Jean Chevrot (c. 1395, Poligny, Jura - 23 September 1460, Lille) was a French bishop [1] who served as president of the council of Burgundy for Philip the Good and Isabella of Portugal. He was a multi-talented minister in whom Philip placed much confidence. One of his closest collaborators was chancellor Nicolas Rolin. [2]
He gained his BA at the University of Paris, where he was made rector in 1421. He became a canon of Besançon in 1417, of Saint-Marcel, Paris in 1422, of the collégiale Notre-Dame de Beaune in 1435 and later also of Cambrai and Harelbeke. In 1426 he was also made archdeacon of the Norman Vexin at Rouen, followed by becoming chaplain of the Saint Jean chapel at Salins in 1435.
He was the nephew of Simon Chevrot, abbot of Goailles, counsellor to the duke and president of the council - Simon took a keen interest in Jean's education and also collaborated with his friend Jean Chousat to get Jean Chevrot onto the duke's counsel. He began his political career in the decade after 1433. He was sent to England in 1433 and 1434 as one of the ambassadors aiming to convince Henry VI of England to conclude a general peace treaty and release Charles I of Orléans. He accompanied Philip the Good to Nevers then to Paris to attend the peace talks which culminated in the Treaty of Arras. After a long and complex struggle with Jean d'Harcourt, Jean Chevrot became bishop of Tournai on 5 November 1436 and was installed in his cathedral on 12 January 1440, accompanied by Isabella and several gentlemen.
When Philip edited his will on 8 December 1441 he put Isabella in charge of the duchy and Philip's successor Charles, with Jean Chevrot as her deputy. Between 1444 and 1457 Chevrot began to retire from the Aulic Council, but continued to fulfil his everyday functions as bishop. However, he was now only entrusted with other tasks in exceptional circumstances, giving way to Jean de Thoisy and Guillaume Fillâtre, the duke's favoured councillor. The duke granted him the bishopric of Tournai and Toul thanks to a papal bull received on 1 September 1460. Chevrot commissioned the Seven Sacraments Altarpiece and The Descent from the Cross from Rogier van der Weyden (entre 1452 et 1455) - both works show him - and he also appears on the frontispiece of the Chronicles of Hainaut .
He wrote his last will and testament at Lille on 18 January 1458, leaving a large sum for a chapel of St Anthony that he had founded in the collégiale Saint-Hippolyte at Poligny - it had a rich library, "vestments, relics, joys and altar fixtures". [3] He was bedridden for months before finally dying on 23 September 1460 in his town house in Lille, which was his main residence - he left it to his successor Guillaume Fillastre.
After his funeral he was buried in the choir of Tournai Cathedral beside the tomb of Walter de Marvis near the high altar, under the chest containing relics of Hippolytus of Rome which he had brought there from Poligny. A black marble monument with a copper effigy, his coat of arms and a Latin inscription were all erected by his successor and by the cathedral chapter, though they were destroyed by the Protestants in 1566.
Tournai, known in Dutch as Doornik and historically as Tournay in English, is a Walloon municipality of Belgium, 85 kilometres southwest of Brussels on the river Scheldt. In the province of Hainaut, Tournai is part of Eurometropolis Lille–Kortrijk–Tournai, which had 2,155,161 residents in 2008.
Rogier van der Weyden or Roger de la Pasture was an Early Netherlandish painter whose surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, altarpieces, and commissioned single and diptych portraits. He was highly successful in his lifetime; his paintings were exported to Italy and Spain, and he received commissions from, amongst others, Philip the Good, Netherlandish nobility, and foreign princes. By the latter half of the 15th century, he had eclipsed Jan van Eyck in popularity. However his fame lasted only until the 17th century, and largely due to changing taste, he was almost totally forgotten by the mid-18th century. His reputation was slowly rebuilt during the following 200 years; today he is known, with Robert Campin and van Eyck, as the third of the three great Early Flemish artists, and widely as the most influential Northern painter of the 15th century.
