Let me start at the end. With Charles V, the last descendant of the Burgundian family tree. The most famous Habsburg — and at the same time the last Burgundian. 

From his aunt Margaret of Austria, he inherited not only etiquette, but a world. The splendour and ceremony of Philip the Good were instilled in him, almost ritually. And he drank it in. Greedily. 

He had Le Chevalier délibéré — the famous chivalric romance by Olivier de la Marche, chronicler of Philip the Good — translated into Spanish and ventured to write a first draft himself. His great-grandfather and namesake, Charles the Bold, appears in a woodcut: in full armour, surrounded by omens [no. 1]. Desafío — challenge. Alta empresa — noble mission. But above all: desdicha — misfortune. Accidente — disaster. 

And then: Death, watching. 

The print points ahead. To Nancy. To the dark spot in Huens’ snow [A]. 

The Insigne Nanceidos (1518), commissioned by the victor René II of Lorraine, continues that line [no. 2]. A coloured woodcut shows how Charles’ body is found — among bodies, among torn-off limbs. 

That is where the fascination with the tragic death of a ruler who seemed untouchable begins. Chroniclers report. Historians follow. 

And that is also where my desire to understand this mysterious epic germinates. 

Our Burgundian epic begins with a woman. Her name? Margaret of Male. Her trump card? As the future Countess of Artois, Rethel, Franche-Comté, Nevers and, above all, Flanders, she is the richest heiress in Europe. Dukes and kings vie for her hand, but her father Louis of Male ultimately sets his sights on Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy and youngest son of the French King. On 19 June 1369, they marry in St Bavo’s Abbey in Ghent. 

Huens portrays Philip wearing a luxurious hat — he was a lover of striking headgear — and adorns Margaret with delicate daisies, a nod to her name [B]. In the sixteenth-century chronicle, the Duke even offers her one [no. 3]. A charming detail, but more importantly, this union would lead to the creation of a new political entity between the French kingdom and the Holy Roman Empire: the Low Countries, the cradle of what would later become the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.  

Philip had already proved himself as a military leader in the Hundred Years’ War [no. 6]. This earned him his nickname: The Bold. In Flanders, he crushed a rebellion in Ghent. During the peace negotiations, it was Margaret who urged him to strike a conciliatory tone — the difference between mere domination and sustainable governance. 

In addition to his crucial role in the emergence of the Low Countries, Philip’s greatest legacy is perhaps in the artistic field [no. 5]. 

In Champmol, near Dijon, Philip the Bold had a Carthusian monastery built from 1383 onwards, which was also to become his ducal mausoleum. It was a place of devotion and dynastic ambition. To give the whole project the appropriate splendour, he called on the greatest artists from the Low Countries — a choice made possible by his Flemish marriage. 

Sculptors and painters flocked to Burgundy from Nijmegen, Ypres, Brussels, Namur, Tournai and numerous other cities. While one work of art after another took shape in Champmol, all kinds of variations of French and Dutch mingled on the site. Here, the concept of the Low Countries became tangible for the first time: a cultural unity manifested in stone and paint, even before it took political, legal or monetary form. In our history, art precedes politics. 

The absolute highlight is the work of Klaas Sluter from Haarlem. With the Moses Well and the pleurants [no. 5] for the mausoleum of Philip the Bold, Sluter crowns himself the Michelangelo of the Low Countries. 

In 1404, Philip found his final resting place under that mausoleum in Champmol, surrounded by pleurants. A year later, Margaret also received a tomb in the now-vanished St Peter’s Church in Lille, next to her father Louis of Male and her mother Margaret of Brabant [no. 4]. 

Thus, the tombs of the Burgundian ancestors mark where their dynasty took root: between Flanders and Burgundy. 

In 1385, both John the Fearless and his sister Margaret of Burgundy married descendants of the House that ruled over Hainaut, Holland and Zeeland. Their father and matchmaker, Philip the Bold, thus threw open the Burgundian gateway to the Low Countries. 

In Flanders, John encountered linguistic sensitivities: the French-speaking prince was forced to speak and write to his subjects in Dutch — a source of lasting resentment. 

As duke, he opted for a hard line. He had the brother of the French King murdered, thereby unleashing a bloody civil war between the Armagnacs (French) and the Burgundians. John the Fearless is spontaneously associated with assassinations, failed reconciliations and betrayal. 

