of England, who had now become master of Normandy by his victory at
Tinchebray. Louis appears never to have received Henry’s homage for the
duchy;[559] and it may have been to avoid the necessity of performing
this act of subordination that Henry, as it seems, refrained from
formally assuming the ducal title, at least so long as his captive
brother lived.[560] Whatever may have been his motive, the fact aptly
typifies his political position. Alike in French and English eyes, he
was a king of England ruling Normandy as a dependency of the English
Crown. Such a personage was far more obnoxious to Louis and his
projects than a mere duke of the Normans, or even a duke of the Normans
ruling England as a dependency of the Norman duchy. On the other hand,
Henry, in the new position given him by his conquest, had every reason
to look with jealousy and suspicion upon the growing power of France.
The uncertain relations between the two kings therefore soon took an
openly hostile turn. In 1110 a quarrel arose between them concerning
the ownership of the great border-fortress of Gisors. They met near
the spot, each at the head of an army; but they parted again after
wasting a day in fruitless recriminations and empty challenges.[561]
Their jealousy was quickened by a dispute, also connected with the
possession of a castle, between Louis and Henry’s nephew Theobald count
of Blois.[562] Uncle and nephew made common cause against their common
enemy; but the strife had scarcely begun when a further complication
destined to be of far weightier consequence, if not to France at least
to England, arose out of the position and policy of the young count of
Anjou.
[559] See Freeman, _Norm. Conq._, vol. v. p. 193.
[560] Freeman, _Norm. Conq._, vol. v. p. 180 and note 2.
[561] Suger, _Vita Ludov._, c. 15 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
xii. pp. 27, 28).
[562] _Ib._ c. 18 (pp. 35, 36).
The accession of Fulk V., no less than that of Louis VI., began a new
era for his country. The two princes were in some respects not unlike
each other: each stands out in marked contrast to his predecessor,
and in Fulk’s case the contrast is even more striking than in that
of Louis, for if little good was to be expected of the son of Philip
I., there might well be even less hope of the child of Fulk Rechin
and Bertrada. As a ruler and as a man, however, young Fulk turned
utterly aside from the evil ways of both his parents.[563] Yet he was
an Angevin of the Angevins; physically, he had the ruddy complexion
inherited from the first of his race and name;[564] while in his
restless, adventurous temper, at once impetuous and wary, daring and
discreet, he shows a strong likeness to his great-grandfather Fulk the
Black. But the old fiery spirit breaks out in Fulk V. only as if to
remind us that it is still there, to shew that the demon-blood of Anjou
still flows in his veins, hot as ever indeed, but kept under subjection
to higher influences; the sense of right that only woke now and then
to torture the conscience of the Black Count seems to be the guiding
principle of his great-grandson’s life. The evil influences which must
have surrounded his boyhood, whether it had been passed in his father’s
house, or, as seems more probable, in the court of Philip and Bertrada,
seem, instead of developing the worse tendencies of his nature, only
to have brought out the better ones into more active working by sheer
force of opposition. Politically, however, there can be no doubt that
the peculiar circumstances of his early life led to important results,
by reviving and strengthening the old ties between Anjou and the Crown
which had somewhat slackened in Fulk Rechin’s days. The most trusted
counsellor of the new king, the devoted supporter and not unfrequently
the instigator of his schemes of reform or of aggression, was Almeric
of Montfort, the brother of Bertrada. She herself, after persecuting
Louis by every means in her power so long as his father lived, changed
her policy as soon as he mounted the throne and became as useful an
ally as she had been a dangerous enemy. Almeric’s influence, won by his
own talents, seems to have been almost all-powerful with the king; over
the count of Anjou, far younger and utterly inexperienced, natural ties
had given a yet more complete ascendency to him and his sister, Fulk’s
own mother. Their policy was to pledge Anjou irrevocably to the side of
the French crown by forcing it into a quarrel with Henry I.
[563] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 143.
[564] “Vir rufus, sed instar David.” Will. Tyr. l. xiv. c. 1.
The means lay ready to their hands. Aremburg of Maine, once the
plighted bride of Geoffrey Martel, was still unwed; Fulk, by his
mother’s counsel, sought and won her for his wife.[565] Her marriage
crowned the work of Elias. The patriot-count’s mission was fulfilled,
his task was done; and in that very summer he passed to his
well-earned rest.[566] Fulk, as husband of the heiress, thus became
count of Maine, and the immediate consequence was a breach with Henry
on the long-vexed question of the overlordship of the county. Whether
Elias had or had not recognized any right of overlordship in Fulk
Rechin or Geoffrey Martel II. is not clear; he certainly seems to have
done homage to Henry,[567] and their mutual relations as lord and
vassal were highly honourable to both; but it was hardly to be expected
that Fulk, whose predecessors had twice received the homage of Henry’s
elder brother for that very county, should yield up without a struggle
the rights of the count of Anjou. He refused all submission to Henry,
and at once formed a league with the French Crown in active opposition
to the lord of England and Normandy.
[565] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp. 785,
818. _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 143. Will. Tyr.,
l. xiv. c. 1.
[566] Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Serg. a. 1110 (Marchegay,
_Eglises_, pp. 31, 143). Eng. Chron. a. 1110. Ord. Vit.
(Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp. 785, 839.
[567] “Eac thises geares forthferde Elias eorl, the tha Mannie
of tham cynge Heanri geheold, and on cweow.” Eng. Chron. a.
1110. Nobody seems to know what “on cweow” means; Mr. Thorpe
(Eng. Chron., vol. ii. p. 211) suggests that it may stand for
“Angeow.”
The war began in 1111, and the danger was great enough to call Henry
himself over sea in August and keep him on the continent for nearly two
years. The leading part was taken by the count of Anjou, whose marriage
enabled him to add the famous “Cenomannian swords” to the forces of
Touraine and the Angevin March.[568] Moreover, treason was, as usual,
rife among the Norman barons; and the worst of all the traitors was
Robert of Bellême. One after another the lesser offenders were brought
to justice; at last, in November 1112, Robert himself fell into the
hands of his outraged sovereign, and, to the joy of all men on both
sides of the sea, was flung into a lifelong captivity.[569] Then at
last Henry felt secure in Normandy; the capture of Robert was followed
by the surrender of his fortress of Alençon, and the tide of fortune
turned so rapidly that Fulk and Louis were soon compelled to sue for
peace. Early in Lent 1113 Fulk and Henry met at Pierre-Pécoulée near
Alençon; the count submitted to perform the required homage for Maine,
and his infant daughter was betrothed to Henry’s son, the little
Ætheling William. In March the treaty was confirmed by the two kings at
Gisors; and as the first-fruits of their new alliance there was seen
the strange spectacle of a count of Anjou and a count of Blois fighting
side by side to help the lord of Normandy in subduing the rebels who
still held out in the castle of Bellême.[570]
[568] Eng. Chron. a. 1111, 1112.
[569] Eng. Chron. a. 1112. Ord. Vit. (as above), pp. 841, 858.
Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 398 (Hardy, p. 626).
[570] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 841.
Henry’s next step was to exact, first from the barons of Normandy
and then from the Great Council of England, a solemn oath of homage
and fealty to his son William as his destined successor.[571] This
ceremony, not unusual in France, but quite without precedent in
England, was doubtless a precaution against the chances of the war
which he foresaw must soon be renewed. This time indeed he was
himself the aggressor; Louis had made no hostile movement, and Fulk
was troubled by a revolt at home, whose exact nature is not clearly
ascertained. The universal tendency of feudal vassals to rebel against
their lord had probably something to do with it; but there seems also
to have been another and a far more interesting element at work.
