County of Burgundy | ||||||||||
Comté de Bourgogne (fr) Freigrafschaft Burgund (de) |
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Part of Upper Burgundy and the Kingdom of Arles, then state of the Holy Roman Empire |
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Duchy (left) and County (right) of Burgundy in the 14th century
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Capital | Dole | |||||||||
Government | Principality | |||||||||
Historical era | ||||||||||
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Otto-William, Count of Burgundy |
982 | ||||||||
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Emperor Conrad II, King of Burgundy |
1033 |
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• | Duke Philip the Bold, Count of Burgundy |
1384 |
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• | Ceded to Habsburgs | 1493 | ||||||||
• | Joined Burgundian Circle |
1512 |
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• | Ceded to France | 1678 | ||||||||
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The Free County of Burgundy (French: Franche Comté de Bourgogne; German: Freigrafschaft Burgund) was a medieval county (from 982 to 1678) of the Holy Roman Empire, within the modern region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, whose very name is still reminiscent of the title of its count: Freigraf ('free count', denoting imperial immediacy, or franc comte in French, hence the term franc(he) comté for his feudal principality). It should not be confused with the more westerly Duchy of Burgundy, a fiefdom of Francia since 843.
The area once formed part of the Kingdom of the Burgundians, which had been annexed by the Franks in 534 and incorporated into the Kingdom of the Franks. The Empire was partitioned in 843 by the Treaty of Verdun, with the area west of the Saône river being allotted to West Francia as the French Duchy of Burgundy, while the southern and eastern parts of the former Burgundian kingdom fell to Middle Francia under Emperor Lothair I. This Middle Frankish part became the two independent entities of southern Lower in 879 and northern Upper Burgundy under King Rudolph I in 888, of which the County of Burgundy formed the western part.