Living up to the sobriquet “the Good” has got
to be a tough ask. It’s bad enough when it’s your surname and you haven’t even
chosen it. I have fond memories of the England v Wales match in the 2009 Six
Nations where Martin Johnson resorted to selecting Andy Goode at fly half and
my mate Emlyn and I spent an entire match referring to him as anything ranging
from ‘Andy Bad’ to ‘Andy Mediocre at Best’ much to the ire of those around us. When
Stuart Lancaster was kind enough to select Alex Goode at full back for their
30-3 loss in 2013 to the same opposition it provided us with another
opportunity to dust off the same questionable witticisms. Those were the days
and, no, I haven’t quite accepted the result of the 2017 edition of Wales v
England yet.
Halcyon days...
The day after the aforementioned disappointment
I set off for Bruges with my lovely wife to celebrate our first wedding
anniversary (we had a great time, thanks for asking). Ahead of our trip I had
been looking into the city’s history and came across Philip the Good, Duke of
Burgundy and resident of Bruges in the 15th Century, often referred
to as the city’s ‘Golden Age’. This was clearly a man worthy of further
research particularly as the son of John the Fearless and father of Charles the
Bold and Anthony the Bastard of Burgundy. As it transpires Philip was also the
father of two further legitimate children and at least seventeen other bastards
so at the very least it’s clear he was good at fathering children.
Philip was born in 1396 and was already married
to his first wife, Michelle of Valois, by the time he was thirteen. His father
played a significant part in the Hundred Years War between England and France
with his unspoken preference for the former bringing him into direct conflict
with the Dauphin, the future Charles VII of France, and despite attempts to
resolve the conflict John the Fearless was assassinated by the Dauphin’s
supporters in July 1419. Upon his assumption of his father’s title Philip
entered into a formal alliance between Burgundy and the English king, Henry V,
which was further strengthened by the marriage of his sister, Anne, to the Duke
of Bedford, the English regent in 1423.
This alliance with England led to Philip’s
forces capturing the legendary Joan of Arc and handing her over for trial in
1430. The trial was presided over by a jury of Philip’s supporters who found
Joan guilty of heresy and sentenced her to be burnt at the stake. There were,
however, to be further twists in Philip’s alliance with the English as he
turned on them in 1435 and led an attack on Calais on behalf of Charles VII,
the man he had accused of his father’s murder. Somewhat unsurprisingly Philip
then abandoned Charles VII in support for the French nobles leading the
Praguerie, a revolt against the king, in 1440. If you managed to keep up with
all that then you can gather that an alliance with Philip the Good wasn’t
necessarily something to rely on.
Philip the Good scrunching up yet another treaty.
The main motivation for Philip’s liberal
approach to his alliances was his desire to establish himself as the
pre-eminent French duke. Despite his capture of Joan of Arc he generally
avoided involvement in the Hundred Years War as he looked to expand Burgundian
influence across France, Belgium and the Netherlands often through purchase
rather than military campaigns. This placed Burgundy in a precarious position
between the expanding French and Hapsburg Empires but Philip’s shrewd
administration and exceptional wealth helped him to avoid significant conflict
with either of the main rivals to his territory. In 1463 Philip relinquished
some of his territory to King Louis XI of France but at the same time helped to
establish an Estates General in the Netherlands which, as its first order of business,
looked to finance a war with France in order to restore said lands to his son
Charles. Charles’ wars resulted in the loss of many of Philip’s territorial
gains and the eventual end of the Valois-Burgundian line at the hand of the
Hapsburgs further demonstrating Philip’s skilful, if not overly ethical,
management of his territories.
Philip’s
inability to stick to an alliance or his marriage vows, however, was not what
earned him the epithet ‘the Good’. The extravagance and opulence of the
Burgundian court under Philip made it the epicentre of medieval European
commerce, culture and fashion. To celebrate his third marriage to Isabella of
Portugal in 1430 he established the Order of the Golden Fleece in Bruges as a
tribute to both the Arthurian Knights of the Round Table and the Ancient Greek
myth of Jason giving Philip the excuse to host several lavish tournaments and
feasts throughout his territories. The Order of the Golden Fleece became a
significant Catholic movement under the Hapsburgs and still survives today
albeit in a decidedly less religious incarnation. Philip was also a keen patron
of the arts and became the dominant force in the lucrative world of illuminated
manuscripts as well as promoting the work of artists such as Jan van Eyck and
composers such as Guillaume Defay who was part of the duke’s court chapel
choir. By regularly moving his court between Bruges, Brussels and Lille Philip
ensured that Burgundian influence spread far beyond his territories as trade
flourished and the rest of Europe’s leaders looked to emulate his prosperity.
The founding of the Order of the Golden Fleece as imagined in Bruges City Hall - shockingly not the most gilded mural in the collection.
Philip the Good died in Bruges in 1467 by which
time the city had become the gateway to the European cloth trade and the
Valois-Burgundy family the richest and most influential dynasty in the region.
The early death of his son Charles the Bold meant that this dominance was short
lived as the Hapsburgs swept in but it is impossible to disregard Philip’s
influence on medieval European architecture and culture. As a man it is
difficult to say if Philip is deserving of his sobriquet ‘the Good’. By today’s
standards a man who fathers at least eighteen illegitimate children and reneges
on pretty much every alliance he enters into would probably find himself
described as quite a lot of things with ‘good’ unlikely to be near the top of
the list. For a medieval nobleman, however, Philip’s behaviour can not be seen
as particularly deplorable and the fact he recognised so many of his bastards
could almost be seen as liberal. His political manoeuvring, whilst not exactly
an example of loyalty, enabled him to protect his own territories and lay the
foundations for the renaissance in Northern Europe whilst not drawing them into
major conflict with the expanding French and Hapsburg Empires. When you
consider some of his contemporaries and successors it doesn’t seem too
unreasonable to say that Philip the Good wasn’t a bad bloke and at the very
least he knew how to make a very pretty city.
