatres of war, in Holland and Guelders did not calm down. Again and again did the young duke take his forces North to separate the cods and hooks in Holland or to bring down another one of the seemingly innumerable fortresses in Guelders. The spiral of brutality tightened further, be it mass execution of Hooks or the sacking of Venlo. But progress was made.

Moreover, the alliance with England too was coming along nicely. Margaret of York had travelled to England was working hard on her brother, and getting through despite heavy bribery by the French. The alliance with Brittany was signed and Marie and Maximilian called their third child Francois in honor of their new  associate. Though this boy died shortly afterwards.

Meanwhile Louis XI’s health kept deteriorating, his end being imminent. His son, the future Charles VIII was still only 12 years old, meaning France would be too preoccupied with regency and infighting to pester the Burgundians.

Hence, in the spring of 1482 the ducal couple could look forward to at least several years of peace and rebuilding of their shattered lands.

 The partying resumed and in March the duchess rode out to a Reiherbeize, a peculiar form of animal cruelty whereby falcons were released to attack and kill herons. Herons were deemed a delicacy and often served at medieval feasts. As she was following her falcon and spurred her horse to jump a ditch, the saddle girth broke and she was thrown off her horse. She landed on a tree trunk and suffered serious damage to her inner organs. It is also likely that she was pregnant. Marie of Burgundy suffered horribly over the following fortnight, before she died on March 27^th, 1482, aged just 26.

On her last day she called the knights of the Golden Fleece to her chamber, explained that she has made her two surviving children, Philip and Magarethe the heirs to all her lands, and Maximilian their guardian. She asked the knights to honor this arrangement and swear fealty to her husband. She said goodbye to Maximilian, Philipp and Margarethe, asked for forgiveness for all the injustices she had committed, receive the last rites, and died.

Maximilian was devastated. He really loved his wife, and for the rest of his life he would treasure her, commission artworks in her memory let her appear in his literary works as the virtuous lady he, as the Last Knight, served for ever. A whole iconography emerged that depicted Mary of Burgundy as the Virgin, a style that found its apotheosis in Albrecht Durer’s Death of the Virgin showing Mary’s last moments.

Despite the empty coffers of the Burgundian state, he staged one of the grandest funerals in Burgundian and that means European late medieval history. 15,000 people from all ranks of society came to pay their respects and accompany her coffin to the Church of Our Lady in Bruges. 2,000 priests and monks wearing black and holding candles, a 1,000 noblemen in mourning clothes, 16 counts and bannermen acted as pallbearers,  followed by the heralds of the Burgundian lands carrying her coats of arms, civil servants and army officers and then  Maximilian and the children. Behind them 500 noble ladies, 3,000 wives of the eminent burghers and then the people.

There is a tale that in 1507 Maximilian asked the abbot Johannes Trithemius, a real person with a reputation as a magician and necromancer, to conjure up his first wife, Mary of Burgundy. Trithemius succeeded and Maximilian even recognized a birthmark on her that only he knew about. But the experience shook him so hard, he forbade the abbot to ever to do it again. This story became the source for the story of Dr. Faustus who in both Marlow and Goethe is asked to conjure up Helen of Troy for the emperor’s enjoyment, but desires her himself.

But that only happened in 1507, right now, in 1482, there are much more pressing matters.

King Louis of France, by all accounts on his very last leg, literally jumped up with joy from his deathbed, as the chronicler Philippe de Commines reports. Even though there was still a formal truce in place, he sets his armies in march to throw out the duke of Austria as he had called Maximilian all along. At the same time his agents and supporters in Flanders and Brabant were working overtime.

On April 28^th, Marie was barely dead a month, the Estates general came together in Ghent and demanded a share in the guardianship of the ducal children and immediate peace with France. The merchants, artisans and common people  may have continued the fight on behalf of the daughter of Charles the Bold, but not on behalf of Maximilian.

And there had also been a material change in the economics that made a peace with France desirable. In the early stages of the Hundred years war, the great cities of Flanders and Brabant had sided with England against France, since they depended heavily on wool from Wales and Lincolnshire to produce their luxury cloth. But since the 1350s, the English had shifted from exporting wool to manufacturing their own cloth. And their cloth now competed with the Flemish product. Therefore the textile merchants of Ghent, Ypres and Brussels cared more about their end markets in France than their dwindling English supply chain.

