Note that the following article appeared in two parts in Issue 1 and 2, Volume 2, 2005 of Broadsword Magazine.
On February 17, 1454, a most remarkable feast took place at Duke Phillip the Good’s primary residence at Lille. Philip, the third and in some ways most successful of the four Valois dukes of Burgundy, was well known for arranging magnificent and spectacular events, but this one was destined to top them all. A special committee of courtiers had been arranged, answering directly to Philip’s chancellor, and thirty-five artists, a plumber, six carpenters, a sculptor and a locksmith were all employed to prepare the hall and decorations. Eyewitness accounts, and an official report on the event, can only hint at the spectacle.
The three tables the feast was served at were crowded with entremets: a chapel with a choir in it, a huge pastry containing flute players, a glass fountain featuring Saint Andrew with water spewing from the arms of his X-shaped cross, a tiger fighting a serpent, a jester riding a bear, castles, a ship floating backwards and forwards between two cities. Two live falcons were released in the hall to hunt a heron which was presented to the Duke, while a live lion on a platform near the Duke guarded the statue of an Amazon spewing hippocras from her breast. So much food was served that it was bought in on wheeled trolleys, and so many dishes served that witnesses lost count.
The highlight of the evening came when a “giant” dressed as a Saracen entered the hall, leading an elephant on a leash. From the chronicles, it is difficult to know whether this was a real elephant, but it was probably a papier–mache model. On the elephant’s back was a castle containing a dishevelled woman dressed as a nun. The elephant was lead to Philip‘s table where the nun introduced herself as Holy Church, and recounted the troubles she had endured since the Ottoman Turks had captured Constantinople in May of the previous year, and begged Duke Philip to take up the Crusader’s cross and come to her aid. Two knights from the Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece led in two ladies, accompanied by the herald of the order who carried a live pheasant richly decorated with a golden necklace studded with pearls and jewels. The ladies asked the Duke to make his vow on the pheasant, in the style of the court of Alexander, to take up arms.
Rather conveniently, Philip had a vow written out which he passed to the herald to read out, after which he repeated his vow to take up the cross — as long as the King of France or his regent went as well, or to go alone as long as his own lands were secure and peaceful. He then went on to swear to seek out the Ottoman leader and defeat him in single combat. In what appears to have been a carefully organised rush of ‘spontaneous’ enthusiasm, his son Charles, Count of Charolais, immediately made similar oaths, as did the Duke of Cleves, and the renowned jouster Jehan de Luxembourg, Bastard of St Pol. Soon the herald was busily engaged in writing down the vows of enthusiastic knights and nobles swept up in the excitement and vigorously trying to outdo one another’s extravagant promises. Philip eventually called a halt to proceedings around 4:00 AM, with instructions to the herald to take the remaining oaths the next day. Official accounts of the feast were written up, and later widely published, and members of the audience who had watched the feast from the gallery above the hall were encouraged to spread word of it far and wide.
Some of the vows recorded suggest that the nobles were overcome with excitement — or drink — such were there extravagance. One promised not to drink wine until he had killed a Saracen, another not to sleep on Saturdays until he’d fought a single combat with the enemy. Several vowed not to wear part of their armour, but Philip sternly instructed the herald to strike those parts of the vows from the record. Even seventy year old Hue de Lannoy promised to go, as long as he was fit enough when the time came.
The knights and nobles must have gotten a rude shock over the next few days however, as Philip sent heralds out across his lands, asking those who had promised to go on crusade exactly how much money and troops they were committing. What at first seemed to be a bit of jolly fun at the feast turned out to be terribly real: Philip was organising a Crusade to Constantinople, and who knows, maybe beyond to the Holy Land. The Burgundian Duke had once again used his tremendous public relations skills to form public opinion, and put his supporters in a position where they could hardly refuse to go. Going to war was one thing, but heading off on Crusade backed by the papacy and the church was another. A Christian knight simply couldn’t say no.
Nobody should have been too surprised at fifty-eight year old Philip’s enthusiasm for crusade. He had always been keen on the idea of a crusade, but circumstances had always conspired against him. He had come from a family which firmly held to the ideals of crusade — he was actually born in 1396, the year his father John was captured at Nicopolis leading a Burgundian campaign organised by Philip’s grandfather Philip The Bold. Records tell of five year old Philip playing at being a crusader, or dressing up as a Saracen. After his father John was brutally assassinated on the bridge at Montereau in 1419, Philip’s energies were fully engaged in the complex politics and conflicts involving Burgundy, France and England for many years. This did not stop him from thinking about Crusade though.
