Bart van Loo

Ik heb mijn tijd genomen om dit boek te lezen (naast enkele andere boeken) en zou toekomstige lezers/lezeressen aanraden hetzelfde te doen. Wat een magistraal boek. Dit is geschiedschrijving van de beste soort.
Eenmaal eerder las ik een boek over Napoleon. Het was het meesterwerk van Jacques Presser uit 1946, dat ik op mijn middelbare school las als deel van het vak Geschiedenis. Nu dan dit werk.

Van Loo heeft mij op twee van mijn belangrijkste vragen antwoord gegeven. De eerste vraag kwam op show more bij het lezen van Presser, héél lang geleden: hoe kan het dat een anti-monarchistische en egalitaire revolutie van 1789 uitliep op een olicharchi waarin een soort maffia capo uit Corsica de held van de revolutie werd, vervolgens de idealen van diezelfde revolutie verkwanselt en daarna zichzelf kroont tot keizer om als ergere despoot dan Lodewijk XVI miljoenen mensen de dood in te jagen?

Mijn tweede vraag was: hoe is het mogelijk dat deze man een mythische figuur werd wiens moorden en wreedheid hem niet alleen vergeven werden, maar zelfs onder het tapijt van de wereldgeschiedenis weggeveegd werden?

Op de eerste vraag geeft dit boek een geweldig antwoord, terwijl de tweede vraag slechts zijdelings aan de orde komt. Desondanks vind ik dit een aanrader van de bovenste plank.

Een observatie die het boek te buiten gaat en ook niet in het boek voorbereid wordt vind ik toch belangrijk om te delen. Ik zie grote overeenkomsten tussen Napoleon en Hitler. Allebei kwamen ze op in een machtsvacuüm, allebei gaven ze hoop aan een natie die uiteengevallen was, allebei presenteerden ze zichzelf als sterke mannen. In beide gevallen liep hun respectievelijke bevolking kritiekloos achter hen aan. Allebei hadden ze geen enkele achting voor mensenlevens van de lieden die zij de oorlog in stuurden. Ik wil na lezing van dit boek graag uitzoeken hoe Hitler naar Napoleon keek. Beschouwde hij hem als voorbeeld? Of in het geheel niet? Enfin, alweer een bewijs van de hoge kwaliteit van dit boek. Een heel aantal grote vragen is voor mij nu beantwoord en daarmee rijzen nieuwe vragen.

Ik kan dit boek absoluut aanraden! show less

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3263033.html

This is a big huge book by a Flemish writer about the history of Burgundy in the time when it included the territory from Switzerland to Friesland and everywhere in between, most notably almost all of what is currently in Belgium. The downfall of Burgundy is treated in a couple of fiction books that I have read - Dorothy Dunnett has the Battle of Nancy in one of the later Niccolo books, and it's a central parallel timeline theme of Mary Gentle's show more Ash. But I confess I knew very little about it.

This first few chapters look at the emergence of Burgundy as an entity from the confusion of post-Roman Europe, but the meat of the book is an account of the century or so from 1369, when Philip the Bold married Margaret of Flanders and united the territories from Dijon to the North Sea, to the Battle of Nancy in 1477 in which Charles the Bold (Philip's great-grandson) was killed and Burgundy's pretensions came to an end. It's full of incidental detail, the assassination of John the Fearless, Joan of Arc, the Feast of the Pheasant; Van Loo also takes us through the great art of the day and the politics behind it - the big names here are Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden.

If the Burgundians had had better luck, the kingdom might have survived as a single territory to the present day. The presence of so many great cities in the territory meant that there was an early tradition of civic engagement and government. The variety of languages spoken meant that innovative policies about linguistic governance needed to be worked out sooner rather than later. Revolts tended to end with settlements involving greater rights for citizens rather than repression (though not always). The argument is made that some of the foundations of the modern state were laid in medieval Burgundy.

I must say that for me I found the overlapping sovereignties of the period rather reminiscent of today's situation in Belgium. My home is less than 5km from the linguistic frontier, which was only drawn in 1962 and became a provincial boundary only in 1995 when Brabant was divided. But at the same time we are only 10km from Tourinnes-le-Grosse, which was an exclave of the Prince-bishopric of Liège within the Duchy of Flanders for many years. The attempt to govern Belgium as a unitary state from 1830 to 1962 was the real historical anomaly.

