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The Dukes of Burgundy
Philip the Good: The Apogee of Burgundy
Philip, who ruled from 1419 to 1467, was one of the most powerful and influential rulers of the fifteenth century. Forced into an alliance with the English, he soon found that he held the balance of power between England and France - reflected in the final crucial phase of the Hundred Years War.
Under Philip the Good, grandson of the founder of the duchy's power, Burgundy reached its apogee. Professor Vaughan portrays not only Philip the Good himself, perhaps the most attractive personality among the four great dukes, butthe workings of the court and of one of the most efficent - if not necessarily the most popular - administrations in fifteenth-century Europe. The complex diplomatic history of Philip the Good's long ducal reign (1419-1467) occupies much of the book, in particular Burgundy's relations with England and France. The central theme is Philip the Good's policy of territorial and personal aggrandisement, which culminated in his negotiations with the Holy Roman Emperor for a crown. And due attention is given to the great flowering of artistic life in Burgundy which made Philip's court at Dijon an important cultural centre in the period immediately preceding the Renaissance. All this is based on the close study of the considerable surviving archives of Philip's civil service, and on the chronicles and letters of the period.
Philip the Good provides a definitive study of the life and times of the rulerwhose position and achievements made him the greatest magnate in Europe during what has been called "the Burgundian century".
Under Philip the Good, grandson of the founder of the duchy's power, Burgundy reached its apogee. Professor Vaughan portrays not only Philip the Good himself, perhaps the most attractive personality among the four great dukes, butthe workings of the court and of one of the most efficent - if not necessarily the most popular - administrations in fifteenth-century Europe. The complex diplomatic history of Philip the Good's long ducal reign (1419-1467) occupies much of the book, in particular Burgundy's relations with England and France. The central theme is Philip the Good's policy of territorial and personal aggrandisement, which culminated in his negotiations with the Holy Roman Emperor for a crown. And due attention is given to the great flowering of artistic life in Burgundy which made Philip's court at Dijon an important cultural centre in the period immediately preceding the Renaissance. All this is based on the close study of the considerable surviving archives of Philip's civil service, and on the chronicles and letters of the period.
Philip the Good provides a definitive study of the life and times of the rulerwhose position and achievements made him the greatest magnate in Europe during what has been called "the Burgundian century".
520 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
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October 19, 2025
English Historian Richard Vaughan Studies The Apogee Of The Burgundian Sovereign State During The Reign Of Philip The Good.
Philip the Good, the third Valois Duke of Burgundy, lived from 31 July 1396 to 15 June 1467, & ruled from 10 September 1419, the date of his father John the Fearless' assassination at the Bridge of Montereau, until his death at the age of 70. With the arguable exception of his grandfather, Philip the Bold, no other Burgundian ruler did more to expand his borders & incorporate additional territories to his already-considerable domain, & he accomplished this by utilizing a combination of strategic warfare, skillful acts of diplomacy, & financial strong-arm tactics which were leveraged by his vast reservoir of wealth & resources. Philip the Good managed to annex the provinces of Hainault, Holland, Zeeland, & Luxembourg, adding to his already sizeable possessions which included the Duchy & County of Burgundy & a group of economically powerful cities in the Flanders region which included among them Ghent, Bruges, Ypres & Sluis, as well as the rich Duchy of Brabant. Philip also founded a French-Burgundian order of knighthood, the Order of the Golden Fleece, in 1430 as part of an ongoing effort to establish his duchy's reputation as a preeminent European power & to commemorate his recent marriage to Isabella of Portugal. He was also an ardent proponent of the spread of Christianity who expressed his enthusiasm for a holy crusade throughout his reign, & he did this most fervently when he held the Feast of the Pheasant in Lille on 17 February 1454, which was a call to arms for Western Europe to organize an expedition to take back the city of Constantinople from Mehmet II 'the Conqueror' & the Ottoman Empire, which had fallen to them on 29 May 1453.
