Gone Medieval - The Burgundians

Episode Date: December 4, 2021

Battles, murders, and forgotten treasures - the Burgundians lived life like an episode of Game of Thrones. Once one of the most powerful kingdoms in Western Europe, they are now known as a vanished empire. This week Matt is joined by historian and author Bart van Loos to discuss who exactly were the Burgundians, their contribution to history and culture, and together they examine how a kingdom once the epicentre of trade and art, could fall through the gaps of our knowledge. If you’re enjoying this podcast and looking for more fascinating Medieval content, then subscribe to our Medieval Monday newsletter here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval from History Hits. I'm Matt Lewis. I'm excited today to talk about one of the most fascinating and not quite fleeting, but certainly long-gone states of medieval Europe. Burgundy was nominally a vassal state of the Crown of France, but successive dukes had very different ideas. An opulent centre of trade, art and culture that many look to enviously as a template, its grand schemes ultimately came to nothing.

Bart Van Lowe is the author of the incredible new book, The Burgundians, A Van Goghans, A Vanished Empire, a history of 11111 years and one day. I'm delighted to be joined by Bart to get his expert insights into this ambitious dukedom. Thanks for joining us, Bart. Thanks for having me. Why do you feel that the Burgundians was an important book to write, can you tell us a little bit about who they were and how the Burgundian state came to be and why it grew to be important? Yes, I have to talk about myself in the first place because, yes, I wrote several books about French history, music, literature. I became who I am by immersing myself in French culture, by looking southbound across the border. But one day I just asked myself a simple question and what about here?

How could I have been so neglectful of my roots over all these years? And I wanted to unearth my roots. And then, if you want to do so, our national historiography is full of book-length works, explaining how the low countries broke up at the end of the 16th century, dividing the Northern Netherlands from the Southern Netherlands. And that's what became ultimately the Netherlands and Belgium. And that's what we are taught at school. They say, our history begins with a separation.

It's rather sad. And it isn't true. Our common history starts earlier. And in the meantime, it is European history of the highest order. So just to explain it very simply, let's take a look at the map of Europe at the end of the Middle Ages. And what do we see on the continent? We see two big powers. We have the kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire.

In between, we see a big border who is likely going to survive forever. And of course, we, I'm talking about we, later on Belgium and Holland, we exist. Flanders, Hainaut, Brabant, Holland, Zealand, etc. But either we belong to France or to the Holy Roman Empire. So, collectively spoken, we didn't exist. And then, in the 4th, 15th century, we see a peer, a new state, between those two superpowers. And that is us, the low countries, the Lagerlandas, we call it in Dutch. And that, now it's it, but that we owe to the jukes of the forgotten dukes of Burgundy.

It's a fruit of their labor. And I was wondering, why? Never. Anybody, explain me that. And what is, just to put it in another way. Me, a 40-year-old Dutch-speaking Belgian, I am unexplicable. without the dukes of Burgundy. And what is very nice for me as a writer, and I hope also for the readers, is that in the same time, I'm happy to observe that that history is a kind of game of thrones with banquet steaks and battles and murders and adultery, busters. It's all in it.

The only thing that only the dragons are absent, but with a very good reason, because this is a game of thrones that really happened. We've got schizophrenic kings and aggressive dukes, brilliant artis. And on top of that, I have to open a treasure chest with masterpieces of long-forgotten artists, but also some very known artists like Jan van Eyck, Rohir van der Weiden, who we know that they exist, but we never see them in the web where we have to see them, the web of the dukes of Burgundy. So it's geopolitical adventures, it's violence and beauty, it's pump and circumstance, so there's lot of in it. We can probably end there. I'm pretty sure you've sold the book to everybody on that

basis. It sounds incredible already. Yes, but that is just, you know, I worked almost four years, but you're a writer too. So it took me four years to write it to do research. So I had to have a subject. I had to fall in love with it. It had to be huge and impressively interesting. And it was. So it's an adventure, but it also is the story of our founding fathers. Yes. Did you think that it was going to be more difficult to draw out these stories of the Dukes of Burgundy and that it might be a difficult process only to find that actually

