An Ecclesiastical Barony of the Middle Ages: The Bishopric of Bayeux, 1066-1204 0674281101, 9780674281103

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HARVARD HISTORICAL MONOGRAPHS I. Athenian Tribal Cycles in the Hellenistic Age. By William Scott Ferguson. II. The Private Record of an Indian Govemor-Generalship. The Correspondence of Sir John Shore, Govemor-General, with Henry Dundas, President of the Board of Control 1793-1798. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Holden Furber. III. The Federal Railway Land Subsidy Policy of Canada. By James B. Hedges. IV. Russian Diplomacy and the Opening of the Eastem Question in 1838 and 1839. By Phihp E. Mosely. V. The First Social Experiments in America. A Study in the Development of Spanish Indian Policy in the Sixteenth Centiuy. By Lewis Hanke. VI. British Propaganda at Home and in The United States From 1914 to 1917. By James Duane Squires. VII. Bemadotte and the Fall of Napoleon, By Franklin D. Scott. VIII. The Incidence of the Terror Düring the French Revolution. A Statistical Interpretation. By Donald Greer. IX. French Revolutionary Legislation on Illegitimacy, 17891804. By Grane Brinton. X. An Ecclesiastical Barony of the Middle Agas. The Bishopric of Bayeux, 1066-1204. By Sarell Everett Gleason.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBBIDGE, MASS., U . S. A .

HARVARD HISTORICAL

MONOGRAPHS

X PUBLISHED

UXDEH

TUE

OF H I S T O R Y

DIRECTION FKOM

THE

OF T H E INCOMF.

DEPAHTMEN'T OF

T H E ROBERT LOUIS STROOCK FUND

LONDON : HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS

An Ecclesiastical Barony of the Middle Ages The Bishopric of Bayeux, 1066-1204 BY

SARELL EVERETT GLEASON Harvard

University

Cambridge HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS MCMXXXVI

COPYIIIGHT,

1936

B Y T H E P R E S I D E l f T A N D FELLOWS OF HAEVAED COLLEGE

PEIJfTED I X

THE

U N I T E D STATES OP

AMERICA

To F. A. B.

CONTENTS

PREFATORY NOTICE CHAPTER I. II. III.

PAGE

INTRODUCTION

3

T H E BISHOPS

8

LANDS,

POPULATION,

AND

REVENUES

OF

THE BISHOPRIC IV.

T H E MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT

V.

T H E E P I S C O P A L JURISDICTION .

VI. VII.

39 . .

. .

.

68

.

83

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

109

INDEX

121

AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY OF THE MIDDLE AGES

PREFATORY NOTICE I would gladly acknowledge here many debts to those who have enabled me to make this study of the bishopric of Bayeux. To Harvard University I am indebted for the grant of a Sheldon Fellowship which permitted me to visit Bayeux. Several Norman seholars, particularly M . R. N. Sauvage, Archivist of the Department of the Calvados, and Canon Le Male of Bayeux, whose profound knowledge of the history of the bishopric and whose willingness to share that knowledge with others, made my visit pleasant and profitable. At Harvard University Professors Mcllwain, La Piana, and C. H. Taylor, among others, have been very generous in aiding me. Most of all, however, I am grateful to Professor Charles H. Haskins under whose guidance I first crossed the E p t e into Normandy. Adams House, Harvard University, M a y 1936,

INTRODUCTION

DÜRING the last fifty years historians have devoted much attention to the nature and seope of royal authority in the Anglo-Norman state of the twelfth Century. The result has been an impressive inerease in our understanding of the institutions of the central government. Nevertheless, feudalism was not merely a set of relationships between the king and his tenants-in-chief, but a social order in which authority penetrated to the masses of the population through the manor, and through the groups of manors which constituted the barony or honor. The importance of the barony as a feudal State in miniature has been appreciated more slowly because of a long-prevailing tendency to associate legal authority and order only with centralized government. The twelfth Century, however, did not regard feudal decentralization as necessarily synonymous with anarchy. Consequently, to obtain a more complete understanding of feudal society at its apogee, it is essential first to rid ourseives of the modern prejudice that the king alone stood for order and security. It follows naturally that the baronage and the great honors will then receive the attention they merit as the connecting link between the government of the king and the local, manorial units; and the importance of the mediaeval hierarchy of authority based upon tenure will be more justly appreciated, Professor Stenton has already begun this task with notable success in his study of feudalism in England 3

4

AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

during the Century following the Conquest. This essay is an attempt to seek the same objective and to apply the same method in describing a single great barony across the Channel: the bishopric of Bayeux. I t is true that the term barony was not currently used to describe the bishopric in the twelfth Century, and an ecclesiastical lordship unquestionably betrays certain differences from contemporary secular honors. Nevertheless, it is an aim of this essay to show that such differences were minor and that judged by most of the criteria of the age, the bishopric of Bayeux was in fact a barony. Indeed, the extent to which the Norman bishop was in a very real sense a feudal lord is the most significant general conclusion to be drawn from the narrative history of the incumbents of the see of Bayeux in the twelfth Century. Fortunately in this period the term barony had not yet received a technical or specialized meaning. Therefore one is not obliged to enter upon a difficult task of definition in order to justify the application of the term to the bishopric of Bayeux. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries any fief or complex of fiefs which assured its tenant a position of authority and importance in the counsels of his suzerain and in the social life of the times was called a barony. No one familiar with the spectacular career of Odo of Bayeux can entertain a doubt about the power of that bishop! While the influence of Odo, and to a lesser degree of his successors, depended in good part on their own talents and upon chance relationships to the ducal house, it was bulwarked by the possession of vast temporal wealth. From the eleventh Century, if not earlier, the

INTßODUCTION

5

bishopric was endowed with territories of such magnitude that they were described as honors in themselves, and their tenants as barons of Saint Mary of Bayeux. This complex of fiefs — the barony in its geographica! sense — was considerably larger than the domains of any other of the duke's ecclesiastical vassals. Few lay feudatories could boast of more. Certainly in wealth and size, then, the bishopric qualifies as a barony. In the vague twelfth-century usage, the term barony was characteristically appUed to fiefs held in capiie of the crown and burdened with a definite amount of knight's Service to it. While no special number of knight's services (such as five) can now be regarded as ranking a fief as a barony, it is true, nevertheless, that the importance of a tenant-in-chief was partly measured by his servitium dehitum to the crown. In the case of the bishops of Bayeux this amounted to the service of twenty knights annually. Moreover, from his own tenants the bishop could recruit an army of one hundred and twenty knights, the number he had enfeoflfed on his lands. Thus the investigation of their military establishment reveals the primacy of the bishops in this sphere as in others, and it accordingly strengthens their claim to baronial status. Nowhere so strongly as in its Jurisdiction was the sense of the reality of the barony brought home to those living within it. Here, once more, Bayeux passes a most exacting examination. In the canonical sphere, the bishops possessed only the usual diocesan Jurisdiction. As proprietors of a lordship, however, their judicial authority exceeded the norm for the duchy and even included what are known as rights of public justice {haute

6

AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

justice), ordinarily, in Normandy, a monopoly of the duke. Through his courts and officials the authority of the seigneur-bishop permeated to all men high and low who were subject to him by reason either of his canonical or seigneurial position. The extent of this jurisdiction is peculiarly the measure of the importance of the barony as a unit of government in the feudal state of the twelfth Century. The purpose, then, of this essay is, first, to show how closely in its main outlines a Norman bishopric of the twelfth Century resembled contemporary lay baronies, and secondly, to reaffirm the importance of the functions of the barony — social, military, and judicial — in the feudal kingdoms of the twelfth Century. As an essay it does not profess to be exhaustive, although based upon a previous study of greater detail.^ I n it the author has tried, rather, to sketch the typical features of the barony. This entails passing over very briefly the bishopric as a res ecclesiasüca, as well as ignoring many of the contributions which the Bayeux material has made toward the Solution of the general Problems of Anglo-Norman institutions. The latter, however, has long been appreciated. Even so, by concentrating on a small unit this study may bring into sharper focus some of the main features and developments of Norman institutions in the twelfth Century. Finally, if there is no great novelty in the materials used, it is hoped t h a t some useful results have been gained by the regrouping and reinterpretation of the 1 S. E. Gleason, The Bishopric of Bayeux, 1066-120^, doctoral dissertation in the Harvard College Library (Cambridge, Mass., 1934), 426 pp. Lack of Space has required considerable restriction of the critical apparatus.

INTßODUCTION

7

evidence. At any rate, this study should serve not only to emphasize the importance of the barony but to illustrate specifically the dual status of the mediaeval bishop and the inevitability of the conflict between church and State in the Middle Ages.

CHAPTER

I

THE BISHOPS

Six bishops presided over the see of Bayeux between the Conquest in the eleventh Century and the fall of Normandy at the beginning of the thirteenth. None of the later bishops attained the dubious renown of their mighty predecessor, Odo, who esteemed the bishopric of Bayeux and the earldom of Kent too mean a field for the exercise of his talents. None, consequently, has suffered the opprobrium that has fallen upon Odo because of the incongruity of his spiritual office and his secular activity; obscurity rather than merit has saved them. Odo, as both bishop and earl, is indeed almost too perfect an illustration of the dual status and charaeter of many of the higher eeclesiastics of the Middle Ages. His successors, from their comparative obscurity, can plead that their intense preoccupation with temporal matters was the inevitable result of a social and economic system which forced baronial status upon them. Odo can not. He gloried in the character as well as in the status of a baron, and took his place in the feudal hierarchy without regret. Moreover, his example lingered long in the memories of his successors. With varying degrees of enthusiasm and success they were all obliged to play the double part of barons and bishops, of servi Regis, and servi Christi. Bishop Odo was the half brother of William the Conqueror, the son of William's mother, Herleva, by Her8

THE BISHOPS

9

luin, a p e t t y seigneur of Conteville in Normandy, to whom she was married after D u k e Robert's death in 1035 terminated her exalted liaison.' T h e exact date of Odo's birth is unknown, for although William of Malmesbury declares t h a t Herleva and Herluin were married before D u k e Robert's death, ^ it is doubtful if the marriage could have taken place earlier than Robert's departure on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem from which he never returned. Since Odo was the eldest son of Herleva and Herluin, it is likely t h a t he was born in 1036. His fortunate connections and youthful promise launched him upon his career at a tender age; he could not have been much more than fourteen years of age when in 1049 D u k e William gave him the bishopric of Bayeux.^ From the scanty records of Odo's early activities it appears t h a t t h e new bishop had made himself indispensable in t h e duke's court even before the fateful year 1066. However, his real opportunity to prove his worth as a statesman came only during and after t h e conquest of England. From t h e moment when he launched his contingent of ships until his fall from power in 1083, t h e * Orderici Vitalis Historiae ecclesiasiicae libri tredecim, ed. A. Le Prevost, 5 vols. (Paris, 1838-1855), i, 179. 2 Willelmi Malmesbiriensis de gestis regum Anglorum libri quinque; historiae novellae libri tres, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols., Rolls Series, no. 90 (London. 1887-1889), ii, 333. 3 A charter of Duke Robert Curthose dated April 1089 mentions that date as the fortieth year of Odo's Ordination. Antiquus Cartularius Ecclesiae Baiocensis (Livre Noir), MS. of the thirteenth Century, no. 193 of the library of the chapter of Bayeux. Ed. V. Bourienne, 2 vols. (Paris and Rouen, 1902-1903), i, no. 4, pp. 6 ff. This cartulary is henceforth cited as Livre Noir. Odo as bishop witnessed a charter in favor of the abbey of Saint Evroul dated September 25, 1050. Ordericus, v, 180.

10

AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

bishop of Bayeux was intimately associated with the creation and government of the new kingdom. His behavior at the battle of Hastings has long since become a legend. Wace describes with pious enthusiasm his efforts to stir up the soldiers and to placate the Deity. Equally well-known are the representations of his conduct on the field pictured in the Bayeux tapestry, especially the fifty-fourth panel depicting Odo, club in hand, encouraging the Normans.^ When the conquest was followed by the division of the spoils, Odo found himself handsomely rewarded. A conservative estimate would place the number of tenements he received in Kent alone at well over two hundred, and he secured as many more in other English shires.® Still more striking evidence of the immense extent of the bishop's Kentish estates is the small number of other tenants-in-chief of the king in t h a t county; they numbered only eleven. In connection with his English lordships Odo held offices and exercised Jurisdiction of a more exalted character than were ever again accorded a Norman bishop either in England or in the duchy. His greatest dignity was, of course, the earldom of Kent with which he was probably invested shortly after ^ Odo appears four times in the tapestry. In the thirty-fifth panel he is represented seated beside the Conqueror as the latter gives orders for the construction of ships. In the forty-third he Wesses the knights. In the fortyfourth he is seated in council, while the fifty-fourth pictures him in battle. V. Bourienne refers to Odo's mace as a hdton de commandement. V. Bourienne, "Odon P'' de Conteville, evSque de Bayeux," in Revue Catholique de Normandie, vii-x (Evreux, 1897-1900), viii, 33ff. ® L. B. Larking, The Domesday Book of Kent (London, 1869), p. 188. Cf. The Victoria History of the County of Kent, ed. W. Page, 3 vols. (London, 1908-1932), iii, 188.

THE BISHOPS

11

William's coronation, since the king left him in control of southeastern England when he returned to Normandy in 1067.® Ordericus Vitalis even calls him earl palatine, but there is reason to suspect the statement. In official documents Odo is described as episcopus Baiocensis, comes Cantiae or consul, but never as comes palatinus. Writs were directed to him jointly with Haimo, the sheriff of Kent,^ and it cannot be demonstrated that he secured the profits of justice and other regalian rights which belonged to the earls palatine. Ordericus probably confused the powers of a palatine earl with the large and indefinite authority of a vicegerent which Odo undoubtedly exercised when King William left the realm, and apparently a similar confusion accounts for the belief that the bishop was the first justiciar of England. ® Neither the English nor the Norman chroniclers question Odo's exalted powers, describing them as regal or tyrannical as their sympathies dictated, but only Henry of Huntingdon refers to him as justitiarius totius Angliae. ® If he really held such an office it is difficult to explain why he was almost never without a colleague in the exercise of the Jurisdiction attached to it. Until his death in 1071 William FitzOsbern's powers were as great as Odo's, and thereafter with the possible exception of the year 1080, Lanfranc 8 Ordericus, ii, 167; iii, 190fiF. F. M. Stenton, William

the Conqueror

(London and New York, 1908), pp. 425, 431. Cf. H. W. C. Davis, Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum (Oxford, 1913), no. 64 (1072). Davis, Regesta, nos. 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 176, 260, 304.

® Ihid., p. xxviii. ® Henrici

archidiaconi

Huntendunensis

Historia

Arnold, Rolls Series no. 74 (London, 1879), p. 211.

Anglorum,

ed. T h o m a s

12

AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

and others shared his high judicial authority. The bishop's "justiciarship" was probably rather a temporary commission from the king to govern in his absenee than a permanent and specific ofiice in the administration immediately under the king.^° While it is, therefore, impossible to describe Odo as capitalis justitiarius in the technical sense used of Flambard and his successors, he nevertheless shares with Fitz-Osbern and Lanfranc the distinction of having first exercised the great powers, indeed, at intervals, even greater powers, than those with which the specific office of justiciar was later endowed.^^ I t would be superfiuous to relate here the events of Odo's administrative career since t h a t narrative has already been given in the detailed if distorted account of E . A. Freeman. I t will suffice to recall that he was instrumental in reducing England to obedience after Hastings, in suppressing the rising of the earls in 1075, and t h a t he reached the peak of his infiuence in 1080 after the chastisement of Northumberland. Two years later he was charged with treason, cruelty, and inordinate ambition by his brother, and languished in prison at Ronen until William's death released him. Restored to some of his old honors by this event, be was nevertheless compelled to occupy a position second to the bishop of Durham in the government of William Rufus. The temptation to conspiracy was irresistible, and in 1087 Odo headed a plot to drive the Red King out of Davis, Regesta, p. xxvüi. ^^ Ordericus, ii, 222: Qtiid loquar de Odone, Baiocasino praesule, qui consul palatinus erat, et ubique cunctis Angliae habitatoribus formidabilis erat, ac teluii secundus rex passim jura dahat?

THE BISHOPS

13

England and to place another nephew, Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, on the throne. Failing by a narrow margin, he was stripped finally and completely of all his English estates and oflBces and compelled henceforth to quit the kingdom. After this second disaster the scene of Odo's activities shifted permanently to the other side of the Channel where indeed the earl of Kent had already occasionally reappeared as bishop of Bayeux. Brief as these visits were, they had been materially very profitable to the Church of Bayeux to whose welfare even his enemies admitted Odo was devoted. He showered his bishopric with lands and gifts, creating seven entire prebends from the single great fief of Plessis-Grimoult which he persuaded the Conqueror to grant to the church in 1074.^2 Three years later he presided over the dedication of the Romanesque cathedral for the erection of which he was largely responsible.^® Nor did he restrict his munificence to his own cathedral and chapter. Odo was known as a friend of monks;'"' many of the monasteries of the diocese had good reason to appreciate his generosity. He endowed Troarn and Saint Stephen's of Caen so richly that both houses later claimed that by virtue of his gifts they enjoyed exemption from episcopal Jurisdiction in many of their parishes.'® The Recueil des hiatoriens des Gaules et de la France, 24 vols. (Paris, 1738-)

xxiii, 702 (Inquest of 1133). This collection is henceforth cited as H. F. Cf. Livre Noir, no. 3, pp. 4 - 6 .

Ordericus (iii, 264), says that Odo raisedthechurchfromitsfoundations, but the earliest Operations were begun by his predeeessor, Bishop Hugh of Ivry. J. Vallery-Radot, La cathSdrale de Bayeux (Paris, 1922), p. 10. Ordericus, iii. 263. R . N . Sauvage, L'abbaye

de Saint-Martin

de Troarn des origines

au

14.

