Court Ordinances of Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy (1467-1477). Completion of the Edition

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Werner Paravicini
• Subject Area: Medieval History ; Economic and Social History
• Term: from 2016 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 321886410

Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy between 1467 and 1477, was extremely proud of his court ordinances. Like with his military ordinances, he had them engrossed as richly decorated manuscripts, which were sent to other courts. Immediately after his inauguration, true to his motto "ordre et règle", he dedicated himself to re-organise his court, bringing to an end his father's sloppiness. Thus, he created a great opus of court ordinances ("Hofordnungswerk”), consisting of a voluminous framework, a personal ordinance and eight ordinances for individual court offices. In this way he went on, almost year after year, in a control mania that can only be described, using a term coined by Jacob Burckhardt, as “reasonable madness” ("vernünftiger Wahnsinn”)". For the historian these ordinances are valuable sources for investigating forms of symbolic communication in court societies and the administration, the political status and warfare of a new Major Power. Although not preserved in their entirety, together with the literary description of the court by the Court master Olivier de la Marche, these texts had a Europe-wide effect. With one exception, 13 known texts and two ordinances that are now lost but could be reconstructed in part, have not yet been edited (the ordinance of the guard from 1473/1474 was printed in 1846 in a noncritical edition). The applicant has been editing Burgundian court ordinances since 1983. In 2005, in cooperation with Holger Kruse, he published the 1st volume covering the period from 1407 to 1467. The 3rd and last volume, concerning the years between 1477 and 1506 (when the Duke of Burgundy became King of Spain) is currently being prepared together with Valérie Bessey and Jean-Marie Cauchies, the manuscript will be completed in 2018 and planned to be published in 2019. The main central section, volume 2, covering the reign of Charles the Bold, was first tackled more than 20 years ago and funded in various stages, most recently in 2017 by the DFG. The last link, however, is still missing due to grave problems posed by the text and the great number of persons to be identified (more than thousand). Therefore, a final application for funding is being put forward for work to be carried out in collaboration with Valérie Bessey and Sonja Dünnebeil, so that, in 2020, the volume will be published and thus the trio completed.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants