History of Burgundy

Burgundy (French Bourgogne) is a historic region of France, inhabited in turn by Celts, Gauls, Romans and Gallo-Romans, and various Germanic peoples, most importantly the Burgundians and the Franks. It is an adminitrative region of France, comprising four départements: Côte-d'Or, Nièvre, Saône-et-Loire, Yonne.

Its modern existence is rooted in the division of the kingdom of Lotharingia into the smaller kingdoms of Burgundy, Lotharingia (Fr. Lorraine), and Italy. Further divisions over the years resulted in the Early Modern duchy of Burgundy, bounded by Franche-Comté to the east and Nevers to the west.

During the Middle Ages, Burgundy was the seat of some of the most important Western churches and monasteries, among them Cluny, Citeaux, and Vézeley. During the Hundred Years War, King Jean of France gave the duchy to his younger son, rather than leaving it to his successor on the throne. The duchy soon became a major rival to the French throne, because the Dukes of Burgundy succeeded in assembling an empire stretching from Switzerland to the North Sea, mostly by marriage. The Burgundian Empire consisted of a number of fiefdoms on both sides of the (then largely symbolical) border between the French kingdom and the German Empire. Its economic heartland was in the Low Countries, particularly Flanders and Brabant. The court in Dijon outshone the French court by far both economically and culturally.

In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, Burgundy provided a power base for the rise of the Habsburgs, after Maximillian of Austria had married into the ducal family. In 1477 the last Duke Charles the Bold was killed in battle and Burgundy itself taken back by France. His daughter Mary and her husband Maximillian moved the court to Brussels and ruled the remnants of the empire (the Low Countries and Franche-Comté, then still a German fief) from there.

Burgundy produces famous wines of the same name.