there was an awful lot of material that's often not being looked at and there are some great stories there that need to be told? I was, in the beginning I think about when I'm going to write a new book, I want to find a subject and a subject that is, it has to be interesting so I can spend three or years with it. And then I have to find the form, a structure in which I will put the book, because there was too much to write about. If we commence, the normal beginning should be the 19th of June 1369 when the Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Bald, is coming to Flanders to get married with the daughter of the Count of Flanders, Margaret of Flanders, she's the

say the richest hair in Europe. And that is great because we know that before he goes to his own wedding, he's taking a bath, that he's sprinkling himself with violet perfume. I like those details. He looks through the windows. He sees the most illustrious counts and jokes of Europe strut across the church like peacocks. And I'm happy writing it. I see everything before me. But still, I'm getting in trouble because there is too much to talk about. I have to explain the 100 years worse. I have to explain the feudalism, the Capetians. It's too much for me. It's too much for

the reader. So I have a problem and I'm looking for a solution and by finding the solution I find the structure of my book, the structure that will, I hope, solve all my problems. So there is one thing. I have to keep my book from buckling under the weight of information

that I could not assume every reader might have at hand. And so I thought in the first place, maybe I can start just a century earlier. That might do the trick. Not far enough as it turned out, so it became a millennium earlier. And that was fascinating because there had the structure of my book. I saw it immediately before me. The first part is spans almost a thousand years. The next part comprises a century. The third part's a decade. The fourth and the fifth deal with deal with exactly a year. and one day. And then we have the subtitle, one

thousand, 111 years and one day. It's a truth. And it helps me because in the beginning, I have to summarize the medieval times, the Middle Ages. In 50 pages, I have to warn the readers. There are a lot of names in the 51st pages. Don't worry. You don't have to remember all of them. And then we end up with Philip the Bolt. We will find him again in his bath, sprinkling himself with violet perfume. We'll find him again. And then everybody I know has the luggage to understand what I am talking about.

And then it's smooth sailing because then we are following the four dukes. So a lot to talk about. And so I was really surprised that there's no book that really explained it when you're looking for a book about War of the Roses or even the Hundred Years' War. war, you find the French point of view, you find the English point of view, but you never find the Flemish or the point of view of the low countries, the Burgundian point of view. And that's what I did, I think. And I think that's a big hole, isn't it? Because I think Burgundy, whether you look at it from the point of view of the English or the French during the

100 years war or the wars of the roses or any of those periods, Burgundy are really pivotal to what's going on. They are, to some extent, the major power. brokers in some of these arguments, but as you say, nothing is ever looked at from their perspective. It's always the English relationship with Burgundy or the French relationship with Burgundy looking inward, rather than being a Burgundian looking outward at what's going on. So I think that's where this book is going to fill some really big holes in people's knowledge and understanding and where it's going to have some real value. So how do you think that the Burgundians came to become almost a separate state from the French crown?

So it starts off as a dukedom, a vassal state of the French crown. How do they come to assert some independence and then to kind of really jealously guard that? Well, after everything begins with the, we talked about him, Philip de Bolt was, he's completely unknown. Also in our country, but he's a fascinating person, and I discovered him. And we'll say, he's, as I said, the first of the four dukes, who are at the center of my book, He was just at the beginning. He was the youngest son of the French king, John the Good. So in the first place, he's a French prince.

But due to his heroism in the Battle of Poitier, and you know the Battle of Poitier, you English, because he's a hundred years, or you won the battle, so you're very happy with it. Even the French talk about it, even it's a disaster for them. He was awarded for his heroism with the Duchy of Burgundy. After the latest Capitian Duke was killed by the plague, So our first founding father was really a man of his age. He owes his name to Philip de Bolt.

They gave him that name. He owes it to the Hundred Yearswar and his land. He owes it to the plague. And then he could marry Flanders. He offered to Flanders to convince the Count of Flanders. He offered the north of France. Nor the France, France, it was a part of Flanders and Artesia. He gave to the Count of Flanders.

and it should be given back later on, but he didn't do so. That never happened. It was a very cunning plan of Philip the Bolt, and Flambos was filthy rich, and the combination of Burgundy and Flambus was golden. But he stayed faithful, Philip, to the king, the French king. First it was his father, then his beloved brother, and that changed.

