We dumbly delve into the deep and desolate doldrums that define trying to understand the growth and development of Dutch shipbuilding in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, particularly in Holland. Conditions would conspire to allow this industry to flourish across the Low Countries. There is, however, a distinct lack of written information from the shipbuilding sector in the 15th century to speak about it definitively. Historians and archaeologists have put together and continue to put together as many pieces as possible, however much of the detail is forever lost. As such, speculation must play its part. And that’s what we’re going to do today! 

On October 27, 1275, Count Floris V of Holland issued a toll exemption to the village of Amsterdam as compensation for damage caused by his troops. This document remains the oldest known written reference to Amsterdam and is kept in a dark depot in the Amsterdam City Archives. One of the curators and people responsible for keeping this document safe for the people of Amsterdam is Erik Schmitz. We had the privilege of speaking to him on October 28, 2024, as Amsterdam kicks off its 750th jubilee year. Our conversation spans from looking at the physical document itself, what it meant for Amsterdam's growth over the centuries and how its significance has changed in line with the development of the city itself.

Between the years 1000 and 1500 CE the soggy, sphagnum filled bog lands of the western Low Countries were terraformed to support human habitation and, as such, the seeds of future prosperity and hardships were simultaneously, albeit unknowingly, sown. Draining the swamp meant that land was created for agriculture, farming and settlement. This land was crisscrossed by waterways over which products both domestic and foreign could be moved on boats from the sea to the rivers and vice versa. Draining the swamp also meant that those lands sank, due to oxygen seeping into the pierced mass of moss and rotting the previously petrified peat within. People had to invent things like pumping mills to move water out of the swamp and stave off that waterlogged sinking feeling they had been experiencing. By the start of the 16th century, towns in the Low Countries had become important hubs of commercial shipping, with boats sailing from Northern Germany and beyond to the Baltic Sea, preferring to use the relatively calm and peaceful waters “inside the dunes” of Holland to reach markets in Flanders, as opposed to risking the open waters of the North Sea. Although water management required cooperation between the peoples of different towns, all of this economic activity also naturally created competition and rivalry between these towns, particularly in Holland, as they literally fought over their rights to do things like dig new canals, build new locks and charge tolls. It’s Draining the Swamp Part II: Too Drained, Too Furious.

We chat with comedian and author Greg Shapiro a.k.a. The American Netherlander a.k.a. the voice of Donald Trump in the "America First, the Netherlands Second" video. Greg shares with us his uniquely American insight into the Netherlands' history and culture, especially as to how it relates to the United States, how the two cultures can learn from each other, and how kids books differ between the two countries.

They both lived during the Dutch Golden Age, grew up in Leiden, were taught by the same painter, shared a studio, received all the praise, and painted the rulers of their time. And yet, Jan Lievens is not as famous today as his friend Rembrandt. In this episode of The Low Countries Radio, we reconstruct the lives and works of these two giants of art, showing how trends and the zeitgeist can drive or hinder an artist's career, but how their legacy is bound to the whims of fate and fortune.

In the 1440s a goldsmith from Mainz called Johannes Gutenberg developed a movable type printing press which catalysed the European printing revolution. It heralded a technological leap in communication tools which had far reaching consequences for the societies of the Low Countries, particularly in urban centres where print shops were established. A large market for books already existed in the Low Countries, in no small part because of the existence of Common Life schools and subsequent high rates of general literacy. With the copying and widespread distribution of texts becoming so much quicker and easier, other fields of work began to shift and develop, as different skills and networks were needed to smoothly bring content to the public. In this episode we are going to first take a look at what a 15th century printing workshop might have been like, before meeting some of the pioneers who would pull the printing presses and perfect the processes pertaining to the profitable publication of pamphlets, prayer books and other pre-16th century paper imprinted particularities.

We meet Simon Gronowski, a 92 year old jazz pianist, lawyer and Holocaust survivor. At the age of eleven, Simon was locked in a cattle wagon with his mother and around 50 other people after a month’s imprisonment at the Dossin Barracks in Mechelen for the crime of being Jewish. The train they had been herded onto was bound for the extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the 20th such mass deportation of Jews from Belgium. But this train trip would be unique in world war two. The 20th convoy became the only deportation train in the entire continent which was attacked and stopped by resistance fighters, allowing around a hundred people to escape. Simon Gronowski was one of these people and it is his story that we are going to explore in today’s episode.

