Pheasant Festival
The Pheasant Festival was one of the most famous festivals at the court of the Burgundian Duke Philip the Good .
overview
Among all the numerous festivities at the Burgundian court, which are characterized by unheard-of magnificence, the so-called pheasant festival held a special place. It took place on February 17, 1454 in Lille . After Constantinople had fallen a year earlier, the idea of a crusade, which was never completely extinct even in the late Middle Ages, was to be revitalized through this festival. Since the Burgundian house order, the Order of the "Golden Fleece" , had committed itself to the defense of the faith, among other things, the Burgundian Duke Philip the Good felt called to take the initiative through this symbolic act.
course
Not only the extraordinary abundance of exquisite dishes astonished the participants, the extravagant, artistic decorations and mechanical gadgets such as ship models and indoor fountains also impressed the people. Artists and trained animals showed their skills, musical performances alternated with allegorical plays. But the focus of the evening was a live pheasant who wore a heavy chain of gold and precious stones around his neck. The giant Hans, who had also distinguished himself on other occasions, portrayed the sultan. An actress who embodied the allegorical figure of the "Frau Kirche" lamented the conquest of Constantinople and urged the Christian knighthood to come to her aid. Thereupon Philip the Good and with him all the Lords of the Golden Fleece vowed to undertake the crusade. They swore this by God, Our Lady and, strangely enough, by the pheasant too.
The steward Olivier de la Marche , who organized the festival, writes in his memoirs: "The second and longest table showed above all a huge pie, in which there were twenty living people who played in turn on different instruments. The second centerpiece was A Lusignan-style castle, on the main tower of which was Melusine in the shape of a serpent. Orange water leaped from the two smaller towers into the surrounding ditches. Then on a hill a windmill could be seen, on the roof of which sat a magpie, after the people Furthermore, in a vineyard, one saw a barrel in which there were two kinds of drinks, a sweet and a bitter, and on it sat a well-dressed man with a piece of paper in his hand that said: Who of them? I'll take it! [...] The kind of hospitality and the dishes themselves were incredibly splendid: each bowl was provided with 48 different dishes, and the Roast containers consisted of wagons lined with gold and blue. Next to the table was a tall sideboard, which was loaded with gold and silver dishes, in between crystal vessels that were set with gold and precious stones. "
To what extent this play was meant seriously is difficult to assess, after all, in the same year “the Duke went to Germany and negotiated with Emperor Friedrich III at the Reichstag in Regensburg . about the financing - but without success. Philipp the Good put the project on hold and then did not get around to carrying it out in the following years. "
background
All courtly festivals had the function of demonstrating power, wealth and the aristocratic virtue of the prince's generosity ( largesse ) in a potlach-like competition with competing princely houses and the aspiring upper middle class . Such events also offered the opportunity to reward well-deserved followers through generous gifts and to strengthen friendships. In the case of Burgundy, however, there were also special motifs. Burgundy was a nation without a national feeling, without an identity-creating core, a patchwork of different lands, but not a country. The old, agrarian French-speaking south contrasted with the modern, urban, mostly Dutch-speaking north. In addition, it was subject to the French King in the west and the Holy Roman Empire in the east. “In view of this heterogeneous structure of the subject areas, the double dependency on feudal rights and the legitimacy of the Burgundian dukes, which could be challenged as a result, a continuous integration of all strata ... and a high representative effort was required in order to express one's own rule in a visible and recognizable manner for everyone. The more insecure a dynasty is, the greater is its need to invest in ceremony and art, in the magnificience , the grandeur and sublimity of the regent. ”Finally, one must also remember the burning ambition of the rulers of Burgundy for power and wealth needed, could compete with every king in Europe, but had to be content with the modest title of duke to gain the recognition they deserved. Since the 1st Crusade, the French kings knew how to link the idea of the crusade to their home. Weakened by the Hundred Years War with England, France was unable to continue this tradition, which is why Philip the Good, who was pursuing an increasingly independent policy towards France, seized the opportunity to fill the vacant, prestigious position of crusade leadership. In subtle allegorical allusions such as the display of a “spring of St. Andrew”, the national saint of Burgundy, the performance of the “Mysteries of Jason”, which refers to the house order of the Golden Fleece and, last but not least, of the pheasant himself, who is associated with “the island of Colchis , the country of origin of the Golden Fleece “, the symbolism of the crusade should be closely linked to the symbolism of Burgundy at the Pheasant Festival in order to underline and legitimize the claim to leadership of the Burgundian duchy.
literature
- Joseph Calmette : The great dukes of Burgundy , Munich 1996 [1949, 1963]
- Christa Dericum: Burgundy and its dukes in eyewitness reports , Düsseldorf 1966
- Johan Huizinga : Autumn of the Middle Ages. Studies on life and mental forms of the 14th and 15th centuries in France and the Netherlands , Stuttgart 1961
- Hermann Kamp: Burgundy. History and Culture , Munich 2007
- Charles the Bold. Art, war and court culture , exhibition catalog of the Historisches Museum Bern, 2008
- Edward Tabri: Political Culture in the early northern Renaissance. The court of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy (1467-1477) , Lewiston-Queenston-Lampeter 2004
- Heribert Müller, Jessika Nowak: Burgundian table pleasures. The pheasant festival of Lille (1454): A feast for the eyes, in: Cotta's culinary Almanach XI, ed. by Erwin Seitz, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2003, pp. 172–186