AN ECCLESIASTICAL BAEONY

priory of Saint Vigor outside the walls of Bayeux Le refounded and protected until the end of bis life, showing a concera for its spiritual welfare which contrasts strangely with many of the bishop's other activities.^® In Order to maintain within its walls a high Standard of monastic discipline Odo first introduced into the priory monks from the Norman abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel, and when these were dispersed during his imprisonment at Rouen, he subjected Saint Vigor to Abbot Jerento of the abbey of Saint Benigne at Dijon, a house then celebrated for its austerity.^'' Of all the aspects of Odo's life none seems more incongruous than the part he played in the intellectual revival of the eleventh Century, a movement to which the earl-bishop of legend ought logically to have been indifferent. Nevertheless, Odo was a lettered warrior, and he manifested his interest in the new learning by the quality of those to whom he offered advancement in the church, by his patronage of scholars, as well as by his connections with men of intellectual distinction within and without Normandy. Although a cathedral school seems to have been in existence at Bayeux in Odo's day,^® it was apparently undistinguished; Odo seizieme siede, Memoires de la sociStS des antiquaires de Normandie, vol. xxxiv (Caen, 1911), 75fiF. C. Hippeau, L'abbaye de Saint-Etienne de Caen (Caen, 1855), pp. 14fiF., 111-117. Archives of the Calvados, H, 1825, 1844, 1845. Faugon, Le prieuri de Saint-Vigor-le-grand (Bayeux, 1861). Livre Noir, i, nos. 6, 167, 375. Gallia Christiana, xi, instr. 76. Notably Marbode of Rennes, and perhaps also Hildebert of Tours. Venerabiiis Hildeberti Opera edita quam inedita. Accesserunt Marbodi Redonensis Opuscula, ed. A. Beaugendre (Paris, 1708), cols. 1333, 1623. A certain Richard attests as grammaticus and scholasticus two episcopal

THE BISHOPS

15

sent his most promising young clerics to Liege, Germany, and even to Spain to complete their educations.^" Among those who distinguished themselves most at a later time was William of Ros, canon, archdeacon, and dean of Bayeux, and ultimately abbot of Fecamp, who was a noted mathematician. William studied at Liege at Odo's expense along with Thurstan who was to become abbot of Glastonbury, Samson, later bishop of Worcester, and Thomas I, archbishop of York. Serlo, canon of Bayeux, and a good versifier if not a great poet, may have owed his prebend to Odo, and celebrated his patron's release from captivity in 1087 in the flowery leonine hexameters of which he was an acknowledged and faultless master.^^ Odo's a t t e m p t to recover his former prestige after 1087 was not notably successful. Under William R u f u s he occupied in England a position definitely inferior to William of D u r h a m . When R u f u s expelled him from England shortly after his accession, he returned permanently to Normandy where he tried unsuccessfully to stir up his sluggish nephew, Robert Curthose, to a vigorous campaign against his enemies within and without t h e duchy. Ordericus puts in the bishop's mouth an admonitory speech to Robert which t h e young duke would have done well to follow,^^ and we must also charters making grants to Saint Ouen of Rouen. Cartulary of Saint Ouen, Archives of the Seine-Inferieure, H . Cf. L. Maiire, Les ecoles Spiscopales et monastiques de l'ocoident depuis Charlemagne jusquä Philippe-Auguste (Paris,

1866), p. 126. 20 Ordericus, iii, 265-266. ^^ H. Böhmer, "Der sogennante Serlo von Bayeux", Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde,

22 Ordericus, iii, 292flF.

xxii (1897),

701ff.

16

AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

credit Odo with the capture and imprisonment of Henry Beauclerc and Robert of Belleme whom he rightly suspected of having gone over to William Rufus. He was the actual leader of the campaign of Le Mans (1088) against the Talvas family and other enemies of Duke Robert. The effort was vain. Supporting his nephew until his own resources were exhausted, Odo finally departed for the council of Clermont in 1095. Joining the Crusade, in order to escape the wrath of William Rufus (according to Ordericus),^^ he died in Sicily in February 1097 on his way to the Holy Land. There is no unanimity of judgment in respect to Odo's character and achievement whether one looks for it among his contemporaries or among modern historians. The Störy told by William of Poitiers is simply a panegyric; the native English writers hated him for his ambition, avarice, and singular cruelty. The Saxon chronicler complains bitterly of his treatment of the poor, his inaccessibility to those seeking redress, and of his Castles which were mighty seats of oppression. Eadmer and Symeon of Durham condemn even more emphatically his unjust seizure of the liberties and property of the English churches, while William of Malmesbury ironically compliments him upon his skill in amassing treasure.2^ The bishop's notorious attack upon the lands of Canterbury, so ably defended by Lanfranc at the trial on Pennenden Heath, sufficiently substantiates the truth of many of these charges. Even Ordericus, who accords Odo the fairest treatment,^® concluded that he was Ordericus, iv, 16. William of Malmesbury, ii, 344, 360-361. Ordericus, ii, 222: Permixta, ni fallar, in hoc viro vitia erant cum virtutibus.

THE BISHOPS

17

essentially an irreligious prelate, one in whom despite eloquence, generosity, and high spirit, t h e worldly predominated completely over the spiritual.^® There may well have been more t h a n mere casuistry in the Conqueror's insistence in 1083 t h a t he arrested not t h e bishop of Bayeux, t h e annointed of God, b u t t h e earl of Kent, his treacherous vassal. Yet, in spite of the faet t h a t the baron conceals the priest in Odo, he is by all odds t h e most outstanding figure among t h e bishops of Bayeux of the Middle Ages. N o t only does he typify t h e lordly feudal prelates of the age, b u t his restlessness, his cunning, and even his cruelty are characteristic of t h e feudal barons of the eleventh Century. Greedy of gain yet lavish, unscrupulous yet brave, prone to rebellion yet eager to dominate over others, it would be diflBcult to find another Norman seigneur who conforms so perfectly to Ordericus' description of the Norman character as he, an Englishman by birth, had observed it.^^ Even in his death in far-off Palermo Odo betrayed the pioneer love of adventure which is t h e chief glory of mediaeval Normandy. First in t h e line of twelfth-century successors to t h e fierce Odo was Bishop Turold of Envermou. Somewhat enigmatically mentioned by O r d e r i c u s , h e was otherwise virtually ignored by contemporary historians. Nevertheless something is known of his stormy career.^' 2« Ordericus, iii, 278. lind., iii. 230, 474. Ibid., iv, 18: Cujus ohitum rex Guillelmus ut audivit, Turoldo, fratri Hugonis de Ebremou, episcopatum dedit. Qui post annos iii praesulatum pro quibusdam arcanis ultra reliquit. . . . G. Morin discovered a letter of Pope Paschal II, written probably in October 1104, announcing Turold's deposition to the clergy and people of

18

AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

His family, rieh and distinguished, was identified with the region around Dieppe, and prior to his accession he seems to have been immersed in the very mundane activities of the court of William Rufus.®° He was, in short, a curialis, whose sole qualification for the dignity he was about to obtain, in the eyes of devout churchmen, must have been the faet that he was literate. But William Rufus, in making the appointment, was moved by other considerations. When he heard of Odo's death he gave the bishopric to Turold, doubtless experiencing considerable relief that the career of his fractious uncle had finally ended. The opening years of Turold's episcopate coincided with an era of civil war and anarchy throughout the duchy.^^ The Norman churehes knew a lean period, and none suffered more acutely than Bayeux. Odo's long imprisonment at the hands of the Conqueror, and his subsequent quarrel with William Rufus, had dimmed the prestige of his church, and destroyed a great part of its wealth.^^ These misfortunes Turold inherited but could not overcome since he was presently engulfed in more immediate troubles of his own. His bishopric ravaged and despoiled by civil war, Turold ended his days in the quiet of the monastery of Bec, rejected by Bayeux. He printed it with a commentary in the Revue d'histoire ecclSsiastique, v (1904), 284fiE. Ibid.: . . . se quidem non electum a clero, non expetitum a -pofulo, 'per secularem potestafem aecdesiam ohtinuisse confessus est, diaconi etiam officium quod non nid certis licet temporibus extra eadem tempora accepisse se non negavit. Caeteros etiam minores ordines . . . usurpasse asseruit; cum nuper ex curialibus assumpius offi,ciis aecdesiam incessisset. C. H. Haskins, Norman Institutions (Cambridge, 1918), pp. 62 £P. Bull of Pope Urban I I printed in the Livre Noir, i, no. 172, pp. 213 ff.

THE BISHOPS

19

his clergy, and deposed by Pope Paschal I I . The chief interest of the bishop's obseure life centers in the circumstances of this deposition, for they offer an unusual Illustration of the relations between church and state in Normandy during the early years of the twelfth Century. Engrossed in secular affairs, Turold had taken forcible possession of his see without having proceeded in the usual orderly fashion through the minor clerical Orders, and worse, without even the form of a eanonical election. Nor, thereafter, does he seem to have been able to obtain his investiture from Duke Robert, William Ruf US, or Henry I,^® although Paschal I I accused him, among other things, of violating an oath to the "king of the English" that he would not accept investiture at the hands of Robert Curthose.^^ Why Turold should have faiied to secure investiture is diflBcult to explain. William Rufus may have withheld it in accordance with his customary policy of appropriating for as long as possible the revenues of vacant bishoprics. Or if it is assumed that the "king of the English" of Paschal's letter, probably written in 1104, really refers to Henry I, the explanation of Turold's disappointment ought to be sought in another quarter. Turold may well have made such a promise to Henry, for the latter had been in control of the Cotentin and certain other parts ®®This appears from a later epistle (1106) of Paschal II to William, archbishop of Rouen, printed in Stephani Baluzii Miscellanea, 4 vols. (Lucca, 1761-1764), iii, 10. Letter of Paschal to the clergy and people of Bayeux: Pro his igitur Omnibus, profide etiam non accipiendi a NormannoTum comite honoris aecclesiastici ante conspectum Anglici regis, data depositionis in eum promenda sententia. . . .

20

AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

of Normandy since 1088.®® It is therefore quite possible that at the very time that Turold was encountering the Opposition of the cathedral chapter, the death of his patron, William Rufus, in 1100 forced him to become involved in the bitter rivalry between Robert and Henry. This rivalry, which ended only with the battle of Tinehebrai in 1106, offers a very plausible explanation of Turold's failure to secure investiture from either duke or king. The irregularities of his election, and his subsequent failure to be invested with the temporalities of his see, supply the clue to the secret reasons which Ordericus teils his readers induced Turold to resign his bishopric.^® The discovery of Pasehal's letter announcing his deposition has made possible the reconstruction of the sequence of events preceding it.^^ Three years before the sentenoe was communicated by the pope in his letter to the clergy and faithful of Bayeux, that is, in the course of the year 1101, though the chapter had refused to elect him canonically, Turold had forcibly taken possession of the see. The clergy thereupon appealed to Rome, and the pope responded by summoning Turold to appear before him. Ignoring the first summons in 1101, Turold finally appeared in 1103 after the second, tearfully pleading for a delay sufficient to enable him to prove his innocence. Paschal then granted him a year's respite, commanding him to reappear at Rome upon the first of October of the following year (1104) to 38 Haskins, Nor. Inst, pp. 62 ff. ä® Ordericus, iv, 18. Morin, loc. cit.

THE BISHOPS

21

hear judgment. On this occasion the bishop neither came nor sent representatives, and, accordingly, Paschal declared him deposed, announcing his decision forthwith to the bishop's flock. That Turold managed to postpone the worst for at least three years after the papal sentence appears from Paschal's letter of 1106 to the archbishop of Rouen.^® Contrary to at least one of the charges against him, Turold seems to have proved that he had not received investiture from Duke Robert or from any other source, and consequently his case was reopened. Paschal set the final hearing for Easter 1107 before Anselm of Canterbury in the event that Turold did not wish to come to Rome in person again. Whether he was ever aetually tried before Anselm or concluded that his case was hopeless and resigned voluntarily is unknown. In any case he withdrew in 1107 to the monastery of Bec, living there until 1146, reputed a model of gravity, modesty, and discretion. In nominating Turold to the bishopric, William Rufus had exercised a prerogative which the Conqueror had consistently used. I t had long been the practice in Normandy for a cathedral chapter to elect canonically the nominee designated by the crown,®® so that in rejecting Turold the clergy defied both tradition and recognized authority. Worse, they dared even to appeal to Rome, a practice which in such cases would never have been permitted by William I. The pope, in turn, assumed Jurisdiction and openly published Turold's deposition, partly on the grounds that he had been advanced 38 Swpra, p. 19, note 33. Inst., pp. 36

39 Haskins, Nor.

3.

22

AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

to his dignity through the instrumentality of the "secular power" and without a valid canonical election. The whole episode stands as a unique manifestation of independence on the part of the Norman church. I t would almost seem to mark the beginnings of a Gregorian party among the clergy, but against such an Interpretation the evidence is too strong. I t is significant that Paschal I I in the midst of the investiture controversy in England passes over the supposed lay investiture of Turold in silence. The bishop had disgraced himself in the eyes of the pope by supposedly breaking an oath not to receive investiture from Robert Curthose. Of the serious offence of seeking such investiture from any lay source, anathema to the Gregorians, nothing was said. Furthermore, it is improbable that Paschal and the chapter of Bayeux could have effected the deposition if circumstances had not left Turold to fight his battle without the usual support of the crown. I t was the instability of the ducal authority, the civil war between Robert and Henry, which apparently robbed Turold of all hope of retaining his bishopric, and gave the church the courage to dispose of him in this unprecedented manner. The deposition is in all likelihood to be explained rather by the momentary exasperation of the chapter at an irresponsible exercise of royal prerogative than by any deep-seated hostility to the traditional supremacy of the crown over the Norman churches. I t shows, nevertheless, that under extreme provocation, and with circumstances favorable, the clergy dared to assert their rights and turned naturally to Rome for support. Ob-

THE BISHOPS

23

viously the incident was fraught with grave danger for the prerogative of the duke. It is proof of the strength of that prerogative that Turold's deposition set no precedent. For many years Gregorianism was a dead issue in Normandy.^^ The disasters which ruined Turold overwhelmed his church. The dispersa! of the lands and wealth of the bishopric that had begun with Odo's disgrace was nearly completed during the anarchy of the early years of the twelfth Century. The chief offender against the church at this time was one of its own tenants, Robert Fitz-Hamon, baron of Creully. He had turned traitor to Robert Curthose in 1101, and three years later harried the entire Bessin in the interests of Henry I. Finally captured and imprisoned at Bayeux by adherents of Duke Robert, it was in an effort to release him that Henry laid siege to the city in 1105, burning it and destroying the cathedral which had been dedicated only a quarter of a Century earh'er.^^ Ultimately the victory of Henry I restored order, but for the duration of his reign the bishopric of Bayeux simply exchanged systematic exploitation for sporadic pillage with equally disastrous results. Never had the church had greater need of vigorous leadership, and of this quality Turold's immediate successors were as bereft as he. Richard Fitz-Samson, to whom Henry I gave the bishopric in 1107, was a member of one of themost talented Anglo-Norman ecclesiastical families of this age. H. Böhmer, Kirche und Staat in England und in der Normandie im XI und XII Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1899), pp. 140-157. C. W. David, Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy (Cambridge, Mass., 1920), pp. 165f.

24

AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

He was the son of Samson, bishop of Worcester, and brother of Thomas II, archbishop of York. Like them Richard probably reached the episcopate through the usual agency of a royal chaplaincy. Although identified with the steady decline of the bishopric's fortunes, he was not without merit. His intellectual attainments were of a high order. He enjoyed the esteem and affeetion of men as eminent as Ivo of Chartres,^^ and in dedieating to him his Quaestiones Naturales, Adelard of Bath declared that nothing in the liberal arts had been so well treated that it would not have "bloomed more richly" had it been composed by Richard. ^^ Richard's intellect may have secured him the respect of the leading scholars of the day,^^ but it was clearly no armor against the attacks of the leading feudal nobles on the possessions of his bishopric. Here the bishop appears to have been a timid warrior, one who saw the danger, but bewailed his inability to act independently of the king.'^® Robert Fitz-Hamon had disappeared from the scene, but a new scourge had arisen in the person of his heir, Robert, earl of Gloucester. An illegitimate son of Henry I, the earl married the daughter of Fitz-Hamon, and inherited most of his lands as well as the custody of the Castles of Bayeux and Caen. His control of the Bessin was complete, and with it the opportunity to enrich himself at the expense of his episIvonis Carnotensis ejriscopi Opera, ed. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, clxii (Paris, 1854), 275-276. Adelard's letter is printed by E. Marlene and U. Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotomm, 5 vols. (Paris, 1717), i, 291. ** It did not, however, secure him the admiration of Pope Honorius II. Migne, Patrologia, clxvi, 1275. Letters of Ivo of Chartres, loc. dt., 275-276.

THE BISHOPS

25

copal suzerain. So thorough were his methods that wh.en Bishop Richard died in 1133 Henry I feit suflSciently concerned for his regalian rights to have the entire bishopric subjected to the famous inquest of that year,^® a survey which was one day to serve as the point of departure for the recovery of the stolen and alienated properties of the see. Its immediate effect, however, appears to have been to confirm the status quo, for Richard Fitz-Samson's successor, who also bore the name of Richard, was hardly likely to off er much resistance to the earl of Gloucester. He was Robert's natural son. The new bishop's mother was Isabella of Douvres, sister of Bishop Richard Fitz-Samson, and mistress of Earl Robert. Owing to the blot of illegitimacy, or perhaps to the king's desire to enjoy what remained of the resources of the bishopric, Richard I I I was unable to obtain consecration until 1135 when the pope, out of fear of the king, directed the archbishop of Rouen to perform the rite.^^ Before his accession Richard appears to have been a member of the royal entourage, but of his brief administration of the diocese almost nothing is known except that he and his church were completely at the mercy of his father. With Richard's death in 1142 ended the domination in Bayeux of a remarkable ecclesiastical family. The descendants of Samson of Douvres were distinguished alike in England and in Normandy, and they offer a significant commentary on the character of the higher Infra, pp. 68 flf. ^^ Ordericus, v, 44.

