That the daughter of Malcolm and Margaret who afterwards became the

wife of Henry the First by the well-known name of Matilda was baptized

by the name of Eadgyth, rests wholly on the authority of Orderic, who

mentions it twice. After recording the death of Malcolm (702 A), he

gives an account of his daughters;

“Duas filias, Edith et Mariam, Christianæ, sorori suæ, quæ

Rumesiensis abbatiæ sanctimonialis erat, educandas,

sacrisque litteris imbuendas miserat. Illic diutius inter

monachas enutritæ sunt, et tam litteratoriam artem quam

bonorum observantiam morum edidicerunt, nubilemque ætatem

pertingentes, solatium Dei devotæ virgines præstolatæ sunt.”

And directly after he calls her “Mathildis quæ prius dicta est Edith.”

It is a point on which Orderic was likely to be well informed, as he

is always careful and scrupulous in matters of nomenclature, and often

helps us to double names, as we have seen in the case of Mark

Bohemond. And the name Eadgyth is much more in harmony than Matilda

with the other names of Margaret’s children. Orderic however does not

mention the implied change of name where one might have looked for it,

namely where he records her marriage in 784 A. She is there only

“generosa virgo nomine Mathildis;” but in recording her death (843 B),

he again says “Mathildis regina, quæ in baptismate Edit dicta fuit.”

M. Francisque Michel, in his note on Benoît, iii. 344, refers also to

the Waverley Annals, 1086, for the earlier name; but there is nothing

of the kind there. There is Eadward and Eadgar, but not Eadgyth. Is

one English name held to be as good as another, even when a confusion

of sex is involved?

In Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 56, where he describes the discussions which

went on before the marriage of Henry the First, we get Eadgyth’s own

story. She was brought up by her aunt Christina, of whom we have

already heard (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 695, where I carelessly spoke of

Christina as abbess), in the abbey of Wilton――it should surely be

Romsey. She was not a nun, nor designed to be one, but she was

compelled by her aunt to wear the veil to shelter her from the

violence of the Normans. Whenever her aunt’s back was turned, she tore

it from her head, and trampled upon it, for which the stern nun gave

her niece a good deal of blows and bad language;

“Cum adolescentula essem, et sub amitæ meæ Christianæ, quam

tu [Anselmus sc.] bene nosti, virga paverem, illa servandi

corporis mei causa contra furentem et cujusque pudori ea

tempestate insidiantem Normannorum libidinem nigrum

panniculum capiti meo superponere, et me illum abjicientem

acris verberibus et nimis obscœnis verborum conviciis sæpe

cruciare simul et dehonestare solebat. Quem pannum in ipsius

quidem præsentia gemens ac tremebunda ferebam, sed mox ut me

conspectui ejus subtrahere poteram, arreptum in humum

jacere, pedibus proterere, et ita quo in odio fervebam,

quamvis insipienter, consueveram desævire.”

Then her father comes, sees her with the veil, tears it from her head,

and says that he does not mean her to be a nun, but to be the wife of

Count Alan (“Pater meus cum me, quemadmodum dixi, velatam forte

vidisset, furore succensus, injecta manu velum arripuit, et dissipans

illud, odium Dei imprecatus est ei qui mihi illud imposuit, contestans

se comiti Alano me potius in uxorem quam in contubernium

sanctimonialium prædestinasse”).

Here we are not told how she came under her aunt’s care, nor what

became of her after her father’s death. And there is something odd in

the general reference to the “Normans,” unless it is meant as part of

the outburst of special English feeling in the later months of the

year 1100. Another version, instead of Normans in general, attributes

the danger to a particular Norman whom we should hardly have looked

for. This version is to be found in a most singular story, to which I

have slightly referred in the text (see p. 32) and also in N. C. vol.

v. p. 169, in the Narratio Restaurationis Abbatiæ S. Martini

Tornacensis (D’Achery, ii. 893). The story is brought in at the same

point at which it is brought in by Eadmer, at the time when

Eadgyth――if that is to be her name――is sought in marriage by King

Henry. The writer, Hermann, Abbot of Saint Martin’s, says that he had

heard the story as a young man from Anselm himself. As Eadmer reports

Eadgyth’s own statement, Hermann reports the statement of the

abbess――“abbatissa in cujus monasterio puella illa fuerat nutrita.” If

any trust can be put in the uncertified list of abbesses of Romsey in

the Monasticon, ii. 507, the head of the sisterhood at that time would

seem to have been an English Æthelflæd. The maiden herself also is

without a name, and her brother is confounded with her father. She is

“puella quædam, filia David regis Scotiæ.” The Abbess’s story is that

the Scottish King entrusted his daughter to her care, not to become a

nun, but simply for education (“Rex David pater ejus mihi eam

commendavit, non ut sanctimonialis fieret, sed ut solummodo in

ecclesia nostra propter cautelam cum ceteris puellis nostris coætancis

suis nutriretur et literis erudiretur”). When the girl is about twelve

years old (“cum jam adolevisset,” which is explained afterwards to

mean “duodennis”), the Abbess hears that king William (defined as “rex

Willelmus, domini mei regis Henrici germanus”) has come to see her

(“propter eam videndam venisse”). In the case of any decent king such

a visit would surely have been neither scandalous nor wonderful. The

King is at the abbey-gate with his knights, and asks to have it

opened. The Abbess fears that he may conceive some bad purpose towards

the maiden, but hopes that he will respect her if she wears the

monastic veil. She therefore persuades Eadgyth to wear the veil for

the time;

“Hæc audiens, nimiumque perterrita, ne forte ille, ut

juvenis et rex indomitus, qui omne quod animo sibi

occurrisset illico facere volebat, visa pulcritudine puellæ

aliquam ei illicitam violentiam faceret, qui tam improvisus

et insperatus propter eam videndam advenisset, in secretius

cubiculum eam introduxi, rem ei sicut erat aperui, eaque

volente velum unum capiti ejus imposui, quatenus eo viso rex

ab illicito complexu revocaretur.”

The King goes into the cloister, as if to look at the flowers “quasi

propter inspiciendas rosas et alias florentes herbas”). He sees

Eadgyth with the veil, and goes away, showing, according to the

Abbess, that his visit had been on her account only (“mox ut eam vidit

cum ceteris puellis nostris velum capite gestantem, claustro exivit et

ab ecclesia recessit, aperte ostendens se non nisi propter eam

venisse”). Within a week King David came; seeing his daughter with the

veil on her head, he was very angry; he tore it from her head,

trampled it under-foot, and took his daughter away.

As the Abbot’s memory clearly failed him on one point, it may have

failed him in others. This is, as far as I know, the only time in

history or legend in which William Rufus is brought into connexion

with the name of any woman. It may well be that Abbess Æthelflæd――if

that was her name――did not know the secrets of the Red King’s court,

and reckoned him among ordinary, instead of extraordinary, sinners.

* * * * *

The accounts of Orderic and Hermann assert, and that of Eadmer seems

to imply, that Eadgyth at least, most likely Mary also, was sent to be

brought up by their aunt when they were quite children. But there is

something a little odd in the appearance of Malcolm both in Eadmer and

in Hermann, where he is spoken of as if it were an every-day thing for

a King of Scots to show himself at Romsey. We may here perhaps help

ourselves to a date. The visit of Malcolm must surely have been when

he was in England in 1093. Eadgyth then, according to Hermann, was

about twelve years old. Now, it seems from William of Malmesbury (iv.

389) that she had a godfather whom we should hardly have looked for in

the person of Duke Robert. When could Robert have been godfather to a

daughter of Malcolm and Margaret? Surely when he was in Scotland in

the autumn of 1080 (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 671). That was therefore the

time of Eadgyth’s birth; she would then be under thirteen when her

father came into England. (Since this note was printed, I see that M.

Gaston Le Hardy, p. 41, takes this date for granted.)

The fact that Malcolm and Margaret themselves sent their daughters

into England seems to dispose of the account in Fordun (v. 21; see p.

30), according to which their uncle Eadgar somehow contrived to bring

them to England after the death of their parents. The only way in

which the two versions could be reconciled would be by supposing that,

when Malcolm, according to Hermann, took Eadgyth away from Romsey, he

took her back to Scotland.

In Eadgyth’s own statement in Eadmer, she says that her father meant

her to marry Count Alan. So Orderic (702 A) says;

“Alanus Rufus Britannorum comes Mathildem, quæ prius dicta

est Edith, in conjugem sibi a rege Rufo requisivit; sed

morte præventus non obtinuit.”

Mr. Robertson (i. 152) makes merry over this passage, and takes the

opportunity to sneer at Orderic. How, he asks, could Alan, who

outlived Eadgyth-Matilda and died in 1119――she died in 1118――have been

prevented by his own death from marrying her? He objects also that

Alan married the second time (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 647) in 1093,

“before Matilda could have sought refuge in England.” He adds, “Alan,

however, was once a suitor for the hand of Matilda, but to her own

father Malcolm (according to her own words), not to Rufus,” and goes

on to tell about Orderic’s “gossip,” “infinity of error,” and what

not. But though Orderic has made a slight slip, Mr. Robertson’s own

error is much greater. There can be little doubt that the Alan meant

is not the Alan of Britanny who married first Constance the daughter

of the Conqueror and then Ermengarde of Anjou, but Alan the Black the

second lord of Richmond (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 294, and Mrs. Green,

Princesses, i. 25), a much more likely husband for the Scottish King

to think of for his daughter. Now this Alan died in 1093, just about

the right time. Orderic has put _Rufus_ instead of _Niger_, which is

about the extent of his offence――perhaps confounding Alan the Black

with his brother Alan Fergeant, the first lord of Richmond. But Mr.

Robertson quite forgot that Malcolm sent his daughters into England

long before 1093. Thierry (ii. 152) saw clearly which Alan it was.

William of Malmesbury (v. 418) has a singular passage, where he tells

us that “Matildis, filia regis Scotorum, a teneris annis inter

sanctimoniales apud Wiltoniam et Rumesium educata, literis quoque

fœmineum pectus exercuit. Unde, ut ignobiles nuptias respueret

plusquam semel a patre oblatas, peplum sacratæ professionis index

gestavit.”

But who could look on a marriage with Count Alan as “ignobilis”?

NOTE FF. Vol. ii. pp. 17, 47, 49, 53.

TYNEMOUTH AND BAMBURGH.

The history of Tynemouth, and of Saint Oswine in relation to

Tynemouth, comes largely from the Life of Saint Oswine in the

Miscellanea Biographica published by the Surtees Society. This is the

work of a monk of Saint Alban’s who went to Tynemouth in 1111. There

are also several Saint Alban’s documents printed in the Monasticon,

iii. 312. There is a large history of Tynemouth by Mr. W. S. Gibson,

from which much may be learned, though the valuable facts and

documents have largely to be dug out of a mass of irrelevant matter.

According to the Saint Alban’s writer, Eadwine built a wooden church

at Tynemouth, and there his daughter _Rosella_ took the veil. The name

is strange enough, but we may perhaps see a confused tradition of a

_British_ name, when we read that “locus ubi nunc cœnobium

Tinemuthense est, antiquitus a _Saxonibus_ dicebatur Penbalcrag, i.e.

caput valli in rupe. Nam circa hunc locum finis erat valli Severiani.”

This building must be the same as that which is referred to in the

Life, p. 11; “Delatus est ad ostium Tynæ fluminis, locum videlicet ab

incolis regionis ob imminentis rupis securitatem ab hostibus celebrius

frequentatum. Sed ob reverentiam gloriosæ Virgini Mariæ inibi

exhibitam tenerius amatum, ibique sepultus est in oratorio ejusdem

Virginis, quod constructum erat ad aquilonem fluminis.” He goes on to

tell how Oswald rebuilt the wooden church of stone, and how the

monastery was more than once destroyed by the Danes. The Saint Alban’s

writer (Mon. Angl. iii. 312) speaks more specially of the Danes. The

biographer carries us at once to the time of Tostig;

“Memoria sancti martyris Oswini, obsoleta et penitus deleta,

funditus ab hominum notitia evanuit. Jacuitque per multa

annorum curricula gleba sancti corporis sub abjectiori

cespite tumulata et usque ad tempora Thostii comitis et

Ægelwini præsulis Dunelmi, incuriæ pariter et ignorantiæ

neglectu, debita veneratione est fraudata.”

The writer has a curious remark to account for the neglect of the

saint; “Genti prædictæ nunc fideles, nunc infideles principabantur, et

juxta principum instituta, varia divinus cultus in subjectarum plebium

studiis sensit dispendia.” This is doubtless true of Deira, hardly so

of Bernicia, where no heathen prince reigned, though passing heathens

did a good deal of damage.

He then gives a long account of the invention of the saint’s body,

which came about through the vision of a monk named Eadmund. Judith,

according to the character which she bears elsewhere (see N. C. vol.

ii. p. 391), appears as “devota Deo famula,” “præpotens et devota

femina,” “veneranda comitissa.” Of Tostig we are told that he

succeeded Siward, “non testamenti beneficio, sed sancti regis Ædwardi

dono regio.” He is described as beginning the new church which the

monks of Saint Alban’s afterwards finished (p. 15); “Cujus tamen

fundamenti initia, ut dicitur, comes Thostius jecerat, a fundamentis

ædificaverunt.” But his deposition and death seem to be looked upon as

a judgement for not being present in person at the invention (“Quia

prædixtus comes Thostius interesse sanctæ inventioni in ditione sua

factæ noluit, eodem anno culpis suis exigentibus ab Anglorum regno

expulsus,” &c.), the exact date of which is given, March 15, 1065. It

is added, “Thostio comite proscripto, hæreditas ejus devoluta est ad

fiscum regium.”

Simeon in his History of the Church of Durham, iv. 4, puts the acts of

Tostig and of Waltheof together under the head of Northumbrian earls;

“Ecclesiam sane sancti Oswini in Tinemuthe, jamdudum donantibus

Northymbriæ comitibus, monachi cum adhuc essent in Gyrvum possederant,

unde etiam ipsius sancti ossa ad se transferentes in ecclesia sancti

Pauli secum non parvo tempore habuerunt, quæ postmodum ad priorem

locum retulerunt.” He then goes on to record the confirmation by Earl

Alberic, who “hoc donum renovavit, ipsamque ecclesiam cum suo

presbitero ecclesiæ sancti Cuthberti perpetuo possidendam adjecit.”

It would seem that the fall of Tostig hindered the completion of his

church, and that at the time of Waltheof’s grant it was still without

a roof; for he goes on to say, “Quæ cum jam per quindecim annos velut

deserta sine tecto durasset, eam monachi culmine imposito renovarunt,

et per tres annos possederunt.” On receiving the confirmation of

Alberic, a monk with a good Danish name was sent to put things in

better order (Simeon, Gesta Regum, 1121); “Ex capituli totius

sententia monachus noster _Turchillus_ illuc mittitur, qui renovato

ecclesiæ ipsius culmine, per multum tempus habitavit ibidem.”

I have referred to the charter of Waltheof and to the entry in Simeon

(Gesta Regum, 1080) in N. C. vol. iv. p. 666. It is printed, along

with a charter of Bishop William confirming it, dated April 27, 1085,

in the time of Earl Alberic, whose confirmation is recorded, in the

Surtees book called Historiæ Dunelmensis Scriptores Tres, pp. xviii,

xix. The signatures to both are nearly all English, with the single

exception of two to the charter of Waltheof. These are Gilbert, the

nephew (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 665) of Bishop Walcher, and an unknown

Walter. We meet with several other men that we know, as Morkere’s

father Ligulf and his brother Uhtred, and Leofwine, written

“Leobwinus,” the Dean of Durham. We notice also “Ernan Biscope sune,”

and three Englishmen with the knightly title “Alwinus miles,”

“Wlstanus miles,” and “Kinewlfus miles,” but I do not understand

“signum Aldredi comitis.” Earl Ealdred, the common grandfather of

Waltheof and young Morkere, had been murdered long ago, as the sons of

Carl found to their cost. The story is told again in Simeon, Gesta

Regum, 1121.

The next stage in the story is the taking away of Tynemouth from the

church of Durham. It is amusing to contrast the ways in which this

story is told at Durham and at Saint Alban’s. Simeon, in the chapter

just quoted, tells us that Earl Robert made the gift to Saint Alban’s

“propter inimicitias quæ inter episcopum et ipsum agitabantur” (cf.

