"Luxembourg in the 1470s-1480s?" Topic

I wonder if anyone here can help me.

I've been researching the War of Burgundian Succession, and it's going very well. I've managed to scrape together enough info, much of it laboriously translated from French with the help of google, to piece things together. I've been pleasantly surprised with the amount of detail I've been able to find on small battles, sieges, skirmishes and such. Events happening in the Duchy and County of Burgundy, in Picardy and Artois, Flanders, Hainault, Liege….

But one thing that is eluding me is what happened in Luxembourg. I have found several little references to both French and Burgundian armies (quite large ones) being sent to Luxembourg, but have found ZERO reference to what went down there. I'm assuming the French occupied a large part of it at the same time they were occupying Picardy and Artois, and Maximilian had to send troops to fight them…. but haven't found any mention of it happening.

I've also found some references to one Gerard de Rodemack who I think had French sympathies, and was later declared a traitor by Maximilian, but I don't really know what went down.

Was Luxembourg conquered by the French? Was it in full rebellion mode? Was it divided? I don't know!

Anyone able to point me in the right direction?

This may give you some more information upon which to do additional research: link Hope this helps.

Jim

there was a rebellion in 1480

three times, in Artois in August and October 1479, then in Luxembourg in 1480, his army dispersed by itself only ten days after the start of the campaign. The young duke, in love with chivalrous prowess, is thus confronted with a reality which rarely corresponds to his ambitions.

link

L'armée, le Prince et ses sujets : le financement de la guerre aux Pays-Bas bourguignons après la mort de Charles Le Téméraire, 1477-1482

in 1480 he tried to quell the rebellion of Luxembourg barons led by Gérard de Rodemack and Guillaume de La Marck. The army he had painstakingly assembled to achieve this numbered just over 5,000 men. During this time, the French ravaged the Meuse valley with impunity, without however taking important cities. A new truce was concluded in August 1480, which lasted until the accidental death of Marie de Bourgogne, in March 1482. The war then resumed, while Maximilian was once again reduced to impotence by the revolt of his subjects, mainly the Flemish.
(…)
The consequences of this collapse in tax revenue were quickly felt. There was no longer any question of assembling a large army which could have faced that of Louis XI. We have seen that the army raised against the rebels in Luxembourg did not exceed 5,000 men, including a thousand German mercenaries. The gens de guerre, who were paid only very irregularly, escaped all control and set the surrounding provinces to fire and blood, while the German mercenaries launched a violent riot in Luxembourg. Immediately after the truces signed with the French, Maximilien fired almost half of his prescriptions, reduced to a strenght of 600 Lances, or only one fifth of the royal army.

The taxes paid by Brabant and Flanders, insufficient in 1480, were ridiculous in 1481. The Brabançons granted 1,000 combatants for the reconquest of Luxembourg, 500 on horseback and 500 on foot

For the foreign mercenaries in the Army of Burgundy
link

two and a half years later, a particularly serious sedition broke out in Luxembourg. After a campaign marked by terrible financial difficulties, the Burgundians gens de guerre, at least those who had not yet deserted, were assembled and reviewed in the capital of the duchy in September 1480. At the time of the departure of the duke, fifteen days of pay were paid to the Germans. Furious at not having received a whole month, they began to murmur and say "we have put an end to Duke Charles, still we will do the same with this one"
 The troublemakers were therefore Swiss. They planned to join the garrison of the rebel place of Rodemack, whose surrender the Burgundians were negotiating. They departed from Luxembourg, but as they approached Rodemack, they were attacked and defeated by the Prince of Orange. The prisoners were then hanged, drowned, killed and cut up, because a single archer cut the heads at 52 of them

blinds of rage as it is understandable, the Germans who had remained in Luxembourg wanted soon after to take revenge on this massacre. The night after the executions, they tracked down the "Walloons" in the streets of Luxembourg, and killed around thirty. The situation subsided the following days, it does not know how. The riot seems to prove that the Burgundians had nothing premeditated, because if not, one can imagine that they would have taken a minimum of precautions to protect themselves from it. This bloody example illustrates the ambiguous relations that the Burgundians had with the Swiss. Full of resentment towards the latter after the humiliation of Nancy, less paid than them, the Burgundians could only hate them, but their leaders still felt the need to employ them.
(…)
the siege of Chiny, in the duchy of Luxembourg, mobilized in 1481 about 2,000 men, including the 453 pedestrians of Engelbert II of Nassau, 400 German infantrymen led by the count of Zweibrücken, 300 horsemen of the vassals of the duchy brought by the governor of Luxembourg, and four 25 Lances ordinance companies
Foreigners represented half of the present strenght

French royal army advanced in the Duchy of Luxembourg. Monsieur d'Amboise had taken Virton by assault;
Yvoy was helpless; the garrison offered to surrender the place, if it was not rescued before six weeks; it was only granted three days. Monsieur de Chimai, governor of Luxembourg, and the count of Romont, who commanded on the steps of Flanders, had no sufficient strength, and more Swiss began to arrive in large numbers in the army of the king. The Burgundian captains therefore thought only of negotiating and concluding a truce; but the king did not want it, and did not give his approval to those which his captains had consented to.

