X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Stephen du Perche


Stephen du Perche

But Stephen's greatest opponents was Matthew of Ajello, a notary whom he had offended the year previous.

Most of the Moslem staff of the palace and the eunuchs were involved in the plots and, on 15 December, Stephen promptly moved the court to Messina, to where he had implored his cousin Gilbert, Count of Gravina, to go with an army.

His chancellorship was noted, according to Hugo Falcandus, in that "he never allowed powerful men to oppress their subjects, nor ever feigned to overlook any injury done to the poor. In such a way his fame quickly spread throughout the Kingdom . . . so that men looked on him as a heaven-sent angel of consolation who had brought back the Golden Age".


Peter of Blois

Peter went with Stephen du Perche and Walter of the Mill to Sicily in 1166 and there became the tutor to King William II of Sicily in 1167.

Robert of Caserta

In 1168, when Count Bohemond II of Manoppello accused Count Richard of Molise of a conspiracy against the Chancellor Stephen du Perche, it was Robert who prevented the case from being settled by judicial duel when he alleged that Richard had also illegally acquired the town of Mandra and others near Troia from the crown.

Walter of the Mill

He was long thought to be an Englishman who came to Sicily with Peter of Blois and Stephen du Perche at the direction of Rotrou, Archbishop of Rouen, cousin of Queen Margaret of Navarre, originally as a tutor to the royal children of William I of Sicily and Margaret.

He rose through the ranks until he was a canon of the Cappella Palatina and a candidate for the vacant archiepiscopal throne of 1168, after the deposition of Stephen du Perche.


see also