Philip the Good

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For the engineer, see Philippe Lebon.

Philip the Good
collar of firesteels of the Order of the Golden Fleece which he instituted (copy of a Rogier van der Weyden work of c. 1450)
Duke of Burgundy
Reign10 September 1419 – 15 June 1467
PredecessorJohn the Fearless
SuccessorCharles the Bold
Born31 July 1396
Dijon, Duchy of Burgundy
Died15 June 1467(1467-06-15) (aged 70)
Bruges, Flanders, Burgundian Netherlands
Burial
Dijon, Burgundy
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1409; died 1422)​
​
​
(m. 1424; died 1425)​
​
​
(m. 1430)​
Issue
among others

Illegitimate:

House Valois-Burgundy
FatherJohn the Fearless
MotherMargaret of Bavaria
SignaturePhilip the Good's signature

Philip III the Good (

kings of France belonged. During his reign, the Burgundian State
reached the apex of its prosperity and prestige, and became a leading centre of the arts.

Duke Philip has a reputation for his administrative reforms, for his patronage of Flemish artists (such as

Friesland and Namur, he played an important role in the history of the Low Countries
.

He married three times and had three legitimate sons, all from his third marriage; only one legitimate son reached adulthood. Philip had 24 documented mistresses and fathered at least 18

illegitimate children
.

Early life

Philip of

Michelle of France (1395–1422), daughter of King Charles VI on the same day.[citation needed] They were married in June 1409.[3]

Early rule and alliance with England

In 1419, at the age of 24, Philip became duke of Burgundy (fief of

John, Duke of Bedford, regent for Henry VI of England, strengthened the English alliance.[citation needed
]

On 23 May 1430, Philip's troops under the

Treaty of Arras, which completely revoked the Treaty of Troyes and recognised Charles VII
as king of France. Philip signed the treaty for a variety of reasons, one of which may have been a desire to be recognised as the preeminent duke in France.

This action would prove a poor decision in the long term; Charles VII and his successors saw the Burgundian State as a serious impediment to the expansion of royal authority in France, and for this reason they would permanently try to undermine Burgundy, so as to subordinate it to French sovereignty.[7] Philip's defection to the French would prove not only catastrophic to the dual monarchy of England and France, but to his own domains as well, subordinating them to a powerful centralised Valois monarchy.

He then attacked

Louis, who had rebelled against his father Charles VII.[citation needed
]

Geographic expansion

Philip was generally preoccupied with matters in his own territories and was seldom involved directly in the

Elisabeth of Bohemia, Duchess of Luxembourg
.

In 1456, Philip also managed to ensure his illegitimate son

Prince-Bishop of Liège
. It is not surprising that in 1435 Philip began to style himself the "Grand Duke of the West".

In 1463, Philip gave up some of his territory to

Charles I
to his now vast dominions.

In 1465 and 1467, Philip

crushed two rebellions in Liège
before dying a few weeks later in Bruges after the latter insurrection.

Court life and patron of the arts

Rogier van der Weyden miniature 1447–48. Philip dresses his best, in an extravagant chaperon, to be presented with a History of Hainault by the author, Jean Wauquelin, flanked by his son Charles and his chancellor Nicolas Rolin.

Philip's court can only be described as extravagant. Despite the flourishing

bourgeois culture of Burgundy, with which the ducal court kept in close touch, he and the aristocrats who formed most of his inner circle retained a world-view dominated by the ideas and traditions of chivalry. He declined membership in the Order of the Garter in 1422, which would have been considered an act of treason against the king of France, his feudal overlord. Instead, he created his own Order of the Golden Fleece, based on the Knights of the Round Table and the myth of Jason
, in 1430. In time his order would become the most prestigious and historic of all knightly orders of chivalry in all of Europe.