We chat with author and academic Christine Kooi, whose book Reformation in the Low Countries 1500-1620 was released last year by Cambridge University Press. As its title suggests the book encompasses a vast and tumultuous period which served to greatly shape the modern nations of Belgium and the Netherlands. It is a sweeping and extremely useful narrative and we are lucky enough today to have Christine join us online from her home in the US to help us unpack it.

We dig up the bulbs of the past, trim the stems of historical myth and hopefully emerge with a lustrous vase of understanding as to where the tulip came from, how it became infectiously vogue in the Dutch Republic and what place it holds in modern calculations of economics.

Long time listeners will be aware that, alongside being passionate about the history of our boggy swamp, we also carry a deep love for the game of cricket. The venn-diagram intersection between those two things can often leave a lot to be desired. However, somehow Julian Smith, our intrepid co-creator, producer and frequent voice of excitement in the background, managed to find a small but wondrous plot of podcasting turf from which to tell an amazing story about cricket being played in the Netherlands during World War One. This opportunity came on one of our all-time favourite podcasts, called The Final Word, which is a cricket-themed podcast that delves deeply into the many fascinating stories that abound through the long history of the game. So in this small piece, you will hear the two Final Word podcast hosts, Adam and Geoff, talking with Julian, who unravels the story for us. You do not need to know anything about or have any interest in cricket to enjoy this story, which we hope you do.

At the end of episode 49, we said that we were going to move away from the political part of the story of the History of the Netherlands for a while to instead focus on some of the other important societal developments that were happening concurrently at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries. To be honest, perhaps it is because we have taken quite a long break, or maybe because of the change of direction we want to make now, but we have found it rather difficult to write this episode. The 16th century saw so many radical developments in such a vast variety of subjects that the prospect of somehow covering this all in a satisfactory way in this podcast without being forever consumed by it is, to put it lightly, daunting, bordering on overwhelming. So bear with us over the next few episodes as we, in our typical way, blithely set off in a new direction and attempt to lay foundations to explain how a new zeitgeist of education and learning that had originated in the Italian peninsula in the 14th century, took hold in the Low Countries in the 15th. As usual, it is not possible nor is it our intention to cover every single facet of every single topic which we bring up in this podcast, so please don’t be too disappointed if we fail to bring up your favourite 15th/16th century Renaissance humanist. Cool? Alright. Let’s go.

There are few landscapes as immediately identifiable as those of the Low Countries. Calling it a “land” scape is problematic, however, as it could just as easily be called a “water” scape. The meandering rivers, the green blocks of soggy land separated by canals and ditches and a row of dunes down the coast all lend to an overwhelming understanding of why one of the modern nations that make up the region is called the “nether” lands. They most certainly are low. The name “Flanders” derives from a very old German word flaum, meaning flood - “flood lands”. The Low Countries are a huge wetland, a vast river delta known as the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta, a place where land and water meet and interact. As such, the societies which developed here have often reflected their engagement with the rivers which flow from far-away mountains and the seas which consistently pummel the coastline with an ancient ferocity. Living on these water-logged lands has presented them with opportunities for trade, urbanisation, agriculture and much more, but has also meant living under the constant threat of devastating and deadly floods. These events have been scarred into the psyche of the societies there and their impacts resonate through to the present day, like a kind of collective, multi-generational trauma. There is a concept in popular psychology that, in processing trauma or grief, one goes through five stages: Denial; Anger; Bargaining; Depression; Acceptance. Although this idea is oversimplified and doesn’t take into account the wide ranging emotional experiences individual humans go through, we still think it provides a useful framework through which to look at how, collectively and over a span of time, the peoples inhabiting the low countries have dealt with the cultural and social trauma of repetitive flood disasters that have drowned entire towns, swept away large tracts of land and taken hundreds of thousands of lives. In this episode of the Low Countries Radio, we are going to go through these five stages (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance) and take a look at how they can be applied to the relationship between humans and water in this part of the world.

