Table Of ContentThe Promised Lands
THE MIDDLE AGES SERIES
Ruth Mazo Karras, General Editor
Edward Peters, Founding Editor
A complete list of books in the series
is available from the publisher.
The Promised Lands
The Low Countries
Under Burgundian Rule, 1369–1530
Wim Blockmans and Walter Prevenier
Translated by Elizabeth Fackelman
Translation revised and edited
by Edward Peters
PENN
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia
Originally published as In de ban van Bourgondië © 1988 by Fibula, Houten, the Netherlands.
English translation copyright © 1999 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104–4011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Blockmans, Willem Pieter.
[In de ban van Bourgondië. English]
The promised lands : the Low Countries under Burgundian rule,
1369–1530 / Wim Blockmans and Walter Prevenier ; translated by
Elizabeth Fackelman ; translation revised and edited by Edward
Peters.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8122-3130-9 (cloth : alk. paper). —
ISBN 0-8122-1382-3 (paper : alk. paper)
1. Netherlands — History — House of Burgundy, 1384–1477.
2. Netherlands — History — House of Habsburg, 1477–1556.
I. Prevenier, Walter. II. Title.
DH175.B57 1999
949.2'01 —dc211 98-48565
CIP
Contents
Editor's Note vii
Preface xi
The Dynasties of the Burgundian Low Countries xv
1. Perspectives on the Burgundian Dynasty in the Low 1
Countries
2. A New European Power in the Making, 1363–1405 14
3. Burgundian Interests in France and the Low Countries, 35
1404–1425
4. The Decisive Years, 1425–1440 72
5. The Difficult Path Toward an Integrated State, 1440–1465 103
6. The Promised Lands, 1440–1475 141
7. War, Crisis, and a Problematic Succession, 1465–1492 174
8. The Second Flowering, 1492–1530 206
9. The Burgundian Legacy 235
List of Abbreviations 243
Notes 245
Bibliography 265
Index 277
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Editor's Note
In de ban van Bourgondie, first published at Houtcn in 1988, instantly be-
came the best brief account in any language of the history of the Burgun-
dian Low Countries from 1369 to 1530. Combining political, diplomatic,
administrative, economic, social, artistic, and cultural history in a compact
volume of fewer than two hundred pages, its authors, Wim Blockmans and
Walter Prevenier, leading scholars in the great tradition of the University of
Ghent, had used the most recent research on the subject, much of it their
own, and produced a highly readable and accessible history.
This book had been preceded by the authors' classic, massive, and
superbly illustrated The Burgundian Netherlands, which had appeared si-
multaneously in 1983 in Dutch (as De Bourgondische Nederlanden) and in
French (Les Pavs-Bas bourguipinons). It appeared in an English translation in
1985, and in German as Die burgundische Niederlande in 1986. The Burgun-
dian Netherlands is a great and wonderfully illustrated book, but the need
for a shorter and more generally accessible version of the history was not
met until the publication of Blockmans and Prevenier's second book on the
subject, in 1988.
Characteristically on the part of the authors, in In de ban van Bourgon-
die they used research that had appeared after the publication of The Bur-
gundian Netherlands, and for the present translation they have incorporated
research that has been published since 1988, in several instances even while
the present translation was being revised. Therefore, this is virtually a new
edition of the Dutch original. Some of the revisions in this English version
have been incorporated in the second Dutch edition, De Bourgondiers: De
Nederlanden op weg naar eenheid, 1384-1530, published in Amsterdam and
Lcuven in 199".
In de ban van Bourgondie, like its longer predecessor, did not observe
the older and erroneous convention of ending discussions of Burgundian
rule in the Low Countries with the death of Charles the Bold in 1477.
Instead it traced the history of the Burgundian Low Countries for three
more generations of rulers, down to the death of the regent Margaret
of Austria in 1530 and the increasingly imperial scope of the rule of her
vm Editor's Note
nephew, the emperor Charles V For the present edition the authors have
added several new themes, updated much of the research data, included
notes, expanded the original bibliography, and oriented the book toward
an international readership.
I have made three general kinds of revisions in this text. First, I have
tried to group topics that were originally dispersed into a generally chrono-
logical sequence, adding subheads within chapters and dividing the original
Chapter 4 into the two present Chapters 5 and 6.
