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The European Country That Disappeared (Arles/Burgundy) - Featuring My Face!
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Apr 24, 2025
In this episode of General Knowledge, we talk about the Kingdom of Arles. Throughout Medieval Europe we can find a number of countries that used to exist, but don't anymore. The Kingdom of Arles, also known as the Kingdom of Burgundy, is an example of this. A sovereign country that existed for a few decades in what is today Southern France, but came to be annexed - first by the Holy Roman Empire / Germany and then by France itself. Here I explain the Scandinavian origin of the people after whom the Kingdom was named, how it came to be independent at various times, and how it eventually failed its transition into a modern country. After that, I also explain difference between this Burgundian Kingdom and the Burgundian States further North, occupying part of modern France and Germany and also almost all of the Benelux region. If either had succeeded in surviving as a country, Europe's map today would look significantly different. Become a member on Patreon & get your name in the credits + exclusive content! https://www.patreon.com/generalknowledge ▶ A special thank you to my Patrons: Richard Hartze, Yasin Chaykh, Stuart Tunstead, The Wanton Dogfish, Cesar Lopez II, Steve the Goat, Yeti , KR, Edward Pucci, Jan Krause, Jeffrey F., Juan Rodriguez, Kalvin Saccal, Kris Rizakis, Lastmatix, Robinhio84, Rogaine Ablar, Ryan Keith, Ryan McMurry, Sandro, Sebastian Karlo, Señor Valasco Stay up to date on more content from me: Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@general.knowledge.yt Twitter: https://twitter.com/GKonYoutube Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/genknowledge/ ▶ Join the Discord Server: https://discord.com/invite/f4neAVWZfF ▶ Business Contact: [email protected] #GeneralKnowledge
View Video Transcript
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Did you know Europe had a kingdom that kind of just disappeared
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Hi, my name is Gil and welcome to General Knowledge. While you're probably familiar
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with my voice, it's likely the first time that you're seeing my face. I've decided to
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started using it in videos. Maybe after seven years, it's time to switch up the format a little
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bit. So here we are. Other than that, it's business as usual. My face is just going to be around a
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little more. And I'm also going to focus on a little more niche topics like this one. Instead
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of presenting you with a list of X countries that didn't exist, I'm going to focus on a specific one
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And I think this really allows to have more of a very interesting, dedicated, geographic or
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historic story to tell. But now let's get back to that missing country. When you look at a map of
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Europe around the year 1000, you can find some countries that exist today, like France, Poland
1:03
England, or Denmark. At the same time, you can look at places and see some countries missing
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countries that didn't exist yet at the time, but exist now, like Portugal, Belgium, or Switzerland
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But oddly, in those medieval maps, you can also often find countries that used to exist
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but don't anymore. One of them is here on this map, and it's the Kingdom of Burgundy
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also known as the Kingdom of Arles and it's a pretty sizable country in the middle of Europe
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So what happened to it and how did this European country just kind of disappear? The Kingdom of
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Burgundy was formed around the year 933 and it lasted all the way until the 14th century
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From the 11th century onwards it was also known as the Kingdom of Arles, chosen after its city of
1:49
Arles. I don't know if it was the capital but it was at least an important city in the kingdom
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and they chose this name to differentiate it from other Burgundian entities that existed a little further north
2:00
And a little further ahead in the video, I will explain them and sort of allow us to understand the difference between them
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even though they shared this same name. The origin of this southern kingdom of Burgundy was the merger of two other kingdoms
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Upper and Lower Burgundy, in that year of 933, by King Rudolf II
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Its territory took up parts of what is today southern France and Switzerland, including key cities like Nice, Marseille, Vienne, Lyon, Genève, Besançon, and Basel
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It stretched from the Mediterranean seashores to the high Rhine River in the north
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And until the year 1032, it was ruled by the independent kings of the Elder House of Velf
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until the year 1033 when it was incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire as one of its constituent
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kingdoms, along with the Kingdom of Italy or the Kingdom of Germany at the time. But by the mid-13th
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century, remaining within the Holy Roman Empire, it lost all of its relevance and eventually its
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title of kingdom. And while Germany and Italy went on to become their own countries, even though it
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was centuries and centuries later, this one, the kingdom of Burgundy, did not. So why? To understand
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this fully, we need to back up a little bit into the origin point of Burgundy as a kingdom and
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understand how it was that they were able to become independent and where they came from
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Burgundy as a concept can trace its origins to the Burgundians, a Scandinavian people whose