The double marriage between the Habsburg and Spanish dynasties organised in the creation of the Holy League in 1495 was part of a larger plan driven by the Spanish monarchs to create a general European-wide alliance against the French. To further these aims, Ferdinand and Isabella also arranged for their other children to marry into the Portuguese and English royal families as well. Such good family planning, however, was not to yield anywhere near the results that Ferdinand and Isabella sought. In this episode we will track the tumultuous journeys leading up to the weddings which brought Spain and the Low Countries together, the devastating repercussions the Spanish monarchs’ religiosity would have for the Jews of the Iberian peninsula, as well as a series of untimely deaths which would see the Spanish succession repeatedly shuffle down the line. When the music stopped in this dynastic game of musical chairs, Philip the Handsome and Joanna of Castile’s five month old baby son, Charles, would found himself perched on the stool which held possession of a ridiculous amount of Spanish, Imperial and Burgundian titles, all of which would eventually make him the most powerful person in Europe.

When French king Charles VIII laid claims to the Kingdom of Naples and invaded Italy in September, 1494, an anti-French coalition called the League of Venice was formed, with the aim of kicking France out of the Italian peninsula. “Hang on a second, what does this have to do with the Netherlands?”, I hear you ask. Bear with me here. The League of Venice included a bunch of Italian city-states and regional powers, including the Pope Alexander VI, as well as our friend Emperor Maximilian and the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon. To help cement this anti-French alliance between Spain and the Habsburgs, a double marriage was arranged which would see Maximilian’s children marry the children of the Spanish monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand.

When Philip the Handsome came of age and took over direct rule of the previously Burgundian, now Habsburg, territories of the Low Countries in September, 1494, his accession marked the first time since the death of Charles the Bold in 1477 that a native and natural born male prince had filled that position. The last twenty odd years of crises had bled his lands and peoples dry physically, mentally and financially. Across the board of those societies people were desperate for a period of prolonged peace. Despite this, there were still a couple of major issues which were lingering and which, if dealt with improperly, could lead to another outbreak of war. These were the situation in Guelders, whereby Maximilian and Charles of Egmont were both walking around saying “I am the Duke of Guelders”, as well as a good old fashioned conspiracy in which Margaret of York and Maximilian both pointed to a random Flemish dude and said “He is the king of England”, resulting in a mutually detrimental trade conflict between England and the Habsburg Low Countries. Philip’s first great test as Duke of Burgundy would be discerning between the interests of his lands and subjects and those of his ever ambitious father.

Throughout the history of the Low Countries, people from this part of the world have been pioneers in almost every sense of the word. Whether by seeking out and charting far away lands during the European Age of Exploration, or in advancements made in science, technology and engineering, or through their approach to social issues such as drugs or euthanasia, the inhabitants of the Low Countries have been breaking new ground almost as enthusiastically as they’ve been… making… new ground. Despite making up over 50% of the population, the fundamental role which women have played in the development and progress of Low Country societies has often been neglected in historical accounts. It is well beyond the scope of this podcast to give an entire history of women and feminism in the Low Countries, but in this episode of the Low Countries Radio we are going to pay homage to some of the female pioneers from our beloved little swamp. We will take a look at five women who ventured forth where few before them had dared, or been allowed, to go, shining a light into the darkness and paving pathways for future generations of women and girls to follow them down.

In March 1492, the town burghers and knights of Guelders hailed Charles of Egmont as their duke, beginning a four decade period of bitter, contested conflict with the Habsburg Burgundian state. That’s right, just as the revolts in Flanders came to an end with the surrender of Sluis, the football of violent defiance was handballed from Flanders to Guelders. But across most of the Low Countries, a period of relative calm would ensue, as the prins naturel of Burgundy, Philip the Handsome, was now 14 years old and would soon come to rule in his own right, deflating the angst people had at being governed by a foreign prince for the past 15 years. The final siren on this era of instability was blown on May 23, 1493, with the signing of the Treaty of Senlis between Charles VIII and Maximilian. This treaty released Margaret of Austria from captivity in France and saw the counties of Artois, Burgundy and Charolais returned to team Habsburg. Not long after Senlis, Emperor Frederick III would die, essentially elevating Maximilian to that role. The times they were a-changin’, which is basically what all times do. And these were certainly times.

We flip through the pages of comic history in the Low Countries; from the use of illustrated prints from as early as the 15th century to the position of comic studios in Belgium and the Netherlands during the Second World War. You’ll hear about some titles that you may never have heard of, as well as many that you smurf. While we peruse the panels of printed production from the Low Countries, we’ll see how the ninth art has developed, constantly reflecting the ever changing societies in the region.

