Heraldry detective work - Claude de Vaudrey?

[Charlie_]

I'm researching the War of Burgundian Succession (1477-1493). Lots of interesting names have popped up which have led me down further rabbit holes researching the French and Burgundian nobility of the 15th century. I'm trying to track down the heraldry for a few of them, and perhaps there are people here who can help me.

The first on the list is Claude de Vaudrey – he was one of the many 'rebel' lords of the Franche-Comte who rose up against the French occupation in the name of Mary of Burgundy. He seems to have played a leading role in this conflict from 1477-1479. I believe he was captured by the French in '79, and presumably ransomed, as I have found other references to him fighting for the 'Burgundian' cause of Maximilian over the next many years. He seems to have been a famous tourney knight – if you google him, almost all the results refer to him in this context, and there is a suit of armour from the late 15th or possibly early 16th century that apparently was his. I believe he died in 1515 – I have found a few references to him dying earlier, but I think they are erroneous.

The Vaudrey family keep popping up in the '77-'79 Franche-Comte war – at the very least there is a Guillaume de Vaudrey as well who fought alongside him, and I've found one reference to Herman de Vaudrey. I've managed to piece together this family tree, or at least the part of it that is relevant for my research. As you can see he is of a second branch of the family. Guillaume is his uncle, and Herman is a cousin. The head of the family is presumably the 'Courlaou' branch, though I've found no reference to them in this war, and don't know which side they fought on if any). All the branches shown died out around this time except the last one. There are also some earlier branches of the family not shown here.



So anyway, the heraldry.

This is the arms of the Vaudrey family.



A google image search for 'Claude de Vaudrey' brings up this:



I don't know what the source is, and I can't read the text, but it looks like a good contender doesn't it, if you look at his position on my family tree? The gold 'label' would make sense for a member of the second branch, right?

Thoughts?

[HappyChappy439]

Ah! I love a good bit of heraldic sleuthing 

It looks like the bottom image is taken from the Grünenberg Amorial (from 1483), which is absolutely full of amazing illustrations of coats of arms (grouped geographically). There's a lot of interesting things in there, including a little bit on Byzantium and Trebizond!






Here's a link to the full manuscript (at the particular page for the Vaudrey arms) https://www.wdl.org/en/item/14689/view/1/224/

It's all in medieval German though, so finding a full translation of the Vaudrey page in particular might take a bit of time! It looks like it spells "Vaudrey" as "Voadroi" from what I can read though, but I can't really make out many words in that block of text outside of "Ritter" every so often.

It could be that the label is there because the knight there was still the heir to the family, and hadn't inherited yet, but there's no unmodified version of the arms in the armorial at all which is unusual!

[HappyChappy439]

I've done a bit more investigating today, and I've managed to track down the tomb of Guillaume de Vaudrey in "L'Église de l'Assomption de Courlaoux" where he was buried after being beheaded by Louis XI in 1479 for his support of Mary of Burgundy

I couldn't find a larger image unfortunately, but the photo here shows the unmodified Vaudrey arms in the top and bottom left corners



It looks like confusingly there's multiple Claude de Vaudreys bopping around at the same time. Guillaume's brother(?) was a Claude, and fought alongside Guillaume in defense of the Franche-Comte, but at the same time Guillaume had twelve sons (all knights!) including another Claude de Vaudrey. The younger Claude was apparently a huge man, nicknamed "The Madman" and seemed to be the one who owned the surviving suit of armour (but also apparently dying in 1515)

(basing my information on the Corlaoux village website: http://www.courlaoux.fr/index.php/vie-historique/courlaoux-et-son-passe-historique )

I've been squinting over the text in the paragraph to try and make out the words and I'm getting "hie der her her Clade(?) von Woadroi" so I'm guessing is the arms in the armorial there are the older Claude (modified because he was the brother). Also looking at this link, it gives a bit more of a translation summary the paragraph itself, and apparently that block of text describes how the Claude those arms belong to died in Paris in 1483 during the coronation of the King of France (I'm not seeing any obvious 'Karl' references in the text so I'm guessing they don't name him!)

http://www.armorial.dk/german/Grunenberg.pdf


So I guess the short summary version is, as far as I can tell: The arms there with the label are for Claude de Vaudrey, brother of Guillaume de Vaudrey, while Guillaume himself would use the unmodified version of the arms, in case you were planning on fielding both!

