Antoine de Chabannes
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Charlus-le-Pailhoux
Dammartin-en-Goële
Antoine de Chabannes | |
|---|---|
| Count of Dammartin, Lord of Puisaye, etc. | |
 Antoine de Chabannes depicted in the Statuts de l'ordre de Saint-Michel, attributed to Jean Fouquet, ca. 1470 | |
| Born | 1408 Charlus-le-Pailhoux |
| Died | December 25, 1488 Dammartin-en-Goële |
| Buried | Dammartin-en-Goële (body); Saint-Fargeau (heart) |
| Noble family | House of Chabannes |
| Wife | Marguerite de Nanteuil (ca. 1422-1475) |
| Issue | Jean de Chabannes (1462-1503); Gilbert, Jeanne, Jacqueline, Anne (dates unknown); Jacques, Hélène, Marie (illegitimate) |
| Father | Robert de Chabannes |
| Mother | Alix de Bort |
Antoine de Chabannes (1408–1488), from 1439 Count of Dammartin (with a gap in 1463–1465), was a significant military and political figure of 15th-century France. An indefatigable fighter, during his long career he joined or led numerous military campaigns all over France and beyond. He served the Valois kings Charles VII, Louis XI and Charles VIII, but also participated in two aristocratic uprisings, the Praguerie against Charles VII in 1440 and the War of the Public Weal in 1465 against Louis XI. Associated early in his life with the Armagnac faction, he fought in Charles VII's campaigns against England, including those involving Joan of Arc, and (except for a troubled period in the early 1460s) also remained generally opposed to the Burgundians and their Habsburg successors. 18th-century scholar Charles Pinot Duclos described him as "one of the bravest men of his time, sincere, faithful, quick-tempered, a keen friend and implacable enemy" (un des plus braves hommes de son temps, sincère, fidèle, naturellement emporté, ami vif et implacable ennemi).[1] Claude Villaret called him "the most experienced general of his era" (le général le plus expérimenté de son siècle).[2]
His reputation has been tainted by his late-1430s freebooting écorcheur raids and by his avidity in appropriating properties of the disgraced Jacques Coeur in the early 1450s, mainly the lordship of Puisaye which Coeur's successors tried to reclaim in legal procedures that extended beyond Chabannes's lifetime. His rule in Puisaye, however, coincided with the revival of that region following the ravages of the Hundred Years' War and the broader Crisis of the Late Middle Ages.
The Chabannes were an aristocratic family established in the Limousin since the 13th century.[3] Antoine's father Robert de Chabannes, lord of Charlus-le-Pailhoux (now in Saint-Exupéry-les-Roches), died at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, and his elder brother Etienne de Chabannes died at the Battle of Cravant in 1423, where 15-year-old Antoine fought as well.
Following this succession of events, the family estates went to his brother Jacques de Chabannes. Antoine was left to assemble properties and titles on his own, which he kept doing throughout his long life.
Service to Charles VII
Antoine de Chabannes was involved from a young age in the intrigues and fights of the embattled king Charles VII, associating himself with commanders La Hire and Xaintrailles. He was captured at the Battle of Verneuil but, given his youth, was freed without ransom by the Duke of Bedford. He then served Duke Charles I of the House of Bourbon as a page until 1426. The contemporary chronique martinienne observes of him at that time that "he was inclined towards fighting and keen to acquire honour and properties" (tant il avait le coeur aux armes et envie d'acquérir honneurs et biens).[4]
By 1428, 20-year-old Antoine de Chabannes fought alongside Joan of Arc in battles including Jargeau, Patay (where he led the vanguard and was wounded), and the Siege of Compiègne where Joan was captured in May 1430.[5] In the meantime he had participated in the March to Reims and attended the epic coronation (sacre) of Charles VII, on 17 July 1429.[6]
In the summer of 1429, Charles VII made him bailiff of Troyes, and in 1432, Captain of Creil, a stronghold loyal to Charles surrounded by hostile territory. In 1434, he was wounded in a bold attack on Old Talbot near Beaumont-sur-Oise.[4] On 12 November 1437, he was with Charles VII at the latter's ceremonial entry into Paris, a major symbolic moment following the 1435 Treaty of Arras that put an end to the most chaotic period of the Hundred Years' War.[7]