We get out the drawing board, put on a hard hat and clamber up a scaffold of creative construction, so that we may cast our view on a few of the most striking, unique or just plain weird buildings that can be found in Belgium and the Netherlands and explore some of the schools of thought that have come to influence architecture in our beloved little swamp.

The final years of Philip of Cleves’ rebellion in Flanders saw the most famously fractious of Flemish cities, Ghent, flare into open revolt against Habsburg rule once again and rejoin the fight alongside him. Although Philip’s war against the ducal regime would ultimately come to an end in October, 1492, this last period of the conflict is made extra-complicated not only because of the interpersonal relationship between Philip and Maximilian, nor because of the ongoing conflict between the powerful cities and the ducal court, not to mention the economic woes brought on by decades of warfare, trade disruptions and the mass exodus of the citizenry from probably the most important trading centre of the Low Countries, Bruges, but also because of a succession struggle which was contemporaneously being waged between Maximilian and Charles VIII of France in the Duchy of Brittany. And since this distant, dynastic dance would have all sorts of repercussions for the more local goings on in the Low Countries, it makes sense to get it out of the way. So first, to Brittany!

The weariness that comes from decades of instability, war, economic turmoil and hardship really began to exact its toll on the Low Countries in the early 1490s. The last of the Hook uprisings had been quashed in Holland, but there was no stability anywhere, especially as the last flames of the wider Flemish revolt still flickered in Ghent, Bruges and Sluis. Albert of Saxony and Engelbert of Nassau, ruling in place of the now absent Maximilian, were faced with the fearsome obstinacy of Philip of Cleves and, with the seas blockaded, people across the region were underfed and unable to work. In the summer and autumn of 1490, this would result in the desperate lower classes of Bruges erupting into violence against the ducal regime once more, whereas in far-north Holland a large group of very angry, very broke and very hungry farmers, workers and servants decided that enough was enough, and refused to pay the taxes that the ducal government was demanding so that they could keep paying for it all. Welcome to History of the Netherlands. Today, everyone is starving and everything is revolting.

When the treaty of Montils-lez-Tours was signed on October 30, 1489, “peace” was formally arranged between the French, the Habsburg ducal government under Albert of Saxony in the Low Countries and the rebelling cities of Flanders. Despite this, Philip of Cleves and Albert of Saxony seem to have read the treaty in very different ways and could not agree with each other about what it actually meant. Also, Bruges and Ghent, still the two most powerful Flemish cities, were not quite ready to accept the peace either, meaning instead of a peace, the situation in Flanders could better be described as a stalemate. Albert of Saxony would try his best to fix the economy of Flanders, whilst Philip of Cleves, ensconced firmly within the town of Sluis, would do his best to wreck it, living every kid’s dream and becoming a pirate. This continuing unrest in Flanders would directly lead to an outburst of violence in Holland, where finally, after 150 years of on-again off-again conflict, the Hook and Cod wars would come to an end.

We take a look at the growth and development of spirituality and religion in the Low Countries. From pagan tribalism to the rise and dominance of Catholicism, the arrival and growth of Judaism and Islam and their long term impacts in the Low Countries, the whirlwind of the reformation, and the institution of a Calvinist doctrine in the north and a continued Catholic tradition in the south. We will finish by looking at the state of religiosity and spiritualism in the Low Countries today. So say your prayers, folks, because if we are going to successfully tackle a topic as huge and potentially filled with controversy as this in without offending, well, everybody, it’s going to take an indomitably non-denominational miracle.

On May 16, 1488, Maximilian of Habsburg secured his release after more than three months of involuntary isolation in Bruges when he agreed to the so-called “Peace of Bruges”. In this treaty, he was essentially forced by the rebellious cities of Flanders to agree to a bunch of terms and conditions which stripped him of sovereignty over that territory. All by his own free will, of course. Hostages were taken by Bruges in exchange for Maximilian to make sure that he stayed true to his word. These included, most importantly, Philip of Cleves, who made a great, solemn and public oath, in which he swore to defend the Flemish cities against anybody who would break the peace, meaning, Maximilian. Well, within two weeks, this peace had been broken, and Philip of Cleves found himself leading an army of aggrieved Flems against an equally aggrieved imperial army. After a string of initial successes, including withstanding a siege by the imperial army at Ghent and Maximilian’s departure from the Low Countries to go and deal with problems in Austria, things were looking up for the Flemish. But, in July 1489, some shrewd international politicking, saw Maximilian definitively cut the Flemish off from the succour of their most important ally, Charles VIII, the King of France. The Flemish and Philip of Cleves, would be left to withstand the wrath of the empire, together alone while Maximilian would finish up his direct rule of the realm in much the same manner as it had begun, in utter turmoil.