In 1421 he dispatched Guillebert de Lannoy to reconnoitre for himself and Henry V. de Lannoy travelled through Prussia, Russia, Crimea, Constantinople, Rhodes, Jerusalem, Cairo and Crete, then returned via Venice, thence to London to present his findings directly to Henry V. In 1425 he sent his bastard brother Guyot on a similar scouting mission to Jerusalem, and again in 1432 commissioned Andrieu de Toulengeon, Geoffroy de Thoisy and Bertrandon de la Broqui‘re to head off from Vienna for a long trip through the middle east. Richard Vaughan asserts that there was some evidence that as early as 1436 Philip was seriously planning to attack the Ottoman Turks.
The first concrete moves toward crusade came in 1438, when Philip began building a Burgundian fleet which in part was to be available to transport his crusaders through the Mediterranean. On 25 March 1441, Geoffroy de Thoisy was appointed to lead this fleet, which set off from Sluis on 8 May. There is some confusion as to the exact reason the fleet was commissioned. It was partially funded by a special crusading tithe of one tenth of clerical incomes granted to Philip and other rulers by Pope Eugenius IV, and there are some suggestions that it may have been instigated by Philip’s strong willed Portuguese wife Isobel to protect shipping in the English Channel. Whatever the reason, the fleet was available in mid 1441 when a call came from the Knights Hospitaller on Rhodes to help defend themselves against Egyptian raiders. When an embassy from the Byzantine emperor turned up at the Burgundian court in March 1442 seeking aid, it was natural for Philip to dispatch his Mediterranean “navy”, although it was spring of 1444 before de Thoisy finished rearming his vessels at Villefranche near Nice, further ships were built at Nice, and additional ships acquired in Venice under Waleran de Wavrin.
While de Thoisy wandered about the North African coast and Rhodes, de Wavrin joined with papal vessels at Gallipoli, and headed into the Bosporus to stop the Turks crossing the straits to attack the Crusader army under Hungarian leader John Hunyadi and King Ladislas of Poland. The Burgundian navy proved completely ineffectual, and in no way impeded the Turks or prevented them delivering a crushing victory against the Hungarians at Varna on 10th November 1444. Early the next year, de Thoisy joined with de Waleran, and together they headed into the Black Sea. While de Waleran travelled along the southern shore in search of mythical Colchis, home of the Golden Fleece, de Thoisy travelled along the northern shore committing random acts of piracy, before eventually being arrested and limping home to Italy via Constantinople in July. De Waleran arranged a joint campaign with the Hungarians, and sailed a good distance up the Danube and back again, without really achieving anything. He turned up in Venice on 15th January, visited the Pope in Rome, and reported back to Philip at Lille in March or April 1445. The fleet wandered back to Marseille via Egypt and Tunis, committing acts of piracy all the way, and continued stirring up trouble in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea until about 1449 when it was eventually disbanded and moved back to support the campaign against Ghent. The great Burgundian Mediterranean Fleet had turned into a piratical farce, achieving very little other than disrupting trade between Italy and the Levant, much to the irritation of the Genoese who eventually arrested de Thoisy and sent him home. The resultant lawsuit meandered on for over a decade before quietly being resolved, and nothing was heard of the great Burgundian Navy again.
The naval adventures were not completely without benefit for Philip and Burgundy on a larger scale. His interest, even while seriously distracted by more important affairs in Luxembourg and with the Holy Roman Empire, led to close ties with Genoa, the Byzantine Empire, the papacy, and more significantly with Venice. The latter proved in the long term to be a vital alliance for Burgundy during the reign of his son Charles. There was even a fairly serious scheme mooted in 1445 for Genoa to be ceded to Philip as a crusader base, but the Milanese ruler Filippo Maria Visconti died in 1447 and in the resulting tussle for control, Philip failed to gain Genoa either for himself or for his cousin Charles Duke of Orleans as his proxy.