His emblem, the plane, is telling: anyone who stands in his way will be planed away [no. 7, margin]. In the miniature itself, in his personal copy of the Book on the Education of Princes, there is an execution scene — a bitter echo of Nicopolis (1396), where John had to watch helplessly as his fellow crusaders were beheaded [no. 7]. 

John the Fearless dies as he lived: violently. In 1419, he is killed with a hatchet on the bridge of Montereau [C]. Ironically, this happens during a peace conference between the French and Burgundians, temporarily united against the English threat. Huens depicts the French crown prince watching, seemingly unmoved, wearing a particularly elegant hat – the same one he wears in his portrait in the Louvre. 

What was intended as reconciliation ends in bloodshed – and rearranges the balance of power in the heart of Western Europe. 

John’s contribution to the formation of the new political entity remains modest. He marries strategically but loses himself in violence. After his violent death, Philip the Good takes over — the true patriarch of the Low Countries. More about this on the first floor, where you will get a glimpse of the Duke’s book collection. 

One of the most striking expressions of Philip’s legacy is the Order of the Golden Fleece (1430). “Fleece” here does not mean a skin or fabric, but refers to the coherent flakes of wool from a shorn sheep — a discreet nod to the flourishing cloth industry in his regions. First and foremost, the name evokes the mythical Golden Fleece, the golden ram coveted by Jason and the Argonauts. This ancient image inspired the pendant on the chain that knights receive upon joining the order. 

By binding the highest Burgundian nobles to himself in such a personal and prestigious way, Philip forged an exclusive, religiously inspired and at the same time military network club — an elite club that radiated a sense of political unity. 

In the miniature from Philip’s breviary [no. 8], we see Saint Andrew, the apostle who, according to tradition, died on an X-shaped cross. Next to him is the St Andrew’s Cross, named after him, which would become the croix de Bourgogne. 

Already under Philip the Bold, Andrew was considered the patron saint of the House of Burgundy. His grandson Philip the Good elevated him to the official patron saint of the Order of the Golden Fleece — a choice that forever linked the dynasty and the knightly order. 

In this miniature in his personal breviary (c. 1460), Philip the Good appears under a canopy, kneeling at a prayer stool [no. 8]. Around his neck he wears the famous chain of the Order of the Golden Fleece. A seventeenth-century copy is displayed in the showcase [no. 10]; the armorial next to it shows the original jewel in detail [no. 9]. 

At the bottom dangles the golden fleece itself: the ram’s skin with its head and legs still attached. 

Two motifs recur throughout. First, the flints, which spark when struck with firesteels. These firesteels — metal rods with curled ends into which one inserts one’s fingers — individually form the letter B for Burgundy, but here they interlock in pairs: an image of fiery determination and dynastic unity. 

They reappear on top of the canopy, next to the Burgundian cross. The symbols pop up everywhere: in documents and works of art, on walls and robes. Take a close look at the fiery red cloak of the knightly order. Even on this small scale, Huens has incorporated the firesteels and flints into the pattern [D]. 

Further along the exhibit, you will see them again in the margins of the choirbook of Philip the Fair and Joanna the Mad, as well as on the hat of their son, Emperor Charles V. These gentlemen naturally wear the Order of the Golden Fleece. 

The order itself still exists today, albeit in an Austrian and a Spanish branch. 

After the death of Philip the Good in 1467, Charles the Bold took over. He wasted no time in making Mechelen the administrative heart of the Burgundian Netherlands, with a supreme court and a central counting house. The formation of the state gained momentum — but also took on a harsh edge. 

For at the same time, he lashed out wildly. Dinant and Liège were punished with fire and sword: burning, looting, destruction. Anyone who rebelled learned the ruthlessness of his authority. 

Huens, however, chooses a moment of hope for Liège. In a poignant chiaroscuro watercolour, he shows how the six hundred Franchimontese sneak up on the Burgundian camp. Note the dents in the helmets, the face of the warrior at the bottom right, the threatening darkness above them [E]. 

Their attack fails, but the legend is born. In 1914, King Albert I will refer to their heroism to encourage French-speaking Belgium; to the Flemish, he will recall the Battle of the Golden Spurs. 