“There arose a grave dissension between Count Fulk the Younger and
the burghers of Angers.”[572] In this provokingly brief entry in one
of the Angevin chronicles we may perhaps catch a glimpse of that new
spirit of civic freedom which was just springing into life in northern
Europe, and which made some progress both in France and in England
during the reigns of Louis VI. and Henry I. One would gladly know
what were the demands of the Angevin burghers, and how they were met
by the son-in-law of Elias of Le Mans; but the faint echo of the
dispute between count and citizens is drowned in the roar of the more
imposing strife which soon broke out anew between the rival kings. Its
ostensible cause was now Count Theobald of Blois, whose wrongs were
made by his uncle a ground for marching into France, in company with
Theobald himself and his brother Stephen, in the spring of 1116. Louis
retaliated by a raid upon Normandy; the Norman barons recommenced their
old intrigues;[573] and they were soon furnished with an excellent
pretext. After the battle of Tinchebray, Duke Robert’s infant son
William had been intrusted by his victorious uncle to the care of his
half-sister’s husband, Elias of Saint-Saëns. Elias presently began to
suspect Henry of evil designs against the child; at once, sacrificing
his own possessions to Henry’s wrath, he fled with his charge and led
him throughout all the neighbouring lands, seeking to stir up sympathy
for the fugitive heir of Normandy, till he found him a shelter at
the court of his kinsman Count Baldwin of Flanders.[574] At last the
faithful guardian’s zeal was rewarded by seeing the cause of his young
brother-in-law taken up by both Baldwin and Louis. In 1117 they leagued
themselves together with the avowed object of avenging Duke Robert and
reinstating his son in the duchy of Normandy; and their league was at
once joined by the count of Anjou.[575]
[571] Eng. Chron. a. 1115. Flor. Worc. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p.
69. Eadmer, _Hist. Nov._ (Rule), p. 237.
[572] “Facta est gravis dissensio inter Fulconem comitem
Juniorem et burgenses Andecavenses.” Chron. S. Serg. a. 1116
(Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 143). The Chron. S. Albin. a. 1114
(_ib._ p. 32) has “Guerra burgensium contra comitem”; but M.
Marchegay says in a note that two MSS. read “baronum” for
“burgensium.”
[573] See details in Suger, _Vita Ludov._ c. 21 (_Rer. Gall.
Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 43), and Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist.
Norm. Scriptt._), p. 843.
[574] Ord. Vit. (as above), pp. 837, 838.
[575] Eng. Chron. a. 1117. Hen. Huntingdon, l. vii. c. 29
(Arnold, p. 239).
The quarrel had now assumed an aspect far more threatening to Henry;
but it was not till the middle of the following summer that the war
began in earnest. Its first honours were won by the count of Anjou,
in the capture of La Motte-Gautier, a fortress on the Cenomannian
border.[576] In September the count of Flanders was mortally wounded in
a skirmish near Eu;[577] Louis and Fulk had however more useful allies
in the Norman baronage, whose chiefs were nearly all either openly
or secretly in league with them. Almeric of Montfort, who claimed
the county of Evreux, was the life and soul of all their schemes. In
October the city of Evreux was betrayed into his hands;[578] and this
disaster was followed by another at Alençon. Henry had granted the
lands of Robert of Bellême to Theobald of Blois; Theobald, with his
uncle’s permission, made them over to his brother Stephen; and Stephen
at once began to shew in his small dominions the same incapacity for
keeping order which he shewed afterwards on a larger scale in England.
His negligence brought matters at Alençon to such a pass that the
outraged citizens called in the help of the count of Anjou, admitted
him and his troops by night into the town, and joined with him in
blockading the castle.[579] Stephen meanwhile had joined his uncle and
brother at Séez. On receipt of the evil tidings, the two young counts
hurried back to Alençon, made an unsuccessful attempt to revictual the
garrison, and then tried to surround the Angevin camp, which had been
pitched in a place called “the Park.” A long day’s fighting, in which
the tide seems to have been turned at last chiefly by the valour of
Fulk himself, ended in an Angevin victory and won him the surrender of
Alençon.[580]
[576] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 844. His chronology is all wrong.
[577] _Ib._ p. 843. Suger, _Vita Ludov._, c. 21 (_Rer. Gall.
Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 45). Eng. Chron. a. 1118. Will. Malm.
_Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 403 (Hardy, pp. 630, 631) substitutes
Arques for Eu.
[578] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp. 843,
846.
[579] _Ib._ p. 847.
[580] The details of this story--in a very apocryphal-looking
shape--are in _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 145–150.
The Angevin victory, however, comes out clearly in Ord. Vit.
(as above).
The following year was for Henry an almost unbroken series of reverses
and misfortunes, and in 1119 he was compelled to seek peace with
Fulk. Their treaty was ratified in June by the marriage of William
the Ætheling and Matilda of Anjou; Fulk made an attempt to end the
Cenomannian difficulty by settling Maine upon his daughter as a
marriage-portion,[581] and gave up Alençon on condition that Henry
should restore it to the dispossessed heir, William Talvas.[582] Henry
had now to face only the French king and the traitor barons. With the
latter he began at once by firing the town of Evreux.[583] Louis, on
receiving these tidings from Almeric of Montfort, assembled his troops
at Etampes and marched upon Normandy. In the plain of Brenneville,
between Noyon and Andely, he was met by Henry with the flower of his
English and Norman forces. Louis, in the insane bravado of chivalry,
disdained to get his men into order before beginning the attack, and he
thereby lost the day. The first charge, made by eighty French knights
under a Norman traitor, William Crispin, broke against the serried
ranks of the English fighting on foot around their king; all the eighty
were surrounded and made prisoners; and the rest of the French army was
put to such headlong flight that, if the Norman tale can be true, out
of nine hundred knights only three were found dead on the field. Louis
himself, unhorsed in the confusion, escaped alone into a wood where he
lost his way, and was finally led back to Andely by a peasant ignorant
of his rank.[584] In bitter shame he went home to Paris to seek comfort
and counsel of Almeric, who, luckily for both, had had no share in
this disastrous expedition. By Almeric’s advice a summons was issued
to all bishops, counts, and other persons in authority throughout the
realm, bidding them stir up their people, on pain of anathema, to come
and help the king. The plan seems to have had much the same result as
a calling-out of the “fyrd” in England, and the host which it brought
together inflicted terrible ravages upon Normandy. In October Louis
sought help in another quarter. Pope Calixtus had come to hold a
council at Reims; the ecclesiastical business ended, he had to listen
to a string of appeals in all sorts of causes, and the first appellant
was the king of France, who came before the Pope in person and set
forth a detailed list of complaints against Henry. The archbishop
of Rouen rose to defend his sovereign, but the council refused to
hear him. Calixtus, however, was on too dangerous terms with Henry
of Germany to venture upon anathematizing his father-in-law, Henry
of England; and in a personal interview at Gisors, in November, the
English king vindicated himself to the Pope’s complete satisfaction.
The tide had turned once more. Almeric had been won over by a grant
of the coveted honour of Evreux; and his defection from Louis was
followed by that of all the other rebel Normans in rapid succession.
William the Clito--as Duke Robert’s son is called, to distinguish him
from his cousin William the Ætheling--was again driven into exile, with
his faithful brother-in-law still at his side; a treaty was arranged
between Henry and Louis; all castles were to be restored, all captives
freed, and all wrongs forgiven and forgotten.[585]
[581] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 851. Eng. Chron. a. 1119. Suger,
_Vita Ludov._ c. 21 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 45).
Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 419 (Hardy, p. 652).
[582] Ord. Vit. as above.
[583] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 852.
[584] _Ib._ pp. 853–855. See also Eng. Chron. a. 1119, Hen.
Hunt., l. vii. c. 31 (Arnold, p. 241), and Suger, _Vita
Ludov._, c. 21 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 45).
[585] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp. 858,
859, 863–866. Cf. Eng. Chron. a. 1120.
We seem to be reading the story of Fulk Nerra over again as we are
told how his great-grandson, as soon as peace seemed assured and he
was reconciled to all his neighbours, desired also by penance for
his sins to become reconciled to God, and leaving his dominions in
charge of his wife and their two little sons, set out on pilgrimage to
Jerusalem.[586] The “lord of three cities,”[587] however, could not
leave his territories to take care of themselves as the Black Count
seems to have done; the regency of his boys was merely nominal, for
the eldest of them was but seven years old; and though their mother,
the daughter of Elias, may well have been a wise and courageous woman,
it was no light matter thus to leave her alone with the rival kings
on each side of her. To guard against all dangers, therefore, Fulk
again formally commended the county of Maine to King Henry as overlord
during his own life, and bequeathed it to his son-in-law the Ætheling
in case he should not return.[588] Two months before his departure, the
cathedral of Le Mans, which had just been rebuilt, was consecrated in
his presence and that of his wife. At the close of the ceremony he took
up his little son Geoffrey in his arms and placed him on the altar,
saying with tears: “O holy Julian, to thee I commend my child and my
land, that thou mayest be the defender and protector of both!”[589] The
yearning which drew him literally to tread in his great-grandfather’s
steps was too strong to be repressed; but he went,[590] it is clear,
with anxious and gloomy forebodings; and before he reached his home
again those forebodings were fulfilled. The treaty that had promised so
well was scattered to the winds on November 25, 1120, by the death of
William the Ætheling in the wreck of the White Ship.[591]
[586] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 871.