Second, I have revised some of the style of the original work. The
greatest difference between the original Dutch text and the present English
text hinges on the backgrounds of the different audiences for which they are
intended. In de ban van Eourgondie was written for a historically minded
audience in the Low Countries, about its own national histories. That
audience did not need the identifications and clarifications of points that it
knew well, but that arc generally unfamiliar to a more international au-
dience. Individual persons and topics, too, could be treated briefly at one
point, then reintroduced later in the text, and a regional audience that was
at least generally familiar with them would have no difficulty in identifying
them. Bryce Lyon has very kindly made many useful suggestions for revi-
sions, and the authors and I have usually followed his advice.
The book was written in a lively, almost conversational Dutch, for
which Elizabeth Fackelman provided an excellent literal translation, but
also one that needed extensive revision for an Anglophone audience. The
title, for example, means literally both "under the rule of Burgundy" and
"under the spell of Burgundy," a perfectly appropriate ambivalence for
Dutch readers but untranslatable in English. Moreover, the book traces the
history between 1369 and 1530 of a dynastically ruled group of very diverse
territories that survive today in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, and
parts of the modern French departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais. To
assemble such a "pragmatic empire" required both authority and persua-
sion—hence the double entendre of the Dutch title. Persuasion, the "spell,"
was no less important than authority and power — indeed, I have fallen
under this sense of the ban myself. But the "spell" of the title is not at first
self-explanatory. Hence the new title and the stylistic revisions.
Third, I have added identifications of people and places for the benefit
of readers who may be unfamiliar with the world of northwestern France in
the fourteenth, fifteenth, and early sixteenth centuries (or whose knowl-
edge of that world may be based largely on Johan Huizinga's The Waning of
the Middle Ages). Where it seemed necessary I have also given, at least at the
first or most important citation, both Dutch and French names of individ-
Editor's Note ix
uals and places. Otherwise, I have retained conventional English usage
where there is a convention — Ghent instead of Gent or Gand, Bruges
instead of Brugge, Maas instead of Meuse, I.ouvain instead of Leuven, but
also Mechelen instead of Malines. Generally, the term Low Countries is used
here for the territories from Artois, Hainault, Luxemburg, and Namur
north; the term Netherlands, which has modern political connotations that
did not exist in the period covered by this book, appears very infrequently.
Professors Prevenier and Blockmans, who have been my friends for
years and whose English is excellent, displayed remarkable patience and
tolerance for revisions that must have often come as a surprise, but they
have also read and approved even,' word of the present English version. Our
collaboration has been a happy one. I undertook this work not only because
of my affection and respect for the authors and the book, but also because of
my gratitude for the kindness and hospitality shown me by Belgian, Dutch,
and North American colleagues who work in the fields touched on in this
book. I am grateful to my former colleagues at the Katholieke Universiteit
Leuven — Werner Verbeke, Raymond van Uytven, Jan Goosens, Raphael
de Keyser, Daniel Verhelst, Eduard van Ermen, and Paul Trio; to friends
and colleagues at the Universiteit Gent, not only the authors, but also Ludo
Milis and Patricia Carson and Raoul van Caenegem. At the Katholieke
Universiteit Nijmcgcn in the Netherlands, Hans Thijssen kindly showed
me something of Gelderland and some of the Burgundian world outside
Brabant and Flanders. Several American scholars very kindly read early
versions of the Fackelman translation, especially Bryce Lyon and James
Murray. The scholarship of David Nicholas has taught me very much. My
own colleagues Ann Matter and Charles Minott helped and instructed me
immensely, as we designed and jointly taught a course in three departments
on the subject at the University of Pennsylvania in 1995 and 1997. Jerome
Singerman of the University of Pennsylvania Press accepted the original
idea of a translation and generously kept the project on his agenda during
several long delays.
The affection and work of dedicated colleagues is one of the joys of
the academic profession. My work on this book is a small acknowledgment
of the character of an academic community that extends across several mod-
ern countries and one large ocean. Thanks to these international associa-
tions, contemporary boundaries fade, older communities with different
geographical and cultural outlines become more clearly visible, and the
ocean turns out not to be as large as it appears.
Edward Peters