In this episode of The Low Countries Radio, we are going to delve into some of the sports that have developed in, or been adopted by and grown in, Belgium and the Netherlands.

We will hear about people who listen intently to birds in little boxes while they keep track of their calls on a big long stick, others who jump over canals using a big long stick, as well as a bunch of people skating the famous Elfstedentocht and smashing a very hard ball across a field using their hands.

So saddle up, wait for the starting gun...on your mark. Ready... set...go!

By the summer of 1485, Maximilian of Habsburg had quashed the first major revolt against his rule and regained control over Flanders, in the name of his young son Philip. He then set off for Germany to become King of the Romans, leaving the administration of his realms in the hands of an interim government. When he returned to the Low Countries in the middle of 1486, Maximilian decided that the best thing to do would be to drain the purses of his subjects, again, and go on a campaign against France. This failed miserably, once again inciting rebellious intent, particularly in Ghent and Bruges. Trying to keep control over the estates, Maximilian called for the States General to assemble in Bruges in early 1488. However, when he arrived prior to this and tried to get his mercenary soldiers into the city, the workers guilds rose up against him, locked the gates and made the new King of the Romans an involuntary guest in Bruges.

The Low Countries have long held mystery and intrigue for people around the world. Over thousands of years, innumerable myths and legends have sprung out of this small corner of Europe, while many more have been created by bemused foreigners looking in from the outside.

Why do the Japanese love a dog from Flanders? Why do Americans admire a Dutch boy who stuck his finger in a dyke? Why are there so many swans in Bruges? Why were cats thrown off the belfry in Ypres? And why is 'The Flying Dutchman' a scary phenomenon?

After being forced to sign the Treaty of Arras in late 1482, Maximilian of Habsburg found his authority in Flanders challenged by a group of powerful nobles and patrician merchants from the big cities of Ghent, Bruges and Ypres. Using their social, economic and political clout, as well as the physical possession of Maximilian’s children, an alternative government was set up in Flanders in the form of a regency council, allied to the French king. But when Louis XI died in 1483, and the rest of the Low Countries decided they preferred Maximilian to the Flemish, the course was, once again, set for full scale revolt, open warfare and Flemish cities fighting against the man who claimed the right to rule them. Welcome back to your favourite podcast, the History of Flemish revolts.

The Low Countries have long been a metaphorical petri dish of social and technological advancements in Europe. As such, the list of Dutch and Flemish inventions, innovations and discoveries is long and broad-reaching indeed. In this episode, we intend on doing an exploration of our own into the history of some of the intellectual leaps which sprang forth from this soggy corner of Europe and spread far and wide across the globe. Since there is such a vast array of things to choose from, we decided that we would need some kind of framing device to help give this story a bit of order. Just rattling off a long list of names, objects, or scientific theorems would not make for a very compelling narrative. And creating a top 5 or top 10 list would be a bit too ‘Buzzfeed’ for our tastes. So instead, we have decided to shuffle completely out of the box and turn to one of the greatest TV shows of the 1990s, Captain Planet and the Planeteers, to help us structure the stories of Low Country inventions and discoveries because, well, why not? So let's delve into the wonderful world of inventions and discoveries in the Low Countries, looking at some world-changing innovations through the categories of...Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Heart!

After the death of Mary of Burgundy in March 1482, the Low Countries were thrust into a period of turmoil the likes of which they had not seen for around... five whole years. The reigning sovereign was dead and her heir, Philip, was not even four years old. In Flanders, the estates and particularly the city of Ghent, successfully set a course of obstruction against Maximilian, defying his attempts to hold the regency for his young son and stopping him from continuing waging war against France. Because of this, Maximilian was backed into a corner and forced to sign the embarrassing Treaty of Arras with the French king Louis XI in late 1482. One of the consequences of this was that Louis withdrew the support he had been giving to destabilising elements across the Burgundian realm. Although the defiance of Flanders had thwarted Maximilian’s plans against France, stopping the war also allowed him to put more energy into negating the prickly thorns of defiance that had risen in Liege and Utrecht. Within this context, the two most powerful bishops in the Low Countries would face some difficult between 1482 and 1483. One of them would be stabbed in the face and his body dumped in a river, while the other would find himself being taken prisoner and hauled off in a fertiliser cart to Amersfoort, literally sitting in a pile of poo.