Gesta Regum, 1121). The cause of their ill-will, a dispute about

lands, comes out in the next chapter. Roger of Wendover (ii. 39), who

is copied by Matthew Paris (Hist. Ang. i. 41, and Chron. Maj. ii. 31),

tells us how Earl Robert――“vir quidem Deo devotus,” Matthew says――gave

Tynemouth to Saint Alban’s “divina inspiratione tactus.” The Gesta

Abbatum (i. 57) add that it was done “regis et archiepiscopi Lanfranci

benevolentia.” It would seem that under Durham rule Tynemouth had been

simply an impropriate church, while in the hands of Saint Alban’s it

became a cell. The judgement on Abbot Paul is recorded in the Durham

History, iv. 4. The Gesta Abbatum, which record much about him, both

good and evil, say nothing about this. The Life of Oswine, p. 15,

gives a full account of the ceremony of the translation of Saint

Oswine, with the date. Bishop Randolf of Durham was there, Abbot

Richard of Saint Alban’s, and “Abbas _Salesberiensis_ Hugo,” where we

may see (see Mon. Angl. iii. 495) the old confusion (see N. C. vol.

iv. p. 799) between Salisbury and Selby.

Tynemouth then, at the time when the revolt of Robert of Mowbray began

(see p. 47), was already a monastery and a cell to Saint Alban’s,

though the monks of Durham still held that they had been wrongfully

deprived of it. But it appears from the narrative that, besides the

monastery, there was also a castle. The account in the Chronicle is,

“And þone castel æt Tinemuðan besæt oððet he hine gewann, and þæs

eorles broðer þærinne and ealle þa þe him mid wæron.” Florence says,

“Rex exercitu de tota Anglia congregato, castellum prædicti comitis

Rotberti, ad ostium Tinæ fluminis situm, per duos menses obsedit; et

interim, _quadam munitiuncula expugnata_, ferme omnes meliores comitis

milites cepit, et in custodia posuit; dein obsessum castellum

expugnavit, et fratrem comitis, et equites, quos intus inveniebat,

custodiæ tradidit.” Florence seems to me to have confounded the sieges

of Tynemouth and of the New Castle. By the “castellum ad ostium Tinæ”

he would seem to mean the New Castle, and by his “munitiuncula” he

would seem to mean the Earl’s fortress at Tynemouth. Now what was the

relation between the castle and the monastery? As things now stand,

castle and monastery are one. That is to say, the deserted church――or

more strictly the two deserted churches, monastic and parochial, once

under one roof (see Archæological Journal, vol. xxxvii. p. 250, No.

147, 1880)――standing on the northern promontory is now surrounded by

military buildings and the great gate-house. I get my notion of the

early arrangements of Tynemouth from several old plans collected by

Mr. Gibson. There is one which seems to be of the sixteenth century,

and, as the names are written in a curious mixture of English, Latin,

and Italian, it struck me that it might be the work of an officer of

those Italian mercenaries who were employed in the civil wars of

Edward the Sixth. This is the only one which distinctly shows “the

Castle,” on the southern promontory, though all mark that point as

taken in within the lines of defence. It seems to me that the southern

promontory must have been the site of the original castle, and that

the name of _Castle_ has shifted to the great gate-house, which fairly

deserves it.

* * * * *

With regard to the order of the sieges, Orderic, who gives us so full

an account of the siege of Bamburgh, tells us nothing about the

others. I gather from the words of the Chronicle that the New Castle,

which we find in the King’s hands directly after, was the point which

was first taken; “Sona þes þe he þider [to Norðhymbran] com, he manege

and forneah ealle þa betste of þes eorles hirede innan anan fæstene

gewann, and on hæftene gedyde.” Florence, as I have said, seems to

have misunderstood the words of the Chronicler, and to have confounded

Tynemouth and the New Castle. This last would surely be, as the

Chronicle implies, the first point of attack after the army entered

Northumberland in the sense which that word now bears. Next in the

narrative of the Chronicle follows the siege and capture of Tynemouth,

and then the great siege of Bamburgh. Of this famous fortress I found

something to say long ago in N. C. vol. i. p. 410, where Bamburgh

appears as marking one stage in the art of fortification. Bæda (iii.

16) witnesses that the place took its name “ex Bebbæ quondam reginæ

vocabulo;” so also the Northumbrian writer copied by Simeon of Durham,

774;

“Bebba civitas urbs est munitissima, non admodum magna, sed

quasi duorum vel trium agrorum spatium, habens unum

introitum cavatum, et gradibus miro modo exaltatum. Habet in

summitate montis ecclesiam præpulcre factam, in qua est

scrinium speciosum et pretiosum. In quo involuta pallio

jacet dextera manus sancti Oswaldi regis incorrupta, sicut

narrat Beda historiographus hujus gentis.”

The reference here is to Bæda, iii. 6, where he tells the story of

Oswald’s bounty and the prophecy of Aidan, and adds how his hand and

arm, cut off after his death in the battle by Penda, “in urbe regia

quæ a regina quondam vocabulo Bebba cognominatur, loculo inclusæ

argenteo in ecclesia sancti Petri servantur, ac digno a cunctis honore

venerantur.” So again, iii. 12, where Bamburgh is simply “regia

civitas.” He goes on to speak of the well; “Est in occidente et in

summitate ipsius civitatis fons miro cavatus opere, dulcis ad potandum

et purissimus ad videndum.” Florence also refers to the origin of the

name; with him it is “Bebbanbyrig, id est, Urbs Bebbæ reginæ;” and

Orderic (704 A) draws a little picture of the spot; “Munitissimum

castrum, quod Babbenburg dicitur, obsederunt. Et quoniam illa munitio

inexpugnabilis erat, quia inaccessibilis videbatur propter paludes et

aquas, et alia quædam itinerantibus contraria, quibus ambiebatur, rex

novam munitionem ad defensionem provinciæ et coartationem hostium

construxit, et militibus, armis, ac victualibus implevit.” This last

fact, the making of the _Malvoisin_, is recorded by the Chronicler and

Florence, both of whom give the name. The Chronicler says; “Ac þa þa

se cyng geseah þæt he hine gewinnan ne mihte, þa het he makian ænne

castel toforan Bebbaburh and hine _on his spæce_ Malueisin het, þæt is

on Englisc yfel nehhebur, and hine swiðe mid his mannan gesætte, and

syððan suðweard for.” So Florence; “Ante Bebbanbyrig in quam comes

fugerat, castellum firmavit, id que Malveisin nominavit, et in illo

militibus positis, in Suthymbriam rediit.” We may here note the way in

which the Chronicler assumes French as the language of William Rufus,

and also Florence’s somewhat archaic way of speaking of “Suthymbria,”

where the Chronicler says simply “suðweard.” It is something like his

mention of West-Saxonia in 1091 (see vol. i. p. 305).

The _Malvoisin_ was clearly such a tower as we often hear of,

temporary and of wood, but still not moveable, as is implied in

Florence’s word “firmavit.” But the name seems afterwards to have been

transferred to moveable towers; see Du Cange in Malveisin, where he

refers to the passage about the siege of Dover in Roger of Wendover,

iii. 380; “Misso prius ad patrem suum propter petrariam, quæ

‘Malveisine’ Gallice nuncupatur, qua cum machinis aliis Franci ante

castrum locata muros acriter crebris ictibus verberabant.” In his

account of the siege of Bamburgh (ii. 46) Roger says, “Cum castellum

inexpugnabile advertit, ante castellum illud castellum aliud _ligneum_

construxit, quod Malveisin appellavit, in quo partem exercitus sui

relinquens inde recessit.” Matthew Paris copies this in the Chronica

Majora in the Historia Anglorum, i. 48; his words are, “Ante castellum

illud aliud sed _ligneum_ construxit, ad præcludendum illis exitum,

quod patria lingua _Maleveisine_ appellavit.” Viollet-le-Duc (Military

Architecture of the Middle Ages, 24, Eng. trans.) seems to imply that

moveable towers were known earlier than this time, but he seems (p.

30) to bring the petraria from the East.

As for the details of the siege, the Chronicler and Florence tell us

nothing till we come to the escape of Robert from Bamburgh. It is

Orderic who gives us the picture of the state of mind of Robert and

his companions, which, if it belongs to any period of the siege, must

belong to the time before the King went southward. We see the loyal

troops busily working at the making of the _Malvoisin_;

“Conscii autem perfidiæ et fautores eorum detegi verentes

conticuerunt, et metu exsangues, quia conatus suos nihil

valere perpenderunt, regiis cohortibus immixti, ejus

servitium, cujus exitium optaverant, prompte aggressi sunt.

Interea, dum rex in armis cum agminibus suis ad bellum

promptus constaret, et chiliarchos ac centuriones, aliosque

proceres Albionis, cum subditis sibi plebibus, operi novæ

munitionis indesinenter insistere compelleret, Rodbertus de

propugnaculis suis contrarium sibi opus mœstus conspiciebat,

et complices suos alta voce nominatim compellebat, ac ut

jusjurandum de proditionis societate conservarent, palam

commonebat. Rex autem cum fidelibus suis hæc audiens

ridebat, et conscia reatus publicati mens conscios et

participes timore et verecundia torquebat.”

Then the King goes away; in Orderic’s phrase, “rege ad sua prospere

remeante, et de moderamine regni cum suis amicis solerter tractante,”

a rather odd description of the war in Wales. Now comes Robert’s

escape from Bamburgh. Orderic, who seems to have no clear idea of any

place except Bamburgh, merely says that Robert, “longæ obsidionis

tædio nauseatus, noctu exilivit, et de castro in castrum migrare

volens in manus inimicorum incidit.” The Chronicle is fuller; “Ða sona

æfter þam þe se cyng wæs suð afaren feorde se eorl anre nihte ut of

Bebbaburh towardes Tinemuðan, ac þa þe innan þam niwun castele wæron

his gewær wurdon, and him æfter foran and onfuhton and hine

gewundedon, and syððan gelæhton, and þa þe mid him wæron sume ofslogan

sume lifes gefengon.” But it is from Florence that we get the detailed

account. His story runs thus;

“Post cujus discessum, comiti Rotberto vigiles Novi Castelli

promisere in id se permissuros illum intrare, si veniret

occulte. Ille autem lætus effectus, quadam nocte cum xxx.

militibus ut id perageret exivit. Quo cognito, equites qui

castellum custodiebant illum insequentes, ejus exitum

custodibus Novi Castelli per nuntios intimaverunt. Quod ille

nesciens, die dominica tentavit peragere cœpta, sed

nequivit, deprehensus enim erat. Eapropter ad monasterium S.

Oswini regis et martyris fugit, ubi sexto die obsessionis

suæ graviter in crure est vulneratus dum suis adversariis

repugnaret, quorum multi perempti, multi sunt vulnerati, de

suis quoque nonnulli vulnerati, omnes sunt capti; ille vero

in ecclesiam fugit, de qua extractus, in custodia est

positus.”

Here now comes the obvious difficulty as to the way in which the Earl

could have got into the monastery at Tynemouth after the castle had

been taken. The Chronicler indeed does not necessarily imply that he

got into Tynemouth at all. The fight which he describes might have

happened somewhere else and not at Tynemouth. And if any one chooses

to move the site of Robert’s resistance and capture from Tynemouth to

some unknown spot, there is only the statement of Florence against

him. That Robert was taken, and taken after a stout resistance, is

plain.

With Robert’s capture, Orderic ends his story, as far as military

operations are concerned. “Captus a satellitibus regis, Rodbertus

finem belli fecit.” In a very general way this is not untrue; it was

the capture of Robert which brought about the end of the war. But it

is odd that he should have left out the striking story of the captive

Earl being brought under frightful threats before the castle which his

wife was defending. This stands out clearly in the Chronicle; “Ða þa

se cyng ongean com, þa het he niman þone eorl Rotbeard of Norðymbram,

and to Bæbbaburh lædan, and ægðer eage ut adon, buton þa þe þærinne

wæron þone castel agyfan woldan. Hine heoldan his wif and Moreal, se

wæs stiward and eac his mæg. Ðurh þis wearð se cartel þa agyfen.”

Florence translates this.

* * * * *

Lastly comes the great difference of all as to Earl Robert’s last

days. The Chronicler and Florence merely record his imprisonment at

Windsor, without saying how long it lasted. Florence says only, “Comes

forti custodiæ mancipandus ad Windlesoram est ductus,” followed by the

passage about Morel quoted in p. 55. He says nothing about the many

accusations brought by Morel, or about the special summons of all the

tenants-in-chief to the trial, of which the Chronicler speaks (see p.

56). The Chronicler, after recording them, says; “And þone eorl

Rotbert hét se cyng to Windlesoran lædan, and þær innan þam castele

healdan.” This is consistent with any later destiny, with release and

monastic profession or with lifelong imprisonment. This last is

asserted by several authorities. Thus Orderic (704 A) says;

“Rodbertus…. fere triginta annis in vinculis vixit, ibique scelerum

suorum pœnas luens consenuit.” He then sets forth the sad state of his

wife; “Mathildis uxor ejus, quæ cum eo vix unquam læta fuerat, quia in

articulo perturbationis desponsata fuerat, et inter bellicas clades

tribus tantum mensibus cum tremore viri thoro incubuerat, maritali

consolatione cito caruit, multisque mœroribus afflicta diu gemuit.”

The Continuator of William of Jumièges (viii. 8), who has nothing to

say about Matilda, equally bears witness to Robert’s lifelong

imprisonment; “Captus a militibus Willelmi regis, ipsoque jubente in

ipsis vinculis diutius perseverans; regnante jam Henrico rege, tandem

in ipso ergastulo deficiens mortuus est.” So William of Malmesbury,

iv. 319; “Captus et æternis vinculis irretitus est.”

On the other hand, there clearly was a story according to which Robert

was released some time or other, and died a monk at Saint Alban’s. It

is somewhat remarkable that there is no mention of this in any of the

chief writings of Matthew Paris, neither in the Historia Major nor the

Historia Anglorum, nor the Lives of the Abbots. But we find the story

implied in the extract from his Additamenta in the Monasticon, iii.

312; “Ibidem [at Tynemouth] monachos congregavit de domo sancti

Albani, tanquam ab electissima domo inter omnia cœnobia Angliæ, ubi

etiam se vovit monasticum habitum suscepturum, et sepulturam in loco

memorato. Quæ omnia, Deo sibi propitio, feliciter consummavit.” So in

the Abbreviatio Chronicorum (Hist. Angl. iii. 175), a marginal note is

added to the name of Earl Robert; “Sepultus est apud sanctum Albanum.”

But, oddly enough, the most distinct statement that he became a monk

comes, not from any Saint Alban’s writer, but from one manuscript of

the “De Regibus Saxonum Libellus” at the end of the Surtees Simeon, p.

214. King Henry keeps Robert of Mowbray some while in prison; then

“rogatu baronum suorum eundem resolvens, concessit illi mutare vitam

habitumque sæcularem. Qui ingressus monasterium Sancti Albani sub

professione monastica ibidem vitam finivit.”

The story about Matilda’s second marriage and divorce comes from

Orderic. His story runs thus; “Vir ejus, ut dictum est, in carcere

vivebat, nec ipsa, eo vivente, secundum legem Dei alteri nubere

legitime valebat. Tandem, permissu Paschalis papæ, cui res a curiosis

enucleata patuit, post multos dies Nigellus de Albineio ipsam uxorem

accepit, et pro favore nobilium parentum ejus, aliquamdiu honorifice

tenuit. Verum, defuncto Gisleberto de Aquila fratre ejus, vafer

occasionem divortii exquisivit, eamque, quia consanguinei sui conjux

fuerat, repudiavit, et Gundream, sororem Hugonis de Gornaco, uxorem

duxit.” If all this happened at all, it must have happened between

1099 and 1118, the years which mark the reign of Paschal.

Matilda of Laigle could not well have been the sister of William the

Chaplain to whom Bishop Herbert Losinga writes his third letter (Ep.

Herberti, p. 5). He there says; “De matrimonio sororis vestræ non

aliud respondeo vobis, quam id quod præsens ex ore meo audivistis, suo

videlicet ut vivente viro, secundum evangelium et secundum sanctorum

canonum usum, alii viro nubere non potest.” But the person spoken of

could hardly have been thinking of such a marriage, unless she had

some special excuse, like this of Matilda.

The second wife of Nigel appears both as “Gundrea” and as “Gundreda.”