[587] “Trium urbium dominus.” I think it is Orderic who
somewhere thus expressively designates the lord of Angers and
Le Mans and Tours.
[588] This seems to be the meaning of Will. Malm. _Gesta
Reg._, l. v. c. 419 (Hardy, p. 652); “Quin et Ierosolymam
Fulco ire contendens, comitatum commendavit regi suum, si
viveret; futurum profecto generi, si non rediret.” The “county”
in question can only be Maine, of the gift of which to the
Ætheling at his marriage William has just been speaking.
[589] _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._ c. 35 (Mabillon, _Vet. Anal._, p.
318).
[590] In company with Rainald, bishop of Angers, in 1120.
Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Flor. Salm. ad ann. (Marchegay,
_Eglises_, pp. 32, 190).
[591] Eng. Chron. a. 1120; Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c.
419 (Hardy, pp. 653, 654); Hen. Hunt., l. vii. c. 32 (Arnold,
p. 242); Eadmer, _Hist. Nov._ (Rule), pp. 288, 289; Ord. Vit.
(Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp. 868, 869, etc.
In that wreck perished not merely Fulk’s hopes for the settlement of
Maine, but Henry’s hopes for the settlement of England and Normandy.
Setting aside the father’s personal grief for the loss of his favourite
child, the Ætheling’s death was the most terrible political blow that
could have fallen upon Henry. All his hopes for the continuance of his
work were bound up in the life of his son. The toils and struggles of
twenty years would be little more than lost labour unless he could
guard against two dangers which had been the bane of both England and
Normandy ever since the Conqueror’s death:--a disputed succession
to the English throne, and a separation between the insular and the
continental dominions of the ducal house. In the person of William
the Ætheling both dangers seemed provided against; if Henry lived but
a few years more, there was every reason to expect that William, and
William alone among the Conqueror’s surviving descendants, would be
able to mount the English throne without opposition. On any accepted
principle, his only possible competitor would have been his cousin and
namesake the Clito. Neither people nor barons would have been likely to
think for a moment of setting aside the son of their crowned king and
queen--a king born in the land and a queen who represented the ancient
blood-royal of England--for a landless, homeless stranger whose sole
claim rested on the fact that by strict rule of primogeniture he was
the heir male of the Conqueror; and, once master of England, William
might fairly be expected to keep his hold upon Normandy as his father
had done. The shipwreck of November 1120, however, left Henry suddenly
face to face with the almost certain prospect of being succeeded in
all his dominions by his brother’s son, his enemy, the rival of his
lost boy, the one person of all others whose succession would be most
repugnant alike to his feelings and to his policy. As soon as Henry
himself was gone, the Clito would have positively no competitor; for of
all Henry’s surviving children, the only one who had any legal rights
was a daughter. The future of Henry’s policy had hung upon the thread
of a single life, and now the silver cord was loosed.
The Ætheling’s child-widow was in England: on that sad night she
had crossed with her father-in-law instead of her husband, and thus
escaped sharing the latter’s fate. Fulk at once sent to demand his
daughter back;[592] but Henry was unwilling to part from her, and kept
her constantly with him as if she were his own child, till the little
girl herself begged to see her own parents again, and was allowed to
return to Angers.[593] Henry seems really to have clung to her as a
sort of legacy from his dead son; but, to Fulk’s great indignation, he
kept her dowry as well as herself.[594] An embassy sent to England at
Christmas 1122--apparently after her return to Anjou--came back without
success after a delay of several months and a stormy parting from the
king.[595] The most important part of the dowry however was still in
Fulk’s own hands. His settlement of Maine upon William and Matilda and
their possible posterity was annulled by William’s death; Fulk was once
more free to dispose of the county as he would. Regarding all ties with
Henry as broken, and urged at once by Almeric of Montfort and Louis of
France, he offered it, with the hand of his second daughter Sibyl, to
William the Clito.[596]
[592] Eng. Chron. a. 1121.
[593] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 875.
[594] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 419 (Hardy, p. 655).
[595] Eng. Chron. a. 1123.
[596] Ord. Vit. (as above), pp. 838, 876. Eng. Chron. a. 1124.
Will. Malm. as above (p. 654).
To the threatening attitude of France and Anjou was added, as a
natural consequence, a conspiracy among the Norman barons, headed by
the arch-plotter Almeric and the young Count Waleran of Meulan, a son
of Henry’s own familiar friend. Their scheme, planned at a meeting held
in September at the Croix-Saint-Leuffroy, was discovered by the king;
he marched at once upon Waleran’s castle of Pontaudemer, and took it
after a six weeks’ siege, during which he worked in the trenches as
hard as any young soldier. This success was counterbalanced by the loss
of Gisors, which was taken and sacked by Almeric; Henry retaliated by
seizing Evreux. Advent and a stormy winter checked the strife; one
battle in the spring put an end to it. On March 25, 1124, the rebels
were met at Bourgthéroulde by Ralf of Bayeux, who commanded at Evreux
for King Henry; despite their superior numbers, they were completely
defeated, and Waleran was taken prisoner.[597] His capture was followed
by the surrender of his castles; Almeric, who had as usual escaped,
again made his peace with Henry; and the Clito’s cause, forsaken by
his Norman partizans, was left almost wholly dependent on the support
of Anjou.[598] Meanwhile Henry had found an ally in his son-in-law
and namesake the Emperor, and in August France was threatened with
a German invasion. Louis seized the consecrated banner--the famous
Oriflamme--which hung above the high altar in the abbey of S. Denis,
and hurried off with it, as Geoffrey Martel had once ridden forth with
the standard of S. Martin of Tours, to meet the foe. But the invasion
came to an unexpected end. For some reason which is not explained, the
Emperor turned suddenly homeward without striking a blow.[599]
[597] Eng. Chron. a. 1124. Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm.
Scriptt._), pp. 876–880. Will. Jumièges Contin., l. viii. c.
21 (_ib._ p. 302). The date comes from the Chronicle; the
continuator of Will. Jumièges makes it a day later.
[598] Ord. Vit. (as above), pp. 880–882.
[599] Suger, _Vita Ludov._, c. 21 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
xii. pp. 49, 50).
The English king found a more useful friend in the Pope than in the
Emperor. By dint of threats, promises and bribes, he persuaded the
court of Rome to annul the marriage of Sibyl and the Clito on the
ground of consanguinity.[600] Of their kinship there is no doubt;[601]
but it was in exactly the same degree as the kinship between Henry’s
own son and Sibyl’s sister, to whose marriage no objection had ever
been raised. The Clito refused to give up his bride, and was thereupon
excommunicated by the Pope;[602] Fulk publicly burnt the letter in
which the legate insisted upon the dissolution of the marriage, singed
the beards of the envoys who carried it, and put them in prison for a
fortnight. The consequence was an interdict[603] which compelled him to
submit; the new-married couple parted, and William the Clito became a
wanderer once more.[604]
[600] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 838.
[601] They were descended, one in the fifth, the other in the
sixth degree, from Richard the Fearless; Ord. Vit. as above,
giving details of the pedigree.
[602] Brief of Calixtus II., August 26 [1124], in D’Achéry,
_Spicilegium_, vol. iii. p. 479.
[603] Brief of Honorius II., April 12 [1125], _ibid._
[604] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 882.
Next Christmas Henry struck his final blow at his nephew’s hopes of the
succession. An old tradition which declared that whatsoever disturber
of the realm of France was brought face to face with the might of
S. Denis would die within a twelvemonth was fulfilled in the person
of the Emperor Henry V.[605] His widow, the only surviving child of
Henry of England and the “Good Queen Maude,” was summoned back to her
father’s court.[606] She came not without regret, for she had dwelt
from childhood among her husband’s people, and was held by them in
great esteem. The dying Emperor had no child to take his place. He had
committed his sceptre to his consort;[607] and some of the princes of
Lombardy and Lorraine took this symbolical bequest in such earnest that
they actually followed Matilda over sea to demand her back as their
sovereign.[608] But King Henry had other plans for his daughter. At the
midwinter assembly of 1126–1127 he made the barons and prelates of
England swear that in case of his death without lawful son they would
acknowledge her as Lady of England and Normandy.[609]
[605] Suger, _Vita Ludov._, c. 21 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol.
xii. p. 52). Henry V. died in Whit-week, 1125; Ord. Vit. (as
above).
