Crusades and Crusaders in Medieval Greece 67
past. The duchy’s effort to shine on the international stage through service to
the cross was backed up by its great wealth which made it possible to meet
the immense costs of crusading. Philip’s father, John the Fearless had led the
Burgundian contingent at Nicopolis in his youth, and had been captured there.
The Burgundians had then been involved in crusade plans for the Holy Land
as well as against the Hussites in Bohemia. Burgundian ships also took part
in the unsuccessful blockade of the Straits during the Crusade of Varna and
then carried out operations in the Black Sea and along the Danube. One gets
the impression, as Housley has commented, that the Burgundians were just
looking for a Holy War to fight, without much thought given to strategic con-
siderations or to who the adversary would be. Indeed, the chronicler Jehan de
Wavrin reports that his nephew, Waleran, the commander of the Burgundian
fleet at the Varna crusade, even split his fleet into two smaller squadrons,
because it was too strong and hence it made engagement with the enemy
less likely!146 In the years before the fall of Constantinople there was contact
between the Byzantine and the Burgundian court, and in 1451 Philip the Good
undertook to lead a crusade against the Ottomans. This expedition did not
materialise before Byzantium fell but that did not spell the end of Burgundian
plans. In February 1454, at Lille, Philip and many of his nobles took the cross in
order to participate in the crusade proclaimed by Pope Nicholas v to recover
the Byzantine capital. The duke’s proclamation seems to have been in earnest:
preparations were carried out from late 1454 to early 1456. The campaign was,
however, postponed on account of the pope’s death and of problems on the
home front for the duke. Nevertheless, Burgundy remained involved in the cru-
sading plans of Pius ii and in 1463 Philip promised to participate in a coalition
with Venice and Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. Eventually, he sent his son at
the head of the Burgundian contingent for Pius’s aborted crusade.147 Although
in practical terms Philip the Good’s policy achieved very little in the East, it was
indicative of the prestige associated with crusading which could be an incen-
tive for ambitious rulers.
146 See Imber, Varna, pp. 135–37; Housley, Later Crusades, p. 93.
147 For the Burgundian involvement in crusading, see: Housley, Later Crusades, pp. 75–79,
91–94; Jaques Paviot, Les ducs de Bourgogne, la croisade et l’Orient ( fin xive s.–xve s.) (Paris,
2003); idem, “Burgundy and the Crusades”; Richard Vaughan, Philip the Good (Woodbridge,
2002), esp. pp. 143–45, 268–74, 296–99, 358–72; Heribert Müller, Kreuzzugspläne und
Kreuzzugspolitik des Herzogs Philipp des Guten von Burgund (Göttingen, 1993); Marie-
Thérèse Caron and Denis Clauzel, eds., Le Banquet de Faisan, 1454: l’Occident face au défi
de l’Empire ottoman (Arras, 1997).