Rodrigue de Villandrando

Rodrigue de Villandrandos coat of arms

Rodrigue de Villandrando (* around 1386, † around 1457) was a mercenary leader during the Hundred Years War . He was nicknamed "Empéreur des brigands" ("Emperor of the Brigands ") or " L'Écorcheur " ("Cutthroat") and was Count of Ribadeo (in Galicia ) and Valladolid .

family

His family comes from Villa-Andrado, a place in Castile between Burgos and Valladolid. Don Juan Garcia Gutierrez de Villandrado, a knight in the Castilian Order de la Banda , allied himself with Bertrand du Guesclin (1320-1380) as part of Heinrich von Trastamaras (1334-1379). He married a sister of Pierre le Bègue de Villaines , Prince of Yvetot and Count of Ribadeo († 1413/14) from Villaines , who had received the County of Ribadeo as a reward for his services. The couple had two sons: Ruy Garcia, Regidor of Valladolid, and Pedro, Lord of Bambiella († 1400), who was married to Aldonza Diaz de Corral. Rodrigue was the eldest son of Pedro and Aldonza; his brother was Pedro de Coral, who carried his mother's surname, and who wrote the Crónica del Rey Don Rodrigo , also known as Crónica sarracina , one of the most important texts of the Spanish Middle Ages.

On May 24, 1433, Rodrigue de Villandrando married Marguerite de Bourbon, an illegitimate daughter of Duke Jean I de Bourbon and half-sister of Charles I de Bourbon . In his second marriage he was married to Beatriz de Zuñiga, who had a son, Pierre, who succeeded him as Count of Ribadeo, whose successor was in turn his nephew Don Gomez de Sarmiento, the son of his sister Marina, who also came from Rodrigues second Marriage originated.

Life

Thanks to his French grandmother, he began his military career as a page and then in a company of Marshal Jean de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam in the civil war of the Armagnacs and Bourguignons and especially during the conquest of Paris on May 29, 1418 he raised his own brigand troop, which in 1422 incorporated into the company of Marshal Amaury de Sévérac . In 1424 he took part in the Battle of Verneuil . From 1427 he plundered through Languedoc , especially the regions around Carcassonne and Nîmes , where he reached up to Lyon in October 1428 . At about the same time, the mercenary leader Jean Salazar became his lieutenant (deputy).

On June 11, 1430, he took part with around 400 men on the side of the Dauphiné in the battle of Anthon against the Prince of Orange , who fought on behalf of the Duke of Burgundy , who in turn went secretly with Duke Amadeus VIII of Savoy to conquer the Dauphiné had allied. In the battle he took François de La Palud , Lord of Varembon and Bussy, and Guillaume III. de Vienne captured, for whose release he extorted a large ransom. Then he and his soldiers advanced on Orange . With the title of "Écuyer" he was accepted into the French army and, together with Imbert de Groslée , tasked with defending the border of the Bourbonnais against Burgundy.

In 1431 he received the title of Count of Ribadeo for his service from King John II of Aragón . In the same year he fought a popular uprising in the Forez and destroyed the rebels who had fled to Saint-Romain-le-Puy . In September 1432, his people in the service of Georges de La Trémoille held the place Les Ponts-de-Cé , where they were attacked by Jean V. de Bueil . By 1433 he was at the zenith of his power. His approximately 10,000 mercenaries (mostly from England) terrorized the people and plundered the regions through which they passed, especially in the Médoc . In 1433 he captured the Lagarde-Viaur castle in Montirat (Tarn) , which he also only released for a ransom. In exchange for a loan of 6000 Écu to his brother-in-law, the Duke of Bourbon, he received the castle of Ussel (Corrèze) , and later the castle of Châteldon . From 1434 to 1439 he had his headquarters in the castle of Montgilbert . In 1438 an army of Lieutenant General Charles II. D'Albret attacked Bordeaux with the support of Villandrado and sacked the Médoc, but failed to conquer the city on its walls. In 1443 some of the men of Villandrados moved to Spain under the command of Salazar and devastated the Haut Languedoc and the Lauraguais .

Rodrigue de Villandrado was banished from France and ended his life as Marshal of Castile before bequeathing his goods to the Spanish Church and retiring to a spiritual life.

Some places plundered by Villandrando

literature

Jules-Étienne Quicherat, Rodrigue de Villandrando, l'un des combattants pour l'indépendance française au quinzième siècle / par J. Quicherat, ..., Hachette (Paris), 1879 (online at [1] )
Fernand Monatte, Rodrigue de Villandrando: l'oublié de la guerre de Cent Ans, 1388-1448, L'Harmattan, 2013 ( ISBN 9782336290638 , lire en ligne)
Antonio María Fabié, Don Rodrigo de Villandrando, Conde de Ribadeo, M. Tello, 1882 (online at [2] )
Alfonso de Palencia , Crónica de Enrique IV, s. l., sn, 1904 (online at [3] )

Remarks

↑ It is to be distinguished from Rodrigo de Villandrando , a pupil of Antonio Moro , who became a royal painter in 1628 and from whom a portrait of King Philip IV with his dwarf Soplillo comes and which hangs in the Museo del Prado

personal data
SURNAME	Villandrando, Rodrigue de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Mercenary leader during the Hundred Years' War
DATE OF BIRTH	around 1386
DATE OF DEATH	around 1457

[1] It is to be distinguished from Rodrigo de Villandrando , a pupil of Antonio Moro , who became a royal painter in 1628 and from whom a portrait of King Philip IV with his dwarf Soplillo comes and which hangs in the Museo del Prado