Gérard de Dainville
Gérard de Dainville (Girardus de Dainvilla; died 13 June 1378) was a prelate of the Holy Roman Empire from an illustrious family of Artois. He was made bishop of Arras in 1361, although he did not take up his see until 1362, was transferred to the diocese of Thérouanne in 1369 and finally transferred to Cambrai in 1371, solemnly entering the city on 8 May 1372.[1] He is known as bishop Gerard III of Cambrai.
Gérard was born at Dainville to a family related to the Counts of Flanders.[1] His brothers were Jean, a knight and maître de l'hôtel to the French kings John II and Charles V; Michel, an archdeacon of Ostrevent in the diocese of Arras, who with Gérard co-founded the Collège de Dainville of the University of Paris; and Nicolas, a canon at Paris, Arras and Avranches, and a penitentiary (1362–67).[1] They were uterine brothers of Philippe de Mézières, with whom Gérard maintained a correspondence.
Before he became a bishop, Gérard was a canon at Notre-Dame de Paris, then an archdeacon at Noyon and a canon again at the basilica of Saint-Quentin.[1] He served as a councillor in the Parlement de Paris.[1]
As bishop of Cambrai, Gérard received permission from the Emperor Charles IV to invest Duke Albert I of Bavaria-Straubing as regent of the County of Hainaut. Shortly after, some of Gérard's officers got into a dispute with the cathedral chapter, because they had arrested a free man, Robert de Noyers, one of the cathedral servants. On Gérard's orders, the diocesan vicar-general mediated a reconciliation between bishop and chapter in the presence of bishop William VI of Carpentras, the papal nuncio. In 1375, Gérard imposed a new tax (maltôte) without the consent of the chapter, engendering a dispute with the magistrate.
In 1377, Gérard received the emperor in Cambrai. The next year he promised to submit to the Archbishop of Reims, but died before he could make good.