Despite rising tensions and taxes, the Burgundian Netherlands chose to remain united after Charles’ death. Political reality outweighed resentment: better to remain united under Burgundian rule than fragmented under French influence. However, Charles’ daughter, Mary of Burgundy, would have to pay a price for this. 

Anyone looking at Charles’s empire on a map will see what must have struck him too: the centre of gravity lies in the Low Countries — the nucleus of what would later become the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. 

Further south lie the Duchy of Burgundy, Franche-Comté and Nevers, like distant satellites in French and other hostile waters. Charles wants to close this fault line. With steel and speed, he attempts to forge his empire into a single entity through the conquest of Lorraine. 

Yet he is more than a warlord. Charles is erudite, composes music and peppers his speeches with Latin quotations. Constantly on campaign, the monarch lacks the time for new manuscripts. However, he does have his father Philip the Good’s unfinished manuscripts completed with miniatures by carefully chosen artists. In the Histoire de Charles Martel, he has himself depicted glancing into a writing atelier — the monarch watching over the word. His motto adorns the wall: Je lay emprins. I have undertaken it [no. 11]. 

He certainly did. But too energetically, too impatiently, too ruthlessly. On 5 January 1477, his ambition reached its limit at Nancy. Charles was killed on the battlefield; two days later, his body was found in the snow, eaten by wolves. 

With his death, the dream of a unified Grand Duchy of Burgundy was shattered. The Burgundian Netherlands managed to survive him — and remained a coherent entity for almost another century. 

Concerning the miniature in the Histoire de Charles Martel [no. 11] 

On the wall hangs a mirror in which the miniaturist Loyset Liédet has immortalised himself. He must have studied Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini portrait closely: there too, the mirror plays a key role in the interplay between creator and representation. 

Van Eyck also has a text on the wall. Not a ducal motto as here, but a distinctly personal signature: Johannes de Eyck fuit hic — Jan van Eyck was here. 

In both works, two forms of presence intersect: the monarch or citizen displaying his power or wealth, and the artist who, subtly but unmistakably, records his authorship. Power and authorship, reflected in glass. 

Charles the Bold married three times. After his first wife died prematurely, he remarried Isabella of Bourbon. In 1457, she gave birth to Mary of Burgundy, but Isabella succumbed to tuberculosis before she reached the age of thirty [no. 12]. 

Charles’ third wife, Margaret of York, would outlive him by many years. From 1468 onwards, she took care of her stepdaughter Mary, later her step-grandson Philip the Fair, and even the young Charles, the future emperor, whom she held in her arms as a baby. 

She rarely saw her husband. While Charles was at war, Margaret had plenty of time to devote herself to her beloved bibliophilia. She ordered Benois seront les misericordieux (Blessed are the Merciful), the French translation of a devout Latin treatise, and had it richly illuminated [no. 13]. 

On folio 17r, she has herself immortalised, kneeling behind a prayer bench with her coat of arms. The French lilies and English leopards betray her origins: Margaret is a descendant of the York dynasty, which lays claim to both the French and English crowns. 

Behind her, Brussels unfolds: on the left, the Zavel Church; on the right, the town hall; in the centre, St Michael and St Gudula Church, which only much later became a cathedral. The miniature exudes her connection with the city, where she often stays at the Coudenberg. 

The initials C and M appear in the initial letter — Charles and Marguerite. As if, kneeling in paint and gold, she is praying for harmony in a marriage that brings her little happiness. 

On 13 March 1482, barely five years after Nancy, disaster struck the House of Burgundy once again. During a hunting party near the castle of Wijnendale, the 25-year-old Mary of Burgundy released her falcon and urged her horse to jump a ditch — routine for an experienced horsewoman. Until the animal stumbled over a felled tree trunk and slipped. 

“Huer peert subbelde, so dat si viel vanden peerde”, notes Anthonis de Roovere in the Excellente Cronike van Vlaenderen. Thus begins one of the most talked-about falls in our history — rivalled only by that of Albert I in 1934. Mary lands on the trunk, with the horse on top of her. Two weeks later, she succumbs to her injuries in Bruges. 

A coloured pen drawing in the Excellente Cronike (after 1485) shows her still proudly on horseback [no. 14]. Jean-Léon Huens paints the moment after as only he can: the red dress, the outstretched arms, the fall that seems almost aesthetic — but is fatal [F]. 