Philip had no fixed capital (seat of government) and moved the court between various palaces, the main urban ones being in Brussels, Bruges, and Lille. He held grand feasts and other festivities, and the knights of his Order frequently travelled throughout his territory to participate in tournaments. In 1454, Philip planned a crusade against the Ottoman Empire, launching it at the Feast of the Pheasant, but this plan never materialized. In a period from 1444 to 1446, he is estimated to have spent a sum equivalent to 2% of Burgundy's main income in the recette génerale, with a single Italian supplier of silk and cloth of gold, Giovanni di Arrigo Arnolfini.[8]

Portrait of Isabella of Portugal from the workshop of Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1445–1450

Philip's court was regarded as the most splendid in Europe by his contemporaries, and it became the accepted leader of taste and fashion, which probably helped the Burgundian economy considerably, as Burgundian (usually Flemish) luxury products became sought by the elites across Europe. During his reign, for example, the richest English commissioners of illuminated manuscripts moved away from English and Parisian products to those of the Netherlands, as did other foreign buyers. Philip himself is estimated to have added six hundred manuscripts to the ducal collection, making him by a considerable margin the most important literary patron of the period.[9] Jean Miélot, one of his secretaries, translated into French such works as Giovanni Boccaccio's Genealogia Deorum Gentilium which is good example of the sophistication of Philip's court.

Philip was a considerable patron of the visual arts. He commissioned many

Guillaume Dufay
were all part of Philip's court chapel.

In 1428, van Eyck travelled to Portugal to paint a portrait of the daughter of King John I, the Infanta Isabella, personally for Philip in advance of their marriage. With help from more experienced Portuguese shipbuilders, Philip established a shipyard in Bruges, which helped commerce flourish. Rogier van der Weyden painted his portrait twice on panel. Only copies survive, but in each he is shown wearing the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The only extant original van der Weyden of Philip a superb miniature known as "Jean Wauquelin presenting his 'Chroniques de Hainaut' to Philip the Good" (above right).[9] The painter Hugo van der Goes of the Early Netherlandish school is credited with paintings for the church where Philip's funeral was held.

Family and issue

Marriages and legitimate children

Philip married his second cousin

Duchess of Auvergne (c. 1375–1434). Bonne died within a year of the wedding, and the couple had no children,[3] leaving Philip with no legitimate sons to this point.[11]

On 7 January 1430 in

John I, King of Portugal (1357–1433) and his wife, Philippa of Lancaster (1360–1415) after a proxy marriage the year before. This marriage produced three sons, only one of whom reached adulthood:[12]

Mistresses and illegitimate children

Philip had 24 documented mistresses and fathered at least 18

illegitimate children
.

Ancestry

Honours

Refused honours

References

  1. ^ Vaughan 2005, p. 2.
  2. ^ Vaughan 2005, pp. 4, 6.
  3. ^ a b Vaughan 2004, p. 8.
  4. ^ Vaughan 2004, p. 1.
  5. ^ Vale 1974, p. 58.
  6. ^ Gillespie 2017, p. 15.
  7. ^ Vaughan 2004, pp. 125–126.
  8. ^ Campbell 1998.
  9. ^ a b Kren & McKendrick 2003, p. 68.
  10. ISBN 9780812223576
    .
  11. ^ Lobanov (2012), p. 313
  12. ^ Vaughan 2004, p. 132.
  13. ^ Blockmans & Prevenier 1999, p. 73.
  14. ^ Vaughan 2004, p. 196.
  15. ^ Vaughan 2004, p. 321.
  16. ^ a b Vaughan 2004, p. 134.
  17. ^ Vaughan 2004, p. 227.
  18. ^ Putnam 1908, pp. 69–71.
  19. ^ a b c Vaughan 2004, p. 135.
  20. ^ Defoort, Hendrik (2002). "Abbot Raphael de Mercatellis". Mmmonk (Medieval Monastic Manuscripts – Open – Network – Knowledge). Bruges Public Library, Ghent University Library, Major Seminary Ten Duinen in Bruges and Ghent Diocese. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
  21. ^ Damen & Brown-Grant 2022, p. 265.
  22. ^ de Sousa, Antonio Caetano (1735). Historia genealogica da casa real portugueza (in Portuguese). Lisbon: Lisboa Occidental. p. 147.

Sources

Further reading

External links

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Philip the Good".
Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Burgundy".
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Philip III Duke of Burgundy.
Philip the Good
Cadet branch of the House of Valois
Born: 31 July 1396 Died: 15 June 1467
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Flanders
Count Palatine of Burgundy

1419–1467 		Succeeded by
Count of Charolais

1405–1433
Preceded by
Margrave of Namur

1429–1467
Preceded by
Philip I
Lothier

1430–1467
Preceded by
Jacqueline
Zeeland

1432–1467
Preceded by
Elisabeth
Duke of Luxemburg

1443–1467
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