The Promised Lands. The Low Countries Under Burgundian Rule, 1369-1530 PDF
Preview The Promised Lands. The Low Countries Under Burgundian Rule, 1369-1530
The 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 This page intentionally left blank 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
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