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original homeland lay on the southern shores of the Baltic Sea in the island of Bornholm
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previously called, and I'm going to mispronounce this word, Burgundarholm, and where the name comes
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from. From the 1st century AD, they began moving into continental Europe, eventually settling on
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the border of the Western Roman Empire, and even beginning to serve as auxiliaries in the Roman
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army. When that Western Roman Empire began to collapse, they decided to form their own kingdom
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and by the 5th century AD, they were pretty powerful and independent in their own right
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stretching to the west bank of the Rhine River and focusing around the region that we went on to know as Savoy
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In this map showing barbarian invasion routes into Europe we can see the old Burgundian Kingdom in orange slightly north of where the medieval kingdom would come to be And the next step in our story is precisely related to those barbarian invasions
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This region of the ancient kingdom of Burgundy was first conquered by the Franks and went
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on to be ruled by Emperor Charlemagne within his Carolingian empire. I think they arrived around the year 534
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And the pathway from that imperial province to the independent kingdom can be defined
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through one word, partition, partition, partition. I'm going to try to summarize it as quickly as
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possible. Charlemagne's son, Emperor Louis, divided his empire between his three sons when he died
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It was called the Verdun division. One of them, Lothier I, took Middle Francia, which included
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the Burgundian Kingdom territory. West Francia took the lands to the west, what we identify as
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France today, and East Francia took those to the east, reaching into what is today Germany
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After Lothraeer died, his own territory of Middle Francia was also split into three among his sons
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Three additional kingdoms were created from that partition, Lotharingia stretching from the
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Netherlands to Switzerland, Italy in the north of the Italian peninsula, and Provence, which comprised
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the Burgundian kingdom territory. But guess what? After the son that inherited Provence died
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His uncles, the rulers of West and East Francia, decided to go ahead with another partition, but this time among themselves
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Even though they did that, eventually the king of West Francia ended up absorbing most of the territory himself
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When he and his son died in 879, and I promise we're almost done with this endless story of death, successions, and partitions
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one of their subjects, Count Beaux-aux of Provence, sort of broke away and established the Kingdom of Lower Burgundy
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wanting to be independent and perhaps recover that idea of an independent Burgundian kingdom
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Eleven years later, in 888, another West Frankian Count, Rudolf of Auxerre, founded the other kingdom of Upper Burgundy
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In this map from the Carolingian Empire, we can see the two kingdoms still separated
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and later in the year 933, the two of them merged as a part of a political compromise
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and formed a unified kingdom of Burgundy or Kingdom of Arles. And so after many deaths, successions, revolts and many, many partitions
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the Kingdom of Burgundy or Kingdom of Arles was finally established as being independent
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It was for all intents and purposes a kingdom in its own right. Its political structure was a feudal one with decentralized power
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as was the case everywhere else in Europe at the time. Its flag was a reproduction of their coat of arms
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a gold yellow field with two vertical red stripes. The origins of it are a little uncertain
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but the coat of arms of that ruling house of Velf used these two colors
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so it's pretty likely that they got them from there. They were, of course, like all others around them, a Catholic kingdom
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highly influenced by the Pope. And in fact, the Catholic Church was one of the major landowners in the kingdom
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And of course, because of that had a lot of extra influence within it
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It's pretty difficult to estimate how many people were in the kingdom, but if we look at similar cases
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and also look at the territorial evolution of that region along history
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I think we can estimate around 1 to 2 million people, maybe
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The culture of those inhabitants was influenced by the broader medieval European one
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German, French, maybe even a little Italian, and those Scandinavian origins were at this point seemingly left behind
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They spoke Romance languages, maybe early forms of French and Provencal, and that also early Burgundian language had at this point either disappeared or merged with these local idioms
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In fact, it seems that the Burgundian legacy only remained in a few nobility customs