Originally published in 1970, this 2002 reissue of Professor Richard Vaughan's biographical study of the third Valois duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good: Apogee of Burgundy, features a new introduction written by Graeme Small & a 400-page main text which is divided into twelve chapters, in addition to a wealth of supplementary materials that include maps of Holland, Hainault & Zeeland, Flanders with Calais, an administrative map of Burgundy, circa 1450, eastern neighbors of Burgundy, archbishoprics & bishoprics in & near Burgundian territories, the Ghent war, the Somme towns, & the war of the League of Public Weal, & a group of invaluable genealogical charts that are far too numerous to list. There is also a staggeringly lengthy 32-page bibliography of English, French, & Dutch source material & an index located at the back of the volume.
At the beginning of Graeme Small's 34-page introduction to Richard Vaughan's Philip the Good: Apogee of Burgundy, he presents an eloquently-worded argument testifying to the written work's profound impact on & lasting resonance to modern scholarship, also acknowledging the vast array of source material that was referenced during the book's composition : "To the latest generation of Burgundian scholars the master narrative of Philip's reign still seems indispensable its 'scale, its commanding view & its completeness'. The durability of the work is partly attributable to its extensive use of archival material, chronicle accounts & other narrative sources, some of which have only been published in recent years. However, the book is also a remarkable work of synthesis, drawing together for the first time a vast literature in several languages devoted to the reign of the third Valois duke." All four of the reissues of Professor Vaughan's studies on the individual dukes of Burgundy feature new introductions, each written by a different modern scholar.
Philip's unique relationship with the Catholic Church & the pope in Rome are the main topics in Chapter 7, Philip the Good & the Church. Throughout his ducal reign Philip the Good was, more often than not, able to negotiate, cajole, or outright bribe either the pope or the ecclesiastical councils of bishops & cardinals responsible for appointing & electing his preferred candidates for various church-related offices & benefices into ultimately achieving his desired result. Philip enjoyed good papal relations throughout his reign & the positive effects of this advantageous relationship often spilled over into other projects or undertakings, such as when Philip contested the validity of the third marriage of his cousin, Jacqueline of Bavaria, to Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, & thus, her succession rights to the Hainault, Holland & Zeeland territories which Philip desired for himself. While a chapter devoted to a fifteenth century duke's interactions with an ecclesiastical institution may not on the surface sound like the most interesting topic of discussion, the political intrigue at play behind many of the appointments & elections of church officials, each told in Vaughan's signature narrative style, render this section of the study among its most compelling portions.
Professor Vaughan supplies a cursory financial & economic overview of Philip the Bold's domains in Chapter 8, Economic Matters, also discussing the impact of valuable Burgundian trade commodities such as wine, salt, manufactured textile, & fish. To illustrate & provide context to the profound effect that Burgundian wine, mostly produced in the Dijon & Beaune areas, placed upon the region's economy, the author provides an interesting excerpt from a ducal document dated to 1460 which contains Philip's remarks on the superiority of his product & how it was viewed by European consumers : "that wines of unsurpassed excellence are produced in the territory of Beaune, because of which merchants have long been accustomed to buy their wines at Beaune & transport them to various countries. Because of the excellence of these wines we are reputed to be lord of the finest wines in all christendom." Also included in this chapter are several fascinating contemporary eye-witness descriptions of beautiful, picturesque Flemish cities such as Antwerp & Bruges, as well as a copy of the original 1455 charter contract for the Medici bank's Bruges branch which was signed by Piero di Cosimo de'Medici, Giovanni de'Medici, & Pierfrancesco de'Medici in addition to two junior partners. Vaughan provides a wonderfully poignant description of the great market of Antwerp, which during that period was located in the far eastern portion of the Flanders region, in an excerpt from the Spanish adventurer Pero Tafur's Travels & Adventures: 1435-1439: "As a market Antwerp is quite unmatched. Here are riches & the best entertainment, & the order which is preserved in matters of traffic is remarkable. Pictures of all kinds are sold in the monastery of St. Francis; in the church of St. John they sell the cloths of Arras; in a Dominican monastery all kinds of goldsmith's work, & thus the various articles are distributed among the monasteries & churches, & the rest is sold in the streets. Outside the city at one of the gates is a great street with large stables & other buildings on either side of it. Here they sell hackneys, trotters & other horses, a most remarkable sight, & indeed there is nothing one could desire which is not found here in abundance. I do not know how to describe a fair such as this." This chapter is an engaging cornucopia of reference material written from different contemporary perspectives -- the author has chosen a wonderfully diverse assortment of sources to limn for the reader the remarkable story of Burgundy's economic growth & sustainability, with the excerpts themselves often speaking equally as loud as Vaughan's insightful interpretations & analyses.