He spent most of the late 1430s leading his own band of soldiers, as one of the most prominent écorcheurs as they were labeled in contemporary chronicles, especially Burgundian ones: literally "flayers", referring to their practices of robbing and ransoming. Many of his freebooting raids were directed at lands of the Duke of Burgundy such as Hainaut, Cambrésis and Charolais, typically condoned by the king despite the stipulations of the Peace of Arras. Antoine de Chabannes also fought for the Duke of Bourbon, who made him Captain of Chavroches in 1438, and as part of royal operations, such as the siege of Meaux in 1439 led by Constable of France Arthur de Richemont. He occasionally let himself and his troops be hired as mercenaries, most notably for Antoine de Vaudémont against René of Anjou in 1438-39. He also used castles of the Chabannes family as his bases, such as the Château de Montaigu-le-Blin where he kept the lord of Pesmes prisoner in 1439.[8] The grey area in which Antoine de Chabannes operated during those years, a hybrid of unsupervised banditry and royal service, is illustrated by a chronicler's story that Charles VII once saluted him ironically as "capitaine des écorcheurs", to which his reply was "Sire, I only flayed your enemies, and methinks their skins will bring you more profit than to me; I never flayed anybody else" (Sire, je n'ai écorché que vos ennemis, et il me semble que leurs peaux vous feront plus de profit qu'à moi; je n'en écorchai jamais d'autres).[4]
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On 20 September 1439 Antoine de Chabannes married Marguerite de Nanteuil, Countess of Dammartin-en-Goële, to whom he had been recommended by the king.[9] The marriage brought him the County of Dammartin as her dowry, as well as the barony of Le Thour in Champagne and the lordship of Marcy in Nivernais.[10]
In 1440, he was one of the leaders of the Praguerie against Charles VII, and kept associating with the Dauphin Louis's actions in the following years, such as the Siege of Dieppe in 1442-43 and an expedition to support Sigismund of Habsburg against the Swiss, including the Battle of St. Jakob an der Birs near Basel where he fought furiously.[4] Charles VII made him conseiller du roi in 1444, then Grand Panetier of France in 1445 (and again in 1447),[8] after he had forced him and other warlords of the Hundred Years' War to dismiss their bands of soldiers as he strived to establish a standing army. On that occasion, Antoine de Chabannes wore mourning clothes, telling the king that he was "taking life away from him by separating him from his soldiers" (Sire, vous m'ôtez la vie d'éloigner mes gens d'armes de moi, avec lesquels j'ai vécu vingt ans sans reproche et sans faire de faute).[4]
Antoine de Chabannes eventually broke with Louis in September 1446, by revealing to Charles VII the Dauphin's intrigues against Pierre de Brézé, and beyond against the king himself.[7][11] This episode led to Louis's temporary banishment to the Dauphiné, upon which Louis swore that he would "take revenge against those who threw me out of my house", meaning Chabannes.[4]
In 1449, he was with the king in the reconquest of Normandy, and in 1451 fought in Guyenne where he reconquered from the English the Château de Blanquefort near Bordeaux, nominally part of Marguerite de Nanteuil's dowry but out of her family's hands for 160 years.[4] That castle was retaken by England later in 1451, and reconquered again by Chabannes in 1453. Charles VII confirmed his ownership of it in 1455 but Louis XI took it back in 1466.[6]
Also in 1451, Antoine de Chabannes was appointed to chair the committee that investigated and led to the downfall of Jacques Coeur. He promptly appropriated a number of Coeur's properties including his recently acquired lordship of Puisaye. Charles VII's decision of 29 May 1453 specifically granted him: "(1) the lands, castles and lordships of Saint-Fargeau, of Lavau, of La Couldre, of Perreuse, of Champignelles, of Mézilles, or Villeneuve-les-Genêts and their dependencies; (2) the lands of Saint-Maurice-sur-Aveyron, Melleroy, La Frenaie, Fontenelles, and their dependencies; (3) the Barony of Toucy with its belongings and dependencies." Between 1453 and 1455 he further secured ownership of the Puisaye domains by purchasing them in auction.[4]
In October 1453, he received the command of soldiers of his brother Jacques, who had died from his wounds at the Battle of Castillon. He then led a campaign in 1454 against John V, Count of Armagnac on the king's behalf, jointly with Jean Bureau, for which he was awarded a number of lands in Rouergue and Languedoc including the lordship of Sévérac.[4] In 1455-56 he was sent to Lyon, Savoy and the Dauphiné to put an end to the Dauphin Louis's machinations, prompting the latter's flight to the court of Burgundy.[11] In 1458, he and Jean d'Aulon jointly led a successful embassy to Louis, Duke of Savoy and Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy to avert war between France and them both. in 1461, he stayed with Charles VII at the Château de Mehun-sur-Yèvre until the king's death on July 22.[4]
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