Upon marrying Mary of Burgundy in August 1477, the first thing Maximilian of Habsburg had to do was focus on stopping the French invasion of the Burgundian territories. This was, after all, the main reason why their union had been accepted by the various power bases of the Low Countries, most notably the States General. War requires money, of course, and Maximilian didn’t really have any. Due to the constraints of the Great Privilege, he was limited in what options he had to get some, so his first recourse was to do what Flemish counts and Burgundian dukes had done forever and demand cash from the Flemish estates, which he did almost immediately after getting hitched. At first they were happy to cooperate, but when he attempted to roll back the rights gained by the Great Privilege, discontent grew and Maximilian found himself exposed to the ire of, you’ll never guess where, Ghent. The conflict with France dragged on and Maximilian found himself embroiled in factional squabbling and uprisings closer to home in Guelders, Holland and Utrecht, as well as within the court. All of this meant that, when Mary of Burgundy unexpectedly died in March, 1482, conditions inside the pressure cooker which was the Low Countries were once again primed to blow the lid right off.

The eruption of violence across the Low Countries in March and April of 1477 led to Mary of Burgundy effectively being in the custody of the city of Ghent. Although the rebellious citizens of Ghent had taken lethal retribution for what they saw as the crimes of the previous administration, they had done nothing to solve the most pressing issue facing the Low Countries. This was, en fait, the marauding French army. Despite the signing of the Great Privilege, in the chaos of the invasion and uprisings, some territories, such as Guelders and Liège, proclaimed independence, some had alternative suggestions for succession and it seemed a real possibility that all of the Low Countries might just be eaten up by Louis XI. Everybody knew that it was necessary to get the much-harried Duchess Mary married, but the question was - to whom? Louis XI had offered up his son the dauphin, Charles the Bold and the Emperor had already arranged her betrothal to Maximilian of Habsburg and now the emboldened city of Ghent decided to throw another name in the mix - Adolph, the once again Duke of the once again independent Guelders. But in the end, after much correspondence with Margaret of York and an extremely slow journey down the Rhine, it was to Maximilian of Habsburg, Archduke of Austria, that Mary was eventually married on the 19th of August, 1477. It was an event which would intimately bind the Low Countries to one of Europe’s most long-lasting dynasties.

The Dutch language and its extended influence can be found on every continent. In this special, we explore where the Dutch language came from and look at how the history of migration into the Low Countries impacted its development. On top of that, we take a look at how the Dutch language has not only shaped other languages, but also, through colonialism, has imprinted itself into the cultural and geographical landscapes of the world. That’s right, in this episode of The Low Countries Radio you are going to listen to an Australian do his best to explain Dutch. Geweldig!

Charles the Bold’s death at the beginning of 1477 set off a political tsunami which crashed over the Low Countries, like a rising tide from the North Sea, sweeping away the old structures and drowning those too slow to react. Unlike today, where information is transmitted around the world at nearly the speed of light, in 1477 it took awhile for the news to break and for the reality of the situation to be revealed to all parties. For those in the Low Countries, they were like the people you see in a grainy holiday film, standing on a tropical beach, looking out at the horizon as the water recedes far beyond where it normally goes, looking at the fishing boats beached on the sand, scratching their heads thinking, “this is weird, what’s happening?”, all-the-while being completely unaware of the devastating wave that was barrelling towards them, already too late to escape from the destruction it would bring. That devastation would include imminent attack by France, popular revolts in numerous cities, the forced acceptance of a whole new constitution for the Burgundian state and the beheadings of two of the most powerful people in the Burgundian governing apparatus.

As Charles the Bold spent the final years of his life campaigning, two women became integral parts of Burgundian society and politics - his daughter, Mary of Burgundy, and his wife, Margaret of York. Mary, whose mother Isabella of Bourbon died when she was young, is often portrayed as little more than a pawn in her father’s machinations. Those machinations sent him to an icy demise when Mary was just nineteen years old, however, and she was thrust into the centre of the political upheavals which rocked the Low Countries. But Mary did not face this turmoil alone, because in 1468 her father had married Margaret of York, an English princess who directly linked the political tumult of England during the War of the Roses, with that of Burgundy. These two, step-mother and step-daughter, formed a particular bond which they would need to rely on after Charles’ death in order to protect the Burgundian state from the threats it faced. In this episode we are going to rewind-in-time a little and explore the lives, characters, connections and actions of Mary of Burgundy and Margaret of York before Charles the Bold’s death.

