Battle of Nancy

Neuss - Héricourt - Plantation - Grandson - Murten - Nancy

The Battle of Nancy on January 5, 1477 was the final confrontation of the Burgundian Wars between Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy and the Low association, made in 1474 between the Swiss Confederation, some Alsatian imperial cities, the Habsburg Regent of Further Austria, the Bishops of Basel and Strasbourg and the Duchy of Lorraine had formed.

Course

Duke Charles the Bold returned to the Battle of Murten back to Burgundy and turned in the autumn of 1476 with a new army against the Duchy of Lorraine. While he was besieging the capital of Lorraine Nancy, despite the onset of winter, made ​​of Lorraine Duke René II an army from his vassals and his allies together from the Low Association.

In the vicinity of Nancy the Burgundian army of about 15,000 men met with the squad René II of a total of approximately 19,000 man on January 5, 1477 together. Shortly before the battle was over the command of René of Lorraine to William Herter and Oswald von Thierstein, since the Council of the men held the military unerfahreren Duke of overwhelmed. Following the troops were re-formed. The duke received a protection force of 100 Bernese prudent assigned, who accompanied him during the battle. In the driving snow succeeded the allied mercenaries, a hill in the edge of the Burgundian army to occupy. From there, attended by some 8,000 Swiss and German mercenaries under the leadership of William Herter, the entrenched positions of Burgundy in the assault. The largest part of the Burgundian infantry drowned in the river Meurthe. The survivors were pursued to the gates of the fortress of Metz.

Charles the Bold was wounded on the run, probably of German mercenaries, two lances in the thigh and in the groin and then died of halberds blow that split his skull. His plundered and disfigured body was found a few hundred meters from his position in the battle on the night of January 7, near a pond. Duke René Karl was at first like a trophy buried in his court chapel St- Georges, Nancy. Two signboards put a antiburgundische note. Later the coffin was transferred to the Church of Our Lady in Bruges.

The earliest representation of the battle in the timely pfettisheimschen rhyming chronicle of 1477 shows the moment of the assault of the Austrian and Swiss mercenaries, who are led by William Herter ( indicated on the spring ).