Almost overnight the will to resist the French evaporated. The cities that Maximilian had designated as border defenses opened their gates to the French without a shot being fired. In May the estates told Maximilian that peace negotiations are unavoidable and that they sought a marriage between the dauphin Charles and his 2-year old daughter Margarethe.

Maximilian objected, but he could not do anything. The estates refused him money to continue the war, his father was now under serious pressure back home in Austria and would have to leave Vienna the year after. The Imperial diet had once again refused to help the Habsburg in their private venture in Burgundy. And his new ally, king Edward IV of England was dying.

Louis then opened another frontier and unleashed William de la Marche, the boar of the Ardennen, on the long suffering city of Liege. This legendarily brutal nobleman, who some called a partman, not quite human, took over the city and by his own hands killed its bishop, Louis of Bourbon a longstanding ally of the Burgundian dukes. As the dead prelate was floating down the Maas, his murderer convinced the cathedral chapter to make his son the new bishop, whilst at the same time French soldiers occupied the key fortresses in the bishopric.

The treaty the estates negotiated with king Louis set forth that the dowry of little Margaret should include the duchy and county of Burgundy, the Artois, Macon, Auxerre, Charolais, Noyers, Salins, Berry and Boulogne, lands that should fall to her husband, the future king Charles VIII, should she die without children. And to make sure Margarete would become a good French princess, she was to leave for Paris immediately.

The County of Flanders was recognized as a fief of France and its highest court, the Parlement in Paris was given jurisdiction over the county. In other words, the richest part of it all, Flanders became a separate entity.

As for 4-year old Philipp, the heir to the now much diminished state of Burgundy, he should remain under the sole guardianship of the Estates General in Ghent.

As for Maximilian, the estates suggested he returned back to Austria to help his father. They, the estates argued, had no need for his military and administrative skills, since peace was now reigning across the lands.

When Maximilian, under much duress signed the treaty in March 1483, Mary of Burgundy’s accident had happened barely a year ago. All he had fought for, the freedom of Burgundy, his family was gone. The town squares and village greens of France were erupting in celebrations, whilst in the streets of Ghent and Bruges people asked openly, what the Austrian was still doing here. Meanwhile Matthias Hunyady’s cannon were breaking the walls of Vienna. A lesser man would have concluded that god had decided the days of the House of Habsburg are over.

But neither father nor son were prone to such thoughts. They were descendants of the 95 lords of Austria that go back to Greek and Jewish Antiquity and they knew that one day A.E.I.O.U. But that day is not today, maybe it will be next week. Listen in and find out.

Last thing, you may know this, but just in case it has slipped your mind, you can support the show by going to historyofthegermans.com/support and sign up for membership or make a one-time contribution.

The Burgundian Wedding, 1477

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 217 – The Lucky Marriage of Maximilian and Marie

How often have you heard this phrase “Let others wage war; you, happy Austria, marry”. It goes back to a whole string of marriages, first Maximilian of Habsburg married the heiress of the duchy of Burgundy, then his son married the heiress of Spain and finally his grandson married the heiress of Hungary and Bohemia. And bish bash bosh, an empire is created in the horizontal.

That is nice and neat but not at all true. Sure the marriages happened, but not in the way at least I have been told. There was a lot more drama and a lot more agency than you think. For a whole six months Maximilian, the Last Knight in his shining armour, left Marie of Burgundy to fend off invasions, revolutions and conspiracies on her own. She was imprisoned, her ministers were hanged and she was told marriage to a 7-year old hunchback was her only way out. How she managed through that and found herself in the very first truly passionate marriage we have heard about in the History of the Germans Podcast, well, that is what we are talking about today.

But before we start a quick question. I have been given an opportunity to organize a History of the Germans trip down the Main and Rhine at the end of June, beginning of July. Is this something any of you would be interested? If so, let me know. That would help me enormously in making a decision.

And as always, I want to thank our patrons, who have signed up on Historyofthegermans.com/support and whose generosity keeps this show going and going advertising free; they are: Stepan P., Michael McG, Tom T., Lorie C., David L. and Heidi K.

And with that, back to the show.

Last week we ended on the 21^st of May, 1477 when Maximilian, archduke of Austria, son of emperor Friedrich III, who had just tuned 18, his head full of tales of chivalric romance, of Lancelot and Percival, Tristan and Roland donned his silver breastplate  and rode out of Vienna to rescue a damsel in distress, who by pure coincidence also happened to be the richest heiress in Europe.

