Jean de Werchin

Jean IIIde Werchin (1374 – 25 October 1415), called the Good (le Bon), was a knight errant and poet from the County of Hainaut in the Holy Roman Empire. In 1383 his father died and he inherited the baronies of Werchin, Walincourt and Cysoing, as well as the hereditary office of seneschal of Hainaut, which had been in his family since about 1234.

Shortly after her first husband's death, Jean's mother, Jeanne d'Enghien, married Jacques de Harcourt, lord of Montgomery, who in 1385 was granted the mundeburdis (legal guardianship) for Jean, his two sisters and their patrimony. A Jean de Werchin who served Enguerrand VII of Coucy as a squire in Picardy in 1380 is a different person. The lord of Werchin only attained his majority in 1390, when he sued to have Jacques de Harcourt in the parlement of Paris removed as his protector. He was represented in Paris by Jean de Popaincourt. In 1393 he had a dénombrement or denominatio, a precise description of fiefs, drawn up for his Flemish holdings.

Jean did not participate in the Crusade of Nicopolis in 1396, because his lord, William, Count of Ostrevant, was forbidden to go by his father, Count Albert of Hainaut and Holland. He did make his first public appearance in arms in that year, when he joined William's invasion of Frisia. He distinguished himself alongside the lords of Ligne and Jeumont. Afterwards, William knighted him. In 1398 he was fighting in Frisia again alongside the lord of Ligne, leading a company of thirteen knights and sixty lances. He made his first pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1399 without permission and had to seek absolution. In 1402 he was at the siege of Gorinchem in the service of Count Albert. In June 1402 he proclaimed his intention to take the Way of Saint James and challenged any knight or squire to joust with him before Duke Louis of Orléans as judge. Then, in 1404, he announced a standing challenge to all comers to last for seven years. Between July and November 1404, he was at Brest with an army preparing to cross over to Wales to aid the Welsh rebels against England. He eventually did fight at Falmouth.

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