Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette English Faculty Research and Publications English, Department of 1-1-2016 Dijon, Burgundy Elizaveta Strakhov Marquette University,
[email protected] Jean-Pascal Pouzet Published version. "Dijon, Burgundy," in Europe: A Literary History, 1348-1418, Volume 1. Ed. David Wallace. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016: 102-124. Publisher link. © 2016 Oxford University Press. Used with permission. Chapter 6 Dijon, Burgundy ELIZAVETA STRAKHOV, WITH JEAN-PASCAL POUZET IN early August 1349, returning to England from Avignon as the newly consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Bradwardine passed through Burgundy and called at Dijon. Just over three weeks later, on 26 August, back in London, the distinguished theologian died of the plague. He had become infected precisely in Dijon, since the pandemic had reached Chcllon-sur-Saone and Dijon by early August 1349. 1 This anecdote perhaps too neatly exemplifies Dijon's role in our period: a moderately populated, 'second-rank' city on an important road, worthy of an English archbishop's halt, exerting strong local influence while producing significant repercussions elsewhere in Europe. At first sight, there seems little to recommend the traditional capital of the duchy of Burgundy for a specifically literary history between 1348 and 1418, the period immediately predating the glorious efflorescence of arts and belles-lettres at the courts of the later Valois Burgundian dukes, Philip the Good (r. 1419-67) and Charles the Bold (r. 1467-77) . Compared to other places in our volume, Dijon might be considered a sort of'absent city', lacking eminent figures who, like Machaut at Reims, might emblematize their native or adopted place.