The Probert Encyclopaedia of Places of the World

BURGUNDY

Burgundy is a region of Western Europe, so named from the Burgundians, a Teutonic or Germanic people originally from the country between the Oder and the Vistula. They migrated first to the region of the Upper Rhine, and in the beginning of the 5th century passed into Gaul and obtained possession of the south-eastern part of this country, where they founded a kingdom having its seat of government sometimes at Lyons, and sometimes at Geneva. They were at last wholly subdued by the Franks.

In 879 Boson, Count of Autun, succeeded in establishing the royal dignity again in part of this kingdom. He styled himself King of Provence, and had his residence at Aries. His son Louis added the country beyond the Jura, and thus established Cis-Juran Burgundy. A second kingdom arose when Rudolph of Strettlingen formed Upper or Trans- Juran Burgundy out of part of Switzerland and Savoy. Both these Burgundian kingdoms were latterly united, and finally, on the extinction of Rudolph's line, were incorporated with Germany. But a third state, the historical duchy of Burgundy, consisting principally of the French province of Bourgogne or Burgundy - the region with which the name is most familiarly associated - had been formed as a great feudal and almost independent province of France in the 9th century. This first ducal line died out with a Duke Philip, in 1361, and the duchy, reverting to the crown, was, in 1363, granted by King John of France to his son Philip the Bold, who thus became the founder of a new line of dukes of Burgundy.

A marriage with Margaret, daughter of Louis III, count of Flanders, brought him Flanders, Mechlin, Antwerp, and Franche-Comte. He was succeeded by his son Duke John the Fearless, whose son and successor, Philip the Good, so greatly extended his dominions, that on his death in 1467 his son Charles the Bold, though possessing only the title of duke, was in reality one of the richest and most powerful sovereigns of Europe. Charles left a daughter, Mary of Burgundy, the sole heiress of his states, who by her marriage to Maximilian of Austria transferred a large part of her dominions to that prince, while Louis XI of France acquired Burgundy proper as a male fief of France. Burgundy then formed a province, and is now represented by the four departments of Yonne, Cote-d'Or, Saone-et-Loire, and Ain.
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