The image all the way at the bottom of this gallery shows a strange-looking suit of armor which is said to have belonged to “Claude de Vaudrey, Chamberlain of Burgundy.”
Now, I can find virtually no information that anyone named Claude de Vaudrey ever even existed, outside of that armor gallery and a Wikipedia page displaying, for some odd reason, a drawing of the same suit of armor (with no context whatsoever and no pages linking to the image.) Furthermore I can’t find any evidence that “Chamberlain of Burgundy” was even an official title. So I’m left dumbfounded by the supposed legacy of this man, who lived more than 500 years ago and would probably be quite surprised that I was even investigating it at all.
You people were extremely helpful when I needed information about Prince Nikolaus the Black (this thread) - I went from having no information about him whatsoever, to finding out that he was actually an extremely important figure in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and that his descendants continue to be active in international affairs - all because I was searching for the wrong name (his name was misspelled on the original site where I saw his armor.) Hopefully someone can help here in the same way.
So anyone know who “Claude de Vaudrey” was, and what exactly the “Chamberlain of Burgundy” meant?
Well, “chamberlain” is easy - the chamberlain was one of the household officers in most royal/feudal systems. Exactly what functions they would have would depend on the particular case.
Burgundy is a lot more difficult. The Duchy of Burgundy was a separate feudal fief, occupying parts of what is now Belgium, north-east France, and north-west Germany. It traditionally was a major ally of England, often against the French. (For example, Edward IV’s sister was married to the last Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, and Edward and Richard of Gloucester took refuge in Burgundy at one point during the Wars of the Roses.)
The Duchy broke up in 1477, upon the death of Charles without male heirs. The western part of it got absorbed by France, the eastern part got picked up by the Hapsburgs of the Holy Roman Empire (as the Free County of Burgundy, through a marriage to Charles’ daughter, Mary of Burgundy. There was also an off-shoot, the Franche-Comté that remained separate from the other two portions.
Given the French name of the gentleman in question and the date, I would guess that he was the chamberlain appointed by the King of France, after Burgundy had been absorbed into the French realm, but that’s just my guess.
Actually, it isn’t quite that simple. In English ‘chamberlain’ almost always meant the senior officer of one of the departments (the ‘chamber’) of a (usually royal) household. But Continental courts often applied it to some of the more junior members of the equivalent department. It can therefore mean either one of the body servants who attended on a ruler in his apartments (possibly just honorifically), or their very grand boss.
My hunch would be that de Vaudrey could have been either, depending on the stage of his career when he held whichever one it was. If it was the former, it may not mean much. Appointing large numbers of honorary chamberlains was always an easy and inexpensive way of creating impressive-sounding positions for those noblemen who probably wouldn’t want to attend court very regularly anyway.
That’s what I meant - it’s easy to say in general terms what the chamberlain is, but his exact duties would vary with the particular feudal court he was serving.
For example, the Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church has the somewhat bizarre duty of hitting a dead pope three times in the head with a silver hammer. I believe it inspired a Beatles song.
There isn’t that much information available, not least because many of the results offer mere snippets and some of them are in French. A Claude de Vaudrey was involved in quelling a riot in Dijon in June 1477, to where he returned in December of the same year for two further attacks on the gates of that city. That’s probably your Claude, but I can’t say for sure.
Except that what I was pointing out is a basic ambiguity which regularly confuses English speakers reading about Continental courts in this period and one which is quite possibly fundamental to understanding what this man actually did.
I might be wrong here, but it looks like he was Baron de Beveuge, the son of Pierre de Vaudrey, Signeur de Beveuge and Anne de Quingey, that he married Marguerite de Crussy, and he died in 1559. He was also a Knight of St. George (the Burgundian Order).
There might be a problem with the timespan for this Baron.
This drawing, referred to by the OP, gives a date of 1500. Furthermore the text in APB’s link informs that the suit of armour was manufactured by Giovanni Marco Meraviglia in 1495, or thereabouts. The Claude de Vaudrey mentioned in post #5 took part in suppressing a riot in Dijon in 1477. Here is the link. If your Claude is the same as my Claude, and generously estimating him at 20 years old in 1477, the Baron must have lived until the ripe old age of at least 102.
There was in all likelihood more than one Claude de Vaudrey.
This is true. I think I have the wrong Claude. Ok, so our Claude put down a riot in Dijon in 1477 and fought in a tournament against Maximillian I at Worms in 1495. This book mentions him and gives what look to be birth and death dates:
I’ve found this froom Google Books, page 223, which I think is our Claude and gives a biographical sketch. Unfortunately, it’s in French, which I don’t read, so if anyone can translate, I’d appreciate. I’m transcribing it below (without diacriticals):
CLAUDE DE VAUDREY Knight, Seigneur de l’Aigle & de Chilli, Counsellor, Chamberlain of Duke Phillipe & Bailiff de la Montagnein 1473. Made Chevalier of Honour at the Parliament of Dole, & one of the most accomplished gentlemen of his time. He defended Auxonne after the death of Duke Charles, against the French Army; & having no children with Marie de Chalans his wife, he made her his heiress of half his goods by his testament dated in the year 1515; Henri & Claude de Clermont, Claude & Antoine de Laubepin his nephews of the other half; substituting each for the other; & in default of issue, Adrien de Vaudrey Seigneur de Courlaou, Jean de Vaudrey Seigneur du Pin his germain cousins, Jean son of Olivier de Vaudrey whom he said to be the Chef des Armes of his House, & Maximilien son of the late Louis de Vaudry.
One cannot doubt, in light of this testament, that Olivier de Vaudrey was descended from an older son of Gui de Vaudrey, first of the name; but I do not know his ancestors. This instrument proves as well that he had a son name Jean, who died without children & was interred at Nottre-Dame de Halle close to Brussels, with this Epitaph: Here lies Jean Seigneur de Vaudry, who was part of the siege of Maizier in the Town of Bastoignes, where he died the fifteenth of December in the year 1521.
In the case of Charles’ court, the chancellor was his senior official and he maintained up to 24 chamberlains ( at least according to one of his German mercenaries ), so this would seem to be the case. At Neuss ( an indecisive military encounter in 1475 ), the count of Chimay was appointed to command both the First Battle ( division, essentially ) as well as the army as a whole. He is described by Charles as "cousin, councillor and chamberlain." Meanwhile “In the centre of the second battle we placed the squadron of chamberlains and gentlemen of our chamber…”
Quoted in Richard Vaughn’s Charles the Bold ( 1973, 2002 ).
So there were multiple “chamberlains of Burgundy” at any given time.
Now that I’ve translated it; taking a look at it, the first paragraph of that text is useful as suggesting that Claude died around 1515, without issue (at least, none from his wife, as the author of the book prudently notes). So that looks like it confirms that Captain Amazing’s Claude de Vaudrey is someone else, though likely of the same family.
Also, it mentions that he was also Chamberlain to Philip the Good, Charles the Bold’s father. Since Philip died in 1467, if Claude was born in 1450, he would have only been 17 at the most - so he may have been made Chamberlain because of family connexions, rather than merit - not uncommon at that time.
The second paragraph doesn’t really relate to Claude de Vaudrey; just looks like the author used Claude’s will as proof that Olivier de Vaudrey and his son Jean were descended in some way from Claude’s ancestor, Gui de Vaudrey, in the senior line, since they were the Chef d’Armes of the family, which I take to mean the ones in direct descent from Gui, who was first granted the Arms? is there anyone acquainted with heraldry who knows if that’s a fair rendering?