[606] Will. Jumièges Contin., l. viii. c. 25 (Duchesne, _Hist.
Norm. Scriptt._, p. 304). Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c.
1 (Hardy, p. 689). She went to England with her father in
September 1126. Eng. Chron. ad ann.
[607] Ord. Vit. as above.
[608] Will. Jumièges Contin. and Will. Malm. as above.
[609] Eng. Chron. a. 1127. Will. Jumièges Contin., l. viii.
c. 25 (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 304). Will. Malm.
_Hist. Nov._, l. i. cc. 2, 3 (Hardy, pp. 690–692).
The first result of this unprecedented step was that the king of France
set himself to thwart it by again taking up the cause of William the
Clito, offering him, as compensation for the loss of Sibyl and Maine,
a grant of the French Vexin and a bride whom not even Rome could make
out to be his cousin--Jane of Montferrat, half-sister to Louis’s own
queen.[610] Two months later the count of Flanders was murdered at
Bruges. He was childless; the king of France adjudged his fief to
William the Clito as great-grandson of Count Baldwin V., and speedily
put him in possession of the greater part of the county.[611] Henry’s
daring scheme now seemed all but hopeless. His only chance was to make
peace with some one at least of his adversaries; and the one whom he
chose was not the king of France, but the count of Anjou. He saw--and
Fulk saw it too--that until the question about Maine was settled
there could be no lasting security, and that it could only be settled
effectually by the union of all conflicting claims in a single hand.
For such an union the way was now clear. The heir of Anjou was growing
up to manhood; the chosen successor of Henry was a childless widow.
Regardless of his promise not to give his daughter in marriage to any
one out of the realm[612]--regardless of the scorn of both Normans
and English,[613] of the Empress’s own reluctance,[614] and also of
the kindred between the houses of Normandy and Anjou--Henry sent
Matilda over sea shortly after Pentecost 1127 under the care of her
half-brother Earl Robert of Gloucester and Count Brian of Britanny,
who were charged with instructions to the archbishop of Rouen to make
arrangements for her marriage with Geoffrey Plantagenet, eldest son
of the count of Anjou. In the last week of August the king himself
followed them;[615] at the following Whitsuntide he knighted Geoffrey
at Rouen with his own hand;[616] and eight days later Geoffrey and
Matilda were wedded by the bishop of Avranches in the cathedral church
of S. Julian at Le Mans.[617]
[610] Eng. Chron. a. 1127. Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm.
Scriptt._), p. 884. _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 151.
[611] Eng. Chron. a. 1127. Ord. Vit. (as above), pp. 884, 885.
See the Flemish Chronicles in _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xiii.
[612] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 3 (Hardy, p. 693).
[613] Eng. Chron. a. 1127. “Hit ofthute nathema ealle Frencisc
and Englisc.”
[614] Will. Jumièges Contin. as above.
[615] Eng. Chron. a. 1127. Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 3
(Hardy, p. 692). Hen. Hunt., l. vii. c. 37 (Arnold, p. 247).
[616] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 234–236.
[617] _Ib._ p. 236. Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Franc.
Scriptt._), p. 889. _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._, c. 36 (Mabillon,
_Vet. Anal._, p. 321). On the date see note F at end of chapter.
It was a triumphant day for Fulk; but more triumphant still was the day
when he and Geoffrey brought the new countess home to Angers. A large
part of the barons and prelates who filled S. Julian’s minster on the
wedding-day were Normans who in their inmost souls viewed with mingled
rage and shame what they held to be the degradation of the Norman
ducal house; a large part of the crowd who with their lips cheered the
bridal procession as it passed through the streets of Le Mans were all
the while cursing in their hearts the Angevin foe of Normandy.[618]
But in Fulk’s own capital the rejoicings were universal and unalloyed.
Many a brilliant match had been made by the house of Anjou, from that
wedding with the heiress of Amboise which had been the beginning of
its founder’s fortunes, down to Fulk’s own marriage, only seventeen
years ago, with Aremburg of Maine; but never before had Black Angers
welcomed such a bride as King Henry’s daughter. A writer of the next
generation has left us a picture of Angers as it was in his days--days
when the son of Geoffrey and Matilda was king of England and count of
Anjou. In its main features that picture is almost as true a likeness
now as it can have been seven hundred years ago, and by its help we
can easily recall the scene of the bride’s homecoming. We can see the
eager citizens swarming along the narrow, crooked streets that furrow
the steep hill-side;--the clergy in their richest vestments assembling
from every church in what is still, as it was then, emphatically a
city of churches, and mustering probably on the very summit of the
hill, in the open space before the cathedral--not the cathedral whose
white twin spires now soar above all things around, the centre and the
crown of Angers, but its Romanesque predecessor, crowned doubtless by
a companion rather than a rival to the neighbouring dark tower of S.
Aubin’s abbey, which now contrasts so vividly with the light pinnacles
of S. Maurice. Thence, at a given signal, the procession streamed
down with lighted tapers and waving banners to the northern gate of
the city, and with psalms and hymns of rejoicing, half drowned in the
shouting of the people and the clang of the bells overhead, led the new
countess to her dwelling in the hall of Fulk the Black. It was Fulk
who had made the first rude plans for the edifice of statesmanship
which had now all but reached its last and loftiest stage. The
unconscious praise of the Black Count was in every shout which beneath
his palace-windows hailed in the person of his worthiest namesake and
descendant the triumph of the house of Anjou.
[618] I think this may be safely inferred from the English
Chronicler’s words a. 1127 (above, p. 243, note 5{613}), and
from a singularly suggestive passage in the account of the
wedding festivities in _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (as above), p.
237: “Clamatum est voce præconis ne quis indigena vel advena,
dives, mediocris vel pauper, nobilis vel plebeius, miles vel
colonus ex hâc regali lætitiâ se subtraheret; qui autem gaudiis
nuptialibus minime interesset, regiæ procul dubio majestatis
reus esset.”
There was no mother to welcome Geoffrey and his bride; Aremburg had
not lived to see the marriage of her son;[619] and now the shadow of
another coming separation fell over the mutual congratulations of Fulk
and of his people. Another royal father besides Henry was seeking an
Angevin bridegroom for his daughter and an Angevin successor to his
throne. It was now just thirty years since the acclamations of the
crusading host had chosen Godfrey of Bouillon king of Jerusalem. The
crown, which he in his humility declined to wear, passed after his
death to his brother Baldwin of Edessa, and then to another Baldwin,
of the noble family of Réthel in Champagne. After a busy reign of ten
years, Baldwin II., having no son, grew anxious to find a suitable
husband for his eldest daughter and destined heiress, Melisenda. In the
spring of 1128, with the unanimous approval of his subjects, he offered
her hand, together with his crown, to Count Fulk of Anjou.[620] He
could not have chosen a fitter man. Fulk was in the prime of life,[621]
young enough to bring to his task all the vigour and energy needful
to withstand the ever-encroaching Infidels, yet old enough to have
learned political caution and experience; and if the one qualification
was needed for defence against external foes, the other was no less so
for steering a safe course amid the endless jealousies of the Frank
princes in Palestine. Moreover, Fulk was known in the East by something
more than reputation. Free of all connexion with the internal disputes
of the realm, he was yet no utter stranger who would come thither as
a mere foreign interloper. He had dwelt there for a whole year as a
guest and a friend, and the memory of his visit had been kept alive
in the minds of the people of the land, as well as in his own, by
a yearly contribution which, amid all his cares and necessities at
home, he had never failed to send to the Knights of the Temple for the
defence of the Holy City.[622] Baldwin had thus every inducement to
make the offer; and Fulk had equally good reasons for accepting it. His
was clearly no case of mere vulgar longing after a crown. There may
have been a natural feeling that it would be well to put Geoffrey’s
father on a titular level with Matilda’s; if the prophecy said to have
been made to Fulk the Good was already in circulation, there may have
been also a feeling that it was rapidly approaching its fulfilment.
But every recorded act of Fulk V. shews that he was too practical in
temper to be dazzled by the mere glitter of a crown, without heeding
the solid advantages to be gained with it or to be given up for its
sake. He must have known that the sacred border-land of Christendom and
Islam was a much harder post to defend than the marchland of France and
Aquitaine had ever been; he must have known that the consort of the
queen of Jerusalem would find little rest upon her throne. But this
second Count Fulk the Palmer cared for rest as little as the first. It
was work that he longed for: and work at home was at an end for him.
