Today the very name Burgundy conjures up a rich tapestry of images, from the chivalric splendour of the courts of the Valois dukes to the wines and gastronomic delicacies that embody the bucolic charm of provincial life. Nostalgia for a lost golden age is always best treated carefully, but a grain of truth does lurk behind this rosy picture. At its height in the mid-fifteenth century, the Burgundian state stretched from the foot of the Alps to the North Sea in a broad arc encompassing the duchy and comté of Burgundy, part of Lorraine, Luxembourg, Flanders and the Low Countries. Rich from the taxes and subsidies provided by the prosperous towns of the north, the Valois dukes raised courtly life to new heights, dazzling contemporaries with the magnificence of their artistic patronage. Yet the life of this new state was as brief as it was brilliant, coming to an end in a muddy field on a cold January day in 1477, with the death in battle of the last duke Charles le Téméraire. His great rival, Louis XI, struck quickly, wresting the duchy from the fallen duke's heir, his daughter Marie, whose subsequent marriage to Maximilian of Austria ensured that her other possessions became part of the bountiful patrimony of the House of Habsburg.