The period began with Duke Philip the Bold taking office as count of Flanders and Artois in 1384 and lasted until the death of Duchess Mary of Burgundy in 1482 after which the Burgundian State was dissolved, and the Low Countries came under the rule of the Habsburg monarchy by inheritance.

A fair share (but not most) of these territories were inherited by the Burgundian dukes, a younger branch of the French royal House of Valois, upon the death of Count Louis II of Flanders in 1384.

Though Maximilian was victorious, he was only able to gain the County of Flanders according to the 1482 Treaty of Arras after his wife Mary had suddenly died, while France retained Artois.

In 1493, King Charles VIII of France according to the Treaty of Senlis finally renounced Artois, which together with Flanders was incorporated into the Imperial Seventeen Provinces under the rule of Philip.

An increasingly modernized central government, with a bureaucracy of clerks, allowed the dukes to become celebrated art patrons and establish a glamorous court life that gave rise to conventions of behavior that lasted for centuries.

From 1441, Philip based his ducal court in Brussels, but Bruges was the world center of commerce, though by the 1480s the inevitable silting of its harbor was bringing its economic hegemony to a close.

[4] In the present-day Netherlands, inhabitants of the culturally Catholic area of Meierij van 's-Hertogenbosch are considered by the other Dutch to have a Burgundian character, meaning that they are supposed to be companionable people who like to party exuberantly.