Magnanimous Dukes and Rising States

Tells the story of the formation of a new state in north-western Europe and the rise of the Burgundian house in the fifteenth century, and how a power-hungry dynasty was able to reach a new equilibrium with the elites. The outcome had the lasting effect of laying the foundation for the modern states of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg.

• Tells the story of the rise of the House of Burgundy in the late fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries in the Netherlands
• Shows how these developments laid the foundation for the modern states of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxemburg
• Displays the development of power relations and institutions in the field of tension between ruler and subject, between centralisation and particularism
• Offers a highly original approach to the study of the Burgundian expansion in the Netherlands as a bottom-up as well as a top-down enterprise