In May 1451, word reached Philip during a meeting of the Order of the Golden Fleece at Mons that the Ottoman ruler, Mohammed II planned to assault Constantinople. For the first time in many years, Philip had no distractions, and his enthusiasm was fully focused on Crusade. He dispatched ambassadors throughout France, England, Austria, Hungary and Italy, and serious discussions about forming a crusading alliance began to take place. Just as matters were coming to a head, once again internal Flemish politics erupted, and Philip was forced to put his crusade aside. By 1452, the powerful town of Ghent was in open revolt. While the Turks prepared to take Constantinople, the only force willing and able to prevent them was necessarily tied down in Flanders preparing to lay siege to Ghent.
Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in May 1453, sending shock waves throughout Europe. Once more the Saracens had a foothold on the continent, and seemed willing and able to expand. Ghent fell to Philip in July, and almost immediately he indicated to all his allies that he was ready to take up the cross against the Turks — so long as France did as well. Philip’s insistence that France join them seems to have stemmed from several desires. On one hand, he was aware that realistically the military strength of France was needed to make a serious effort against the Turks. On the other hand, he knew full well that Charles VII was likely to attack Burgundian lands if Philip left them defenceless while on Crusade. France’s enthusiasm for Crusade was muted, but there was a general agreement from France and others that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to evict the Turks from Constantinople.
As luck would have it, internal affairs again intervened with Philip’s plans, as he was diverted through August and September 1453 pacifying Luxembourg, which was still only loosely in his grasp. It was only after that he could make concrete plans, and in February 1454, the Feast of the Pheasant was held.
Initially, plans for this Burgundian Crusade worked well. Following on from gathering commitments for financial support from his nobles, on 22nd March Philip announced sweeping reforms to his finances, explicitly stated as being to raise money for the crusade, and seriously cut back on domestic expenses and pensions. He completely reformed his revenue raising mechanisms, and made them far more efficient. Two days after this, he set off at 5:00 am, incognito, from Lille with 30 companions, bound for a Reichstag at Regensburg in the Holy Roman Empire. While this trip into the Empire — his first, and as it turned out, only — was explicitly to discuss and plan the Crusade with Frederick III and the Imperial princes, it was also intended to flaunt Philip’s wealth and style to the “barbaric” Germans. By all accounts, he succeeded, and presented a glittering spectacle to people more used to a much more austere demonstration of princely power. Everything about the trip made an unequivocal statement on Philip’s behalf: Burgundy and her Duke was not a vassal of France or of Empire, but their equal.
Frederick III proved to not be completely cooperative. He pulled out of talks after a few days and headed off to provide support for Jun Hunyadi in Hungary, asking for the detailed planning to be postponed. An Imperial Diet was held at Frankfurt in autumn of 1454, which Philip was not able to personally attend, that resolved for a general crusade in 1455. Thus, by late 1454, to all appearances the crusade was imminent. Most major powers had agreed at least in principle to contribute and the pope had expressed his support. In Burgundy concrete plans were being prepared for Charles Count of Charolais, or for Anthoine de Croy, (or both) to act as regent while Philip was away for up to two years. Special loans and levies to support the crusade were asked for throughout Burgundy, and there was much activity preparing banners and livery. Through 1455, detailed logistical and financial plans were drafted for an army of 6,300 combatants, excluding Philip’s household troops. Despite all this activity, and despite an insulting and challenging letter from Mohammed II directly to Philip, by early 1456 the crusade still had not set out.
The reason for the delay was the death of two prelates on the same day, 24 March 1455. In Rome, Pope Nicholas V died. While he was succeeded by the aggressively pro-Crusade Calixtus II, his death necessarily delayed arrangements, as technically the papacy was at the centre of arrangements for any Crusade and no concrete moves could be made until he’d established himself. In the north, Bishop Rudolf von Deipholz of Utrecht had died the same day. This opened an opportunity for Philip to get control of Utrecht, an opportunity that could not be ignored, but one that kept him tied up until October 1456. While other princes had indicated a willingness to take up the Cross, it was evident that nobody was going unless Burgundy went.
Further complications arose for Philip in October 1456 when the French Dauphin (the later Louis XI) turned up in the Burgundian court seeking political asylum. Philip welcomed and supported the Dauphin, which immediately put the crusade on hold. There was absolutely no chance of joining France on Crusade as long as Charles VII was alive. For the next few years, Pope Calixtus III, and from 1458 Pius II, repeatedly exhorted Philip to fulfil his vows and get the Crusade on the road. Philip consistently replied that he’d absolutely, definitely do something about it one of these days, once he got things sorted out with France. He was of course completely occupied with the conflict with France, while still trying to keep in the good graces of the papacy, who he hoped would support his ongoing desultory plans to gain a kingdom in Germany.
