Enguerrand IV, Lord of Coucy (c. 1236 – 1311) was the son of Enguerrand III, Lord of Coucy and Marie de Montmirail. He succeeded his older brother

Raoul II, Lord of Coucy Raoul II, Lord of Coucy (died 1250) was a son of Enguerrand III and his wife Maria of Oisy. In 1246 he succeeded his father as lord of Coucy. Raoul died at the Battle of Mansurah in Egypt during the Seventh Crusade. Raoul married Elisabeth, ...

, serving as the Sire de Coucy from his brother's death in 1250 until his own in 1311.

Biography

Enguerrand IV succeeded to the large fief established by his father, Enguerrand the Great, due to his elder brother's death on crusade. Enguerrand IV's rule was notable for his crimes and cruelty. Setting an important medieval

legal precedent A precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common-law legal systems place great valu ...

, King

Louis IX of France Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), commonly known as Saint Louis or Louis the Saint, was King of France from 1226 to 1270, and the most illustrious of the Direct Capetians. He was crowned in Reims at the age of 12, following the d ...

refused to allow him

trial by combat Trial by combat (also wager of battle, trial by battle or judicial duel) was a method of Germanic law to settle accusations in the absence of witnesses or a confession in which two parties in dispute fought in single combat; the winner of the ...

for the hanging of three Flemish squires found on his land, and imprisoned him instead. In the end, Enguerrand escaped with a fine, and through his wealth remained important to the King, lending him 15,000

livres The (; ; abbreviation: ₶.) was one of numerous currencies used in medieval France, and a unit of account (i.e., a monetary unit used in accounting) used in Early Modern France. The 1262 monetary reform established the as 20 , or 80.88 g ...

in 1265 to purchase a piece of the

True Cross The True Cross is the cross upon which Jesus was said to have been crucified, particularly as an object of religious veneration. There are no early accounts that the apostles or early Christians preserved the physical cross themselves, althoug ...

. He was married twice: his first wife was Margaret of Guelders, and his second wife was Jeanne of Flanders, daughter of

Robert III, Count of Flanders Robert III (1249 – 17 September 1322), also called Robert of Béthune and nicknamed The Lion of Flanders (''De Leeuw van Vlaanderen''), was the Count of Nevers from 1273 and Count of Flanders from 1305 until his death. History Robert was the ol ...

. He had no children by either marriage and was succeeded in 1311 by the second son of his sister, Alix, who became Enguerrand V.

References

Sources

* * * * * {{S-end 1236 births 1311 deaths Lords of Coucy Trials by combat