The mission of the counts of Anjou, simply as such, was accomplished;
when the heir of the Marchland wedded the Lady-elect of Normandy and
England, he entered upon an entirely new phase of political existence.
Fulk had in fact, by marrying his son to the Empress, cut short his own
career, and left himself no choice but to submit to complete effacement
or seek a new sphere of action elsewhere. Had Baldwin’s proposal come a
year earlier, it might have caused a struggle between inclination and
duty; coming as it did just after Henry’s, it extricated all parties
from their last difficulty.
[619] She died in 1126; Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Flor. Salm.
ad ann. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 33, 190). A story of her
last illness, in _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._ c. 36 (Mabillon, _Vet.
Anal._, p. 320), is very characteristic of Fulk, and indicates,
too, that whether or not his marriage with her began in policy
alone, it ended in real affection.
[620] Will. Tyr., l. xiv. c. 1. _Acta Pontif. Cenoman._, c. 36
(Mabillon, _Vet. Anal._) p. 321.
[621] He cannot have been more than thirty-eight; he may have
been only thirty-six.
[622] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 871).
Will. Tyr. as above.
Fulk could not, however, accept the proposal without the consent of
his overlord King Louis and that of his own subjects.[623] Both were
granted; his people had prospered under him, but they, too, doubtless
saw that alike for him and for them it was time to part. On that same
Whit-Sunday when young Geoffrey was knighted at Rouen by King Henry,
his father, prostrate before the high altar in the cathedral church
of Tours, took the cross at the hands of Archbishop Hildebert.[624]
From the wedding festivities at Le Mans he came home to make his
preparations for departure. It may be that once more in the old hall
overlooking the Mayenne the barons of Anjou and Touraine gathered round
the last Count Fulk, to be solemnly released from their allegiance to
him, and to perform their homage to his successor. A more secluded
spot was chosen for the last family meeting. A few miles south-east
of Saumur, in the midst of dark woods and fruitful apple-orchards, a
pious and noble crusader, Robert of Arbrissel, had founded in the
early years of Fulk’s reign the abbey of Fontevraud, whose church has
counted ever since among the architectural marvels of western Europe.
An English visitor now-a-days feels as if some prophetic instinct
must have guided its architect and given to his work that peculiar
awe-striking character which so exactly fits it for the burial-place
of the two Angevin kings of England whose sculptured effigies still
remain in its south transept. The first of their race who wore a crown,
however, came thither not for his last sleep, but only for a few hours
of rest ere he started on his eastward journey. The monastery was a
double one--half for men and half for women; in the latter Fulk’s
eldest daughter, the widow of William the Ætheling, had lately taken
the veil. The cloisters of Fontevraud offered a quiet refuge where
father and children could all meet undisturbed to exchange their last
farewells.[625] Before Whitsuntide came round again Fulk and Anjou had
parted for ever.[626]
[623] _Gesta Amb. Domin._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 205.
[624] _Gesta Cons._ (_ibid._), p. 152.
[625] “Ego Fulco junior Andegavensium comes, Fulconis comitis
filius, ire volens Hierusalem, conventum sanctimonialium
Fontis-Evraudi expetii. Adfuerunt etiam ibi filii mei Gaufridus
et Helias, et filiæ meæ Mathildis et Sibylla, quarum una, id
est Mathildis, paulo ante pro Dei amore se velari fecerat, etc.
Acta charta apud Fontem-Ebraudi anno ab Incarnat. Dom. 1129”
(_Rer. Gall. Script._, vol. xii. p. 736 note, from “Clypeum
nascentis Fontis-Ebraldi”).
[626] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 153. _Gesta Amb.
Domin._ (_ibid._), p. 205. Will. Tyr., l. xiii. c. 24, l.
xiv. c. 1. Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Serg. a. 1129 (Marchegay,
_Eglises_, pp. 33, 144).
It is not for us to follow him on his lifelong crusade.[627] The
Angevin spirit of restless activity and sleepless vigilance, of
hard-working thoroughness and indomitable perseverance, never, perhaps,
shewed to better advantage than in this second half of the eventful
life of Fulk of Jerusalem; but we have to trace its workings only as
they influenced the history of our own land. Our place is not with the
devoted personal followers who went with Fulk across land and sea, but
with those who stayed to share the fortunes of his successor in Anjou.
Our concern is with the father of the Angevin kings, not of Jerusalem,
but of England.
[627] Its history is in Will. Tyr., l. xiv. cc. 1–27.
NOTE A.
THE HOUSES OF ANJOU AND GÂTINAIS.
All historians are agreed that Geoffrey the Bearded and Fulk Rechin
were sons of Geoffrey Martel’s sister and of a count (or viscount)
of Gâtinais, or Châteaulandon, which is the same thing--the Gâtinais
being a district on the north-eastern border of the Orléanais whereof
Châteaulandon was the capital. But the names of both husband and wife
differ in different accounts. Fulk Rechin (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 375)
calls his mother Hermengard; R. Diceto (_ib._ p. 333; Stubbs, vol. i.
p. 185) calls her Adela; in the _Gesta Cons._ no names are given. If we
could be sure that Fulk really wrote the fragment which bears his name,
his testimony would of course be decisive; as it is, we are left in
doubt. The point is one of trifling importance, for whatever the lady’s
name may have been, there is no doubt that she was the daughter of Fulk
the Black and Hildegard. But who was her husband?
First, as to his name. The _Gesta Cons._ do not mention it. The Chron.
S. Maxent. a. 1060 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 402), Hugh of Fleury
(_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 797), and R. Diceto (Marchegay,
_Comtes_, p. 333; Stubbs, vol. i. p. 185) call him Alberic. Fulk Rechin
(as above) calls him Geoffrey. None of them tell us anything about him.
It seems in fact to be the aim of the Angevin writers to keep us in the
dark as to the descent of the later counts of Anjou from the house of
Gâtinais through the husband of Hermengard-Adela; but they try to make
out a connexion between the two families six generations further back.
One of the earliest legends in the _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_,
pp. 39–45) tells how Châteaulandon and the Gâtinais were given to
Ingelger as a reward for his defence of his slandered godmother, the
daughter and heiress of a Count Geoffrey of Gâtinais, and the alleged
gift is coupled with a grant from the king of the viscounty of Orléans.
What Ingelger may or may not have held it is impossible to say, as we
really know nothing about him. But there is proof that the viscounty of
Orléans at least did not pass to his descendants. The very first known
charter of Fulk the Good, one dated May 942, is witnessed by Geoffrey
viscount of Orléans; and Geoffrey Greygown’s charter for the reform
of S. Aubin’s in 966 is witnessed by Alberic viscount of Gâtinais,
whose signature has already appeared in 957, attached to a charter of
Theobald the Trickster. This Alberic may very likely have been the son
of his predecessor Geoffrey, but he cannot well have been the father of
Fulk Nerra’s son-in-law; there is a generation dropped out, and of the
man who should fill it the only trace is in Ménage (_Hist. de Sablé_),
who says that Fulk Rechin’s father, Geoffrey count of Gâtinais, was
the son of _another Geoffrey_ and Beatrice, daughter of Alberic II. of
Mâcon (Mabille, introd. _Comtes_, pp. lxxxv–lxxxvi). It seems probable
that Orléans and Châteaulandon went together in fact as well as in
Angevin legend. Assuming therefore that Ménage was copying a document
now lost, the pedigree would stand thus:
Geoffrey,
viscount of Orléans 942
|
Alberic,
viscount in 957 and 966
|
Geoffrey,
viscount of Orléans and count of Gâtinais
|
Alberic or Geoffrey = Hermengard or Adela,
| daughter of Fulk Nerra
+--------------+--------------+
| |
Geoffrey the Bearded. Fulk Rechin.
If we might assume also, with M. Mabille, that the “Alberic” whose
signature appears beside that of Fulk the Red in 886 (Mabille, introd.
_Comtes_, p. lix, note 1) was the father of the first Geoffrey of
Orléans, then the two names would stand alternate till we come to
Hermengard’s husband. Is it just possible that (on a principle somewhat
like that which made all the dukes of Aquitaine assume the name of
William) this alternation of names grew into a family tradition, so
that the son of Geoffrey II. and Beatrice having by some accident been
christened by his father’s instead of his grandfather’s name, assumed
the latter officially on succeeding to the title, and thus became known
to outsiders as “Alberic,” while his own son (Fulk Rechin) spoke of him
by his original and real name?