Thus the war continued in the duchy of Luxembourg without great things being done there; there were from both parts raids and ravages with which the country was damaged. All the merchants who returned from the Antwerp fair were looted and saw their wagons with merchandise taken. Captain Galliot, who had so valiantly defended Valenciennes against the French, had been won by the Count of Dammartin and now served the king as best he could; he came, devastating the countryside to the gates of Namur. On the other side, the commander of Chantereyne did not do the least exploits. He went to lay siege to the fort Chateau de Beaumont, which belonged to the Count of Vernembourg, an ally of the King of France. He was absent; Marie de Croy, his wife, although his brother and all his family were the first and most powerful servants of the Duke Maximilian, supported the siege as a valiant captain might have done; she saw the whole town surrounding the chateau ruin and burn without being moved, and finally did not surrender until her husband had told her to treat. She obtained good conditions, and she was allowed to take three loaded carts.

But it was no longer the war that was to decide the interests of the two parties: it was obvious that everything was going to be negotiated. Since the King of England showed himself favorable to Duke Maximilian, it was not in his army that this prince had to put his hopes.

Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne de la maison de Valois, 1364-1477
Amable Guillaume Prosper Brugière de Barante

@Lilian

Thanks, those first two links (the same author I believe) I already have, and they've been very useful. I was just re-reading the first one yesterday, which triggered me wanting to get to the bottom of the Luxembourg question. Looks like I need to quickly re-read the second one too, had missed those details.

The third source though I have not seen before. Very useful, I'll go see if I can find the full thing somewhere!

Good source, thanks.

Charlie: if you ever summarizes your finds into something readable I would be most interested to see that!

Its obvious that from the outside the distinction between Swiss and other German mercenaries is a bit sketchy, probably because the Swiss territory was officially still part of the HRE. Reports on Fornovo also refer to Swiss troops in the French service as German. The war of 1499 would make that distinction more obvious to other nation, though it was already obvious enough to Maximilian, who found that he got more loyality for the buck from the non-Swiss, which ultimately led him to form units from Germans from the "land", rather then the "mountains", making Landsknechte. Somewhere between 82 and 87 their organisation developed, probably evolving rather then being invented.

@Lilian
Your source 'Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne de la maison de Valois' looks like a real gold-mine of info, thanks a lot! I've managed to find PDFs of the volumes I need (11 and 12) that deal with Mary of Burgundy. I can copy-and-paste the French text into google translate, and get a very passable translation – a bit of neatening things up makes it quite understandable.
I've already translated a similar source in the same way, a lengthy process, but well worth it. I don't think I'll be able to do all of this one, too many pages, but I'll definitely be searching for certain things and translating the relevant section. I've just finished doing so with the pages on the siege of Arras, which is great!

As for Luxembourg, the original purpose of this thread, I'm piecing together info and dates (the 'Foreigners in the service of Mary of Burgundy' article was worth a second read, it has lots of nuggets of info), and am hoping to find more in this new source.

@Puster
I am indeed planning to summarise my finds and write up a concise narrative of the war, to go on an upcoming blog to show all aspects of this project. A simplified, easy to follow summary of all events from 1477 to 1493, and more lengthy detailed looks at first the war and rebellions in the Low Countries, and then the same in the Duchy and County of Burgundy itself.

The latter (war in the Duchy and County) seems to barely get a mention anywhere, but my previously mentioned source has LOTS of details on what went down between 1477 and 1479, and who was involved. Basically the Prince of Orange, who had helped conquer both the Duchy and County for the the French, switched sides and led the local nobility in a rebellion. Hired lots of German and Swiss mercenaries, until the latter went over to the French. Lots of sieges, ambushes, night attacks, one seemingly hapless French general humiliated and defeated several times by the rebels, who was then replaced by a more efficient commander who successfully reconquered the region.

Afaik the story of the amalgamation of the Italian (condotta), French (ordonance), Burgundian (administration), Swiss (Reislauf and tactics) and German (martial spirit, imperial loyalities) traditions into the Landsknechts was not told anywhere yet, so this could be a usefull threat for your tapestry.

If you need some information on the later whereabouts – Albrecht got "Frisia" as payment from Maximilian to pay off debts, and later went to collect his fief – thereby practically destroying the majority of the remaining Frisian cantons. The Feud with Edzard of East Frisia went on for years, and the "black guard" that was shaped in Maximilians wars in the Netherlands later went freelance and was hired by a succession of local lords that wanted to subdue their unruly peasants, until it was destroyed (as a coherent unit, not physially, except for some Fähnlein) at Hemmingstedt in 1500. Only a year later subunits would find themself on different sides at the siege of Groningen, and tried to make some local deal, much to the annoyance of their paymasters.

The story of the conflict and country building in Burgund AFTER Charles are indeed a bit the step child of the Italian war, while actually offering as much intrigue and heroics, if the latter on a smaller scale.

Go for it! :-)