The Low Countries were left orphaned. Maximilian of Austria did protect our regions from French annexation, but then plunged them into a ruthless civil war. Thus, the House of Burgundy slowly merged into the Habsburg dynasty. 

After the death of Mary of Burgundy and the turbulent regency years of her widower Maximilian of Austria, the era of their son Philip the Fair dawned in 1494. Officially, he was already monarch, but at the age of sixteen he now took up the reins of government himself. He opted for a more moderate course and took greater account of the sensitivities of his regions. 

At the back of a thick book – weighing no less than fifteen kilos – a glimpse of his youth unexpectedly appears. It is the fourth volume of the Histoire de Charles Martel, from the library of his great-grandfather Philip the Good [no. 15]. On the very last page we read: “Cest livre appartient à Philippe”. This book belongs to Philip — and that certainly means Philip the Fair, son of Mary of Burgundy, father of the future Emperor Charles. 

Then comes the line that suddenly lightens the heavy book: “(Philippe) dit autrement Lippeque”. Yes, “Philip, or Lippeke”. A Flemish diminutive, but written in French — it seems to sum up our country in a single sentence. 

Was it a playful nod to his striking Habsburg lip? Or just a pet name? Whatever it was, for a moment we hear everyday life. As if his step-grandmother Margaret of York were addressing him: ‘But Lippeke!’ 

On 20 October 1496, Philip the Fair and Joanna of Castile were married in Lier. Huens’ watercolour depicts the young couple against the backdrop of the Brussels city walls and the gardens of the Coudenberg [G]. 

Due to a series of unexpected deaths, their marriage became the dynastic union of the millennium. Their son Charles V would not only become sovereign of the Low Countries and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, but also King of Spain. 

In a choir book, specially made for the court at the beginning of the sixteenth century, we see Philip — “Lippeke” — with his slightly pronounced Habsburg lower lip and the chain of the Golden Fleece; Joanna seems absorbed in prayer [no. 17]. The book is open at a mass by Josquin des Prez. 

This music belongs to the polyphony of the so-called Franco-Flemish composers. Their polyphony differs from the Gregorian monophonic chant that fills churches and abbeys. Polyphony is expensive and innovative, an art form for monarchs with cultural ambition. 

Masters such as Guillaume Du Fay and Gilles Binchois in the time of Philip the Good, later Pierre de la Rue and Josquin at the court of Philip and Margaret of Austria, lend the Burgundian-Habsburg reign a sonorous grandeur. 

Thus, this choir book becomes more than a liturgical object. It embodies a world in which power, devotion and music coincide — and in which a dynastic marriage finds resonance in polyphonic splendour. 

Concerning the Franco-Flemish polyphonists

These are mainly composers from the Scheldt basin and the valleys of the Leie, Scarpe, Aa and Henne — rivers that flow through what is now northern France, Flanders, Brabant and Hainaut. They seem like veins of inspiration: as if those who drank their water were almost automatically converted to polyphony. There is some debate about the term “Franco-Flamands”; essentially, it refers to masters from the Low Countries. The term “Flemish polyphonists” is also used, with Flanders serving as a pars pro toto for a wider region. 

It remains a wonder how, in polyphony, each voice goes its own way while rhythmically and melodically imitating the other voices. Let yourself be carried away, dear reader, by the music of Guillaume Du Fay or Gilles Binchois, early masters of this new movement. Listen, for example, to Binchois’ Les très doulx yeux du viaire ma dame — for example, in the beautiful interpretation by Graindelavoix (2007) — or to Du Fay’s Par droit je puis bien complaindre et gemir, wonderfully sung by the Ensemble Gilles Binchois. 

For the spectacular Banquet of the Pheasant at the Palais de la Salle in Lille, Du Fay composed a song that echoed Philip’s desire to liberate Constantinople from the Muslims. Despite its Latin title, his Lamentatio sanctae matris ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae (‘Lament of the Holy Mother Church of Constantinople’) is a French song in which the Mother Church calls on the Burgundian Knights of the Golden Fleece for help; you can hear it in the KBR museum in a performance by Gothic Voices. At the banquet, the Mother Church was personified by a man dressed as a woman sitting on an elephant, a giant automaton that waddled into the hall amid the most extravagant dishes. 