Pius II called for a general conference about the crusade at Mantua on 1 June 1459, but nobody turned up, although Burgundian ambassadors eventually arrived in September. Early in 1460 the papal congress finished with a fairly meaningless general declaration of war against the Turks, to which Mohammed II responded by threatening to treat Rome like Constantinople and to behead the Duke of Burgundy. It wasn’t until 1462 that Pius II was able to join with the King of Bohemia to try to organise a grand alliance against the Turk, which eventually resulted on paper with a coalition between Pius II, Burgundy, Venice and Hungary.
Finally, in the autumn of 1463 and winter of 1464, after all the delays, it looked like the crusade was going to happen. Philip was 67, and knew time was running out for him. Louis XI was on the throne of France, and Philip seemed willing to exchange the Somme towns in exchange for funds and support from France for the crusade. Certainly Louis XI believed that Philip was definitely going. Once again there was talk of de Croy acting as regent while Philip and Charles went to war, although it was possible that the estrangement between Charles and Philip would not be resolved, and Charles would remain in virtual exile in Holland. When de Croy realised that there was a chance that Charles would stay behind, he absconded to France, fearful that Charles would take over while Philip was gone.
Shortly after this, Louis XI personally visited Philip at Lille on 23 February 1464, to try to persuade the Duke not to go on Crusade. Instead he wanted Philip to arrange a truce between France and England, or failing that to support France against England. Louis promised that if Philip waited just a bit longer, until the English affair was settled, France would send 10,000 troops. Irrespective of this, it seems Philip finally realised he was too old and frail to personally lead a crusade, and resolved to send his illegitimate son, Anthony the Bastard of Burgundy, instead.
Thus, on 20 April and again on 4 May, a total of 82 volunteers marched out of Ghent, dressed in black livery, with crusaders crosses on their chests, and a large silver ‘G’ on their backs, to set sail from Sluis on 21 May. Contracts were drawn up to hire additional vessels in Marseille, and further forces were to meet Anthony there. As it turned out, the Grand Burgundian Crusade got as far as Marseille, where it learned of the death of Pope Pius II at Ancona on 14 August. The Burgundians waited a few weeks, then quietly packed up and went home. Early the next year effective control of Burgundy passed into the hands of Charles, and the main efforts of the realm until Philip’s death in 1467 were anti-French. The Crusade was dead in the water, and never again were any serious efforts made in Europe to raise another.
There has been much debate as to the reasons behind the Feast of the Pheasant. The extraordinary pageantry was certainly very much in keeping with the clever propaganda and public relation Philip had used in the past to bind his nobles and people closer to the ducal court. Without doubt the pro-crusade fervour stirred by the event made the sweeping economic changes promulgated a few weeks later easier to accept and smoothed their implementation. On a wider scale the push toward a general Crusade, led by Burgundy on behalf of the papacy, explicitly elevated Philip to the same status as the kings of France, England and Hungary, if not the same level as the Holy Roman Emperor. Certainly Burgundian inspired crusading efforts placed the Burgundian proto-state firmly centre stage as a major power in its own right, rather than as a vassal of France or Germany.
These sorts of analyses do not however take into account Phillip’s past actions and desires. Throughout his reign he had tinkered with plans to campaign against the Ottoman Turks, and there is little reason to believe that at all times it was his genuine intent to do so. The romantic dreams of the little boy dressing up as a Crusader and sweeping the Saracen from the Holy Land may never have left Philip. The reality was that the romantic medieval dreams of Crusade had no place in modern European politics. This last, lost crusade was probably fated from the outset to fade, like so many other medieval dreams, as modern Europe was created through the fifteenth century.
The Promised Lands: the Low Countries under Burgundian Rule 1369-1530
Wim Blockmans & Walter Prevenier;
Translated Elizabeth Fackleman, revised and edited Edward Peters
1999 University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 0-8122-3130-9
Charles The Bold
Richard Vaughan
2002 Boydell Press, Woodbridge
ISBN 0-85115-918-4
Philip The Good
Richard Vaughan
2002 Boydell Press, Woodbridge
ISBN 0-85115-917-6
From Functional Feast to Frivolous Funhouse: Two Ideals of Play in the
Burgundian Court
Jesse D. Hurlbut
1992, 5th Annual Indiana University Symposium on Medieval Studies