Serving as an unlikely complement to his decadent, spendthrift personality, Philip the Good possessed a fierce crusader's zeal to at first protect &, following its conquest, to ultimately liberate the Byzantine empire's capital, Constantinople, from the ever-present Ottoman threat, & his fleet's naval expeditions & quasi-piratical raids into Trebizond & the Black Sea are discussed in Chapter 9, The Mediterranean, Luxembourg, & the Empire. The author also expounds upon Philip's budding alliance with Alfonso V, called 'the Magnanimous', king of Aragon & Naples, which began with a shared crusading interest & resulted in multiple knighthoods being made from both the Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece & the Aragonese Orde Militar de Santa Maria de Montesa, as a way to bring the two sovereign states closer together. The Duchy of Luxembourg, which was originally entrusted to Philip's aunt, Elizabeth of Görlitz, as a dowry for her marriage to Anthony of Brabant, becomes the next objet d'art for Philip to add to his impressive array of territories, & Vaughan narrates with aplomb the dramatic circumstances leading up to Philip taking possession of it. After Anthony of Brabant dies at Agincourt in 1415 the rights to Luxembourg go to his eldest son, John IV of Brabant, & after he dies as well at the age of 23 in Brussels, the rights to the duchy are passed to his tractable younger brother, Philip of St. Pol, with whom Philip the Good is able to persuade to cede them in turn to himself after a complicated diplomatic & military chain of events. The Duke of Burgundy also enjoyed favorable relations with the imperial electors & archbishops placed in influential roles within the Holy Roman Empire, such as Jacob van Sierck, whom he assisted in attaining his position as archbishop of Trier, & Dietrich von Mörs, archbishop & elector of Cologne, with whom he signed an alliance in 1431. Philip did not have an amicable relationship with Frederick I, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, but he was on favorable terms with his rival, Louis of Zweibrücken, whom he actively aided in his struggle with Frederick for control of the province. After hearing about plans for an Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1452 Philip expressed his zealous interest in launching a crusade to save the city from its would-be conquerors, but a revolt in Ghent, which was among the most important of the Flemish cities under his dominion, prevented him from taking any action. Overall, this is a very engaging part of the study, & despite the disjointed narrative Vaughan is forced to spin for his reader due to the disparity of the subject matter it still manages to read in a coherent fashion. There are plenty of fascinating political alliances & scenarios to be found here, & much to Vaughan's credit he is able to admirably tell all of these stories without dividing the chapter into sub-sections.
Philip the Good's war with the rebellious Flemish city of Bruges is the chief area of focus in Chapter 10, The Ghent War: 1449-53, & according to two contemporary accounts of the period, the Dagboek van Gent & the Kronyk van Vlaanderen, the seeds of this conflict are sown when the duke levies a highly unpopular salt tax, known as a gabelle, in January 1447 which calls for a tax of 24 Flemish groats to be placed on every sack of salt sold in the Flanders region. Professor Vaughan provides a lengthy transcription of a flowery speech prepared by Philip the Good which explains the reasoning behind the gabelle & informs the citizens that, "This tax on salt will be paid by foreign merchants & others coming from abroad & by my own subjects, & it should harm no one, least of all ordinary people & the poor; nor will they have to continue paying out money daily, as they do now, for the above-mentioned aide, which is most burdensome to them." The tax creates such unrest that it divides the city into two factions, one supporting the duke & one favoring popular revolt. Philip the Good then issues another public statement, this one more akin to a manifesto, which essentially blames the citizens while downplaying the significance of the salt tax & thus his own level of culpability in the entire affair. The rest of the Flemish towns affected by the gabelle steadfastly side with Philip & Ghent is left to stand alone in its ultimately unsuccessful rebellion, though its inhabitants spare no expense in attempting to obtain outside assistance in their struggle against the duke. The author includes a copy of a petition, couched in flowery terms, from the city of Ghent to none other than the king of France, Charles VII 'the Victorious', asking for aid in their uprising : "Thus we are at war with our said lord & prince...& though it is most hard, difficult, & unpleasant for us...we intend, with the grace of God, to wage this war to the best of our ability & with all our power since, out of necessity & for the above reasons, we must conserve our rights, privileges, freedoms, liberties, customs & usages of which you, our sovereign lord, are guardian & protector...& we beseech you, most excellent & puissant prince, to remedy this state of affairs, about which we have informed you." The lengthy transcriptions of speeches & correspondence provided by the author offer fascinating glimpses of how official documentation was worded in the fifteenth century & the complex manner in which the Burgundian political machine interacted with its fiefs & territories.
