Lords of France: Roads to the Enlightenment

[Merrick Chance']

The Burgundian Wars

Part Two: The War of Artois​

The War of the Golden Fleece (known in France as the War of Artois after the provinces in which many major battles occurred and so called in the Lowlands for the Mercenary Organization which fought most of the battles of the war) was the first war between France and Burgundy since the early 1400s and the first battle between France and Burgundy in the Burgundian Wars, a series of conflicts which led to Burgundy's destruction. But it wasn't the first time that French and Burgundian Valois had come to blows--Burgundy was formed in part as a rebellion of the junior branch of the Valois against the senior branch, and ever since her separation from France she'd been struggling to keep that independence. Legally, half of Burgundy's territories lay within France and half within the jurisdiction of the Holy Roman Emperor. It required multiple ingenious coups to keep Burgundy independent every time her Duke died, and in 1480 her coups stopped coming.

Burgundy was the center of all things baroque in 1482, its intellectual and political order representing a dying Medievalism and her armies representing the last hurrah of the heavily armored, mounted knight​

Philip the Bold was a genius on the level of Francois I and Louis XI, and even moreso than Louis XI he was connected to the most prestigious figures in the period. Unlike France, which had positioned herself strongly with the heterodox Humanist faction of European cultural politics, Burgundy was one of the last remaining paragons of chivalry and traditional Medieval values. Moreso than even rural Spain or 'uncivilized' Lithuania, Burgundy's political elite was almost entirely comprised of a landed military nobility, even though the Netherlands was one of the few truly urban areas of Europe at the time. All of Burgundy's upper governmental and military officers were members of one Order of Knights or another, and the Inquisition had dominated the Dutch intellectual scene since the 1460s.

But this whole society collapsed during the Burgundian Wars. Much of Burgundy's foreign templar elite lay under French ground by 1490, many of her castles lay in waste, and her land was hopelessly fragmented. But it was a near miss: it is easy to imagine a situation where Burgundy won and France was inherited.

The End of the Franco-Aragonese War​

The war against France was, to put it kindly, a massive embarrassment for the court at Valencia. Although the Armee du Sud controlled all of Catalonia by the Summer of 1488 and was travelling far south of Barcelona, the force which was truly destroying most of Aragon's army were the 4,000 man Huntsmen of Foix. Count Gascard's skirmishers had transitioned through 1486 and 1487 from a thorn in the side of Aragon to a legendarily elite group of men whose very mention evoked fear. King Miquel characteristically decided to attack both problems at once, bypassing the Armee du Sud and marching on Toulouse through Foix and the Pyrenees, trying to both destroy the elite light-infantry force which was making it impossible to cross into France and attacking the base of operations of France's largest army in the theatre.

The Army of Aragon, directly under the command of Miquel I and his military advisers, numbered 20,500 men, 4,000 knights, and 10 newly bought siege cannons from Venice. The siege cannons were gargantuan, cumbersome things: each required 10 oxen pulling it, not to mention a reasonably large road. This is where the decision to move through the Pyrenees became difficult: the mountain paths were nearly unusable for the cannons, and the Army of Aragon spent as much time repaving the road they were on as they did marching. By the time Miquel's army crossed the mountains, his army was underfed, overtired, and stretched to the breaking point.

This played directly into the hands of the Huntsmen. On the first night in a month that the Army of Aragon made camp, the Huntsmen came out of the woods with bow, arrow, and arquebus, and routed the far larger enemy, who retreated into the woods where they were picked off battalion by battalion. And although the army reconvened south of the Pyrenees, they were immediately destroyed by the Armee du Sud.

The Battle of Bearn effectively ended the Franco-Aragonese War​

The Battle of Bearn had several consequences--it emasculated and embarassed the Aragonese Army, which by 1487 was the last thing holding Aragon together. It gained huge prestige for France, and more specifically for Foix's army--the Battle of Bearn led to a federalization of the French Army, allowing for different regional styles of governance. But, most powerfully, it led to the death of King Miquel, who was lost in the paths of the Pyrenees and never found again. With that, the Kingdom of Castille laid their claim on the Kingdom of Aragon and inherited it, creating the Kingdom of Spain, which remained a great power for the next several centuries. Although the Spanish Hapsburgs did not realize any French claim to Italian land, they did gift the Aragonese province of Rousillion to the County of Foix, in gratitude to the deftness of Foixard soldiers.

WELP. Note that I gave Foix Rousillion because even though Spain's inheritence 'stopped' my war it would be ridiculous for me to control all of Naples and a good chunk of mainland Aragon and then have that disappear.​

Also I'm going to cut this post in half because I know that this post is going to get lost somehow if I don't post it now.

 

[Tommy4ever]

And a new superpower is born ...

Just as you get over the old enemies in England and Burgundy you will be faced by this new Spanish foe. Look forawd to seeing Burgundy's demise.

