Born in 1376 in a bourgeois family from Autun in the Saône-et-Loire department, Nicolas Rolin, after studying law, became Chancellor of the Dukes of Burgundy for more than four decades. He established himself as a major political figure of the Burgundian State in the Middle Ages. Nicolas Rolin first served John the Fearless and his son Philip III. Married for the third time in 1423 to Guigone de Salins (1403–1470) from the Comtoise nobility, he founded the Hospices de Beaune with her to host and cure the poor. When he died in 1462, he had acquired around sixty seigneuries, castles, and fortified houses, most of them located in Burgundy.