Bit of a rambling stream-of-consciousness, so hopefully I've made sense here!

[Charlie_]

That's very interesting, thank you for the assistance!
It really does muddy the waters though ; )

I should explain my sources - all the detailed narratives of the Franche-Comte war, where I first came across the Vaudrey family, are from three books, all I believe from the 18th or 19th centuries.
- Histoire générale et particulière de Bourgogne (1781)
- Histoire des Ducs de Bourgogne de la maison de Valois (1826)
- Histoire de la Franche Comté ancienne et moderne (1851)

My translations of the relevant sections have been made through careful use of Google translate, which can be rather effective if used right, though obviously some mistakes might find their way through.

The first of these books makes many references to "the vaudreys" and the names Claude and Guillaume - this was my first translation and isn't quite as 'clean' as the later ones.
The second and third have much clearer details (or at least a better translation), both mention Claude and Guillaume enough so I've been able to piece together exactly what they did.

Then I tracked down the whole family from 'Le Grand Dictionaire Historique du Moreri', which is how I was able to make the family tree above.

Now there are contradictions across these fours texts, and other snippets of info found through googling (the date of death, the armour, etc) sometimes confuse things further!

Trusting the info from 'Le Grand Dictionaire Historique du Moreri', and assuming my family tree is correct, I think there is only one Claude de Vaudrey in this timeframe. Guillaume apparently was his father's younger brother - the 'Dictionaire'  does not list him as having any children, rather being a 'third son' who was a famous knight but had no progeny. All my sources agree both Claude and Guillaume were loyal to Mary and fought the French. Guillaume was captured and executed either in '79 or '80. Claude seems to have been captured in '79, but he does pop up later in the 80s and 90s fighting for Maximilian, so was presumably ransomed.

The 'Dictionaire' talks about how Claude had no children, and made a will in 1515 that split his estates between various relatives.

One of my sources (Histoire des Ducs de Bourgogne) contradicts things by in one paragraph referring to them as brothers, and claiming Claude died of his wounds in '79 and Guillaume went over to the French. Also 'Histoire générale et particulière de Bourgogne' mentions a Vaudrey negotiating with the Swiss on behalf of Louis XI, but it doesn't say who.

The Grünenberg Amorial claims Claude died in '83.

Your history of Courlaoux claims they were brothers, but agrees that Guillaume died in '79. However it also claims that Guillaume had many sons, including a Claude and a Louis. If you look at my family tree, there is another Guillaume, who has sons, and a grandson called Louis. This sounds like the same one - your page claims he fought for Maximilian, the 'Dictionaire' lists him as "capitaine des gardes de l'empereur Maximilien, & des archers du corps de Philippe le Bel" (Captain of the guards of Maximilian, and of the archers of Philip the Fair?).




So..... which sources are right?
I'm tempted to trust my 'Dictionaire' to have the family tree right, and accept that somewhere along the way someone has got things mixed up and thought Claude and Guillaume were brothers, when they are not.
But then perhaps my 'Dictionaire' is wrong, and I'm spreading false information!!!


To share some of what I'm putting together about this war, here is some of what Claude and Guillaume got up to between 1477 and 1479, fighting for Mary of Burgundy against Louis XI of France.
- Guillaume defended Vesoul when it was besieged by Georges de la Tremoille. He led the garrison out in a daring night attack and routed Tremoille's army.
- Both Vaudreys (and many others) fought Tremoille again, defending the bridge at Magny. They lost but the French suffered heavy losses.
- Claude led 1,000 Swiss to attack the town of Grai, whilst Tremoille was busy besieging Dole. They scaled the walls at night and drove out the French garrison.

[HappyChappy439]

So..... which sources are right?
I'm tempted to trust my 'Dictionaire' to have the family tree right, and accept that somewhere along the way someone has got things mixed up and thought Claude and Guillaume were brothers, when they are not.
But then perhaps my 'Dictionaire' is wrong, and I'm spreading false information!!!

I'd definitely be inclined to agree with your sources! I've not been able to find anything that backs up the claim that Guillaume had any more than *one* son, let alone twelve! So I'm guessing it could just be some local legend-building on the part of Courleaux itself!