Every story of valiant knights and virtuous ladies needs a monster, a dragon or some villain who throws obstacles in the way of the great hero that he needs to overcome to prove himself worthy of her love. When Maximilian had his journey to Burgundian power turned into a rhymed novel, these villains were three and their names were Fürwittig, Unfalo and Neidelhart.

Out here in the real world, the villain was only one, King Louis XI of France, and he acted not out of low cunning, but for completely understandable political motives. Nor did he die by the executioner’s hand, as  Fürwittig, Unfalo and Neidelhart did in Maximilian’s tale.But in one way the Theuerdank is true to events, the creativity that Louis showed in his schemes to thwart Maximilian was more than a match for his three-headed fictional avatar.

But I am getting ahead of the story.

Maximilian sets out from Vienna on May 21^st, as I said, but Charles the Bold had died on January 5^th, that was more than four months earlier. And it would be the beginning of August before he entered the de facto capital of the Burgundian state in Ghent. What happened in the meantime?

Well, quite a lot actually.

News of the battle of Nancy spread quickly across Europe. But initially the news were contradictory. Participants of the battle had seen Charles ride off on his great charger El Moro, and nobody had seen him fall. It took a few days before his body was identified. And even then, it was impossible to believe that the Great Duke of Burgundy, whose image, if it could have been reproduced by modern means, would have graced the bedrooms of teenage boys and girls from Aragon to Albion, that the chivalric hero of the age, was actually dead.

King Louis XI of France was probably the first of the key protagonists to receive the news. He had established a courier service for government post in 1464, and that service had brought him the news about the battle of Nancy within just 3 days, his riders having covered a distance of 450km.

Therefore just 3 days after the reckless duke had bitten the snow, Louis XI set his plan in motion.

Louis had been expecting the defeat of Charles in his wars with the Swiss for a while now. It was his money and his diplomacy that had encouraged the creation of the League of Constance, the defection of Rene of Lorraine, and paid for the Swiss mercenaries at Nancy. After Grandson and Murten it was clear that Charles was badly mauled, his resources much diminished and hence a window of opportunity had been opening up. Therefore, even before Charles final battle had begun, Louis had already mustered an army in Champagne and Picardy, ready to march into the duchy of Burgundy and into Franche Comte when the time came. And now the time had come.

Officially Louis marched into Burgundy just to keep it safe for his beloved cousin who was so sadly missing. And when the next courier arrived and told him Charles had actually died, the king of France, giddy with excitement, went on to stage two. It was always clear that upon the demise of the last Burgundian duke, his heir would be his daughter Marie. And Marie, Louis declared could not inherit the duchy of Burgundy, which – as per Salian law, could only be passed down in the male line. The fief was vacant and the king of France’s army came to take what was rightfully his. What Louis argued as a reason to occupy Franche Comte, which was still an imperial, not a royal fief, well, whatever. He had guns and men and that should be enough for now.

Louis XI has received a lot of bad press, in particular in the German and English speaking world.  Sir Walter Scott summarized him as follows: “That sovereign was of a character so purely selfish—so guiltless of entertaining any purpose unconnected with his ambition, covetousness, and desire of selfish enjoyment—that he almost seems an incarnation of the devil himself, permitted to do his utmost to corrupt our ideas of honour in its very source. Nor is it to be forgotten that Louis possessed to a great extent that caustic wit which can turn into ridicule all that a man does for any other person’s advantage but his own, and was, therefore, peculiarly qualified to play the part of a cold hearted and sneering fiend.” Machiavelli had only one criticism of Louis XI, that he replaced his national infantry with the Swiss mercenaries he regarded as unreliable.

A true villain then.

Before we jump on the bandwagon and regard Louis XI as President Snow trying to break up the star-crossed lovers, we should take a step back and look at Louis and his Kingdom of France in the broader political context of the 15^th century.

Louis XI was born in 1423, at a time when his father, the dauphin Charles had been disinherited by his own mother and his crown been promised to an English king.  Anglo-Burgundian armies occupied Paris and were inflicting defeat after defeat on the man they called “the king of Bourges” after the rather modest capital of his shrinking territory. When Louis was six, he met Joan of Ark and it was only her divine intervention that made the gradual recovery of the royal house of Valois and the kingdom of France possible. What remained in the personal and institutional memory of the French Kingdom was the notion that the English can be pushed out of the country even if they win all the battles as long as they are alone. An alliance between England and Burgundy however, that could take down the Royal family, even the kingdom itself. And what are the chances God would once again send a 13-year old peasant girl to save the day. Therefore no king of France could sleep soundly as long as there was a  powerful state on their eastern border. When Louis XI attacked Burgundy hours after receiving news of his distant cousin’s defeat, it was not just greed for territory and wealth, but an act of preventive self-defense.