Philip the Good must have been pleased that Du Fay and Binchois composed both ecclesiastical and secular music. They elegantly bridge the gap between the sacred and the secular, between the cerebral and the sensual – music tailored to the soul of a duke who cannot be pigeonholed. 

This Wheel of Fortune — circa 1460, miniature attributed to Simon Marmion, also known as ‘the Prince of Illuminators’ — almost seems to have been painted for Margaret of Austria, who purchased the manuscript in 1511 [no. 21]. Anyone familiar with her life story will understand why. 

She was two years old when her mother, Mary of Burgundy, died. Three when she was married off to the French crown prince. Thirteen when she was banished from the French court. Seventeen when she ended up in Spain at the side of crown prince John of Aragon — and still seventeen when he died unexpectedly. Not long after, she gave birth to a stillborn daughter. 

At twenty-one, she marries the Duke of Savoy. At twenty-four, she is widowed again. At twenty-five, she refuses to marry the English crown prince. At twenty-six, she loses her brother Philip the Fair. 

She herself writes: 

Will I always be in such longing? 

Will I ever perish from this suffering? 

Will no one ever understand my pain? 

I have borne it for too long, since childhood. 

At the age of twenty-seven (1507), she took on the challenge of her life: aunt to the future Emperor Charles, she accepted the governorship of the Burgundian Netherlands. 

She could have been queen of France, Spain and England. 

She would become the uncrowned queen of the Burgundian Netherlands [H]. 

Brussels, Coudenberg Palace, 25 October 1555. In the Aula Magna, the magnificent ceremonial hall of his ancestor Philip the Good, Emperor Charles V, exhausted, abdicates the throne. The Lutheran question has slipped through his fingers, the New World is causing concern, his empire is too vast — the sun never sets on it — and gout is eating away at him. 

The Emperor, who began his career as a Burgundian from the Low Countries — Huens depicts him with the Golden Fleece and Burgundian firesteels on his hat [I] — retires to Spain. Three years later, he dies there. 

On 29 December 1558, an imposing funeral procession leaves the Coudenberg for St. Gudula’s Church [no. 22]. Spectators crowd behind wooden fences. The eye-catcher is a float in the shape of a giant galleon. Four sea horses appear to be pulling the ship, but in reality invisible men are dragging the colossus forward — like galley slaves in the belly of the ship. An unintended, poignant image of the fate of Native Americans and African slaves in the colonial empire. 

Behind the galleon, sea elephants carry the pillars of Hercules, the classical end of the world that was definitively shifted under Charles. His motto is emblazoned on banners: Plus Oultre — ever further. But here, today, it ends. 

This ceremony buries not only an emperor, but also an era. In a ceremony of extreme splendour, the last Burgundian is carried to his grave. With Charles V, the tradition of Burgundian pomp and splendour extincts. From now on, Spanish austerity will prevail. 

In the mid-fifteenth century, Philip the Good ruled over the Low Countries, with Brussels as his centre of power. He expanded the palace on the Coudenberg with the imposing Aula Magna, a hall with a span of forty metres that leaves every visitor speechless [no. 23]. 

It was in this very place that Charles V abdicated the throne in 1555. However, it was mainly his sister, Mary of Hungary, who ruled the Netherlands from here for many years while Charles took care of the rest of his immense empire. In her portrait, Huens subtly incorporates the gallery she added, beautifully showing how power and architecture merge [J]. 

On 3 February 1731, a fire broke out [no. 24]. A careless cook? A poorly extinguished fireplace? The cause remains shrouded in mystery, but the flames spread mercilessly. What remains is a smoking ruin — only scorched walls remain of the Aula Magna. 

In a hurry, people tried to save the precious manuscripts from the library of the Burgundian Dukes. Rightly so: in the late Middle Ages, these founders of the Low Countries entrusted their books to the greatest artists of their time, who enriched the manuscripts with sublime miniatures. 

Today, a third of this exceptional collection is still in Brussels — it is the magnificent seed from which the Royal Library (KBR) will grow. 

On the upper floor, you will get an intimate glimpse into this treasure trove, particularly the collection of Philip the Good — a world where beauty and power merge greedily, grand art on a small surface. 

Philip is living proof that a man addicted to luxury and sensuality can simultaneously be a sincere and practising believer. In his late medieval world, that tension seems hardly to be a matter of debate.