 

[Milites]

Good to see Spain form almost flawlessly. Wouldn't want Spain not to be around for France to destroy

 

[Merrick Chance']

The Burgundian Wars

Part Three: The War of Artois (but for real this time)​

Burgundy's declaration of war on France came at the worst possible time. French resources, including men, money, officers, and even police, were stretched to the limits as it was. And while 25,000 men stood on the North-Eastern border with Burgundy, they were outnumbered by more than 2 to 1. Worse still, the Northern front lacked a commander in chief, which force de Villenueve to travel from Roma to Othe to take command. But once he got to Othe, he realized the true magnitude of the situation he was presiding over.

The OOB of the War of Artois​

On the one hand, the War of Artois was the kind of war which de Villenueve had been arguing for for years--an utterly defensive war. This gave de Villenueve, by now an aged man, one last chance to prove himself: every operation France had undertaken since the writing of On Command had been an offensive action, and moreso it had been a successful offensive action. This cast immense doubt on the validity of what de Villenueve thought was his most important work, On Command (although he was respected in France for his organizational work).

De Villenueve had been agonizing over this for the past 4 years since the War of the League of Vendee. But he was helped his problem (why French offensives had been so successful) from the least expected corner: Louis XI himself. Although no warrior, Louis had lived in Savoy during the War of the League, and seen the rage of the Savoyards against their Duke, who hid with his army in Piedmont, as they suffered. Louis pointed out the political cost of the defensive, the damage to a country's morale that occurs over the death of its people, the destruction of its homes, and the appearance of its ruler as weak. Taking steps to mitigate said cost, Louis argued, would go a far war towards beefing up France's capability to defend.

Thus, Louis gave an order at the news of Burgundy's declaration of war, wherein any and all peasants from the Northeast farmlands were given the option to move to Paris, Normandy, or Champagne. There, they would be offered food and protection from damages. This led to a massive flow of peasants to these cities, massively increasing the size of these towns. This had 2 important effects--it made the French peasantry feel that it was being protected, and it denied the Burgundians many of the supply routes they could have taken: the Burgundian Army found little but a series of abandoned villages in the north east.

The sack of Boulogne sur-Mer, a town just by Calais. We can see excessive looting by the Burgundian soldiers but relatively few Frenchmen.​

But this also had rather detrimental social effects. Outside of Paris, the only organization capable of policing these refugees was the Inquisition, which was still run by Manciniites and ultraorthadox Catholics. As the situation got worse, the temptation (especially in Champagne) to break off and join with Burgundy proved too strong. The Champagnan Inquisition incited a riot against france in the spring of 1490, as Burgundian soldiers stood at the gates of Paris. The riot ended up doing little other than destroying the Humanist community in the city, as well as burning down La Notre Dame de Riems, a 300 year old Cathedral.

The riot in Riems, and the situation which led to the riot.​

The policy was, overall, successful. Without the threat of social collapse in the countryside the French army was able to pull back and remain in a passive stance for a good part of 1488 and 1489, only intervening when the battles between the provincial garrisons and the Burgundian army seems at its most bleak. The darkest point was the spring of 1490, which saw Burgundian armies besieging Paris, Caen, Champagne, and Troyes. The army besieging Caen was the most worrisome--Duke Phillipe's Armee de Nederlands was a fearsome force, modeled on the Crusader armies of old--its 10,000 Burgundian Knights was almost as large as the entire cavalry of France, and its number included nearly the entirety of the Burgundian elite. They destroyed in toto both the 5,000 man Armee de Calais (and after this they proceeded to take Calais) and the 10,000 man Armee du Nord (after which they proceeded to take the city of Sommes and with it Picardy).

The battle of le Havre ended the Armee du Nord's participation in the War​

The North-Eastern Front would have been completely lost were it not for one of the greatest generals of the 15th century--Louis Francois de Vibien. "Louis Francois" was actually an adopted name, as de Vibien was the first in a long line of converts to Frenchdom: his real name was Karl von Viben, and he was a Dane from Holstein. Possessed of a keen intellect, von Viben started his career as a recruiter for the Holsteiner Army, where he read On Command. In 1480 he left the Holsteiner army to attend in the French Academy of the Army, which was the most prestigious institution of its kind at the time. After graduating he took the name of the current and previous French kings and became the recruitmaster-general of Gascogne.