However this may be, he was most probably descended from the family
who became viscounts of Orléans at about the same time that the house
of Anjou was being founded. They make no figure in history, and the
Angevin writers do their best to efface them altogether. Ralf de Diceto
just names the father of the two young counts, and that is all; in the
_Gesta Cons._ his very name is dropped, and the reader is left in utter
darkness as to who and what Martel’s nephews were. They were Martel’s
nephews, and that was all that anybody was intended to know about them.
Fulk Rechin himself, or his representative, merges the Châteaulandon
connexion almost completely in the Angevin, and regards himself simply
as the grandson of Fulk Nerra. After all, they are right; it was Fulk
Nerra’s blood that made his grandsons what they were; their father
might have been anybody, or, as he almost appears, nobody, for all the
influence he had on their characters or their destinies.
NOTE B.
THE HEIR OF GEOFFREY MARTEL.
Of the disposal of his territories made by Geoffrey Martel there are
three versions.
1. The _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 131), R. Diceto (_ib._
p. 333; Stubbs, vol. i. p. 185) and Chron. Tur. Magn. (Salmon, _Chron.
Touraine_, pp. 122, 123) say that Anjou and Saintonge were left to
Fulk, Touraine and Gâtinais to Geoffrey.
2. A MS. representing the earliest form of the _Gesta Cons._ (ending in
1106) says just the opposite: Anjou and Saintonge to Geoffrey, Touraine
and Gâtinais to Fulk (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 131, note 1. See Mabille,
introd. _Comtes_, _ib._ pp. iv–viii).
3. Orderic (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 532) and Will.
Poitiers (_ib._ pp. 188, 189) ignore Fulk and make Geoffrey sole heir.
The first version is easily disposed of. In three charters of S.
Florence of Saumur, one of 1061 (Marchegay, _Archives d’Anjou_, vol.
i. p. 259) and two whose dates must be between 1062 and 1066 (_ib._ p.
278), and in one of S. Maur, 1066 (_ib._ pp. 358–360), Geoffrey the
Bearded is formally described as count of Anjou. The strongest proof of
all is a charter of Fulk Rechin himself, March 11, 1068, setting forth
how Geoffrey, nephew and _heir_ of Geoffrey Martel, had made certain
promises to S. Florence, which he, Fulk, having now got possession of
Anjou, fulfilled (_ib._ p. 260).
The second version, though apparently not contradicted by any
documentary proof, has nothing to support it, and contains an internal
difficulty. For how could Martel leave the Gâtinais to Fulk? Surely it
was not his to leave at all, but would pass as a matter of course to
Geoffrey as Alberic’s (Geoffrey’s?) eldest son. The old confusion of
the relations of the Gâtinais to Anjou peeps out again here.
The third account is that of foreign writers; but those writers are
Orderic and William of Poitiers. And they are not unsupported. Geoffrey
Martel’s last act, a charter granted to Marmoutier on his deathbed, is
signed by his _nephew and successor-designate Geoffrey_, and by Fulk,
who is described simply as the latter’s brother (Mabille, introd.
_Comtes_, p. lxxxiv).
The conclusion to which all this leads is that Martel bequeathed the
whole of his dominions to his elder nephew Geoffrey, and that all the
conflicting stories of a division of territory were inventions to save
the character of Fulk Rechin. It is possible that Martel did, as Fulk
says, invest him with Saintonge, but even here it is evident that the
elder brother’s rights were reserved, for it is Geoffrey, not Fulk, who
fights for Saintonge with the duke of Aquitaine.
One portion of Martel’s dominions is named in none of these accounts,
except Fulk’s; and that is Maine. Fulk coolly puts it into the list of
his own possessions, and M. Mabille regards this as a blunder proving
that the author of the _Fragment_ was not what he professes to be.
May it not rather tell the other way? A forger would have remembered
that Maine was lost and not risked such a glaring falsehood; the count
ignores its _de facto_ loss because he holds himself its overlord
_de jure_. We shall find Geoffrey the Bearded making his appearance
as titular overlord of Maine in 1063. Did Martel feel about Maine as
William the Conqueror seems to have felt about England?
NOTE C.
THE WAR OF SAINTONGE.
The account of this war between Geoffrey the Bearded and Guy-Geoffrey,
_alias_ William VII., of Aquitaine, has to be made out from one direct
source and one indirect one. The first is the Chron. S. Maxent.
a. 1061 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 402, 403): “Goffredus et Fulco
habentes certamen cum Gaufredo duce propter Sanctonas, venientes
cum magno exercitu, pugnaverunt cum eo in bello etiam in Aquitaniâ,
ubi e contrario Pictavorum exercitus adunatus est; et ab utrisque
partibus magnis animositatibus pugnatum est, sed traditores belli et
ceteri signiferi, vexillis projectis, exercitum Pictavensium in fugam
verterunt. Quapropter vulnerati multi sunt et plurimi occisi atque
nonnulli capti; unde quidam versibus eam confusionem ita describit,
dicens: Cum de Pictavis bellum sit et Andegavinis, Inque die Martis
fuit et Sancti Benedicti, Circa forte Caput Wultonnæ contigit esse,
Annus millenus tunc sexagesimus unus.”
That entry comprises all the direct information on the subject. The
Angevin monastic chronicles and Fulk Rechin do not mention it at
all. Neither do the _Gesta Cons._ in the right place; but they mix
it up with the war between Geoffrey Martel and William the Fat in
1033. By the light of the Chron. S. Maxent., it seems possible to
disentangle the two stories. It even seems possible to make sense of
a passage in the _Gesta_ which never can be sense as it stands, by
understanding it as referring to Geoffrey the Bearded instead of his
uncle: “Willelmus Pictavensium comes consulatum Sanctonicum suum esse
volebat et vi preoccupatum tenebat, quia patrui sui fuerat. Martellus
eumdem consulatum reclamabat quia avi sui fuerat, cujus heredes absque
liberis mortui erant; et ideo ad heredes sororis avi sui debere reverti
affirmabat” (_Gesta Cons._, Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 126). This is the
story by which the _Gesta_-writer professes to explain the cause of
the war of Geoffrey Martel and William the Fat, of which he then gives
an elaborate account, ending with William’s capture and the consequent
surrender of Saintes to Geoffrey. But the story is utterly senseless;
the claims of William and Martel as therein stated are alike devoid of
all show of reason. In the account of the war itself, too, there are
strong traces of confusion; Saintes is assumed to have passed back into
the duke’s hands, of which there is no sign elsewhere; and to crown
all, the scene of the battle in which William is taken is laid, not as
by the Chron. S. Maxent. (a. 1032, Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 392) and
Fulk Rechin (_Comtes_, p. 378), at S. Jouin-de-Marne or Montcontour,
but at Chef-Boutonne. The question then arises: Can this wild tale in
the _Gesta_, which is quite impossible as an explanation of Martel’s
war with William V., be interpreted so as to explain his successor’s
war with William VII.?
“Willelmus [VII., _alias_ Guy-Geoffrey] Pictavensium comes consulatum
Sanctonicum suum esse volebat et vi præoccupatum tenebat [having
presumably seized it on Martel’s death], quia patrui sui [for _patrui_
read _fratris_--William the Fat--or _patris_, William the Great]
fuerat. Martellus [Barbatus] eumdem consulatum reclamabat, quia avi
sui [Fulconis Nerræ] fuerat, cujus hæredes [_i.e._ G. Martellus]
absque liberis mortui essent; et ideo ad hæredes sororis avi sui [read
_avunculi sui_--Martel’s sister, the Bearded one’s mother] debere
reverti affirmabat.”
Read in this way, the story is quite reasonable and intelligible,
and the rest of the _Gesta’s_ account might stand almost intact,
except the capture of the duke, which of course is dragged in from
the earlier war. The confusion between the Williams of Aquitaine is
easily accounted for, and so is that between the Geoffreys of Anjou,
especially as all the Geoffreys after Martel occasionally took to
themselves his cognomen.
NOTE D.
THE DESCENDANTS OF HERBERT WAKE-DOG.
Not the least puzzling matter connected with the Cenomannian wars is
the genealogy of the sovereign house of Maine. The succession of the
counts themselves--Hugh I. (or David), Herbert I. (Wake-dog), Hugh II.,
Herbert II.--is plain enough, as also that each was the son of his
predecessor. But the filiation of the women of the family--Margaret,
Gersendis, Paula and Biota--is far from being equally clear.
