The Burgundian Kingdom, lying between the Alps, the Saône and the Rhone, and the Mediterranean, might be thought to have a fair natural boundary. ♦Boundaries of the kingdom.♦ And, while it kept any shadow of separate being, its boundaries did not greatly change. ♦Fluctuation of its frontier.♦ They were however somewhat fluctuating on the side of the Western kingdom, being sometimes bounded by the Rhone and sometimes reaching to the line of hills to the west of it. They were also, as we have seen, somewhat fluctuating on the side of Germany. ♦Chiefly Romance speaking.♦ At this end the kingdom took in some German-speaking districts; otherwise the language was Romance, including several dialects of the tongue of Oc.
♦County Palatine.
Lesser Burgundy.♦
The northern part of the kingdom, answering to the former Transjurane kingdom—the Regnum Jurense—formed two chief states, the County Palatine of Burgundy—the modern Franche Comté—and the Lesser Burgundy, roughly taking in western Switzerland and northern Savoy. ♦Provence.♦ On the Mediterranean lay the great county of Provence, with a number of smaller counties lying between it and the two northern principalities. ♦The Free Cities.♦ But the great characteristic of the land was that, next to Italy, no part of Europe contained so many considerable cities lying near together. Many of these at different times strove more or less successfully after a republican independence, and a few have kept it to our own day.
♦Little real unity in the kingdom.♦
But, though the Burgundian kingdom might be thought to have, on three sides at least, a good natural frontier, it had but little real unity. The northern part naturally clave to its connexion with the Empire much longer than the southern. ♦The Burgundian Palatinate.♦ The County Palatine of Burgundy often passed from one dynasty to another, and it is remarkable for the number of times that it was held as a separate state by several of the great princes of Europe. ♦Held by the Emperor Frederick, 1156-1189;
by Philip of France, 1315-1330.♦ It was held by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in right of his wife; the marriage of one of his female descendants carried it to Philip the Fifth of France. ♦United with the French Duchy.♦ Then it became united with the French duchy of Burgundy under the dukes of the House of Valois. ♦1477.
Held by the House of Austria, Charles the Fifth Count of Burgundy.♦ Saving a momentary French occupation after the death of Charles the Bold, it remained with them and their Austrian and Spanish representatives. Among these it had a second Imperial Count in the person of Charles the Fifth. ♦Annexed to France, 1674.♦ But, through all these changes of dynasty, it remained an acknowledged fief of the Empire, till its annexation to France under Lewis the Fourteenth. ♦Dole the capital of the county.♦ The capital of this county, it must be remembered, was Dole. ♦Besançon a Free Imperial city. 1189-1651.♦ The ecclesiastical metropolis of Besançon, though surrounded by the county, remained a free city of the Empire from the days of Frederick Barbarossa to those of Ferdinand the Third. ♦United to France.♦ It was then merged in the county, and along with the county it passed to France. ♦Montbeilliard.♦ And it should be noticed that a small Burgundian land in this quarter, the county of Montbeilliard or Mümpelgard, first as a separate state, then in union with the duchy of Württemberg, kept its allegiance to the Empire till the wars of the French Revolution, when it was annexed to France and was never restored.
♦The Lesser Burgundy.♦
While the Burgundian Palatinate thus kept its history as an unit in European geography, the Lesser Burgundy to the south-west of it had a different history. The geography here gets somewhat confused through the fact that this Lesser Burgundy, which in the twelfth century passed under the power of the Dukes of Zähringen in Swabia as Rectors, took in some districts which were not parts of the Burgundian kingdom. ♦The eastern part German.♦ The eastern part of the kingdom itself was of German speech, and its frontier towards the German duchy of Alemannia or Swabia was somewhat fluctuating. The Aar may be taken as the boundary of the kingdom, while the Lesser Burgundy, as an administrative division, stretched somewhat further to the East. ♦Cities of the Lesser Burgundy.♦ Thus Basel, as well the foundations of the House of Zähringen at Bern and Freiburg, stood on strictly Burgundian ground, while the city of Luzern and the land of Unterwalden come under the head of the Lesser Burgundy, without forming part of the Burgundian kingdom. These lands long kept up their connexion with the Empire, though the Lesser Burgundy did not long remain as a separate unit. ♦Dukes of Zähringen.