Even after Nancy, it wasn't all over; Charles the Bold's daughter Margaret was of age and ruled well for five years until her death after a hunting accident in 1482, aged 25. Perhaps that is the real turning point. (And perhaps it's telling that historical narrative, including this one, tend to concentrate on the disaster of Nancy without reflecting that Margaret inherited most of her father's territories intact and the disintegration happened after her death, not his.)

A recently arrived diplomat told me a couple of days ago that he had been recommended this book as a good entry into the history of this part of the world. I think my advice would be to wait until there is an English translation. It's very good, but at 519 pages of detailed yet also idiomatic Dutch, it's a tough slog for the non-native speaker. show less

Comprehensive history of a fascinating set of countries and cultures. The social history was more compelling to me than the more traditional kings and wars retelling, but both were entertainingly covered and well read

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3263033.html

This is a big huge book by a Flemish writer about the history of Burgundy in the time when it included the territory from Switzerland to Friesland and everywhere in between, most notably almost all of what is currently in Belgium. The downfall of Burgundy is treated in a couple of fiction books that I have read - Dorothy Dunnett has the Battle of Nancy in one of the later Niccolo books, and it's a central parallel timeline theme of Mary Gentle's show more Ash. But I confess I knew very little about it.

This first few chapters look at the emergence of Burgundy as an entity from the confusion of post-Roman Europe, but the meat of the book is an account of the century or so from 1369, when Philip the Bold married Margaret of Flanders and united the territories from Dijon to the North Sea, to the Battle of Nancy in 1477 in which Charles the Bold (Philip's great-grandson) was killed and Burgundy's pretensions came to an end. It's full of incidental detail, the assassination of John the Fearless, Joan of Arc, the Feast of the Pheasant; Van Loo also takes us through the great art of the day and the politics behind it - the big names here are Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden.

If the Burgundians had had better luck, the kingdom might have survived as a single territory to the present day. The presence of so many great cities in the territory meant that there was an early tradition of civic engagement and government. The variety of languages spoken meant that innovative policies about linguistic governance needed to be worked out sooner rather than later. Revolts tended to end with settlements involving greater rights for citizens rather than repression (though not always). The argument is made that some of the foundations of the modern state were laid in medieval Burgundy.

I must say that for me I found the overlapping sovereignties of the period rather reminiscent of today's situation in Belgium. My home is less than 5km from the linguistic frontier, which was only drawn in 1962 and became a provincial boundary only in 1995 when Brabant was divided. But at the same time we are only 10km from Tourinnes-le-Grosse, which was an exclave of the Prince-bishopric of Liège within the Duchy of Flanders for many years. The attempt to govern Belgium as a unitary state from 1830 to 1962 was the real historical anomaly.

Even after Nancy, it wasn't all over; Charles the Bold's daughter Margaret was of age and ruled well for five years until her death after a hunting accident in 1482, aged 25. Perhaps that is the real turning point. (And perhaps it's telling that historical narrative, including this one, tend to concentrate on the disaster of Nancy without reflecting that Margaret inherited most of her father's territories intact and the disintegration happened after her death, not his.)

A recently arrived diplomat told me a couple of days ago that he had been recommended this book as a good entry into the history of this part of the world. I think my advice would be to wait until there is an English translation. It's very good, but at 519 pages of detailed yet also idiomatic Dutch, it's a tough slog for the non-native speaker.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-burgundians-a-vanished-empire-by-bart-van-lo...

I was sufficiently interested to get hold of the English translation when it came out, and to reread it for more nuggets. The Burgundians came very close to establishing an independent state as a buffer between France and Germany, and the map we have of Europe today is the result of dynastic accident and battlefield circumstance, with nothing inevitable about it. Van Loo is also very good on the extent to which the art of van Eyck and van der Weyden was exploited by the Burgundian rulers in the process of statecraft.

A point that I had missed was that the independence of the Burgundian and Netherlands courts from the jurisdiction of the Parlement de Paris became a key issue in the evolving constitutional settlement. Judicial competition is nothing new, of course, but I had not realised that it was an issue even in the High Middle Ages. show less