Érard de Valéry

Érard de Valéry , or written de Vallery , (* around 1220; † after November 1277) was a French knight in the 13th century. He probably came from the noble family of Vallery ( Dép. Yonne ) in the Duchy of Burgundy .

In the royal vita of Jean de Joinville , Érard de Valéry, like his brother Jean , was a participant in the crusade to Egypt under King Louis IX. called the saint . He apparently returned to France after the failure of the company in April 1250, where he was involved in the Flemish War of Succession on the side of the Dampierre . In doing so, however, he was captured by the Avesnes on July 4, 1253 during the Battle of Westkapelle . A few months later, Érard was released from his custody by the king's brother Charles of Anjou and supported him in the siege of Valenciennes .

Erard was apparently close to the royal court afterwards. As a gift for Queen Isabella of Navarre , a daughter of Louis IX, he commissioned the poet Rutebeuf to compose a vita for St. Elisabeth of Thuringia . In the wake of Count Odo von Nevers and 50 other knights with him, he reached the holy land in Acre again on October 20, 1265 as a crusader . The count died there in August 1266, but Érard stayed in the city for some time, which he defended against an attack by Sultan Baibars I in 1267, together with the Seneschal Geoffroy de Sergines . Then he set off on the journey home with his knights.

At the beginning of August 1268, Èrard went ashore on the coast of Apulia , where Charles of Anjou had ruled as King of Sicily. He arrived there at an extremely favorable time for Karl, because Anjou's rule was threatened by the young Staufer Konradin , who had just arrived in southern Italy with an army of Ghibelline knights to fight for his inheritance. Érard and his knights made a spontaneous alliance with their French compatriots, with whom they met Konradin on August 23, 1268 in the battle of Tagliacozzo . Érard and Guy de Montfort took command of the reserve of the Anjou Army, which he hid behind a hill. After the Ghibellines had destroyed the first two ranks of the French and thus felt sure of their victory, Érard intervened surprisingly with his reserve in the battle and now drove the Ghibellines to flee. Using a pseudo-escape, he lured the remaining opponents into a trap and sealed Konradin's defeat. As the hero of Tagliacozzo, Érard had defended the kingdom of Charles of Anjou, an act that brought him lasting fame. Even Dante Alighieri still remembered that at Tagliacozzo the "old Alardo won without armor", alluding to the apparent simplicity with which Erard put the outnumbered opponent to flight.

Érard did not stay in southern Italy, but rejoined the court of the French king. He accompanied him in 1270 on the crusade against Tunis , where King Louis IX. however died. From the new king, Philip III. , Érard was appointed royal chamberlain to succeed Alfonso von Brienne , who also died before Tunis . He held this office on an unknown date until his death. His will, dated November 1277, is the last written record on his person.

literature

• M. Achille Jubinal : Œuvres complètes de Rutebeuf, trouvère du XIIIe siècle. Pannier, Paris 1839.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Baldwin of Avesnes ?: Extraits de la Chronique attribuée a Baudoin d'Avesnes , in: Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France , Vol. XXI (1840), p. 174
2. ↑ L'Estoire de Eracles empereur Liv. 34, cap. IX, in: Recueil des historiens des croisades (1859), Historiens Occidentaux II, p. 454
3. ↑ Baldwin of Avesnes ?: Extraits de la Chronique attribuée a Baudoin d'Avesnes , in: Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France , Vol. XXI (1840), p. 173
4. ↑ Baldwin von Avesnes , Chronicon Hanoniense , ed. by Johannes Heller in: Monumenta Germaniae Historica SS 25 (1880), p. 460
5. ^ Giovanni Villani : Nuova Cronica. VII §27
6. ↑ Guillaume de Nangis , Gesta Sancti Ludovici , ed. by M. Daunou in the Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France , Vol. XX (Paris, 1840), pp. 430, 434–437
7. ^ Dante Alighieri: Commedia . Inf. 28,18 ("Là de Tagliacozzo, / dove senz'arme vinse vecchio Alardo")

predecessor	Office	successor
Alfons of Brienne	Grand Chamberlain of France 1270–1277	Robert II of Burgundy