26

AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

clergy of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In origin of the best Norman blood, their wealth was extensive, and, on the whole, they were men of intellectual distinetion. Nevertheless, the zeal and energy, most becoming to ecclesiastics in the eyes of the reformers of the age, seem to have been conspicuously absent at least in the Norman branch of the family. There is no reason to believe that either of the two Richards offered any effeetive leadership either in the defence of the liberties of the ohurch, or in the rehabilitation of the ruined bishopric over whieh he presided. The inference is rather that they were timid, negligent, and wholly subordinate to the secular power. Curiahsts from the start, advanced to their dignities largely through the instrumentality of the crown, and, in the case of Richard III, united to the royal house by a dose if inappropriate relationship, it is inconeeivable that either bishop could have joined battle in the defence of the temporalities of the bishopric. Under them even such independence as the chapter displayed in the case of Turold succumbed. There is, consequently, no growth of Gregorianism in the period of their episcopates, and little change in the Subordination of the church to the crown. If change there was, it may be detected in the inferiority of the ducal appointments, implying a far less careful supervision of the Norman church than the Conqueror had exercised. The end of the years of famine was, nevertheless, in sight. With the accession of Bishop PhiHp of Harcourt in 1142 a new and masterful personality assumed the leadership of the stricken diocese.^® The tide of its for^®The career of Philip of Harcourt has been the subject of a recent

THE BISHOPS

27

tunes turned abruptly and Philip lived long enough to see the church restored to something like its former wealth and glcry. Philip, like all Iiis predecessors, came of a well-known feudal family. He seems to have shown considerable promise from early youth for his ecclesiastical advancement was both rapid and steady. Born about 1100, he had become archdeacon of Evreux by 1126, and not much later dean of the priory of the Holy Trinity, Beaumont-le-Roger, whence he was translated to the deanery of Lincoln cathedral. While in England, if not earlier, Philip's talents attracted the attention of Stephen of Blois from whom in 1139 he received the oflSce of chancellor. After the death of Roger, bishop of Salisbury, the king apparently desired to invest Philip with that see, and it was perhaps in order to accept the appointment that Philip resigned the chancellorship after a few months.^® The gesture was vain in any case. Even with the strong support of King Stephen and of Galeran, count of Meulan, Philip was unable to overcome the Opposition of the legate and of the clergy of Salisbury. An appeal to Rome proved fruitless; Philip was obliged to wait until 1142 when his reward came with the gift of the recently vacated bishopric of Bayeux. As bishop, Philip's attention was immediately demanded by a labor from which he was to be relieved monograph. V. Bourienne, Un grand bätisseur, Philippe

de Harcourt,

Mque

de Bayeux (Paris, 1930). Roger of Gaunt attests the king's documents as chancellor in 1139. W. Rieh Jones, Salisbury Documents and Charters, ed. W. Dunn Macray, Rolls Series, no. 97 (London, 1891), pp. 9-10. Ordericus, v, 123, and notes.

28

AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

only by death. A royal writ of 1153 describes the demesne and fiefs of Bayeux as having been "reduced almost to n o t h i n g , " a n d at once Philip set about their restoration. To the task he brought an iron will, wide experience of the baronial character, and the tremendous advantage of a dose acquaintanceship with those highest in authority in both church and state. Before his episcopate had run half its course, the major work of rehabilitation had been completed. Although Philip was never able to secure quite all he reckoned as his rightful due — vassals like Robert of Gloucester were recalcitrant — his achievement was nothing less than the Virtual reconstitution of the barony of his church. The bishop's prestige both in Normandy and at Rome was commensurate.®^ Düring the reign of Henry I I relations between the duke and the bishop of Bayeux were characterized by a cordiality which had been absent since Odo's imprisonment. This new harmony and Philip's evident capacity in administration secured for him an influence and Position in the Norman government equalled only by Arnulf of Lisieux and Rotrou of Rouen, among the many ecclesiastical administrators of the age. The consistent service rendered to the king by Philip is clearly revealed by his frequent participation in Henry's courts and councils.®® The bishop attended the royal curia Livre Noir, i, no. 14, p. 20. Bull of Pope Eugene III (1153). Livre Nmr, i. no. 156, pp. 193-197. Amulfi Lexoviensis episcopi Epistolae, ed. J. A. Giles, Patres Eeelesiae Anglicanae (Oxford, 1844), no. 61, a letter to Eugene III. ®® Philip attests documents of Henry while he waa yet only duke of Normandy. He remained one of his advisers from the outset of Henry's

THE BISHOPS

29

not only during Henry's Norman sojourns, but on many occasions during the longest and most wearisome of the court's famous peregrinations. Throughout the length and breadth of the Angevin empire, at Perigueux or Bordeaux in the south, at N o r t h a m p t o n and York in t h e north, Philip has left the record of his activities in attestations of royal Charters and writs.®^ On other occasions the king demonstrated his reliance on t h e bishop's capaeities by entrusting him with special missions. Thus as late as 1161 when Philip, now ageing, must surely have been contemplating the alluring repose of Bec, t h e king gave him a last commission which, if carried out, would once raore have brought him to Rome. This was to acquaint the pope with the deliberations of t h e council of Neufmarche on the subject of the schism and the relative merits of Alexander I I I and V i c t o r . " T h e most conspicuous services of Bishop Philip were in t h e administration of the king's justice. At least as early as 1157 and frequently thereafter he is found sitting in judgment with other justices in Henry I I ' s courts. Although not given the precise title of chief justiciar in any surviving documents, there is a strong reign as K i n g . Materials

for the History

of Thomas Becket, Arckbishop

of

Canterbury, ed. J. C. Robertson, 7 vols., Rolls Series, no. 67 (London, 1875-1885), iv, 12: Adscitis igitur ad se (i.e. H e n r y I I ) Cantuariensis antistes, Philippo Baiocensi et Arnulfo Lixoviensi (sie) episcopis, quorum consüiis rex in primordiis suis innitebatur. . . . Recueil des actes de Henri II, roi d'Angleterre et duc de Normandie concernant les provinces frangaises et les affaires de la France, ed. L . Delisle

and E. Berger, 4 vols. (Paris, 1909-1927), i, 80, 150, 180; ii, 431. This collection is hereafter cited as Delisle-Berger. ®® Letter of Alexander I I I to Ognibene, bishop of Verona, H. F., xv, 778.

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AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

probability that at one or more periods of his career he held this highest judicial position.®® Thus, in the royal charter confirming the rights of the abbey of Fecamp in the port of Fecamp, Philip is described as sitting in judgment with Robert of Neufbourg, the seneschal of Normandy, and again in a charter for Saint Stephen's abbey, Caen, the phraseology strongly suggests that the bishop was not simply one of a number of ordinary justices, but one of the two chief justiciars who presided over the royal court.®^ So long and füll is the record of his secular and administrative activity, whether in the service of the duke of Normandy or in the defence of the material interests of his church, that Philip inevitably resembles a feudal seigneur more than a bishop. The truth would seem to be that he had much more in common with prelates like Odo or Suger than with the more spiritually-minded clerics. If he was no saint, however, it must be borne in mind that the exigencies of his time and place called for a man of action. The defence of baronial interests demanded baronial capacities. Philip, with his qualities of courage and astuteness, fulfilled brilliantly the confidence reposed in him. The not unexpected corollary was barrenness in the realm of the spirit. Against the shining background of material achievement the shepherd of souls is not easily perceived. If one looks for him in his relations with the monasteries of the diocese, one finds instead a royal bailifT- Although by no means uniformly harsh in his treatment of the religious founHaskins, Nor. Inst., p. 167. Delisle-Berger, nos. 120, 153.

THE BISHOPS

31

dations, there were times when Philip's acquisitiveness and remorseless insistence upon his rights, forced the oppressed houses to appeal to the pope. Even papal Intervention was sometimes slow in bringing him to moderation. According to the history of the foundation of the priory of Sainte-Barbe, the bishop's very face inspired terror,®® although members of that Community knew that on occasion the bishop could be generous as well as severe in his treatment of them. One need not infer that Philip was on bad terms with his clergy from sheer covetousness. I t is rather that his zeal for the defence of his own church frequently manifested itself in activity which at the very least must be described as rugged. This estimate of Philip's character is very largely in accord with the judgment of his contemporaries. Philip's versatile colleague, Arnulf of Lisieux, praised the bishop's vigorous campaign of restoration, and extolled his wisdom as useful alike to churchmen and princes/® Nor was this mere flattery, for Philip's rieh library testifies in some measure to the reality of his intellectual attainments.®® Yet Robert of Torigni in composing the epitaph of Bishop Philip of Harcourt in 1163, characteristically reminds his readers that the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.®^ Superficially the career of Philip's successor, Henry ®® Anonymi vera narratio fundationis prioratus Sanctae Barbae in Algia, printed in H. F., xiv, 503: Philippum Baiocensem episcopum, virum cordatum suisque adversariis sola vullus feritate terribilem. . . . ®® Leiters of Arnulf of Lisieux, ed. Giles, no. 61. ®® Bourienne, Philippe de Harcourt, pp. llSflf. Chronique de Robert de Torigni, ed. L . Delisle, 2 vols. (Rouen, 1 8 7 2 1873), i, 344.

32

AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

of Beaumont, resembles Philip's own. Dean of Salisbury before his elevation to the bishopric, Henry rose steadily in the esteem of the king and had become a familiar figure at the curia before he received the bishopric in 1165, What impressed contemporaries most in the king's choice was the new bishop's wide reputation for piety.®® John of Salisbury, whose admiration for Henry de Beaumont was unstinted, thought it miraculous.®' In his youth "a second Jacob," Henry had already as dean of SaHsbury rendered his order illustrious, and the "spiendor of his piety would make still more illustrious his episcopate in a foreign land."®^ Bishop Henry apparently lived up to these expectations during his long episcopate, in spite of the fact that from the moment of his arrival he was plunged into the press of administration and was for forty years identified with the manifold activities of the king's Norman government. Like Philip of Harcourt before him Henry was frequently found in the royal entourage; from time to time he sat as a justice in the king's court, and journeyed as far afield as Sicily and Ireland in the Service of his royal master. He assisted at the coronation of King Richard and at the divorce of King John.®® Rather inglorious, one suspects, was his part in the Joannis Saresheriensis Opera Omnia, ed. J. A. Giles, 5 vols-, Patres Ecclesiae Anglicanae (Oxford, 1848), i, ii, nos. 139, 162, 210. 'ä Ihid., no. 210: Non est ergo mirum si a-pud prindpem Christianum et officiales ejus suum virtus reperit locum. . . . Ibid. ®® Gesta Regis Henrici secundi Benedicti abbatis, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols., Rolls Series, no. 49 (London, 1867), 1, 167. Robertson, Materials, iv, 169. Radulfi de Diceto Opera Historica, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols., Rolls Series, no. 68 (London, 1876), ii, 167.

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Becket controversy.®^ With several other Norman and English bishops, he attempted unsuccessfully to mediale, and although not as outspokenly hostile to the archbishop as his colleagues of London, or Winchester, he seems to have favored the king either from conviction or from fear. Certainly by his presence if not by his participation, he gave moral support to t h e coronation of the young king, Henry, in 1170, and in consequence feil under the extreme displeasure of Alexander III. Even after the archbishop's martyrdom Bishop Henry remained in communication with the king, and journeyed to Ireland in midwinter, 1172, to prevail upon him to return and face the consequences of the murder. ®® I n return for such services the king was prepared to offer an appropriate reward. Shortly after the penitential farce at Avranches he instructed the clergy of Canterbury to choose the bishop of Bayeux as their archbishop. T h e prior and monks of Canterbury unfortunately held other views concerning Henry's qualifications to succeed Becket. They refused to elect him on t h e ground t h a t what the king was pleased to describe as the bishop's piety and simplicity impressed them as weakness and vacillation.''^ One senses in t h e career of Henry of Beaumont the elements of a tragedy. T o all appearances an essentially unworldly soul, he was continually required to play t h e Robertson, Materials, iv. 12, 169; v. 212-217; vi, 106-107, 270, 276, 483; vü, 83. «8 H. F., xvi, 431-432. Robertson, Materials, vii, 355-356. «9 Ibid., iv, 169. ^^ Gervasii Cantuariensis Opera Historica, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols., Rolls Series, no. 73 (London, 1879-1880), i. 240. " Ibid.

34

AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

statesman. This was the dilemma o£ more than one of his Order in the twelfth Century, though Henry tried harder than most of his colleagues to solve it. At least he appears to have performed the inescapable duties of an administrator without the passion for gain and glory which characterized so many of the ecclesiastical servants of the Anglo-Norman state. Peter of Blois, a shrewd and experienced judge of these matters, could still describe the bishop as one who not only taught but followed the ways of perfection, as one who living among the Chaldeans, was yet chaste and pure, as one who not only spurned the glitter of worldly pomps but trampled on the populär favor which others were at such pains to secure. Indubitably Henry's career revealed greater concern for the religious life than that of any of his predecessors, and yet, judged by the Standards of a violent age, he had the defects of his qualities. The very lack of guile which charmed some of his contemporaries impressed others as culpable weakness, Gervase of Canterbury thought the bishop's simplicity so excessive that others turned him from his purposes with ease. John of Salisbury need not have invoked a miracle to explain why the king should have chosen Henry for a bishop! The same suggestion of vacillation is strongly implied in several letters of Alexander H I to the bishop urging him to resist the usurpation of the tithes and Jurisdiction of the church. The pope wams Henry not to be remiss in defending its rights, even if he must use the Petri Blesensis

Opera Omnia, ed. J. A. Giles, Patres

canae, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1847), ii, 101-102. Gervase of Canterbury, ed. Stubbs, i, 240.

Ecdesiae

Angli-

THE BISHOPS

35

weapon of excommunication against the offending laymen.'^ The clergy of the diocese also had to be reminded by the head of the ehurch of the respect, obedience, and, incidentally, the revenues which they owed their bishop. In spite of his failings Henry of Beaumont remains in many respects the most admirable of the twelfthcentury bishops of Bayeux. At the same time his career, by contrast, emphasizes the vital contributions of such very different predecessors as Odo or Philip of Harcourt. The task of presiding over a Norman bishopric in this age required more than the virtues of a saint. I t called for a warrior, statesman, and baron as well as for a priest. If Odo and Philip left behind them a meagre reeord of spiritual activity, it is impossible to deny the importance of their services in building up and guarding the material foundations of the bishopric. This brief narrative of the careers of the bishops reveals that while there were marked difiPerences in the five occupants of the episcopal see of Bayeux, they had enough in common to be significant as a group. In background, certainly, they were much alike, for all without exception belonged to the feudal caste. The very names of Beaumont and Harcourt bespoke honor and wealth, and represented a tradition of Service in connection with the foundation of the Anglo-Norman State. The two Richards belonged to a single family which in less than a Century supplied the church in England and Normandy with two archbishops and three bishops, one of whom not even bastardy kept out Livre Nair, i, nos. 161-166. 75 Ibid., nos. 166, 204.

36

AN ECCLESIASTICAL BAßONY

of office. Consequently Bayeux offers no examples of the career open to talent. I t was royal policy to fill the bishoprics of Normandy with members of the great feudal families. Recruited from a single social class, most of these bishops passed through an apprenticeship so similar in its main outlines that it suggests a cursus honorum. The first step on the road to the bishopric was taken when the aspirant was associated with the king's entourage. This ensured familiarity from youth with the arduous duties of court life. From this probationary stage the candidate generally passed through the minor clerical Orders to the diaconate, whence, if his talents were promising, he became a royal chaplain. Little is known of the royal chapel in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but it was assuredly a training ground for future royal officials. Nearly all the bishops of Bayeux passed through it, exhibiting there more administrative skill than piety. Thence they proceeded to their reward. The chapel of the king was the nursery of bishops and the lessons learned in it were not quickly forgotten. Since the higher clergy were drawn from the feudal nobility and trained in the royal chapel, it follows naturally that the king granted the bishopric. There is, unfortunately, no detailed description of the exact manner in which any of the bishops of Bayeux of this age were elected, but there can be no doubt that all five owed their dignities mainly to the king. I t was he likewise who granted them investiture after the forms of a canonical election had ratified his choice. On the whole, then, that part of the Gregorian reform movement which was designed to rescue the hierarchy from sub-

THE BISHOPS

37

servience t o k i n g s a n d princes, a n d to d i s e n t a n g l e t h e c h u r c h f r o m f e u d a l i s m , h a d singularly little success in B a y e u x . T o b e sure there is s o m e evidence of t h e g r o w t h of ecclesiastical solidarity a s t h e t w e l f t h Century wore o n ; evidence of closer Cooperation with R o m e , a s shown in t h e f r e q u e n t visits of Philip of H a r c o u r t ad limina. Y e t there is no indication of a n y d i m i n u t i o n of r o y a l p r e r o g a t i v e in t h e ecclesiastical s p h e r e earlier t h a n t h e d e a t h of B e c k e t . I n d e e d P r o f e s s o r H a s k i n s r e m i n d s US t h a t t h e N o r m a n b i s h o p s were t h e k i n g ' s a g e n t s , n o t his rivals. I n return t h e d u k e s a n d kings, especially G e o f f r e y P l a n t a g e n e t a n d H e n r y I I , rendered inestima b l e Service t o t h e b i s h o p s , n o t only in p r o t e c t i n g t h e m f r o m g r e e d y b a r o n s , b u t in restoring t h e s c a t t e r e d p r o p erties of their church. I t is significant t h a t B a y e u x p a s s e d t h r o u g h its m o s t d i s a s t r o u s period a t precisely t h e t i m e , u n d e r D u k e R o b e r t , when t h e central p o w e r w a s m o s t nearly in a b e y a n c e . If it is t r u e t h a t n o t all t h e profits of this p a r t n e r s h i p b e t w e e n t h e k i n g s a n d t h e b i s h o p a c c r u e d to t h e k i n g s , t h e p r i c e p a i d for royal p a t r o n a g e a n d protection w a s high. B e s i d e s d e v o t i n g m u c h t i m e a n d energy t o t h e a d m i n i s t r a t i o n of their own ecclesiastical b a r o n y , t h e s e b i s h o p s were c o n s t a n t l y e n g a g e d in t h e routine of royal a d m i n i s t r a t i o n . T h e a n a l o g y with a m o d e r n civil Service is n o t i n a p p r o p r i a t e , for a p a r t f r o m m i l i t a r y activities — a n d even t h e s e were n o t wholly u n k n o w n — t h e b i s h o p s of B a y e u x were a s vital a p a r t of t h e N o r m a n g o v e r n m e n t a s a n y g r o u p of l a y f e u d a t o r i e s . T h e t i m e t h u s c o n s e c r a t e d t o secular activities c a n only h a v e resulted in a neglect of their spiritual v o c a t i o n , a n d it Haskins, Nor. Inst., p. 37.

