the burgundy ramble

to quickly replace the void that has consumed what temp text once inhabited, i will be discussing very quickly about the color burgundy. to me, the color burgundy represents the two extremes inherit within todays people. the edgy teenager who thinks that such a cool color deserves a spot on their t-shirt, and the senile grandma who likes that color as it is the color of her favorite mittens. either way, this color manages to encapsulate (in my opinion) the most boring aspects of our decisions and thus makes it a bit of a funny color to pick for things. the name, when used with the proper tone, can give rise to quite the volume of hoot and holler. so what made this accursed color and why is it the way it is now?
(all of this is from wikipedia, im really just compressing the two articles i read into a webpage)

act one: extremely huge beginnings

most things start with a european guy doing something that ends up causing either global conflict or mass reform. this is not that different, the only thing being different is that none of those extremes actually happened in this case. now, one of the first things that pops up on google when you search up burgundy is the lovely face of phillip the good, but contrary to what some might believe, this dashing stud did not found the burgundians and their land, in fact, it is a bit contested as to whether the first burgundians were people coming from the now in tatters roman empire or from the eurasian steppe. either way, these people eventually settled down into the area in what is now worms, germany. after this they did a bit of expanding, nothing much, and eventually made it all the way to the italian border, conquered most of what is now france, and cleaned up everything else in between, which led them to set their sights on the rest of italy which they then took. i was lying about the taking the rest of italy thing but it puts into perspective just how much these guys actually had. it also puts into perspective how much they lost. see, the franks existed around this time and they had a fetish for taking land, a really big fetish. so in 534 the last king of burgundy was killed and the burgundian empire was absorbed into the ever growing frankish empire. the franks later went on to consume more and more until eventually they popped and the large area of the franks split into three parts, those parts of which i will not discuss because i don't care about the franks.

act two: i retract my statement about the three parts

it is no surprise that we do have to talk about the split of the franks. after all why would someone name a color based off a crusty empire from the middle ages that was later consumed and rendered irrelevant? three burgundies rose from the ashes of the frankish empire, each named upper lower and duchy respectively, and the upper and lower sections later unified into a bigger and better burgundy. this bigger and better burgundy was then absorbed again, this time into the holy roman empire where it later recieved a name change as the kingdom of arles. if you are wondering what happened to the duchy, it simply got eaten by wolves aka the french. now, during the middle ages the now annexed french burgundy was made the site of some churches and monastaries which gave it some relevancy. returning to the holy roman empire, an area within the area of where the super ultra great kingdom of burgundy once stood cut itself off from the holy roman empire and declared itself the free county of burgundy, coincidentally doing so right next to the french duchy of burgundy. thus starts the next part of the burgundian saga.

ps: the crappy explosion image is referencing to the disaster that was the opening of a third tab for my research

act three: classical european tomfoolery

its getting late as i type this (11:52 PM) and i really want to do things tommorow so i will keep it brief. the two burgundies decided to bask a little too hard in their previous united status and accidentally established an empire stretching all the way to beaches of the north sea via spamming the marriage button. this little play empire of theirs was kind of legit with fiefdoms and everything but is regarded as a concept by modern historians and not as a legitimate empire. we all know that this burgundy really exists in our hearts. anyways things were fine until war was declared by the then ancestors of the now country of switzerland, some head misplacement later and the liquid burgundy empire was no more. with nothing left to do the remaining burgundians decided to raise up the hapsburgs by sending a member of one of the houses, mary, to marry the ruler of the holy roman empire (yes they still exist!), who was a member of the hapsburgs. once she died, maximillian, her husband, moved and reigned over the remaining burgundian territories before his death and the eventual cecession of the territories to france.

act four: wine

they made wine. as it turns out, one of the best uses of the new territory was to use it to make wine, which it had already been doing for quite sometime. why didn't i write about that instead? in a sort of masochistic kind of way, it was fun writing about this stuff and it is something that i will never do again. european history is just too much sometimes. (in case you didn't get the hint, the dark red color that is burgundy comes from the color of the wine.)