I'm definitely in agreement with your family tree though where it looks like the only late-15th century adult Claude I could find was Guillaume's *nephew* (by Antoine, as you correctly put) rather than his son, it's interesting just how different the sources are on that though! Especially with Grünenberg mysteriously killing him off 30 years before his actual death! My guess it could be that 1483 might be when the Crown of France confiscated Claude's territories in France (which later got restored in the treaty of Senlis)

I've found a whole heap of stuff about Claude's various tournament exploits in the early 1470s (including a few namedrops in Olivier de la Marche's memoires) and considering he was jousting in 1469, and definitely at least in 1494, and actively taking part in dismounted sword combat at tournaments the whole time, is pretty impressive!...though confusingly, it sounds like his tournament gear was green and violet!

If it helps, a publication of our good friend Olivier de la Marche's Memoires does list the arms of each person in the family (thankfully!), where they're citing a source ("L'Histoires de Fr. Calmelet") :

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6549624s.texteImage

• Guillaume de Vaudrey, seigneur de Courlaou : Èmanchè de gueules et d'argent, — de gueules et d'azur
• Antoine de Vaudrey, seigneur de l'Aigle:De même et un lambel

It seems odd that Guillaume, the younger son, would use the unmodified arms (unless the red-and-blue variant mentioned was the one he used). But it does confirm that Antoine (and presumably, Claude by extension) use the modified Vaudrey arms, with a label, but it might be like the Luxembourg-Saint-Pol family where at some point a generation with a lot of brothers ends up using personalised versions of the main coat of arms!


Also, not related to the heraldry itself, but Jean Molinet seems to have a pretty extensive contemporary description of Guillaume and Claude's campaign if you were interested: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k112120z/

[Charlie_]

Of course I'm interested! I've been trying to find a copy of Molinet in English, he seems to hold a lot of my missing info - I'll have to check out both your links this evening, and hope they are easy to translate. I'll be back!

[Charlie_]

If it helps, a publication of our good friend Olivier de la Marche's Memoires does list the arms of each person in the family (thankfully!), where they're citing a source ("L'Histoires de Fr. Calmelet") :

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6549624s.texteImage

• Guillaume de Vaudrey, seigneur de Courlaou : Èmanchè de gueules et d'argent, — de gueules et d'azur
• Antoine de Vaudrey, seigneur de l'Aigle:De même et un lambel

It seems odd that Guillaume, the younger son, would use the unmodified arms (unless the red-and-blue variant mentioned was the one he used). But it does confirm that Antoine (and presumably, Claude by extension) use the modified Vaudrey arms, with a label, but it might be like the Luxembourg-Saint-Pol family where at some point a generation with a lot of brothers ends up using personalised versions of the main coat of arms!

Ok, that is helpful, it does at least support the idea of Claude de Vaudrey's arms having the label, which was the original purpose of this thread! That's two sources at least, so I think I'll go with that.
It is indeed odd what it says about Guillaume though... what does it mean, red and silver or red and blue?
Also odd that it lists him as Lord of Courlaou, as does your Courlaou village find - as my family tree above shows (taken from the 'Dictionaire historique') he was not, he was the third son, his eldest brother Lancelot (and then his son Adrien) was Lord of Courlaou. Guillaume's burial there could make sense though - as it was his father's estate, and seemingly Guillaume didn't have one of his own, perhaps it remained his home throughout his life? If he was listed as just 'Guillaume of Courlaou' it would make more sense.
There is also the possibility that when Adrien died without a male heir, Guillaume inherited the title.... but the 'Dictionaire historique' would say no, as it actually describes in detail what happend to the lordship of Courlaou - it passed through Adrien's daughter to the de la Baume family. And also this theory would require his nephew Adrien dying before 1479, yet he is mentioned in Claude de Vaudrey's will in 1515.

ADRIEN de Vaudrey, lord of Courlaou, Présilli, Saint-Julien, knight of honor in the parliament of Burgundy, had [with] Jeanne, daughter of Philibert de Véere, knight, Pierre, known under the name of baron de Courlaou, died without alliance in the flower of his age, & Anne de Vuillafans, whom he married in second marriage, a girl named Anne, married to Claude de Ray, to whom she bore the lands of the Courlaou branch, which then passed into the house de la Baume-Montrevel.

So Guillaume's title and arms still remain a bit of a mystery, but I think we've confirmed Claude's arms!