There is a great deal about her husband Nigel and her son Robert, the

founder of Byland Abbey, in the Monasticon, v. 346-351. The marriage

of Nigel and Gundreda took place after Tinchebrai, and as King Henry

gave Nigel the castle of Mowbray, and much else in Normandy and

England which had belonged to Earl Robert, their son Roger called

himself Roger of Mowbray. Such a description was likely to lead to

confusion, and it may have led some to fancy that later bearers of the

name of Mowbray had something to do with the famous Bishop and Earl of

our story. The artificial Percy is indeed connected with the real one

by grandmothers; but the artificial Mowbray was purely artificial.

This Roger of Mowbray appears also in the Continuator of William of

Jumièges, viii. 8, who tells us that Nigel himself became a monk at

Bec.

* * * * *

As Walknol has been casually mentioned in the text (p. 47) there may

be some interest in a document in the Cartulary of Newminster

published by the Surtees Society, p. 178. The date must be after 1137,

the date of the foundation of Newminster. The number of English names,

and specially the two bearers of scriptural names who are sons of

English-named fathers, illustrate points of which I have often had to

speak;

“De terra de Walknol in castro. Johannes filius Edwyni

fabri, salutem. Sciatis me concessisse, dedisse, et hac

præsenti carta mea confirmasse, Bartholomæo filio Edricii

illam terram totam quæ jacet in australi parte cimiterii

capellæ beati Michaelis, in longitudine a curtillo Eadmundi

clerici usque ad terram quæ fuit Johannis Stanhard, et in

latitudine a cimiterio capellæ beati Michaelis usque ad

antiquam communem viam subtus versus austrum. Habendum et

tenendum eidem Bartholomæo et hæredibus suis de me et

hæredibus meis et assignatis in perpetuum, libere, quiete,

et pacifice, pro duabus marcis arg. quas michi dedit idem

Bartholomæus in manu in mea magna necessitate.”

NOTE GG. Vol. ii. p. 79.

THE CONQUEST OF GLAMORGAN.

I gave a note to the conquest of Glamorgan in the Appendix to vol. v.

of the Norman Conquest, p. 820. I look, as I did then, upon the

account in what I find it convenient to call the later Brut as

thoroughly legendary in its details, though I am perhaps inclined to

put rather more faith in the general story than I was then. And I am

not so much inclined as I was then to draw the same wide distinction

as Mr. Floyd draws between the expeditions led by the King himself and

those which partook more or less of the character of private

adventure. There was doubtless a difference, when it was King William

who called the whole force of England to his standard, and when it was

only either Earl Hugh or Robert Fitz-hamon who set out on an

expedition on his own account. But both processes were parts of the

same general undertaking. Whatever individual lords conquered, they

conquered with the King’s approval, to be held by them as his vassals

and subjects. He himself stepped in only on great occasions, when the

Welsh seemed to be getting too strong for the local lords. The same

general work must have been going on all over the country. The only

strange thing is that the conquest of Glamorgan, of whose general

results there can be no doubt, and of which we have so very full a

legendary account, is left out altogether in every really trustworthy

history.

Jestin ap Gwrgan must be accepted as a real man, on the strength of

his real sons and grandsons (for his sons see N. C. vol. v. p. 821);

but that is all that can be said of him. We can hardly carry our faith

so far as Mr. John Williams ab Ithel, the Editor of the Brut in the

Chronicles and Memorials, who asks us (xxiii) to “consider the great

age of the prince of Glamorgan when he died. He is said to have

married his first wife A.D. 994”――it is perhaps prudent to mention the

æra――“and to have died at the age of 111, according to others 129.” We

Saxons do not venture to believe in the kindred tales of our own

Harold and Gyrth. But we learn from Mr. Williams himself, at the very

beginning of his Preface, that “the voice of Tradition would not lead

us to suppose that the ancient Britons paid any very particular

attention to the study of chronology previous to the era of Prydain,

son of Aedd the Great, which is variously dated from the year 1780 to

480 before the nativity of Christ.” If centuries went for so little in

the days of Prydain, it is not wonderful that decades did not go for

much in the days of Jestin. Nor are we surprised to find that Mr.

Williams knew the exact number of the descendants of Jestin, who were,

like those of Attila, “pene populus.” All that we can say of Jestin’s

story, in relation to Robert Fitz-hamon and his companions, is that

there is no trustworthy evidence either for or against the story of

his invitation to the Norman knights, but that the tale has a

legendary sound, and that the date is in any case wrong. If we should

be inclined, according to one or two indications (see p. 84), to place

the conquest of Glamorgan several years earlier, perhaps even before

the death of the Conqueror, we are only carried away yet further from

the perfectly certain date of the death of Rhys ap Tewdwr. All that we

can say is that the general story may be true, but that the list of

settlers given in the later Brut (72 to 75) is largely due to family

vanity. The Stradling family, for instance, had nothing to do with the

original conquest.

The best account of the whole matter is to be found in Mr. Clark’s

first paper on “The Land of Morgan,” in the Archæological Journal,

xxxiv. 11. I cannot however admit with him (p. 18) that “it seems

probable that to the early Vikings, and not to the later settlements

of Flemings or English, is due the Teutonic element which prevails in

the topography of lower Pembroke and Gower.” I am quite ready (see p.

95) to admit a certain Scandinavian element; but the Flemish

settlement in Pembrokeshire is undoubtedly historical (see N. C. vol.

v. p. 855), while we have fair legendary evidence for making the

settlement in Gower West-Saxon (see p. 103). The name of _Worm’s Head_

given to the great promontory of Gower, in marked distinction to the

Scandinavian _Orm’s Head_ in North Wales, goes a long way to show that

the Teutonic settlers in Gower were either Flemish or Saxon, and not

Scandinavian.

NOTE HH. Vol. ii. p. 115.

GODWINE OF WINCHESTER AND HIS SON ROBERT.

I gave a short note to the history of Robert son of Godwine in N. C.

vol. v. p. 819. On going again more minutely through the story, I am

even more struck than before by the singular way in which different

notices of Robert and Godwine hang together. It is one of the best

cases that I know of the argument from undesigned coincidences.

Besides the interest of the story in itself, it teaches us, like many

other stories, how, if we work with a proper caution, we may dig truth

out of quarters where we should hardly have looked for it, and it may

specially suggest matter for thought as to the value of those pieces

of Scottish history which one hardly knows whether to call the

writings of Turgot or Fordun, or of any one else. I suspect that, if

we simply read the story of Godwine and Robert as it stands in Fordun,

we should be inclined to cast it aside altogether. The story

undoubtedly has a legendary air, and the details of the single combat

are likely enough to have received some legendary colouring even at

the time. Some might even be a little startled at the appearance of

Englishmen of knightly rank at the court of William Rufus. But we see

from Domesday on the one hand, and from William of Malmesbury on the

other, that Godwine and Robert were real men, and we see that the part

which they play in Fordun’s story is exactly in accordance with their

real position.

I have mentioned elsewhere (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 571; vol. v. p. 819)

that there was a Godwine holding lands in Hertfordshire of the

Ætheling Eadgar. We also have in two places in William of Malmesbury

(iii. 251; iv. 384) notices of “Robertus Anglus,” “Robertus filius

Godwini miles audacissimus,” who goes to the crusade with the

Ætheling, and who does the exploits which I have spoken of in p. 122.

Now if circumstantial evidence is ever good for anything, one can

hardly doubt that the Godwine of Domesday is the same as the Godwine

of William of Malmesbury and as the Godwine of Fordun, and that the

Robert son of Godwine in Fordun is the same as the Robert son of

Godwine in William of Malmesbury. The three accounts are wholly

independent, but all bring Godwine and Robert into connexion with

Eadgar. It is almost inconceivable that Fordun’s story should be mere

invention, when it makes men of whom so little is known act exactly in

character with the little that is known of them.

In the account in Fordun (ii. 22, Surtees Simeon 263), Ordgar,

“Orgarus,” is described in the one text as “miles degener Anglicus,”

in the other as “miles de genere Anglico,” which is clearly the better

reading.

The name of Ordgar appears only twice in Domesday. In Oxfordshire,

161, Ordgar, a king’s thegn, holds two hides of the worth of forty

shillings. He had two slaves on his domain, and half a carucate was

held by two villains or churls. We then read, “Godwinus libere

tenuit.” This is pretty sure to be our Ordgar, and it may very well be

our Godwine, though we can say nothing for certain about so common a

name. If they are the same, here is great likelihood, though no proof,

that Godwine may have had other ground for willingness to fight

Ordgar, besides his loyalty to the Ætheling. Ordgar, on the other

hand, appears in Somerset, 93, as holding a hide which had passed to

Robert of Courcelles, and which, with a good deal more, was held by

Anschitil. Ordgar was not the only Englishman who, among the endless

forfeitures and grants――to say nothing of ordinary sales, bequests,

and exchanges, which went on T. R. W. as well as T. R. E.――lost in one

part of England and gained in another.

In Fordun’s story Eadgar is described as “clito Eadgarus, viz. genere

gloriosus, nam sic ipsum nominabant.” “De genere gloriosus,” it will

be marked, is a more literal translation of “Clito” than it is of

“Ætheling.” William is inclined to hearken to Ordgar, “quia Eadgarus

de regia stirpe fuerat progenitus, et regno, jure Anglico, proximus.”

We then read, “nec incerta de Eadgaro jam poterat esse sententia, si

crimen impositum probari potuisset.” Eadgar is in great trouble for

fear of not finding a champion, when Godwine steps forward; “Miles de

Wintonia, Anglicus natione, genere non ignobilis, nomine Godwinus,

veteris parentelæ ipsius non immemor, opem se præstiturum in hac re

tam difficili compromisit.”

The two knights now go forth, as I have described in the text, and we

have a significant comment on the lack of English patriotism shown by

Ordgar;

“Hinc etiam calumniatorem cum justa animadversione increpat,

qui Anglicus genere existens naturæ videretur impugnator,

quem enim ut dominum venerari debuerat, utpote de jure

generis existens cui se et omnia sua debuisset.”

Then come the details of the combat. We hear no more of Godwine after

his victory and reward, which last is thus told; “Superati hostis

terras et possessiones hereditario jure rex ei concederet

possidendas.” “Hereditario jure” most likely simply means, as usual,

that the land was to go on to Godwine’s heirs. It need not refer to

the probable fact that part at least of Ordgar’s lands had once

belonged to Godwine.

Robert first appears in Fordun, v. 25, on the march to Scotland (see

p. 119). He is introduced as “quidam miles, Anglicus genere, Robertus

nomine, filius antedicti Godwini, paternæ probitatis imitator et

hæres.” Then come his exploits and adventures in Britain, as I have

told them in the text. Afterwards must come his crusading exploits as

described by William of Malmesbury. In the earlier of his two accounts

(see p. 122) one might almost have thought that King Baldwin had no

companion except Robert. The second passage, which gives them four

other companions, has therefore the force of a correction; “Rex …

quinque militibus comitatus, in montana rependo, insidiantes elusit.

Militum fuit unus Robertus Anglus, ut superius dixi; cæteros notitiæ

nostræ fama tam longinqua occubuit. Ille cum tribus comprehensus est;

unus evasit cum rege.” Another point which is worth notice is that the

period of the crusade at which Robert is brought in exactly agrees

with the story of his doings in Scotland and Northumberland. A man who

had difficulties with Flambard after he became bishop in 1099 could

not have been with the first crusaders at Antioch and Jerusalem; he

might have been quite in time to help Baldwin at Rama.

* * * * *

It would be worth the while of some Hertfordshire antiquary to see

whether anything can be made out as to the descent of the lands held

by Godwine, or as to any descendants of him and Robert. But I saw a

little time back a newly published history of that county, which was

eloquent about the grandmothers of various obscure persons of our own

time, but which had not a word to say about the champion of Eadgar or

the comrade of Baldwin.

NOTE II. Vol. ii. p. 133.

THE EXPEDITION OF MAGNUS.

The expedition of Magnus, which, by leading him to the shores of

Anglesey, had a not unimportant bearing on English affairs, is not

spoken of at any great length by our own writers. The Chronicler does

not name the Norwegian king; but he does not fail to mention the death

of Earl Hugh of Shrewsbury, and, what was practically its most

important result, the succession of his brother Robert. His words are;

“And Hugo eorl wearð ofslagen innan Anglesege fram ut wikingan and his

broðer Rodbert wearð his yrfenuma, swa swa he hit æt þam cynge

ofeode.” Florence is fuller;

“Eo tempore rex Norreganorum Magnus, filius regis Olavi,

filii regis Haroldi Harvagri, Orcadas et Mevanias insulas

cum suo adjecisset imperio, paucis navibus advectus illuc

venit. At cum ad terram rates appellere vellet comes Hugo de

Scrobbesbyria, multis armatis militibus in ipsa maris ripa

illi occurrit, et, ut fertur, mox ab ipso rege sagitta

percussus … interiit.”

Florence, it will be seen, here makes the same confusion between the

names _Hardrada_ and _Harfagra_ which he made in 1066, and which so

many others made beside him. To the account in William of Malmesbury,

iv. 329, I have referred in p. 134. He alone it is who mentions the

presence of the younger Harold in the fleet of Magnus. His words,

which I quoted in p. 124, seem to come from the same source as the

account in Florence; but he gives the story a different turn by

distinctly making Magnus design an attack on England;

“Jam Angliam per Anglesiam obstinatus petebat; sed

occurrerunt ei comites, Hugo Cestrensis et Hugo

Scrobesbiriensis; et antequam continentem ingrederetur,

armis eum expulerunt. Cecidit ibi Hugo Scrobesbiriensis,

eminus ferreo hastili perfossus.”

Henry of Huntingdon would seem to translate the Chronicle; but he

makes a confusion as to the persons by whom Earl Hugh was slain; “Hugo

consul Salopscyre occisus est ab Hibernensibus. Cui successit Robertus

de Belem frater ejus.”

If we could suppose that the Archdeacon of Huntingdon had paid so much

attention to British affairs, we might fancy that he confounded the

fleet of Magnus with the wikings from Ireland whom Cadwgan and

Gruffydd hired a little time before. See p. 128.

The Welsh writers naturally tell the tale as part of their own

history. The Earls have come into Anglesey; then comes Magnus. There

are two different accounts in two manuscripts of the Annales Cambriæ;

that which the editor follows in the text runs thus;

“Francis in insula morantibus, Magnus rex Germaniæ cum

exercitu venit in insulam volens. Sed ei nolenti Franci ei

occurrentes se invicem sagittis salutaverunt, hi de terra,

illi de mari, alter comes sagitta in facie percussus

occubuit. Quo facto, Magnus abivit.”

The other manuscript reads;

“Francis in insula morantibus, Magnus rex Germaniæ ad

insulam Mon venit et prœlium cum consulibus commisit; sed

alter consulum vulneratus in facie cecidit; alter vero cum

majoribus insulam dereliquit. Postea vero Magnus rex insulam

Mon repente reliquit.”

The Brut says;

“The French entered the island, and killed some of the men

of the island. And whilst they tarried there, Magnus, King

of Germany, came, accompanied by some of his ships, as far

as Mona, hoping to be enabled to take possession of the

countries of the Britons. And when King Magnus had heard of

the frequent designs of the French to devastate the whole

country, and to reduce it to nothing, he hastened to attack

them. And as they were mutually shooting, the one party from

the sea, and the other party from the land, Earl Hugh was

wounded in the face, by the hand of the King himself. And

then King Magnus, with sudden determination, left the

borders of the country.”

It will be seen that both versions of the Annals call Magnus “rex

Germaniæ.” In the text of the Brut he is “Magnus brenhin Germania.”

Another manuscript, worse informed as to his name, better informed as

to his kingdom, calls him “Maurus brenhin Norwei.” This odd

description of a Norwegian king as king of Germany has been met with

before in the Brut, 1056; but it is not found in the Annals for that

year. But it must have been by a kindred flight that the annalist in

1066 called Harold Hardrada “rex Gothorum.”