Why do the Dutch hang school bags on flagpoles, place giant blow-up dolls on their front lawn and have clocks without numbers in their pubs? And why do the Flemings celebrate newborns by eating ‘poop beans’? In this podcast, we are delving into some of the unique and peculiar customs, social norms and rituals of Flanders and the Netherlands and see the different ways in which these traditions have evolved over time. We follow the trajectory of traditions a typical life would encounter, from the cradle to the grave.

Earlier this year, the Chief Chocolate Officer of Tony's Chocolonely, Henk Jan Beltman, was arrested for spray painting a Black Lives Matter slogan next to a statue of one of the most notorious Dutch colonial figures, Jan Pieterszoon Coen. The statue stands on the corner of the Beurs van Berlage, an iconic building in the centre of Amsterdam, and one in which Tony's Chocolonely have set up shop today. When speaking to the media after being released without charge, Beltman said "Jan Pieterzoon Coen was one of the largest slave traders in our history, which must be indicated with such a statue. We cannot rewrite history and I am normally not fond of graffiti, but with this action I hope to keep the social debate going.” To this end, Tony's approached us and asked us to create a podcast for their staff which would help them better understand the historic connections Amsterdam has with both the chocolate industry and the slave trade. Amsterdam is a city which has been involved in the cocoa trade and chocolate production almost since the bean’s first introduction into Europe. It is in Amsterdam that the history of modern economics, slavery and chocolate intersect.

The final two years of Charles the Bold’s life would see him achieve one of his life’s ambitions, uniting his northern and southern domains as one continuous territory, before suffering a hattrick of defeats at the hands of the Swiss, which would leave him unrecognisably dead, naked and half-eaten in a frozen pool of water. Having come to peace terms with the Emperor when abandoning the siege of Neuss in mid-1475, Charles turned his attention to his plans with Edward IV of England to jointly conquer France. Louis XI successfully bribed Edward, however, foiling this plan. Charles instead decided to go and crush those who had crossed him by conquering Lorraine and getting his grip on Savoy, from which he could invade Switzerland. This was a great idea in theory, but his own infamous lack of mercy provoked a stronger-than-expected unity amongst his enemies, which compounded the financial problems he was facing after years of constant military campaigns. Defeats at Grandson, Murten and finally Nancy, saw the past glories of the House of Valois-Burgundy reversed and, as he was presciently warned by one of his advisors before crushing Liege, returned to a dream. Perhaps a more accurate description, though, is that they were thrust into a nightmare.

After being rebuffed in his royal ambitions at Trier in 1473, Charles the Bold became embroiled in a series of power struggles with neighbouring imperial lands during the final years of his life. In Upper Alsace, which the Duke of Austria, Sigismund, had mortgaged to him, Charles installed a man named Peter von Hagenbach as his bailiff, whose tyrannical tendencies united a coalition of Swiss and Alsatian towns which teamed up with Sigismund, forming an anti-Burgundian alliance called the League of Constance. This coalition set about rejecting and ejecting the Burgundians from Upper Alsace. Basically, conditions conspired to continuously concern Charles and the League of Constance would contemptuously constrain his constant compulsions for control over consecutively connected constituencies. He also declared himself protector of Cologne, which was in revolt against its prince-bishop, and set about laying siege to the rebellious town of Neuss. All of this so worried important sectors of the imperial nobility that war was declared on the Duke of Burgundy by the Emperor. Charles found himself faced with enemies on all fronts and after almost a year of laying siege to Neuss, was forced to abandon it without success. His finances were in tatters and his prestige was diminished, but still, Charles had high hopes that he could turn his fortunes around.

Charles the Bold inherited from his predecessors a lust for territorial expansion. When an old conflict in Guelders reared its head in 1468, Charles put himself in position to intervene there in much the way he had in Liège. Not just satisfied with this, he also sent a strongly worded letter to the power-brokers of Friesland, suggesting that they should think about accepting him, the Count of Holland, as their rightful ruler. Aaah, remember the days of haughty princes threatening Frisians with subjugation? Well, they’re back! By 1473 Charles’ army was in Guelders and threatening Friesland. Now, more regions of the Low Countries would be exposed to the process of Burgundian centralisation, which Charles ramped up by establishing the Parlement of Mechelen. Charles had become so powerful that he had started making eyes at not only a royal title, but an imperial one. In Triers in late 1473 Charles went to meet the emperor and, to all onlookers, it was pretty clear that he was going to leave this meeting with a crown on his head. Spoiler alert: he wouldn’t.

