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- BIOGRAPHY
Johann was born on 16 February 1419, the third of ten children, eldest son of Adolf I, duke of Kleef and his second wife Marie de Bourgogne, daughter of Jean 'the Fearless', duc de Bourgogne and Margaretha of Bavaria. Johann's sister Marie married Charles, duc d'Orléans in 1440. Their second child became Louis XII, king of France.
Johann was connected to the house of Burgundy by his upbringing at the Brussels court. From his ninth year he was under the care of his mother's brother, Duke Philippe 'the Good'. He remained sixteen years at the Burgundy court. After his return to Kleef (Cleves in French) his subjects referred to Johann as 'dat Kint van Vlaanderen'. His father was in the habit of calling his son 'Johanneken met de Bellen' because of the pomp of the Burgundy court.
In confidential negotiations Johann's father had in 1442 proposed to the German King Friedrich III a nuptial alliance between Kleef and Habsburg; however, this plan came to nothing. Hence from about 1450 Kleef became - in its politics, culture and refined court life - a satellite of Burgundy.
After the death of his father in 1448, Johann was invested by Friedrich III, on 7 September 1449, as duke of Kleef, count von der Marck and lord of Gennep. In 1450 he ceded the lordships of Ravenstein and Wijnendale to his brother Adolf.
Also in 1450 Johann made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. On his return in 1451, he was invited by Philippe 'the Good' to become a knight of his new Order of the Golden Fleece, at the chapter of Mons on 4 May 1451. The close connection between Kleef and Burgundy was further strengthened by the marriage between Johann and Elisabeth d'Etampes-Nevers on 22 April 1455. Elisabeth was a daughter of Jean de Bourgogne, comte de Nevers et Rethel, comte d'Etampes, a cousin of Philippe 'the Good', and Jacqueline d'Ailly, heiress of Engelmünster. They had six children of whom two sons would have progeny.
Johann fought in several wars against his old rival the electorate of Köln (Kurköln) (in the feud over the city of Soest from 1444 to 1449, the feud over the Münster Abbey from 1450 to 1457, the second feud over Soest in 1462-1463, and the war against Archbishop Ruprecht from 1467 to 1469), basically in support of his uncle's efforts to make Burgundy a kingdom, to which Kleef as well as Brabant and Holland would be added.
The feud over Soest started over the wish of Soest to leave the rule of Archbishop Dietrich of Köln and place itself under the rule of Kleef-Marck. However, the dispute was fundamentally about supremacy on the Lower Rhine. With the help of substantial money and troops, Burgundy protected the territory of Kleef and significantly expanded the sphere of influence of Kleef in the south.
Burgundy - in succession to Brabant - was the historical enemy of the electorate of Köln. Since the end of the 14th century both powers had marked their opposing standpoints in the usual way, in adhering to differing religious-political camps: Burgundy (therefore also Kleef) stood on the side of Pope Eugenius IV, whereas Archbishop Dietrich of Köln was a follower of the Council of Basel. With the papal legate and Cardinal Nikolaus von Kues, Philippe 'the Good' in 1449 created the peace treaty of Maastricht which finished the first feud on the basis of status quo but identified Burgundy and Kleef as the real winners. Soest and, at the end of the second feud also the city of Xanten, fell to Kleef, and the electorate of Köln was beaten off and ruined financially.
Further land gains were achieved by Johann in 1473 in return for supporting Philippe's son Charles 'the Bold', now the duke of Burgundy, in his intervention in Gelre to force Adolf van Egmond to free his father Arnold, whom Adolf had deposed as duke of Gelre in 1465. When Charles conquered Gelre after the death of Arnold in 1473, Johann received Wachtendonk, Weeze, Goch, Asperden, Nergena and Mook in the west as well as Lobith, the Rhine floodplain of the Düffel and jurisdiction over the imperial abbey of Elten in the north. With this, Kleef reached its greatest territory.
Nevertheless Burgundy's plan to become a kingdom finally failed in January 1477 with the battle of Nancy. The last duke of Burgundy, Charles 'the Bold', fell in this battle, leaving his daughter Marie de Bourgogne as his heir. Together with her Habsburg husband Maximilian, Marie attempted to exert her authority over her succession. However she was only partly successful. In Gelre, for instance, the estates opposed Habsburg, and so in 1492 Gelre won back its independence. Johann died on 5 September 1481, and was succeeded by his eldest son Johann II.
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