* * * * *

Our fuller accounts of the course of Magnus come from Orderic, from

the Manx Chronicle, and from the Saga of Magnus Barefoot (Johnstone,

231; Laing, iii. 129). Orderic, as we have seen, looks upon the

expedition as being directly designed against Ireland. The Norwegian

writer mentions Ireland only quite incidentally. Magnus plunders in

Ireland, as everywhere else, on his way to Man, but the object of the

expedition is clearly marked as being Man and the other islands which

were so closely connected with it, a connexion which is also most

strongly set forth in the pompous words of Orderic (767 D). We can

have little doubt in accepting the Manx writer’s version of the

history of his own island, rather than that of the Norwegian writer,

to whom the internal affairs of the island were of no great interest,

or the wild statement of Orderic (see p. 141) that Man was at this

moment a desert island. On the other hand, the Saga is the best

authority for the actual voyage of Magnus, though it is the Manx

writer who preserves the fact or legend of the irreverent dealings of

Magnus towards his sainted kinsman. As to what happened in Anglesey, I

have already quoted the accounts of the English and Welsh writers, and

the Manx chronicler does not go into any greater detail;

“Ad Moiniam insulam Walliæ navigavit, et duos Hugones

comites invenit in ea; unum occidit, alterum fugavit, et

insulam sibi subjugavit. Wallenses vero multa munera ei

præbuerunt, et valedicens eis ad Manniam remeavit.”

The detailed accounts of the death of Earl Hugh come from the Saga and

from Orderic. Orderic, it must be remembered, is writing on a subject

of special interest to him, on account of his close connexion from

childhood with the house of Montgomery. On the other hand, as we have

seen (see p. 143), he does not well understand the geography, and

seems to fancy that Dwyganwy was in Anglesey. But it will be at once

seen that he conceives the death of Earl Hugh in a quite different way

from the author of the Saga. In Orderic’s story, though there is a

great deal of preparation for fighting, there is no actual fighting at

all, except the one shot sent from the bow of the Norwegian King. His

version stands thus;

“Quadam vero die, dum supra littus indigenæ turbati

discurrerent, seque contra Nordicos, quos in navibus suis

sævire contra Anglos videbant, præpararent, Hugo comes,

equum calcaribus urgens, cœtus suos congregabat, et contra

hostes, ne sparsim divisi invaderentur, principali rigore

coercebat. Interea barbarus Nordwigena, ut comitem agiliter

equitantem prospexit, instigante diabolo stridulum missile

subito direxit, egregiumque comitem, proh dolor! percussit.

Qui protinus corruit, et in fluctibus maris jam æstuantis

exspiravit. Unde dolor ingens exortus est.”

This really seems hardly possible, and the Welsh account, as well as

the Norwegian, distinctly records fighting and shooting of arrows on

both sides. The Saga gives us the details, both in prose and verse.

The shooting of the King and the other archer is described in prose as

I have told it in p. 144, and both the death of Earl Hugh and the

general picture of the battle are given in vigorous verse from the

minstrelsy of Biorn Cripplehand (Biörn inn Krepphendi). Besides the

verses which Laing translates, the Saga gives others from another

poet, Gisl, who vigorously describes the fight between the King and

those whom he calls the _Welsh_ Earls (Valsea Jarla), meaning

doubtless rather Gal-Welsh than Bret-Welsh;

“Margan hŏfdo

Magnuss lidar

Biortom oddi

Baugvang skotit.

Vard hortoga

Hlif at springa

Kapps vel skiput

Fyrer konongs darri.

Bodkenner skaut

Badom hŏndum

Allr va hilmis

Herr prudliga

Stucku af almi

Þeims iŏfr sueigdi

Hvitmylingar

Adr Hugi felli.”

The relations between Magnus and the Irish King Murtagh are very

puzzling. Orderic must have made some mistake when he attributes the

expedition of Magnus to a dispute with an Irish king whose daughter he

marries and sends back again (767 C, D). This must surely be a

confusion between Magnus himself and his son Sigurd, who, according to

the Saga, did marry the Irish king’s daughter. But it is possible that

Orderic’s story about the Irish princess being sent back again,

because her father did not fulfil the marriage contract, may be true

of Sigurd, though not of his father. We should thus better understand

the transactions which go on a little later about the marriage of a

daughter of Murtagh, seemingly the same, to Arnulf son of Earl Roger

(see p. 442). The Manx writer has nothing to say about these

marriages, but he fills up the space between this expedition of Magnus

and that in which he fell with some very strange dealings between

Magnus and Murtagh. Magnus sends his shoes to the Irish king, bidding

him bear them on his shoulders in public as a sign of subjection to

their owner (“Murecardo regi Yberniæ misit calceamenta sua, præcipiens

ei ut ea super humeros suos in die natalis Domini per medium domus suæ

portaret in conspectu nunciorum ejus, quatinus intelligeret se

subjectum esse Magno regi”). The Irish are naturally angry; but their

king takes matters more quietly. He would willingly not only carry the

shoes but eat them, sooner than a single province of Ireland should be

laid waste. So he did as he was bid (“rex, saniori consilio usus, non

solum, inquit, calceamenta ejus portare, verum etiam manducare mallem,

quam Magnus rex unam provinciam in Ybernia destrueret. Itaque

complevit præceptum et nuncios honoravit”). The Irish writers of

course know nothing about the shoes; but the Chronicon Scotorum

records a year’s peace made in 1098 between Murtagh and Magnus

(“Magnus ri Lochlainne”). The Manx chronicler also goes on to say that

a treaty followed the ceremony of the shoes, but that the ambassadors

of Magnus gave such a report of the charms of Ireland, that he

determined to invade it again in breach of the treaty.

This brings us to the date of the last expedition of Magnus. The

Chronicon Scotorum records the death of Magnus (“Magnus ri Lochlainne

ocus na Ninnsit”) in 1099 in an attack on Ulster. But this date must

be too early. The Norwegian account places the second expedition of

Magnus nine years after his accession in Norway (Laing, iii. 143,

Johnstone, 239). This would fix its date to 1102. This is the date

commonly given, with 1103, as the year of his death. The Manx writer

places the death of Magnus six years after his first expedition

(“regnavit in regno insularum sex annis,” p. 7), which would put his

death in 1104. But he gives 1102 as the date of his successor in the

island kingdom, Olaf the son of Godred Crouan (see p. 137). He was, it

seems, at the English court; “Quo [Magno] mortuo, miserunt principes

insularum propter Olavum filium Godredi Crouan, de quo superius

mentionem fecimus, qui tunc temporis degebat in curia Henrici regis

Angliæ filii Willelmi, et adduxerunt eum.”

The date of 1102 exactly falls in with the account of the attempt of

Robert of Bellême to obtain help from Magnus in that year (see p.

442). For this I have followed the account in the Brut (1100; that is

1102). But it would seem that the Welsh writer was mistaken in saying

that Magnus “sent over to Ireland, and demanded the daughter of

Murchath for his son; for that person was the chiefest of the

Gwyddelians; which he joyfully obtained; and he set up that son to be

king in the Isle of Man.” His death is recorded in the next year, 1101

(1103), when “Magnus King of Germany” (“Vagnus vrenhin Germania”) is

made to invade Britain and be killed by the Britons, who are said to

have come “from the mouths of the caves in multitudes like ants in

pursuit of their spoils.” Another manuscript for “Prydein” reads

“Llẏchljẏn,” that is Denmark, which does not make matters much better.

The followers of Magnus are called in the one manuscript “Albanians”

(“yr Albanóyr”), meaning doubtless Scots; in the other manuscript they

are men of Denmark (“gwyr Denmarc”). The Annales Cambriæ do not

mention the dealings between Robert of Bellême and Magnus; but there

is an entry under 1103; “Magnus rex apud Dulin [Dublin?] occiditur.”

The death of Magnus in his second Irish expedition is told with great

detail in the Saga (Johnstone, 239-244; Laing, iii. 143-147). Orderic

also tells the story in p. 812. The Irish, according to this account,

call in Arnulf of Montgomery to their help; but, when Magnus is

killed, the Irish try to kill Arnulf and his Norman companions.

Murtagh now takes away his daughter from Arnulf, and marries her,

according to the irregular fashion of the country, to a kinsman

(“ipsam petulantem cuidam consobrino suo illicite conjunxit”). But

twenty years later, Arnulf, by that time an old man, is reconciled to

Murtagh, marries his daughter, and dies the next day. This carries us

beyond the range of my story, and I must leave Irish, Norwegian, and

Norman enquirers to see to it. It concerns me more that it is now that

Orderic mentions the great treasure which Magnus had left with a rich

citizen of Lincoln. (See p. 134.) The Lincoln man seems to have

thought that the death of the Norwegian king gave his banker a right

to his money; but King Henry thought otherwise, and took the twenty

thousand pounds to his own hoard.

NOTE KK. Vol. ii. pp. 196, 199, 211.

THE RELATIONS BETWEEN HILDEBERT AND HELIAS.

There is a remarkable difference of tone between Orderic and the

Biographer of the Bishops of Le Mans in their way of speaking of

Helias. That the Count should be blamed for making Bishop Howel a

prisoner (see p. 198) is in no way wonderful; the thing to be noticed

is the way in which he several times speaks of Helias during the

episcopate of Hildebert; still more remarkable is the way in which

Hildebert speaks himself. Orderic always puts the acts of Helias in

the best light; the Biographer, during certain parts of his story at

least, seems well-pleased to throw in any little insinuation against

him. Perhaps the strangest case of all is the way in which he leaves

out all mention of the double appointment to the see of Le Mans on the

death of Howel (see p. 211), and of the action of Helias in that

matter. One would have thought that, even from an ecclesiastical point

of view, the story told more for Helias than against him. He put forth

a claim which any other prince of his time would have equally put

forward; he withdrew it in a way in which very few princes of his time

would have withdrawn it. But the Biographer (see p. 297) lets us into

the fact that there had been an opposition to Hildebert’s election in

the Chapter itself. Could his enemies have been special partisans of

Helias, and supporters of his candidate? If so, it is rather strange,

though quite possible, that they should have been the accusers of

Hildebert to Rufus, when the charge brought against him was that of

being a confederate with Helias.

The Biographer is quite loyal to Helias during the campaign of 1098.

He brings out prominently (see p. 213, note) the cause of the war,

namely the election of Hildebert by the Chapter and his acceptance by

the Count, without any regard to the alleged claims of the Norman

Dukes. Helias was in fact fighting on behalf of Hildebert. When Helias

is taken prisoner, he raises a wail――“proh dolor” (see above, p.

223)――which almost reminds us of Florence’s wail over the death-wound

of Harold. He brings out strongly the Red King’s wrath against

Hildebert, as shown in his ravages at Coulaines (see p. 234). He

brings out also, what Orderic does not mention, the friendly relations

between Hildebert and Helias which are shown in the negotiations which

led to the Count’s release (see p. 238). We may perhaps infer that,

during this stage, the friendship between the Count and the Bishop

remained unbroken, and that the Biographer remains the Count’s friend

so long as the Bishop does.

During the campaign of 1099 the Biographer’s tone becomes quite

different. He has not a word to say about the zeal of the citizens of

Le Mans on behalf of Helias, which comes out so strongly in Orderic,

and after him in Wace (see p. 279). He rather implies that they fought

against him. The enemies who meet him at Pontlieue are “milites regis

_cum populo_” (see p. 278, note 2). It is quite possible that, as the

Normans had military possession of the city, its levies may have been

made, even against their will, to take their place in the Norman

ranks, and the presence of such unwilling allies may have very likely

helped to bring about the Norman defeat. Still the insertion of the

words without any comment or qualification gives the Biographer’s

story a different turn from that of Orderic. Yet the Biographer

himself after all allows that Helias entered Le Mans with the

good-will of the citizens, when he allows (see p. 297) the accusers of

Hildebert to say “quando Helias comes _consentientibus civibus_

civitatem occupavit.” He next leaves out the fact recorded by Orderic

(see p. 297) that, before William Rufus had crossed the frontier,

Hildebert met him and was received to his peace, on affirming that he

had no share in the enterprise of Helias. There is nothing wonderful

in this. It is a case which often happens. The original cause of a war

is forgotten, and the fault of the original enemy is forgiven, when a

new enemy has given fresh offence. William was so wroth at Helias for

seizing Le Mans, that he forgot any quarrels of earlier date. If

Hildebert was clear on that score, William could pass by all that had

gone before. He was therefore at this moment ready to forgive

Hildebert in his wrath against Helias. But the old enemies of

Hildebert in the Chapter were ready, for the sake of the old grudge,

to turn against Helias. The chances are that Hildebert had nothing to

do with the return of Helias, but that the towers of the cathedral

were turned by Helias to military uses. Hildebert most likely

deemed――and, as events proved, more wisely than either the Count or

the citizens――that the enterprise of Helias was rash, and therefore

unjustifiable. This would turn him, at least for the time, into an

enemy of Helias, if not into a partisan of Rufus. The Biographer takes

up this tone. It may be with a little feeling of spite that he records

(see p. 281) the way in which the loyalty of the citizens towards the

Count not unnaturally cooled after the fire. There is certainly such a

feeling in the passage (see p. 287) where he speaks of Helias as

flying, “saluti suæ consulens,” while Orderic rather describes him as

swept away in a general flight. But this tone lasts only through the

year 1099. When Helias comes back in 1100, all seems to be made up

again; we now hear (Vet. An. 309, 311) of the “liberalitas” of the

“liberalis comes;” the Normans are “hostes” and Helias brings back

peace. That is to say, as the story shows, the Count and the Bishop

were again reconciled, and the Biographer follows the lead of the

Bishop.

But we need not wonder at the tone of the Biographer, if we know the

tone of the Bishop himself. In a letter printed in Duchèsne’s French

collection, iv. 247, Hildebert speaks of a space of three years,

“peractum triennium,” within which time Le Mans has had six counts,

all of them enemies to peace (“tam modico tempore sex in urbe

sustinuimus consules, quorum nullus pacificum prætendens ingressum,

gladiis et igne curtam sibi vendicavit potestatem.” It is certainly

very hard to reckon up six counts in three years, seemingly the years

1096-1099. In twelve years (1087-1099) not more than five

counts――William the Great, Robert, Hugh, Helias, William Rufus――can be

made out, unless Helias, with his two reigns, is reckoned twice over.

Hildebert then goes on;

“Plebe coacta in favorem, tyrannum suscepit ex necessitate,

non ducem ex lege: in susceptum studia simulavit, non

exhibuit. Fidem reperit in ea, quia superior. Consul vero

tanto gravius dominatus est quanto brevius. Miles ejus

simulatis usus injuriis, eos scelerum judicavit expertes

quos rerum. Et quia non parcit populis regnum breve, finem

rapinis inopia posuit, non voluntas.”

This certainly reads most like a description of the reign of Hugh; but

in what follows we surely see the events of 1098 and 1099;

“Ea clades usque ad sanctuarium Domini pervagata est, et

primo _quidquid extra muros nostræ fuerat potestatis_, vel

evanuit in favillas vel dissipatum est in rapinam. Deinde

similibus cecidere præjudiciis episcopales domus et ecclesiæ

non paucæ. In reliquis quibus ignis pepercit æque

periclitata est et facultas pauperum et reverentia

sacerdotum. Omnia confracta sunt, omnia direpta, omnia

contaminata. Nihil eorum manus evasit qui gratis ad

flagitium discurrunt, ad honestum nec pretio.”

To what does all this refer? It reads most like a description of the

Red King’s harryings at Coulaines in 1098 (see p. 234); but no one is

mentioned, whereas the “Rex Anglicus” and his “tyrannis” are openly

spoken of further on in the letter. And it is strange, if in all this

there is no reference to the fire of 1099. Did Hildebert attribute the

fire to Helias, and does that account for any enmity towards him? Yet

the version of the Biographer as clearly makes the fire the work of

the Normans as the version of Orderic. Helias is not mentioned by

name, nor is any recorded act of his distinctly mentioned. The passage

is obscure, most likely purposely obscure. It might be so construed as

to attribute all mischief to Helias; it might be so construed as not

to lay any particular act to his charge. But in any case Helias would

at least come under the general condemnation which is pronounced upon

all the counts of Maine, be they six or fewer. No friend of Helias

could have so spoken; and it is plain that, when Bishop Hildebert

wrote the letter, he was――very naturally――not a little angry, if not

with Helias in particular, yet at least with a class of men among whom

Helias must be reckoned.

Of the rest of the letter I shall have to speak in another Note.

NOTE LL. Vol. ii. p. 238.

THE SURRENDER OF LE MANS TO WILLIAM RUFUS.

It is not very easy at first sight to reconcile our accounts of the

negotiations which led to the surrender of Le Mans in August 1098. Yet

there seems to be no direct contradiction of any moment. It seems not

impossible that the difference is merely one of those cases where one

writer gives prominence to some feature in the story which another

writer leaves out.

