page_title: Flemish revolts against Maximilian of Austria
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Flemish revolts against Maximilian of Austria / Background
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Die Aufteilung des Herrschaftsgebiet Karl I., «des Kühnen», zwischen Frankreich und Habsburg zwischen 1477 und 1493
context_page_description: In the period 1482–1492, the cities of the County of Flanders revolted twice against Archduke Maximilian of Austria, who ruled the county as regent for his son, Philip the Handsome. The revolts were rooted in the cities' desire to maintain the autonomy that they had wrested from Philip's mother and predecessor, Mary of Burgundy, which Maximilian threatened to curtail. Both revolts were ultimately unsuccessful.
context_section_description: At the end of the 15th century, Flanders was under Burgundian rule. When the Burgundian Duke Charles the Bold died in battle in 1477, his territories passed to his daughter, Mary. The Netherlandish towns and their States General compelled Mary to sign a treaty, the Great Privilege, that reversed some of the centralization of power undertaken by her father and her grandfather, Duke Philip the Good, and turned the Burgundian state in the Netherlands into a confederation of provinces.
  The Members (representatives) of Flanders obtained an additional Flemish Privilege, which required their consent in any constitutional change.
  Meanwhile, the area west of the Scheldt (Royal Flanders), as well as other provinces of the Burgundian state, were claimed as reverted fiefs by France. Fearing French invasion, the provinces of the Low Countries levied an army of 100,000 men to replace the former ducal army; more than one-third of its troops were supplied by Flanders.
  Mary, seeking peace with her powerful neighbor, was involved in negotiations with Louis XI concerning a possible marriage to the Dauphin Charles (then only eight years old), but her embassy met harsh demands for territorial concessions to the French crown.
  On the evening of 16 August 1477, Mary instead married Maximilian of Habsburg, son of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, at Ghent.
  He would rule the Burgundian lands jointly with Mary, vowing to uphold the privileges granted to its towns and cities. The following years, a war with France was fought by Flemish armies under Maximilian, culminating in the 1479 Battle of Guinegate, a Habsburg victory. The German and other foreign troops were not well received in Flanders: the citizens of Ghent rioted against their presence in 1478.
  When Mary died in a horse-riding accident in 1482, her four-year-old son Philip the Fair in turn inherited her realms in the Netherlands, worsening the succession crisis in the Burgundian lands.
  By the terms of the Treaty of Arras (1482), Maximilian was forced to cede Artois and Picardy to France, but retained control over Flanders as Philip's guardian. France nevertheless openly supported Flemish "particularism" against the Burgundians/Habsburgs.
caption: Division of the Burgundian possessions between France and the Habsburgs, 1477/1482/1493
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