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Blanche of Burgundy
Countess of Savoy
Blanche (left) with her grandfather Louis IX (right)
Born	1288
Died	July 1348 (aged 59–60)
Spouse	Edward, Count of Savoy
Issue	Joan of Savoy
House	Burgundy
Father	Robert II, Duke of Burgundy
Mother	Agnes of France

Bianca of Burgundy (1288 – July 1348) was a Countess consort of Savoy by marriage to Edward, Count of Savoy. She was the mother of Joan of Savoy.

Life

Blanche was born to Robert II, Duke of Burgundy, and Agnes of France. She married in 1307 Edward, Count of Savoy.

The marriage was arranged by her mother, and the negotiations was signed at the French court of her uncle, the king of France, in Paris. In the marriage contract, her future spouse was officially secured the position of heir to Savoy. The wedding took place on 17 October 1307 at the Château de Montbard in Burgundy. In 1323, her spouse succeeded to become Count of Savoy. She commissioned a Book of Hours, titled Hours of Savoy, later kept at the Beinecke Library, Yale University. Her daughter Joan married the duke of Brittany in 1329.

Blanche was widowed when her spouse Edward died in Gentilly in 1329. Her was succeeded by his brother Aymon. Blanche negotiated with her brother-in-law about her dowry until 8 February 1330, when she was secured Bourg, Treffort, Coligny, Jasseron, Trivier, Pont-de-Vesle and Pontdevaux in Bresse; she was also granted a house in Faubourg Saint-Marcel in Paris by the king of France in 1333.

Her daughter Joan questioned the succession and claimed the rights to Savoy from her uncle between 1329 and 1339. In 1346 and 1347, she used her influence at the court of her nephew, Amadeus VI, to pursue closer alliances with Burgundy to offset the pending sale of the Dauphiné to France. This led to his brief engagement with Joan of Burgundy, daughter of Philip of Burgundy and Joan I, Countess of Auvergne.

She died July 1348, perhaps from the Black Death.

Ancestry

Notes

1. Pearson 2017, p. 64–65.
2. Cox 1967, p. 59.
3. Samuel Guichenon, Histoire généalogique de la Royale Maison de Savoie ou Histoire généalogique de la Royale Maison de Savoie justifiée par titres, fondations de monastères, manuscrits, anciens monuments, histoires, et autres preuves authentiques, chez Jean-Michel Briolo, 1660
4. Cox 1967, p. 59–61.
5. Cox 1967, p. 70.

References

• Cox, Eugene L. (1967). The Green Count of Savoy. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. LCCN 67-11030.
• Pearson, Andrea (2017). Envisioning Gender in Burgundian Devotional Art, 1350–1530: Experience, Authority, Resistance. Routledge.

v t e Countesses of Savoy
Ancilla Adila Adelaide of Susa Agnes of Aquitaine Joan of Geneva Gisela of Burgundy Adelaide Mahaut of Albon Faidiva of Toulouse Gertrude of Flanders Clementia of Zähringen Beatrice of Viennois Margaret of Geneva Margaret of Burgundy Cecile of Baux Agnes of Faucigny Adelaide, Countess of Burgundy Sybille of Bâgé Marie of Brabant Blanche of Burgundy Yolande Palaeologina of Montferrat Bonne of Bourbon Bonne of Berry Mary of Burgundy

• 1288 births
• 1348 deaths
• Countesses of Savoy
• 13th-century French women
• 13th-century French nobility
• 14th-century French women
• 14th-century French nobility
• Daughters of dukes