Everything changes with his son, John the Fearless. What a nice nickname he has. John the Fearless, only one John the Fearless. Do you have the fearless in English history? Is there someone? We're not very good at giving names to our kings in that kind of way. We have Alfred the Great and probably Richard the Lionheart, but nothing else. So it's a very, the French do it a lot, don't they?

They give lots of their kings these odd nicknames, Louis the Fat and Louis the Bold and all of those kinds of things. But the Burgundians really get it down with calling them the bold and the fearless and the good. And I think even that Richard Lionheart, he was speaking French most of the French. So at the beginning, he was named Richard Cueux de Lyon, and you just translated it. But it's all right. And no, no, so John the fearless, because John DeFielders, he wanted to keep the power of his father. His father was, because we had a mad king in France, he was the first pair, as we say in French. So he was not in name, but officially he was kind of a king in France.

He was the most powerful man in the lead in France. And so his son, he wants to keep that, but he's, John DeFaelus, he's only a grandson of the king of France. So it's difficult to keep that power. And he tries to, he's going to murder. There we have the Games of Thrones stories. He's going to murder the brother of the mad king. But afterwards, some years later, he will be killed himself on the bridge of Montereaux. And there is where he got the split up between a weakened France and an power-growing,

Burgundy. And that goes on with Philip the good, the third one, and perhaps the most important, he's really the founding father of the low countries, he's puzzling all those pieces into one puzzle, so by marriages, by conquest, by buying sometimes the Dutches who don't have any money more to go on living. So he buys them. And it will go on with him and it will gain its

hive with that animosity with France with Charles the Bold. Carol de Stouthe, Sechle Le Temeierre in French. You get those nicknames in all those languages and he will end up by with the foundation of the Parliament of Mechelen and that is very important. It's the highest court in the Netherlands. Before you had to go for the great lawsuit, you had to go to France. And he ends. It's the end of a certain power of France in our countries. And on the other hand, most parts of the low countries, they owed feudal elegancy to the emperor

of the Holy Roman Empire. So the Burgundy was in his entirety not that much dependent anymore of France. And so we got really a third state in Europe. We got Germany, the Holy Roman Empire, France, and the low countries, the Burgundian low countries. And do you think that independence, that emergence as this third state, was a deliberate thing? Was it something the Dukes wanted to achieve or did it just happen and evolve over the years? Yes, was there a theological aim? We don't know in the beginning. I really want to meet Philip the Bolt.

He is the one because he was the beginning. He is the one who gets Burgundy and Flanders together. He will organize a double marriage with Holland, Zealand and he know. He's incredible. But was he thinking of that? Of creating a new state between France and the Holy Roman Empire? I think if you are really honest, I don't think so. I don't think that he could look so far.

But his grandson, Philip the Good, it changes because he sees a lot of possibilities in the North and he has to think about it. and he has to, he's confronted with a huge problem because he has a lot of new duchies and countries, he puts it, say, countries in one bag, but it's not by putting a lot of countries in one back that immediately you create a sense of unity. And to illustrate myself, I just have to whisper one name, Europe. It's a European problem avant la letter, and he's going to do huge reforms so people can pay with the same money.

It's a euro Avant la Lettre he will create in the low countries He's changing the jurisdictional way of doing things, the financial organization, and he will instore the first general states of Flanders. It's the beginning of a democratic existence,

a democratic way of organizing things in the low countries. So we really is thinking about making a new country and he dreams of being king, his son, Charles de Bolt is one centimeter of being king of Burgundy that at the end it fails. But you can say that in the beginning it was just something happened. Philip the Bolt did very well.

And then going on and going on, they became aware of the possibility of creating really a new country, a new estate between two superpowers. And I think in my mind, at least, Burgundy represents something of a cultural microclimate. that often seems in many ways ahead of or at least very different from a lot of its neighbours. Is this something that the Dukes of Burgundy were keen to cultivate as part of their image, to be different, to be artistically perhaps more advanced? That's very interesting. I was waiting for one word, and you put it at the end of your question, artistically, that is really a great difference. There is one thing. They really are true.

arts lovers, but you need money to pay artists. And then there is Flanders. It's the richest regions of Europe, so they can afford themselves to pay the greatest artist to leave the northern regions and to come to Burgundy. That is very interesting. It's never told in our history, but I discovered that he's building a monastery in Dijon. So in Burgundy, in the south, in the old dutchy. And to decorate that monastery, he will pay artists from the north, so artists from Flanders, Holland, he know, Brabant, to come to Burgundy and to create masterpieces. And that is very, I am thinking about a sculpture like Klaas Luter, Klaas Luter, we don't know him, but he's the forgotten Michelangelo of the low countries who will make the monumental funeral monument of

