Part of the Holy Roman Empire
The Kingdom of Burgundy, known from the 12th century[1]: 140 as the Kingdom of Arles,[a][2] was a realm established in 933 by the merger of the kingdoms of Upper and Lower Burgundy under King Rudolf II. It was incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire in 1033 and from then on was one of the empire's three constituent realms, together with the Kingdom of Germany and the Kingdom of Italy.[1] By the mid-13th century at the latest, however, it had lost its concrete political relevance.[2]: 35
Its territory stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the High Rhine River in the north, roughly corresponding to the present-day French regions of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Rhône-Alpes and Franche-Comté, as well as western Switzerland. Until 1032 it was ruled by independent kings of the Elder House of Welf.[3]
Carolingian Burgundy[edit]Since the conquest of the Ancient Kingdom of Burgundy by the Franks in 534, its territory had been ruled within the Merovingian state, and later the Carolingian Empire. In 843, the three surviving sons of Emperor Louis the Pious, who had died in 840, signed the Treaty of Verdun which partitioned the Carolingian Empire among them: the former Burgundian kingdom became part of Middle Francia, which was allotted to Emperor Lothair I (Lotharii Regnum), with the exception of the later Duchy of Burgundy, the present-day Bourgogne, which went to Charles the Bald, king of West Francia. King Louis the German received East Francia, comprising the territory east of the Rhine River.
Shortly before his death in 855, Emperor Lothair I divided his realm among his three sons in accordance with the Treaty of Prüm. Much of his Burgundian domains would pass to his younger son Charles of Provence, who ruled Lower Burgundy with Provence as a king (855–863), while Upper Burgundy was given to his brother, king Lothair II. Upon the death of Charles in 863, his domains were divided between his brothers: Emperor Louis II took Provence, while Lothair II received the rest. In 869, Lothair II died without legitimate children, and in 870 his uncles Charles the Bald and Louis the German concluded the Treaty of Meerssen and partitioned his territory: much of the Upper Burgundy, the territory north of the Jura mountains (Bourgogne Transjurane), went to Louis the German. The western regions went to Charles the Bald, while emperor Louis II kept Provence and parts of Lower Burgundy. In 875, the emperor died, and his domains in Lower Burgundy and Provence were taken by Charles the Bald and incorporated into his domains.
Formation of the kingdom[edit] The three Burgundian polities, c. 900:In the confusion after the death of Charles' son, the West Frankish king Louis the Stammerer in 879, one of his most powerful nobles - count Boso of Provence (d. 887) refused to submit to Louis' heirs. At the Synod of Mantaille, Boso was proclaimed king, thus establishing a distinctive Kingdom in the regions of Provence and Lower Burgundy (Bourgogne Cisjurane), centered at Arles and Vienne, but his realm was much reduced by 882. His son and heir, king Louis the Blind (d. 928) succeeded to consolidate the realm in 890, and even managed to capture northern Italy, becoming the emperor in 901. Blinded in 905, he gradually transferred the governance to his cousin, count Hugh of Arles.
In the meanwhile, a separate kingdom was created in Upper Burgundy. In 888, upon the death of the Emperor Charles the Fat, count Rudolph of Auxerre, Count of Burgundy, founded the Kingdom of Upper Burgundy at Saint-Maurice which included the County of Burgundy, in northwestern Upper Burgundy.
In 933, Hugh of Arles ceded Lower Burgundy to Rudolph II of Upper Burgundy in return for Rudolph relinquishing his claim to the Italian throne. Rudolph merged both Upper and Lower Burgundy to form the Kingdom of Arles (Arelat).
In 937, Rudolph was succeeded by his son Conrad the Peaceful. Inheritance claims by Hugh of Arles were rejected, with the support of Emperor Otto I. The kingdom was simulteously invaded by Magyar and Arab raiding parties in 954 and Conrad sent envoys to both parties to attack one another and sent expeditions to Provence in raiding Arab settlements in the 960s.[6]
In 993, Conrad was succeeded by his son Rudolph III, who in 1006 was forced to sign a succession treaty in favor of the future Emperor Henry II. Rudolph attempted to renounce the treaty in 1016 without success.
Feudal fragmentation of the Kingdom of Burgundy (Arles) during the 13th centuryIn 1032, Rudolph III died without any surviving heirs, and, in accordance with the 1006 treaty, the kingdom passed to Henry's successor, Emperor Conrad II from the Salian dynasty, and Arelat was incorporated in the Holy Roman Empire, though the kingdom's territories operated with considerable autonomy.[3] Though from that time the emperors held the title "King of Arles", few went to be crowned in the cathedral of Arles. An exception was Frederick Barbarossa, who in 1157 held a diet in Besançon and in 1178 was crowned King of Burgundy by the archbishop of Arles.