38

AN ECCLESIASTICAL BAßONY

explains why the bishops in many respects resemble their feudal contemporaries. To undertake the duties of a baron over a long period of years without inevitably acquiring a secular character was next to impossible. With the exceptions of Odo and Turold none of these twelfth Century prelates could be justly described as no more than a courtier, but with the exception of Henry of Beaumont none betrayed any great zeal for the faith. Certainly the careers of its leaders would seem to justify the treatment of the bishopric of Bayeux as a barony. Quanto rarior invenitur ovium pastor, aut qui in Ecclesia Dei ministerium suum studeat honorare. . . John of Salisbury, O-pera, ed. Giles, ii, no. 210. A letter to Henry as bishop-elect of Bayeux.

CHAPTER

II

T H E LANDS, POPULATION, AND R E V E N U E S OF THE

BISHOPRIC

THE barony of the Middle Ages usually enjoyed a special legal and military status, but the primary basis of its importance is what we may call its natural endowments. Our first concern with the bishopric of Bayeux as a barony must be to describe it as a geographical and social unit: the lands it contained, the people on these lands, and the revenues which the seigneur-bishop drew from them. Such a description must be made within a narrow framework imposed by the character of the source materials. While in certain respects, and in comparison with other areas, Bayeux yields unusually rieh evidence on this subject, the unevenness of the materials prevents one from drawing a picture equally clear in all its outlines. Our main reliance will be upon the Livre Noir, a cartulary whose riches have already been appreciated by students of Anglo-Norman legal institutions. It is, however, a chapter cartulary, and Information relating to the bishop's possessions is, therefore, incidental. Similarly, mueh of the other source material has only incidental application to the problem of the bishop's temporalities. But, after all, French polyptychs of this age are rare, and in spite of their fragmentary character, the Bayeux sources are rieh enough to 39

40

AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

permit one to piece together a satisfactory general picture of the barony's temporal wealth, and to describe roughly the methods of exploitation. As the prirae source of wealth for all members of a feudal Society, ecclesiastics included, the lands of the bishopric constituted its riebest endowment. In outline the history of these lands falls into three parts: accumulation prior, in the main, to 1100, dissipation after Bishop Odo's death, and rehabilitation during the middle decades of the twelfth Century. The origins of the barony are lost in the mists of the early Middle Ages. All we know is that it was already extensive when Bishop Hugh of Ivry made a recensement of his possessions ca. 1035.^ This document, remarkable both for its fullness and its early date, was designed to safeguard the wealth of the bishopric from the depredations of land-hungry magnates. I t lists some fifty-five items of wealth: lands of undescribed character, woods, parks, ponds, creeks, allods, hanlieux, mills, and seigneurial revenues. The means by which this wealth had been acquired are unknown, although it is apparent that gifts of land in manifestation of piety were encouraged, as was usual, by the church. In the eleventh Century, at least, many such donations were received from the dukes of Normandy who remained the chief patrons of the bishopric of Bayeux during the twelfth Century. By the end of the eleventh Century the wealth of Bayeux had already become proverbial. One envious ecclesiastic, Marbode of Rennes, declared that it would 1 Livre Noir, i, no. 21, pp. 27 ff.

LANDS, POPULATION, AND REVENUES

41

Support three bishops.^ B u t what had been amassed by the patience and zeal of centuries was destroyed in a few years. When Odo's imprisonment in 1083 deprived the bishopric of a vigilant and powerful leader its fortunes declined with astonishing rapidity. T h e causes of the disaster were several: the Conqueror's hatred of Bishop Odo,® the anarchy of Duke Robert's reign, the incompetence of Odo's successors down t o i 142, and the avarice of the episcopal feudatories. For it was primarily the bishops' own tenants who plundered their suzerains' lands. From Duke WiUiam himself Ranulf I I , vicomte of the Bessin, secured as a tenement to be held directly from the duke the fief he had formerly held of Odo. From the same source he probably secured his claim to the great honor of Plessis and other episcopal territories.^ T h e individual who gained most, however, from the bishopric's misfortunes was Robert, earl of Gloucester, the bishop's standard-bearer. Profiting by the fact that he was the son of King Henry I and the father of Bishop Richard I I I , he ultimately succeeded in making away with the greater part of the temporalities of the see.® ® Venerabüis Hildeberti Opera edita quam inedita. Accesserunt Marbodi Redonensis Opuscula, ed. Beaugendre, cols. 1564-1565. 3 Livre Noir, i, no. 172, pp. 213 f. * Livre Noir, i, no. 76, pp. 95 £f.: Hoc autem quod Rannulfus f actus est -per sacramentum, tres filii ejusdem Rannulfi per fidem episcopo recognosceret et teneret, et ienendo sicut a domino, deserviret terras illas quas cum prius idem Rannulfus ab episeopo hahuisset; rex cum infirmaretur Constanti abstulit eas episcopo, et fecit eas teuere Rannulf um sednon ab episcopo. . . . (1087-1096). The text appears to be corrupt. ® Livre Noir, i, no. 190, pp. 237 f: . . . Philippus, Baiocensis episcopus ad sedem apostolicam saepe conguestus est quod Robertus, comes Gloecestriae, maximam partem bonorum Baiocensis ecclesiae sibi auf erat, et tarn in feudo quam in dominio violenter detineat.

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BARONY

In addition to his original tenement, the honor of Evrecy, Robert secured from Bishop Richard I I and others the Malfilätre fief of seven knight's fees, the Suhart fief of eight, the fief of Odo the Dapifer and other lands which brought his total holdings at the peak to Over thirty fees. ® Robert and Ranulf are but the most notorious of a greedy multitude who joined in the sack of the bishops' possessions. ^ In many cases, without doubt, the alienations from which these men profited were made with a semblance of legality, but there can be no doubt t h a t force was employed to extort them. By 1133 when Bishop Richard died, the debäcle was complete. The king's custodians found little left to administer during the vacancy. ® Henry I, however, was not a monarch to tolerate any invasion of his prerogative. Concerned to secure his füll regalian rights pending the appointment of a new bishop, he subjected the bishopric of Bayeux to a systematic inquest which was to recover its lost revenues and territories and to determine its obligations to himself.® In this fashion began the rehabilitation of the bishopric, although the füll tide of recovery did not set in until the accession of Bishop Philip in 1142. To the 8 Ibid., i, HO. 41, pp. 48 ff. ^ Ibid., i, no. 179, pp. 223-224: Pervenit ad nos quod possessiones et bona Baiocensis ecclesiae a perversis illius terrae hominibus, praedecessorum tuorum incuria et negligentia, distracta sint et alienata, et a multis contra justiciam occupata. 8 Ibid., i. no. 14, p. 20: Quoniam ecclesia Baiocensis, post mortem Odonis episcopi, per subsequentium episcoporum impotentiam, cum per eorumdem negligentiam, et per venditiones, et donationes, et commutationes ab ipsis f actus, fere ad nichilum redacta erat. . . . (1151-1153).

9 H. F.. xxiii, 699-703.

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43

restoration of the fortunes of his church this bishop devoted his entire energies and life. He began with an appeal to the pope. A journey ad limina in 1144, repeated at least three times during a term of ten years, secured the alliance of the head of the church. Not content with the Support of so remote an ally Philip next turned to his temporal lords and enlisted the aid of Duke Geoffrey and Henry I I . These monarchs, not generally counted among the allies of the church, nevertheless, placed at Philip's disposal the most effective legal machinery of the age: their own prerogative procedure of the sworn inquest. Thus, through Geoffrey's Cooperation, disputes concerning the episcopal territories were subjected to a series of recognitions by jurors in possession of the fact concerning them.^° Moreover, such recognitions were held not only in the courts of Geoffrey and Henry I I , but by their permission in the courts of the bishops as well.^^ With the help of all these agencies and after a bitter struggle of ten years' duration, Philip of Harcourt came within sight of his goal. In 1153 the lands, rights, and revenues which he had recovered were enumerated and confirmed in a bull of Eugene I I I together with the pope's compliments on the zeal which had led to their recovery. ^^ I t is these documents, the great inquest of 1133, and the returns of the special inquests of Geoffrey, Henry I I and of the bishops, which supply us with our knowledge of the episcopal temporalities. While at best they off er The details of the recovery of the last territories with special emphasis on the implications for the growth of the Norman jury are given in Haskins, NOT. Inst., pp. 201 ff., and notes. " Livre Noir, i, no. 16, pp. 22-23 (1147). Infra., pp. 101 ff. 12 Ibid.. i, no. 156, pp. 193-197. Cf. ibid., nos. 154, 155, pp. 185-193.

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only an outline, many details concerning the territorial Organization of the barony can be added from the occasional sources and from the scattered doeuments which recorded grants and alienations of property. The inquest of 1133 was far more comprehensive and thorough in character than the surviving returns indicate. I t presumably covered the entire ränge of the bishop's temporalities: demesne, fiefs, rights, and revenues. Unfortunately only the parts of the returns which relate to the fiefs and military obligations have actually survived. B u t even these are precious. They reveal that at the beginning of the twelfth Century the territories of the bishopric enfeoffed by military tenure consisted of some thirty-four noble tenements and of more than twenty vavassor's tenements owing a modified form of military service. Most numerous in the vicinity of Bayeux, Caen, and Isigny, the enfeoffed lands were, nevertheless, scattered throughout the entire diocese of Bayeux and in neighboring dioceses as well. Very considerable holdings, for example, are found in the enclaves of the Cambremer and SainteMere-Eglise, located in the dioceses of Lisieux and Coutances respectively.^® T h e picture of the episcopal fiefs presented by the inquest is confused and not suggestive of any high degree of Organization and system. The fiefs are described individually, beginning with the largest honors (measured in terms of knight's fees), and proceeding to the smallest vavassoria. In this respect the inquest of 1133 presents a striking contrast to the enumerations of the bishops' temporalities given in the cartularies and docuLivre Noir, i, no. 39, pp. 45-48. Ct. ibid., nos. 43, 44, pp. 51-54,

LANDS, POPULATION, AND REVENUES

45

ments o£ the later Middle Ages. In these what are left of the scattered fiefs and demesne lands of 1133 are neatly classified in the episcopal baronies from which they depend, and in terms of which they are organized and administered.^^ The largest fiefs, in terms of knight's fees, are deseribed in the inquest as honors, though no precise meaning can be assigned to that term in the period under consideration. We may say with assurance of a great honor like that of Evreey held by Robert, earl of Gloucester, t h a t its size and military assessment of ten fees assured its tenant of position and dignity in eontemporary society.^^ Earl Robert, as lord of Evreey, could style himself a baron of the Blessed Mary of Bayeux, and by the same token he was hereditary signifer of the bishop's knightly array.^® Most of the great fiefs were complexes of smaller fiefs and manors which might be scattered, or, as in the case of Plessis, compact and contiguous in spite of its size.^'^ The latter honor was extremely large as we know from a detailed description of its boundaries.^® Within it The episcopal lands are so grouped in the cartulary known as the Livre Rouge de l'SveckS de Bayeux, MS. of the fifteenth Century, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, MS. lat., nouvelles acquisitions, 1828. Manuscripts in this Hbrary are hereafter cited B. N. The cartulary is edited by E. Anquetil, 2 vols. (Bayeux, 1908). On the baronies see also Aveu et dSnombrement du temporel de ViveschU de Bayeux, 1460, ed. V. Bourienne in Baiocana (Bayeux, May, 1909-Nov., 1910). The Organization of these baronies (in the technical sense of the word) took place in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 15 F. M. Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism, 1066-1166 (Oxford, 1932). pp. 54-82. H. F., xxiii, 700. On Plessis see Livre Noir, i, no. 3, pp. 4-6. Cf. H. F., xxiii, 700, 702. Livre Noir, i, no. 3. Its greatest length, according to these boundaries, would be about eleven miles, its greatest breadth roughly ten.

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AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

were located a number of subtenancies both military and agricultural. Like Evrecy it took its name from the most important manor within it, Plessis, which the bishops retained in demesne and where they had a Castle. Why Plessis and Evrecy were specifically called honors, while ten other great fiefs, assessed at five knight's fees or more, were not so denominated is obscure. We have no sure criterion, not even the amount of military service, for distinguishing them with certainty from the others. They are singled out here as being representative of the larger fiefs, of which there was a total of at least twenty-one held in capite of the bishop and owing him the service of one knight or more. At the other extreme of size were tenements consisting of but a few acres. A certain Clarus held seven at Sotteville near Ronen, ^^ while the abbess of SainteCatherine-du-Mont (Sainte-Trinite of Ronen) held lands for which she paid only two wax candles to the bishop when he came to Ronen. ^^ Between these extremes the inquest describes fiefs of all sizes. Snbinfeudation, which in certain of these fiefs can be traced back at least as f ar as the first half of the eleventh Century, is evidently a common practice in the twelfth. In a number of the fiefs described in the inquest and elsewhere, the names and tenements of the bishop's rearvassals are given. Thus, in the fief of Mathieu, at one time held by Odo, dapifer of Kings William I and II, On the bishop's Castle at Plessis: Cartulary of Plessis-Grimoult, Archives of the Calvados, H, i, no. 16. 20 H. F., xxiii, 701.

"/ftid.

LANDS, POPULATION, AND REVENUES

47

there are listed the names of nearly thirty such subvassals with the imphcation that these in turn had tenants.^^ The prevalence of subinfeudation and the consequent danger of internal disintegration raises the question of the unity of the great fiefs. I t is clear, first of all, that they often possessed no geographica! unity. The congeries of tenements which composed them were sometimes contiguous, as seems to have been the case with Plessis, but were more often far apart. Over twenty separate territories composed the fief which the vicomtes of the Bessin held of the bishop, and, as nearly as can be determined, they were located in a dozen different modern cantons of the Calvados, and in at least two departments.^® This is the usual geographica! arrangement, compact honors like Plessis being exceptional.24

Yet, in spite of subinfeudation, geographica! dispersion, and changes in tenants, many of the great fiefs maintained at least a nominal unity throughout the twelfth Century. It is significant that when Robert, earl of Gloucester, secured several fiefs in addition to his honor of Evrecy, they kept their identity and were not merged with the original hol ding. The unity of a great fief like Evrecy, or that of the vicomtes of the Livre Noir, i, no. 41, pp. 48 ff. H. F., xxiä, 702.

23 Ibid., i. no. 76, pp. 95 f. H. F., xxiii, 702. In S. E. Gleason, The Bishopric of Bayeux, pp. 164-220 an attempt is made to analyze all the fiefs listed in the inquest and to locate the lands which were included in them. Compare with the inquest of 1133 the subsequent lists of knight Service owed by the episcopal fiefs. H. F., xxiii, 633-634, 637, 708 ff. 2« Uvre Noir, i, no. 41, pp. 4 8 ff. Cf. H. F., xxiii, 700.

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AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

Bessin may very well have expressed itself in some judicial or social Organization embracing the manors and population which composed it, and symbolized in the lordship court with its peers. On these matters, however, our sources are silent. Consequently, one must be content with surer evidence of certain aspects of the unity in the fiefs held in capite of the bishops. First, that their component territories, however widely scattered, were all held of the bishop by one tenant-inchief. Second, that each fief was a unit for the assessment of definite military and financial obligations owed to the bishop. In any case, the bishop, as suzerain, was primarily interested in what was due him from his tenants-in-ehief. Toward him the unity of the fief was maintained. Beyond that the relations between his tenants-in-chief and their vassals was of secondary importance to the bishop. I t is true, however, that certain of the fiefs described in the inquest of 1133 did not survive integrally into the thirteenth Century. For example, no records of the great tenements of the vicomtes of the Bessin and of William Picot can be found in the lists of knights' services of the thirteenth Century. This evidence suggests that some of the great fiefs of the twelfth Century have disintegrated by the beginning of the thirteenth, at which period they are only represented b y the military obligations resting on the fragments into which they have split. However, the twelfth Century witnessed only the beginning of this movement. The disinteThe trend toward disintegration can be detected by comparing the inquest of 1133 with the lists of military services drawn up by Philip Augustus and later kings in the H. F., vol. xxiii.