At the beginning of 1468, after having crushed a second uprising in Liège in the space of two years, Charles the Bold set about the all-important task of figuring out who he was going to marry. At the same time, he was once again being dragged into affairs in France as petulant nobles there began once more to grumble about his nemesis, French king, Louis XI. Although Charles and Louis’ enmity stretched back to before either of them had taken the reigns of power, it had become focused on the region of the Somme towns, which Charles’ father had remarkably ceded to Louis before his death, but which Charles had re-taken possession of in the treaty of Conflans. While preparing to go to war against France, Liège erupted once more into revolt. A papal legate named Onofrio de Santa Croce was sent to Liège in order to try to find a peaceful resolution to this on-going social unrest, and although he did a remarkable job in trying to find a pathway through the murkiness, in the end he was unsuccessful. On October 30, 1468, Charles the Bold, accompanied by a no doubt unhappy French King, Louis XI, would begin a final sack of Liège which would see the city burn for 7 weeks.

When it comes to food, Flanders and the Netherlands are not two peas in a pod. What is the influence of religion on our cuisine? Why do Belgians love eating out at restaurants? Which recipes can be found in the oldest Dutch cookbook? Why did the Dutch ever eat tulip bulbs and now have a dish called a hairdresser's salon?

In this episode, we find out what Flemish and Dutch people have been eating since prehistoric times. Smakelijk!

Upon becoming the Duke of Burgundy, along with all the titles that came with it, Charles the Bold inherited the complex series of social revolts that were either simmering or boiling over in places like Liege and Flanders. After burying his father, which he did with all the symbolic and royal pomp and ceremony that he could muster, Charles headed for Ghent. There, he expected to make a Joyous Entry that would celebrate his magnificence as emphatically as he had seen them do for his father years before. When he was sworn in as the new Count of Flanders, his oath was barely out of his mouth before he was literally surrounded by rioting and rebellious workers in the city. For the people of Ghent, and indeed for many of the people who lived in low country domains under Burgundian rule or influence, Charles' ascension meant that the relationship between the ruler and the ruled would begin anew; he could not simply appropriate the one which his father had established. These revolting workers in Ghent took the new duke’s visit as an opportunity to air grievances which they reckoned needed to be taken into consideration for the terms of this new relationship. This, however, was by no means the only issue that Charles had to deal with. Not even a year after the destruction of Dinant, the rebel factions in the bishopric of Liege had once more taken control of many towns in the territory, and Louis de Bourbon was forced into exile. Many of the people of Liege, invested in rebellion, were going to push a few of Charles’ buttons, and see if they couldn’t take the opportunity of a change in ruler to unhook themselves from the talons of Burgundian domination.

Charles, the Count of Charolais, began to take a more dominant role in the Burgundian court after the forced reconciliation with his father, Philip the Good, in January 1464. By midway through the next year Charles had ejected the pro-French members of the Duke’s inner sanctum and was finally able to convince his father that it was time to check Louis XI’s expansion into the Burgundian realm. He was given command of his father’s military, joined up with a bunch of French nobility and went to war in France in the so-called League of the Public Weal. Charles and Louis would meet in an indecisive battle at Montlhery in July, 1465, and although both men would claim victory, the battle greatly enhanced Charles’ reputation and earned him the moniker history would remember him by: Charles le Téméraire, Charles the Bold. Conflicting reports about the outcome of Montlhery would reach the Low Countries, and after wrongly hearing that Charles had been slain, a rowdy mob in Dinant, Liége, would hang an effigy of the Count and generally cause a ruckus by hurling outrageous insults about Charles’ mother Isabella. Fired up by this assault on his family’s honour, Charles would take his armies back into the Low Countries and eventually unleash such cruel vengeance on the town that people looking at its remains would say “Cy fust Dinant”, “Dynant was…”. Charles the Bold was giving the people of the Low Countries a sneak peak into his style of leadership, and this new era would begin in June, 1467, when Philip the Good would finally die.