In Chapter 11, Burgundy, France & the Crusade the author discusses the tensions which arose in the Burgundian court between Philip the Good's eldest son, Charles of Charolais, & the court's most politically powerful faction, the de Croys, from Crouy, in France's Picardy region. The Croys had become a powerful force in Burgundy since the time of Philip's father, John the Fearless, due to its reigning lord, Jehan de Croy, being the brother of Duke John's most famous mistress, Agnes de Croy. The future Charles the Bold was a forceful & authoritative figure in Burgundian politics from a young age, & Vaughan provides an excerpt from a document authored by the young prince admonishing the illegal poaching of hares & partridges in the Dijon area which speaks to this effect. He also includes another excerpt from the memoirs of Olivier de La Marche that offers a contemporary perspective of Charles of Charloais' personality: "He was hot-blooded, active & irritable &, as a child, wanted his own way & disliked rebuke. Nevertheless, he had such good sense & understanding that he resisted his natural tendencies &, as a youth, there was no one more polite & well-tempered." Vaughan continues: "More than anything, he had a natural love of the sea & ships. His pastime was falconry with merlins, & he hunted most willingly whenever he had time. He played chess better than anyone. He drew the bow more powerfully than any of those who were brought up with him. He played at quarterstaffs in the Picard fashion." Also canvassed in this chapter is the beginning of Philip the Good & Charles of Charolais' bitter estrangement, an ongoing quarrel with which the Duchess Isabella was to eventually side with her son & subsequently caused her to retire from the Burgundian political scene, much to her husband's chagrin. Later portions of the chapter devote themselves to such interesting topics as Philip's relationship with the cunning French dauphin, or crown prince, Louis XI, who became known as the 'Universal Spider' during his reign due to his penchant for espionage & political intrigue. Louis & his father, Charles VII 'the Victorious' did not have a particularly pleasant relationship, & he frequently rebelled against his sire's wishes. On one such occasion Louis sought refuge at the Burgundian court with Duke Philip, who sheltered & provided him apartments & an allowance to suit a prince's lifestyle, & upon Louis's succession following the death of Charles VII, Philip expected, quite reasonably, to have a trusted friend sitting on the French throne. "If so, he was soon disillusioned. The son who had rebelled against his father undertook now in deadly earnest to pursue his father's policies to their logical conclusion. In the long term, Louis's aim was nothing less than the total destruction of the Burgundian state."
In the closing pages of the study's twelfth & final chapter, The Close of the Reign: 1465-7, Richard Vaughan presents the subject of his biography in surprisingly unforgiving & dispassionate terms -- Philip was by no stretch a universally beloved potentate, not by any means or method of measure -- he was a flawed, flamboyant prince who spent recklessly & quarreled almost ceaselessly with his foul-tempered, volatile first-born son, who later became known as Charles the Bold, but his other name, Charles the Rash, was a much more appropriate sobriquet -- Philip the Good had gained his own moniker after sparing the citizens of Bruges from punishment after their unsuccessful rebellion, but his later behavior - boisterous, arrogant to a fault, self-serving, & at times cruel beyond reckoning, rendered the term 'the Good' most assuredly from a matter of perspective, & very much open to interpretation. "It was his grandiose & romantic concept of himself as a Valois prince of France & as the leader of a great European crusade which seems to have undermined his powers of practical statesmanship, especially toward the end of his reign. The failings of this self-assured & flamboyant ruler became more & more apparent as he grew older; his final fault, perhaps, was that he lived too long." Vaughan continues, later in the passage: "In the pursuit of pleasure & renown Philip the Good had enjoyed a measure of success given to few rulers of his time but, in spite of his early territorial successes, he had done little to consolidate his dynasty's precarious power." Overall, Philip the Good: Apogee of Burgundy is an exceptionally well-written study that manages to effectively tow the line between being an academic monograph & an engaging historical biography devoted to a very interesting figure whose deeds are seldom featured in English scholarship. It is recommended, but definitely not required, for the reader to have already undertaken a more general history of the Burgundy region, such as Bart Van Loo's outstanding The Burgundians: A Vanished Empire - A History of 1111 Years & One Day, prior to jumping into this entry, as that title presents Philip's reign in a more easily digestible writing style & format, making Vaughan's study that much more worthwhile to tackle. I hope you enjoyed the review, thank you so much for reading!
Philip the Good, the third Valois Duke of Burgundy, lived from 31 July 1396 to 15 June 1467, & ruled from 10 September 1419, the date of his father John the Fearless' assassination at the Bridge of Montereau, until his death at the age of 70. With the arguable exception of his grandfather, Philip the Bold, no other Burgundian ruler did more to expand his borders & incorporate additional territories to his already-considerable domain, & he accomplished this by utilizing a combination of strategic warfare, skillful acts of diplomacy, & financial strong-arm tactics which were leveraged by his vast reservoir of wealth & resources. Philip the Good managed to annex the provinces of Hainault, Holland, Zeeland, & Luxembourg, adding to his already sizeable possessions which included the Duchy & County of Burgundy & a group of economically powerful cities in the Flanders region which included among them Ghent, Bruges, Ypres & Sluis, as well as the rich Duchy of Brabant. Philip also founded a French-Burgundian order of knighthood, the Order of the Golden Fleece, in 1430 as part of an ongoing effort to establish his duchy's reputation as a preeminent European power & to commemorate his recent marriage to Isabella of Portugal. He was also an ardent proponent of the spread of Christianity who expressed his enthusiasm for a holy crusade throughout his reign, & he did this most fervently when he held the Feast of the Pheasant in Lille on 17 February 1454, which was a call to arms for Western Europe to organize an expedition to take back the city of Constantinople from Mehmet II 'the Conqueror' & the Ottoman Empire, which had fallen to them on 29 May 1453.
Originally published in 1970, this 2002 reissue of Professor Richard Vaughan's biographical study of the third Valois duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good: Apogee of Burgundy, features a new introduction written by Graeme Small & a 400-page main text which is divided into twelve chapters, in addition to a wealth of supplementary materials that include maps of Holland, Hainault & Zeeland, Flanders with Calais, an administrative map of Burgundy, circa 1450, eastern neighbors of Burgundy, archbishoprics & bishoprics in & near Burgundian territories, the Ghent war, the Somme towns, & the war of the League of Public Weal, & a group of invaluable genealogical charts that are far too numerous to list. There is also a staggeringly lengthy 32-page bibliography of English, French, & Dutch source material & an index located at the back of the volume.
At the beginning of Graeme Small's 34-page introduction to Richard Vaughan's Philip the Good: Apogee of Burgundy, he presents an eloquently-worded argument testifying to the written work's profound impact on & lasting resonance to modern scholarship, also acknowledging the vast array of source material that was referenced during the book's composition : "To the latest generation of Burgundian scholars the master narrative of Philip's reign still seems indispensable its 'scale, its commanding view & its completeness'. The durability of the work is partly attributable to its extensive use of archival material, chronicle accounts & other narrative sources, some of which have only been published in recent years. However, the book is also a remarkable work of synthesis, drawing together for the first time a vast literature in several languages devoted to the reign of the third Valois duke." All four of the reissues of Professor Vaughan's studies on the individual dukes of Burgundy feature new introductions, each written by a different modern scholar.