It was in Gascogne where he came across one of the great finds of the French Army: the siege cannons which were captured from the Army of Aragon. Looking at it, he realized the amount of damage they could do, especially against the Burgundian castles (of which he had a passing awareness). The major castles of Burgundy had been built through the 1470s and 80s, and were likely the most advanced castles of their time. But they were already obsolete; built to withstand trebuchets and catapaults, arrows and assaults. Cannon-shot could tear right through those castles. But de Vibien had another ace up his sleave--the newly safe arquebuses of the Huntsmen of Foix. A shot from an arquebus had been shown to go straight through plate armor, so cannons and arquebusiers, when placed together, could utterly decimate the Armee de Nederlands. So, with the agreement of de Villenueve, he embarked to train two cannon/arquebusier regiments, which would be incorporated into the Armee de Flandres. It was 1491 when the regiments were raised, and over the next month de Vibien traveled up from Gascogne, raising militiamen along the way.

He arrived in Normandy just in time. The Armee de Nederlands had cut off Caen's supply for a straight year, and the city was down to scraps. Riots were only barely averted with each passing day, and the Norman Inquisition was having a hard time keeping control of the city. Furthermore, the arrival of the Armee de l'Est in the theatre created a combined army which would be able to confront the Burgundian Duke.

Phillipe found out about the attack far ahead of time. Though he had few scouts of any skill, the destruction of several of his scouting regiments was enough to tell him that another French army had brought itself forward for defeat. What he didn't know was that the new French army contained within it gunpowder technology. So he started the battle with a massive knight charge, the tactic which had won him all of his battles (the Burgundian knight was trained to use a massive lance, which was larger than the currently used pikes). Arrows rained down on the knights but did relatively little damage. It was only just before his knights reached the French line that the arquebusier regiment was revealed. Heavily armored and raised from the local nobility, the early French arquebusier was one of the best trained and most staunch soldiers in the whole French army (with the exception of the Suis Garde). The arquebusiers fired along with the cannons directly into the Burgundian cavalry, and the results were greater than could have possibly been imagined. It is estimated that 200 Burgundian knights died in that volley alone, and just as the charge lost its momentum, the knights found themselves beset on all sides by pikemen.

Although the battle led to large casualties within the artillier corps (as the arquebusier/cannon battalions were called), it decimated the Armee de Nederlands. Within a few short days, nearly 6,000 Burgundian noblemen died, as well as the few remaining infantrymen in the army. The Armee de Nederlands was then engaged as it tried to return to the Lowlands, in Artois, where it was destroyed. The French military had succeeded in its defensive, and now it was on the offensive.

The Battle of Caen led to the destruction of the whole Burgundian military​

The usual depiction of the War of Artois ignores a very important front: the Lyonnais front. Including the rebellious Savoyard Duchy as well as the capital of Burgundy, much of our information on the War of Artois in Lyon is lost to history. We do know, however, that the front was led successfully by Louis Duke of Bourbon. Louis I was a highly transformative figure in the French Kingdom, having been one of the generation of French dukes who were taught by the proto-nationalistic French Army Academy. Of those taught there, Louis excelled the most, and was so taken by a sense of Frenchness that he changed his name from Aldric to Louis when he ascended to Dukedom. He and his marshal, Alphonse de Saint-Chambourd, defeated the massive Burgundian army in the south, captured most of the proper Duchy of Burgundy, and managed to force the Duke of Provence to send his soldiers east, past Savoy and into the Burgundian duchy of Milan.

The situation in southern France by 1489. The capture of Lombardia occurred in 1490, while Piedmont Castle stood for the rest of the war​

By 1492, France was in a dominating position over Burgundy. By taking the County of Parma, Louis had spelled the beginning of the end of Burgundy's direct intervention in Northern Italy (although Burgundy would retain a system of alliances through to the 1500s), and by reclaiming France's old Flemish territory of Vlaanderen Louis was taking a huge manufacturing center from Phillipe. Although there would be 2 more Wars between France and Burgundy/her allies, the war of Artois had crushed the thraet that the Duchy posed to the order, and it would be very soon that the vultures would swoop in.

The Treaty of Troyes​

The War of Artois was not only a skirmish between two Valois lines: it was, perhaps, one of the first non-religious ideological wars: namely, the war was fought over the place of the nobleman in society. The movement towards more professionalized armies had led, in Catille, France, and Austria, to a different role and place for the aristocrat: the French aristocracy was literate, involved in government (though they didn't control policy), and served as officers. Burgundy and Aragon, with their massive contingents of Templar knights, represented the old order of Noblemen who controlled significant portions of the economy and government and fought on horseback. With the death of nearly 10,000 knights, the War of Artois had broken the old order, and gave life to the beginnings of a new European system.

 

[Merrick Chance']

Good to see Spain form almost flawlessly. Wouldn't want Spain not to be around for France to destroy

Heh, well I have a spoiler for the next king:

Spoiler

edit: I am mad about 'losing' Naples though. I had a whole story set out about how France lost Naples, but now that Spain controls it I doubt I'll ever get it (plus if the Kingdom of Naples ends up rebelling they still have better/more military ideas than France/Spain: in my test game both of us couldn't stop Naples from taking Palerno back)

 

[Milites]

Haha! A Dane - from Holstein of all places - reforming the famed French army into encompassing artillery in order to counter the victories of the vile Burgundians. Patriotic feelings are swelling through my bosom XD

Well done with peace I should say. Though won't Parma be kinda a pain to hold? Isn't that within the boundaries of the HRE?

