fief from the archbishopric of Sens by the counts of Champagne. Through the marriage of
their heiress to Philip IV of France, Montereau passed into the royal family. The castle
covered the surfaces of two small islands at the center of the confluence and was joined
to the three adjacent river banks by long wooden bridges.
Montereau is best known as the site of the assassination of John the Fearless, duke of
Burgundy, on September 10, 1419. The dauphin, later Charles VII, had invited John to
come and discuss a final agreement to end the French civil war. They met on the bridge
connecting the castle to the town. According to a prearranged plan, John was assassinated
while he knelt at the dauphin’s feet as the conference began. The fact that part of the
bridge was a draw-bridge that could be raised from the town’s side prevented immediate
retaliation by Burgundian men-at-arms garrisoned in the castle. The duke’s assassination
is of paramount historical importance, for it drove a greater wedge between the dauphin
and the royal government and ultimately left the kingdom without the support needed to
defeat Henry V of England.
Richard C.Famiglietti
[See also: ARMAGNACS; CHARLES VII; JOHN THE FEARLESS]
Châtelain, André. Châteaux forts et féodalité en Île de France du XIe au XIIIe siècle. Nonette:
Créer, 1983, pp. 124, 414.
Quesvers, P. “Le château de Montereau-fault-Yonne.” Revue de Champagne et Brie 3(1877):1–14.
Vaughan, Richard. John the Fearless: The Growth of Burgundy. New York: Barnes and Noble,
- [See plate 8.]
MONTFORT
. The lords of Montfort-l’Amaury (Seine-et-Oise) near Mantes were descended from a
10th-century count of Hainaut. Of no more than local importance before the 13th century,
the family became prominent internationally when Simon IV (ca. 1150–1218), who first
held the title of count, became a leader of the Albigensian Crusade. After defeating the
count of Foix near Castelnaudary in 1212, Simon crushed the king of Aragon and a
coalition of southern lords at Muret in September 1213 and for a time secured the county
of Toulouse. Then the tide turned against him and he was killed before Toulouse in 1218.
His younger son, Simon (1206–1265), married Eleanor, a sister of Henry III of England,
became earl of Leicester, and died in battle after leading a major baronial revolt in
England. The older son, Amaury VI (1192–1241), failed to regain his father’s position in
Languedoc but served as constable of France the last eleven years of his life. Amaury’s
great-granddaughter Yolande married Arthur II, duke of Brittany, in 1294. The county of
Montfort passed to a cadet line of the Breton ducal house that won control of Brittany in
1364.
John Bell Henneman, Jr.
[See also: ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE; AURAY; BRITTANY; JEAN IV; MURET]
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