Hello, welcome to The Restless History, and today we are arriving in the Fairland of Belgium

and Dominic. We have had one Belgium on The Restless History, haven't we? And he is absolutely

a fan favourite. Bart Van Lue, author of a sensational book called The Burgundians,

and we have got Bart back. Bart, thanks so much for joining us.

Hello Dominic and Dom, nice to be here. Hello Bart, lovely to have you. So your book The Burgundians

for those people who haven't read it is an absolute feast of a book, and your appearance on

our podcast, if anything was even better, because you talked constantly as I remember for 60 minutes.

Tom and I barely said anything. No, it's perfect. It's absolutely perfect.

But there was one thing at the end of that Burgundian podcast that you were disappointed by,

I remember, you said, I haven't talked at all about Flemish art and about Jan Van Eich.

So we thought in this World Cup marathon as we approach the subjects of Belgium, we thought

well, let's do Jan Van Eich with Bart Van Lue. But here's the question, is he Belgian? Is he Belgian?

Yes, yes, before I start, I want to address myself to historical purists, because they would

probably argue that Jan Van Eich, the great painter in North Run, West Run, and Central Europe,

before 1500, is not a real Belgian since Belgium was created in 8030, and he lived as far as we know

in the 15th century. Well, he is what I would like to say to them. When we look at the map of Europe,

at the end of the Middle Ages, we see two main powers on the continent. France and the Holy

Roman Empire, let's say Germany, to simplify things. And in between a border that seems to last

forever. But then in the course of the fourth and 15th century, we see a new state, the low

countries, the cradle of what later on will become the Netherlands and Belgium. An incredible geopolitical

achievement that we owe to the dukes of Burgundy, who I talked about a year ago in your podcast.

And I would like to add this thing, that if the dukes of Burgundy didn't puzzle together the

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