Battle of Bulgnéville

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The Battle of Bulgnéville on July 2, 1431 was a leasehold contest for the Duchy of Lorraine after the death of Duke Charles II. The battlefield was Bulgnéville near Neufchâteau .

The opponents of the battle were the two cousins René I. d'Anjou and Antoine de Vaudémont . The result of the battle, René's defeat and capture, was turned into its opposite diplomatically in the years that followed.

prehistory

Due to the lack of sons, Duke Charles II had decided that his daughter Isabella should inherit him. In 1420 he married her to René d'Anjou, who had taken over the Duchy of Bar the year before . Charles's inheritance was challenged by his nephew Antoine von Vaudémont while the old duke was still alive, whereupon Charles disinherited him. However, Charles' attacks on Antoine's property came to nothing, as Antoine had found a powerful ally in Philip the Good . After the succession occurred, Antoine resumed the fight for the duchy.

The battle

Antoine de Vaudémont had 4,000 horsemen and 5,000 infantrymen under the command of Toulongeon , Marshal of the Duke of Burgundy. René had received support from his brother-in-law, the French King Charles VII , who sent him troops, 4,000 horsemen and 6,000 infantrymen, under the command of the old soldier Arnault Guilhem de Barbazan . Unfortunately, the French troops were inhomogeneous and inexperienced. Count Palatine Ludwig III. , a brother-in-law of the late duke, sent 500 knights.

René, who wanted to occupy the county of Vaudémont , met the Burgundians one kilometer west of Bulgnéville, between Vaudoncourt and the river Anger. The troops of Vaudémont positioned themselves on a slight slope, where they were attacked by René's troops, who already believed that victory was certain because of their numerical superiority. However, their attack was stopped by the Picardy archers of Toulongeon, a close combat developed that was decided after only an hour when the ranks of Lorraine broke in. Barbazan was killed (he was later buried on the orders of Charles VII in the Saint-Denis basilica , the necropolis of the French kings). Robert de Baudricourt , who two years earlier had given Jeanne d'Arc a horse and an escort so that she could visit Charles VII in Chinon, managed to escape. René d'Anjou, however, fell into the hands of Toulongeon, who passed it on to the Duke of Burgundy.

Result

Antoine de Vaudémont believed himself to be the winner, but could not take over the rule in Lorraine, as the German King Sigismund opposed this and enfeoffed René with Lorraine at an arbitration court in Basel in 1434. Philip of Burgundy had previously managed to get René and Antoine to sign a marriage contract for René's daughter Jolanthe and Antoine's son Friedrich , who did not marry Jolanthe until 1445 due to Jolanthe's young age. The marriage between René's heirs Johann and Maria von Bourbon, a niece of Philip, which was concluded in 1444, further stabilized the peace.

Literary aftermath

The fate of many knights and princes who fell in battle was sung in a song by the Mainz master- singer Bernkopf .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hartmut Geißler: The Mainz minstrel Bernkopf / Bärnkopf about the battle of Bulgnéville 1431. Ingelheim Historical Association

literature

  • Bertrand Schnerb: Bulgneville. (1431). L'état Bourguignon prend pied en Lorraine (= Collection Campagnes & stratégies 7 Les grandes batailles ). Éditions Economica, Paris 1993, ISBN 2-7178-2458-8 .
  • Georges Poull: La bataille de Bulgneville, 2 July 1431. Ses prisonniers et ses morts. In: Georges Poull: Les Cahiers d'Histoire, de biographie et de généalogie. Volume 1. Self-published, Rupt-sur-Moselle (Vosges) 1965, pp. 10–43.

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