Philip the Bolt. It's one of the most beautiful things ever made by a, uh, a, again. guy who came from Holland who learned everything in Brussels and made the most beautiful sculptures in in in in in in in in in there are others that there when you have um the woodcarver jacob de barge you have painters like bruderlam you have painters like mawal and it's the first names of painters we know there were painters before of course we didn't have their names there we have for the first time their names and you have to see it as this so you have to consider them as a kind of artistic ambassadors then coming from the north northern regions and they will go to Burgundy to work there and they will talk their middle

Dutch and middle French in Burgundy all packed up in one wonderful yard and there we see life in action for the first time in history the concept of the low countries and that is so exciting we are born in the fine arts the fine arts was our cradle and I find this such a tenta idea that I could really understand that you would heave a great sigh of arousal at the very thought, Matt, because the unification of the low countries first occurred in the arts and only later on became a political reality. Could there be a better, a more mesmerizing idea of origin? And it's so unique because you think so many of the states of Europe, the kingdoms of Europe are forged in war rather than anything else. It tends to be the strongest, most powerful

person on the battlefield will ultimately take control, whereas Burgundy and the Low Countries is born out of an artistic movement that turns into a nation state, which is quite unique. That's the beginning. Of course, they were rude battlers and they are doing wars afterwards, but there is a lot of beauty going on in this story. And you see it when you take a look at their banquets. It is very interesting. If you think, I don't know if you know, but burgundy, you think of banquets. You think of eating and drinking. And for instance, what do they do? Because we are in, we are way before 1492. So before the great discoveries, it means that bread is very important in those meals because we don't have potatoes. We don't have turkey eater, no coffee, no tomatoes.

even no chocolate. It's horrible. But those Burgundian banquets were happenings without comparison. I can just some examples. They dressed hazel grouses and golden habits, served porks in the shape of a fish, fixed the cat's ear on a hair, cooked a dozen, gentic eggs in pork bladders. They stuffed, I like this a lot, just I could go on for pages, but just one example. They stuffed pork bellies with strings of sausages. So when the pork was thrown, on the table, the belly burst open and the sausages spurted onto the table like grandiose rosary beads. It's incredible. There are anecdotes and I like anecdotes, but they are very instrumental because we can really ask ourselves a fundamental question, a simple question, why did they do

so those dukes of Burgundy? And now it became a matter of international politics because we are in the midst of the Hundred Years' Wars. England and France have become a pale copy. of their ancient power. They knocked each other knock out. They are almost passed out. There is a power vacuum in Europe. And the Burgundians, they want to fill that up. But they are very well aware of the fact that they are no kings. They are just Duke. So they jump in the vacuum with pomp and circumstance, with medieval bling, bling, so that everybody at the end, everybody around could only say that is what kings is about. Those dukes are really royal.

And so you see that they're artistic souls, they big investments in paintings, in banquets, in beauty. It's true art-loving, but it's also propaganda of the highest order. But it's not only propaganda. It's real beauty. But it was propaganda also. Never forget that. If you love ancient history, then don't worry. We've got you covered.

I'm Tristan Hughes, host of the ancients podcast, the podcast for all things ancient history. And these are the only surviving boxing gloves from the Roman Empire. And the earliest surviving boxing gloves for over 1,600 years. So through this material, we're actually looking at this entangled sum of hundreds and thousands, in fact, of stories of life across ancient Eurasia. Bards of Cleopatra, I had never come across any such thing before. Subscribe to The Ancients on History Hit, wherever you get to your podcasts. So if we allow that they were genuinely interested in the art itself and the beauty of it,

there was also an element of trying to become kings by looking like you are kings. If you behave like a king, if you act like a king, if you spend money like a king, everyone will think you're a king. You spend more money than like a king even at the time being. You had the best, a better artist and better singers of polyphony. You spend more money than kings do. You have the better artists than kings have. You have the better singers for the polyphonia than the English and the French kings have.

