Eudes IV, Duke of Burgundy

Eudes IV, Duke of Burgundy
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The arms of Eudes. He took the arms of his uncle and namesake, Eudes of Nevers, before the death of Hugh V. Note the indentation.

Eudes IV (1295 – 3 April 1350) was Duke of Burgundy from 1315 until his death and Count of Burgundy and Artois between 1330 and 1347. He was the second son of Duke Robert II and Agnes of France.

Eudes was closely related to the French royal family, the Capetians. His father was heir to a cadet branch (the House of Burgundy) of the Capetian dynasty. His maternal grandparents were Saint Louis IX and Margaret of Provence. His elder sister, Margaret was married to Louis X of France and his younger sister, Joanna, was married to Philip of Valois. He was thus an uncle of Queen Joan II of Navarre.

He succeeded his elder brother, Hugh V, in 1315. Eudes defended the rights of his niece Joan of Navarre against Philip the Tall, another uncle, after Louis X's death in 1316. In 1318, Eudes married Philip's eldest daughter, Jeanne III, Countess of Burgundy (1308 – 1347). He thus allied himself with Philip, who had become king of France in the meantime.

On the death of his brother, Louis in 1316, Eudes was pressed by the Angevins to sell his rights as King of Thessalonica and Prince of Achaea to Philip I of Taranto. In 1320, he finally sold them to Louis, Count of Clermont.

Eudes was a loyal vassal of his brother-in-law, Philip of Valois, after he succeeded to the French throne as Philip VI. He fought in many theatres of French warfare: the Low Countries, Brittany, Aquitaine. He fought the Flemings and was wounded at the Battle of Cassel in 1328. His wife inherited the domains of her mother in 1330: the county of Artois and the county of Burgundy, the so-called Free County. Eudes helped defend Saint Omer in the battle there against Robert III of Artois in 1340. He took part in the War of the Breton Succession as a partisan of Charles of Blois. In 1346, he was in Guyenne combatting the English.

Perhaps his greatest legacy is seen in the subsequent Burgundian court of the Valois dukes, for Eudes was a patron of the arts and the church and sponsored many young artists. He also endeavoured for good political connexions and by marrying a French royal princess assured the good relations with the neighbouring kingdom. The premature death of his son Philip made his four year old grandson the heir apparent. He succeeded Eudes IV as Philip I after Eudes died at Sens.