According to all accounts, Le Mans was at this time in the possession

of Fulk of Anjou. Orderic (see p. 237) makes him personally present in

the city; the Biographer of the Bishops does not say whether he was

there or not. But in any case the city had admitted his authority in

May and had not yet thrown it off. Fulk was therefore fully in a

position to negotiate with William, while Helias, who was a prisoner

in William’s hands, was not strictly in a position to negotiate with

anybody. Yet the Biographer makes no mention of Fulk as an actor or a

party to the treaty, but only as one of whose devices Helias was

afraid. In his version Bishop Hildebert and some of the chief men of

Le Mans first, by the King’s leave, visit the captive Count, and agree

on terms with him; then they draw up a treaty with the King according

to those terms. The tale runs thus (Vet. An. 306);

“Helias timens ne Fulco comes proscriptioni ejus intenderet,

manduvit ad se episcopum et quosdam ex primoribus civitatis

ex consensu regis, et cœpit agere cum eis, eosque

suppliciter deprecari, quatenus casibus illius condolentes,

modis omnibus niterentur, qualiter civitatem regi traderent,

ipsumque a vinculis liberarent. Timebat enim quod Fulco

comes, regis deceptus muneribus, cum eo pacem faceret, atque

civitate tradita perpetuo damnaretur exsilio. Episcopus

autem et qui cum eo venerant, ejus angustias miserantes, cum

rege de ejus liberatione locuti, cum eo tale pactum

fecerunt, ut si eorum consilio atque ingenio sibi civitas

traderetur, ipse Heliam comitem quietum et liberum abire

permitteret.”

He adds, hurrying matters a little; “Quod negotium industria præsulis

celerius quam sperabatur effectum, eodemque tempore et regi civitas et

consuli abeundi libertas reddita est.”

Orderic, on the other hand (772 D), has a version in which there is no

mention of any dealings with Helias, but which makes William and

Fulk――the latter, it would seem, under some pressure――agree on terms

substantially the same as those stated in the other account. His

version runs thus;

“Andegavenses autem cum Cenomannis consiliati sunt, et sese

Normannis in omnibus inferiores compererunt, unde colloquium

inter regem et consulem procuraverunt. Ibi tunc, auxiliante

Deo, necessaria pax inter eos facta est, et inde multis pro

pluribus causis utriusque populi gaudium ingens exortum est.

Requisitum est et concessum ut Helias comes et omnes qui

capti fuerant ex utraque parte redderentur, et Cenomannis et

_omnia castra quæ Guillelmus rex habuerat Rufo filio ejus

subjugarentur_.”

The joy of which Orderic speaks clearly did not extend to Angers. The

Chronicle of Saint Albinus (1098) puts things in quite another light;

“Quam [Cenomanniam urbem] tribus mensibus retentam, Cenomanensibus,

more suo, sibi fraudantibus et a se deficientibus, reddidit eam in

amicitia præfato regi Anglorum, qui ipsam urbem _magis pecunia quam

viribus impugnabat_ jamque pene possidebat.”

Here we have no mention of Helias or of any dealings with him, nothing

of any agreement between Fulk and William. The citizens of Le Mans

fall away from the Angevin Count and betray their city to the King.

And they fall away through the temptation which the Red King knew well

how to bring to bear upon his other enemies, but of which there is no

recorded instance in the whole history of the war of Maine. See p.

290.

The tone and effect of these stories is very different, and yet they

seem quite capable of being put together. It is simply that each

writer enlarges on the persons and things which he cares most about.

The Biographer of the Bishops of course enlarges on the part taken by

Hildebert; next to Hildebert, he has to tell of Helias. A mission of

Hildebert to Helias was a thing which he could not leave out; the fact

that the terms were settled between his own Bishop and his own Count

was more interesting to him than the fact that those terms were put in

the form of a formal treaty between two foreign princes. He cannot

leave out the Norman king, but he can and does leave out the Angevin

count. He speaks of a treaty between William and Fulk as a thing which

was likely to happen; he leaves out the fact that it actually did

happen. The Angevin Chronicler is angry at the loss of Le Mans, and is

glad to speak of its loss as due altogether to Cenomannian treason or

fickleness. Orderic alone, who is, more strictly than either of the

others, telling the history of the campaign, and who is less

influenced by local passion one way or another, brings out the

diplomatic fact that the treaty was formally agreed to in a meeting

between King William and Count Fulk. It must have taken the shape of

an agreement of some kind between them, unless Fulk and his troops had

been driven out of Le Mans by force. But this in no way shuts out the

possibility of the dealings between Hildebert and Helias which are

described by the Biographer. The state of things would seem to be

this. The people of Le Mans, tired of Fulk, unable to have Helias,

think that the best thing is to submit to William, but on terms which

will secure at least the personal freedom of their native prince.

Hildebert and his companions are allowed by William to confer with

Helias. The results of the conference are put into the shape of a

treaty between William and Fulk. Fulk is in no condition to resist

William and the Cenomannian people together; he therefore accepts the

treaty, doubtless against his will. Thus the accounts of Orderic and

the Biographer seem simply to fill up gaps in one another. The Angevin

chronicler simply gives a short and snarling summary of the actual

result.

NOTE MM. Vol. ii. p. 239.

THE FORTRESSES OF LE MANS.

A great deal about the walls and the castle of Le Mans, as well as

about several other points in the county of Maine, will be found in M.

Hucher’s book, _Études sur l’Histoire et les Monuments du Département

de la Sarthe_ (Le Mans and Paris, 1856). M. Hucher however hardly

carries his researches beyond the city itself; so that, while his

remarks and the documents which he quotes tell us much about the

“regia turris,” the castle close to the cathedral, he has but little

to tell us about the fortress of Mont-Barbé, which is for our purpose

of at least equal interest.

I have quoted elsewhere (N. C. iii. 207) some of the passages which

record the building of at least two castles by the Conqueror, the

royal tower and that of Mont-Barbé. In the extract from William of

Jumièges for “_p_onte Barbato” we must read “_m_onte.” Benoît, oddly

enough, knew the name of Mont-Barbé, but did not know that of the

royal tower (35735);

“Por ce i ferma deus chasteaus

Hauz, defensables, forz e beaus;

Li uns en out non Monbarbé:

Mais que issi fu apelé

Ne sai retraire ne ne truis.”

Wace, on the other hand (15014), in his wild chronology of all

Cenomannian matters, makes William Rufus build this castle in

the expedition of 1099;

“Li Reis vint el Mans fièrement,

Son hostel prist vers Saint Vincent.

Por grever cels de la cité

Fist la mote devant Barbé.”

But this story, though utterly out of its place, may possibly preserve

a fact. The royal tower was undoubtedly built by the Conqueror after

he had taken Le Mans in 1063 in order to secure the possession of the

city. But Mont Barbé looks rather like one of the besieging castles

made in order to get possession. Nothing is now left but the mound.

William may conceivably have found this mound ready made. If not, his

building of 1063 must have been of wood, though it may very likely

have had a stone successor. The mound, not far from Saint Vincent’s

abbey, stands in a private garden, and the visitor to Le Mans, unless

he has local guidance, may very likely fail to find it. I missed it at

my first visit in 1868, which must be my excuse for the rather vague

language in the third volume of the Norman Conquest. I saw it for the

first time in 1876, through the kindness of M. Henri Chardon, and

again in 1879 with Mr. Parker and Mr. Fowler.

The question remains, Was there a Mons _Barbatulus_ as well as a Mons

_Barbatus_? The passages quoted from Orderic and William of Jumièges

(N. C. vol. iii. p. 207) seem to imply it; only the odd thing is that

the words of William of Jumièges seem to leave out the royal tower,

and to speak of _Barbatus_ and _Barbatulus_ only. And one might take

the words of Wace, “La mote _devant_ Barbé,” to mean _Barbatulus_

rather than _Barbatus_; only it would be hard to find another _mota_.

_Barbatulus_ is conjecturally, but with every likelihood, placed on

the site of the present Lyceum, between _Barbatus_ and the city.

The royal tower was built just outside the Roman wall, two of whose

bastions, known as _La Tour Margot_――after Margaret, the promised

bride of Robert?――and _La Tour du Cavalier_, were taken into its

precinct. All these must be distinguished from the palace of the

Counts (see N. C. vol. iii. p. 205) which stands on the Roman wall,

almost in a line with the east end of the cathedral. It contains a

window of the twelfth century, of great width, a feature

characteristic of Le Mans. In this palace was the _sainte chapelle_ of

the Counts.

NOTE NN. Vol. ii. p. 240.

THE DATES OF THE BUILDING OF LE MANS CATHEDRAL.

I have more than once, in the History of the Norman Conquest, had to

speak of the dates of the various parts of the church of Saint Julian

at Le Mans. The subject is so closely connected with so many names

which appear in our story that an inquiry of this kind can hardly be

thought out of place. My later visits to Le Mans have enabled me to

examine and consider several points again; and I am now inclined to

think that there is very little, if anything, standing in the present

church of an earlier date than William the Conqueror’s first taking of

Le Mans in 1063. I have got some help from a local book, called

“Recherches sur la Cathédrale du Mans. Par L’Abbé….” (Le Mans, 1872);

but its architectural criticism is not of a high order. Another local

book, “L’Ancien Chapitre Cathédral du Mans, par Armand Bellée,

Archiviste de la Sarthe” (Le Mans, 1875), is a very thorough piece of

capitular history, but it throws little light on the architecture.

The earliest church of which we have any certain account was a

basilica of the ninth century. Saint Aldric, bishop from 832 to 856,

rebuilt the cathedral church, of which he consecrated the eastern part

in 834 and the rest in 835. I have for these dates to trust the author

of the “Recherches sur la Cathédrale du Mans,” who quotes from a

manuscript life of Aldric in the library at Le Mans. (I have seen the

volume, and I could wish that it was in print.) The time allowed for

the building is wonderfully short; but Aldric, if he did all that is

attributed to him by the Biographer of the Bishops (Vet. An. 276),

must have been a man of wonderful energy. There is nothing said

directly of his works at Saint Julian’s; but they might almost be

taken for granted when we hear of the many churches which he built and

restored (“Ædificia quæ prædictus pontifex multipliciter a novo

operatus est, et ecclesias sive nonnulla monasteria quæ a novo

fundavit atque perficere et ornare studuit, necnon et restaurationes

aliorum monasteriorum et ceterarum ecclesiarum,” &c. &c. &c). In

the days of the next Bishop Robert (856-885) Le Mans was sacked by the

Northmen and the church burned. We are of course met by the usual

difficulty as to the amount of destruction which is implied in words

of this kind; but it naturally led to a restoration, and to a new

dedication, on which last point however it seems to have been thought

needful to consult the Pope (“Matrem ecclesiam, a paganis incensam,

diligenti studio renovavit, et ex consilio Romani antistitis jam denuo

celeberrime consecravit;” 287*). We hear again (296*) of a dedication

under Bishop Mainard (940-960); but not of any rebuilding, just as in

some of the intermediate episcopates (Vet. An. 288* et seqq.) we hear

a good deal about havoc and desecration, but nothing about actual

destruction. The church of Aldric, allowing for the restorations of

Robert and any later repairs, seems plainly to have stood till the

days of Vulgrin (1055-1067), the earliest Bishop of Le Mans who has

even an indirect share in the building of the present church. No work

of his, unless possibly the merest fragments, seems to be now

standing; but he was the beginner of a great work of rebuilding which

gave us what we now see.

In the Life of Vulgrin (Vet. An. 312*) we are simply told that in 1060

he began the foundations of a new church on a greater scale (“Quinto

ordinationis suæ anno fundamenta matris ecclesiæ ampliora quam

fuerant, inchoavit, sed morte inopina superveniente perficere non

potuit”). His foundations were badly laid and his work was unskilful;

so that, while attempts were making under his successor Arnold

(1067-1082) to prop it up, it fell down. Arnold accordingly destroyed

the whole work of Vulgrin, and began again from a new foundation. The

extent of his work is clearly marked. He finished the eastern limb, as

far as its walls and outer roof were concerned; its internal

adornments he left for his successor. Of the transepts with their

towers he merely laid the foundations;

“Fabrica novæ ecclesiæ quam præsul Vulgrinus inchoaverat,

fundamentorum mobilitate atque lapidum debilitate corrupta,

innumera crepidine ruinam suam cœpit terribiliter minitari;

quam dum artifices fulcire conantur, repentino fragore

nocturno tempore collapsa est…. Inde … episcopus totam cœpti

operis fabricam usque ad ima fundamenta destruens, denuo

ipsam ecclesiam fundamento firmiori et solidiori lapide

construere cœpit, et parti superiori quæ vulgo cancellum

nominatur etiam tectum imposuit, membrorum quoque quæ cruces

vocantur atque turrium solidissima fundamenta antequam

moreretur instituens” (313*).

That he added only the outer roof is plain from what we read of his

successor Howel (Vet. An. 289). As Howel adorned the “cancellum” with

a pavement and stained glass windows, he also added a painted ceiling;

“Cancellum quod ejus antecessor construxerat pavimento

decoravit et cœlo, vitreas quoque per ipsum cancellum, per

quod cruces circum quoque laudabili sed sumptuosa nimium

artis varietate disponens.”

So again, p. 299;

“Cœpit … superiores partes ejusdem basilicæ diligenti

sollicitudine laborare, oratorium scilicet quod chorum

vocitant sedemque pontificalem, altaria congrua dimensione

disponere, pavimenta substernere, columnas ac laquearia

gratissima varietate depingere, parietes per circuitum

dealbare.”

Howel also finished the transepts and towers of which Arnold had

merely laid the foundations (Vet. An. 289);

“Fabricam novæ ecclesiæ … tanto studio aggressus est

consummare ut cruces atque turres, quarum antecessor ipsius

… jecerat fundamenta brevi tempore ad effectum perduxit.”

We see then what the work of Vulgrin and Arnold was. It touched the

eastern part only; Aldric’s nave was left alone. The original church

was a basilica, most likely with three apses, but without transepts.

The new design was to rebuild the eastern part on a greater scale with

transepts, transept towers (like Geneva and Exeter), and a choir

ending in an apse with a surrounding aisle and chapels――as is shown by

the mention of many altars. The arrangement was that of the two other

great churches of Le Mans, _La Couture_ and Saint Julian in the

Meadow, with the single exception of the towers, which do not appear

in either of those churches. Arnold built the choir, and began the

transepts and towers; Howel adorned the choir and finished the

transepts and towers. There is nothing to imply that either of them

touched the nave. The arcades of Aldric’s basilica were therefore

still standing when William the Great came in 1063 and again in 1073.

The work of Vulgrin in the eastern part was doubtless going on at the

earlier of those two dates, and that of Arnold at the later.

It must be plain to every one who has seen the building that the work

of these bishops in the eastern part of the church has given way to

the later choir and transepts. The choir was built between 1218 and

1254, and its great extension to the east involved, as at Lincoln, the

destruction of part of the Roman wall. The transepts were built at

several times from 1303 to 1424. They are among the very noblest works

of the architecture of those centuries; but we may be allowed to

rejoice that, as the works of Vulgrin and Arnold left Aldric’s nave

standing, so the great works of the thirteenth century and later have

left the nave which succeeded that of Aldric. With all its artistic

loveliness, the work of the later day cannot share the historic

interest of the works of the times of William and Howel, of Helias and

Hildebert.

In the present nave it is plain at the first glance that there are two

dates of Romanesque; a further examination may perhaps lead to the

belief that there are more than two. It is easy to see outside that

the aisles and the clerestory are of different dates. The masonry of

the aisles is of that Roman type which, in places like Le Mans, where

Roman models were abundant, remained in use far into the middle ages,

and which in some places can hardly be said to have ever gone out of

use at all. The masonry of the clerestory is ashlar. The difference is

equally clear between the plain single windows of the aisles and the

highly finished coupled windows of the clerestory. Inside, the eye

soon sees that the design has undergone a singular change. Without the

pulling down of any part, the church put on a new character. Columns

supporting round arches after the manner of a basilica were changed

into a series of alternate columns and square piers supporting

obtusely pointed arches. Each pair of arches therefore forms a

couplet, and answers to a single bay of the pointed vaulting and a

single pair of windows in the clerestory. The object clearly was to

give the building as nearly the air of an Angevin nave, like that of

La Couture (see N. C. vol. v. p. 619), as could be given where there

were real piers and arches. Now this reconstruction, one which brings

in the pointed arch, cannot possibly be earlier than the episcopate of

William of Passavant, Bishop from 1143 to 1187. He was a great

builder; he translated the body of Saint Julian (Vet. An. 366); he

celebrated a dedication of the church (Ib. 370), which my local book

fixes, seemingly from manuscripts, to 1158, a date a little early

perhaps for such advanced work, but not impossible. To William of

Passavant then we must attribute the recasting of the nave, and

whatever else seems to be of the same date. To this last head belongs

the great south porch, and, I should be inclined to add, the lower

part of the southern, the only remaining, tower, though some assign it

to Hildebert. The question now comes, What was the nave which William

of Passavant recast in this fashion, and whose work was it?

