History of Burgundy

Following several revolts, the Aedui leadership was invited to join the Roman Senate, becoming the first Gauls to receive such an offering, after which Gallo-Roman culture flourished in the region.

The Burgundians, who migrated into the Western Roman Empire as it collapsed, are generally regarded as a Germanic people, possibly originating in Bornholm (modern Denmark).

Amidst repeated clashes between the Romans and Huns, the Burgundian kingdom eventually occupied what is today the borderlands between Switzerland, France, and Italy.

During the Hundred Years' War, King John II of France gave the duchy to his youngest son, Philip the Bold, rather than leaving it for his successor on the French throne.

This Burgundian State consisted of a number of fiefdoms on both sides of the (then largely symbolic) border between the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire.

In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the other Burgundian territories provided a power base for the rise of the Habsburgs, after Maximilian of Austria married the surviving daughter of the ducal family, Mary.

After her death, her husband moved his court first to Mechelen and later to the palace at Coudenberg, Brussels, and from there ruled the remnants of the empire, the Low Countries (Burgundian Netherlands) and Franche-Comté, then still an imperial fief.