Stephen du Perche

Stephen du Perche (1137/8–1169) was the chancellor of the Kingdom of Sicily (1166–68) and Archbishop of Palermo (1167–68) during the early regency of his cousin, the queen dowager Margaret of Navarre (1166–71).

Stephen's relation to Margaret of Navarre is unknown, as is his parentage. He is described by the contemporary chronicler Hugo Falcandus as "a son of the count of Perche", Rotrou III. He was a young man when he entered politics, born at the earliest in 1137 or 1138. He may have been named after King Stephen of England, at the time ruling the Duchy of Normandy.

In 1166, Margaret appealed to her other cousin, Rotrou, Archbishop of Rouen, to send her a family member to aid and support her in government. Coincidentally, Stephen was at that moment preparing to go on crusade to the Holy Land and so decided to visit Palermo, the capital of Sicily, for a few months. There he ended up staying for two years. He was very young at the time, described as puer and adolescens by William of Tyre, and may have still been in his teens. Nevertheless, in November, Margaret appointed him chancellor. His appointment was resented by the local nobility. 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". The opinion of Falcandus probably coincides better with that of the lower classes than Stephen's fellow aristocrats.

In 1167, Margaret had Stephen elected as archbishop of Palermo, the highest ecclesiastic office in the land. He was ordained by Romuald, Archbishop of Salerno, only days before his elevation and it deeply rankled the old noblesse. Romuald and Richard Palmer, bishop of Syracuse, both candidates for the vacant see of Palermo themselves, were strongly opposed. But Stephen's greatest opponents was Matthew of Ajello, a notary whom he had offended the year previous. Stephen went so far as to try and seize Matthew's mail, but nothing indicating conspiracy was ever proven against the notary. Stephen was never consecrated, perhaps because had not attained the canonical age of thirty.

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