We have seen that we cannot attribute any work in the nave to any

prelate earlier than Howel. He must have found the nave of the ninth

century still standing. Did he do anything in that part of the church?

He performed a ceremony of dedication in 1093 (Vet. An. 300); but that

would be fully accounted for by his works in the eastern part. On the

other hand, Hildebert celebrated in 1120 (Vet. An. 320) a specially

solemn dedication, and the words used seem to imply that the church

was now complete in all its parts. The words of Orderic (531 D) seem

express. Howel began to build the church (“episcopalem basilicam …

condere cœpit”); Hildebert finished it (“basilicam episcopii quam

prædecessor ejus inchoaverat, consummavit, et cum ingenti populorum

tripudio veneranter dedicavit”). It is doubtless not strictly true

that Howel began the church, words which shut out the work of Vulgrin

and Arnold; but the time when Orderic wrote makes him a better

authority for Hildebert’s finishing than for Howel’s beginning, and

the expression might easily be used if Howel began that particular

work, namely the nave, which Hildebert finished. I do not think that

we need infer from certain expressions of the Biographer that

Hildebert left the nave, or any essential part of the building,

unfinished. He says indeed (Vet. An. 320);

“Hildebertus opus ecclesiæ, quod per longa tempora

protractum fuerat, suo tempore insistens consummare,

dedicationem ultra quam res exposcebat accelerans, multa

inibi necessaria inexpleta præteriit.”

Comparing this with the words of Orderic, this surely need not mean

more than that, though the fabric was perfect, yet much of the

ornamental work was left unfinished. Hildebert, in short, left the

nave much as Arnold left the choir. At least the nave was in this case

when he dedicated the church. For he had time after the dedication to

make good anything that was imperfect.

We should then infer from Orderic that the nave which William of

Passavant recast was begun by Howel and finished by Hildebert. This

may give us the key to a passage in the Biographer on which we might

otherwise be inclined to put another meaning. After describing Howel’s

building of the transepts in the words quoted above in p. 635, he goes

on (289);

“Eisque [crucibus] celeriter culmen imponens, exteriores

etiam parietes, quos alas vocant, per circuitum

consummavit.”

One might have been tempted to take this of transept aisles; but,

weighing one thing with another, it seems to be best understood as

meaning that Howel rebuilt the whole of the outer walls of the nave

and its aisles. This would give to him the whole extent of the

_quasi_-Roman work of the aisles, together with the great western

doorway. The interior work of the aisles seems also to agree with his

date. We must therefore suppose that Howel rebuilt the nave aisles

only, still leaving the arches of Aldric’s basilica. Then Hildebert

rebuilt or thoroughly restored the nave itself, with the columns and

arches and whatever they carried in the way of triforium and

clerestory. We may therefore suppose that the existing columns, as

distinguished from the square piers, are his work, though the splendid

capitals of many of them must have been added or carved out of the

block in the recasting by William of Passavant.

There is however one fragment of the nave arcades which is older than

Hildebert, very likely older than Howel. This is to be seen in the

first pier from the east. I need not say that the eastern bay of a

nave often belongs to an older work than the rest, being in truth part

of the eastern limb continued so far――perhaps for constructive

reasons, to act as a buttress――perhaps for ritual reasons, to mark the

ritual choir――very often for both reasons combined. One of the best

examples is that small part of the nave of Durham abbey which belongs

to the work of William of Saint-Calais (see N. C. vol. v. p. 631). At

this point then in the nave of Le Mans, we find half columns with

capitals and bases of a strangely rude kind, more like Primitive

Romanesque (see N. C. vol. v. pp. 613, 618, 628) than anything either

Norman or Angevin. These are assuredly not the work of Hildebert.

There is one argument for assigning them to Howel, namely that

something of the same kind is to be found in the remains of the

northern tower of which I shall speak in another Note (see below, Note

RR). But if any one holds them to be the work of Arnold or of Vulgrin,

or even looks on them as a surviving fragment of the basilica of the

days of Lewis the Pious, I shall not dispute against him.

I must add however that, between Hildebert and William of Passavant,

we have, according to the use of Le Mans, to account for two

fires――“solita civitatis incendia,” as the Biographer (Vet. An. 349)

calls them――and their consequences. In 1134 there was a fire which,

according to the Biographer (350), was more fearful than any which had

ever happened at Le Mans since the city was built, not even excepting

the great one of 1098. Everything perished. “Tota Cenomannensis

civitas cum omnibus ecclesiis quæ intra muros continebantur, evanuit

in favillas.” We read of the “matris ecclesiæ destructio” and

“combustio,” all the more lamentable because of its beauty――“ipsa enim

tam venustate sui quam claritate tunc temporis vicinis et remotis

excellebat ecclesiis.” So Orderic (899 B); “Tunc Cenomannis

episcopalis basilica, quæ pulcherrima erat, concremata est.” The then

Bishop, Guy of Étampes (1126-1136), spent two hundred pounds in trying

to repair the damage; “Ad cujus restaurationem cc. libras

Cenomannenses dedit, sine mora contulit, et omnibus modis desudavit

quomodo ipsa ad perpetuitatem decenter potuisset restaurari.” Under

the next Bishop, Hugh of Saint-Calais (1146-1153), there was another

fire, the account of which is very curious (Vet. An. 349);

“Ignis circa meridiem a vico sancti Vincentii prosiliens,

sibi opposita usque ad muros civitatis et domos episcopales,

tegmenque sacelli beati Juliani adhuc stramineum, cum

fenestris vitreis concremavit et macerias, et in summis

imagines sculptas lapidibus deturbavit.”

The people break open the shrine of Saint Julian in order to save his

body, which they carry to the place where the Bishop was. The Bishop

seems to have repaired the episcopal buildings before he touched the

church, and the details have some interest in the history of domestic

architecture (“domum petrinam ex parte sancti Audoëni positam, decenti

solariorum interpositu numerosas fenestras habentium cum sua camera

continuavit”). Presently we read;

“Beatissimum patrem nostrum Julianum ipso die a lignea

basilica in occidentali membro ecclesiæ intra macerias

facta, post incendium in qua fere triennio requieverat, in

redivivam sollenniter, clero cantibus insultante, populo

congaudente, transtulerunt ecclesiam.”

We do not hear of any more building, but there is a long list (Vet.

An. 354) of the ornaments which Bishop Hugh gave to the Church.

Some of the expressions used in these passages are very odd. “Sacellum

beati Juliani” is a strange phrase for the cathedral church, and yet

the thatched roof and the glass windows must be spoken of a building

and not of a mere shrine. It is Saint Julian’s church itself whose

roof and windows are spoken of. But the phrase “lignea basilica,”

which makes one think of Glastonbury, must not lead us to think that

any wooden church of early days was then standing at Le Mans. The

whole story seems quite intelligible, without supposing any really

architectural work between Hildebert and William of Passavant. The

language of the Biographer in describing the fire of 1134 is, as so

often happens, very much exaggerated. His own account shows that the

walls of the church were left standing. It looks on the whole as if

the roof was destroyed in 1134. It was hastily repaired with thatch.

It was burned again, and the clerestory (“fenestræ vitreæ”) with it,

at the next fire in 1146-1153. The whole church perhaps remained for a

while unfit for divine service. Then some wooden structure (“lignea

basilica”) was raised within the walls of the nave (“in occidentali

membro ecclesiæ intra macerias facta”). Meanwhile Bishop Hugh repaired

the choir (“rediviva ecclesia”), seemingly doing nothing to the nave.

Bishop William, finding things in this state, rebuilt the clerestory

and vaulted it Angevin fashion. So to do required that every alternate

column of the nave should be built up into a square pier. This again

required a change in the line of the arches, and, according to the

fashion just coming in, they were made obtusely pointed. If any one

thinks that the superb foliage of the nave capitals must be later than

1158, he may hold that they were cut out afterwards, or he may even

hold that Bishop William’s dedication in that year belongs only to the

eastern parts――where something was clearly done in his time or

thereabouts――and that the whole recasting of the nave came later in

his long episcopate.

* * * * *

I am not writing an architectural history of the church of Saint

Julian, and I have perhaps, as it is, gone more into detail than my

subject called for. I think that any one who has been at Le Mans will

forgive me. But there are many architectural points in this wonderful

church on which I have not entered. There is much also in the other

two minsters of Le Mans which throws much light on the work at Saint

Julian’s. I have merely tried in a general way to assign to their most

probable dates and founders the different parts of a church which so

often meets us in our present history.

NOTE OO. Vol. ii. p. 242.

THE INTERVIEW BETWEEN WILLIAM RUFUS AND HELIAS.

We have two chief accounts of this remarkable interview, one in

Orderic, 773 B, the other in William of Malmesbury, iv. 320. As with

some of the other anecdotes of William Rufus, Orderic tells the story

in its place as part of his regular narrative, while William of

Malmesbury brings it in, along with the story of his crossing to

Touques, as a mere anecdote, to illustrate the King’s “præclara

magnanimitas.” And he tells the tale very distinctly out of its place,

for he puts it after the voyage to Touques, that is in the campaign of

1099, whereas it is clear that it happened during the campaign of

1098. One’s feelings are a little shocked when he speaks of “auctor

turbarum, Helias _quidam_,” which reminds one of the meeting between

the Count’s earlier namesake and another tyrant (“venit Achab in

occursum Eliæ. Et cum vidisset eum, ait; Tune es ille, qui conturbas

Israël?” 3 Regg. xviii. 16). To be sure he does afterwards speak of

the “alta nobilitas” of the Count of Maine.

There is a good deal of difference in the details of the dialogue in

the two accounts. That in William of Malmesbury is much shorter, and

consists wholly of an exchange of short and sharp sayings between the

speakers, which are certainly very characteristic of William Rufus.

There is nothing in this version of the offer of Helias to enter the

King’s service, or of the counsel given by Robert of Meulan. In

Orderic’s version Helias speaks first, with the offer of service,

beginning “Rex inclute, mihi, quæso, subveni pro tua insigni

strenuitate;” and we read, “Liberalis rex hoc facile annuere decrevit,

sed Rodbertus Mellenticus comes pro felle livoris dissuasit.” Then,

after speeches on both sides which are not given, comes the defiance

of Helias, in these words;

“Libenter, domine rex, tibi servirem, si tibi placeret,

gratiamque apud te invenirem. Amodo mihi, quæso, noli

derogare, si aliud conabor perpetrare. Patienter ferre

nequeo quod meam mihi ablatam hæreditatem perspicio. Ex

violentia prævalente omnis mihi denegatur rectitudo.

Quamobrem nemo miretur si calumniam fecero, si avitum

honorem totis nisibus repetiero.”

All this is represented in William of Malmesbury by two sentences;

“Cui [Heliæ] ante se adducto rex ludibundus, ‘Habeo te,

magister,’ dixit. At vero illius alta nobilitas quæ nesciret

in tanto etiam periculo humilia sapere, humilia loqui;

‘Fortuitu,’ inquit, ‘me cepisti; sed si possem evadere, novi

quid facerem.’”

This is very characteristic of Rufus; is it equally so of Helias?

Surely the two speeches given to him by Orderic――allowing for a little

improvement in the process of turning them into Latin――much better

suit his character and position. And we can hardly fancy that Helias’

offer to enter William’s service, the King’s inclination to accept it,

and the evil counsel given by Robert of Meulan――all likewise

thoroughly characteristic――are all mere invention.

The last speech of Rufus is much fuller in William of Malmesbury than

in Orderic. Orderic simply says, “Cui turgidus rex ait, ‘Vade, et age

quidquid mihi potes agere.’” In the other version this becomes;

“Tum Willelmus, præ furore extra se positus, et obuncans

Heliam, ‘Tu,’ inquit, ‘nebulo, tu, quid faceres? Discede,

abi, fuge; concedo tibi ut facias quidquid poteris; et, per

vultum de Luca, nihil, si me viceris, pro hac venia tecum

paciscar.’”

He adds, without any mention of a regular safe-conduct,

“Nec inferius factum verbo fuit, sed continuo dimisit

evadere, miratus potius quam insectatus fugientem.”

* * * * *

I have in the text followed the version of Orderic, venturing only to

add the eminently characteristic words with which William of

Malmesbury begins and ends. They in no way disturb the main dialogue

as given by Orderic. But I must add that William of Malmesbury warns

us against supposing that William Rufus, either in this speech or in

his speech on the voyage to Touques, knowingly quoted Lucan. His words

are curious;

“Quis talia de illiterato homine crederet? Et fortassis erit

aliquis qui, Lucanum legens, falso opinetur Willelmum hæc

exempla de Julio Cæsare mutuatum esse: sed non erat ei

tantum studii vel otii ut literas unquam audiret; immo calor

mentis ingenitus, et conscia virtus, eum talia exprimere

cogebant. Et profecto, si Christianitas nostra pateretur,

sicut olim anima Euforbii transisse dicta est in Pythagoram

Samium, ita possit dici quod anima Julii Cæsaris transierit

in regem Willelmum.”

That is to say, Cæsar and William Rufus, being the same kind of men,

uttered the same kind of words. The passage of Lucan referred to is

where Domitius (ii. 512) is brought before Cæsar at Corfinium;

“Vive, licet nolis, et nostro munere, dixit,

Cerne diem, victis jam spes bona partibus esto,

Exemplumque mei: vel, si libet, arma retenta,

Et nihil hac venia, si viceris ipse, paciscor.”

That William Rufus should quote Lucan, as his brother Henry could most

likely have done, was so very unlikely that William of Malmesbury need

hardly have warned us against such a belief. At the same time it does

not seem impossible that he might have heard of Cæsar without having

read Lucan. But we must remember that whatever William Rufus said was

said in French, and not in Latin. Without supposing either that Rufus

had read Lucan or that the soul of Cæsar had passed into his body, we

may believe that William of Malmesbury or his informant could not

resist the temptation of translating his speech into the words of a

really appropriate passage of a favourite author; then, when he had

done this, the singular apology which I have quoted might seem

needful.

* * * * *

It must be remembered that William of Malmesbury puts this story

altogether out of place. It is put yet further out of its place by

Wace (15106), who makes the capture of Helias follow the siege of

Mayet (see p. 289). His version brings in some new details. Helias,

having been taken prisoner, makes (15120) a boastful speech to his

keepers, swearing by the patron saint of his city that, if he had not

fallen by chance into an ambuscade, he would soon have driven the King

of England out of all his lands beyond the sea (15120);

“Mais or vos dirai une rien:

Par monseignor Saint-Julien,

Se jo ne fusse si tost pris,

Mult éust poi en cest païs.

El rei eusse fait tant guerre,

Ke dechà la mer d’Engleterre

Plein pié de terre n’en éust,

Ne tur ne chastel ki suen feust;

Maiz altrement est avenu,

Il a cunquis è jo perdu.”

When this is told to the King, he causes Helias to be brought before

him; he gives him a horse, and bids him mount and ride whither he

will; only he had better take care that he is not caught again, as he

will not be let out of prison a second time;

“Dunc le fist li reis amener,

E des buies le fist oster,

Son palefrei fist demander

E mult richement enseler;

El conte dit: Dans quens, muntez

Alez kel part ke vos volez,

Fetes al mielx ke vos porrez,

Maiz altre feiz mielx vos gardez;

Kar se jo vos prene altre feiz,

Jamez de ma prison n’iestreiz.

Ne voil mie ke vos kuideiz

Ke de guerre sorpris seiz,

Mais vos n’ireiz jà nule part,

Ke jo près dos ne vos gart.”

(vv. 15134-15147.)