We don't even talk about the German emperor. And yes, they were showing off. That's right. But it worked. It worked. And they set a new model. because French kings afterwards, at the end of the fall of Burgundy, they will copy them and they will go on by promoting artists and banquets.

So it's a Burgundian model who has been followed afterwards. My own knowledge of Burgundy really is derived from the many points of contact that it has with English history. So it's central to the Hundred Years' War, as we've discussed, and also during the Wars of the Roses, which is where I'm most at home. How did Burgundy view England during this period? Because I think I've always looked at how England viewed Burgundy. Was there an alignment of their political goals? Or was this a cynical case of picking which side would help Burgundy

maintain its independence and improve its position the most? I think that political is the word cynical is always right at this place. But we have to talk about Flanders here. That is so important because Flanders in the first place is the linchpin of the Burgundian project. Without Flanders, the whole project of the low countries, the Burgundian, it's impossible. And Flanders is put in between France and England on a feudal level. Flanders owed elegancy to France. But on the same time, yes, it needs England all the time for the wool.

the wool for the cloth industry. So, Flanders is between Hammer and Hanville, always between superpowers, but who will never completely take over. They have to deal with the rich citizens of Bruges in Ghent. And you can see that on a political level from Jacob van Artevolde, who will install a very anglophile power in Flanders. Then we have Edward III, who will try to marry Sister Margaret, We have Edward III who will try to marry his son to Margaret of Flanders.

But that battle he will lose to Philip the Bolt. And that's very interesting because English kings, they will often win battles in their hundred years war. But when it comes to marriage, they lose battles. It's very interesting. So it is not England who can take advantage of the wealth of Flanders. It's Burgundy who can. And Philip the Bolt, for instance, his name, the Boland. bolt, he owes it to the Battle of Patti.

He's the ball thanks to English army and a war against the English. He's sobriquet owes to the English. Philip the Good, Philip the Good, let's talk about his grandson. Philip the Good is very important. He will take revenge for the murder on his father, John the Fearless. That is still the French are mad about it. Today, I'm not joking, eh? In 1420, 21, he will sell France to England.

And it means that Henry V, he will become the new king of France. Hellas, he will die untimely. So finally, it's a little baby boy stammering on the French throne. Henry the 6th. So, and still, in France, people are met Philip the Good because he sold France to England. But it's far more complicated. It is always tacking between France and England. He just wants to divide the power in France.

Because 15 years later, he will make peace with France and he will kick out the English. So it's cynical. He's just tacking, he's seeing. And if the power remains divided in France, he has his hands free to go on conquering the north and to establish what we are calling the low countries. and it will go on, Charles the Bolt, son of Philip the good, he will marry the sister of the English king Edward II for, for economic and political reasons. It's always about Flanders and the wool at the centre of the whole political structure of Burgundy. And England always wants to have Flanders on his side also, because they need Flanders.

They can sell the wool. I think that maybe, as I told, it's maybe interesting. that this half-forgotten European rights of the Burgundian has been translated to English because the English reader now can read what happened during the 100 years was from a point of view that is not English, not French, but Burgundian. And maybe there is one thing. There is what I, it's just a little joke, but it's not a joke. In the book in 1386 we have the huge spectacular invasion of England by the Burgundians and the French and the Flemish and etc. They are they are taking off at Slush between Flanders and Zealand. It's one of the most spectacular

episodes in my book. How it will end. You can read in my book. I'm not going to give it away, but it fails. So I can say that. It fails. But now, 635 years later, finally, the Burgundians cross the channel. And I'm so happy with it. And I think those periods in the 100 Years' War really mark the high point of Burgundian influence because it is ultimately deciding the fate of kingdoms like England and France, isn't it? Because if it allies itself with England, that sort of opens the door to England to get into France. And as soon as they break that allegiance, they go back to France, that begins the end of the English power in France. So Burgundy is now becoming this really pivotal centre of power that everybody has to have on their side if they

want to win and that in itself makes them more powerful, I guess, and allows them to pursue it even further. I couldn't have said it better. Oh, fantastic. And so how then does Burgundy come to an end? It is an estate that exists today. As you mentioned, it covers kind of where Netherlands and Belgium and places like that are today. And you call it in the book, the subtitle of the book, A Vanished Empire.