Heh, well I have a spoiler for the next king:

A personal union with Syldavia?

 

[Merrick Chance']

I had an "Italian Ambition" mission (explaining why I went to war with Aragon in the first place), although I'm angry (also) that I didn't wait a little bit longer and shoot for Lombardia as well--I figured that Burgundy was going to be inherited soon, and that I'd likely get it in the process. As is the inheritance comes later, and Milan broke free in the 90s. I suppose though, that from the perspective of the French king and their Austrian allies it was one and the same

 

[Rifal]

When in doubt: CANNONS!!! This AAR is Fantastic and im really looking forward to more

 

[Merrick Chance']

The Burgundian Wars

Part Four: The War of Grongingen and Vlaanderen​

For simplicity's sake I am going to conflate the two wars of Groningen and Vlaanderen and refer to them within the same section. Both were relatively minor wars, and the war of Vlaanderen ended without any land gain for either side. The Wars represented England's full-hearted return to European power-politics after a quarter of a century of remaining in the British Aisles, as well as the death-blow to Burgundian power.

As I said before, Burgundy's rapid expansion had created a veritable bloc of Medievalist revisionist powers, which included the County of Kleves, the Republic of Venice, the Kingdom of Aragon, the Duchy of Brittany, the Kingdom of England, and the County of Manuta. But it had also incurred the hatred of the Hapsburgs and the Valois. This hatred became more and more relevant as the Franco-Hapsburg became the hegemons of continental European politics. This link between Valois France and Hapsburg Europe only became stronger with the Franco-Portuguese Alliance signed in 1493 and the Franco-Spanish alliance, signed in 1494. With such a solid powerbase, the Holy Roman Emperor was finally able to enforce the Empire's laws, including the liberation of Friesland, which had been made into a vassal during the War of the Dutch League. This put Duke Phillippe in a bind: to have another conquest taken from his hands so short after his humiliation at the hands of the French was a massive embarrassment and greatly weakened his rule in the Netherlands.

As he agreed to the separation of Friesland from his realm, Duke Phillippe sent out an order which rang across Europe: he wanted to make a mercenary army of 30,000 men to replace the old Armee de Nederlands. Poles, Swedes, Scots, Germans and Italians flocked under the Burgundian banner, and with a new and massive army, Burgundy assumed that at least Louis XI would be scared off by the size of Burgundy's new army. He was wrong.

The participants in the War of Freisland, not including England who joined later and only explicitly against France​

The newly raised Burgundian army failed miserably. Mercenary bands still hadn't caught up to Franco-Austrian pike doctrine, and the French artillier regiments were still drastically advantaged over Burgundian castles. Not only did France quickly capture Nevers as well as Valencies within a couple of months, but French ships engaged the Burgundian navy, leading to one of the first major French naval victories ever.

The military situation in 1493, including the victory in the channel​

This naval battle brought Duke Phillipe to the bargaining table. What occurred at the Treaty of Nevers was the total destruction of Burgundy's geographical defensive capabilities. The Bourbons gained Nevers, in recognition of their military prowess: this meant that the Burgundian capital of Dijon was completely exposed. The Holy Roman Emperor took the northern Netherlands, and the county of Hainaut was given independence and put under the rule of the Flemish Hapsburgs. This last part was perhaps the most important, as the Flemish Hapsburgs would become one of the most powerful houses in Europe for a short while.

But the Battle of the Channel also led to England looking across that body of water to France. England had spent most of the later 15th century in wars of conquest in Ireland and Scotland, and by 1490 she controlled all of the British aisles. But the prospect of a united France without a Burgundian check struck fear into the heart of the English parliament, and a pair of wars which lasted into the 1510s were pursued against France. Although these wars were relatively minor and few Frenchmen died in battle, it meant that for the next 20 years France would be under blockade. Worse, England was able to land several ten thousand English troops in the new province of Flandres, and controlled both Calais and Vlaandern from 1511 to 1513.

The occupation of Flandres​

Eventually, in both cases, France agreed to paying minor sums of livres. It was the humiliation of the later Burgundian Wars, of being powerless to stop the blockades, which led to most of the actions of Louis XI's later reign.

