Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans, Episode 215, The Bold and the Cold, the

end of Charles of Burgundy.

The rise of the Habsburgs to world domination pivots on one crucial moment.

The marriage of Maximilian of Habsburg to Mary of Burgundy, the daughter of Charles

the Bald, the last of the Grand Dukes of the West.

The usual story is that young Maximilian one day walked down the isle of some splendid cathedral

and was handed the richest principality in Europe on a jewel-encrusted golden platter by the

father of the bride. All he then had to do was lie down and think of the Habsburg-Burgundian

Empire. That is not quite what happened. When Maximilian arrived in Ghent in August 1477,

his father-in-law lay dead in a ditch

in Lorraine, and large swathes of ducal authority and income had gone.

Within less than three years, 1474 to 1477, Charles the Bald had frittered away the

mythical wealth of the Burgundian dukes, and not just that.

These years, between 1474 and 1477, helped turn the medieval empire into the Holy Roman Empire

of the German nation. So please allow me to do this episode, even though very, very few of the protagonists or parties to the

conflicts are Germans in the modern sense. If however you prefer to listen to more Germanic

content, I have something quite juicy for you. At midnight yesterday, the History of Venice

podcast had released a unique three-way collaboration where they talked

to Mike Karadi from a history of Italy and yours truly about Frederick Barbarossa's grand

plan to take over northern Italy between 1152 and 1177.

I had so much fun doing that and I hope you enjoy listening to it.

As long as you come back.

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