How close did it come to becoming an empire and how much poorer was your? up for losing Burgundy? Yes. Well, after Philip the Good, he dies in 1467, and what he achieved was amazing. So we have that new estate, the Low Countries, the Burgundian Low Countries, the Burgundice Netherlands, as we call it. And then he have his son, Charles de Bolt, and within 10 years he's going to do some amazing stuff, because what we have at that moment is we have in the north the low countries, and in the south, like a kind of satellite. In France, we have Burgundy.

And he, by conquering other duchies and counties, he will connect those two parts of his empire. And that's amazing. You really have that what we call in a middle kingdom, in Germany, a Middle Reich. We have it in Europe. But he does it too much with a kind of eubris. So he finds himself that 10 years later in the snow

after the Battle of Nancy in 1477. Only 10 years after the VIII. of his father. And then suddenly, Burgundy became a colossus on clay feet. And the France and the Holy Roman Empire, they were going to do everything they can to reconquer what they lost. And they succeeded only in South, not in the North. So the only thing that is lost of that great empire of Burgundy is the North, the low countries who will go on. And so if you say, was Europe poorer for losing an independent burgundy that might have flourished that is asking me to participate in a kind of counterfactual history, not to mention the word Ukraine. I don't know. Romantically, I could

dream of a Middle Kingdom in Europe between France and Germany, but in a certain sense, we have it. We have Belgium and the Netherlands, the low countries. It's a Burgundian invention. Let's never forget that it's a huge, impressive, Burgundian footprint in actual Europe. And that is something we forgot in Belgium and we forgot in Holland, in the Netherlands, and we forgot in Europe. So it's good to repeat ourselves that we still have that huge Burgundian footprint in Europe. So Burgundy hasn't really vanished. And do you, to any extent, do you blame Charles the Bold, the last duke, for it falling apart? Do you think it was his fault? Because I think he set his eye at one point on the English crown. I think he was keen to take Edward the Fourth Crown in England, if he

could. He had lots of Lancasterian blood. Did he overstretch himself? Did he go too far? Yes. And he was looking to the Holy Roman Empire also because he wanted. And he was that far from the king, the crown, king of Burgundy, emperor that was impossible. King of Burgundy, but the emperor of Germany one day before his crowning flat way. And he left him alone because it didn't work out. he was too richly dressed. He was too, he was blinding the others with his own wealth. And it worked at the stage of Philip the Bolt and Philip the Good. But he was exaggerating.

It was over. Nobody took it anymore. And then he lost that battle, first battle, second, battle third. He didn't want to give up. It was a kind of suicide he was doing. And he ended up in the snow, as I thought. So he really messed up. You could say so.

But in the north, Bruges, Gant, etc., thanks to the other dukes, there was some kind of Burgundian sense of unity. So when the French king wanted to conquer Flanders again to France, we here, we stand together and we said, no, we feel like Burgundians and we're not going to let it happen. We blocked away the French king. So it was a failure, but a failure with two nice babies called Belgium. and the Netherlands. As I said, I'm unexplicable as a Dutch-speaking Belgian writer, unexplicable without those dukes of Burgundy. I was born in Bawel, and that was the Holy Roman

Empire at the time. It was Germany. Now I live at the other side of the country. Now am I living, it was France here, and now it's packed together in a new country. So I really feel Burgundian. I'm and my wife, but that's pure coincidence. She's Burgundian also. So, let's say that I like a lot the mixture of identities of the low countries and French and German identities in those concept of Burgundy. I like it a lot. And do you think it helps make sense of who you are as a Dutch-speaking Belgian person? It helps to understand where you came from and why the countries exist in the way that they do today? Yes. Yes, truly it is. And I think that maybe can explain the huge success my book had in our country.

Because now I don't know how it's in England, but in England, the story is more simple. I don't know, it's a complicated story, but England is England and Great Britain is Great Britain. But Belgium, it's a complicated story. What is it Belgium? It was invented in 8030, but it became, it's a kind of residue of the Burgundian empire. And we forgot that. And now that the world is coming in here more than ever in our country from everywhere. A lot of people are asking themselves the same question as I did.