The embarrassing Treaty of Dover, in 1500. The Treaty of Calais, in 1515, similarly led to 50,000 livres being paid to England.​

Hey guys, I realized that I didn't have a lot of pictures of the later Burgundian Wars, so I figured might as well finish them up now. I'll probably write something about domestic affairs over the week

 

[Rifal]

Paying the English for peace? Disgracefull I say. The Roostbeefs deserve nothing but the sharp end of a sword. On a serious note: Fantastic AAR, clearly on of the best out there right now. Can't wait for more

 

[Merrick Chance']

Commonwealth and Absolutism: the evolution of France's government under Louis XI

Part One: Bruno Mittelbach​

It is often noted with irony that Francois I's dream of a centralized France was actualized by the unassuming, unambitious and unthreatening Louis XI. The king with a wooden crown was able to succeed where his uncle hadn't in creating a French government which was significantly stronger than her vassals, and by his death nearly all of France's old enemies, domestic and foreign, had been vanquished.

But this is an unfair narrative: the successes of Louis XI wouldn't have been achieved were it not for Francois I's creation of the French Army Academy, which indoctrinated a generation of French dukes in the importance of the security of the whole realm, and the reorganizations of the government wouldn't have been undertaken had Francois I not reorganized the military. And to focus primarily on Louis XI is to ignore the massive intellectual accomplishments of one of the most important political philosophers of the Renaissance, Bruno Mittelbach.

Bruno Mittelbach served as the Royal Minister for 30 years, during this time developing the concept of the Divine Rights of Sovereigns​

Mittelbach was a Saarbrucker from the Bishopric of Cologne who found employment early in his life in the newly created Imperial Court, becoming a barrister at an extraordinarily early age. By the time he had turned 25, Bruno Mittelbach was promoted to become the chief barrister for the Emperor--a position which came as much out of his legal and philosophical acumen as his colossal faith in imperial power and willingness to prosecute in cases which would expand the Empire's legal authority. Over his short 4 year stay in the Austrian court, he argued for and won cases dealing with the authority of the Emperor in settling territorial disputes, in creating freer imperial markets, and (possibly most importantly) the case of the House of Hapsburg versus the House of Luxembourg over who would inherit the County of Kleves, which set that the Emperor's rights of inheritance superseded the rights of Kingdoms to inherit.

The last case led to a large degree of blowback. Confederationist lawyers flocked to the Imperial Courts, and suddenly the rest of the Holy Roman Empire had a say in how they would be governed. Mittelbach himself was pushed out of Austrian favor by the provincial counts, and for the Fall of 1489 it seemed that Mittelbach's career had collapsed as quickly as it had risen.

This was until he got a summons from King Louis XI, asking Mittelbach to be his Minister of the Kingdom. The Ministry of the Kingdom (later renamed the Royal Ministry under Mittelbach's control) was created to coordinate efforts between the King, the Estates General, and the vassals, and had normally been the fiefdom of the Duke of Bourbonnais (a perennial French rival), and had in fact been a body by which the vassals coordinated their efforts to weaken the King. But after the goodwill gained in the Burgundian Wars, Louis was able to select his own appointee for what would become one of the most important positions in the Counseil (especially during administrations like Louis XI's, when foreign policy was mainly a military affair).

But why, one might ask, would Louis XI (a man who in his heart believed in the feudalistic idea that the King had a responsibility to his people) appoint Mittelbach, a fierce proponent of central rule, to the Royal Ministry? The answer has all to do with Mittelbach's philosophy. Mittelbach's centralist ideology came directly from his particular belief in God, a belief which he converted Louis XI to during their mail correspondence through the 1480s. The idea of God as Law Giver, not as physically present being or as the King of humanity, predicted a long tradition of French Enlightenment thinking about God--God had created a set of laws present in Christianity, but he needed people on Earth to carry out his will. This is a drastically different interpretation of political theology that we get from, say, Saint Augustine.

The Estates General steadily lost importance under Mittelbach​

This concept transitioned into what Mittelbach called the Divine Right of Sovereigns, although his theory became quickly misapplied. Le Droit Divin, written in 1500 and circulated throughout Europe, detailed Mittelbach's conception of divine right as being only applied to those who practiced God's laws. Although Mittelbach speaks of France particularly in Le Droit Divin, it is clear that he is speaking of the world in general, that

Although God gave his prophet Moses but one set of Commandments, and though God gave Jesus one set of principles, and though God created but One Bible, France possesses hundreds of different forms of governance, which all claim to be the Right one, and the Godly one. But it should make sense that if God made one set of Laws, that God meant for One kind of Government.

This was a religiously inspired attack on the Federationist cause in the Empire and the Feudalist cause beyond--because it gave exclusive sovereignty to Kings who practices Godly policies (as defined by the Kings). Although this school of philosophy only truly caught on during the Reformation, in France it became implemented almost immediately. I will detail precisely how in the next section.

 

[Merrick Chance']

So I was told that in the past many AAR writers havent' really upped the AARchoice awards because of modesty.

I aim to be an exception to this rule.

Vote for me in the AARchoice Awards!
Also like, generally participate and stuff!