In this version the horse is something new, though not at all out of

place, as Helias could not well get away without a horse, and he could

not have had any horse at his command at the moment. We may note also

that William is here made, whether seriously or in mockery, to give

Helias the title of Count, “Dans quens.” But the story has very much

come down from the level of either of the other versions. The boastful

speech to the keepers is not at all in the style of Helias, and it is

a poor substitute either for the dignified offer and defiance in

Orderic or for the lively dialogue in William of Malmesbury. This last

we should gladly have had in Wace’s version, as there would have been

some faint chance of recovering a scrap or two more of the original

French to match the “Dans quens,” which has a genuine ring on the one

hand, as the “magister” and the “nebulo” of William of Malmesbury have

on the other.

* * * * *

Geoffrey Gaimar too (Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, i. 37) has a version

in which Helias, when a prisoner, makes a boastful speech to the

effect that, if it had not been by an ambush, he would never have been

taken;

“Li quiens des Mans ert en prison,

Aüner voleit grant rançon;

Mès ceo diseit que, s’il séust

Qe l’om issi prendre le deust,

Tut autrement se contenist,

Li rois les Mans jà ne préist.”

He is brought before the King, to whom he says that he is much beloved

in his land, and that, if he were only able to assemble his men, no

king could subdue him in it. William lets him go to see what he can

do, and gives up to him Le Mans and all the castles of the country;

“Quant fut conté devant le roi,

Si le fist mener devant soi;

Par bel amur li ad demandé

S’il estoit issi vaunté

Cil respondit: ‘Sire, jo’l dis,

Mult sui amé en cest païs.

Il n’ad souz ciel si fort roi,

Si par force venist sus moi,

Qu’il ne perdist, si jeo le seusse,

Pur quei ma gent assemblé eusse.’

Li rois, quant l’ot, si prent à rire:

Par bel amur et nient par ire,

Li comanda q’il s’en alast,

Préist les Mans, s’il guerreiast.

Et cil fui lez, si s’en ala.

Touz ses chastels renduz li a

Li rois par bone volonté,

Rendit les Mans la forte cité.”

Helias calls on his barons to help him in war with the King; but they

decline, and advise him to give up the city and all the castles, and

to become the King’s man. He does so; otherwise the poet says that the

King would have thrown aside his friendship, and that he would have

taken the castles and put all concerned to a vile death;

“Et cil manda pur ses barons,

Moveir voloit les contençons,

Mès si baron li ont loé

Qu’il rende au roi la cité

Et les chasteus de son païs,

Son hom lige seit tuz dis.

Li quens Elyes issi fist,

Onc ses homes n’en contredist.

Et s’il issi ne l’éust fet

Mult fust entre els en amur plet;

Li rois par force les préist

Et de vile mort les occeist.”

I need hardly stop to show how utterly unhistorical all this is. But

the “bel amur,” the challenge, the release of the Count and the

surrender of the city and the castles, the general looking on war as a

kind of game, are all highly characteristic of the chivalrous King.

The last words indeed give us the other side of chivalry; but I

confess that they seem to me to be unfair to William Rufus, however

well they might suit Robert of Bellême. Geoffrey Gaimar lived to see

times when the doings of Robert of Bellême, exceptional in his own

day, had become the general rule.

NOTE PP. Vol. ii. p. 284.

THE VOYAGE OF WILLIAM RUFUS TO TOUQUES.

This story is told by a great many writers; but, as in the story of

the interview of William Rufus and Helias, our two main versions are

those of Orderic (775 A) and of William of Malmesbury (iv. 320). And,

as in the case of that story, with which William of Malmesbury couples

it, he tells it simply as an illustrative anecdote, while with Orderic

it is part of his regular narrative. And again William throws one of

the speeches into the form of a familiar classical quotation, and the

curious apology quoted in the last note is made to apply to this story

as well as to the other. At the same time there is no actual

contradiction between the two versions. The messenger――Amalchis

according to Orderic――reaches England and finds the King in the New

Forest. He thus (775 A) describes the delivery of the message; “Ille

mari transfretato Clarendonam venit, regi cum familiaribus suis in

Novam Forestam equitanti obviavit, et alacriter inquirenti rumores,

respondit, Cœnomannis per proditionem surrepta est. Verum dominus meus

Balaonem custodit, et regalis familia omnes munitiones sibi assignatas

sollerter observavit, auxiliumque regalis potentiæ vehementer

desiderat, in hostile robur quod eos undique includit et impugnat.”

William of Malmesbury (iv. 320) does not mention the place; “Venationi

in quadam silva intentum nuntius detinuit ex transmarinis partibus,

obsessam esse civitatem Cinomannis, quam nuper fratre profecto suæ

potestati adjecerat.” This is a somewhat inadequate summary of the

Cenomannian war.

Now comes the King’s answer, in which I have ventured in the text to

bring in both the speeches which are attributed to Rufus on first

hearing the news of the loss of Le Mans. In Orderic the story stands

thus;

“His auditis, rex dixit, ‘Eamus trans mare, nostros

adjuvare. Eodem momento inconsultis omnibus equum habenis

regiravit, ipsumque calcaribus urgens ad pontum festinavit,

et in quandam vetustam navim quam forte invenit, sine regio

apparatu velut plebeius intravit et remigare protinus

imperavit. Sic nimirum nec congruentem flatum nec socios nec

alia quæ regiam dignitatem decebant exspectavit; sed omnis

metus expers fortunæ et pelago sese commisit, et sequenti

luce ad portum Tolchæ, Deo duce, salvus applicuit.’”

He then goes on with the graphic details of the landing at Touques and

the ride to Bonneville, which find no place in William of Malmesbury.

William’s version is as follows;

“Statim ergo ut expeditus erat retorsit equum, iter ad mare

convertens. Admonentibus ducibus exercitum advocandum,

paratos componendos, ‘Videbo,’ ait, ‘quis me sequetur;

putatis me non habiturum homines? si cognovi juventutem

meam, etiam naufragio ad me venisse volet.’ Hoc igitur modo

pene solus ad mare pervenit. Erat tunc nubilus aer et ventus

contrarius; flatus violentia terga maris verrebat. Illum

statim transfretare volentem nautæ exorant ut pacem pelagi

et ventorum clementiam operiatur. ‘Atqui,’ inquit rex,

‘numquam audivi regem naufragio interiisse.’ Quin potius

solvite retinacula navium, videbitis elementa jam conspirata

in meum obsequium. Ponto transito, obsessores, ejus audita

fama, dissiliunt.”

Then follows the interview with Helias, quite out of place.

Here we have several separate details in each version; but they quite

fit into one another. Of Rufus’ two speeches before he rides off, each

seems to need the support of the other. The speech to the sailors

lurks as it were in the words of Orderic, “remigare protinus

imperavit,” and his other words, “fortunæ et pelago sese commisit,”

suggest the same general idea which comes out in them. They suggest

the well-known story of Cæsar which William of Malmesbury seems to

have in his head, which is told by Florus (iv. ii. 37), Appian (Bell.

Civ. ii. 57), and Plutarch (Cæsar, 38). The Latin writer says only

“Quid times? Caesarem vehis?” while the two Greek writers bring in the

word τύχη [tychê] (Ἴθι, γενναῖε, τόλμα καὶ δέδιθι μηδέν. Καίσαρα

φέρεις καὶ τὴν Καίσαρος τύχην συμπλέουσαν). ([Ithi, gennaie, tolma kai

dedithi mêden. Kaisara phereis kai tên Kaisaros tychên sympleousan]).

Our writers are not likely to have read either of the Greek books, and

there is enough about “Fortuna” in the passage of Lucan (v. 577-593)

which William of Malmesbury at least must have had in his eye, and

where the few words of Appian and the fewer of Florus grow into a

speech of many lines. The odd thing however is that the actual words

do not seem to come from anything in Lucan, but to be in a manner made

up out of two passages of Claudian. We get the sentiment in one (De

III Cons. Hon. 96);

“O nimium dilecte Deo, cui fundit ab antris

Æolus armatas hiemes, cui militat æther,

Et conjurati veniunt ad classica venti.”

But the actual words come nearer to the other (De IV Cons. Hon. 284);

“Nonne vides, operum quo se pulcherrimus ille

Mundus amore ligat, nec vi connexa per ævum

Conspirant elementa sibi?”

Just as in the other story, we may suppose that Rufus said something

which, in the course of improving into Latin, suggested the words of

the two Latin poets. The saying that he had never heard of a king

being drowned surely has the genuine stamp of the Red King about it.

And it is to be remembered that there is a passage which evidently

refers to the same story in a grave contemporary, who takes his

quotations, not from heathen poets but from the New Testament. Eadmer

(54) attributes to William Rufus, as a general privilege, something

like what in our own day we have been used to call “Queen’s weather;”

“Ventus insuper et ipsum mare videbantur ei obtemperare.

Verum dico, non mentior, quia quum de Anglia in Normanniam

transire vel inde cursum prout ipsum voluntas sua ferebat,

redire volebat, mox, illo adveniente, et mari

appropinquante, omnis tempestas, quæ nonnunquam immane

sæviebat, sedabatur, et transeunti mira tranquillitate

famulabatur.”

It is worth notice that the same idea is found, besides Lucan and

Claudian, in a third Latin writer, who is much less likely to have

been known to either Orderic or William of Malmesbury. This is in the

Panegyric addressed by Eumenius to the elder Constantius (Pan. Vet. v.

14). He is describing the voyage of Constantius to Britain to put down

Allectus, when, as in the cases of Cæsar and William Rufus, the

weather was bad;

“Quis enim se, quamlibet iniquo mari, non auderet credere,

te navigante? Omnium, ut dicitur, accepto nuntio

navigationis tuæ, una vox et hortatio fuit; ‘Quid dubitamus?

quid moramur? Ipse jam solvit, jam provehitur, jam fortasse

pervenit. Experiamur omnia, per quoscumque fluctus eamus.

Quid est, quod timere possimus? Cæsarem sequimur.’”

Eumenius of course had the story of the earlier Cæsar in his mind.

In all these versions the saying of William Rufus seems to be quoted

as an instance of his pride and irreverence. Matthew Paris alone

(Hist. Angl. i. 166) gives his speech an unexpectedly pious turn. To

the shipman, who addresses him as “hominum audacissime” and asks

“numquid tu ventis et mari poteris imperare?” he answers, “Non

frequenter [no longer “never” but “hardly ever”] auditum est, reges

Christianos Deum invocantes fluctibus fuisse submersos. Aliqui de

oppressis et obsessis apud Cenomannem orant pro me, quos Deus, etsi

non me, clementer exaudiet.” Matthew also makes the news be brought to

the King, not when he is hunting, but when he is at a feast.

* * * * *

The story is found, in one shape or another, in all the riming

chronicles. Wace (14908), who tells the whole story of Helias’ entry

into Le Mans with great spirit, but utterly out of place, gives a

vivid picture of the coming of the messenger;

“En Engleterre esteit li reis,

Mult out Normanz, mult out Engleis;

Brachez aveit fet demander,

En boiz voloit aler berser.

Eis vus par là un sergeant

Ki d’ultre mer veneit errant;

Li reis l’a mult tost entercié;

El Mans garder l’aveit leissié,

Crié li a è dist de luing;

Ke font el Mans, out il busuing?

Sire, dist-il, li Mans est pris,

Li quens Helies s’est enz mis,

La cité a Helies prise,

E la tor ad entor assise;

Normanz ki dedenz sa defendent.”

The passage in its general effect, and to some extent in its actual

words, recalls the better known description (10983; cf. N. C. vol.

iii. p. 258) of the news of Eadward’s death and Harold’s election

being brought to William the Great. It is perhaps to make the two

scenes more completely tally that Rufus, who, in Orderic and William

of Malmesbury, is already engaged in hunting, is in this version

merely going out to hunt. Of his father it was said;

“Mult aveit od li chevaliers

E dameisels et esquiers.”

But the son,

“Mult out _Normanz_, mult out _Engleis_.”

This reminds us of the other passage (see above, p. 533) where

“Normans” and “English” are made to help the fallen Rufus before Saint

Michael’s Mount. And the question again presents itself; What did Wace

exactly mean by Normans and English? We must remember his position.

Wace was a writer locally Norman, the chronicler of the Norman

Conquest, writing when, in England itself, the distinction of races

had nearly died out. His way of thinking and speaking, as that of one

accustomed to past times, would most likely be different both from

that of the time of which he is writing and from that which would be

familiar to either Normans or English――whether _genere_ or

_natione_――in his own time. In Rufus’ day “Normanz et Engleiz” would

have meant “Normanni et Angli _genere_,;” but it is not likely that

many “Angli _genere_” would be in the immediate company of the King.

In Wace’s own day, “Normanz et Engleiz” already meant “Normanni et

Angli _natione_;” only there would hardly have been any occasion for

using the phrase. Wace very likely used the phrase in a slightly

different sense in the two passages. Before the Mount, in describing a

warlike exploit, he most likely meant simply Norman and English

_natione_. In the present passage his mind perhaps floated between the

two meanings.

The King hears the news brought by the sergeant; he gives up his

purpose of hunting that day, and swears his usual oath by the face of

Lucca that those who have done him this damage shall pay for it;

“Li reis mua tot son corage

Dès ke il oï li message.

Li vo de Luche en a juré

Ke mult sera chier comperé.

Cest serement aveit en us,

Ne faiseit nul serement plus.”

He bids the messenger to cross the sea as fast as he can, to go to Le

Mans and to tell his forces there that by God’s help he will be there

to help them in eight days;

“D’ore en wit jors el Mans serai,

Dunc se Dex plaist les secorrai.”

He then――being in England, it must be remembered――asks the nearest way

to Le Mans. On the direct line which is shown him, there is a

well-built house. He says that he will not for a hundred marks of

silver turn a hundred feet out of the way. So he has the house pulled

down, and rides over the site to Southampton――not alone, in this

version, but with a following;

“Une maiziere li mostrerent,

Ço distrent ke il Mans ert là,

E ço dist ke par la ira;

Por cenz mars d’argent, ço diseit,

Del Mans cenz piez n’esluingnereit

De là, ù il ses piez teneit,

Quant li besuing del Mans oeit,

Dunc fist abatre la maiziere,

Ki mult esteit bone et entiere;

La maiziere fu abatue

E fete fu si grant l’issue

Ke li Reis Ros è li vassal

I passerent tuit à cheval.”

Absurd as this story is, and utterly irreconcileable with the earlier

versions, there is still a ring of William Rufus about it. And we may

safely accept Southampton as the haven from which he set out. But the

zeal for taking the straightest road which was so strong on him by

land seems to have passed away by sea, as he goes not to Touques but

to Barfleur, certainly not the nearest point for getting from

Southampton to Le Mans. The story of the voyage is told in much the

same way as in William of Malmesbury, the speech to the sailors

standing thus;

“Unkes, dist-il, n’oï parler

De Rei ki fu néié en mer;

Fetes vos nés el parfont traire,

Essaïez ke porreiz faire.”

Geoffrey Gaimar (Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, i. 32) makes the

messenger bring a letter, which the King seemingly gives to Randolf

Flambard to read;

“‘Tenez cest bref, sire reis.’

Li reis le prist, tost le fruissat,

Ranulf Flambard le bref baillat.”

He sends the messenger back with a letter; he rides to Southampton,

orders a force to be got together to follow him, and himself crosses

with a company of twelve hundred rich knights. Otherwise the tale is

essentially the same. But it is worth noticing that Geoffrey, when he

gets among sea-faring folk, uses two English words (the steersman we

have already met with in his English garb in Domesday; see N. C. vol.

v. p. 763);

“Et il od mesnée privée,

Vint à la mier, si l’ad passée,

Encontre vent la mier passa.

Le _stieresman_ li demanda

S’il voleit contre vent aler

Et périller enz en la mier.

Li rois respont; ‘N’estœt parler,

Onques ne veistes roi néer,

Ne jéo n’ierc jà le primer.

Fetes vos _eschipes_ nager.’

Tant ont nagé et governé

Q’en Barbefloe e sont arivé.

Il out de privée meisnée

Mil-et-ii cenz à cele fiée.

Tuit erent riches chevaliers;

Sacez, li rois les out mult chers.”

Benoît (v. 40379) gives no details peculiar to himself; but he is

worth comparing with the others as a piece of language;

“Si fu de passer corajos,

Volunteris e desiros:

Mais mult furent li vent contraire

E la mers pesme e deputaire.”

But the central speech about a king being drowned is in much the same

words as in the other riming versions;

“E li reis corajos e proz

Responeit e diseit a toz

C’unques n’aveit oï parler

De ré qui fust neiez en mer,

N’il ne sera jà li premiers.”

This writer does not mention Southampton, Touques, Barfleur, or any

particular port.

