Jean d'Eppe
Jean d'Eppe (c. 1240 – 12 November 1293), known in Italian as Giovanni d'Appia[a] or Gianni d'Epa,[1] was a French nobleman who served the Angevin dynasty of the Kingdom of Sicily and the Papal State as a military commander and administrator.
Through a series of military campaigns in 1281–83, Jean helped secure Papal control over the Romagna and Maritime Campania.
In 1284, he returned to Sicily to assist the Angevins in the War of the Sicilian Vespers against the Aragonese, who were taking up the Staufer claim.
In the Terra di Lavoro on the mainland, he had been given the fiefs of Ambrisio, Castrocielo, Pescosolido and Vallecorsa and the royal castle of San Giovanni Incarico.
He and Raynald de Poncel conducted an investigation into the right of pasturage in the lands of Buccino that was claimed by the villagers of nearby Castel San Giorgio.
[2] Orvieto had recently become the centre of the Papal court, since the Romans refused to accept the election of a pro-Angevin pope.
On 24 March, acting on the advice of the king of Sicily, Martin appointed Jean as his rector in temporalibus (i.e., secular governor) in the Papal lands of the Romagna.
[2][3] Jean's first task as Papal rector was to subdue the strongholds of Forlì and Cesena, which were being defended by Guido da Montefeltro.
To cover his personal expenses, Charles I authorized him to impose an extraordinary tax on his vassals in the Sicilian kingdom.
On 16 September, Martin ordered Malatesta da Verucchio, lord of Rimini, to submit to Jean's authority and send him military reinforcements.
On 17 September, Jean's troops plundered the villages of San Martino in Strada and Ponte di Ronco.
[2] In early 1282, Jean d'Eppe assembled a new army at Bologna composed of 1,700 Frenchmen sent by Charles of Anjou, 1,300 Bolognese and 500 soldiers from the Papal State.
The French troops, however, made excessive demands on the Papal finances and the pope asked Charles to recall them on 3 March.
[2] The defeat at Forlì (1 May 1282), coming just a month after the Sicilian Vespers (30 March), was a great blow to Guelph morale.
In late November he called off the siege and on 9 December the pope ordered him to reduce his troops to just 300 Frenchmen and 200 Italians.
[b][2][5] The Constitutiones, which were Jean's initiative, guaranteed all the immunities and liberties of the church, exempted all clergy from taxation, nullified all oaths of vassallage sworn to cities in rebellion (like Cesena and Forlì) and forbade anyone from trading or contracting with rebels.
Dante Alighieri in his Inferno made an oblique reference to it as la terra che fé già la lunga prova / e di Franceschi sanguinoso mucchio ("the city that underwent the long trial and made a bloody heap of the French").
[3] On 27 June 1283, perhaps surprised by Jean's victories after his dismissal, Martin IV appointed him rector in temporalibus of the city of Urbino and its diocese.
In the spring, Charles of Anjou, now fighting an Aragonese invasion of Calabria, had requested that his troops in Jean's service be returned to him.
[2] Jean's task was to subdue the city of Frosinone, which had elected its own rector, Adinolfo di Mattia d'Anagni, to a term of twenty-five years without Papal approval.
On 8 May, Charles of Salerno (acting as regent for his father since 12 January 1283) agreed to pay Jean's troops the same rates they had received from the Papacy.
[2] The death of Charles provided an opportunity for one of his old foes, Conrad of Antioch, a member of Staufer ruling house supported by Aragon, to invade the Abruzzo from Papal territory, where he held Anticoli.
On 3 February 1285, Martin IV charged Jean d'Eppe, along with Giacomo Cantelmo and Amiel d'Agoult, the co-justiciars of the Abruzzo, with repelling Conrad's invasion.
The details of the campaign are scarce, but before the end of the year Conrad had submitted to Martin's successor, Honorius IV.
They're a series of capitula et statuta super regimine regni ("articles and statutes for the governance of the kingdom") were enacted.
Jean was removed from his post in the Principato, but on 26 September he was sent along with Raynaut Gaulart and Count Hugh of Brienne to collect the subventio generalis (general subvention) and the adhoamentum (feudal relief) in Apulia, and to investigate the behaviour of Apulian officials to ensure compliance with the new capitula et statuta.
On 7 March, however, he was ordered to transport 100 salme of grain from the house of the Knights Hospitaller in Barletta across the sea to Corfu.
In this capacity, in the spring of 1292, he reinforced the garrisons of the castles under his command and brought their pay up to date, actions which required him to levy 120 oncie from the justiciar, Louis de Mons.
[8] The necrology of the abbey indicates by his title, "lord of Eppes" (dominus de Appia), that he succeeded his brother at some point.