And the sneakiness, the double dealing, the paying of agents and hidden allies – well it wasn’t cricket, but then, he was fighting for the survival of his dynasty that had nearly been wiped out 50 years earlier.

O.K. the state of the Grand Dukes of the West had to go, but how could that be done?

Well the first step was to take over the southern part, the duchy of Burgundy and the Franche Comte, which happened within just days. But these were the economically and militarily less significant parts and also disconnected from the main territory. So how to get hold of the rest?

There were a couple of cities in what is today the regions of Picardie, Pas de Calais and Ardennes that had been part of the lands of Charles the Bold, but, like the duchy of Burgundy, were to revert to the crown in case of the absence of a male heir. And so Louis dispatches several of his lords to negotiate with the citizens about a handover, and as always provided them with bags of cash to facilitate the process.

But at some point it was clear that he would run into some form of resistance. The question is, what to do then.

Option one was to simply use brute force and invade Flanders, Brabant, Hainault, Luxemburg and afterwards Holland, Seeland and Guelders.

Option 2 was to compel the heiress, Marie of Burgundy to break the engagement with Maximilian and marry her to his son, the future king Charles VIII.

Both options had their difficulties. Marie was 20 and Charles VIII only 7 years old and rumored to be extremely ugly. Louis acknowledged that problem and would have offered Marie the alternative of marrying a French prince of more suitable age and appearance.

But even that would not have resolved the other issue, that Marie was engaged to the son of the emperor Friedrich III and that most of her lands were imperial territory. The insult to the empire that would result from the broken engagement and the French expansion deep into the imperial lands could once again galvanize the princes as it had happened during the Siege of Neuss.

So, not as easy a run as some suggested. But definitely an easier run than the brute force approach. Taking all the Burgundian lands from a defenseless princess and without legal justification, that was going to raise even more eyebrows, let alone armies.

Decisions had to be made quickly, since any time now the pesky Habsburg prince could show up in Flanders with a massive imperial army and the game would be up. So Louis did all of it, all at the same time.

He opened negotiation with Marie and her mother, Margaret of York about a potential marriage to his son. At the same time his armies began encircling cities who had not immediately succumbed to French money, flattery or legal arguments.

As for the cities beyond the reach of his guns, he instructed his envoys to bribe city councils, and where that failed, incite revolt. One of these envoys was Olivier le Daim, count of Meulan, a particularly colorful character. Born to humble parents in a village near Ghent, he had  sought his fortune in Paris, where he became a barber. By some unclear mechanism, he got into royal service as the valet and then barber of the king. That was quite a responsible job, since the barber was the only man who was allowed to approach the king with an open knife. It was also well paid given the propensity of the age to hire assassins. He makes an appearance in Vicor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame: quote This barber of the king had three names. At court he was politely called Olivier le Daim (the Deer); among the people Olivier the Devil. His real name was Olivier le Mauvais, aka Olivier the bad.

Skimming the main sources about Olivier the Bad I am not sure that he really was that bad. He was extraordinarily loyal to his king, which is not a surprise given his elevation from barber to baron, but I have not seen an allegation that he was doing the king’s dirty work, the poisoning and murdering, so common in the Renaissance. Which suggests his real crime was rising too high, and when Louis died, Olivier was immediately hanged by the nobility for insolence, ending in the same mass grave as Esmeralda.

Anyway. Olivier was given the most important job, which was to go to Ghent and either convince Marie to marry little Charles VIII of France or, should that fail, stir up things in this legendarily rebellious city. As you can imagine Marie did not yield to the charms or arguments of the royal barber, which is why he concentrated on plan B.

Ok, we have Louis XI bribing and fighting his way into the Grand Duchy of the West, but what was the heir to the Burgundian lands up to?

