Kingdom of Burgundy

Kingdom Of Burgundy

Burgundy is a historic region in Western Europe that has existed as a political entity in a number of forms with very different boundaries. Two of these entities - the first around the 6th century, the second around the 11th century - have been called the Kingdom of Burgundy; a third was very nearly created—as was more than one noble state of Burgundy—including a County and duchy, almost all of them being influential and fairly wealthy. In the last stages of the later house of Burgundy, Burgundy had become one of the most influential and powerful states in Europe and a great prize as a duchy, with possessions obtained by marriage and inheritance extending from and encompassing the Netherlands (then including modern Belgium), and extensive lands from Lorraine and encompassing the entire surrounds of the valley of the Rhone River, nearly to the Rhine abutting western Switzerland extending down the Rhone Valley to the Mediterranean coast.

The area correlates with today's border regions between France, Italy and Switzerland; in other words a country-sized region roughly centered on Lyons or Geneva. The later-period Duchy of Burgundy, eventually failed of a male heir and became assimilated into Habsburg lands by the marriage of Duchess Marie to Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor. With the marriage of their son Philip to Juana, heiress of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, it was eventually inherited by their son Charles I of Spain (Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor), and became part of the Spanish Empire of his son, Philip II of Spain.