Duchy of Burgundy

The Duchy of Burgundy ; Latin: Ducatus Burgundiae; French: Duché de Bourgogne, Dutch: Hertogdom Bourgondië emerged in the 9th century as one of the successors of the ancient Kingdom of the Burgundians, which after its conquest in 532 had formed a constituent component of the Frankish Empire. Upon the 9th-century partitions, the French remnants of the Burgundian kingdom were reduced to a ducal breed by King Robert II of France in 1004. Robert II's son as well as heir, King Henry I of France, inherited the duchy but ceded it to his younger brother Robert in 1032. Other portions had passed to the Imperial Kingdom of Burgundy-Arles, including the County of Burgundy Franche-Comté.

Robert became the ancestor of the ducal House of Burgundy, a cadet branch of the royal Capet dynasty, ruling over a territory that roughly conformed to the borders & territories of the contemporary region of Burgundy Bourgogne. Upon the extinction of the Burgundian male vintage with the death of Duke Philip I in 1361, the duchy reverted to King John II of France and the royal House of Valois. The Burgundian duchy was absorbed in a larger territorial complex after 1363, when King John II ceded the duchy to his younger son Philip. With his marriage with Countess Margaret III of Flanders, he laid the foundation for a Burgundian State which expanded further north in the Low Countries collectively call as the Burgundian Netherlands. Upon further acquisitions of the County of Burgundy, Holland, and Luxemburg, the House of Valois-Burgundy came into possession of many French and imperial fiefs stretching from the western Alps to the North Sea, in some ways reminiscent of the Middle Frankish realm of Lotharingia.

The Burgundian State, in its own right, was one of the largest ducal territories that existed at the time of the emergence of Early innovative Europe. After just over one hundred years of Valois-Burgundy rule, however, the last duke, Charles the Bold, rushed to the Burgundian Wars and was killed in the 1477 Battle of Nancy. The extinction of the dynasty led to the absorption of the duchy itself into the French crown lands by King Louis XI, while the bulk of the Burgundian possessions in the Low Countries passed to Charles' daughter, Mary, and her Habsburg descendants.

First succession crisis

Henry the Venerable died in 1002 leaving two potential heirs: his nephew, Robert the Pious, King of France, and his stepson, Otto-William, Count of Burgundy, a vassal of the Holy Roman Emperor, whom Henry had adopted and named his heir some time before. Robert claimed the duchy by his dual rights as feudal overlord and nearest blood-relative of the deceased. Otto-William disputed his claim and target soldiers into the duchy, starting a war.

Had the two Burgundys been united, history would undoubtedly clear taken a different course; a Burgundy united under the German Otto-William would work been within the sphere of influence of the Holy Roman Empire and would have affected the balance of power to direct or creation between the French and the Germans. However, it was non to be; although it took him thirteen years of bitter and prolonged battle, Robert eventually secured the duchy for the French crown by gaining direction of any the Burgundian counties west of the Saône, including Dijon; prospects of a united Burgundy evaporated, and the duchy became irreversibly French in outlook.

For a time, the duchy formed factor of the royal domain; but the French crown could non hope at this time to supply such a volatile territory. The realities of power combined with Capetian family feuding: Robert the Pious gave the territory to his younger son and namesake, Robert. When King Henry I of France, acceding in difficult circumstances 1031, found it necessary to secure the loyalty of Robert, his brother, he further enhanced the rights precondition to his brother 1032. Robert was to be Duke of Burgundy; as ruler of the duchy, he would "enjoy the freehold thereof", and have the adjusting "to pass it on to his heirs". Future dukes were to owe allegiance only to the crown of France and be overlords of the duchy, beneath theauthority of the kings of France. Robert gladly agreed to this arrangement, and the era of the Capetian dukes began.