The Burgundians: A Vanished Empire

Historian Van Loo makes his English-language debut with a sparkling account of the House of Burgundy. He traces the dynasty’s ancestral origins to a small island in the Baltic Sea and charts the Germanic tribe’s westward journey to the Rhine River in present-day Worms, Germany, in the fifth century. An attempt to capture more territory led to a devastating defeat by Roman general Flavius Aetius in 436 and forced the remaining Burgundians to relocate south to France. From there, Van Loo briskly recounts 900 years of Burgundian history before diving into the empire’s influence on European politics, in particular its role in the “invention” of the Low Countries in the 15th century. Throughout, he interweaves military and territorial pursuits with lighter fare, noting, for example, that Burgundian duke Philip the Bold banned winegrowers from using Gamay grapes in 1395, boosting the popularity of the pinot noir grape for which Burgundy is now known. Elsewhere, Van Loo details John the Fearless’s feud with the Duc of Orlèans, which isolated Burgundy from the rest of France, and recounts how Philip the Good ransomed Joan of Arc to the British. Blending dogged research with striking imagery and energetic prose, this is a rewarding introduction to a powerful, yet lesser-known, empire. (Jan.)