 

[Merrick Chance']

Commonwealth and Absolutism

Part Two: New and Old Aristocracy

The centralist/federationist debate is portrayed in different ways by different countries. In France, Germany, and Spain, the centralists are depicted as modernizers, who fought against the Feudalistic and Medeivalist estates to create the first modern governments. In England and Poland, the federationists are shown as protectors of democracy against the autocratic centralists. This contrast in developmental histiographies shows us that the development of democracy and the development of modern institutions aren't consistently linked. In England the continued empowerment of the estates led to Britain becoming one of the earliest modern democracies, but in France and Germany the combination of the legislative and executive branches in the office of the King led to the creation of a modern 'apolitical' bureaucracy.

But the centralist/federationist debate had another element to it, one which I have mentioned before when referring to the conflict between France and Burgundy. This was the social conflict between the 'new' and 'old' forms of Aristocracy. The creation of a new Aristocracy, dependent on the government, in part explains why Louis XI was so successful in his creation of a neutral bureaucracy. The reorganization of the provinces into larger groups was only one side of it--it would have been impossible to staff those larger provinces without a massive expansion of the bureaucracy.

The Ancient Artistocracy​

How did Louis XI and Mittelbach succeed in this? It would have been very difficult to fund such a huge expansion of the bureaucracy (from 10,000 officers in 1480 to nearly 45,000 in 1550) with the small funds that the French government gained through indirect and direct taxation (and note that the current political philosophy was that direct taxes would only be allowed when the King needed them to defend the realm during a war--to raise direct taxes in order to balance the budget was considered the top of tyranny in the 15th century).

The importance of the Burgundian Wars in this transition from the old aristocracy to the new --and from a feudal France to a more absolutist one--can't be discounted. Traditionally, the administration of wars went as such--when the declaration of war came to the King, the King asked his vassals (and later, his parliament/estates) for the funds and soldiers to fight the war. This meant that each War would require a large amount of deal making by the King, and that the King was rarely able to fight Wars of Aggression unless it was for a particularly righteous cause (the Crusaders in particular led to the raising of some of the largest armies seen in Western Europe since the collapse of the Roman empire).

This domination of war by the aristocracy was furthered by the fact that Knights dominated medieval warfare, and Knightly warfare was a particularly individual enterprise, with noblemen training and equipping themselves for warfare. The use of feudal levies controlled directly at home and on the field by aristocrats furthered the noble domination of war.

Thus, the 'Old' aristocrat fought personally in wars, controlled a massive estate, challenged the state's monopoly of force via his control of feudal levies and his own personal retinue of knights, and was rarely literate (or even numerate).

The New Nobility​

Several factors combined to create the new type of aristocrat, who soon became one of the largest corporate bodies in the Hapsburg Empire, France, and Sweden. The first factor the the professionalization of war. By passing the militia act, creating a professional army, and requiring extensive training of the French soldier, Francois I had (partially unknowingly) destroyed the warmaking ability of the French aristocrat. This came to a head when von Viben's artillier company defeated thousands of enemy knights in the field, beginning the trend of more and more gunpowder using soldiers in the French army.

This is not to say that aristocrats had totally lost their ability to raise and train levies. But the cost of the new king of war pioneered by de Villenueve soon became prohibitively expensive, to the degree that the only kind of organization who could raise large armies was the State.

The second factor was the new expansion of literacy across France. Low Latin, taught by Carmelite monks and printed in the books that the Carmelites printed, soon became the foundation of France's emerging urban economy. The separation of the noble from the merchant (disallowing noblemen from participating in the mercantile trade) forced the aristocracy to turn to another organization for their money--the state. The 'new' aristocrat, which I call the Seignural Bureaucrat, was a literate, cultured man: if he fought in France's wars he fought as an officer (which remained an aristocratic profession even through the Revolution), and his primary source of income was his government job, not his ownership of a large estate.

This created a new relationship between the aristocracy and the government: before 1515, the aristocracy controlled the government via the estates or acted as the government, providing their own security and taking their own taxes. After 1515, the aristocracy became those who implemented rather than created policy. This is a crucially different, but I should note that the French government remained under the control of noblemen.

This leads us to the question--what happened in 1515?

Part Three: The Commonwealth of France​

The change of France from a Kingdom to a Commonwealth may seem like a decentralizing move, and in a strange way it was: the estate meetings were regularized, and it was given sole authority over relations between France and her vassals (which in practice meant little). But the reform of France into a commonwealth was really a huge step away from feudalism and towards a modern view of sovereignty: the vassals were seen as semi-sovereign entities, and the King lost his ability to force compliance on them (which also meant little in practice). But the vassals were no longer able to change the policy of the Kingdom.

