Jean de Morvillier, Bishop of Orléans

1506 - 1577  (70 years)

• Name	Jean de Morvillier
  Suffix	Bishop of Orléans
  Birth	1 Dec 1506	Blois, Loir-et-Cher, France   [1]
  Gender	Male
  Death	23 Oct 1577	Tours, Indre-et-Loire, France   [1]
  Person ID	I37392	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others
  Last Modified	7 Jan 2022

  
  

  Father	Etienne de Morvillier   d. Aft 15 Oct 1515
  Mother	Marie Gaillard   d. Aft 4 Sep 1513
  Marriage	Between 1450 and 1460  [2]
  Family ID	F21813	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  From French-language Wikipedia, auto-translated 7 Jan 2022: Doctor of canon law and civil law, graduated in theology, he successively became lieutenant general of the bailiff of Bourge, member of the Grand Council, master of petitions, then ambassador to Venice. In his Histoire de Blois, Bernier writes: "He behaved in all these jobs with so much modesty, probity and ability, that the King [Henri II] seeing that he had combined the study of theology and canon law with that of civil law, appointed him to the bishopric of Orleans". Designated by King Henry II as Bishop of Orleans from 1552 to 1564, he appointed vicar general his nephew Mathurin de La Saussaye, for whose benefit he resigned his episcopal see. He is one of Catherine de Medici's advisers, known as moderates, in favor of a policy of conciliation with Protestants. He was guard of the Seals from October 7, 1568 to April 1571, a position he terminated in favor of President René de Birague, to become dean of the Council of State. King Henry III commissioned him to compose the opening speech of the Estates General of Blois, from 1576. He is buried in the church of the Cordeliers convent in Blois. His tomb was destroyed but the bronze bust, one of the most important of the surviving French Renaissance today and created by Germain Pilon for the tomb, is kept at the Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans.

  
  

• Sources

  [S380] French-language Wikipedia. [S49] Genealogics by Leo Van de Pas, continued by Ian Fettes and Leslie Mahler.