LANDS, POPULATION, AND REVENUES

49

gration of the great fiefs and the parallel decline of the bishop's military power is a phenomenon of the thirteenth and later centuries.^® As we should expect from the difference in the size of the fiefs, wide variety characterized the status and importance of the bishop's tenants-in-ehief. In Odo's day they included many of the great Domesday barons, while during the course of the following Century no less than seven earls were vassals of Bayeux: Gloucester, ehester, Leicester, Buckingham, Warwick, Pembroke and Norfolk.^® Equally powerful was the Count of Meulan who held a fief during the middle of the Century. T h e great ducal administrative officials were also well represented among the bishop's tenants. One finds the vicomtes of the Bessin and the Cotentin, the seneschals of Normandy: Robert de Neufbourg and Richard de Lucy; the hereditary chamberlains of the Tancarville family; and the hereditary constables, the Du Hommets. On the whole, the bishop's vassals by military tenure represented a cross-section of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy of the twelfth Century. I t is clear from the inquest of 1133 and other sources that a very considerable proportion of the bishopric's lands had been enfeoffed on military tenure. What advantages did the bishop secure from such a disposition of his lands? There is, of course, the obvious answer that the influence of a baron at the court of the duke would be measured to a considerable degree by the size 28 Infra, pp. 81 f. Earl Hugh Bigod of Norfolk held a vavassoria which, however, was assessed with knight's service. H. F., xxiii, 701.

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AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

of his knightly array. Moreover, it was by this means that the bishop recruited the knights' Service which he owed the duke. B u t while this servitium dehitum to the suzerain amounted to only twenty knights annually, the bishops had actually enfeoffed territories which brought them the Service of 120 knights, six times as many as were needed for the duke. When we come to investigate later the episcopal military establishment we shall find that the bishops did make occasional use of some of their knights for defensive purposes.®" On the other hand, in view of the apparent absence of active campaigning by the bishops' array in their behalf, and the canonical obstacles to such activity on the part of a bishop, it seems improbable that extensive military enfeoffments were primarily dictated by military considerations. Further explanations are, therefore, required. One answer is offered by the financial advantages in the shape of the feudal revenues accruing to the bishop from fiefs of this type. These revenues were analogous to the feudal revenues of a lay seigneur, but differed in accordance with the ecclesiastical status of the bishop. Among the most important were the aids. These were similar to the four usual aids, but since with the exception of Odo, the bishops of Bayeux did not go on Crusades or have sons to knight, they levied aids under different circumstances. From those who held of him by military tenure the bishop was entitled to an aid of twenty shillings per knight's fee as often as he was obliged to go to Rome on the business of the church, whenever it was necessary to repair the cathedral, or 30 Infra, pp. 74 f.

LANDS, POPULATION, AND REVENUES

51

when it was necessary to rebuild the episcopal dwellings after fires.^^ Considering the frequency of all these events in twelfth-century Bayeux, it is likely that the aids constituted a considerable bürden on the tenantsin-chief. The bishop was also entitled to reliefs payable, according to the inquest of 1133, at the rate of fifteen pounds per knight's fee.®^ Tenants who held less than a Single fee paid a relief computed on the size of the tenement in accordance with the custom of the land.^^ This rate of fifteen pounds in the fee was usual for relief in Normandy at this time, although the bishop found it difficult to collect, and was sometimes obliged to appeal to the duke to undertake the task for him.^^ Much the same difficulty was experienced in the enforcement of other feudal rights and revenues: aids, escheats, wardships, etc. Henry I I was obliged to order his justices to secure payment of aids due the bishop,®® and while the latter was sometimes successful in obtaining custody of minor heirs,^® a convincing proof of inability to vindicate wardship rights against a powerful 31 H. F., xxiii, 701. Ibid. The tenant could, if he wished, o£Fer a horse, stirrups, and a coat of mail (strepa et loriea) in place of the money. 33 Livre Noir, i, no. 144, pp. 174 f.; ii, no. 305, pp. 28 f. Magni Roiuli Scaccarii Normanniae sub regibus Angliae, ed. T. Stapleton, 2 vols. (London, 1840), ii, 476 (1189), 537 (1203). In the first instance royal oflBcials collected a relief of five pounds for the bishop, the king keeping half the sum for his services. In the second case the ofläcials collected relief amounting to 185 pounds from fourteen of the bishop's knights. 35 Livre Noir, i, no. 10, p. 16. For wardships: Livre Rouge, ed. AnquetU, i, nos. 153, 161, pp. 181, 187. For escheats: Deliale-Berger, ii, no. 492, pp. 43-44. 3« Livre Rouge, fol. 34, ed. Anquetil, i, no. 83, pp. 107 f.

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AN ECCLESIASTICAL BARONY

vassal is offered by the case of the heirs to the fiefs of Odo the Dapifer and the earl of Chester. When these fiefs feil vacant about the middle of the Century, the earl of Gloucester overrode the bishop's rights and seized both tenements. In his hands they remained pending royal recognition of the legitimate heirs.®' Such, in the main, were the revenues obtained by the bishops of Bayeux from the fiefs held of them by military tenure. Whether the military and economic advantages described are sufiicient to explain why so much of the land of the bishopric was enfeoffed in this fashion remains doubtful.®® There are, however, other possible explanations of this extensive military enfeoffment. It may have been that the bishops of earlier times, when public security had not yet been assured by the effective ducal machinery of the twelfth Century, were unable to resist the land hunger of the magnates and preferred to enfeoff lands by military tenure rather than to risk complete loss by seizure.®® It is more likely, however, that the extensive enfeofFment of knights on the lands of Bayeux was dictated by the dukes of Normandy. I t was clearly to their advantage to have as large a fighting force as the lands of the duchy could support.^° Since ecclesiastical vassals were '' Livre Noir, i, no. 41, pp. 48-50.

Out of the great honor of Plessis given in demesne to Bishop Odo by the Conqueror in 1074, that bishop carved seven prebends, and fiefs bringing him the Service of eight knights. Only the single manor of Plessis and the forest of Montpingon were kept in demesne. H. F., xxiii, 702. 39 Xhe first list of the lands of the bishopric, drawn up by Bishop Hugh, ca. 1035, was designed to safeguard its possession from the greed of powerful

feudatories. Livre Noir, i, no. 21, pp. 27 ff. Especially since by virtue of the arriere-ban the duke could mobilize all the knights of the duchy in times of crisis. Infra, pp. 78 f.

LANDS, POPULATION, AND REVENUES

53

unlikely to become rivals of the duke, forcing them to enfeoff a large number of knights had the double advantage for the dukes of increasing the available supply of knights without seriously challenging their control. Moreover, by inducing the church to enfeoff its lands the dukes were enabled to reward their followers without expense to themselves. Of course, not all the bishop's tenants were of the aristocratic class which held its fiefs by a military tenure. Indeed these formed presumably but a fractional part of the total number of the bishop's men. I t is unfortunate, considering our interest in the economic aspects of the episcopal barony, that those portions of the inquest returns of 1133 which related to the non-military tenements of the demesne lands have not survived.^^ As a consequence our search for Information about these lands and classes must be undertaken without the convenient outline which the inquest return supplied for the military fiefs and their tenants. This is the more regrettable inasmuch as the tenements of peasants and vavassors undoubtedly formed the main basis of the bishop's wealth. Thus in attempting to rebuild the economic structure of the barony we must rely on materials which are scattered and fragmentary. Since the mass of the bishop's economic dependents were less able to challenge the routine control of their seigneur, descriptions of their life and status are less frequently recorded in documents than is the case with the military vassals. The highest social class on the bishop's lands after In this discussion the terra "demesne" is applied to territories of the bishopric not enfeofiFed by military tenure.

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the knights was that of the vavassors. They enjoyed a status between that of the knights and the free peasants, sharing certain of the characteristics of eaeh. The wealthier vavassors performed a modified type of military service in return for their services and will be described later.^^ The poor vavassors, on the other hand, were perhaps burdened only with economic obligations. They are hard to distinguish from the free peasant except for the necessity of providing the bishop with the Service of a horse each year.^® Of the number of such vavassors who held tenements directly of the bishop, we have no direct evidence, but the presumption is that the class was large. The inquest of 1133 lists some twenty-five vavassoria of the type which owed military service. Moreover, there were many vavassors among the subtenants of the bishop in certain of the fiefs described in the inquest.^^ There is every likelihood that the bishop himself had many more vavassors of the kind who did not owe military service than the available sources record. The great majority of the bishop's tenants were beneath the status of the vavassors. They may be described in general as peasants. To define their position more exactly involves us at once in serious complications, especially if we have assumed that the peasants of the Middle Ages were divided into two distinct Infra, pp. 76 f. A vavassor who held thirty acres of the church at Mathieu, ca. 1220, owed for his tenement six capons, six loaves of bread, 120 eggs, and the service of a horse. Livre Noir, i, no. 218, pp. 266 f. ** Twenty-four were located on the single fee of Ondefontaine and La Buigne at the beginning of the thirteenth Century. Livre Rouge, ed. Anquetil, i, no. 24, pp. 28f.

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categories: the free and the unfree. For, while there are several references to the bishop's liheri homines, with the implication that there were also unfree peasants (in at least one instance the terra non liheri is used^®), the distinction between these two categories is not precise. The free men appear to have been peasants who held tenements in the episcopal demesne lands for which they paid a fixed rent. These peasants' holdings could be called feoda^^, just as were military tenements, and their concession could similarly be accompanied by charters stating the obligations.^'^ Rents were paid either in money or in kind, sometimes in both. In return for a tenement of seven acres at Saint-Vigor outside Bayeux one of the bishop's peasants owed him eleven capons, fifty eggs, and a sextarium (14 bushels?) of grain.^® Another owed the bishop a pound of pepper and a pound of cumin annually.^® Such rents apparently discharged all obligations and released the free peasant from the payment of fees for special manorial Privileges such as the right to use the common Livre Rouge, fol. 62, ed. Anquetil, i, no. 171, pp. 195 f, and no. 159, pp. 185 f. A writ of Henry II for Bishop Philip mentions the feoda rusticorum of the bishopric. Livre Noir, i, no. 14, pp. 20S. Livre Rouge, fol. 87, ed. Anquetil, i, no. 253, p. 271: Henricus, Bei gratia Baiocensis episcopus, omnibus fidelihus ad quos presens carta peruenerit, salutem. Seiatis nos concessisse Gaußrido Fabri et Hugoni Nobili terram de Duuera quam tenuerunt de Johanne, filio Conanj, ipsis et heredibus suis tenendam in perpetuum in feudum et hereditatem per eundem redditum per quem eum (sie) tenuerunt de eodem Johanne et antecessores sui de antecessoribus Johannis, reddendo inde singuHs annis ii modios et dimidium frumenti et x scxtarios ordei et xiii sextarios auene. Et per hunc redditum quicti erunt ipsi et heredes sui ab omni seruicio et exaciione. . . . Delisle-Berger, ii, no. 689, pp. 313 ff. •»9 Ibid., no. 492, pp. 43 f.

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pasture and the like. From the proceeds of these rents, the amount of which it is wholly impossible to estimate, the bishop not only maintained his households, but endowed various religious and charitable foundations which were dependent upon his bounty. With the liheri homines we may contrast a class of peasants which it is safest to designate consuetudinarii. Like the free men, the members of this class also seem to have paid a fixed rent for their tenements, but, unlike the former, to have been obliged to pay further customary dues in return for the Privileges of the manors to which their tenements were attached. The distinction between free men and the unfree is clearly made in the terms by which in 1223 a certain priest, Philippe Belay, received a fief of ten acres in the bishop's manor at Neuilly. The priest and his heirs are to be free from the herbagium, pasnagium, and all other customary dues "as are all other free men of the manor of Neuilly," But any individual who became a tenant of the priest or his heirs must pay all the customary dues which "the unfree men on the manor of Neuilly have been accustomed to pay."®° Elsewhere it is confirmed that the consuetudinarii, or unfree men, pay customary fees for the right to use the bishop's pastures, markets, and fairs, fees which were not required of the free men of the manor. I t is, perhaps, dangerous to generalize on these important questions of social status with the slender evidence we have, but exemption or non-exemption from ®® Livre Rouge, i, no. 159, pp. 185 f. Ibid., fol. 62, ed. Anquetil, no. 171, pp. 195 ff. Cf. ibid., ii, no. 582, p. 305 f.

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certain manorial dues does seem to have been the criterion by which one group of the bishop's peasants were called free men and the others not. In any case there is no likelihood of the existence of serfdom (as that status is commonly understood) on the lands of the bishopric in the twelfth Century. None of the peasants of whom we have any record was chained to his tenement, or taillable ä merci, or subjected to arbitrary charges or services of any kind. On the contrary they were protected against these characteristic forms of servile exploitation either by specific agreements reached when their tenements were granted, or by the force of custom. The importance of the latter, not merely general Norman custom, but the local custom of the episcopal manors, seems to have been marked. For it regulated the payment of the manorial revenues, and their payment or non-payment, in turn, determined, at least in part, the social and legal status of the peasant. On the lands of Bayeux, therefore, the contrast is between liberi homines and consuetudinarii, not between free men and serfs. That this distinction can be made legitimately for Normandy as a whole is the conclusion of Delisle who assures us that serfdom had disappeared in the duchy by the end of the eleventh Century.^^ Not all the bishop's lands were located in the open country, and not all his economic dependents were peasants of the types described above. There is some slight evidence for the existence of still another social group in the bishopric. These were the burgenses, inhabitants of the bishop's bourgs as early as the eleventh ^^ L . Delisle, Etudes sur la condition de la classe agricole et VHat de Vagriculture en Normandie

au nwyen äge ( E v r e u x , 1857), pp. 16 £f.

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Century. The nature of these bourgs and the status of their inhabitants is a difficult problem which cannot be solved for the bishopric of Bayeux independently of the evidence for the whole of Normandy. About all we know is that certain individuals holding tenements, often houses, at Saint-Vigor, Plessis, and Bayeux were described as hurgensesJ^ Moreover, very little more can be leamed about the hurgenses who inhabited houses belonging to the bishops of Bayeux in the duke's hourg at Caen. They seem to have been town dwellers who paid the bishop a census or gahlum {cens, gablage) for the houses they oecupied. The incidence of this rent is unknown in the twelfth Century but in the later Middle Ages it was paid every three years. In addition these hurgenses were exempted from the payment of all customary dues in the duke's cities, fairs, and markets of Normandy. Perhaps, in a similar fashion, the bishop's own hurgenses were traders rather than f armers,®® and enjoyed similar exemptions in his fairs and markets. We come now to the question of the bishop's reserved lands. These were portions of the episcopal demesne which, like the Carolingian mansus indominicatus, were set apart for the direct exploitation of the seigneur, and not granted out in tenements of any description. Probably the bishops maintained a certain amount of such Archives of the Calvados, H, nos. 1833, 1835. Livre Noir, i, no. 4, p. 8, no. 6, p. 12. Cf. Cartulary of Plessis-Grimoult, Archives of the Calvados, H, fol. 19, recto. Gallia Christiana, xi, Instr., col. 76. Livre Noir, ii, no. 375, pp. 96 fif. Aveu et denomhrement, in Baiocana (July, 1909), pp. 63-64 (1460). ®® One inhabitant of the bishop's hourg at Saint-Vigor was a brewer. Livre Noir, i, no. 6, p. 12.

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59

reserved lands in the manors of their demesne, but judging from the paucity of references in the sourees, very little of it was in agricultural land. Other reasons Support this conclusion. The maintenance of an extensive agricultural reserve would have required the use of serfs, corvees of peasants, or the hiring of free labor. As we have seen serfdom was non-existent. There is no evidence of the corvie or of the use of hired agricultural laborers. Moreover, it is diffieult to conceive of the economic benefit which the bishops could have derived from maintaining an agricultural reserve larger than was necessary for supplying themselves and their dependents with produce. Hence, it is probable that the bishops granted out in peasant tenements most of the demesne lands which were suitable for cultivation. In reserve they generally kept lands whose uses or produce were special, and which did not require extensive enfeoffment for their exploitation. Among them were forests, swamps, pasture lands, ponds, and the like. In any event by maintaining a comparatively small reserve, the bishops of Bayeux exemplify a trend of the times. Düring the twelfth Century the extensive mansus indominicatus of the earlier period was being converted into fiefs not only in Normandy but throughout western Europe.®® From the eleventh Century to the end of the Middle Ages the bishops of Bayeux were proprietors of extensive reserved forests, of which the most important were Sauvage, L'ahhaye de Saint-Martin de Troarn, p. 192. Cf. L . Delisle, "Des revenus publics en Normandie au douzieme siede," Bihliotheque de l'ecole des chartes, vols. x, xi, xiii (Paris, 1848-1852), xi, 406-407. Cf. Marc Bloch, Les caracteres originaux de Vhistoire rurale frangaise (Paris, Oslo, etc., 1931), pp. 95 ff.

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located at Neuilly, Montpingon, Bretel, Racinet, Loges, Vouilly, La Besaee, and along the Elle River.®'' Doubtless many of these forests were densely-wooded areas completely out of cultivation, and supplying wood for the bishop's dwellings, and faggots for his fires. On the other hand, it is scarcely neeessary to point out that from the twelfth Century on the term foresta cannot always be given its literal naeaning. Düring this period the forest areas underwent a gradual change in which they were reclaimed from the wilderness and reduced to a State of partial cultivation.®® Consequently, the demesne forests supplied more than mere wood, important as that was in an age in which stone buildings were still rare.®® These partially reclaimed areas were used also as pasture lands, the bishop securing a revenue called the herhagium from those of his tenants who chose or were obliged to pasture their beasts within the limits of the various forests.®" The administration of these restricted areas was in the hands of a Corps of foresters who in the fifteenth Century and possibly earlier received tenements in return for their services.®^ They collected the forest revenues and policed the districts in order to prevent Livre Noir, passim. Livre Rouge, passim. ®® Livre Noir, i, no. 143, pp. 173-174. The great forest of Neuilly once covered the present cantons of Lison, Castilly, and Neuilly. Cf. ibid., nos. 57, 68, 137. ®® The value of these products is shown by the bishop's policy of endowing prebends with forest lands and rights. Ibid., i, no. 137, pp. 165-166; no. 143, pp. 173-174. ®® Livre Noir, i, nos. 39, 52, 137, 143, 166. Herhagium was the generic term. Under it came special revenues for the pasturing of various kinds of animals. Cf. ibid., no. 143. «1 Ibid., nos. 137, 143, pp. 166, 173-174.