1. As to Margaret, there is no real doubt. Orderic does once (Duchesne,
_Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 683) call her a daughter of Herbert [II.];
but his own statements in two other places (_ib._ pp. 487 and 532), as
well as Will. Poitiers (_ib._ p. 190), shew that this is a mere slip.
Margaret was clearly a daughter of Hugh II. and sister of Herbert II.
2. As to Biota. Orderic (as above, p. 487) calls her “Hugonis
Cenomannensium comitis filiam”; in Will. Poitiers (_ib._ p. 189) she is
“_soror_ Hugonis”; and Mr. Freeman (_Norm. Conq._, 3d ed., vol. iii. p.
200, and note T, p. 676) adopts the latter version. Biota, then, was a
daughter of Herbert Wake-dog and sister of Hugh II. But were Gersendis
and Paula her sisters or her nieces?
3. The fullest and most distinct statement of the Cenomannian pedigree
is that of Orderic in Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 532: “Hugo
filius Herberti ... Bertam ... in conjugium accepit; quæ filium nomine
Herbertum et tres filias ei peperit. Una earum data est Azsoni Marchiso
Liguriæ. Alia nomine Margarita Rodberto filio Guillelmi Ducis Neustriæ
desponsata est ... Tertia vero Joanni domino castri quod Flecchia
dicitur nupsit.”
With regard to this last marriage, it is to be observed that in the
speech which Orderic puts into the mouth of Elias of La Flèche,
addressing Hugh of Este (_ib._ p. 684), he says nothing about his
mother at all, but makes him trace his descent from Herbert Wake-dog
through his grandmother, whom he calls Herbert’s daughter: “Filia
Herberti comitis Lancelino de Balgenceio nupsit, eique ... Joannem
meum genitorem peperit.” The name of John’s wife, Paula, comes from
another passage of Orderic (_ib._ p. 768); but he there says nothing
about her parentage, merely calling her son Elias “Hugonis Cenomannorum
consulis consobrinus.” The houses of Le Mans and La Flèche cannot have
intermarried twice in two succeeding generations; one of Orderic’s
statements must be wrong; but which, I cannot decide.
The last point is the parentage of Gersendis, the wife of Azzo of Este;
and as the whole tone of Elias’s speech (as above) implies that he and
her son were related to the counts of Le Mans in the same degree, the
solution of this question might almost be held to decide the previous
one also. This seems to be Mr. Freeman’s opinion, and he regards
Orderic’s statement quoted above as conclusive that Gersendis and Paula
were both daughters of Hugh II., and sisters therefore of Margaret
and Herbert II., in spite of the biographer of the bishops of Le Mans
(Mabillon, _Vet. Anal._, p. 308), who expressly says that Gersendis
was a daughter of Herbert Wake-dog, and the continuator of Will.
Jumièges, who says:--“Cenomannenses ... consilium ineunt cum Heliâ
filio Joannis de Flecâ ... ut _filiam cujusdam comitis Langobardiæ,
neptem videlicet Hereberti quondam Cenomannensis comitis ex primogenitâ
filiâ_, in matrimonium ducat.” Will. Jumièges, l. viii. c. 5 (Duchesne,
_Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 294). This re-appears in R. Diceto (Stubbs,
vol. i. pp. 183, 184; Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 334) in the following
form:--“Helias, filius Johannis de Flecâ, Sibillam, filiam cujusdam
comitis Longobardiæ, neptem scilicet Hereberti quondam Cenomannorum
comitis, duxit uxorem, et cum eâ comitatum Cenomanniæ suscepit.” But
this is certainly wrong; for the first wife of Elias was Matilda of
Château-du-Loir, and the second was Agnes of Perche.
What Elias could have had to gain by the marriage thus proposed for him
it is impossible to guess, as he himself certainly was quite as nearly
related to the counts of Maine as this oddly-described bride could have
been. Mr. Freeman (_Norm. Conq._, 3d ed., vol. iii., note T, p. 676),
takes the description as favouring Orderic’s theory, and remarks: “The
words could only have been written by one who looked on Gersendis as
a sister of Herbert.” “Neptem Hereberti,” then, he interprets, “niece
of Herbert [II].” But is it not a much simpler interpretation of the
whole phrase--“_neptem Hereberti ex primogenitâ filiâ_”--to read it
“granddaughter of Herbert [I.] through his eldest daughter”? In that
case, we should have another witness on the side of the bishops’
biographer.
There is another curious bit of evidence which at first glance seems
also to tell in his favour. I do not think that it really proves
anything about the matter; but it is worth examining for other reasons.
M. d’Arbois de Jubainville (_Comtes de Champagne_, vol. i. p. 392, note
5), declares it proved on documentary evidence that Stephen-Henry of
Blois, the father of our King Stephen, was the son of Theobald III.
by his first marriage with Gersendis of Maine. About the marriage
itself there is no doubt, nor about the divorce which followed it;
and the latter had taken place in 1049 at latest, for Theobald was
excommunicated for that very cause by the Council of Reims. Most
historians seem however to have supposed that Gersendis was then a mere
child, and that the mother of Stephen, as well as of Theobald’s other
children, was his second wife, Adela of Valois. M. de Jubainville, in
support of his opinion, refers especially to two charters. One is in
_Gallia Christiana_, vol. viii., instr. col. 548. It has no date, and
says nothing about Stephen’s mother or his stepmother; I therefore
cannot see its bearing on the question. The other is in Bernier,
_Histoire de Blois, preuves_, pp. xiii–xiv. In it Stephen-Henry, in the
year 1089, grants certain lands to Pontlevoy “pro animæ meæ et uxoris
et Theobaldi patris mei et _matris meæ Gandree_ ... remedio”; and has
the grant confirmed “nomine ... Alæ uxoris meæ, _Alæ uxoris Thebaudi
comitis_,” etc. This certainly seems to shew that Adela was not his
mother, though it does not necessarily follow that “Gandree” represents
Gersendis. If it does, Stephen-Henry must have been born in 1049 at
latest, and therefore Gersendis cannot possibly have been a daughter of
Hugh II., who was not married till 1040 at the very earliest.
The greatest puzzle in the whole matter, however, is this: If
Stephen-Henry was really the eldest son of Gersendis of Maine, how
does it happen that neither in 1073, nor in 1089, nor in any of the
Cenomannian revolutions and wars, do we hear a single word about his
claims upon the county? M. d’Arbois de Jubainville’s suggestion in fact
opens a question much more important and much more obscure than that of
the age and parentage of Gersendis. He certainly seems to have proved
that Adela of Valois was not Stephen’s mother; but has he proved that
Gersendis was? The only bit of evidence, direct or indirect, which
it seems possible to bring to bear upon this matter is a passage in
the _Historia Pontificalis_ (Pertz, _Mon. Germ. Hist._, vol. xx. p.
531) where it is said that the cause of our King Stephen was upheld
by some of the Roman cardinals who claimed kindred with him “eo quod
avia ejus Lumbarda fuerit.” Now, as the second husband of Gersendis
was a Lombard, this may come from some confused idea about her. But it
also suggests another possible solution of the whole question about
Stephen-Henry’s mother. Theobald and Gersendis were divorced in 1049 at
latest; the first record in which Adela appears as Theobald’s wife is
dated 1061 (Jubainville, _Comtes de Champagne_, vol. i. p. 393, note
3). May not the mysterious “Gandrea” of the charter of 1089 have been
an Italian lady who was married to Theobald, became the mother of his
heir, and died, between those two dates?
NOTE E.
THE SIEGE OF LA FLÈCHE AND TREATY OF BLANCHELANDE.
There are two questionable points connected with these matters: 1. the
date; 2. the geography.
1. The only original writer who gives a detailed account of both siege
and treaty is Orderic, who carries his story straight on from the
quelling of the revolt of Maine in 1073 to the siege of La Flèche, as
if it had all happened in the same year, before William returned to
England with his troops. On the other hand, none of the Angevin writers
mention La Flèche under date 1073; but the Chronn. S. Albin. and S.