Philip the Good was Duke of Burgundy from 1419 until his death. He was a member of a cadet line of the Valois dynasty, to which all 15th-century kings of France belonged. During his reign, the Burgundian State reached the apex of its prosperity and prestige, and became a leading centre of the arts. Philip is known in history for his administrative reforms, his patronage of Flemish artists such as van Eyck and Franco-Flemish composers such as Guillaume Du Fay, and the capture of Joan of Arc. In political affairs, he alternated between alliances with the English and the French in an attempt to improve his dynasty's powerbase. Additionally, as ruler of Flanders, Brabant, Limburg, Artois, Hainaut, Holland, Luxembourg, Zeeland, Friesland and Namur, he played an important role in the history of the Low Countries.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Beauvais, Noyon, and Senlis is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The diocese encompasses the department of Oise in the region of Hauts-de-France. The diocese is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Reims. The current bishop is Jacques Benoit-Gonnin, appointed in 2010.
Jacques Daret was an Early Netherlandish painter born in Tournai, where he would spend much of his life. Daret spent 15 years as a pupil in the studio of Robert Campin, alongside Rogier or Rogelet de le Pasture, and afterwards became a master in his own right. He became a favorite of the Burgundian court, and his patron for 20 years was the abbot of St. Vaast in Arras, Jean de Clercq.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cambrai is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France, comprising the arrondissements of Avesnes-sur-Helpe, Cambrai, Douai, and Valenciennes within the département of Nord, in the region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais. The current archbishop is Vincent Dollmann, appointed in August 2018. Since 2008 the archdiocese has been a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Lille.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Langres is a Roman Catholic diocese comprising the département of Haute-Marne in France.
The Diocese of Toul was a Roman Catholic diocese seated at Toul in present-day France. It existed from 365 until 1824. From 1048 until 1552, it was also a state of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Amiens is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The diocese comprises the department of Somme, of which the city of Amiens is the capital.
Nicolas Rolin (1376–1462) was a leading figure in the history of Burgundy and France, becoming chancellor to Philip the Good.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Nancy and Toul is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. After a considerable political struggle between Louis XV, Louis XVI, and the Dukes of Lorraine, the diocese was erected by Pope Pius VI on 17 December 1777. The diocese is currently suffragan to the Archdiocese of Besançon.
Ferry de Clugny, Cardinal and Bishop of Tournai was a highly placed statesman and ecclesiastic in the service of the Dukes of Burgundy.
Pierre de Luxembourg was a French Roman Catholic prelate who served the Bishop of Metz and pseudocardinal from 1384 until his death. Pierre was descended from nobles who secured his entrance into the priesthood when he started to serve in several places as a canon before he was named as the Bishop of Metz and a pseudocardinal under an antipope. He was noted for his austerities and successes in diocesan reform as well as for his dedication to the faithful but he tried to end the Western Schism that pitted pope against antipope and rulers against rulers. His efforts were in vain and he was soon driven from Metz but moved to southern France where he died from anorexia as a result of his harsh self-imposed penances.
The former French diocese of Thérouanne controlled a large part of the left bank of the river Scheldt during the Middle Ages. Territorially it was part of the county of Artois which belonged to the county of Flanders.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Tournai is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic church in Belgium. The diocese was formed in 1146, upon the dissolution of the diocese of Noyon & Tournai, which had existed since the 7th century. It is now suffragan of the archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels. The cathedral is Notre-Dame de Tournai which has been classified both as a Wallonia's major heritage since 1936 and as a World Heritage Site since 2000.
The Diocese of Lisieux was a Roman Catholic ecclesiastical territory in France, centered on Lisieux, in Calvados.
Jean Wauquelin presenting his 'Chroniques de Hainaut' to Philip the Good is a presentation miniature believed to have been painted by the Flemish artist Rogier van der Weyden. It decorates the frontispiece to the Chroniques de Hainaut, MS KBR.9242, Jean Wauquelin's French translation of a three-volume history of the County of Hainaut originally written in Latin by the 14th-century Franciscan historian Jacques de Guyse.
Jean de Harcourt was a French priest and bishop.
The Chronicles of Hainaut is an illuminated manuscript in three volumes, tracing the history of the county of Hainaut up to the end of the 14th century. Its text was produced around 1446-1450 by Jean Wauquelin as a French translation of Annales historiae illustrium principum Hannoniæ, a three-volume Latin work produced by Jacques de Guise around 1390-1396. It was made for Philip the Good of Burgundy and is now in the Bibliothèque royale de Belgique in Brussels.
