Guido II (Blois)

Guido II of Châtillon (French: Guy II de Châtillon ; † December 22, 1397 in Avesnes) was a Count of Blois , Dunois and Soissons , and Lord of Chimay and Avesnes from the House of Châtillon . He was a younger son of Count Ludwig I of Blois († 1346) and Jeanne d'Avesnes, Countess of Soissons.

After his mother died of the plague in 1350 , Guido inherited the county of Soissons from her. In the course of the Peace of Brétigny in 1360, he had to move to the English court as a hostage for King John II . Since he could not raise the ransom fixed for him, he exchanged his county with King Edward III in 1367 for his freedom, with the consent of the French crown . from England , who passed them on to Sire Enguerrand VII. de Coucy . In 1370 Guido took part in a trip to Prussia and then served in the Guyenne and Flanders , where he fought in the Battle of Roosebeke . In 1381 he inherited the counties of Blois and Dunois from his brother, John II . Due to the devastation of the Hundred Years' War , waves of plague and rural exodus, the country fell into disrepair. Due to his impoverishment, Guido could no longer stand the historian Jean Froissart, whom he sponsored , who therefore looked for a new patron in Enguerrand VII. De Coucy.

Since August 22, 1370, Guido was married to Marie von Namur († 1412), a daughter of Margrave Wilhelm I of Namur from the Dampierre family. They had a son and heir, Ludwig , whom they married to a daughter of the powerful Duke Johann von Berry . However, the son died in 1391 without leaving any descendants, which is said to have plunged Guido into deep mourning for the rest of his life. Allegedly, he and his wife should have grown excessively fat through excessive gluttony.

In 1391 Guido sold his counties for 200,000 livres to Duke Louis of Orléans and retired with his wife to Avesnes, which he bequeathed to his cousin, Count John I of Penthièvre , after his death . He sold Chimay half to Thibault de Moreuil and half to Duke Philip the Bold of Burgundy .

Guido was buried in the church of the Cordeliers of Valenciennes . With him ended the Blois line of the House of Châtillon.

literature

• Barbara Tuchman : A Distant Mirror. The Calamitous 14th Century. Knopf, New York NY 1978, ISBN 0-394-40026-7 (German: Der ferne Spiegel. The dramatic 14th century. Claasen, Düsseldorf 1980, ISBN 3-546-49187-4 ).

predecessor	Office	successor
Jeanne d'Avesnes	Count of Soissons 1350-1367	Enguerrand VII. De Coucy
Johann II.	Earl of Blois Earl of Dunois 1381-1391	Louis of Orléans