I'm taking a deep dive into Molinet this weekend, see what he has to say...


EDIT - to throw further doubt on the validity of your Courloau village website, they do seem to mix some things up, at least as google translates it. For example....

"Burgundy was then conquered. By the Treaty of Amiens, in 1482 [actually treaty of Arras, though perhaps known by more than one name?], Franche Comté and Artois were returned to Marie de Bourgogne [tha's the wrong way round, the treaty saw Franche Comte and Artois given over to France] who had in the meantime married Maximilian of Austria. This same treaty stopped the marriage of the Dauphin Charles, son of Louis XI, with Marguerite, their daughter. [Could be a mis-translation, but the treaty did the opposite, it set up the marriage between Charles and Margeurite.] But Louis XI broke the engagement [Well no, Charles broke the engagement when he was king, many years after the death of Louis XI] and Franche-Comté remained under the domination of the powerful House of Austria, the Francs-Comtois becoming subjects of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrians before becoming Spaniards and then French."

[bluewillow]

I will try and get a chance to dig through my research, plus the French family tree site I am on.

Cheers
Matt

[Atheling]

This reminds me very much of my early research on Verneuil. Over the last twenty odd years of researching the heraldry Late Medieval Warfare I have found that compromises often have to be made. This can be a very unsatisfactory but necessary part of the hobby in this particular time period (and many others for that matter).

I know this does not offer much in terms of help; just an empirical observation really..... keep at it though, one never knows

[HappyChappy439]

EDIT - to throw further doubt on the validity of your Courloau village website, they do seem to mix some things up, at least as google translates it. For example....

"Burgundy was then conquered. By the Treaty of Amiens, in 1482 [actually treaty of Arras, though perhaps known by more than one name?], Franche Comté and Artois were returned to Marie de Bourgogne [tha's the wrong way round, the treaty saw Franche Comte and Artois given over to France] who had in the meantime married Maximilian of Austria. This same treaty stopped the marriage of the Dauphin Charles, son of Louis XI, with Marguerite, their daughter. [Could be a mis-translation, but the treaty did the opposite, it set up the marriage between Charles and Margeurite.] But Louis XI broke the engagement [Well no, Charles broke the engagement when he was king, many years after the death of Louis XI] and Franche-Comté remained under the domination of the powerful House of Austria, the Francs-Comtois becoming subjects of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrians before becoming Spaniards and then French."

Ooof! Yeah that Courlaoux village website looks like it's got more holes than a Swiss cheese! Probably safe to not put too much weight on it!

[Captain Harlock]

Ah! I love a good bit of heraldic sleuthing 

It looks like the bottom image is taken from the Grünenberg Amorial (from 1483), which is absolutely full of amazing illustrations of coats of arms (grouped geographically). There's a lot of interesting things in there, including a little bit on Byzantium and Trebizond!






Here's a link to the full manuscript (at the particular page for the Vaudrey arms) https://www.wdl.org/en/item/14689/view/1/224/

It's all in medieval German though, so finding a full translation of the Vaudrey page in particular might take a bit of time! It looks like it spells "Vaudrey" as "Voadroi" from what I can read though, but I can't really make out many words in that block of text outside of "Ritter" every so often.

It could be that the label is there because the knight there was still the heir to the family, and hadn't inherited yet, but there's no unmodified version of the arms in the armorial at all which is unusual!

This is absolutely wonderful! Not just for the info it contains but mostly, at least for me, for being a primary source of period heraldry design. Its very easy to combine different elements and create other insignia in this original style, instead of the extemely stylized commercial versions based on clip art, most decal companies offer.

[Charlie_]

I will try and get a chance to dig through my research, plus the French family tree site I am on.

Cheers
Matt

That would be great Matt, thanks.

I've got a parallel thread running on this topic over at TMP, which has found some good info, see it here link

Most recently it has found another book that specifically refers to Claude's arms as having the label, and Guillaume's without - link

So Guillaume has become to problem - there are now multiple references to him as Lord of Courlaou, including his own tomb, but that doesn't add up with the 'Dictionnaie Historique' - link - which is where I got the info for my family tree. This puts him as third son of Jean, Lord of Courlaou. His elder brothers are Lancelot (Courlaou) and Anthoine (L'Aigle, father of Claude). After Lancelot, Courlaou goes to his son Adrien, then to a daughter, and through marriage ends up in the Baume family.

