List of territories of the Valois dukes of Burgundy

Valois Burgundy at its greatest extent under Charles the Bold

From 1363 to 1477, the Valois dukes of Burgundy, a cadet branch of the French royal House of Valois, ruled over a domain that ultimately covered much of eastern France and the Low Countries. ^[1] Although sometimes referred to as the Burgundian state, ^[2] it was in fact a composite monarchy, ^[3] comprising an array of duchies, counties and lordships acquired by the dukes over time by a number of means and joined in personal union. ^[4] The Duchy of Burgundy itself was granted to the dynasty's founder Philip the Bold in 1363 by his father the French king. The dynasty's domains were then substantially added to, mainly by Philip himself and his grandson, Philip the Good.

Philip the Bold married Margaret of Flanders, and when her father died in 1384, he acquired through her inheritance not only the adjacent County of Burgundy and other lands in eastern France, but also Flanders in the Low Countries, with its concentration of wealthy urban areas. The next period of major expansion was in the 1420s and 1430s when Philip the Good added further extensive domains by purchase, diplomacy and inheritance. These were in eastern and north eastern France, but more significantly, in the Low Countries as well. The Brabantine inheritance of 1430 and the cession of Jacqueline of Hainaut's lands in 1433, when added to Flanders, meant that Philip's territories would include a powerful contiguous domain covering most of the Low Countries and referred to as the Burgundian Netherlands.

Finally, the last Valois duke, Charles the Bold, through almost continuous warfare after his accession in 1467, briefly extended the domains further but was killed in battle in 1477 without a male heir, the last of the dynasty being his daughter Mary of Burgundy. The Duchy of Burgundy itself was then absorbed back into France and most of the remaining territories, as a result of Mary's marriage to Maximilian of Habsburg, passed to the House of Habsburg, forming part of a much larger empire. ^[4]

Territories of the Valois dukes of Burgundy

The dukes' lands straddled the border areas between the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire and were divided into two groups of possessions. ^[4] In the south was the Duchy of Burgundy itself, and the neighbouring County of Burgundy (the modern Franche-Comté), a fief of the Empire. These possessions were separated from the Burgundian Netherlands in the north, where the Dukes derived most of their wealth, power and prestige. ^{[note 1]} Charles the Bold briefly united the southern and northern domains through conquest but these gains were lost with his death in 1477. ^[7]

The following is a list of territories held, at any time, by a Valois duke of Burgundy, either in their own right or jure uxoris . ^{[note 2]}

Territory	Acquired by	Date acquired	Means of acquisition	Subsequent history
Duchy of Burgundy	Philip the Bold	1363	Granted to Philip as an appanage by his father John II of France. [11]	Following the death of the last Valois duke, Charles the Bold at the Battle of Nancy, 1477, the Duchy returned to the French crown. [12]
County of Burgundy		1384	The territories were inherited by Philip's wife, Margaret of Flanders, from her father Louis of Male, Count of Flanders who died in 1384. Philip then took control of the territories and assumed the various comital and other titles. Margaret died in 1404, a year after Philip, and the territories were inherited by the next duke, John the Fearless, except Nevers and Rethel. [13] [14]	Seized by Louis XI after Charles the Bold's death but returned to Charles's heirs, the House of Habsburg, by the Treaty of Senlis, 1493. [15]
Lordship of Salins
County of Artois
Lordship of Mechelen				Following Charles the Bold's death in 1477, Flanders passed to the House of Habsburg through marriage to Charles's daughter and heir, Mary, [16] as did Mechelen (also known as Malines). [17]
Walloon Flanders
County of Flanders
County of Rethel				On Margaret's death in 1404, became appanages for Philip and Margaret's youngest son, Philip of Nevers and his descendants. [18] [19]
County of Nevers
County of Charolais		1390	Purchased by Philip for 60,000 francs from John III, Count of Armagnac. [20]	Seized by France on Charles the Bold's death in 1477, but returned to his Habsburg heirs by the Treaty of Senlis, 1493. [21]
Bailiwick of Mâcon	John the Fearless	1417	Seized by force from the French crown, [22] [23] confirmed by Treaty of Arras 1435. [24]	Annexed by Louis XI in 1477. [25]
County of Tonnerre		1419	Conquest from Louis de Chalons confirmed by royal grant in 1419. [26] [23]	Confirmed by Treaty of Arras 1435 as a royal enclave with the duke having administration rights. [27]
Péronne, Roye and Montdidier	Philip the Good	1420	Ceded by Charles VII and confirmed by the Treaty of Arras 1435. [28]	In 1477, Louis XI of France annexed Boulogne, [29] Auxerre, [25] Bar-sur-Seine, [30] Péronne, Roye and Montdidier. [31] [32]
County of Boulogne		1423	Seized in 1423 [28] and confirmed by the Treaty of Arras 1435. [24]
County of Auxerre		1424	Transferred by Henry VI, confirmed by Treaty of Arras 1435. [28]
Castellany of Bar-sur-Seine
County of Namur		1429	In 1421, Philip paid John of Namur 132,000 crowns for the inheritance rights. He succeeded John on his death in 1429. [33]	Following Charles the Bold's death in 1477, the territories passed to the House of Habsburg through marriage to Charles's daughter and heir, Mary. [16]
Duchy of Limburg		1430	John the Fearless's brother, Anthony, inherited the Duchy of Brabant from his great-aunt Joanna of Brabant on her death in 1406. [34] Anthony was succeeded by his two sons, the last of whom, Philip of St. Pol, bequeathed it to Philip the Good on his death in 1430. The succession, however, was not certain until confirmed by the Estates of Brabant later that year. [35] The Margraviate of Antwerp was a dependency of Brabant, [36] as was the Duchy of Limburg and the Lands of Overmaas. [37]
Lands of Overmaas
Margraviate of Antwerp
Duchy of Brabant [note 3]
County of Holland [note 4]		1433	The three counties had been in personal union since the 13th century. [33] During a period of internal conflict after the accession of Jacqueline, Countess of Hainaut, Philip intervened and was able to gain control over the counties leading, in 1433, to Jacqueline ceding all her rights to him. [45]
County of Zeeland
County of Hainaut
County of Ponthieu		1435	Transferred to Philip by the Treaty of Arras, 1435 [24] [28] [46]	In 1477, Louis XI of France annexed the Somme towns, [47] Ponthieu and Vermandois. [48]
County of Vermandois
The Somme towns
Duchy of Luxembourg		1443	In 1441, Philip pressured the childless Duchess of Luxembourg, Elizabeth of Görlitz, to appoint him as her heir in exchange for a pension of 7,000 florins per year. [49] In 1443, prior to her death, he seized the Duchy and paid off any rival claimants. On Elizabeth's death in 1451 he formally became Duke. [50]	Following Charles the Bold's death in 1477, the duchy passed to the House of Habsburg through marriage to Charles's daughter and heir, Mary. [16]
Lordship of Château-Chinon	Charles the Bold	1454	Through Charles's marriage with Isabella of Bourbon [51]	Passed to Charles's Habsburg heirs by Treaty of Senlis 1493 [30]
County of Ferrette		1469	Acquired [note 5] by Treaty of Saint-Omer from Sigismund of Habsburg as security for a loan of 50,000 Rhenish florins. [54] [55]	Lost in 1474 as a result of rebellion in Alsace. [53]
Breisgau
Landgraviate of Upper Alsace
County of Zutphen		1473	Charles seized the Duchy by force in 1473 during a dynastic dispute between Arnold, Duke of Guelders and his son. Shortly before Charles's invasion Arnold died and left the Duchy to him in his will. [56] The County of Zutphen was a dependency of and attached to the Duchy. [57]	With Charles's death in 1477, Guelders re-asserted its independence. [12] In the following decades, Charles's Habsburg heirs attempted to recover the Duchy but this was only achieved by his great-grandson, Charles V, in 1543. [58]
Duchy of Guelders
Duchy of Bar		1475	In 1475, Charles seized Lorraine by force from René II, Duke of Lorraine and had himself installed as Duke in December of that year. [59] Bar, a dependency of Lorraine, [60] was occupied as well. [61]	With Charles's defeat and death at the Battle of Nancy, January 1477, René II recovered the Duchies. [62]
Duchy of Lorraine