* * * * *

The doctrine that kings were never drowned might seem to be

contradicted by the popular interpretation of the fate of the Pharaoh

of Exodus. But the text certainly does not imply that the Pharaoh

himself was drowned. On the other hand, there is somewhere the story

of an Irish king who, setting out with his fleet, was met by Noah’s

flood――conceived seemingly as something like the bore in the

Severn――and was drowned.

It is worth while comparing this story of William Rufus with the

behaviour of our next king of the same name in a case somewhat like

this, when he too was sailing from England to the land of his birth.

When William the Third was in danger in an open boat off the isle of

Goree, we read (Macaulay, Hist. Eng. iv. 2);

“The hardiest mariners showed signs of uneasiness. But

William, through the whole night, was as composed as if he

had been in the drawing-room at Kensington. ‘For shame,’ he

said to one of the dismayed sailors: ‘are you afraid to die

in my company?’”

The difference between the two speeches is characteristic. But the

parallel of Cæsar was seized on in both cases. Among the pageants when

William entered the Hague (iv. 5), when the events of his own life

were represented, this scene was shown;

“There, too, was a boat amidst the ice and the breakers; and

above it was most appropriately inscribed, in the majestic

language of Rome, the saying of the great Roman, ‘What dost

thou fear? Thou hast Cæsar on board.’”

NOTE QQ. Vol. ii. p. 289.

THE SIEGE OF MAYET.

I visited Mayet with Mr. Fowler and Mr. Parker in July, 1879, when we

examined many other of the castles and sites of castles in that

neighbourhood. But we could not pitch on the actual site of the siege

of Mayet with the same confidence with which we fixed most of the

sites of our present story. The evidence is by no means so clear as it

is in the case of most of the Cenomannian towns and fortresses. There

are in truth too many sites to choose from.

The small town of Mayet is not rich in antiquities. Its ancient church

has been, first desecrated, and then swept away. Nor is the town

itself immediately commanded by any fortress, like those of Fresnay,

Beaumont, and Ballon. But two spots lie to the east of the town which

cannot fail to have had some share in our history. A large house of

the _Renaissance_, with portions of an earlier castle worked into it,

stands at the foot of a low hill at some distance from the town, and

with a good deal of swampy ground lying between them. This boasts

itself to be the site of the fortress where the second Cenomannian

expedition of William the Red came to so strange and lame an ending.

But there are no traces of eleventh-century work remaining, and the

site itself is most unlike the site of an eleventh-century fortress.

The hill immediately above the house, far lower than Ballon or any of

its fellows, does make some feeble approach to the favourite

peninsular shape, and fancy at least has traced, amid the havoc made

by the plough, some faint signs of ditches and made ground. On the

high ground on the other side of the swamp, less completely cut off

from the town, rises a mound, of whose artificial construction and

military purpose there can be no doubt, and where ancient objects of

various kinds are said to have been found. But this mound seems far

too small to have been the site of such a stronghold as the castle of

Mayet appears in our story. Could we believe it to have been thrown up

during William’s siege, as a besieging mound, like those of which we

have so often heard, its interest as regards our story would be almost

as great as if it were the site of the head castle itself. But it

seems too far off for any purpose save that of keeping the garrison in

check; if the besieged castle stood on the opposite hill or at its

foot, the stress of the siege must have taken place at some point much

nearer to its site. The siege of Mayet is so singular a story, and so

important in the history of this war, that it is disappointing not to

be able to fix its topography with any confidence. But it is unluckily

true that he who traces out the siege of Mayet cannot do so with the

same full assurance that he is treading the true historic ground which

he feels at Ballon and Fresnay.

* * * * *

In the details of the siege I have strictly followed Orderic, save

that I have ventured to bring in the very characteristic story of

Robert of Bellême which is told by Wace. But it cannot well have had

the effect which Wace (15074) attributes to it, that of causing the

army to disperse, and so making the King raise the siege;

“Partant sunt del siège méu

A peine fussent retenu.

Li siège par treis dis failli,

Li reis si tint mal bailli

Del siège k’il ne pout tenir,

E de l’ost k’il vit despartir.

Ne pout cels de l’ost arester

Ne il n’oserent retorner;

Par veies fuient è par chans,

Dunc est li reis venu el Mans.”

The order of events in Wace is really wonderful. After Robert has gone

to the East, William Rufus reigns in peace, seemingly over Maine as

well as Normandy. Helias seizes Le Mans; the news is brought to

William; he sails to Barfleur; he recovers Le Mans (having on his road

the singular adventure described in 14998 of Pluquet’s text, 9899 of

Andresen’s); he besieges Mayet; he returns to Le Mans; he ravages the

land; Helias is taken prisoner; he is brought before the King and

released, and then William goes back to England to be shot by Walter

Tirel.

NOTE RR. Vol. ii. p. 297.

WILLIAM RUFUS AND THE TOWERS OF LE MANS CATHEDRAL.

Was the bidding of William Rufus actually carried out in this matter?

Did Bishop Hildebert pull down the towers or not? Unluckily Orderic

tells us nothing about the story, and the language of the Biographer

seems to me to be purposely obscure.

Hildebert himself mentions the matter in a passage which I quoted in

the text (p. 298), in which he complains of the horrors of a voyage to

England. He says (Duchèsne, iv. 248);

“Longum est enarrare quam constanti tyrannide rex Anglicus

in nos sævierit, qui, temperantia regis abjecta, decreverit

non prius pontifici parendum quam pontificem compelleret in

sacrilegium. Quia etenim turres ecclesiæ nostræ dejicere

nolumus,” &c.

One can make no certain inference from this, except that Hildebert was

not disposed to pull down the towers when he wrote the letter,

seemingly in England. The Biographer is fuller. I have quoted (see p.

298) the passages which describe the commands and offers of Rufus; we

then read;

“Verumtamen Hildebertus magnis undique coartabatur

angustiis, quia sibi et de regis offensione periculum, et de

turris destructione sibi et ecclesiæ suæ imminere grande

prævidebat opprobrium: propter quod a rege dilationem

petebat, donec super his consilium accepisset. Qua vix

impetrata, cernens sibi nequaquam esse utile in illis

regionibus diutius immorari, breviter ad suam reversus est

ecclesiam…. Interea præsul de præcepto regis vehementer

anxius, de urbis incendio, de domorum et omnium rerum suarum

destructione, de civium expulsione; primo tamen de

clericorum, quos violentia regis ab urbe eliminaverat,

dispersione, mæstissimus, Dei omnipotentis clementiam

jugiter precabatur, ut ab ecclesia et populo sibi commisso

iram indignationis suæ dignaretur avertere.”

He then goes on to tell how wonderfully God saved them all by the

sudden death of Rufus and the final coming of Helias. But he does not

directly say whether the towers were pulled down or not. His way of

telling the story might suggest the thought that the towers were

pulled down, but that he did not like to say so.

To my mind the appearances of the building look the same way. We have

seen that the towers of Howel were clearly at the ends of the

transepts. Of the single tower now standing at the end of the south

transept, the lower part is of the twelfth century; most likely the

work of William of Passavant (see above, p. 636). The ruined building

at the end of the other transept has columns and capitals of a much

earlier character, agreeing with the work of Howel. A base of the same

early kind as the single pair of piers spoken of in the nave (see

above, p. 638) may be the work of Howel; it may be either a relic of

Arnold’s foundations or a scrap of something much earlier. It has been

objected that this ruined building does not seem to have been a tower.

And I must allow that it must have been a tower of a somewhat unusual

kind. But the appearances are quite consistent with the notion of a

transept with aisles, and with its main body ending in an _engaged_

tower.

If these ruins are not the remains of one of Howel’s towers, his

towers must have stood nearer to the body of the church than the

existing southern tower stands, and the ruins to the north-west must

belong to the episcopal palace or some other building. If this be so,

something of the interest of the place is lost, but the argument seems

almost stronger. It would have been nothing wonderful if the later

rebuilding of the transepts had swept away all trace of the work of

the eleventh and twelfth century, so that the fabric should in no way

show whether any Romanesque towers were ever pulled down or ever

built. But it is not so. We see that a late Romanesque tower was built

to replace one of the towers of Howel, while the other, according to

this view, has vanished without trace or successor. This would seem to

point even more strongly than the other view to the belief that two

towers were built, that both were pulled down, that afterwards one was

rebuilt and the other not.

* * * * *

It is the business of the topographer of Le Mans rather than of the

historian of William Rufus to settle what the remains at the end of

the north transept are, if they are not the remains of Howel’s tower.

But it may be noticed that Howel was a considerable builder or

restorer in the adjoining palace (Vet. An. 298), and that the palace

itself had a tower hard by the church. William of Passavant (Vet. An.

373) made certain arrangements about the three chapels of the

palace――Saint David’s itself has only two――one of which is described

as “tertia altior, quæ in turri sita ecclesiam cathedralem vicinius

speculabatur.” In any case this group of buildings and ruins at the

north-east corner of Saint Julian’s is one of the most striking to be

found anywhere. There are these puzzling fragments of the days of the

counts and bishops of our story; there is the mighty eastern limb of

the present church, begun when Maine had passed away from all

fellowship with Normandy and England, when Le Mans was the city of a

Countess, widow of Richard, vassal of Philip. There is the northern

transept, begun when Maine and Normandy were wholly swallowed up by

France, finished at the very moment when Maine had again an English

lord (Recherches, p. 122). And earlier than all, there is the Roman

wall which the vast choir has overleaped, but which still remains

outside the church. And, as if to bring together the earliest and the

latest times, one of its bastions is strangely mixed up with work of

an almost English character, which seems plainly to proclaim itself as

belonging to the reign of Henry, Sixth of England and Second of

France. Truly, setting aside exceptional spots like Rome and Athens,

like Spalato and Trier and Ravenna, no city of Christendom is fuller

of lessons, alike in art and in history, than the city of Helias, the

birth-place of Henry Fitz-Empress.

NOTE SS. Vol. ii. p. 320.

THE DEATH OF WILLIAM RUFUS.

I have briefly compared the chief versions of the death of William

Rufus, and the writers from whom they come, in Appendix U. in the

fifth volume of the Norman Conquest. I will now go somewhat more fully

into the matter.

I still hold, as I held then, that no absolute certainty can be come

to as to the actor, intentional or otherwise, in the King’s death. Our

only sure statement is to be found in the vague and dark words of the

Chronicle, which look most like an intentional murder, but which do

not absolutely imply it. If Rufus was murdered, it is hopeless to seek

for any record of his murderer. We may guess for ever, and that is

all. At any rate there can be no ground for fastening a charge of

murder on Walter Tirel; for, if we except the dark hint in Geoffrey

Gaimar (see p. 325), all those who make him the doer of the deed make

it a deed done by accident. And the consent in favour of the belief

that Rufus died by an accidental shot of Walter Tirel is very general

and very weighty. It is the account of all our highest authorities,

except the very highest of all. And even with the version of the

Chronicle it does not stand in any literal contradiction. We have to

set against it Walter’s own weighty denial (see below, p. 674), and

the fact that there were other versions which named other persons. We

have also to set against it the circumstance that, if Rufus did die by

any conspiracy, never mind on whose part, it was obviously convenient

to encourage belief in such a story as the received one. (See p. 326.)

If there were anywhere English or Norman murderers, nothing could

better serve their purpose, or the purpose of any who encouraged or

sheltered them, than to attribute the deed to one who was French

rather than either English or Norman, and to describe it as accidental

on his part. And if, as one can hardly doubt, Walter Tirel was known

to have been in the King’s near company on the day of his death, he

was an obvious person to pick out for the character of the accidental

slayer.

I can therefore do nothing but leave the doubtful story to the

judgement of the reader. To that end I have given a summary of the

chief versions in the text. The account of the early part of the day,

as given by William of Malmesbury (iv. 333), which I have followed in

p. 327, fits in perfectly well with the account in Orderic (782 A),

which begins only after dinner. Nor is there any difference, except in

details of no importance, between the accounts of the King’s actual

death as given by William and by Orderic (see p. 333). In both the

King dies by a chance shot of Walter’s, but William makes the King and

Walter shoot at two different stags, while in Orderic’s version they

both shoot at the same stag. It is from William of Malmesbury that we

get the graphic detail of the King sheltering his eyes from the sun’s

rays. His whole account stands thus;

“Jam Phœbo in oceanum proclivi, rex cervo ante se

transeunti, extento nervo et emissa sagitta, non adeo sævum

vulnus inflixit; diutile adhuc fugitantem vivacitate

oculorum prosecutus, opposita contra violentiam solarium

radiorum manu. Tunc Walterius pulcrum facinus animo

parturiens, ut, rege alias interim intento, ipse alterum

cervum qui forte propter transibat prosterneret, inscius et

impotens regium pectus (Deus bone!) lethali arundine

trajecit. Saucius ille nullum verbum emisit; sed ligno

sagittæ quantum extra corpus extabat effracto, moxque supra

vulnus cadens, mortem acceleravit. Accurrit Walterius; sed,

quia nec sensum nec vocem hausit, perniciter cornipedem

insiliens, beneficio calcarium probe evasit.”

Orderic is shorter;

“Cum rex et Gualterius de Pice cum paucis sodalibus in

nemore constituti essent, et armati prædam avide

expectarent, subiter inter eos currente fera, rex de statu

suo recessit, et Gualterius sagittam emisit. Quæ super

dorsum feræ setam radens rapide volavit, atque regem e

regione stantem lethaliter vulneravit. Qui mox ad terram

cecidit, et sine mora, proh dolor! expiravit.”

Florence really adds nothing to the account in the Chronicle, except

so far that he adds the name of Walter Tirel. He brings in the event

with some chronological pomp, but he cuts the actual death of the King

short. He is in a moralizing fit, and takes up his parable at much

greater length than is usual with him;

“Deinde iv. non. Augusti, feria v., indictione viii., rex

Anglorum Willelmus junior, dum in Nova Foresta, quæ lingua

Anglorum Ytene nuncupatur, venatu esset occupatus, a quodam

Franco, Waltero cognomento Tirello, sagitta incaute directa

percussus, vitam finivit, et Wintoniam delatus, in veteri

monasterio, in ecclesia S. Petri est tumulatus. Nec mirum,

ut populi rumor affirmat, hanc proculdubio magnam Dei

virtutem esse et vindictam.”

He then goes on with a great deal of matter, much of which I have

referred to in various places. He speaks of the making of the New

Forest, of the death of young Richard, the natural phænomena of the

reign, the recent appearances of the devil, and the iniquities of

Randolf Flambard. It is here that he notices (see p. 335) that a

church had once stood on the spot where the King died. Henry of

Huntingdon too brings in the event with some stateliness, as the last

act of a great drama. But he gives no special details, beyond bringing

in, like Orderic, Florence, and William, the name of Walter Tirel;

“Millesimo centesimo anno, rex Willelmus xiii. regni sui

anno, vitam crudelem misero fine terminavit. Namque cum

gloriose et patrio honore curiam tenuisset ad Natale apud

Glouecestre, ad Pascha apud Wincestre, ad Pentecosten apud

Londoniam, ivit venatum in Novo foresto in crastino kalendas

Augusti, ubi Walterus Tyrel cum sagitta cervo intendens,

regem percussit inscius. Rex corde ictus corruit, nec verbum

edidit.”

He then goes on to describe at length the evils of the reign, partly

in his own words, partly in those of the Chronicle, and records what

followed in a kind of breathless haste, keeping the Chronicle before

him, but giving things a turn of his own;

“Sepultus est in crastino perditionis suæ apud Wincestre, et

Henricus ibidem in regem electus, dedit episcopatum

Wincestriæ Willelmo Giffard, pergensque Londoniam sacratus

est ibi a Mauricio Londoniensi episcopo, melioratione legum

et consuetudinum optabili repromissa.”

The object of piling facts on one another in this fashion is to bring

the record of Henry’s promised reforms as near as may be to the

picture of the evil doings of Rufus.

By the time that Wace wrote, there were several stories to be chosen

from. The King gives arrows to his companions, and specially to Walter

Tirel. They go out to hunt in the morning, contrary to the accounts

both of Orderic and of William of Malmesbury (15164 Pluquet, 10069

Andresen);

“A un matin qu’il fu leuez,

Ses compaignons a demandez,

A toz a saetes donees,

Que li esteient presentees.

Gaulter Tirel, un cheualier

Qui en la cort esteit mult chier,

Une saete del rei prist

Donc il l’ocist si com l’en dist.”