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AND

REVENUES

61

vastum et venatio.^^ I t is not certain that the forests were subject to special jurisdiction and special courts as early as the twelfth Century, b u t it is clear that b y that time special forest offences and pleas (placita, delicta forestae) were recognized. Finally, the bishop's demesne included other special areas which for various reasons were kept in the reserve and not enfeoffed. From his numerous ponds and creeks the bishop was supplied with fish for his table, and with reeds, rushes, and shells for his floors. Even swamp lands could be made to yield a profit. From his demesne at Port-en-Bessin on the channel the bishop drew a revenue calied the aquagium paid by the fisherraen of the locality. The size of the fee depended upon whether or not nets were used for the catch, and its incidence was determined, as usual, by ancient custom. The bulk of the bishops' wealth undoubtedly derived from the exploitation of their vast landed possessions. But included in the temporalities of the bishopric were a number of revenues, perquisites of the barony, but only indirectly connected with its lands. These it has seemed best to consider separately. Perhaps the most lucrative of such seigneurial revenues were the tolls {consuetudines in theloneo, passagium). Tolls were exacted from certain categories of persons in return for the privilege of transporting goods Livre Noir, i, no. 36, p. 43. The importance which the bishops attached to their forests is shown by the eagerness with which they sought rights in the duke's forests. Ibid., nos. 35, 36, pp. 42-43. The episcopal forests were subjected to a special inquest in 1156. Livre Noir, i, no. 81, p. 104; ü, no. 375, p. 96.

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across tlie bishop's lands, or along bis roads, and especially for the right to buy or seil in the fairs and markets of the bishopric. Markets were to be found in the churchyards of many parishes, while the most important episcopal fairs were located at Neuilly, Isigny, Saint-Clair (Manche), Tilly, Plessis, and Saint-Vigor,®® the last named being at least as old as the eleventh Century. ®® Both custom and the status of the individual seem to have contributed to determine who paid the toll and who were exempt. At the great fairs of Neuilly and Isigny barons, knights, clerics, and oflacials of the king and bishop were exempted. All others who bought and sold in them paid unless especially exempted by grace of the bishops.®^ Thus, the population of the city of Bayeux was exempted from the payment of passage toll to and from the fairs of Isigny and Neuilly, though subject to fees on all transactions entered into at the fairs themselves. ®® Similarly, the men of the prior of Plessis and the free men of the bishop's manor of Neuilly were exempted from commercial tolls throughout the bishopric.®® Even individuals could enjoy such exemption. The gate-keeper at the bishop's castle of Neuilly The bishop's transport tolls (in viis et semitis) were confirmed to him by Henry II. Liwe Noir, i, no. 20, pp. 26-27. 6® lind., i, no. 41, p. 48. Cf. Livre Rouge, i, no. 150, pp. 151-152. ®® Gallia Christiana, xi, instr., col. 76. Livre Noir, i, no. 46, pp. 56-67. The same rule applied to the markets which, though more frequent than the fairs, were local. At the Cambremer, the bishop received a fee from every transaction. Ibid., no. 39, pp. 45 f. ®® Livre Noir, i, no. 46, pp. 56-57. Cartulary of Plessis-Grimoult, Archives of the Calvados, H, fol. 19-20. Livre Rouge, i, no. 171, pp. 195 ff.

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was quit, and so was a certain dealer in garlic in return for supplying the bishop with that condiment! The twelfth-century documents record few details about the natura of the fairs/° or the amount of the tolls collected in them. That it was an appreciable part of their income, however, is proved by the vehemence with which market rights were defended by the bishops. Against Hugh of Crevecoeur whose attempt to establish a new market threatened to destroy the bishop's ancient one, Philip of Harcourt appealed even to Rome.^^ References to transactions facta ex consuetudine, and to merchandise unde consuetudine exeat, reveal, moreover, that local custom had more to do with the incidence of the tolls than general seigneurial regulations. In this respect it is clear that the tolls were no exception to the rules governing the administration of the bulk of the bishop's temporalities. Among the remaining sources of seigneurial revenue, the episcopal mills deserve eonsideration as exemplifying the Operation of the seigneurial monopoly (banalite) in the twelfth Century. The bishop's several mills were usually operated by water power, and the revenue derived from them was ealled the multure. It was a fee paid to the bishop's miliers by all who ground their grain in his mill. To insure successful operation, the bishop often secured areas within which all his men were obliged to use his mill and no other. The Conqueror ^^ At the beginning of the thirteenth Century the fair of Isigny was composed of stalls enfeofTed by the bishop to merchants who displayed their goods at the fair. L. Delisle, Jugements de l'ichiquier de Normandie (Paris, 1864), no. 356, p. 91. Lime Noir, i, no. 187, pp. 233 £F. (1153).

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himself gave such a monopoly to the bishops in the city of Bayeux,^^ whose inhabitants vainly resisted its Operation. If tenants within such a hanlieu or manor were discovered grinding their grain cutside the moulin banal, they forfeited the flour to the miliers, and the horse which carried it to the seigneur. With the mills we come to the end of our description of the lands and revenues which composed the barony of the bishops of Bayeux. The list does not profess to be complete. Some items have been omitted because the available information about them is too scanty, others because they simply prolong the list of the temporalities, without contributing to a fuller understanding of the economic Organization of the barony. Finally, the bishop's extensive canonical revenues, though pertinent to the discussion of a mediaeval bishopric, were not seigneurial in essence. Since it is in the bishop as a baron that we are interested, the canonical revenues have also been passed over. I t now remains to describe the Organization which administered and exploited the temporalities of the bishops, an Organization which in contrast to the size and wealth of the barony seems to have been singularly small and unimpressive. The bishops were aided in the administration of their barony by a large group of officials of various ranks. Most important were the dapifers or s e n e s c h a l s w h o lÄere Noir, i. no. 35, p. 42. (1157). They sued the bishop in the kmg's court in 1233, challenging his right to the monopoly. Delisle, Jugements de l'ichiquier, no. 505, p. 120. Livre Nmr, i, no. 269, pp. 316 f. f Livre Noir, i, nos., 71, pp. 89f. Cartulary of Plessis-Grimoult, Archives of the Calvados, H, no. 1434. Cartulary of Savigny, Archives of the Manche, H., no. 67, fol. 62.

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seem to have had general oversight and supervision of t h e administrative activity of the lesser officials. Although it is impossible to prove t h e existence of a carefully ordered hierarchy of oflSeials with graded responsibility, we need not infer from this t h a t there was no specialization of function among them. For besides t h e existence of many officials whose titles reveal no special duties, the documents speak of port-reeves, toll-receivers, tithe collectors, foresters, millers, and revenue farmers, to mention only those whose names appear most frequently. I n contrast to the abundant references to the bishop's officials must be placed the seemingly primitive character of the administrative machinery which they directed. I t is probable t h a t the fundamental unit for t h e exploitation of the barony was the 'prhote of which there is evidence early in t h e twelfth Century.''^ Presumably t h e prevöts or other officials received and managed in each prevöti the revenues from tenants, t h e income from demesne lands, as well as the farm of mills, fisheries, and other properties exploited ad firmam. There is evidence even for t h e existence of the farm of t h e prSvöte, so familiar to students of ducal finance and administration in the same period.'^® I t is, however, scanty compared to t h e bulk of t h e evidence t h a t charges against the bishops' revenues were recorded Livre Noir and Livre Rouge, passim. '''' Livre Noir, ii, no. 480, pp. 218-219 (1135-1150). Ibid., i, no. 81, p. 104, no. 84, p. 107. Ibid., ii, no. 480, pp. 218-219: . . . antiquorum virorum et ejusdem episcopi (Richard I I ) aüestatione recogniium est ea quae hic suhnoiaia sunt ex institutione Odonis episcopi , . . decimam, scilicet, reddituum episcopalium de Yseigneio et decimas omnium quae pertinent praeposituris Chambremarii et Plaisaeieii . • . (1135-1150).

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against individual lands rather than against the total income of any administrative area such as the jprevoU. The impression of the simplicity of the episcopal finaneial administration is strengthened not only by the absenee of a systematic account of fixed charges against the farm, which is understandable, but even of any mention of a record of accounts earlier than 1227. In that year it is apparent that a kind of exchequer was already in existence in the Cambremer, where the bishops possessed considerable demesne lands, and the nucleus of one of the several baronies into which the demesne lands and fiefs of the bishoprie were grouped in the thirteenth Century. In this area the bishop appointed a seneschal to head the administration. He presided over the prSvöts, custodians, miliers, and other ofläcials; and directed a kind of exchequer which kept account of the bishop's income from the district.®" I t is possible, of course, that this system of account and administration was also used elsewhere in the bishoprie, but for the twelfth Century we shall not be far from wrong in concluding that the episcopal finances depended for their successful administration chiefly upon the vigor and skill of the bishop himself. There is no evidence that the administrative officials had acquired a tradition or procedure which enabled them to function efficiently without guidance from their head. This brief discussion of the officers of administration concludes our investigation of the temporalities of the bishoprie: the fiefs, demesne, revenues, and population. However fragmentary our information about many aspects of the subject, it is clear that the bishops of 80 Delisle, Jugements de l'ichiquier, no. 403.

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Bayeux were by virtue of the geographica! extent and variety of their lands, the tenures by which they were held, and the character of the population upon them, proprietors of a barony in the same sense as the great lay feudatories. To complete our understanding of their status we must now turn to the mihtary forces and Jurisdiction which the possession of this barony aflForded the bishops.

CHAPTER I I I T H E MILITARY

ESTABLISHMENT

THE füllest account of the military establishment of the bishops of Bayeux is provided by the inquest made by Henry I in 1133 to discover the amount of knights' Service owed by his vassals to the bishop and by the latter to Henry himself. When supplemented by other miscellaneous evidenee which has survived, the returns of this inquest provide a well-rounded picture of the military establishment of a twelfth Century bishop. The motives which led to the inquest of 1133 are clear. In that year Bishop Richard Fitz-Samson died, and the temporalities of the bishopric feil into the king's hands pending his choice of Richard's successor. Since the greater part of these temporalities had been dissipated after Odo's death, it was obviously to the king's advantage to recover them during the vacancy. ^ The inquest was simply preliminary to the recovery of the alienated and stolen property of the see. The original returns of the inquest are lost. Consequently until recently great confusion has attended any effort to establish an accurate text, or to relate the several existing copies of the returns to one another.^ When the Norman antiquary, Lechaude d'Anisy, pub1 Livre Noir, i, no. 14, pp. 20 ff. ^ Many problems in connection with the inquest have been solved by the recent study of H. Navel, L'enquSte de 1133 sur lesfiefs de l'Sveche de Bayeux (Caen, 1935).

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69

lished the first text of the inquest in 1834, he described it as an "extrait des trois premiers feuillets d'un petit registre en parchemin qui existait avant la revolution dans le trSsor . . . de l'eveche de Bayeux et dont wie copie, peut-etre unique, se trouve maintenant dans ma collection."^ This register composed in 1297 is indeed lost/ but Lechaude's copy of it was not unique. A transcript of the inquest returns was made from the lost register as early as 1637 to serve as evidence in a law suit. This transcript is itself apparently lost, but a nearly contemporary copy of it is still in existence in the archives of the Calvados, although until recently it has been ignored.® Since it represents the earliest surviving copy of the register of 1297 in its complete form, and is therefore closer to the lost original inquest returns, it must serve as the basis of all attempts to emend the text. For this purpose it is evidently more dependable than the more modern copies. ® In view of the distance between the transcript of 1637 and the original inquest returns we are fortunate in possessing another, though shorter, copy of the original 3 Memoires de la sociStS des antiquaires de Normandie, viii (1834), 425. This series is henceforth cited M.A.N. Lechaude's manuscript copy is B.N., MS. lat. 10064, fols. 3 ff. ^ H. Navel, op. cit., pp. 4 ff. M. Navel has not only traced carefully the filiation of the manuscripts, but has established the best text of the inquest. However, the citations in this essay are from the text of L. Delisle in H. F., xxiii. The inquest returns as given in the register came from a copy of the original returns of 1133 made in 1172 on the occasion of Henry II's Norman inquest. ® S6rie G., Prebend of Arry. ® Auguste Le Prevost made a copy in 1833 "sur une copie coUation&e en 1637." It is B.N., MS. lat. n.a. 1837, fol. 282 ff. But this, like Lechaude's and other modern copies, derives from copies made in 1637.

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returns which is independent of the transcript. This copy is found in the Red Book of the Exchequer. ^ Until recently the Red Book returns were regarded as a mere summary of the fuller Bayeux Version based on the transcript of 1637. Round, however, points out in his unfinished study of the inquest of 1133 that several names in the Red Book copy are those of tenants who held fiefs in the time of Bishop Odo (d. 1097) and not in 1133. He demolishes the theory that the Red Book return is only a shortened version of the longer Bayeux return and concludes that "in the true (lost) original returns of the inquest there were given not only the names of those who held in 1133, but also the names of their predecessors in the time of Odo." ® From the latter group, Round says, the Red Book scribe made his copy, while the transcript of 1637 derives from copies which omitted reference to these tenants of an earlier day.^ The Red Book text, the more accurate of the two since it is closer to the last original, can thus be used to check the faulty text of the fuller Bayeux return. In accordance with the general character of the Norman military system, the obligation to perform military Service rested on the relationship of vassalage and the tenure of a fief. The enfeoffment was accompanied by a document, specifying the contractual obligations, which could be used as a record in case of dispute. The vas^ Red Book of the Exchequer, ed. Hubert Hall, 3 vols., Rolls Series, no. 99 (London, 1896), ii, 645-647. ® J . H. Round, Family Origins and other Studies, ed. William Page (London 1930), pp. 201-216. 9 Ibid., p. 209. ^^ Livre Noir, i, no. 144, pp. 174 f. Livre Rouge, fol. 12, ed. Anquetil, i, no. 24, pp. 28 f.

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71

sals of the bishop secured the Service which they owed him by creating fiefs in turn. As we have seen, subinfeudation occurs on the lands of the bishopric well back in the eleventh Century. ^^

The total number of knights available for service in the bishops' army according to the inquest of 1133 was roughly 120. Indeed, the inquest of 1172 gives precisely this number. Yet a careful check of the returns of 1133 reveals a slight difference in the short Red Book and the longer Bayeux totals, the former recording 119)4 knights' fees, the latter 117%. This discrepancy is the result of disagreement between the two versions Over the amount of service assessed in terms of knights' fees on certain tenements. The corrected total comes to From this array of some 120 knights, the inquest of 1133 informs us that the bishop owed the duke of Normandy the Service of twenty knights, while he owed the king of France, through the duke, the service of ten. The ratio, as expressly stated in the inquest, was one knight for the duke for every five fees the bishop held of him, while the bishop owed the king of France indirectly one knight for every ten fees he held of the duke. On the basis of this evidence along with the fact that groups of five knights' fees make up a considerable part of the bishops' military force, Professor Haskins concludes that the Bayeux evidence corroborates Round's affirmation that the Normans were familiar with the assessment of servitium dehitum (to the king) "

H. F., xxiii, 700. Supra, pp. 46 Round, Family Origins, p. 208.

S.

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in terms of the ten-knight unit when they landed in England.!® There is, however, a problem in connection with the bishop's servitium debitum. The inquest informs us t h a t the bishop owed the duke the Service of one knight for every five fees he held. If the bishop owed the duke twenty knights, as the inquest also teils us, he should have had a hundred knights' fees and a hundred knights in his own array, whereas in fact he had nearly 120. This discrepancy, whieh has not been satisfactorily explained, may be accounted for without violence to the apparently contrary statements of the inquest. We may presume that sinee the time when the duke first assessed servitium debitum upon the bishops (in pre-conquest times), the size of the episcopal lands and the number of fees had increased. Sinee the duke's original assessment, however, was elearly arbitrary^^ and bore little or no relation to the size of the barony, there would be no increase in the servitium debitum proportionate to the increase in the number of the bishops' own fees. Hence, while the number of knights actually enfeoffed by the bishop rose from 100 to approximately 120 during the interval from the original dueal assessment to the time of the inquest, the bishop's Obligation, having been arbitrary, remained constant. During the twelfth Century the bishops of Bayeux thus enfeoffed six times as many knights as they were required to send to the dukes, and maintained a military establishment considerably larger than t h a t recorded Haskin's Nor. Inst., pp. 8-19. " J . H. Round, Feudal England Haskins, Nor. Inst., pp. 8 flf.

(London, 1896), pp. 258-262.

Cf.

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73

for any other Norman ecclesiastic. Indeed, it is unlikely that many lay lords had larger ones. The nearest ecclesiastical rival of the bishop of Bayeux was his colleague of Lisieux who was burdened with an equally large servitium debitum to the duke. In his own service, however, he had but forty and a third fees. The mihtary forces of the remaining Norman bishops were much smaller.^® Since the returns for the Norman monastic baronies give eqüally convincing testimony to the superior strength of Bayeux,^® there can be no doubt t h a t in the military sphere the bishop of Bayeux was the first ecclesiastical vassal of Normandy. What actual use did the bishops make of so many knights? The sources are silent on this point. Theoretically the bishop could command them to appear with arms when he deemed their serviees necessary. But if we are justified in drawing inferences from the difficulties which the bishops encountered in the discharge of their servitium debitum to the crown,^'' they probably found it very nearly impossible to recruit the knights for their own purposes. Moreover, the fact t h a t This fact is revealed by the returns of the military inquest of 1172. Printed in H. F., xxiii, 693-699; Red Book of the Exchequer, pp. 624-625. Avranches had a servitium debitum of ten knights. Coutances owed the duke five and had enfeoSed thirteen. Seez owed six. The archbishop of Rouen and the bishop of Evreux made no return. Saint-Ouen of Rouen had the largest array of any Norman monastery according to the inquest: fourteen knights. Fecamp had the largest servitium debitum: twelve and a third knights. 1« H. F., xxiii, 694. H. F., xxiii, 637, (1224): MuUi autem qui tenent de Baiocensi episcopo . . . negant se teuere de eo, ut asserit idem episcopus. Ibid., p. 633: Feodum Suhart quod tenet comes Sancti Pauli, viii milites sed Rogerus dicit quod iotum tenet pro unofeodo.

