placed under the protection of the king of France, and in 1452 a university was founded
there. In 1404, the king of France purchased the county of Valentinois, and in 1499 Louis
XII erected it into a duchy-peerage for Cesare Borgia.
Eugene L.Cox
[See also: DAUPHINÉ/VIENNOIS]
Chevalier, Jules. Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des comtes de Valentinois et de Diois. Paris:
Picard, 1897.
VALET/VARLET
. See ESQUIRE/ESCUIER
VALOIS DYNASTY
. Family that ruled France from 1328 to 1589. At the death of the last great Capetian
monarch, Philip IV the Fair (r. 1285–1314), the throne passed rapidly among his sons,
who all died young. When the post-humous son of Louis X (r. 1314–16), John I, died
shortly after his birth in 1316, Louis’s brother Philip V (r. 1316–22) seized the crown and
the magnates agreed to exclude female heirs from the royal succession. Therefore, when
Philip V died leaving only daughters, his brother Charles IV (r. 1322–28) succeeded him.
He too left only daughters and his closest male heir was his sister’s son, Edward III of
England. The magnates preferred that the throne pass to the late king’s cousin, Philip,
count of Valois, and they ruled that a valid claim to the throne could not be inherited
through a woman. The reign of Philip VI (r. 1328–50) thus inaugurated the Valois line of
kings, descended from Charles, the second son of Philip III. The throne passed through
seven generations of Valois until the death of Charles VIII (r. 1483–98) and thence to a
younger branch of the family that ended with the murder of Henry III in 1589.
During its first 170 years, which encompassed all the catastrophes accompanying the
waning of medieval civilization, the Valois dynasty overcame the greatest series of
challenges to confront the monarchy before 1789. The most direct challenge was
military: Plantagenêt claims to the
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1784