These extensive reforms couldn't have been enacted without the consent of the House of Bourbon. What had been one of the traditional domestic enemies of Valois (along with the de Tendes of Provence), had transformed into one of their greatest allies through the rule of Louis I. Louis is now one of the first great Heroes in the myth of French patriotism, but as a person he remained a giant amongst intellectual midgets. He said that of all the people he had ever met, Louis XI, de Villenueve, Mittelbach and Matthias I of Austria were the only he considered his equals. He was a great general, destroying a far larger number of Burgundians during the War of Grongingen and the War of Artois. The issue was that most of Louis' sons died during these wars, killed in battle by Burgundian knights. In 1510, Louis' last son died from what was likely pneumonia. This left the 65 year old Louis with his 3 year old grandson as his last heir. The idea of a decade long regency did not particularly entice Louis, who had a low opinion of nearly everyone. "If I could," he said in 1511, "I would put my horse as regent. At least my horse knows how to run through a forest."

Louis Bourbon knew that Louis Valois wanted to pass a wide ranging reform of the Kingdom in the next estates meeting, but that he likely wouldn't be able to to so without more support from the vassals--the Governors of Orleans and Auvergne as well as Mittelbach would almost definitely vote against the measure, but they would still lose against the combined vassals. But it was also clear that this reform, which would greatly weaken the vassals, would eventually be passed. So Louis came up with a solution to both his and Louis XI's problems, one which would save the Bourbons from future obscurity. Louis XI would become the regent of Bourbonnais, and Louis I would vote for the reform, but the Bourbons would all be granted high ranking venal government positions and be married into the Valois family. Louis XI, who cared little for the dynastic strength of the Valois family, agreed to the deal in a heartbeat.

The Annexation of Bourbonnais, and the reform of France into a Commonwealth​

The Commonwealth reforms allowed Mittelbach to completely reform the Ministry of the Kingdom into the Royal Ministry, abolish the Parisian and Toulousain parliaments, and replace the inquisition with a professional corps of traveling policemen (soon to be supplemented by a French Judicial Circuit system). The Royal Ministry became, in effect, the only real domestic policymaking institution in all of France. This made France a perfect model of Mittelbach's Europe: within the Commonwealth there were many rulers, but in the Kingdom there was one sovereign.

note: the next post will be on French exploration/colonialism from the creation of Louisville to 1550. I'll likely cover the colonies in half-century sections where I'll deal with religion, trade, military, and relations with the Amerindian nations. That will be a 'megapost' like this one that will likely come sometime next week--my girlfriend is coming over this weekend to see me/the Dark Knight Rises, and since she lives in Baltimore and I live in New York (and she goes to our old college in Westchester and I'm going to grad school in Virginia), I'll probably spend the whole damn weekend with her and stuff. But I may end up writing a beginner's corner on the way that Magna Mundi deals with colonies either around Sunday or sometime early in the week.

note 2: I'm likely going to start speeding up the entries. After colonialism, I'll probably go over Henri II's reign with a couple of entries because even though he ruled for 30 years remarkably little happened within France during the time. I was ticked off in Lords of Prussia because I wasn't able to reach the 'meat' of the Enlightenment, and now it's been ~2 months and I've only gotten through the first 50 years!

 

[Estonianzulu]

So I've finally read through it all, excellent stuff. France has certainly seized the dominant position in Western Europe. A string of strong, reformers as kings will do that I suppose.

Where in Virginia are you going to school? Not a Wahoo are you?

 

[Merrick Chance']

So I've finally read through it all, excellent stuff. France has certainly seized the dominant position in Western Europe. A string of strong, reformers as kings will do that I suppose.

Where in Virginia are you going to school? Not a Wahoo are you?

God no, as a New Yorker I don't think I could ever accept going to a school that's all about sports. I'm going to George Mason's School of Public Policy.

And yeah, I got a lot of good luck with my kings in this game, which continues through the next 2 kings (although I characterize Henri II as being bland and unambitious and Louis XII as being as arrogant as his grandfather which balances it out).

 

[Estonianzulu]

God no, as a New Yorker I don't think I could ever accept going to a school that's all about sports. I'm going to George Mason's School of Public Policy.

I'll give you a primer.

Wahoos are students attending the University of Virginia (Who I imagine would take great offense to being called a school all about sports).
George Mason is a great commuter school, most of my co-workers went there and they do love their basketball.

Hokies are those of us who went to Virginia Tech, that's where the good sports are played

 

[Merrick Chance']

I'll give you a primer.

Wahoos are students attending the University of Virginia (Who I imagine would take great offense to being called a school all about sports).
George Mason is a great commuter school, most of my co-workers went there and they do love their basketball.

