Richard Vaughan (1) (1927–2014)

Very full (400 pp.) book on Philip the Good, the greatest of the Valois dukes of Burgundy; begins with his taking over after his father's murder, but suggests he did not try very hard to avenge the rime on the true perpetrator (Charles VII of France) --shows him more preoccupied with expanding his holdings in the Low Countries --Brabant, Hainault, Holland etc. Shows Jacqueline of Holland --who is usually seen as pathetic once abandoned by Duke Humphrey of Gloucester--as actively putting up quite a hard fight, and getting more real English help, until an English army got wiped out despite its archers. After the early successes, culminating in the foundation of the order of the Golden Fleece, things go downhill due to various revolts etc. Vaughan ends up by concluding Philip was too devoted to pleasure and impractical crusade projects and lived too long, leaving a divided state (or collection of states) to Charles the Rash. As with the other books in the Boydell republication of this classic series, it has a long introduction on more recent scholarship and an updated bibliography.… (más)

The second in Vaughan's classic history of the dukes of Burgundy, originally published in 1966 and republished by Boydell with updated introduction and bibliography. As in the first volume it begins with political/military history, followed by institutional history, but this time the first political/military section only covers Duke John's career to 1409, after which the institutional section intervenes followed by a second political/military section culminating in Duke John's infamous assassination at Montereau which paved the way for the Anglo-Burgundian alliance which played a key role in the ongoing Hundred Years War. The first political/military section portrays John the Fearless as effective but unpleasant; he followed up his brilliant defeat of the popular revolt of Liege by brutal repression; he had his rival Duke Louis of Orleans murdered on a very flimsy pretext of attempting to kill King Charles Vi by magic --I have always felt there was a moral/ethical case for tyrannicide, but if he wanted to make out Louis to be a tyrant, there were better grounds than alleged black magic (or even Louis's alleged attempt to seduce John's duchess). I had not known, or forgotten, that John also had a noted senior royal bureaucrat, John Montagu, executed again on flimsy grounds for partisan reasons. Killing Duke John may have been politically suicidally stupid in the midst of the English war, but he certainly had provided plenty of provocation.… (más)

The first of a classic series on the dukes of Burgundy. Even though it came out originally in the 60s/70s, it is still so respected that this new edition with updated introduction and bibliography came out relatively recently. The first part is straightforward political/military history, notable for accounts of the defeat of the Ghent rebellion and the Nicopolis crusade --it makes the point that although Nicopolis was a military disaster, it was a great public relations success, establishing the chivalric reputation of Burgundy.
The second part includes rather dry financial and institutional history and somewhat livelier literary/artistic history. I had not known Eustache Deschamps wrote a poem about a drunken dice game the duke attended.… (más)