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1956.
Brezzi, Paolo. Roma e l’impero medioevale, 774–1252. Bologna: Capelli, 1947.
ÉVREUX
. The episcopal city of Évreux (Eure) was the seat of a Norman county in the 11th and
12th centuries before being acquired by the French crown, but it is best known as the
center of an apanage that gave its name to a cadet branch of the royal family in the 14th
century. In 1307, Philip IV the Fair granted the county as an apanage to his younger
brother Louis (d. 1319), and in 1317 Philip V erected Évreux into a peerage.
Louis of Évreux arranged marriages between his children and their royal cousins. His
daughter Jeanne married Charles IV, and his son Philippe (1301–1342) married Jeanne
(1312–1349), the daughter of Louis X and heiress of Navarre. Philippe and Jeanne
continued this policy. Their daughter Blanche (1331–1398) married the much older Philip
VI near the end of his life; their son, Charles II the Bad (1332–1387), married the
daughter of King John II the Good. Although Jeanne was excluded from the French
crown and also from her inheritance of Champagne and Brie, she and Philippe did
become rulers of Navarre in 1328. They acquired clients and connections throughout
northern and western France as well as in Champagne, attracting followers with
grievances against the reigning house of Valois, including a growing body of reformers
who wished to overhaul the royal government. They generously endowed the Collège de
Navarre at the University of Paris, which became a center for reform-minded preachers
and intellectuals in the second half of the 14th century and enjoyed continuing support
from the Évreux family.
At his mother’s death in 1349, Charles the Bad became king of Navarre, and for the
next fifteen years the Évreux family played a major, often disruptive, role in French
politics. Charles engineered the murder of the constable of France in 1354 and extorted
from the crown the favorable treaties of Mantes (1354) and Valognes (1355). In 1356,
John II arrested him for conspiring against the crown, and he spent the next seventeen
months in prison. Critics of the monarchy clamored for his release, but after his liberation
in 1357 Charles pursued an independent policy that involved a division of the kingdom.
He gradually lost the support of the reformers in his party, many of whom rallied to
Charles V after the royal army crushed the Évreux-Navarrese forces at Cocherel in 1364.
Charles retained some political influence until his last conspiracy was exposed in 1378.
His son, Charles III of Navarre (r. 1387–1425), the last male member of the family, ceded
Évreux to the crown in 1404.
The most dangerous domestic enemies of the early Valois kings, the Évreux princes
played a major role in weakening the monarchy during the mid-14th century, but their
legacy was more positive and enduring. Many of their reform-minded followers became
associated with the Marmousets, the political faction that brought major improvements in
governmental efficiency under Charles V and Charles VI. Reformers associated with the
Collège de Navarre enjoyed significant influence at court until well past 1400.
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