Philip's unique relationship with the Catholic Church & the pope in Rome are the main topics in Chapter 7, Philip the Good & the Church. Throughout his ducal reign Philip the Good was, more often than not, able to negotiate, cajole, or outright bribe either the pope or the ecclesiastical councils of bishops & cardinals responsible for appointing & electing his preferred candidates for various church-related offices & benefices into ultimately achieving his desired result. Philip enjoyed good papal relations throughout his reign & the positive effects of this advantageous relationship often spilled over into other projects or undertakings, such as when Philip contested the validity of the third marriage of his cousin, Jacqueline of Bavaria, to Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, & thus, her succession rights to the Hainault, Holland & Zeeland territories which Philip desired for himself. While a chapter devoted to a fifteenth century duke's interactions with an ecclesiastical institution may not on the surface sound like the most interesting topic of discussion, the political intrigue at play behind many of the appointments & elections of church officials, each told in Vaughan's signature narrative style, render this section of the study among its most compelling portions.
Professor Vaughan supplies a cursory financial & economic overview of Philip the Bold's domains in Chapter 8, Economic Matters, also discussing the impact of valuable Burgundian trade commodities such as wine, salt, manufactured textile, & fish. To illustrate & provide context to the profound effect that Burgundian wine, mostly produced in the Dijon & Beaune areas, placed upon the region's economy, the author provides an interesting excerpt from a ducal document dated to 1460 which contains Philip's remarks on the superiority of his product & how it was viewed by European consumers : "that wines of unsurpassed excellence are produced in the territory of Beaune, because of which merchants have long been accustomed to buy their wines at Beaune & transport them to various countries. Because of the excellence of these wines we are reputed to be lord of the finest wines in all christendom." Also included in this chapter are several fascinating contemporary eye-witness descriptions of beautiful, picturesque Flemish cities such as Antwerp & Bruges, as well as a copy of the original 1455 charter contract for the Medici bank's Bruges branch which was signed by Piero di Cosimo de'Medici, Giovanni de'Medici, & Pierfrancesco de'Medici in addition to two junior partners. Vaughan provides a wonderfully poignant description of the great market of Antwerp, which during that period was located in the far eastern portion of the Flanders region, in an excerpt from the Spanish adventurer Pero Tafur's Travels & Adventures: 1435-1439: "As a market Antwerp is quite unmatched. Here are riches & the best entertainment, & the order which is preserved in matters of traffic is remarkable. Pictures of all kinds are sold in the monastery of St. Francis; in the church of St. John they sell the cloths of Arras; in a Dominican monastery all kinds of goldsmith's work, & thus the various articles are distributed among the monasteries & churches, & the rest is sold in the streets. Outside the city at one of the gates is a great street with large stables & other buildings on either side of it. Here they sell hackneys, trotters & other horses, a most remarkable sight, & indeed there is nothing one could desire which is not found here in abundance. I do not know how to describe a fair such as this." This chapter is an engaging cornucopia of reference material written from different contemporary perspectives -- the author has chosen a wonderfully diverse assortment of sources to limn for the reader the remarkable story of Burgundy's economic growth & sustainability, with the excerpts themselves often speaking equally as loud as Vaughan's insightful interpretations & analyses.
Serving as an unlikely complement to his decadent, spendthrift personality, Philip the Good possessed a fierce crusader's zeal to at first protect &, following its conquest, to ultimately liberate the Byzantine empire's capital, Constantinople, from the ever-present Ottoman threat, & his fleet's naval expeditions & quasi-piratical raids into Trebizond & the Black Sea are discussed in Chapter 9, The Mediterranean, Luxembourg, & the Empire. The author also expounds upon Philip's budding alliance with Alfonso V, called 'the Magnanimous', king of Aragon & Naples, which began with a shared crusading interest & resulted in multiple knighthoods being made from both the Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece & the Aragonese Orde Militar de Santa Maria de Montesa, as a way to bring the two sovereign states closer together. The Duchy of Luxembourg, which was originally entrusted to Philip's aunt, Elizabeth of Görlitz, as a dowry for her marriage to Anthony of Brabant, becomes the next objet d'art for Philip to add to his impressive array of territories, & Vaughan narrates with aplomb the dramatic circumstances leading up to Philip taking possession of it. After Anthony of Brabant dies at Agincourt in 1415 the rights to Luxembourg go to his eldest son, John IV of Brabant, & after he dies as well at the age of 23 in Brussels, the rights to the duchy are passed to his tractable younger brother, Philip of St. Pol, with whom Philip the Good is able to persuade to cede them in turn to himself after a complicated diplomatic & military chain of events. The Duke of Burgundy also enjoyed favorable relations with the imperial electors & archbishops placed in influential roles within the Holy Roman Empire, such as Jacob van Sierck, whom he assisted in attaining his position as archbishop of Trier, & Dietrich von Mörs, archbishop & elector of Cologne, with whom he signed an alliance in 1431. Philip did not have an amicable relationship with Frederick I, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, but he was on favorable terms with his rival, Louis of Zweibrücken, whom he actively aided in his struggle with Frederick for control of the province. After hearing about plans for an Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1452 Philip expressed his zealous interest in launching a crusade to save the city from its would-be conquerors, but a revolt in Ghent, which was among the most important of the Flemish cities under his dominion, prevented him from taking any action. Overall, this is a very engaging part of the study, & despite the disjointed narrative Vaughan is forced to spin for his reader due to the disparity of the subject matter it still manages to read in a coherent fashion. There are plenty of fascinating political alliances & scenarios to be found here, & much to Vaughan's credit he is able to admirably tell all of these stories without dividing the chapter into sub-sections.
