Marigny was a member of the petty nobility of Normandy. His father was a royal
officer; his cousin Nicolas de Fréauville was the king’s confessor before becoming a
cardinal; his brother Philippe, successively archbishop of Sens (1309) and Beauvais
(1313), served King Philip in the affairs of Guichard, bishop of Troyes, and the Templars
and participated in the judgment of his brother. No theorist or legist, Marigny was a
practical man who increased his own fortune as he worked for the king, whose household
he entered after serving the king’s wife, Jeanne of Champagne and Navarre. In 1304, he
was the royal chamberlain, a position that brought him into close contact with the king
and enabled him to influence policy; before May 1308, he was made a royal councilor; he
was governor of the Louvre; he directed the rebuilding of the royal palace in Paris. His
financial acumen, demonstrated early on, led Philip to give him complete control of the
kingdom’s finances in 1314. He was instrumental in persuading Philip to abandon his
vendetta against the memory of Boniface VIII and to accept the assignment of Templar
property to the Hospitalers. Preferring negotiated truces to armed conflict, he averted war
with the Flemings in 1313 and 1314, having obtained Lille, Douai, and Béthune for
France in 1312.
Elizabeth A.R.Brown
[See also: CHAMBRE DES COMPTES; FAUVEL, LIVRES DE; PHILIP IV THE
FAIR]
Favier, Jean, ed. Cartulaire et actes d’Enguerran de Marigny. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1965.
——. Un conseiller de Philippe le Bel, Enguerran de Marigny. Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1963.
——. “Les portraits d’Enguerran de Marigny.” Annales de Normandie 15(1965):517–24.
MARMOUSETS
. The political faction during the reign of Charles VI that opposed the king’s uncles, John
of Berry and Philip the Bold of Burgundy, is known to historians as the “Marmousets.”
This term of derision, meaning “little boys,” hence people of no account, was used in the
Middle Ages to describe parvenus and upstarts. The Marmousets consisted of two groups
who had been prominent in the service of Charles V—financial officers, some of whom
were from obscure backgrounds, and military commanders, some of whom were from old
and distinguished families.
Although linked politically to Louis of Anjou (d. 1384), the brother of Charles V, and
Louis of Orléans (d. 1407), the brother of Charles VI, the Marmousets did not have a
powerful princely patron but were led by Olivier de Clisson, constable of France. Other
important members of the group were Bureau de La Rivière; Jean Le Mercier; Jean de
Montaigu; Pierre de Chevreuse; Pierre “le Begue” de Villaines; Jeannet d’Estouteville,
lord of Charlemesnil; Guillaume de Melun, count of Tancarville; Nicolas du Bosc, bishop
of Bayeux; Pierre Aycelin, cardinal of Laon; and Guillaume des Bordes.
In 1388, when Charles VI was twenty years old, Clisson and the Marmousets
persuaded him to dismiss from his council the uncles who had ruled during his minority
and for the next four years they dominated royal policy, promoting reforms and a
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