The Golden Age of Burgundy: The Magnificent Dukes and their Courts

Rating:
Summary: Wearing its age well
Review: Despite being fifty years old, Calmette's short study of the four great Dukes of Burgundy remains the best overall introduction in English to this rich and fascinating subject. His approach is largely narrative and political/dynastic in focus, but cultural and other matters are not ignored.

Calmette's patriotic French stance on the perfidy of the Burgundian alliance with England seems somewhat surprising until one remembers he was writing very shortly after the War.

One subject that does show the book's age is 15th century music. Our appreciation of Early Music has grown so much since Calmette's day that we now account the music of Binchois, Dufay, Busnois, Ockeghem and so on as among the greatest ever written and one of the glories of the Burgundian court. In Calmette's book, this topic rates but a solitary footnote.

On final and small point, the back cover translates Charles le Téméraire as 'Charles the Rash', while the text calls him 'Charles the Bold'. Calmette unflinchingly documents the last Duke's repeated blunders which destroyed the superb creation assembled by his three predecessors. Charles the Rash is by far the better description. Let us all vow to use that name in everyday speech until the unmerited title of Charles the Bold fades from our language.