The War of the Public Weal (French: La guerre du Bien public) was a conflict between the king of France and an alliance of feudal nobles, organized in 1465 in defiance of the centralized authority of King Louis XI of France. [2] It was masterminded by Charles the Bold, Count of Charolais, son of the Duke of Burgundy, with the king's brother Charles, Duke of Berry, as a figurehead. The rebels succeeded in attaining concessions from the crown after several months of fighting, though conflict would break out again between the league and the crown in the Mad War of 1485 in a decisive victory for the crown.
In keeping with the policies of previous Capetian and Valois monarchs, Louis asserted the supremacy of the king within the territory of France. Over the course of the preceding centuries, and during the Hundred Years' War, the French kings had effected an administrative unification of the country. Unlike Germany, which languished as a miscellany of feudal factions, France emerged from the Middle Ages as a centralized state. But this centralization was opposed by the "League of the Public Weal" (Ligue du bien public), whose nobles sought to restore their feudal prerogatives. [3]
Charles the Bold, as heir to the duke of Burgundy, whose fiefs in France included Flanders, and who held the Imperial lands of Holland and Brabant, sought to make the Duchy of Burgundy independent of the French throne. He aspired to forge it into a kingdom of his own between France and Germany, stretching between the North Sea on the north and the Jura Mountains on the south; and from the Somme River on the west to the Moselle River on the east. This kingdom would restore the ancient kingdom of Lotharingia—approximating the former domains of the Frankish Emperor Lothair I. [4]
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To defend himself against the alliance of rebellious nobles arrayed against him, Louis XI allied with Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, and the people of Liège.
Louis XI, who enjoyed the effective support of Gaston IV, Count of Foix, had an army of 30,000 men. At the beginning of hostilities in May and June 1465, he attacked the Bourbonnais center of the country. Then he began a race to the capital against the Breton and Burgundian armies. Before they joined forces, the king decided to confront the Burgundian army led by the Count of Charolais. The Battle of Montlhéry was fought on 16 July 1465 in the vicinity of Longpont-sur-Orge, south of Paris. The events of the battle are confused. Both parties claimed the victory. The Count of Charolais remained master of the field. But Louis XI reduced the Burgundian army, then cautiously ordered a strategic retreat during the night, and returned to Paris with a "victorious" army (although his uncle the Count of Maine had fled the battlefield with a third of the royal troops). The king strengthened the capital's faltering authority.
However, the king's position weakened after the confrontation, especially as he was unable to prevent the junction, on 19 July, of the Burgundian and Breton armies, soon joined by the Counts of Armagnac and Albret and the Duke of Lorraine.
After entering Paris on 18 July, Louis XI organized the defense. The feudal princes besieged Paris. Louis XI left the city on 10 August. He went to Rouen and rallied the royal party, assembled provisions, and returned to Paris on 28 August, with powerful reinforcements. A truce was signed on September 3, which did not prevent the Leaguers from taking Pontoise and Rouen. Fighters on both sides did not quite know how to end the conflict. Louis XI pretended to yield.
Louis XI signed three peace treaties:
Louis XI did not observe the conditions for long.
Louis XI forgave some of the rebels, but some were also punished:
In 1468, Charles the Bold formed a new league with Charles of France, Duke John of Alençon and Francis II, Duke of Brittany, with the support of Edward IV of England. But Louis XI was strongly supported by the States General at Tours in April, and succeeded in separating Francis II and Charles of France from the Leaguers (Treaty of Ancenis).
Both Charles and Louis were prone to overreaching themselves, and Louis's machinations nearly resulted in military defeat at Charles's hands. However, insurrections in his newly acquired territories of Lorraine and Switzerland weakened Charles's efforts. Charles himself was killed in the Battle of Nancy against the Swiss, and Louis was saved from his greatest adversary. He had already taken his revenge on Charles's allies within France. The great duchy of Burgundy was then absorbed into the kingdom of France. The League of the Public Weal was routed in its every objective.
The Mad war, a later conflict in France from 1485 that also featured a League of the Public Weal fighting against the French king
The Capetian House of Valois was a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty. They succeeded the House of Capet to the French throne, and were the royal house of France from 1328 to 1589. Junior members of the family founded cadet branches in Orléans, Anjou, Burgundy, and Alençon.
Louis XI, called "Louis the Prudent", was King of France from 1461 to 1483. He succeeded his father, Charles VII. Louis entered into open rebellion against his father in a short-lived revolt known as the Praguerie in 1440. The king forgave his rebellious vassals, including Louis, to whom he entrusted the management of the Dauphiné, then a province in southeastern France. Louis's ceaseless intrigues, however, led his father to banish him from court. From the Dauphiné, Louis led his own political establishment and married Charlotte of Savoy, daughter of Louis, Duke of Savoy, against the will of his father. Charles VII sent an army to compel his son to his will, but Louis fled to Burgundy, where he was hosted by Philip the Good, the Duke of Burgundy, Charles's greatest enemy.
Charles Martin, called the Bold, was the last duke of Burgundy from the House of Valois-Burgundy, ruling from 1467 to 1477. He was the only legitimate son of Philip the Good and his third wife, Isabella of Portugal. As heir and as ruler, Charles vied for power and influence with rivals such as his overlord, King Louis XI of France. In 1465 Charles led a successful revolt of Louis's vassals in the War of the Public Weal.