But who am I? Where do I come from? And then this book is a kind of piece of a puzzle that helps to figure out where we came from. And so that Burgundian identity is really, really fundamental, I think, to understand the Belgium and the Netherlands. And lots of the influences of Burgundy seemed to me to continue. So we associate Dutch master painters for centuries after Burgundy no longer existed as a Dutchie. So it retained an element of being a centre of art. Is that fair? That also.

You have the golden age of Rembrandt and Vermeer. But that's the 17th century. And in the Netherlands, they are very proud of it. I understand. But they forgot that there was a golden Burgundian era before with. I already talked about Klaus Sleuter. I'm going to say it again. Figure it out.

Google him. Klaus Sleuter. I don't know how is Sluter. I do say it in English, but it's beautiful. And then we have someone like Jan van Eyck. We know about Jan van Eyck, but we can not explain him without the context of the Burgundian dukes. And he's the first,

because is it the beginning of Renaissance in Europe? I would say the beginning of Northern Renaissance, with Jan van Eyck as the first one, will sign his works with his own name or with a slogan, a slogan who says, as I can. What means, I did it as good as I could? But there we have for the first time in the history of arts, I, as I could, as I could, as I can.

It's the birth of the ego in the arts, in modern arts. And it happened in the Burgundian low countries. There's a lot of going on in this period. There's almost like a quiet early version of the Renaissance happening. There before it comes north from Italy, it's sort of already happening in Burgundy, isn't it? It is happening, of course, it is happening with Ruhir van der Weiden afterwards, with Hugo van der Goose, with Memling. We got our own Renaissance in the North, and there's a Renaissance of Italy, and there are some relations between them, but you can see it separate. It was also born in the North under the Dukes of Burgundy, because we had the money.

we. Now I'm saying we as if I were there, but we had the money, we loved beauty. And so I'm talking as Philip the good now. And so he made it happen. It's simply like that. And at the same time, the citizens of Bruges and Gantt, who were sometimes very rich, they copied what did the Duke. So for instance, the Gant altarpiece, it was Jan Van Haig, was the painter of Philip the Good. But he gave him off, time off, to, to, to, to, to make the Ghent altarpiece for Jose Fad, who was just a rich citizen of Ghent, who copied the model of Philip the good by paying an artist, a painter, who creates a huge altarpiece with him on it and his wife on it, so they didn't have kids, so they could live on forever, and they still are there in Gant,

in the same church. So all that is happening at the time of the Fourth King, 15th century around Flanders and Brebant and Holland and Zealand. It's so we must never forget. And we did forget a bit, I think. Yeah, the subtitle of the book calls it a vanished empire, but it sounds a little bit like it hasn't entirely vanished. It still lingers around and haunts modern-day Belgium. We may not make historical faults by saying that Belgium is a Burjongian invention.

That's not right. It is the low countries. It's that so, and I know in my country that a lot of people, nationalists who are using my book by saying it's about the glory of Flanders, it's the beginning of Belgium, it's a beginning, no, it's very important all those things, but it's the beginning of the low countries. And it's, of course, we have that, we have those two countries. And even we can include Luxembourg, if we want, as this kind of Burgundian footprint in Europe. And apart from that, we have all those masterpieces in the museums, we have the cathedrals, we have the churches and palaces

who still exist in Burgundy, in France, in Switzerland, where we also have a part of Burgundian history. And so we have ruins and treasures and architecture and masterpieces. And we have two, three countries. It's quite a lot, I think, for a vanished empire. It's quite a legacy. And I think your book does a fantastic job of bringing that home. And if it's illuminated the view of that region on the continent, hopefully it's going to do the same over here. here because I say I think it's a big hole in our understanding of what was happening in

continental politics in that period to understand the Burgundian point of view. So thank you so much for putting that across to us today. And I encourage everyone to go out and buy Bart's book immediately. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much for joining us. Join Dr Kat Jarman on Tuesday for another brand new episode. Don't forget to also subscribe to Gone Medieval wherever we get your podcast from and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. If you're enjoying this podcast and looking for a bit more medieval, then subscribe to our Medieval Monday newsletter. Just follow the link that you'll find in the show notes below. While I've got you, I would like to recommend an episode of Not Just the Tudors,

also from History Hit, entitled Who Really Ruled Tudor England, in which you can join Susanna Lipscomb and George Bernard as they find out who was really pulling the strings in 16th century England. Anyway, I'd better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis, and we've just gone medieval with history hits.