MONTEREAU

. The castle of Montereau-faut-Yonne (Seine-et-Marne), at the confluence of the Seine and Yonne rivers about 49 miles southeast of Paris, was a site of a settlement that already existed when the Romans invaded. Eudes II of Blois built a wooden donjon there ca. 1015-20. A stone castle, completed by 1228, replaced this construction and was held in fief from the archbishopric of Sens by the counts of Champagne. Through the marriage of their heiress to Philip Iv of France, Montereau passed into the royal family. The castle covered the surfaces of two small islands at the center of the confluence and was joined to the three adjacent river banks by long wooden bridges.

Montereau is best known as the site of the assassination of John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, on September 10, 1419. The dauphin, later Charles VII, had invited John to come and discuss a final agreement to end the French civil war. They met on the bridge connecting the castle to the town. According to a prearranged plan, John was assassinated while he knelt at the dauphin’s feet as the conference began. The fact that part of the bridge was a draw-bridge that could be raised from the town’s side prevented immediate retaliation by Burgundian men-at-arms garrisoned in the castle. The duke’s assassination is of paramount historical importance, for it drove a greater wedge between the dauphin and the royal government and ultimately left the kingdom without the support needed to defeat Henry V of England.

Richard C. Famiglietti

[See also: ARMAGNACS; CHARLES VII; JOHN THE FEARLESS]

Chatelain, Andre. Chateaux forts et feodalite en lie de France du Xle au Xllle siecle. Nonette: Creer, 1983, pp. 124, 414.

Quesvers, P. “Le chateau de Montereau-fault-Yonne.” Revue de Champagne et Brie 3(1877):1-14. Vaughan, Richard. John the Fearless: The Growth of Burgundy. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1966. [See plate 8.]