The County of Armagnac, situated between the Adour and Garonne rivers in the lower foothills of the Pyrenées, was a historic county of the Duchy of Gascony, established in 601 in Aquitaine. In 960, the title of 'Count of Armagnac' was established, and thus the County of Armagnac was created. In 1751, following the death of childless Charles de Lorraine, Comte d'Armagnac, the county was absorbed into the Crown lands of France and the King, then Louis XV took the title of 'Count of Armagnac'. In 1791, following the decree dividing France into departments, the county was disestablished, but remains an important natural region of France.
Francis II was Duke of Brittany from 1458 to his death. He was the grandson of John IV, Duke of Brittany. A recurring theme in Francis' life would be his quest to maintain the quasi-independence of Brittany from France. As such, his reign was characterized by conflicts with King Louis XI of France and with his daughter, Anne of France, who served as regent during the minority of her brother, King Charles VIII. The armed and unarmed conflicts from 1465 to 1477 and 1484–1488 have been called the "War of the Public Weal" and the Mad War, respectively.
Duke of Berry or Duchess of Berry was a title in the Peerage of France. The Duchy of Berry, centred on Bourges, was originally created as an appanage for junior members of the French royal family and was frequently granted to female royals. The style "Duke of Berry" was later granted by several Bourbon monarchs to their grandsons. The last official Duke of Berry was Charles Ferdinand of Artois, son of Charles X. The title Duke of Berry is currently being claimed through its usage as a courtesy title by Prince Alphonse de Bourbon, son of Prince Louis, Duke of Anjou, the Legitimist claimant to the French Throne.
Charolais is a historic region of France, named after the central town of Charolles, and located in today's Saône-et-Loire département, in Burgundy.
The Armagnac faction was prominent in French politics and warfare during the Hundred Years' War. It was allied with the supporters of Charles, Duke of Orléans against John the Fearless after Charles' father Louis of Orléans was killed on a Paris street on the orders of the Duke of Burgundy on 23 November 1407.
The Burgundian party was a political allegiance against France that formed during the latter half of the Hundred Years' War. The term "Burgundians" refers to the supporters of the Duke of Burgundy, John the Fearless, that formed after the assassination of Louis I, Duke of Orléans. Their opposition to the Armagnac party, the supporters of Charles, Duke of Orléans, led to a civil war in the early 15th century, itself part of the larger Hundred Years' War.
Charles, Duke of Berry, later Duke of Normandy and Duke of Aquitaine, was a son of Charles VII, King of France. He spent most of his life in conflict with his elder brother, King Louis XI.
The Treaty of Conflans was signed on 5 October 1465 between King Louis XI of France and Count Charles of Charolais. This treaty was signed months after the Battle of Montlhéry, where the French dukes of Alençon, Burgundy, Berry, Bourbon and Lorraine fought King Louis to a standstill.
Louis de Luxembourg, Count of Saint-Pol, of Brienne, de Ligny, and Conversano belonged to the Ligny branch of the House of Luxemburg and was Constable of France.
The House of Valois-Burgundy, or the Younger House of Burgundy, was a noble French family deriving from the royal House of Valois. The Valois-Burgundy family ruled the Duchy of Burgundy from 1363 to 1482 and eventually came to rule vast lands including Artois, Flanders, Luxembourg, Hainault, the county palatine of Burgundy (Franche-Comté), and other lands through marriage, forming what is now known as the Burgundian State.
The Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War was a conflict between two cadet branches of the French royal family: the House of Orléans and the House of Burgundy from 1407 to 1435. It began during a lull in the Hundred Years' War against the English and overlapped with the Western Schism of the papacy.
The crown lands, crown estate, royal domain or domaine royal of France were the lands, fiefs and rights directly possessed by the kings of France. While the term eventually came to refer to a territorial unit, the royal domain originally referred to the network of "castles, villages and estates, forests, towns, religious houses and bishoprics, and the rights of justice, tolls and taxes" effectively held by the king or under his domination. In terms of territory, before the reign of Henry IV, the domaine royal did not encompass the entirety of the territory of the kingdom of France and for much of the Middle Ages significant portions of the kingdom were the direct possessions of other feudal lords.
This article describes the process by which metropolitan France - that part of France that is located in Europe, excluding its various overseas territories - came to consist of the territory it does today. Its current borders date from 1947.
The House of Armagnac is a French noble house established in 961 by Bernard I, Count of Armagnac. It achieved its greatest importance in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The Battle of Montlhéry was fought between Louis XI and the League of the Public Weal on 16 July 1465 in the vicinity of Longpont-sur-Orge. It had no clear winner and therefore did not decide the war.
The Battle of Montenaken was fought between the forces of Liège and the Burgundian State on 20 October 1465 as part of the First Liège War. Although outnumbered, the Burgundian force succeeded in routing the militia of Liège, inflicting heavy casualties.
The Burgundian State was a polity ruled by the Dukes of Burgundy from the late 14th to the late 15th centuries, and which ultimately comprised not only the Duchy and County of Burgundy but also the Burgundian Netherlands. The latter, acquired piecemeal over time and largely through inheritance, was, in fact, their principal source of wealth and prestige. The Dukes were members of the House of Valois-Burgundy, a cadet branch of the French royal House of Valois, and the complex of territories they ruled is sometimes referred to as Valois Burgundy. The term "Burgundian State" was coined by historians and was not in contemporary use; the polity remained a collection of separate duchies and counties in personal union under the Duke of Burgundy.