Enguerrand IV, Lord of Coucy

Enguerrand de Coucy IV († 1310) was lord of Coucy, Marle and La Fere. He was a son of Enguerrand III. and his wife, Marie de Montmirail.

He joined in 1250 succeeded his brother Raoul II, who had fallen on the sixth Crusade. From his mother he inherited the viscounty Meaux and the castles of Montmirail and Crèvecœur.

In his first marriage ( to 1262 ) he was married to Margaret of Gelderland ( † 1286 ), daughter of Count Otto II of funds. His second wife was Joanna of Flanders († 1333), daughter of Count Robert III. of Flanders. Enguerrand had no children, so the first house of Coucy became extinct with him the male line. His possessions were taken over by his nephew Enguerrand of Guines (House Gent).

See also House Boves

Process

Enguerrand is primarily known as a defendant in a spectacular in his time process. In July 1259 he left three young Flemish noblemen who had illegally hunted in its forests, hanging without trial. The Royal Constable Gilles le Brun was a relative of the victim and accused Enguerrand to King Louis IX. To ( Saint Louis). Enguerrand was in his class consciousness on the case will be heard by a pair court, especially since he could count among his peers baronialen with sympathy. In contrast, but denied the king and ordered a process in which he presided as judge. Also Enguerrand was denied a chivalrous prison instead took a simple sergeant in the royal commission before his arrest.

These operations were previously unique and revealed a development which had taken the kingship opinion in France until the mid-13th century. Louis IX. looked at himself in his capacity as king at the same time as the supreme judge of all subjects of his kingdom, including the nobility. The once powerful feudal nobility of France had lost under Louis predecessors is increasingly powerful. And the neutralization of the judicial privileges of the nobility, which he had acquired in previous centuries, in favor of a royal legislation and jurisprudence, was a target of the Capetian kings of the 13th century.

Enguerrand was sentenced to death. However, the king was moved by his counselors to mitigate the sentence. Enguerrand had to pay for religious institutions and continue to drop a crusade vow to repentance 10,000 Parisian pounds ( livres parisis ). From the vow he bought himself free after a further payment of £ 12,000, for which he was forced to sell its own country.

He died 1310 and was buried in the Abbey of Notre -Dame de Longpont. His widow joined the Cistercian Abbey of Sauvoir a near Laon, where she died as abbess.

Source

• Guillaume de Nangis, Gesta Sancti Ludovici, ed. by M. Daunou in the Reports of Historiens the Gauls et de la France ( RHGF ), Vol XX (Paris, 1840), pp. 399-401.