Philip the Good's war with the rebellious Flemish city of Bruges is the chief area of focus in Chapter 10, The Ghent War: 1449-53, & according to two contemporary accounts of the period, the Dagboek van Gent & the Kronyk van Vlaanderen, the seeds of this conflict are sown when the duke levies a highly unpopular salt tax, known as a gabelle, in January 1447 which calls for a tax of 24 Flemish groats to be placed on every sack of salt sold in the Flanders region. Professor Vaughan provides a lengthy transcription of a flowery speech prepared by Philip the Good which explains the reasoning behind the gabelle & informs the citizens that, "This tax on salt will be paid by foreign merchants & others coming from abroad & by my own subjects, & it should harm no one, least of all ordinary people & the poor; nor will they have to continue paying out money daily, as they do now, for the above-mentioned aide, which is most burdensome to them." The tax creates such unrest that it divides the city into two factions, one supporting the duke & one favoring popular revolt. Philip the Good then issues another public statement, this one more akin to a manifesto, which essentially blames the citizens while downplaying the significance of the salt tax & thus his own level of culpability in the entire affair. The rest of the Flemish towns affected by the gabelle steadfastly side with Philip & Ghent is left to stand alone in its ultimately unsuccessful rebellion, though its inhabitants spare no expense in attempting to obtain outside assistance in their struggle against the duke. The author includes a copy of a petition, couched in flowery terms, from the city of Ghent to none other than the king of France, Charles VII 'the Victorious', asking for aid in their uprising : "Thus we are at war with our said lord & prince...& though it is most hard, difficult, & unpleasant for us...we intend, with the grace of God, to wage this war to the best of our ability & with all our power since, out of necessity & for the above reasons, we must conserve our rights, privileges, freedoms, liberties, customs & usages of which you, our sovereign lord, are guardian & protector...& we beseech you, most excellent & puissant prince, to remedy this state of affairs, about which we have informed you." The lengthy transcriptions of speeches & correspondence provided by the author offer fascinating glimpses of how official documentation was worded in the fifteenth century & the complex manner in which the Burgundian political machine interacted with its fiefs & territories.