The anonymous chronicle of Flanders said quote: “And his daughter Marie was left, young and without experience, burdened with so heavy an inheritance that no man would have dared bear it.” This is one of those quotations that is both entirely accurate and utterly misleading. Inexperienced is often equated to naïve, amateurish and hence in dire need of a someone who takes decisions on her behalf. But it could also simply mean that so far she had been kept away from the affairs of state and hence had not experienced what it meant to rule. But she might be a fast learner.

I will leave the judgement to you, whilst I will first talk about why Burgundy in 1477 was a “heavy inheritance” and then tell you how she handled it.

The state of Burgundy had not emerged organically as a product of cultural affinity, but was purely a product of the ambitions of a cadet branch of the French royal family. Its lands straddled the border between the kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire. Parts of it, namely the duchy of Burgundy itself, the Artois and most of Flanders were fiefs of the king of France, whilst Brabant, Hainault, Holland, Seeland, Friesland, Limburg, Liege, Utrecht, Guelders, the Franche Comte and Luxemburg were imperial fiefs. Some regions spoke French, other various dialects of low German. There were the great textile manufacturing cities like Ghent, Ypres, Arras, Tournai and the trading hubs of Bruges, Antwerp and Amsterdam, but also large sways of food producing countryside. Some regions were used to tight control by the duke, such as Hainault, others had almost complete independence, like Friesland, in some regions there were long standing feuds like the cods and hooks in Holland, others acted in unison. If you have even just a cursory understanding of Belgian politics, you get the picture.

The grand dukes had been working for a long period trying to forge these diverse components into one coherent and contiguous state, like France and England and Portugal etc. Under Charles the Bold this long held dream was about to become reality. Charles policy had three main components, one was to establish a land bridge between the duchy of Burgundy in the south and the Low countries in the North, that is why Lorraine became one of his key obsessions. The second element was the crown of a kingdom of Burgundy. Like Karl IV had done with the St. Wenceslaus crown in Bohemia, Charles believed by creating a crown as a symbol of his state, he could tie his nobles, cities, even peasants to an idea, a political concept, something that transcended the personal loyalty to him as their duke. And part three of the strategy was to centralise power in his territory. He sidelined the courts on the level of his various duchies and counties and either linked them to or replaced them by a high court in the town of Mechelen. He did the same with the fiscal administration and strengthened central government function, headed by his chancellor.

None of these policies were popular with the proud cities or the estates of his duchies and counties. They pushed back against the ever increasing tax burden that Charles imposed to fund his wars of expansion. They balked at the expense of the court, the splendour of which shifted from a source of pride for the locals to a symbol of extortion. But what they really objected to was the suppression of all their individual rights and privileges, the freedoms they had accumulated over centuries.

These objections had fuelled endless revolts, including those in Dinant and Liege. Charles response had been to burn both cities to the ground and kill its citizens by the hundreds and thousands. At which point Charles needed to build up an ever larger army to both fight abroad and suppress his opponents at home. Which increased the tax burden even more, which in turn accelerated the centralisation policy, which in turn fuelled the anger and resentment against the regime. Which led to more repression, more expense for military forces and so forth and so forth.

When Marie confirmed her father’s death almost a month after the battle of Nancy, all this anger and hatred broke through to the surface. Preachers called the demise of the duke, Gods punishment for his excessive tyranny and it is surprising that the mob did not celebrate it by lighting bonfires and partying through the night.

Almost immediately after the announcement that Charles was definitely dead, the Estates General, aka the assembly of all the powerful people in the Low Countries came together. They did recognise Marie as the legitimate heir to all the lands of her father. But, the centralised state of Charles the Bold was to be dismantled, the court in Mechelen abolished, fiscal authority returned to the estates in the individual duchies and counties, all ancient rights and privileges of the cities to be confirmed and their right of resistance should the ducal government exceed their prerogatives recognised. Marie’s role had become that of a symbol of the state with limited power. But, the good news was, that a least the state continued to exist.

The city of Ghent, the largest agglomeration in the Low Countries, probably even the largest city north of the Alps, became the epicentre of political unrest. The fall of the duke and the broad re-arrangement of responsibilities and powers encouraged the middle classes, the artisans and their guilds to demand more influence in city politics, and in particular protection against the emerging protoindustrial manufacturers of cloth. Young men were now roaming the streets and pulling former Burgundian officials out of their houses and beat them up, sometimes strung them up on lampposts. Well not lampposts since they did not exist, so whatever posts they may find.

