Catherine d'Alençon

Tomb tumba of Catherine d'Alençon in the Louvre (detail)

Catherine d'Alençon (* before 1396; † June 25, 1462 in Paris ), the youngest daughter of Count Pierre d'Alençon , was since 1413 the second wife of Duke Ludwig VII of Bavaria-Ingolstadt . She served Ludwig's sister, the French Queen Isabeau , as a lady in waiting.

Life

Catherine was born before 1396 as the daughter of Count Pierre d'Alençon († 1404) and his wife Marie de Chamaillard († 1425). She came from a sideline of the French royal family of the Valois , the House of Valois-Alençon . Her brother Jean was made duke in 1414 and died on October 25, 1415 in the battle of Azincourt against the English . In April 1411 Catherine married Peter of Navarre , Count von Mortain , 30 years her senior , brother of the King of Navarre , who died after only a year of marriage and bequeathed the county of Mortain in Normandy to his young widow .

Before the end of the year of mourning , preparations began for her second marriage to Ludwig von Bayern-Ingolstadt, who was also much older, and Queen Isabeau's brother. However, the wedding had to be postponed when Catherine's future husband was captured by insurgents . It could only take place after his release in early October 1413. Catherine's dowry included 60,000 francs as well as the county of Mortain, with which the dignity of a pair of France was connected. In 1414 she gave birth to a son who was named Jean and who died at an early age.

At the beginning of 1415 Ludwig traveled as head of the French embassy to the Council of Constance and then returned to Bavaria to succeed his father Stephan as Duke of Bavaria-Ingolstadt. Catherine never saw her husband again, who had held the title of Count of Mortain all his life. Ludwig left it to Johann Feart , the Duke of Burgundy , to free his wife when she was captured by Bernard d'Armagnac in the civil war of the Armagnacs and Bourguignons in 1417 , and he did not care about her financial support.

Catherine lost all of her income when the English under King Henry V occupied the county of Mortain and its hereditary properties in Normandy. Precious crockery, certificates and account books also fell victim to an English attack. After all, help did not come from her husband, but from the English king, who after the agreement with the French king in the Treaty of Troyes awarded her 2000 francs a year as compensation for her losses. In 1421 Catherine even traveled to England to meet the king's wife, who was also called Catherine and a daughter of the French royal couple, when they gave birth to their first child, Henry VI. to stand by.

Until Isabeau's death in 1435, Catherine d'Alençon remained part of the royal court of the queen, who no longer played a political role under the new King Charles VII . Nor did she receive any money from Ludwig von Bayern-Ingolstadt after she asked King Sigismund for help in 1424 . After she had not received any more payments from the English after their expulsion from Paris in 1436, she lived on her pension, which was probably between 300 and 500 francs. Catherine died in Paris in 1462 and was buried in the Abbey of Sainte-Geneviève , where she was still remembered in the 18th century. Her second husband had already taken her into his Seelgerätstiftung as a deceased in 1429 . The double tomb in which she should have been buried next to her first husband is in the Louvre today .

literature

• Claudia Märtl : France. Duke Ludwig VII of Bavaria-Ingolstadt (1368–1447) and his sister Isabeau at the French royal court . In: Alois Schmid , Katharina Weigand (Hrsg.): Bavaria in the middle of Europe. From the early Middle Ages to the 20th century . CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52898-8 , p. 107-120 , especially 116-117 .
• Beatrix Schönewald: The Duchesses of Bavaria-Ingolstadt . In: Collection sheet of the historical association Ingolstadt . tape 113 , 2004, pp. 35-54 , especially 48-52 .
• Theodor Straub : Duke Ludwig the Bearded of Bavaria-Ingolstadt and his relations with France in the period from 1391 to 1415 (=  Munich historical studies, Bavarian history department . Volume 7 ). Lassleben, Kallmünz 1965 (also dissertation, Munich 1966).
• Theodor Straub: Bavaria under the sign of the divisions and partial duchies . In: Max Spindler , Andreas Kraus (Hrsg.): Handbook of Bavarian History . 2nd Edition. tape II . CH Beck, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-406-32320-0 , p. 196-287 , especially 245 .
• Theodor Straub: The five Ingolstadt duchesses . In: Bayern-Ingolstadt, Bayern-Landshut. 1392-1506. Splendor and misery of a division . Ingolstadt City Archives, Ingolstadt 1992, ISBN 3-932113-06-3 , p. 43-50 , especially 47-49 .