End of their house, 1218.♦ When the House of Zähringen came to an end, the country began to split up into small principalities and free cities which gradually grew into independent commonwealths. ♦Break-up of the duchy.
Savoyard territory.♦ The counts of Savoy, of whom more presently, acquired a large territory on both sides of the Lake of Geneva. ♦Bishops, Counts, and Free Cities.♦ Other considerable princes were the bishops of Basel, Lausanne, Geneva, and Sitten, the counts of Geneva, Kyburg, Gruyères, and Neufchâtel. ♦The Free Lands.♦ Basel, Solothurn, and Bern were Imperial cities. The complicated relations between the Bishops and the city of Geneva hindered that city from having a strict right to that title. In Unterwalden and in Wallis, notwithstanding the possessions and claims of various spiritual and temporal lords, the most marked feature was the retention of the old rural independence. ♦The Old League of High Germany.♦ Of the cities in this region, Luzern, Bern, Freiburg, Solothurn, and Basel, all gradually became members of the Old League of High Germany, the ground-work of the modern Swiss Confederation. ♦Conquests of Bern and Freiburg from Savoy, 1536.♦ The Savoyard lands north of the lake were conquered by Bern and Freiburg in the sixteenth century, a conquest which also secured the independence of Geneva. ♦The Burgundian cantons of Switzerland.♦ All these lands, after going through the intermediate stage of allies or subjects of some or other of the confederate cantons, have in modern times become independent cantons themselves. This process of annexation and liberation will be traced more fully when we come to the history of the Swiss Confederation.
To the south of this group of states, and partly intermingled with them, lay another group, lying partly within the Cisjurane and partly within the Transjurane kingdom, which gradually grew into a great power. ♦Growth of Savoy.♦ These were the states which were united step by step under the Counts of Maurienne, afterwards Counts of Savoy. ♦Burgundian possession of its county.♦ When their dominions were at their greatest extent, they held south of the Lake of Geneva, besides Maurienne and Savoy strictly so called, the districts of Aosta, Tarantaise, the Genevois, Chablais, and Faucigny, together with Vaud and Gex north of the lake. Thus grew up the power of Savoy, which has already been noticed in its purely Italian aspect, but which must receive fuller separate treatment in a section of its own.
♦States between the Palatinate and the Mediterranean.♦
The remainder of the Burgundian Kingdom consisted of a number of small states stretching from the southern boundary of the Burgundian county to the Mediterranean. ♦Bresse and Bugey become Savoyard. Bugey, 1137-1344; Bresse, 1272-1402.♦ North of the Rhone lay the districts of Bresse and Bugey, which passed at various times to the House of Savoy. ♦Lyons, Vienne, Orange, &c.
Provence.♦ Southwards on the Rhone lay a number of small states, among which the most important in history are the archbishopric, the county, and the free city of Lyons, the county or Dauphiny of Vienne and the city of Vienne, the county or principality of Orange, the city of Avignon, the county of Venaissin, the free city of Arles, the capital of the kingdom, the free city of Massalia or Marseilles, the county of Nizza or Nice, and the great county or marquisate of Provence. In this last power lay the first element of danger, especially to the republican independence of the free cities. ♦Changes of dynasty.
The Angevins, 1246.♦ After being held by separate princes of its own, as well as by the Aragonese kings, it passed by marriage into the hands of a French prince, Charles of Anjou, the conqueror of Sicily, and also the destroyer of the second freedom of Massalia. ♦Growing French connexion.♦ The possession of the greatest member of the kingdom by a French ruler, though it made no immediate change in the formal state of things, gave fresh strength to every tendency which tended to withdraw the Burgundian lands from their allegiance to the Empire and to bring them, first into connexion with France, and then into actual incorporation with the French kingdom.