Burgundian Wars

The Burgundian Wars were a series of conflicts from 1474 to 1477 in which the Swiss Confederacy and its allies defeated Duke Charles the Bold. Charles died at the Battle of Nancy, and his duchy’s power collapsed.

Battle of Grandson: A 1476 battle in which Swiss forces defeated Charles the Bold’s army and captured its camp. The Swiss victory began Charles’s rapid reversal in the wars.
Charles the Bold: The last Valois Duke of Burgundy, who ruled from 1467 until his death in 1477. His ambitions and military campaigns brought Burgundy into conflict with the Swiss and their allies.
Mary of Burgundy: The daughter and heiress of Charles the Bold, who inherited his remaining territories after his death. Her succession made the Burgundian inheritance a central issue after Nancy.
Burgundian State: The network of lands, institutions, and dynastic claims ruled by the Valois dukes of Burgundy in the fifteenth century. Its wealth and reach contrasted with the Swiss Confederacy’s decentralized alliance.
Battle of Morat: A 1476 battle in which Swiss and allied forces decisively defeated Charles the Bold’s army near Morat. Its outcome shattered Burgundy’s military strength after Grandson.
Duchy of Burgundy: A medieval principality ruled by the House of Valois-Burgundy and centered on lands in present-day France and the Low Countries. Its expansion under Charles created the political stakes of the wars.
Habsburg–Valois rivalry: A long political and military struggle between the Habsburg and Valois dynasties over territory and influence in Europe. The struggle over Mary’s inheritance carried the wars’ consequences into a wider dynastic conflict.
Charles the Bold’s army: The forces assembled by Charles the Bold, combining household troops, regional levies, and foreign mercenaries. Its costly defeats reveal the limits of Charles’s military system against Swiss infantry.
Battle of Nancy: A 1477 battle in which Swiss-led forces defeated and killed Charles the Bold. Charles’s death there ended the wars and his rule.
Upper Alsace: A region along the Upper Rhine whose towns and lordships became contested in the late fifteenth century. Burgundy’s involvement in Upper Alsace helped provoke the Swiss and their allies.

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