ABSTRACT
Burgundian administrative records from the 1410s shows that John the Fearless also sent regular messengers to confer with Catherine, typically about 'certain matters urgently concerning my said lord the duke and the security of his lands of Burgundy'. By the time of Hagenbach's execution, there was a growing convergence of activities of Burgundian diplomats and customary political culture of the south-western lands of the Holy Roman Empire. This convergence only intensified after the death of Charles the Bold at the battle of Nancy on 5 January 1477 and the Habsburg inheritance of Burgundian territories. The careers of these three political actors namely: Catherine of Burgundy, Margrave Wilhelm of Hochberg and Peter von Hagenbach, suggests that multiple cultures of political interaction existed concurrently in the south-western Holy Roman Empire in the fifteenth century. It concludes with some brief reflections on what their careers might mean for conceptions of diplomacy at this early and highly complex end of the early modern world.