In Chapter 11, Burgundy, France & the Crusade the author discusses the tensions which arose in the Burgundian court between Philip the Good's eldest son, Charles of Charolais, & the court's most politically powerful faction, the de Croys, from Crouy, in France's Picardy region. The Croys had become a powerful force in Burgundy since the time of Philip's father, John the Fearless, due to its reigning lord, Jehan de Croy, being the brother of Duke John's most famous mistress, Agnes de Croy. The future Charles the Bold was a forceful & authoritative figure in Burgundian politics from a young age, & Vaughan provides an excerpt from a document authored by the young prince admonishing the illegal poaching of hares & partridges in the Dijon area which speaks to this effect. He also includes another excerpt from the memoirs of Olivier de La Marche that offers a contemporary perspective of Charles of Charloais' personality: "He was hot-blooded, active & irritable &, as a child, wanted his own way & disliked rebuke. Nevertheless, he had such good sense & understanding that he resisted his natural tendencies &, as a youth, there was no one more polite & well-tempered." Vaughan continues: "More than anything, he had a natural love of the sea & ships. His pastime was falconry with merlins, & he hunted most willingly whenever he had time. He played chess better than anyone. He drew the bow more powerfully than any of those who were brought up with him. He played at quarterstaffs in the Picard fashion." Also canvassed in this chapter is the beginning of Philip the Good & Charles of Charolais' bitter estrangement, an ongoing quarrel with which the Duchess Isabella was to eventually side with her son & subsequently caused her to retire from the Burgundian political scene, much to her husband's chagrin. Later portions of the chapter devote themselves to such interesting topics as Philip's relationship with the cunning French dauphin, or crown prince, Louis XI, who became known as the 'Universal Spider' during his reign due to his penchant for espionage & political intrigue. Louis & his father, Charles VII 'the Victorious' did not have a particularly pleasant relationship, & he frequently rebelled against his sire's wishes. On one such occasion Louis sought refuge at the Burgundian court with Duke Philip, who sheltered & provided him apartments & an allowance to suit a prince's lifestyle, & upon Louis's succession following the death of Charles VII, Philip expected, quite reasonably, to have a trusted friend sitting on the French throne. "If so, he was soon disillusioned. The son who had rebelled against his father undertook now in deadly earnest to pursue his father's policies to their logical conclusion. In the long term, Louis's aim was nothing less than the total destruction of the Burgundian state."
In the closing pages of the study's twelfth & final chapter, The Close of the Reign: 1465-7, Richard Vaughan presents the subject of his biography in surprisingly unforgiving & dispassionate terms -- Philip was by no stretch a universally beloved potentate, not by any means or method of measure -- he was a flawed, flamboyant prince who spent recklessly & quarreled almost ceaselessly with his foul-tempered, volatile first-born son, who later became known as Charles the Bold, but his other name, Charles the Rash, was a much more appropriate sobriquet -- Philip the Good had gained his own moniker after sparing the citizens of Bruges from punishment after their unsuccessful rebellion, but his later behavior - boisterous, arrogant to a fault, self-serving, & at times cruel beyond reckoning, rendered the term 'the Good' most assuredly from a matter of perspective, & very much open to interpretation. "It was his grandiose & romantic concept of himself as a Valois prince of France & as the leader of a great European crusade which seems to have undermined his powers of practical statesmanship, especially toward the end of his reign. The failings of this self-assured & flamboyant ruler became more & more apparent as he grew older; his final fault, perhaps, was that he lived too long." Vaughan continues, later in the passage: "In the pursuit of pleasure & renown Philip the Good had enjoyed a measure of success given to few rulers of his time but, in spite of his early territorial successes, he had done little to consolidate his dynasty's precarious power." Overall, Philip the Good: Apogee of Burgundy is an exceptionally well-written study that manages to effectively tow the line between being an academic monograph & an engaging historical biography devoted to a very interesting figure whose deeds are seldom featured in English scholarship. It is recommended, but definitely not required, for the reader to have already undertaken a more general history of the Burgundy region, such as Bart Van Loo's outstanding The Burgundians: A Vanished Empire - A History of 1111 Years & One Day, prior to jumping into this entry, as that title presents Philip's reign in a more easily digestible writing style & format, making Vaughan's study that much more worthwhile to tackle. I hope you enjoyed the review, thank you so much for reading!
August 15, 2013
If you want to know about Philip the Good this is the way to go. A little dry, lots of politics, and even though it is an older publication, still the go to source for info on Philip. Great excerpts from letters and correspondence which give a nice glimpse into his life.
May 24, 2023
Hard to argue that Philip the Good's reign was something of a strategic failure because he lacked a coherent plan for confronting the French crown. This contrasts with his grandfather whose plan was to usurp the power of the French monarchy, and his father who sought to weaken his opponents within France in a faction struggle.
Could use more on the Burgundian economy and methods of raising finance.
Could use more on the Burgundian economy and methods of raising finance.
August 30, 2017
Link to my review of this book:
https://flhwnotesandreviews.com/2017/...
https://flhwnotesandreviews.com/2017/...
August 19, 2009
This is a landmark study of Philip the Good. The 2002 edition includes a new introduction with a bibliographic survey of research since the original publication (1970).
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