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and in the name of course, and wasn't really a part of the day-to-day life of the local people
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and there was no culture of their own. that remained and differentiated themselves from either the French or the Germans. They were just
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kind of a mix of both in between. Economically, its location was pretty strategic along important
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trade routes that connected Mediterranean shores among each other and poured goods into the interior of Europe This helped the growth of cities like Arles Lyon and Geneva which became centers of commerce and culture Their economic importance is made evident by
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simultaneous raiding parties by Magyar and Arab groups in the year of 954, which they actually
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managed in a pretty interesting and smart way. At the time, the king, Conrad the Peaceful
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I guess maybe not a fitting name, decided to send delegations to either of those invaders
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and he said you should attack each other instead. He convinced them to do so and when they were all
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fighting each other he sent his own forces to both of their camps and destroyed them. A pretty smart
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move. This king Conrad was the son of Rudolf II, the one that unified the two kingdoms, Upper and
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Lower Burgundy and they were two of only three fully independent kings of Burgundy because Conrad's
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son, Rudolf III, was forced to give up the kingdom, after he died, to the Holy Roman Emperor
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And this was around the year 1032 or 1033. What happened was, the Holy Roman Emperor at the time, Henry II, wanted to annex Burgundy
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into his empire. The Burgundians knew that they didn't really stand a chance from a military point of view
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and so they said, don't invade us and we'll make a deal
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When our king dies, the succession will transfer the ownership of the kingdom to you
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And he accepted. And so when Rudolf III died, especially with no heirs
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the kingdom was transferred into the Holy Roman Empire Emperor and incorporated into the empire
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But don't get me wrong, the local nobles and local people still enjoyed a good degree of autonomy from there onwards
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as was the case with most places of the Holy Roman Empire. Even though from that moment onwards the emperor held the title of King of Arles
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very few went on to be crowned at the local cathedral. I think the most iconic of them was Emperor Barbarossa, who in 1178 went to receive the crown from the local archbishop
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And I think this actually shows something really important, which is that other than Henry II, who wanted to annex the kingdom
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the other following Holy Roman emperors didn't really care about it. And while they held the title, there was no local Holy Roman prince or local king to develop the country
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And so the influence of Arles within the Holy Roman Empire began fading
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At the same time, the French wanted to expand east and began stretching their influence and control over their territory
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In 1365, Emperor Charles IV was the second emperor to be crowned at Arles after a nearly two-century gap after Barbarossa
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But this attempt to revive imperial authority within the kingdom failed. And so Charles decided to abolish the kingdom of Arles
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strip it from its title of constituent kingdom and instead annex it to the other constituent
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kingdom of Germany, still within the Holy Roman Empire. And so the Kingdom of Arles lost its rank
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To further prove how much the Holy Roman Empire didn't really care about Burgundy and how they
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kind of recognized French authority over it, in the year of 1378, the emperor traveled to Paris
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and he awarded the son of the French king the title of Imperial Vicar of Burgundy
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sort of recognizing and accepting that the French had a de facto rule over that territory
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And slowly but surely French control over the region was made official as they expanded further east
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The title King of Arles remained a subsidiary title of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire
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until its dissolution in 1806, but by this point it was a title in name only. And so what was at
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the time arguably a major European country just faded away. But what about the Burgundian entities
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at the north that I mentioned earlier on in the video? Because roughly at the same time as the
12:28
kingdom was coming to an end, that duchy of Burgundy that existed within France started to
12:33
flourish on its own. Located further north from the kingdom, the duchy of Burgundy then evolved
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into what became known as the Burgundian state, whose name seems to be the only point of contact
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with the former kingdom considering they were both initially located in the region of the
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old Burgundian lands In 1363 King John II of France awarded the Duchy of Burgundy to one of his sons and this began the rule of the Valois dynasty over that region Through strategic marriages inheritances and conquests the Valois dukes of Burgundy