Faced with this chaos, Marie gave in to the demands of the Estates General and granted the Grand Privilege which reset the political situation to a fictitious time before the centralisation efforts of the Burgundian dukes. If she had thought this had resolved issues, she was sorely mistaken. Wherever she travelled in the following weeks, she was made to sign similar decrees, handing over her rights as duchess or countess to the estates.

On the positive side, apart from a general recognition of Marie as heir, was that the estates raised troops to defend the borders of Marie’s patrimony. This slowed Louis down, but did not stop him. Cities and fortresses negotiated with the king of France and often times swapped sides as support from Ghent was arriving much slower than the bags of gold from Paris.

Hanging over all of this was now the question who should join Marie and her lands in Holy Matrimony. Louis, as we have already heard, had put forward his son, the hunchbacked dauphin Charles. There were also some other chancers around, one being the duke of Cleves who offered his lands as a neat way to round up the Burgundian territory, then another von Cleves who had no land, but was apparently quite handsome and a childhood friend of Marie’s. Marie’s mother briefly suggested her brother, the duke of Clarence, he who later ended up drowned in a barrel of malmsey wine. And then there was Maximilian.

But it was not entirely Marie’s decision. Now that the Great Privilege had been signed, the Estates General demanded their say in the negotiations. So there were two delegations negotiating with Louis XI, one comprising Marie’s chancellor, Willem Huguonet and one of her courtiers, Guy d’Humbercourt as well as  another delegation made up of the representatives of Ghent and the estates. When the city delegation came to Louis, he saw them as rabble, the typical rebellious folk from Ghent. He was not really interested in doing a deal with them.  Instead he used the opportunity to blow up Flanders for good. He showed the city delegates a letter from Marie’s hand that said in no uncertain terms, that she would only accept terms negotiated by her chancellor and 3 other named individuals. Any arrangements made with the city were of no import to her. As it happened, that was pretty much the opposite of what she had told the Estates General.

News of that, what the people of Ghent variously called deception, betrayal and treason, set the streets alight. Huguonet, Hambercourt and the two others named in Marie’s letter were dragged to the main square, tried for treason and convicted. Marie immediately pardoned them to save their lives, but the pardon was disregarded. All four were hanged on April 3, 1477.

Now the whole of the Burgundian state blew up. Whoever had shown sympathies for Charles’ policies in the past was deposed and sometimes tried and hanged. In Holland the ancient civil war between Hooks and Cods resumed. The artisans and sometimes the mob took control of several towns.

Marie became a prisoner in her palace in Ghent. Her mother and closest adviser was sent away. Communication with the outside world became difficult. Marie’s lady in waiting smuggled one letter out to her betrothed, young Maximilian in Vienna, that he should come as quickly as possible, since otherwise quote: “I would have to do things that I would never voluntarily want to do” end quote.

Young Maximilian meanwhile was stuck back in Vienna. As we heard last week, the king of Hungary and his tremendous and tremendously expensive standing army was preparing to attack Austria. Hunyadi may have received some generous support from Louis XI, though this may not even have been necessary. The Raven King wanted Austria for his grand central European empire.

One can imagine Maximilian being torn between his loyalty to help his father defending their homeland against a hugely threatening, powerful invader, whilst at the same time his fiancée, daughter of his childhood hero was in dire straits, held prisoner by ruffians and attacked by a slippery, scheming French king. It was not an easy decision.

He sent a delegation headed by his protonotary, Dr. Georg Hessler to Ghent to discuss the detail of the marriage contract. Hessler had been closely involved in the negotiations since Neuss and was familiar with all the details. He was by the way another commoner playing a crucial role in these events, just like Olivier the Bad, the French royal barber and Willem Hugueonot, the executed Burgundian chancellor. This is a period of history where society is much more permeable than it had been even just a 100 years earlier and equally more permeable than it would be 200 years later. All these men could rise to incredibly powerful positions on merit alone. This did of course not happen on the back of territorial princes diving deep into predecessors of Adam Smith or John Stuart Mills. The reason they promoted these often highly educated and incredibly bright men, was because they were unencumbered by connections to the leading aristocratic families and they were fiercely loyal, two things the nobles never were.

Hence Dr. Georg Hessler led Maximilians embassy to Burgundy. But though ambitious commoners drive events, the external veneer still had to be embellished by great nobles. So with him came the archbishop of Trier, the bishop of Metz, the Count Palatine Ludwig of Veldenz and 300 riders, their armour polished so as to blind the Ghenters with their reflection.