Flor. Salm. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 26, 189) have “Exercitus de
Fissâ,” the former in 1077, the latter in 1078; and in the _Art de
vérifier les Dates_ these entries are interpreted as referring to the
siege which was followed by the treaty of Blanchelande. M. Voisin (_Les
Cénomans_, p. 414) dates the whole affair 1085; he gives no reason
and seems to be quite unsupported. The choice lies therefore between
Orderic’s date and that of the Angevin chronicles. Mr. Freeman (_Norm.
Conq._, vol. iv. pp. 560–563) follows Orderic, and I have done the same.
2. As to the geography. Orderic (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p.
533) says that to meet William the Angevin and Breton host, leaving
La Flèche, “Ligerim fluvium audacter pertransierunt.” Now this must
be wrong, as the Loire is a long way south of La Flèche. It is clear
that for _Ligerim_, “Loire,” we must read _Liderim_, “Loir,” as Mr.
Freeman says (_Norm. Conq._, vol. iv. p. 562, note 2). Even crossing
the Loir seems rather a strange proceeding; for La Flèche being on
the right or north bank of that river, they must have crossed it to
the southward--_i.e._ away from Normandy. How came it that William,
marching against them out of Normandy, had gone so far down to the
south of them?
There is however a further question as to the actual place of the
treaty, which Mr. Freeman (as above, p. 562) places at Bruère in the
Passais. If such was the case, Orderic’s story of the crossing of the
river becomes quite hopeless, as Bruère is a long way north-west of La
Flèche. But there is another version. J. Pesche in his _Dictionnaire
historique de la Sarthe_, vol. i. p. 168, under “_Blanchelande_ ou
_Blanche-bruyère_,” says: “Vaste espace de terrain infertile, où croît
abondamment le lichen des rennes, dont la blancheur lui aura fait
donner son nom; situé _entre La Flèche et Le Lude_, côtoyé par la route
qui conduit de l’une à l’autre de ces deux villes.” It is this which
Pesche and, following him, M. Voisin (_Les Cénomans_, p. 414, note
1) mark as the scene of the treaty. So does M. Prévost in a note to
Orderic, vol. ii. p. 258, and he adds that a farm there still in 1840
bore the name of Blanchelande. If this theory is correct, Orderic’s
geography is quite right and clear; the besiegers of La Flèche, on the
north side of the Loir, crossing over to its southern bank, would march
straight upon the “white moor.” William must then have crossed higher
up and made a circuit to the south-east of them. The only question
remaining would be, what was his reason for this movement? To which
there was doubtless a good military answer.
With regard to the second siege of La Flèche by Fulk Rechin, in 1081,
there is a very strange story in the Chron. Rain. Andeg. (Marchegay,
_Eglises_, p. 13). We are there told that Fulk not only took and burned
the castle (as the Chron. S. Albin., _ib._ p. 26, also states under
the same year) in revenge, for John’s rebellion against him, but also
punished King William for his previous relief of the castle, by so
worsting him in battle that he retreated after giving hostages for
peace, among whom were his brother the count of Mortain and his own
son! Mr. Freeman says nothing of this very apocryphal-looking story. Is
it anything more than an Angevin travesty of Robert’s homage to Fulk at
Blanchelande?
NOTE F.
THE MARRIAGE OF GEOFFREY AND MATILDA.
The date of this marriage is commonly given as 1127. A comparison of
evidence seems however to lead to the conclusion that its true date is
1128.
1. The Angevin chronicles never mention the marriage at all. The _Gesta
Cons._, Will. Jumièges and several other writers mention it without
any kind of date. The English Chronicle, Sim. Durh., Will. Malm. and
Hen. Hunt. give no distinct date, but imply that the proposal was
immediately followed by the wedding. They speak as if Robert and Brian
had taken Matilda over sea and married her to Geoffrey without more ado.
2. Orderic mentions the marriage in two places. In the first (Duchesne,
_Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 763) he gives no clue to the date; in the
second (_ib._ p. 889) he dates it 1129.
3. The Chron. Fiscannense (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 778)
dates it 1127.
4. A charter of agreement between the bishop of Séez and the convent
of Marmoutier (printed in Gilles Bry’s _Hist. de Perche_, p. 106)
has “signum Henrici Regis quando dedit filiam suam Gaufredo comiti
Andegavensi juniori.” It is dated “anno ab Inc. Dom. 1127, Indictione
VI.”
5. The last witness is John of Marmoutier, the author of the _Historia
Gaufredi Ducis_. From him we might have expected a distinct and
authentic statement; but he does not mention the year at all. He says
that Geoffrey was knighted on Whit-Sunday and married on its octave,
and that he was then fifteen years of age (_Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_,
Marchegay, _Comtes_, pp. 236, 233). Afterwards, in speaking of the
birth of Henry Fitz-Empress, he says that it took place in the fourth
year of his parents’ marriage (_ib._ pp. 277, 278). Henry was born
on Mid-Lent Sunday, March 5, 1133; if therefore the writer reckoned
backwards from the Whitsuntide of that year, his words ought to
mean that the marriage was in 1129. But as he goes on to state that
Matilda’s third son was born in the sixth year of her marriage, and
that Henry I. died “anno eodem, ab Incarnatione videlicet Domini 1137,”
it is impossible to say what he did mean. Whether he is collecting
the traditions of the ancient counts or writing the life of his own
contemporary sovereign, John’s chronology is pursued by the same fate;
whenever he mentions a date by the year, he is almost certain to make
it wrong. But that he should have done the like in his reckoning of
days, or even of his hero’s age, by no means follows. To consider the
latter point first: Geoffrey the Handsome was born on August 24, 1113
(Chron. S. Albin. _ad ann._, Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 32). Therefore,
if John meant that he was past fifteen at his marriage, it must have
been in 1129. But if he only meant “in his fifteenth year,” it would be
1128. In that year the octave of Pentecost fell on June 17; Geoffrey
then lacked but two months to the completion of his fifteenth year; and
considering Matilda’s age, it is no wonder that the panegyrist tried
to make her husband out as old as possible. It is in fact plain that
such was his intention, for though he places Geoffrey’s death in the
right year, 1151, he gives his age as forty-one instead of thirty-eight
(_Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_, Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 292).
The most important matter, however, is John’s statement that the
wedding took place on the octave of Pentecost. The date in this case
is not one casually slipped in by the writer in passing; it comes in
a detailed account of the festivities at Rouen on the occasion of
Geoffrey’s knighting, which is expressly said to have occurred at
Pentecost, and to have been followed by his marriage on the octave. Now
this leaves us on the horns of a dilemma fatal alike to the date in the
Chron. Fiscann., 1127, and to that of Orderic, 1129. For, on the one
hand, Will. Malm. (_Hist. Nov._, l. i. c. 3, Hardy, p. 692) says that
Matilda did not go to Normandy till _after_ Whitsuntide [1127]; and
Hen. Hunt., l. vii. c. 37 (Arnold, p. 247), adds that the king followed
her in August (Sim. Durh., ed. Arnold, vol. ii. pp. 281, 282, really
witnesses to the same effect; for his chronology of the whole story is
a year in advance). Consequently, as Mrs. Everett Green remarks, “the
union could not have taken place before the spring of the following
year, 1128” (_Princesses of England_, vol. i. pp. 107, 108). On the
other hand, it is plain that Fulk was present at his son’s wedding; but
before Whitsuntide 1129 Fulk was himself married to the princess of
Jerusalem (Will. Tyr., l. xiii. c. 24).
From all this it results: 1. If Geoffrey and Matilda were married in
1127, it cannot have been earlier than September, _i.e._ at least three
months after Whitsuntide. 2. If they were married in 1129, it must
have been quite at the beginning of the year, and Orderic must, on
this occasion at least, have made his year begin in English fashion,
at Christmas. 3. If they were married at Whitsuntide, it can only have
been in 1128.
We have in short to choose one out of three authorities: the Chronicle
of Fécamp, Orderic and John of Marmoutier--for the Séez charter, as
Mrs. Everett Green remarks (_Princesses_, vol. i. p. 108), proves
nothing more than that the betrothal had taken place in 1127. Of these
three, the first is certainly of least account. Orderic, on the other
hand, is on most other subjects a far better authority than John. But
his chronology is very little better than John’s, at any rate towards
the close of his work; his whole account of Henry’s later years is
sketchy and confused; while John is Geoffrey Plantagenet’s own special
biographer, writing within sixty years of the event, from materials
furnished by personal followers of his hero. I cannot but regard him
as our primary authority on this subject, and believe on his testimony
that the real wedding-day of Geoffrey and Matilda was the octave of
Pentecost, June 17, 1128.