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expanded their territories far beyond the original duchy, creating a complex and powerful state
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that stretched across parts of modern-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands
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Some researchers and historians even point to this state as being sort of a predecessor to
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future states of Belgium or of the Netherlands but I think those claims are a little bit
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questionable. At its peak, the Burgundian state was semi-sovereign meaning it enjoyed
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a significant degree of autonomy while still nominally under the overlordship of the king
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of France and in some territories the Holy Roman Emperor, making it an interesting case of a country
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with two sovereigns depending on which part of it you were in. But despite this, the dukes of
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Burgundy wielded considerable power, acting almost like independent monarchs. They developed a significantly powerful administration, a powerful military
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and a vibrant court that rivaled those of the major European kingdoms
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The state became a major economic and cultural center in Europe, particularly under Philip the Good and Charles the Bold
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They had a duquel banner, displaying their court of arms symbols, but also a flag in its own right, the famous Cross of Burgundy
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which would later come to be used by Spain due to dynastic connections
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However, the Burgundian state's ambitions eventually led to its downfall. Charles the Bold sought to establish an official, fully independent kingdom
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which brought him into conflict with both France and the Holy Roman Empire
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After Charles was killed at the Battle of Nancy in 1477, the Burgundian state quickly unraveled, much of its territory was claimed by France
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while other parts, particularly the Low Countries, passed into the hands of the Habsburgs through marriage
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It's quite interesting how, despite being two different entities in two different places
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these two Burgundian kingdoms and states went on to meet somewhat of the same fate
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being attacked by the French or by the Germans, and ended up being annexed and disappearing due to those reasons
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While the first kingdom was the one that held the official sovereignty title for a little while
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I would argue that this state of Burgundy was actually more de facto sovereign and more powerful
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than the other one. If either of them had survived with a little extra luck, we could have an
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additional pretty big country in the middle of Europe today. And who knows, if they both had
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survived, maybe down the line they would have even united, joining their Burgundian heritage
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And we would have a country that would stretch from the Netherlands and the North Sea to what
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today the south of France in the coast of the Mediterranean, re-enacting and recreating what
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was once the territory of Middle Francia. Interestingly, during the Third Reich period
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and their occupation of France, Germany is speculated to have planned the re-establishment
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of Burgundy as a puppet state. According to a third-party memoir, Himmler planned to create an
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SS state in the region of Burgundy with its own laws, army, government, currency, and its own
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embassy in Berlin. The state was supposed to have access both to the English Channel
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and the Mediterranean and was going to include the old Burgundian possessions. Thankfully
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they didn't have a chance to do it. An extra country in the middle of Europe would have been
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cool, but definitely not like that. Do you know of any other European countries like this that
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existed but then just disappeared, failing the transition into a modern country? Let me know
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in the comments along with your opinions on this new format. Remember to subscribe, like, and comment
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the video. I know it's really annoying to ask for these all the time, but these days the algorithm
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really does take that into account, so remember to do that. Thank you to my patrons for helping
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make these videos possible. Now that I'm showing my face, I'm going to be adding a lot of extra
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content to my Patreon, so make sure to support me there if you want to have access to it
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And either way, thank you for watching and I will see you next time for more general knowledge
17:03
I've recorded this video like three times now keeps going wrong It's the first time that I'm filming so it's kind of complicated. It's really warm in here
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I don't know if it's like coming across that I'm just melting away but
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Yeah, I guess I'll get used to it as we go on
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