Vieil-Évreux (_Mediolanum Aulercorum_) was the capital of the Gallic tribe of the _Aulerci Eburovices_ and a flourishing city during the Gallo-Roman period. Its bishopric dates from the 4th century.
The first family of the counts of Évreux which is known was descended from an illegitimate son of Richard I., duke of Normandy, and became extinct in the male line with the death of Count William in 1118. The countship passed in right of Agnes, William's sister, wife of Simon de Montfort-l'Amaury (d. 1087) to the house of the lords of Montfort-l'Amaury. Amaury III. of Montfort ceded it in 1200 to King Philip Augustus. Philip the Fair presented it (1307) to his brother Louis, for whose benefit Philip the Long raised the countship of Évreux into a peerage of France (1317). Philip of Évreux, son of Louis, became king of Navarre by his marriage with Jeanne, daughter of Louis the Headstrong (Hutin), and their son Charles the Bad and their grandson Charles the Noble were also kings of Navarre. The latter ceded his countships of Évreux, Champagne and Brie to King Charles VI. (1404). In 1427 the countship of Évreux was bestowed by King Charles VII. on Sir John Stuart of Darnley (c. 1365-1429), the commander of his Scottish bodyguard, who in 1423 had received the seigniory of Aubigny and in February 1427/8 was granted the right to quarter the royal arms of France for his victories over the English (see Lady Elizabeth Cust, _Account of the Stuarts of Aubigny in France, 1422-1672_, 1891). On Stuart's death (before Orleans during an attack on an English convoy) the countship reverted to the crown. It was again temporarily alienated (1569-1584) as an appanage for Francis, duke of Anjou, and in 1651 was finally made over to Frédéric Maurice de la Tour d'Auvergne, duke of Bouillon, in exchange for the principality of Sedan.
EWALD, GEORG HEINRICH AUGUST VON (1803-1875), German Orientalist and theologian, was born on the 16th of November 1803 at Göttingen, where his father was a linen-weaver. In 1815 he was sent to the gymnasium, and in 1820 he entered the university of his native town, where under J.G. Eichhorn and T.C. Tychsen he devoted himself specially to the study of Oriental languages. At the close of his academical career in 1823 he was appointed to a mastership in the gymnasium at Wolfenbüttel, and made a study of the Oriental manuscripts in the Wolfenbüttel library. But in the spring of 1824 he was recalled to Göttingen as _repetent_, or theological tutor, and in 1827 (the year of Eichhorn's death) he became professor _extraordinarius_ in philosophy and lecturer in Old Testament exegesis. In 1831 he was promoted to the position of professor _ordinarius_ in philosophy; in 1833 he became a member of the Royal Scientific Society, and in 1835, after Tychsen's death, he entered the faculty of theology, taking the chair of Oriental languages.