In 1246, the French prince Charles I of Anjou succeeded to acquire the County of Provence and the County of Forcalquier, thus establishing a Provencal branch of the House of Capet.[2]: 41 In coordination with Pope Nicholas III, e made a stillborn attempt to revive the kingdom of Burgundy/Arles. Between 1277 and 1279, Charles, at that time already King of Sicily, Rudolf of Habsburg, King of the Romans and aspirant to the Imperial crown, and Margaret of Provence, queen dowager of France, settled their dispute over the County of Provence, and also over Rudolf's bid to become the sole Imperial candidate. Rudolf agreed that his daughter Clemence of Austria would marry Charles's grandson Charles Martel of Anjou, with the whole Arelat kingdom as her dowry. In exchange, Charles would support the imperial crown being made hereditary in the House of Habsburg. Nicholas III expected Northern Italy to become a kingdom carved out of the Imperial territory, to be given to his family, the Orsini. In 1282, Charles was ready to send the child couple to reclaim the old royal title of Kings of Arles, but the War of the Sicilian Vespers frustrated his plans.[7]
The Vivarais see of Viviers was the first of the kingdom's territories to be annexed to the Kingdom of France, gradually during the 13th century with formal recognition in 1306.[2]: 37 The Lyonnais had been practically beyond the reach of the Empire since the late 12th century. Its incorporation into France was the result of internal conflicts between the Archbishop of Lyon, the cathedral chapter and the city council. It was cemented in the early 14th century and formalized in a 1312 treaty between Archbishop Peter of Savoy and Philip IV of France. Emperor Henry VII protested against this but did not seriously challenge it.[2]: 37
Since 1343, the French royal House of Valois tried to expand its influence towards the Kingdom of Arles by acquiring feudal possessions in the region of Dauphiné, ruled by the childless dauphin Humbert II of Viennois. By 1349, Humbert finally decided to sell his domains to the House of Valois, and an agreement was made, designating young French prince Charles (future king Charles V) as Humbert's successor, on the condition that Dauphiné will remain a distinctive polity, and thus not incorporated into the French realm. Thus in the summer of 1349, young Charles became the first Valois Dauphin de Viennois. In 1350, when his father ascended to the French throne, Charles became the heir presumptive and thus for the first time both honors (Dauphin de Viennois, and heir to the French throne) were held by the same person.
Formally remaining an imperial fief within the Kingdom of Arles, the Dauphiné was from that time effectively controlled by the French, but the issue of whether the king or emperor should had full and ultimate sovereignty over those regions was left unclear until well into the 15th century.[2]: 39-40 .
On 4 June 1365, Charles IV was the last emperor to be crowned king at Arles, after a gap of nearly two centuries following the previous Arlesian coronation of Frederick I in 1178.[10] That attempt to revive the imperial hold on the kingdom did not succeed, however, and as a consequence Charles annexed the County of Savoy to the Kingdom of Germany.[2]: 36 [verification needed] Charles IV ceded his rights to the crown of Arles to Louis I of Anjou the following year.
During the state visit to Paris in early 1378, emperor Charles IV granted the title of imperial vicar over the Kingdom of Burgundy (Arles) to the nine-year-old Charles, Dauphin of Viennois (future French king Charles VI), but only for his lifetime.[11] Since Charles was Dauphin of Viennois and thus a holder of an imperial fief within the Kingdom, his appointment as the imperial vicar did not imply transfer of authority to the French crown, but in reality it was still seen as a gain for the House of Valois.
Imperial authority over the old Burgundian regions continued to decline, thus initiating the final stage of institutional dissolution of the Kingdom as a distinct entity. The southern core of the Kingdom, the County of Provence (without the County of Nice, which had been passed to the House of Savoy), would eventually be united with the French crown in the 1480s, after it was willed to the French king by Charles IV of Anjou, Count of Provence.[2]: 41
In 1421, Emperor Sigismund appointed Louis II of Chalon-Arlay as the Imperial vicar of Burgundy, in hope to restore some imperial authority over Dauphiny, Viennois and Provence. Those efforts were directed against rising ambitions of powerful Burgundian Duke Philip the Good. In 1463, the title of Imperial vicar was offered to Duke Philip himself, by Emperor Friedrich III, as part of a proposed dynastic alliance between the houses of Burgundy and Austria, but no final agreement was reached, and thus the appointment was not accepted. The Dauphiny and the Provence were annexed into the Crown lands of France by the end of the 15th century, but those changes were not formally sanctioned by the Holy Roman Emperors. Unlike other non-German states, the County of Burgundy and the Savoyard state were encircled during the Imperial Reform.[14]
Thus in 1524, imperial troops invaded Provence during the Italian War of 1521–1526, but failed to capture the region. In 1525, during the peace negotiations between Emperor Charles V and French King Francois I, it was proposed that a realm centered on Arles and Provence could be renewed for Charles III, Duke of Bourbon (d. 1527), but those plans were abandoned and not included into the Treaty of Madrid (1526). In the summer of 1536, during the Italian War of 1536–1538, Emperor Charles V personally led the invasion of Provence. He took Aix-en-Provence on August 5, affirming there his rights to the Kingdom of Arles, but those gains were soon lost, and the war ended by the Treaty of Nice (1538).
Burgundian royal traditions were briefly revived in 1784, following the War of the Bavarian Succession (1777-1779), when emperor Joseph II (d. 1790) proposed to the new Bavarian prince-elector Charles Theodore to exchange Bavaria for the Austrian Netherlands, offering him the title "King of Burgundy". While the Low Countries were not part of the Kingdom of Arles, they were part of the Burgundian State and the Burgundian Circle. The proposal was not accepted, and thus the plan failed.[16]
By that time, the title of Imperial vicar of Burgundy became extinct, while the title "King of Arles" remained one of the Holy Roman Emperor's official subsidiary titles until the dissolution of the Empire in 1806. The Archbishop of Trier continued to act as the Imperial Archchancellor of Burgundy/Arles, as codified by the Golden Bull of 1356. The remnants of the Kingdom of Arles became part of the imperial circles unlike Italian, Bohemian or Swiss territories. All remaining Imperial states but Savoy were conquered by Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715).
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)43°41′N 4°39′E / 43.68°N 4.65°E / 43.68; 4.65
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