Stephen du Perche

This article is about the Sicilian chancellor and archbishop. For his nephew, the crusader, see Stephen du Perche (died 1205).

Stephen du Perche (1137 or 1138 – 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 is described by the contemporary chronicler Hugo Falcandus as "a son of the count of Perche", Rotrou III.[1] 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.[2]

  1. ^ Hiroshi Takayama, "Familiares Regis and the Royal Inner Council in Twelfth-Century Sicily", English Historical Review 104 (1989), 363.
  2. ^ G. A. Loud and Thomas E. J. Wiedemann, eds. and trans., The History of the Tyrants of Sicily by 'Hugo Falcandus', 1154–69, Manchester medieval Sources Series (Manchester University Press, 1998), 25.