Charolais (county)

Charolais (also Charollais) is a historic region of France, named after the central town of Charolles, and located in today's Saône-et-Loire département, in Burgundy.

It was held by the French noble house of Chalon-Arlay, until in 1237 Count John the Old ceded it to Duke Hugh IV of Burgundy. The county of Charolais was inherited by Hugh's granddaughter Beatrice, who in 1272 married Count Robert of Clermont, a younger son of King Louis IX of France and progenitor of the House of Bourbon. In 1314 it passed to Robert's second son John, whose daughter Beatrice married Count John I of Armagnac in 1327.

John's grandson Count Bernard VII of Armagnac sold the county to Duke Philip II of Burgundy in 1390. It thus became part of the Duchy of Burgundy and the title 'Count of Charolais' was systematically given to the heir apparent of the incumbent duke. After the death of the last Valois-Burgundy duke Charles the Bold at the 1477 Battle of Nancy, the county was seized by King Louis XI of France–against the fierce resistance by the Habsburg archduke Maximilian I of Austria, husband of Charles' daughter Mary. After the War of the Burgundian Succession, Charolais finally fell to the Habsburg dynasty according to the 1493 Treaty of Senlis, though it remained a French fief.