Hokies are those of us who went to Virginia Tech, that's where the good sports are played

I would have said 'gazuntite' to both of those earlier (and yeah for some reason the wikipedia article for wahoo mentioned sports being a thing)

 

[Merrick Chance']

French Exploration and and New France, from 1500 to 1550

The creation of the Admiralty & Early Exploration​

The War of Vlaandern put France in a highly precarious position. Although the Valois dynasty had a weak claim to Flandres (which included Vlaandern, Hainaut, and Antwerp), arising from Flanders being a French province in Medieval times. But Vlaandern was only recognized by the Holy Roman Empire as a Burgundian county, and though Matthias I (the current Holy Roman Emperor and Austrian Duke) held back the Imperial Court's decision on who rightfully owned Vlaandern due to the continued Imperial-Burgundian conflict, England tried several times during the war to have Vlaandern torn from France, usually by applying to the Reichstag. Plans for an independent county of Flandres, a city-state of Ghent which would be ruled by a partially English-appointed and partially French-appointed council, and an English Flanders were all drawn up during the war.

Part of the problem was France's totally inept navy, who's weakness truly showed during the War. The French Navy was almost completely ignored, by French society, the French military, and the French government. The process of feudal levy -> mercenary bands -> professional military hadn't even started in the French navy, and it was mostly comprised of re-purposed fishing vessels which were used to fight pirates, and (most importantly) the French navy was controlled by and seen as a part of the French army, with both the Army and Navy being represented on the Council by the Marshal, who was generally far more concerned with the security threats to France, which were overwhelmingly land armies. Thus, the French navy wasn't reformed for decades and French eyes looked East, away from the Atlantic.

France's abhorrence of naval matters (A series of maluses given to countries without naval national ideas) was broken in 1500 by Louis XI. The creation of the Ministry* of the Navy and Navigation was created in 1500, with the intent to explore the newly found New World.

Now, in 1500 France had little to no enemies on the continent, it was richer than ever before, and had strong links to the hegemonic power in Europe (the Hapsburg Empire). What did France want from the new world then? The answer has everything to do with the rest of Europe, specifically England.

European Colonization south of the Hudson, 1550. Note that major Aztec tribes are in purple, major Inca tribes in white, and major Mayan tribes in tan​

England was, according to the London, 'rapidly settling' the New World in 1500 (in reality she had only settled modern day South Carolina). They reported a continent filled with massive engulfing forests, large 'Indian' tribes (so named because of Juan Bernado's false assumption that he had landed in India when he came to Hispaniola in 1495). So France planned to settle north of England's colonies for 3 reasons--

-A possible North-West passage straight to Asia
-As a counter to the British territories in the New World
-For possible trade opportunities

The creation of the French Ministry of the Navy and Navigations​

But to even reoutfit the French navy and turn it into a blue-water navy capable of transversing the Atlantic required two decades of reforms. France didn't even have a significant port in 1500, despite having several key natural harbors. Her navy possessed 5 large ships, all older Italian models which weren't suited for ocean-going. So Louis sent his ambassador to Madrid to ask for the services of the current Grand Admiral of the Spanish navy, Juan Jose de Cordoba. That Charles I of Spain agreed to this says much about the time period, which if nothing else was a period of Western European integration. Juan Jose de Cordoba first sent an expedition North, past Iceland, where they rediscovered Greenland. A small settlement called "Louisville" was created, though it wouldn't be until 1520 that the area would become actually settled.

The discovery of the Viking settlement of Eriksford, renamed Louisville​

By 1506 the Hudson Bay as well as the entrance of the St.Lawrence river had been mapped out by the Saint Omer Expedition, and some links had been made with the Amerindian tribes. It is important to note that although later Franco-Amerindian relations were probably the best among all of the colonial relationships, the French were particularly brutal when it came to early colonization. The Settlements of Louisville and Villenueve (the first two French settlements in the New World) were marked by massacres by the French troops. But this did little to create settlements--France still didn't have the fiscal capability to fund such expensive voyages.

French areas of exploration, 1506​

It was only in 1524, in the reign of Henri II, that Simon de Saint Omer was promoted to Grand Admiral of the French navy. This marked a large shift--though de Cordoba's reforms completely changed the face of the French navy, his reforms did not lead to a significant French colonial/exploratory capacity. With de Saint Omer in charge, French colonialism entered a new era.

The new era of French colonialism, 1524​

*Ministry seems to ACTUALLY be a newer word than Department. I guess that, as an American, I associate Ministry with the old world or whatever. I'm going to stick with Ministry because I've been using it too long now to fix it
Sorry for the short post, I'm sick today so not really able to write

 

[Rifal]

Great update as always. However I bewlieve that if France expands into North America a new conflict with England is inevitable and their superior navy will make sending additional troops difficult. A permanent colonial army may be worth considering.

 

[Estonianzulu]

A standing army in the colonies would probably be necessary, good thing you've achieved relative dominance over western Europe. How does exploration differ in MM from DW? I finally got my old preordered copy of EU3e that I couldn't play due to crap computers and reinstalled it. I figure why not try and see what this MM is all about.