Feast of the Pheasant

The Pheasant Fest was one of the most famous festivals in the court of the Burgundian Duke Philip the Good.

Overview

Among all the many distinguishing itself with unprecedented pomp celebrations at the Burgundian court the so-called hard pheasant took a special position. It was held in Lille on February 17, 1454. After a year earlier Konstantin Opel had fallen, which is also in the middle ages never entirely extinguished crusade should be satisfied by this festival with new life. Since the Burgundian House Order, the Order of the " Golden Fleece ", had prescribed inter alia, the defense of the faith, the Burgundian Duke Philip the Good felt called to take through this symbolic act the initiative.

Course

Not only the gargantuan wealth of fine food, the participants sat in amazement, but also extravagant and ornate decorations and mechanical gadgets such as ship models and indoor fountains. Artists and trained animals showed their skills, musical performances alternated with allegorical spectacles from. The focus of the evening was a live pheasant, who wore a heavy chain of gold and precious stones around the neck. The giant Hans, who had distinguished himself on other occasions, presented the Sultan represents an allegorical figure of the " Frauenkirche " embodying Actress lamented the capture of Constantinople and called the Christian chivalry urgently to come to her aid. Then Philip praised the good and with him all the men of the Golden Fleece, to undertake the crusade. They swore this to God, Our Lady, and, strangely, even with the pheasant.

The steward Olivier de la Marche, who organized the festival, writes in his memoirs. ", The second and longest panel showed mainly a huge pie, were in the twenty living persons that made ​​music in order on different instruments was the second panel supervisors set a lock on the type of Lusignan, whose main tower was Melusine, in the form of a snake. Among the two smaller towers jumped Orange Waser in the surrounding ditches. then a windmill was on a hill to see the roof sat a magpie, according to the people all classes with longbows and crossbows fired Furthermore, we looked at a vineyard, a cask, in which there were two drinks a sweet and a bitter, and it is a well-dressed man sitting with a note in his hand, on which was written: . Whoever it will, let him take! [ ... ] the type of entertainment and the courts themselves were incredibly gorgeous. since each bowl with 48 different food was provided, and the frying container consisted of gold and blue lined car. First, the table stood a tall dresser, which was loaded with gold and silver utensils, between crystal vessels that were filled with gold and precious stones. "

Extent to which this spectacle was meant seriously, it is difficult to judge, after all, the Duke came to pass in the same year, " even after Germany and negotiated at the Diet of Regensburg with Emperor Frederick III. on the financing - but without success. Philip the Good turned back the project and then did not come in the following years to carry it out. "

Background

All court festivals had to demonstrate the function in a potlachartigen competition with rival princely houses and the emerging upper middle class, power, wealth and the aristocratic virtue of generosity ( largesse ) of the prince. Furthermore, such events offered the opportunity to reward, with generous gifts earned followers and strengthen friendships. In the case of Burgundy but were still special Scene modes. Burgundy was a nation without a national feeling, without identity- core, a patchwork of different lands, but no country. The old agrarian French-speaking south stood the modern, urban, mostly Dutch-speaking north towards. In addition, it was subordinate loans legally in the west to the French king, in the east of the Holy Roman Empire. "Given this heterogeneous structure of the subject territories, twice the legal loan dependence and thus contestable legitimacy of the Burgundian dukes it required a continuous integration of all layers ... and a high representative effort to express the own rule visible and recognizable to all. The more uncertain is a dynasty, the greater their need to invest in ceremony and art, in the magnificience, the magnificence and grandeur of the regent. " Finally, it must also be reminded of the burning ambition of the rulers of Burgundy, which is what power and wealth demand, it could take up with every king in Europe, but had to be satisfied with the modest title of Duke, to win the recognition they deserve. Since the 1st Crusade it had understood the French kings to link the idea of ​​a crusade with their home. Weakened by the Hundred Years' War with England, France was unable to continue this tradition, which is why Philip the Good, who pursued an increasingly independent policy towards France, seized the opportunity to occupy the vacant prestigious position of the crusade leadership. In subtle allegorical allusions, such as the display of a " source of Saint Andrew ", the patron saint of Burgundy, the performance of the " mysteries of Jason", which refers to the House Order of the Golden Fleece, and not least of pheasants himself, with " the island of Colchis, the country of origin of the Golden Fleece has been linked to " the crusade symbolism with the symbolism of Burgundy should be stretto to underline the leadership of the Burgundian duchy, and to legitimize the Pheasant Fest.