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certain of the bishops' most powerful vassals were able to secure control of whole groups of their fiefs must have caused the bishops considerable embarrassment in the disposition of their forces. A t one time in the twelfth Century, for example, Robert, earl of Gloucester, held fiefs which controlled over a quarter of the total number of the bishops' men. In the light of these facts, the absence of evidence of active campaigning by the bishops' army in their behalf is not surprising. The truth is that the bishops were not as strong in the military sphere as mere numbers of men would seem to show. They used their knights largely for defensive purposes, especially for guarding the city of Bayeux and Strategie points. A curious twelfth-century document may perhaps illustrate the general charaeter of such service. When summoned in time of war a certain vassal was obliged to repair to the cathedra], armed and accompanied by an equerry, also a vassal of the church. Both were required to stand guard over the edifice day and night at their own expense, until hostilities had ceased. They could return home only when permission had been given, and they were liable for service whenever violence threatened the church.^® Similarly local and defensive were the services of the three knights owed to the bishop by his vassal, Henry of Port. They were stationed for service in the heart of the bishop's domain between the Orne and Vire rivers, and in his Castle at Neuilly. This ancient Castle was a fortress of renown even in the eleventh Century. Livre Noir, i, no. 142, p. 172. Delisle, Jugementa de l'Schiquier, no. 187.

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There Robert de Belleme was imprisoned after his capture in 1088. It was also used habitually by the dukes as a repository for their treasure during voyages between Normandy and E n g l a n d . A l t h o u g h chiefly a donjon in the early years of its existence, it became ultimately a dwelling place and administrative center where the bishops kept their archives. Apart from the discharge of his servitium debitum to the duke, Castle guard may well have come to be the chief Service rendered to the bishop by his knights. It is unfortunate, therefore, t h a t we know so little concerning arrangements for it. The inquest of 1133 is brief on this subject, but it suggests t h a t in the eleventh and twelfth centuries the obligation of Castle guard feil more often upon the bishop's vavassors than upon his knights. Certainly this was true of Neuilly, where the vavassors of the vicinity discharged their obligations by guarding the Castle, By the beginning of the thirteenth centuries changes have taken place. References to Castle guard being rendered by knights appear in the documents.^^ At the end of the Middle Ages there can be no further doubt that at least in theory all the bishop's tenants by military tenure were obliged to perform Castle guard. It is highly probable t h a t this service was the only real military obligation which still attached to tenure from the bishop, always excepting the servitium debitum to the crown still performed by the bishop's knights in his behalf. ^^ Magni Rotuli, ed. Stapleton, i, p. clxii; ii, pp. ccxxiv, ccxxvii. Delisle, Jugements de Vechiquier, no. 187. A good picture of the military establishment in its decline is offered by the Aveu et dinombrement du temporel de l'Sveschie de Bayeux, H60, ed. V. Bourienne in Baiocana (Bayeux, M a y 1909-Nov., 1910).

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As we have seen, the military establishment of tlie bishops of Bayeux was not composed exclusively of barons and knights. I n addition to them, a third class, the vavassors, owed a restricted form of military Service to their seigneur. Unlike his English contemporary, the Norman vavassor was not a knight designated vavassor in Order to distinguish him from the more powerful baron.^® H e was rather a tenant whose social status lay between that of a knight and an ordinary freeman, sharing certain characteristics of both. Thus, we have found on some of the bishops' lands certain "poor vavassors" whose tenements were small, and whose services, being economic rather than military, scarcely differed from those of an ordinary peasant save for the distinguishing Obligation of providing the bishop with a horse.^^ Not all the bishop's vavassors, however, occupied so humble a position. The inquest of 1133 describes another sort of vavassor whose services differed rather in degree than in kind from those of knights. Such men were required to perform actual knight service for their tenements, although in general two or more vavassoria combined to furnish a single knight. Still other vavassoria, being presumably of smaller size, were burdened with a less arduous variety of military service. Their tenants might be required, for example, to fight with "piain" arms or to do Castle guard in lieu of the more costly and exacting service of a füll knight.^® Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism, pp. 18 ff. Livre Nmr, i, no. 217, p. 265.

25 H. F., xxiii, 701-702. On piain arms see infra, p. 78.

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The amount of land included in the vavassor's tenement was probably the criterion of the kind of Service required of him. In any case landed wealth determined a vavassor's liability for service in the ducal host if it were summoned by the arriere-ban. Only vavassors holding tenements of fifty acres or more were liable. In this connection it is perhaps signifieant that certain vavassors on the fief of Plessis are denominated "free," whereas others are deseribed as "poor." The tenements of the latter are all less than twenty acres in size and are apparently burdened with no military obligations. The "free" vavassors, on the contrary, owe Service with piain arms both to the duke and bishop.^® Having examined the character and amount of the military service which the bishop secured from his vassals, let US turn to his obligations to his own suzerain, the duke. Owing to the insistance of the dukes and kings, both of England and France, the provision of this servitium dehitum was the important and enduring service which the bishop got from his knights. Moreover, the inquest is as precise about the obligations of bishop to duke as it is vague about those of his knights to the bishop. Thus, while we do not know how long the bishop was entitled to make use of the knights for his own purposes, those he sent to the duke remained in the field for precisely forty days. It is also in the inquest returns that we meet for the first time a geographical limitation of service. The contingent of knights could not be required by the duke to serve outside the boundaries of the duchy. The importance of 2» H. F., xxiii, 701-702. Livre Rotige, ed. Anquetil, i, no. 24. pp. 28 f.

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such information for the development of Anglo-Norman feudalism has long been appreciated by scholars.^'' T h e maintenance and equipment of the military forces of the bishopric was a heavy expense. In the twelfth Century it appears to have been shared by the bishops and his tenants-in-chief, but was, in any case, a source of endless controversy between them. Whenever possible the church probably forced her knights to maintain themselves in the field at their own expense, although in the inquest the episcopal vassals insist that the bishop is obliged to support even the contingents which he sent to the duke or king. This the bishop denied, being even less inclined to maintain the royal contingents than to support the knights whom he called out for his own services.^® We have no means of learning how such disputes were ultimately solved. I n the matter of equipment it is clear that the knights were required to answer the bishop's summons fully prepared, armed, and mounted. As early as the eleventh Century there were two categories of knightly equipment: the füll and the restricted (piain arms). The latter variety, especially prescribed for vavassors, consisted of a sword, shield, and lance. I t lacked the coat of mail distinctive of the füll equipment of a Norman knight of this age. In addition to demanding the regulär annual servitium dehitum of twenty knights from the bishops of Bäyeux, the duke was entitled to mobilize their entire force of P. Guilhiermoz, Essai sur Vorigine de la nohlesse en France au moyen dge (Paris, 1902), pp. 275 fi. 28 H. F.. xxiii, 701. Cf. Livre Noir, no. 142, p. 172, and Delisle, Jugements de Vichiquier, no. 187.

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120 men in time of emergency, by virtue of the arriereban. When the duke proclaimed the ban, all the bishops' tenants-in-chief whether barons, knights, or vavassors, were obliged to send a knight to the host for each fee held of the bishops. The inquest of 1133, thus, clearly demonstrates the survival or early reappearance of the ancient sovereign right of making a general levy of troops in the duchy during periods of emergency. It is well known that both in England and in Normandy the practice of substituting a money payment for actual military Service in the field was common before the end of the twelfth Century. In Normandy such payments were generally called auxilium exercitus. The inquest returns reveal an episcopal privilege out of which auxilium exercitus may well have developed. In Order to secure his servitium debitum of ten or twenty knights for king or duke, the bishop was entitled to levy an aid on every fee held directly of him. If the knights were destined for service with the king of France, the aid was twenty shillings on each knight's fee; if for the duke, forty. This practice was not precisely auxilium exercitus, because the bishop had to send the contingent of knights to the duke. The bishop's tenants were simply offered the option of supplying money or knights. If they chose the former alternative, the bishop hired mercenaries for his contingent and sent them to the duke. We note a change, however, at the turn of the Century. From that time on the bishops began occasionally to discharge their servitium debitum with the auxilium exercitus, sending monej^ to the king instead of troops, a logical development out of the old usage. Although twelfth-century evidence on the rate of the aid

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paid to the king is non-existent, it amounted in the early years of the thirteenth to 100 shillings in each fee, an amount equal to t h a t levied generally in the duchy.^® I t is impossible to determine whether the bishop assessed this aid upon all the fees held of him, or merely on the servitium dehitum of twenty. If he used the former method, assessing the aid at the füll rate on all fees held of him, it netted him considerable profit, and there are instances in the early thirteenth Century when the bishops, with royal assistance, seem to have done this.®° On the other hand, Norman customary law forbade assessment of aid except on the servitium dehitum, and this was the rule more often than not in Normandy as a whole. Finally, in the procedure outlined in the inquest of 1133,^^ which permitted the bishop to recruit his required twenty knights by demanding a money payment from tenants who did not send knights, the bishop apportioned the total amount of aid he needed among all his tenants' fees. He thereby secured enough and only enough to meet his obligations to the duke, and, although the amount of the aid was divided up among all the bishop's fees, the income was equivalent to the servitium dehitum alone. Unless new material can be discovered, it is impossible to make a choice among such conflicting evidence.^^ This sum is indicated for Bayeux in several instances; H. F., xiii, 634 . . . Flocigneium x sol. quando auxilium levatur de c sol. Cf. ibid., p. 634. Cf. J. R. Strayer, The Administration qf Normandy under Saint Louis, Publications of the Mediaeval Academy of America, no. 13 (Cambridge, Mass., 1932), p. 60. Delisle, Jugements de l'ichiquier, nos. 24, 99. 3» H. F.. xxiii, 699. Strayer, op. cit., pp. 58 fif.

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By the beginning of the thirteenth Century unmistakable signs point to a decline in the strength of the bishops' military establishment. I t may have set in still earlier, for the above-mentioned provision permitting the bishop to levy an aid in lieu of actual knight's Service from his tenants-in-chief, canbe interpretedasshowing that the bishop could not always secure Service in the ordinary way. Certainly it is clear that from 1200 on the bishops resorted to auxilium exercitus increasingly in their efforts to provide the king with his Service.^® Even to secure this the bishop was obliged frequently to sue in the king's court. Still more illustrative of the decay was the episcopal policy of setting aside certain fees in their vassals' fiefs to supply knights to the crown fer manum episcopi. Unlike the other fees, these could not avoid service by payment of the aid.^* Finally, many of the bishop's vassals denied their obligations. A movement had begun which ultimately stripped the bishop of his earlier military prestige. A t the dose of the fifteenth Century all that was left of his former power was the Obligation to supply the king of France with his quota of knights and even this was often compounded for in money.®® One wonders whether the practical importance of the In the Servicia Normanniae of ca. 1242 {H. F., xxiii, 729), the bishop sends only three knights, indicating how much Service was compounded for in aid. Cf. Delisle, Jugements de Vechiquier, nos. 29, 99, 187, 203, 260, 289, 299, 357. Delisle, Jugements de l'Schiquier, no. 24, . . . Conestabularius dicit quod de episcopo tenet vii feoda militun ad servicium episcopi, et duo feoda ad servicium regis quando submonitus est per episcopum. . . . Aveu et denombrement du temporel de l'iveschie de Bayeux (1460).

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episcopal military establishment, apart from the prestige it conferred, was ever really much more. Certainly there is much to support the conclusion that it was rather a mechanism for securing the service owed to the duke and enhancing his authority than a means by which the bishops reaped any considerable military advantages for themselves. Nevertheless, in no other of its varied aspects does the twelfth-century bishopric so closely resemble a barony, and in no other is the influenae of contemporary feudal forms and ideas so striking. Apart from the light shed upon Norman feudal institutions in general, it is in disclosing the marked similarities between lay and ecclesiastical baronies that the study of the episcopal military establishment ofTers the greatest interest.

CHAPTER IV THE

EPISCOPAL

JURISDICTION

THE Jurisdiction of the bishops of Bayeux, like that of other high ecclesiastics of the Middle Ages, was twofold. As Spiritual heads of a diocese, they were entitled to canonical Jurisdiction over the clergy and the faithful within its borders. ^ But the bishops, as we have seen, were the proprietors of an extensive barony; as such they also claimed a degree of judicial authority over their feudal and manorial dependents.^ Since this essay professes to concern itself with the bishopric of Bayeux only as a barony, the ecclesiastical justice of the bishop is technically outside its scope. Nevertheless, there are valid reasons at this point for departing from the plan adhered to previously, and for including some discussion of the canonical Jurisdiction of the bishops of Bayeux. The most cogent reason is the extreme difficulty of separating the bishops' seigneurial and ecclesiastical Jurisdiction. For while the ' Ordinaire et couiumier de Veglise cathSdrale de Bayeux, ed. U. Chevalier (Paris, 1902), p. 321. Though written in the middle of the thirteenth Century, this custumal is largely a record of earlier custom. The portions of it which concern the episcopal Jurisdiction were taken from an old collection in the possession of William of Tancarville, a canon of the time of Bishop Robert des Ableges (1206-1231). Ibid., Introduction, p. xx, and p. 340. ^ The double Jurisdiction is clearly indicated for the canons of Bayeux. Ibid., p. 420: Sciendum est quod quilihet canonicus . . . diele ecclesie prder juridictionem quam habent in kominibus suis specialem et secularem, quantum habet unus de baronibus Normannie in sua baronia . . . habet juridictionem in servientibus suis

83

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distinction between secular and canonical justice was valid in legal theory, and must certainly have been recognized by the bishops themselves, it is not one which they were accustomed to express in the records of trials or to signalize by maintaining separate courts. Moreover, the ecclesiastical courts claimed competence in a variety of cases which today would be considered "temporal," and which even in the twelfth Century were the subject of bitter rivalry between the lay courts and the ecclesiastical. I t is well known, finally, that the ecclesiastical courts occupy a place of special significance in the history of Anglo-Norman institutions, Their status in the twelfth Century was unique in western Europe owing to the supremacy which the crown succeeded in maintaining over them.® As a consequence the Norman ecclesiastical jurisdiction was deprived of the freedom and power secured elsewhere in Europe by the church courts of the twelfth Century. For what it may reveal about the rivalry between the canonical and secular jurisdiction in Normandy, the ecclesiastical justice of the bishops of Bayeux requires consideration. We shall, therefore, treat their jurisdiction as a whole, dividing it into the criminal and civil categories rather than into the seigneurial and ecclesiastical. The bishops had rights of criminal jurisdiction over three classes of persons: over most of the clergy of the diocese {ratione personae), over all laymen charged with ® This supremacy was confirmed in the important canons of Lillebonne, 1080. The best text of them is found in Layettes du trSsor des chartes, ed. A. Teulet, H. F. Delaborde, and E. Berger, 5 vols. (Paris, 1863-1909), i, 25-28. Cf. Haskins, Nor. Inst., pp 35-36; 171 f.

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certain offences against religion (offences contra Christianitatem), and, finally, over the bishop's men, in the feudal sense, for such crimes as may have been assigned to his cognizance by the custom of the land. The bishop's Jurisdiction over the first two categories was ecclesiastical (placüa episcopalia), over the last, secular. However, his rights in all three spheres were frequently challenged, and it is chiefly from his struggles to defend them that we can form an idea of the scope of the bishop's criminal Jurisdiction. Over the major crimes of clerics in the diocese the bishop appears to have claimed sole and immediate Jurisdiction unless evidence of complete exemption from his authority could be produced.^ Even the canons of the cathedral, and the clergy in exempt parishes belonging to powerful monasteries like Fecamp, Troarn, and Saint-Etienne (Caen) were subject to the bishop's court for major criminal offences, such as homicide or brigandage, which endangered their orders or benefices.® Trial of these criminous clerks took place in tribunals presided over by the bishop, the archdeacon, or their delegates at Bayeux or Caen.® The only con* Livre Noir, i, nos. 162, 163, 164, pp. 203-205. ® Chevalier, Ordinaire et Coulumier, p. 322: Similiter nec in aliquo canonicorum Baiocensis ecclesie ratione prebende vel persone sue potest juriditionem aliquam nisi casualiier exercere, scilicet cum agitur contra eutn de aliquo crimine propter quod, si de hoc constaret, esset perpetuo deponendus vel suo beneficio privandus, puia propter homicidium, latrocinium, et similia. Vel si diffamatus sit publice . . . in quihus casihus agitur talis causa coram episcopo et capitulo. . . . ® Livre Noir, i, no. 135, pp. 161 S: Si quis autem clericorum de terra nostra, in episcopatu Baiocensi super causa conveniatur ecciesiastica, in qua versetur periculum ordinis, vel benefidi, stabit judicio in curia episcopi, vel archidiaconi.

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cession made by the bishops in such causes was the grant of fines to certain abbots when their priests had been convicted.'' The bishop's claim to jurisdiction over criminous Clerks was in essence canonical. This is equally true of a considerable portion of his criminal jurisdiction over the laity, namely, for offences committed by them contra Christianitatem, crimes in a special sense violations of religion and morality, and hence cognizable only in the church courts. The bishops of Bayeux were claiming extensive jurisdiction over offences of this sort as early as the eleventh Century, but owing to frequent alienations, and to the influences of feudal custom in its determination, this jurisdiction was probably far from uniform throughout the diocese.® Nevertheless, it is possible to obtain an idea of its general scope by examination of the grants in which the bishops alienated portions of it to other ecclesiastics, or even to laymen, The earliest such grant was made by Bishop Odo to the abbots of Saint-Etienne of Caen, according them special Privileges in this sphere of justice. ® In a limited number of that abbey's parishes in the diocese of Bayeux Odo granted the abbot the fines from all offences of the laity, both criminal and non-criminal. For the non-criminal he permitted the abbot to pronounce canonical judgment as well. The actual trial of all peccata criminalia committed in these exempted parishes, however, remained with the archdeacons of Bayeux, although Odo vel ministerialis eorum, Baioeis vel Cadumi . . . (1169). Cf. ibid., nos. 159, 189, pp. 200, 236. 7 Livre Noir, i, no. 135. ® /n/ra, p. 93 and note. ® Archives of the Calvados, H, 1835. Haskins, Nor. Inst., p. 34, note 134.