Instead of leaving these men waiting, as would have been quite common, Marie welcomed them warmly on the doorstep. Once indoors, the bishop of Metz begins the formal proceeding announcing Maximilian’s intention to marry the gracious lady of Burgundy.  He handed over a letter with a diamond inside as a sign of how serious the Habsburg takes this suit. That would normally kick off a procedure that went on for weeks of hard negotiation over the details of apanage, the dowry, the morning gift, the rights of the groom, yada, yada, yada.

This time, the venerable bishop had barely finished his little speech praising Maximilian’s great qualities as husband, warrior and prince, when Marie interrupted him and went – o.k., let’s do it. Like right here and right now. Everyone looked round confused. No, no, her father had said Max was a sound guy and since he told me to marry him, I will marry him. Can we get on with it now?

And indeed, the next evening Marie of Burgundy and Maximilian of Habsburg were married by proxy. Ludwig Count Palatine stood in for Maximilian and in an attempt to make this as permanent as possible, the couple shared a bed for the night, though obviously separated by an unsheathed sword, and presumably a sentry guarding the lady’s honour.

Meanwhile Hessler wrote back to his master saying, get here asap. Do not think about the cost, this is going to be so worth it. The Low Countries alone could throw up 1.2 million guilders per year. For comparison, the imperial title produced just 20,000 and Austria maybe 200,000. And of course with all the bedding of duchesses business, the honour of Austria and the archducal family was now at stake. Come, come, make haste.

The Austrian delegates were doubly keen on the swift arrival of their lord, since the febrile situation in the low countries could easily turn against them and they could join Mrss. Hugueonot et.al. whose bodies were still swinging on the gallows.

Because something quite unexpected had happened. The arrival of the imperial delegation had created a sudden shift in the public opinion. 3 months of exposure to French aggression had caused doubts amongst the citizens of Ghent and the Estates General as to whether the king of France would be an upgrade to Charles the Bold and would respect their ancient freedoms. A quick scan of what was going on in France itself revealed that Louis XI was no less keen on centralisation than the Burgundian dukes, just did not burn down his own cities that often. And the chaos in the streets, the rebellious artisans and renewed fighting made the leading merchants and landowners distinctly uncomfortable. Then news spread that Louis had brought in 4,000 men with sickles and scythes to cut down the harvest, in an attempt to starve out Ghent, Ypres and Bruges. Rumours of hangings and broken promises inside French occupied cities did the rest. Seeing the 300 armoured riders coming in through the city gates reminded them that French Blue wasn’t the only colour.

As the wedding was announced, the people began shouting Kaiser, Kaiser and Maximilian, Maximilian. The garrisons of St. Omer, Aire, Conde and Valenciennes took heart and  stood up to the French tide. The remnants of Charles’ army trickled back from Lorraine and replenished the garrisons. The state of Burgundy was back.

Their hope now rested on Maximilian, and even more so, his father Friedrich III, to bring in the mighty armies of the Empire. They had seen this army before, when it had appeared before Neuss. Its knights, hardened in dozens of feuds, the infantry with their pikes that had fought in the Mainzer Stiftsfehde, the Princes war, the Soester Stiftsfehde, and innumerable now forgotten wars. And let’s not forget that what is now Switzerland was still part of the empire, and these men of Grandson, Murten and Nancy, as the Burgundians had so painfully learned, were invincible.

All eyes turned south, where any minute now the young prince would appear and throw out the French and bring peace, a peace where the ancient freedoms are preserved, just as they are in the rest of the Holy roman Empire.

Maximilian, hearing of the 1.2 million gulden, the support from the local populace and the physical attribute of his betrothed, set off in May. But it took him 3 months before he entered the great city of Ghent.

What has he been doing in the meantime? Well, the problem was that Maximilian understood full well what Marie and the Burgundians expected him to bring as a morning gift, aka a massive army of German supersoldiers. And he also knew that his father, under attack from Matthias Hunyadi, could not give him a massive army of German supersoldiers, in fact he could not spare a single man. All Friedrich could do was to call in favours, officially bestow the imperial fiefs on Marie and wish his son and soon to be daughter in law the best of luck.

