Philip III le Bon of Burgundy

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

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

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

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

A critical and performance edition of Alexander Agricola's chanson "De tous biens plaine" for three voices. The cantus firmus of the tenor is extracted from Hayne Van Ghizeghem's (c. 1445 – 1476 to 1497) eponymous chanson.

The text of the first verse is underlaid in this edition, though only the first few words actually appear in the manuscript. The complete text as found in a number of Ghizeghem's sources with a complete translation is given at the end.

It seems unlikely that the outer voices should be sung, given their continual motion, frequent awkward leaps, and extreme ambitus.  However, the inner voice certainly could be sung.

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

Prelates, nobles and towns. The composition of the Estates of Brabant in the fifteenth century

Who were the members of the Estates of Brabant and could receive a summons letter for an assembly in the fifteenth century? In this study, I give an overview and an analysis of the composition of this representative institution on the basis of four undated summons lists. Given the importance of these lists for the political-institutional and social history of the Duchy of Brabant, a complete critical edition of the lists is the backbone of this study. Moreover, all listed persons are identified in brief biographical notes. New lists were composed by the ducal chancery on the occasion of major political events when the presence and participation of the (most powerful) representatives of the citizens was required. A closer examination showed that these summons lists were compiled on the occasion of the inauguration of Duke Anthony of Burgundy in 1406, the inauguration of Duke John IV in 1415 and to celebrate the peace concluded between Archduke Maximilian and the rebellious cities of Brabant in August 1489.  These lists, together with the Brabantine part of the convocation list for the Estates General of 1464, offer an overview of the  persons who were considered by their contemporaries as the political representatives of the three Estates: the clergy, the nobility and the Third Estate. This overview is then compared with the attendance at several important meetings of the Estates in the first quarter of the fifteenth century. To make the process of convocation yet more transparent, the lists are followed by a critical edition of some summons letters for the abbot of Park, Engelbert I of Nassau, lord of Breda, and the city of Antwerp.

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

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

A performance and critical edition of Agricola's two voiced polyphonic setting of "Gaudeamus omnes", Introit for the Feast of the Assumption. For two different recordings and video-scores of the piece see the links below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZnRmQ-B2Zc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxK8zd2hLEM

Only the incipit "Gaudeamus omnes in domino" appears with Agricola's music. The Introit text set to the chant cantus firmus used in this transcription is the text for the Introit for the Feast of the Assumption (also Gaudeamus omnes in domino).

Furthermore, Agricola only set down as semibreves each of the first 38 notes of the "Gaudeamus omnes in domino" chant. This transcription, following the example of Edward Learner's edition, reconstructs the remaining tenor notes. This edition differs from Learner's in that it uses the Introit chant for Assumption from Cambrai, Bibliotheque Municipale [F-CA], MS B-12, fol. 49r-v (c. 1500), rather than a British version from the Sarum rite.

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Gaudeamus omnes in domino,
diem festum celebrantes sub honore Mariae Virginis:
de cujus assumptione gaudent angeli,
et collaudant filium dei.

Let us all rejoice in the Lord
celebrating this day the feast in honor of the Virgin Mary,
in whose solemnity the angels rejoice,
and praising the Son of God.

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

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

A study and critical edition of Agricola's two voiced polyphonic setting of "Gaudeamus omnes", Introit for the Feast of the Assumption. This is intended for teaching various 14th and 15th century mensuration signs and their modern translations and persisting problems.

For two recordings and video-scores of the piece see the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZnRmQ-B2Zc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxK8zd2hLEM

Only the incipit "Gaudeamus omnes in domino" appears with Agricola's music. The Introit text set to the chant cantus firmus used in this transcription is the text for the Introit for the Feast of the Assumption (also Gaudeamus omnes in domino).

Furthermore, Agricola only set down as semibreves each of the first 38 notes of the "Gaudeamus omnes in domino" chant. This transcription, following the example of Edward Learner's edition, reconstructs the remaining tenor notes. This edition differs from Learner's in that it uses the Introit chant for Assumption from Cambrai, Bibliotheque Municipale [F-CA], MS B-12, fol. 49r-v (c. 1500), rather than a British version from the Sarum rite.

______________________________

Gaudeamus omnes in domino,
diem festum celebrantes sub honore Mariae Virginis:
de cujus assumptione gaudent angeli,
et collaudant filium dei.

Let us all rejoice in the Lord
celebrating this day the feast in honor of the Virgin Mary,
in whose solemnity the angels rejoice,
and praising the Son of God.

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

A transcription of Alexander Agricola's office hymn to the Virgin Mary, "Ave maris stella." Note the canonic inner tenor voices. This is one of Agricola's unicum.

For a recording and score video see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hE0rMPcBvo

The contemporary chroniclers mention a number of personal conflicts between the English and the Burgundian captains during the period of alliance such as those between Henry V and the Prince of Orange and the seigneur de L’Isle-Adam in 1420, between the earl of Salisbury and the duke of Burgundy in 1424 and eventually between the duke of Bedford and the duke of Burgundy. It has been accepted that the discord between the dukes may have been in place since 1429 eventually ruined their relations in 1433 after Bedford’s second marriage with Jacquetta de Luxembourg.
The paper aims to explore to what degree the Anglo-Burgundian relations and especially their joint efforts against the Dauphinists may have been influenced by such personal outbursts of anger or discord in comparison with the formal declarations of friendship like the Treaty of Amiens (1423), the current military situation and the general framework of the Treaty of Troyes

This short paper based on the payments in the war account of Jean Abonnel, receiver general of the duke of Burgundy, discusses respective shares of different categories of soldiers in the Burgundian contingent before Compiegne in 1430 and especially a very high percentage of gens de trait.

In addition to what is written in the theses it may be suggested that this domination of gens de trait in the Burgundian contingent must have resulted in the decision to give the battle to the Armagnac releif army in the defensive formation which allowed the enemy to effectively block the main forces of Anglo-Burgundians while successfully suppressing the bastides providing the siege.