Savoy, Duchy of

The Swiss cantons of Uri and Unterwalden had called on fellow members of the Swiss Confederation to support their occupation of the upper Ticino River valley in 1410, and had occupied also the Val d’Ossola at the other end of the Simplon Pass.

The Swiss lose this valley four years later to the duchy of Savoy, but regain it by the end of 1416, thereby bringing most of the Alpine passed into northern Italy under Swiss control.

Pope Martin V, intervening in the Venetian-Milanese War, had brought the warring parties to negotiations.

Under the peace treaty, Venice gains Brescia and the environs, Florence retakes its territory lost to Milan at the turn of the century, Savoy rules the territory it acquired from Milan, and Milan is enjoined from interfering with any state between it and Rome.

The Venetians, embroiled in this series of wars with Milan, are eventually forced to make peace with the Ottoman Turks.

Venice, prompted by commercial advantage and the threat of Duke Filippo Maria Visconti, who hopes to retake his father’s conquests of Verona and Vicenza and to rule all of northern Italy, allies itself with Florence against Milan in 1426.

Ferrara, Mantua, Siena, and Savoy soon join the Venetian-Florentine alliance and assemble a large army commanded by Francesco Carmagnola.

Upon the entry of Carmagnola’s forces into Brescia in March, 1426, a prearranged revolt breaks out, aiding the imposition of a siege.

Francesco Sforza, the Milanese defender, surrenders, but reinforcements on both sides enable the fighting to continue for eight months, when the last Milanese stronghold falls, with the help of artillery, in November.

Pope Martin V, intervening in the Venetian-Milanese War of 1426, brings the warring parties to negotiations.

Under the peace treaty concluded in Venice on December 30, 1426, Venice gains Brescia and the environs, Florence retakes its territory lost to Milan at the turn of the century, Savoy rules the territory it acquired from Milan, and Milan is enjoined from interfering with any state between it and Rome.

Visconti manages to be reconciled with Amadeus by ceding him Vercelli and marrying his daughter, Marie of Savoy.

However, as Sforza is defeated by some Genoese and exiled and Sigismund's help is wanting, Visconti sues for a treaty.

Duke Amadeus VIII of Savoy retires after forty-two years on the throne to a monastery at Ripaille, near Geneva, in 1434.

His retirement is only partial, however, and he continues to exercise power, with his son Louis (Ludovico) acting as his lieutenant.

During this period Amadeus' daughter Margherita is betrothed to Louis III of Anjou, pretender to the throne of Naples.

When Louis dies suddenly in 1434, Amadeus briefly claims Naples for Margherita but in the end abandons the kingdom to Alfonso V of Aragon.

The pope and the council have been unable to agree on the negotiations and discussions that have followed in Basel, and the council has gradually lost prestige.

The council has proposed several antipapal measures, and in late 1437 Eugenius, increasingly suspicious of the Council’s designs, orders the transfer of the the council to Ferrara, Italy, in order to consider reunion with the Greeks, who prefer negotiating with the Pope and wish to meet in Italy.

Many of the bishops at Basel accept the move to Ferrara, but several remain at Basel as a rump council.

The successors of Count Humbert the Whitehanded, the eleventh-century founder of the house of Savoy, have expanded their territories to include parts present of France, Italy, and Switzerland.

Amadeus VIII, the thirty-three-year-old count of Savoy, is granted ducal status in 1416.

Fribourg, another Habsburg city, had come under the rule of the Duke of Savoy during the 1440s and had had to accept the duke as its lord in 1452.

Nevertheless, it also enters an alliance with Berne in 1454, becoming an associate state of the Swiss Confederacy.

France has evolved from a feudal country to an increasingly centralized state (albeit with many regional differences) organized around a powerful absolute monarchy that rely on the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings and the explicit support of the Gallican Church.

Mid-fifteenth century France is significantly smaller than it is today, and numerous border provinces (such as Roussillon, Cerdagne, Calais, Béarn, Navarre, County of Foix, Flanders, Artois, Lorraine, Alsace, Trois-Évêchés, Franche-Comté, Savoy, Bresse, Bugey, Gex, Nice, Provence, and Brittany) are autonomous or foreign-held (as by the Holy Roman Empire); there are also foreign enclaves, like the Comtat Venaissin.

In addition, certain provinces within France are ostensibly personal fiefdoms of noble families (like the Bourbonnais, Marche, Forez and Auvergne provinces held by the House of Bourbon.)

The Duke of Burgundy has assembled a large territory including his native duchy and the Burgundian Netherlands.

Le Dauphin, the son of France’s King Charles VII, has ruled efficiently in the Dauphiné, but in 1456 his father seizes the land and drives his son into exile at the Burgundian court.

Their respective advisors, in purposely encourage the misunderstandings between father and son, enable the continuation of the feud.