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conceded that such trials might be held in the parish in which the accused lived and that a representative of the abbot might sit in the archdeacon's court. If the trial in the latter court proved inconclusive, resort must be had to the ordeal, which Odo specifically reserved for the cathedral church at Bayeux, thereby following the procedure outlined in the fortieth canon of Lillebonne. Not only was this grant confirmed by Odo's successors, ^ ^ but very similar conditions governed the exercise of the bishop's Jurisdiction in causes contra Christianitatem in parishes belonging to other privileged monastic communities, for example Troarn and Fecamp. Certain concessions were undoubtedly made, especially of the Profits of justice, but in most cases the bishops kept for themselves or their archdeacons the trial of serious crimes, forbade the annulment of marriages by others, and reserved the ordeal, the symbol of ultimate authority, for their own courts.^^ The abbots of Troarn, Saint-Etienne, and Fecamp were among the most powerful and highly privileged ecclesiastics in Normandy. Few others could justly claim for their laity as large an immunity from the bishop's criminal Jurisdiction. Yet the concessions made to these houses did not seriously invalidate the bishop's Jurisdiction over the crimes of these abbeys' lay subjects. We conclude, then, that wide powers of crimLayettes du tresor des chartes, i, 27. Confirmations by Bishops Philip of Harcourt, and Henry of Beaumont are in the Archives of the Calvados, H, 1844, 1845. Line Noir, i, no. 135, pp. 161 ff.: Si vero in curia nostra judicium candentis fern alicui fuerii adjudicatum, referetur ad ecclesiam Baiocensem, et si judicium fuerit in curia Baiocensi confirmatum, Baiocis fortabitur. Cf. ibid., no. 159, pp. 200-201.

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inal jurisdiction were normally exercised by the bishop's court in the twelfth Century. Over what crimes did this jurisdiction extend; by virtue of what right did the bishop claim it, and even alienate portions of it? The answer to this question depends upon the meaning which was attached to the terms peccata criminalia, and crimina publica in the documents cited. First of all they must certainly have included the causes contra Christianitatem, crimes to which the bishop laid claim as his canonical prerogative and which had been defined by the canons of Lillebonne as adultery, incest, rape, sorcery, heresy, sacrilege, acts of violence committed in churches or cemeteries, assaults on monks, nuns, or priests, breaches of the Truce of God, and the trial of persons who, denying their guilt, failed to wage the ordeal successfully.^® We cannot be sure that the twelfth-century bishops of Bayeux actually secured jurisdiction over all these offences of the laity.'^ Nevertheless, from their own scanty definitions of the placita episcopalia,^^ it is clear that they claimed no criminal Layettes du trisor des chartes, i, 25-28. Certainly the Norman bishops of the twelfth Century never secured trial of persons charged with breaking the Truce of God. They did receive a fine of nine pounds for offenders convicted in the duke's court. Chevalier, Ordinaire et Coutumier, pp. 296-297: Extra ecclesiam vero officium episcopi est . . . corrigere et reformare, et . . . clandestina matrimonia disjungere, dmiteria et loca sancta . . . reconciliare et violatores earum canonice punire. . . . Ct. ibid., p. 307. Delisle, Jugements del'echiquier,ao. 403: Episcopo vero remanent tres magne cause ecclesiastice, videlicet de clerico verberato, de cimiterio violato, de matrimonio cum pertinenciis (1227). Livre Noir, i, no. 215, pp. 262-263: . . . super placitis ecclesiasticis, videlicet, de fornicatione, et aduUerio, de Treuga sancta, defide laesa, et juramento facto. . . . (1216). Ibid., ii, no. 476, pp. 209 t.iQuae causae tales sunt: causae scilicet matrimonii, de clerico vel religioso verberato, cimitterio infracto, et quolibet

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causes contra Christianitatem not included in the Lillebonne list. But if the bishops admitted that their criminal Jurisdiction was in the canonical sphere thus confined to the usual causes, did they claim a more extensive criminal jurisdiction as a perquisite of their baronial status? The content of the bishop's seigneurial jurisdiction is far more difficult to determine than that of his ecclesiastical rights. Since it was regulated to a much greater degree by custom, variations in the scope of his secular justice were greater. Morever, the bishop was obliged to share this jurisdiction with vassals and tenants to whom he alienated rights of justice in conjunction with the fiefs he granted to them.^® Nevertheless, as an ordinary Norman seigneurial court, the competence of the bishop's secular tribunal was almost certainly confined to civil causes. Public justice, which included all the major criminal offences, of the laity at least, was a monopoly of the crown maintained through the resacrilegio. . . . (1264). F o r t h e b i s h o p ' s jurisdiction in m a r r i a g e cases see E . Deville, Analyse d'un ancien cartulaire de l'abhaye de Saint-Etienne de Caen ( E v r e u x , 1905), p p . 32, 52. " Delisle, Jugements de Vichiquier, no. 506: Accordatum est quod dominus Radulftis de Mellent haheat talem saisinam de ylacitis in honore Corcellie qualem solet defeodis que tenentur ah episcopo Baiocensi. C a r t u l a r y of Plessis, Archives of t h e C a l v a d o s , H , fol. 23-24, no. 4 2 : Praecipimus Herum et sub anathemate prohibemus ne iusiicia nostra (i.e., bishops of B a y e u x ) mittat manum super terram prioris de Plesitio vel super homines illius pro aliquo forifacto, sei prior in sua curia dominica de suis kominibus rectitudinem teneat. . . . Pollock a n d M a i t l a n d , The History of English Law before the time of Edward I, 2 n d . edition, 2 vols. ( C a m b r i d g e , 1898), i, 584 fiF. Coutumiers de Normandie, ed. E . J . T a r d i f , 2 vols., SociStS de Vkistoire de Normandie ( R o u e n a n d Paris, 1881-1903) vol. i, p a r t 1, c. lix.

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served Pleas of the Sword.^® These cases could not be tried in the courts of any vassal, of whatever rank, unless the right to do so had been accorded by the duke.^® There is evidence that certain lords, both laymen and ecclesiastics, had secured eoncessions of these prerogative cases from the dukes, and it has been asserted that Odo of Bayeux had benefited so greatly from the Conqueror's generosity that he and his successors enjoyed plenary secular Jurisdiction throughout their domains.^° This assertion rests chiefly upon a writ of Duke Geoffrey of 1147 prohibiting anyone from entering the lands of the bishop of Bayeux for the purpose of administering justice or for any other reason unless he were an ofläcial who had been for a considerable period commissioned to do so, or had exercised Jurisdiction in the reign of Henry I. Even such officials must prove their rights.^^ Vahn interprets this writ as conferring total judicial immunity upon the bishop's domains. If this were true the bishops would have possessed a plenitude of Jurisdiction both criminal and civil in their barony. We cannot be certain, however, that such an interpretation of the writ is valid. Its precepts certainly did not exclude lawfully constituted ducal officials, and possibly others, from exercising legitimate judicial functions within the A list of these pleas will be found in the Tres ancien coutumier, i, cc. xvi, X X X V , liii, liv, Iviii, lix. 1® Haskins, Nor. Inst., pp. 27 ff. L. Valin, Le duc de Normandie et sa cour, p. 228 and note 3. Cf. F. M. Powicke, The Loss of Normandy, 1189-1204 (Manchester, 1913), p. 83 and note 3. Livre Noir, i, no. 16, pp. 22-23. XV,

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bishop's territory. The writ could be, and indeed has been, cited with equal propriety to prove the duke's judicial authority tliere.^^ Consequently neither this, nor other evidence we possess,^® enables us to answer definitely the question whether the bishop's seigneurial Jurisdiction extended by ducal coneession to the crimes of his dependents, or was largely confined, like that of ordinary barons, to the civil sphere. If it remains uncertain whether the bishops' seigneurial Jurisdiction included any of the criminal pleas, it is clear that in the civil sphere they exercised Jurisdiction both as ecclesiastics and as barons. The 'placita episcopalia, which the bishop heard as an ecclesiastical judge, included, in the main, the following causes: marriage and attendant causes, breaches of faith and oath, testaments and chatteis of the dead, tithes, and disputes Over lands held by the tenure of free alms.^^ The Haskins, Nor. Inst., p. 152. There is some other evidence suggesting the possibility that the bishops, as barons, enjoyed Jurisdiction over major criminal oflfences in portions of their barony. They had the right to fines levied on persons convicted of serious crimes in the Cambremer, and their prevöU in that banlieu had been granted free exercise of the bishop's Jurisdiction. We cannot be sure, however, that seisin of fines necessarily indicated the bishops' right to try the offenders. Livre Noir, i, nos. 43, 44, pp. 51-54. On the banlieu, as a privileged area, see Haskins, Nor. Inst., p. 49. Also suggestive is the use of the term crimina publica in the grant of Jurisdiction conveyed by the bishops to Troarn (swpro,p.87, note 12).The crimina publica may well have been high crimes ordinarily reserved, as Pleas of the Sword, for the duke's court. Tardif, Coutumiers de Normandic, vol. ii {Summa de legibus), c. Ixvi, p. 166. But this evidence, again, is too slight to establish the facts securely. Livre Noir, i, nos. 135, 159, 215; ii, no. 476 (1264). Delisle, Jugements de Vechiquier, no. 403. Chevalier, Ordinaire et Coutumier, pp. 296-297; 307; 327-340.

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bulk o£ the litigation which feil to his cognizance as the lord of a barony were disputes between his men (in the feudal sense), or between himself and his men concerning fiefs and tenements, patronage rights, forest pleas; and probably personal actions of various kinds.^® The civil Jurisdiction which the bishop claimed by virtue of his canonical status belonged likewise to the other bishops in their dioceses. In the secular sphere, however, the bishop of Bayeux enjoyed, through ducal concession, a prerogative right of the crown which increased his civil Jurisdiction beyond the point to which it could have extended merely as a result of the bishop's ordinary baronial status. This added right consisted of the privilege of using in his feudal court the ducal procedure of the sworn inquest in all suits arising between himself and his tenants concerning their fiefs. First granted by Duke Geoffrey to Bishop Philip in 1147 in Order to enable the latter to use the jury, the most efficient legal procedure of the age, in recovering the lost temporalities of the church, the concession secured the bishops of Bayeux a continuing remedy against the rapacity of their vassals. Geoffrey's grant marks the earliest known case of the extension of the prerogative procedure of the sworn inquest from the duke's courts Infra, pp. 72 fif. On forest pleas, supra, p. 61. Livre Noir, i, no. 16. For instances of its use by the bishops see infra, pp. 101 £f. The bishops also enjoyed at least one other prerogative right, namely, to share the duke's monopoly of whales and "great fish." Tres ancien coutumier, ed. Tardif, c. Ixviii, p. 63: Sciendum est quod de omnibus haronihus Normannie episcojms Baiocensis et comes Cestrie soli kabent unam valsetam ad crassum piscem capiendum apud Portum Episcopi et per villam comitis.

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to those of any of his vassals.^'^ By the possession of this privilege the bishops of Bayeux enjoyed a unique judicial position which not even those who hitherto had had füll rights of "haute justice" could boast.^» Since the exercise of justice in the twelfth Century was often the source of very considerable profit and prestige, the bishops of Bayeux were continually obliged to defend their jurisdiction against rivals both ecclesiastical and lay. The root of the difficulty was the peculiar status of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction as a whole in Normandy. In the determination of its scope and authority Norman feudal custom and ducal regulation often played a greater part than principles of canon law common to the universal church.^® This custom was, on the whole, ill-defined and susceptible of varying interpretation. Its main elements were the canons promulgated at the council held at Lillebonne in 1080 by the Conqueror and his bishops and barons.^° These canons came to be regarded as a kind of Constitution for the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Normandy, and as Haskins, Nor. Inst, p. 212. "^Ibid. Occasionally feudal custom proved stronger than canonical regulation not only in definitions of authority between ecclesiastics and laymen, but even between ecclesiastics. Esprevilla, a parish in the diocese of Lisieux, consisted of two fiefs, one held by the bishop of Lisieux, the other by the bishop of Bayeux. Disputes over their respective powers led to a swom inquest which decided that the tenants of the bishop of Bayeux were answerable to him as their secular lord, and not to the bishop of Lisieux as their spiritual lord, for the ecclesiastical pleas, as well as for other spiritual matters. Thus did feudal considerations partly deprive the bishop of Lisieux of what canonically were his undoubted rights over a parish within his diocese. Livre Noir, i, no. 89, pp. 112-113. 30 Supra, p. 88.

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interpreted by the twelfth-century sovereigns, severely restricted the church's sphere of justice. The Norman church submitted to the yoke without effective protest until the middle years of the Century. Thereafter the expanding claims to Jurisdiction which the Gregorian popes and canonists made for the church courts quickened in the minds of the Norman clergy a desire to break the bonds of Norman usage and to secure the liberties promised by Roman uniformity.^^ The critical point in the rivalry thus engendered between the secular and ecclesiastical courts in Normandy was reached in 1162 when Henry I I ordered the church to observe the canons of Lillebonne and implied that it had exceeded the limits of Jurisdiction assigned to it by the council.^2 There is no reason to suppose that the church of Bayeux was less guilty than others in the eyes of Henry II, yet instances of actual conflict between the bishop's and the king's justice are rare. On the critical matter of criminous clerks, for instance, there is but one incident. In 1166 a certain priest of Bayeux was accused of counterfeiting, an offence belonging to the duke's reserved pleas. The duke's justices imprisoned him after trial in an unknown court, and the bishop secured his release only with the greatest difficulty.33 This Single, hard-earned victory certainly does not 31 Haskins, Nor. Inst., pp. 170 ff. 32 Robert of Torigni, ed. Delisle, i, 336. 33 Arnulfi Lexoviensis efiseo-pi Epistolae, in Patres Ecclesiae Anglicanae, ed. J . A. Giles (Oxford, 1844), no. 123. Cf. Haskins. Nor. Inst., p. 171. The canons of Lillebonne had directed that the bishops were to have their fines from clerics convicted of rape, theft, homicide, and other major crimes, but did this mean that the bishops also tried the off enders?

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permit us to conclude t h a t the bishops of Bayeux were generally successful in defending against the secular authorities their claim to sole Jurisdiction over criminous Clerks. Indeed, whatever the efTect of Becket's death in easing the relations between the ducal and ecclesiastical jurisdictions on this question,^^ it remains true t h a t as late as 1177 knights and laymen of the diocese were still trying priests of Bayeux in their secular courts.^^ The allegations of these laymen t h a t they tried priests because an earlier bishop had conceded them the right to do so,^® is, if true, a striking illustration of the extent to which feudal custom had interfered with the ecclesiastical Jurisdiction. The enfeoffment of rights of canonical justice to laymen was against all the tradition of canon law. Yet there is plenty of evidence t h a t episcopal consuetudines were often so alienated in Normandy during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.®^ These allegations were, thus, not necessarily fraudulent. The laymen in question did not propose to renounce their right of ecclesiastical Jurisdiction simply because its exercise did not accord with canon law, not, at least, without a struggle.^38 R. Genestal, Le Privilegium fori en France du decret de Gralien ä la fin du xiv" dede, 2 vols., Bihliotheque de Vecole des hautes Hudes (Paris, 1921, 1924), ii, 106 ff. The victory of the church was complete only after 1190. Liwre Noir, i, nos. 162, 163, 164, pp. 203ff. So serious was the Situation at this time that Pope Alexander III was obliged to intervene to aid the bishop and his archdeacon. Ibid., no. 162: . . . concessionis obieniu quam a quodam episcopo Baiocensi. . . . Haskins, Nor. Inst., p. 33 and notes. There is no evidence of how the problem was solved by the bishops of Bayeux specifically. However, the king and Norman barons admitted the sole right of the bishops to the trial of criminous clerks at the end of the

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I t was not only their rights over criminous clerks which the bishops of Bayeux were obliged to defend. Bishop Henry's correspondence with Alexander I I I shows that at the same time the secular courts were trying offences of the laity of the diocese which the bishop claimed ratione materiae for his episcopal court.^® The same conflict between feudal custom and canon law explains the rivalry in this sphere. The canons of Lillebonne, as we have seen,^° set aside certain offences as belonging to the province of the courts Christian. Yet for several reasons this delimitation did not prevent conflict. For most of the offences listed the canons expressly granted only the fines, and did not specify the court in which the offender ought to be tried. Concerning trials the council declared simply that they were to belong to the bishops where it was customary.^^ Finally, the offences listed in the canons were largely criminal, little being said about the competence of the bishop's court in civil causes. As the claims of the church courts elsewhere to certain categories of civil Jurisdiction expanded in the twelfth Century, the Norman bishops naturally feit that they were being deprived of their rights. ^^ Century. Testificalio de jure patronatus et aliis juribus pertinentibus Regi et baronibus in Normannia (Inquest of Philip Augustus, 1205) in Layettes du trisar des chartes, i, no. 785, pp. 296 f. Ecclesiasticae Libertatis in Normannia Leges in Bessin, Concilia Rotomagensis Provindae (Rouen, 1717), part i, pp. 99 f. (1190). Tres ancien coutumier de Normandie, ed. Tardif, i, c. Ixxii, pp. 68-69. Ct. Genestal, op.