Philip III the Good (French: Philippe le Bon; Dutch: Filips de Goede; 31 July 1396 – 15 June 1467) ruled as Duke of Burgundy from 1419 until his death in 1467.

Additionally, as ruler of Flanders, Brabant, Limburg, Artois, Hainaut, Holland, Luxembourg, Zeeland, Friesland and Namur, he played an important role in the history of the Low Countries.

[2] On 28 January 1405, at the age of eight, Philip was created Count of Charolais as an appanage and was probably engaged to his second cousin, nine-year-old Michelle of France (1395–1422), daughter of King Charles VI on the same day.

In 1423, the marriage of Philip's sister Anne to John, Duke of Bedford, regent for Henry VI of England, strengthened the English alliance.

[citation needed] On 23 May 1430, Philip's troops under the Count of Ligny captured Joan of Arc at Compiègne,[5] and later sold her to the English,[6] who orchestrated a heresy trial against her conducted by pro-Burgundian clerics, after which she was burnt at the stake.

This action proved a poor decision in the long term; Charles VII and his successors saw the Burgundian State as a serious impediment to the expansion of royal authority in France, and for this reason they constantly tried to undermine Burgundy, so as to subordinate it to French sovereignty.

Philip supported the revolt of the French nobles the following year (an event known as the Praguerie) and offered shelter to the Dauphin Louis, who had rebelled against his father Charles VII.

[citation needed] Philip was generally preoccupied with matters in his own territories and was seldom involved directly in the Hundred Years' War between England and France, although he did play a role during a number of periods, such as the campaign against Compiègne during which his troops captured Joan of Arc.

Despite the flourishing bourgeois culture of Burgundy, with which the ducal court kept in close touch, he and the aristocrats who formed most of his inner circle retained a world-view dominated by the ideas and traditions of chivalry.

In a period from 1444 to 1446, he is estimated to have spent a sum equivalent to 2% of Burgundy's main income in the recette génerale, with a single Italian supplier of silk and cloth of gold, Giovanni di Arrigo Arnolfini.

[9] Jean Miélot, one of his secretaries, translated into French such works as Giovanni Boccaccio's Genealogia Deorum Gentilium which is good example of the sophistication of Philip's court.

He commissioned many tapestries (which he tended to prefer over oil paintings), pieces from goldsmiths, jewellery, and other works of art, including numerous mechanical automata and fountains at the Chauteau of Hesdin.

In 1428, van Eyck travelled to Portugal to paint a portrait of the daughter of King John I, the Infanta Isabella, personally for Philip in advance of their marriage.