Maximilian now travelled from one court to the next begging for men and money to defend the western border of the empire against the machinations of the French. But success eluded him. Louis had been busy bribing German princes not just to refuse help, but to stake their own claims. The king of Bohemia demanded Luxemburg, the Wittelsbachs Holland, Seeland and Hainault and  even cousin Sigismund of Tyrol, Maximilians closest surviving relative said no, whilst counting the 50,000 gulden Louis XI had given him and which he would undoubtably waste on more girls and guns.

Maximilian arrived in Ghent at the beginning of August 1477 with just 1,200 horse, many of those bought with Burgundian money. But many mighty princes and archbishops accompanied him and he himself was the business. Atop his palfrey, clad in white over his silver and gold armour, 18 years old, not really handsome, but physically strong, with a determined face, he appeared, as one chronicler said, like an angel descending from heaven. And Ghent did return the favour. The streets were covered in flowers, triumphal arches had been erected, the burghers hung their hugely valuable tapestries from their balconies and everywhere people shouted You are our duke and prince, defend us or, most unusual for the rebellious Ghent, one banner read, “Whatever you tell us to do, we will do it”.

Straight from the procession, Maximilian headed to Ten Walle, the ducal palace. Having passed through a line of torches he for the very first time encountered his bride. The reception now followed Burgundian court protocol with long speeches, praising each other’s lineage and fecundity. And then we move into something our boy from Styria may not have expected. His intended mother in law told him that Marie had hidden a carnation close to her heart, the symbol of pure love and good luck. To which he may have responded, oh, yeah, cool. But then his mother-in-law insisted that he should go and get it. Question mark, question mark? Maximilian had, had girlfriends before, but he was not used to opening lady’s corsets in public. But that is exactly what the archbishop of Trier now suggested he did….There is a Netherlandish picture of Maximilian in the Kunsthistorische Museum that shows him as a young man, holding a carnation , and frankly, looking utterly bewildered.

They got married the next day in a, by Burgundian standards, modest ceremony. The ongoing war, impending famine and the mourning period for Charles the Bold prevented a full display of the splendour of the greatest of the late medieval courts.

But that was not necessary, because these two, Maximilian and Marie hit it off like we have never seen before in a princely wedding. Maximilian wrote back to his friend, Prüschenk, and forgive me if I do this in German, but it just works that much better, quote: Ich hab ein schöns, froms tugendhafftigs Weib,….und dank Gott. Sie ist ..von leib klein, viel kleiner als die Rosina und schneweiss; ein pruns Haar, ein kleins Nasl, ein kleins heuptel und antlitz, praun undt grabe Augen gemischt, schön und lauter; dann das unter heutel an augen ist herdann gesenkt, gleich als sie geschlaffen hiet, doch es ist nit wohl zumerckhen. Der Mund ist etwas hoch doch rein und rot. Sonst vieler schöner Jungfrauen alls ich all miein tag einer gesehen hab, und frölich“ end quote.

I would like to translate that, but I can’t. Let’s just say that he describes all her little minor imperfections and then says that she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. And for all his life he will profess his love to her. She appears in all his pseudoautobiographies as the lady he aspires to be worthy of, he has her depicted as the virgin in his altarpieces, in portraits, forever young, forever beautiful.

But there was none of that detached admiration thing that runs through chivalric literature. She was smart, decisive, and in these first months after her father’s death had shown enormous resilience, so he trusted her judgement. They worked together, and they played together. Both of them were mad about hunting, tournaments, music and dancing. She would ride along chasing boar, stag, fox and cheer him on when he was jousting with an opponent, danced with him at the mummeries he so loved. They were made for each other, and within barely a year she gave birth to a son, Philipp, named after her grandfather and the founder of the Burgundian dynasty.

So, all was great. Tu Felix Austria, Nube. All of Burgundy is now gone to the Habsburgs, the road to an empire where the sun never sets is wide open.

Well, don’t we forget something here? Ah, the army that Maximilian was supposed to bring. Where is that? Well, nowhere to be seen. All he had brought were 1,200 men against Louis XI’s army of 20,000 well trained and well equipped forces. And Louis was not going to give up on Burgundy. He could not. As long as Burgundy exists, every French king is in mortal danger. The war will go on, and next week we will see whether Maximilian can do more than woo an heiress. I hope you will join us again.

And those of you who feel for poor Maximilian who had to bow his head in shame, admitting to his beloved wife that unfortunately, he does not have the money and the power that she had expected, remember, you can put him back in the saddle at least here on this podcast. You know where to go and you know what to do.