The Duchy of Burgundy[2] emerged in the 9th century as one of the successors of the ancient Kingdom of the Burgundians, which after its conquest in 532 had formed a constituent part of the Frankish Empire.

Upon the 9th-century partitions, the French remnants of the Burgundian kingdom were reduced to a ducal rank by King Robert II of France in 1004.

Upon the extinction of the Burgundian male line with the death of Duke Philip I in 1361, the duchy reverted to King John II of France and the royal House of Valois.

Upon further acquisitions of the County of Burgundy, Holland, and Luxemburg, the House of Valois-Burgundy came into possession of numerous French and imperial fiefs stretching from the western Alps to the North Sea, in some ways reminiscent of the Middle Frankish realm of Lotharingia.

[5] The Burgundian State, in its own right, was one of the largest ducal territories that existed at the time of the emergence of Early Modern Europe.

After just over one hundred years of Valois-Burgundy rule, however, the last duke, Charles the Bold, rushed to the Burgundian Wars and was killed in the 1477 Battle of Nancy.

The extinction of the dynasty led to the absorption of the duchy itself into the French crown lands by King Louis XI, while the bulk of the Burgundian possessions in the Low Countries passed to Charles' daughter, Mary, and her Habsburg descendants.

As a vital military defender of the West Frankish border, Guerin was sometimes known by the Latin term for "leader" – dux or "duke".

Included in the Richard's ducatus were the regions of Autunais, Beaunois, Avalois, Lassois, Dijonais, Memontois, Attuyer, Oscheret, Auxois, Duesmois, Auxerrois, Nivernais, Chaunois and Massois.

They failed; eventually, when they appeared close to success, they were forced to scrap the scheme and instead maintain Burgundy as a separate duchy.

Between the reign of Richard the Justiciar and Henry the Venerable, the duchy had fallen into anarchy, a condition heightened by the war of succession between Robert the Pious and Count Otto-William.

In this, it would be seen, the dukes were well-suited to the task: none were remarkable or outstanding men who swept all opposition away before them; rather, they were persevering, methodical, realistic, able and willing to seize any opportunity presented to them.

As time passed, the state was built up and stabilised; a miniature court in imitation of the royal court at Paris grew around the dukes; the Jours Generaux, a replica of the Parlement of Paris sat at Beaune; bailiffs were imposed over the provosts and lords of the manor responsible for local government, while the duchy was divided into five bailiwicks.

The duchy became increasingly involved in the Reconquista in Spain at the end of the eleventh century, campaigning against Muslim taifas and forming marriage alliances with the Spanish royalty.

[9] Under the competent leadership of Robert II (r. 1271–1306), one of the more notable dukes of the Capetian period, Burgundy reached new levels of political and economic prominence.

Previously, the development of the duchy had been impeded by the bestowal of minor lands and titles on younger sons and daughters, diminishing the ducal fisc.

The elder Philip predeceased both of his parents in an accident with a horse in 1346; Countess Joan III followed him to the grave a year later, and the death of Odo IV in 1349 left the survival of the duchy dependent upon the survival of the young duke, a young child of two-and-a-half, and the last of the direct line of descent from Duke Robert I.

Fully expecting to die, the young duke made his last will and testament on 11 November 1361; ten days later, he was dead, and with him, his dynasty.

By the terms of his will, the duke had stated that he directed and appointed as heirs to his "county, and to our possessions whatever they may be, those, male and female, who by law or local custom ought or may inherit".

But there was more in play than a simple legal issue: the Hundred Years' War was in full flow, and the King of Navarre, as an ally of England and an enemy of France, was distasteful to the Burgundians, who in meetings of the Estates during John II's English captivity had been consistently loyal to John and his son the Dauphin, and opposed to the King of Navarre.

As the daughter of a former King of France and one of the last living members of the senior branch of the House of Capet, the latter was staunchly French in her sympathies; besides which, Charles II had offended her by laying claim to lands in Champagne that had formed part of her sister Joan of France's dowry in marrying Odo IV and which were deemed now to pass to Joan's sister.

He had already mobilised soldiers in Nivernais to do so by force if it proved necessary, but in fact, the nobility willingly swore homage to him as their new duke, and the duchy saw only a few isolated and half-hearted acts of rebellion in favour of Charles II.

It is not uncommon to read that, upon the death of Philip of Rouvres, "the Duchy of Burgundy, lying within France, therefore escheated to the French crown."

Most importantly, it was firmly stated that there had not been, and never would be, an annexation of Burgundy by France, merely juxtaposition – the king was also the duke, but there would be no deeper link than that.

In the face of a non-violent but firm refusal by the Burgundians to allow the independence of their duchy to be threatened, the king quietly scrapped the letters patent, and instead turned to other means.

[10] By 1405, following the deaths of Philip and Margaret, and the inheritance of the duchy and most of their other possessions by their son John the Fearless, Burgundy stood less as a French fief and more as an independent state.

The last two dukes to directly rule the duchy, Philip the Good (r. 1419–1467) and Charles the Bold (r. 1467–1477), attempted to secure the independence of their state from the French crown.

The endeavour failed; when Charles the Bold died in battle leaving no sons, Louis XI of France declared the duchy escheated and absorbed the territory into the French crown.

Eventually, King Louis XI of France and Archduke Maximilian of Austria, Mary's widower, signed the Treaty of Arras (1482).

[11] In 1526, Mary's grandson Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor was restored to the title and territory by the French King Francis I, under duress as part of the Treaty of Madrid.