Notes

1. The two groups of domains were referred to as "our lands over here" and "our lands over there", originally from the perspective of where the duke happened to be when the reference was made. However, reflecting the changing focus of the Burgundian state, the Low Countries territories came to be permanently called the "lands over here" and the southern domains the "lands over there". ^[5] Nevertheless, Burgundy, as the dukes' original domain, continued to be at the heart of the polity's identity and, for example, the duke's subjects in the Low Countries even began referring to themselves as "Burgundians". ^[6]
2. Not included are territories held by other members of the House of Valois-Burgundy, such as the Prince-Bishopric of Cambrai where Philip the Good had his half-brother, John, appointed as bishop ^[8] or the County of Eu which John the Fearless's cousin, John of Nevers, inherited through his mother. ^[9] Also excluded are territories where the duke of Burgundy effectively exercised control but was not the ruler, such as the Prince-Bishopric of Liège or the Prince-Bishopric of Utrecht. ^[10]
3. The Duke of Brabant was also "Duke of Lothier" (that is, of Lower Lorraine ^[38] ). This was a titular honorific only, without any territory attached to it. ^[39]
4. The Count of Holland was also "Lord of Friesland". This was a titular lordship only, without political reality, but the title had, nevertheless, been used by the Counts of Holland since the 13th century. ^[40] In fact, unusually, feudalism did not exist in medieval Friesland ^[41] and it had no lord (the Frisian freedom). ^[42] Although the Emperor Maximilian I had attempted to impose Albert of Saxony as imperial lord over the area, ^[43] it was not until Charles V's annexation in 1524 that the Lordship of Friesland or Frisia was created. ^{[43] [44]}
5. In fact, the legal rights acquired in the territories were relatively limited. In addition to Sigismund being able to recover the domains on repayment of the loan, much of the lands were already mortgaged with the creditors having significant pre-existing rights. ^[52] The attempt to enforce full Burgundian control, despite this, led to a rebellion and loss of the territories in 1474. ^[53]

References

1. Beik 2009, pp. 3–4.
2. Stein 2017, p. 3.
3. Stein 2017, pp. 12, 14.
4. Stein 2017, p. 2.
5. Blockmans & Prevenier 1999, p. 142.
6. Stein 2017, p. 23.
7. Prak 2023, p. 15.
8. Blockmans & Prevenier 1999, p. 112.
9. Bicheno 2016, p. 133.
10. Hay 2016, p. 147.
11. Vaughan 2002a, p. 3.
12. Blockmans & Prevenier 1999, p. 195.
13. Stein 2017, pp. 18, 24–27.
14. Vaughan 2002a, pp. 16–17.
15. Maland 1982, pp. 98–99.
16. Kooi 2022, p. 21.
17. Munro 2015, p. 69.
18. Stein 2017, p. 32.
19. Tilley 1968, p. 169.
20. Vaughan 2002a, p. 93.
21. Osiander 2007, p. 476.
22. Vaughan 2002b, p. 181.
23. Stein 2017, p. 35.
24. Stein 2017, p. 45.
25. Scordia 2016, p. 203, footnote 42.
26. Vaughan 2002c, pp. 10, 180–181.
27. Small 1997, p. 53.
28. Vaughan 2002c, p. 18.
29. McDonald 1995, p. 262.
30. Duteil 2024, ch.4.
31. Potter 2003, pp. 37–38.
32. Lalanne 1877, p. 151.
33. Stein 2017, p. 36.
34. Blockmans & Prevenier 1999, p. 35.
35. Vaughan 2002c, pp. 51–52.
36. Stein 2017, p. 18.
37. Stein 2017, p. 27.
38. Bloch 2014, p. 416.
39. Lecuppre-Desjardin 2022, p. 262.
40. Stein 2017, pp. 18, 36–37.
41. Bloch 2014, p. 259.
42. Stein 2010, pp. 4–5.
43. Krahn 2012, p. 4.
44. Kennedy 2017, p. 99.
45. Stein 2017, pp. 38–40.
46. Vanthemsche & De Peuter 2023, p. 111.
47. Kekewich 2008, p. 240.
48. Greenfeld 2009, p. 64.
49. Douglas Smith & DeVries 2005, p. 125.
50. Blockmans 2006, p. 88.
51. Vaughan 2002c, p. 343.
52. Vaughan 2002d, pp. 86, 88.
53. Knecht 2007, p. 98.
54. Vaughan 2002d, pp. 86–89.
55. Remy 2011, p. 125.
56. Vaughan 2002d, pp. 117–120.
57. Vaughan 2002d, p. 112.
58. Tervoort 2004, p. 171.
59. Vaughan 2002d, pp. 354–356.
60. Monter 2007, p. 23.
61. Gauvard 2019, p. 744.
62. Monter 2007, pp. 21–23.

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