There are various different accounts of how Claude and Guillaume are related, we now have brothers, father and son, and cousins (this is what Molinet specifically refers to them as).

If we assume an error in the 'Dictionaire Historique', could it be that Jean only had two children, Guillaume and Anthoine, making Guillaume Lord of Courlaou and presumably head of the family (which explains his arms). Lancelot would be his son. This would still make him uncle to Claude.

I think when I write my account of the War of Burgundian Succession, I'll refer to them as being close relatives, probably uncle and nephew, and provide two slightly different family trees as possibilities.

[HappyChappy439]

I've been looking through Olivier De La Marche's Memoires a bit this weekend, and there's a bit more information in there, but he adds a few more family members into the mix (sorry!):
Quite early on in Chapter 35 (around the League of the Public Weal, *after* Montlhéry), de La Marche mentions a Philippe de Vauldrey ("Gruyer de Bourgogne"), accompanied by his sons Pierre and Philippe who fight in a Burgundian contingent alongside the Duke of Lorraine rather than the main Burgundian strength at Montlhéry.

There's also a Louis de Vaudrey (whose relation to either Guillaume or Claude isn't listed), who is mentioned accompanying Maximilian to Ferrara in 1499, and skirmishing with the Swiss there. Molinet also mentions a Louis de Vaudrey active in the 1490s, campaigning in Arras and Boulogne in 1492, but my French isn't good enough to understand whether they were supporting the English siege of Boulogne, or opposed to it!

But given that De La Marche consistently refers to Guillaume and Claude by their titles (Lords of Courlao and L'Aigle respectively), and these get no mention like that, I'm guessing these other Vaudreys are probably from lesser branches of the family


Not strictly heraldry related, but De La Marche does describe the livery that Claude de Vaudrey and his entourage wear to tourney: He and his entourage seem to be wearing Satin cloth, with the front green and the rear violet, sown with gold seashells, in between large silver bells

Guillaume's personal livery seems similar-ish and gets described earlier (as Lord of Corlaou): His horse is draped in Crimson Satin, embroidered with gold letters (the letters aren't listed though), and also sown with large silver bells (which look like pears)

There's no mention of whether they wore these colours in battle, but it doesn't sound like they changed their colours at any point either, so it's possible that their men-at-arms or archers-de-corps would also be equipped like this. The consistency with the bells seems to be a family thing though

Unfortunately not any clearer with the actual family tree in either of these sources though, sorry!

[Charlie_]

There's also a Louis de Vaudrey (whose relation to either Guillaume or Claude isn't listed), who is mentioned accompanying Maximilian to Ferrara in 1499, and skirmishing with the Swiss there. Molinet also mentions a Louis de Vaudrey active in the 1490s, campaigning in Arras and Boulogne in 1492, but my French isn't good enough to understand whether they were supporting the English siege of Boulogne, or opposed to it!

But given that De La Marche consistently refers to Guillaume and Claude by their titles (Lords of Courlao and L'Aigle respectively), and these get no mention like that, I'm guessing these other Vaudreys are probably from lesser branches of the family

Yes, I've got Louis on my family tree - he's a not too distant cousin. The 'Dictionnaire Historique' lists him as "capitaine des gardes de l'empereur
Maximilien, & des archers du corps de Philippe le Bel". I've found one reference to his father Herman fighting for Mary of Burgundy in 1479 as well. So that branch of the family seem like faithful Burgundians! It died out with Louis' son.
1492 indeed saw Arras retaken from the French - I'll have a read of what Molinet says about it.



Philippe and Pierre are indeed from another branch of the family - it split off in the 13th century and I haven't included it on my family tree. The 'Dictionnaire Historique' says Philippe was the lord of Montjay, and the master of artillery for the Duke of Burgundy. His son Philippe followed him and is also listed as "conseiller, chambellan de l'empereur", and his second son Pierre started another branch as lord of Beveuges.

[Stuart H]

Charlie

I cant help with his heraldry but my new favourite purchase "The Last Knight - The Art, Armour and Ambition of Maximilian 1" has Vaudrey's jousting armour which was in the Emperor's collection after they jousted.

The book is excellent for anyone interested in late C15th/early C16th high-end armor.

Good luck on the search.

Stuart