Anglo-Norman Studies XXVII: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2004 [27] 1843831325, 9781843831327, 9781846152061

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ANGLO-NORMAN STUDIES XXVII PROCEEDINGS OF THE BATTLE CONFERENCE 2004

This volume contains the usual wide range of topics, and offers some unusual and provocative perspectives, including an examination of what the evidence of zooarchaeology can reveal about the Conquest. The other subjects discussed are the battle of Alençon; the impact of rebellion on Little Domesday; Lawrence of Durham; Thomas Becket; Gilbert Foliot; Peter of Blois; Anglo-French peace conferences; episcopal elections and the loss of Normandy; chronicles in the Abruzzi; Norman identity in southern Italian chronicles; and the Normans on crusade. JOHN GILLINGHAM is Emeritus Professor of History at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

ANGLO-NORMAN STUDIES XXVII PROCEEDINGS OF THE BATTLE CONFERENCE 2004

Edited by John Gillingham

THE BOYDELL PRESS

© Editor and Contributors 2004, 2005 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner The right of the Contributors to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published 2005 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge ISBN 1 84383 132 5 ISSN 0954–9927 Anglo-Norman Studies (Formerly ISSN 0261–9857: Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies)

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CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR’S PREFACE ABBREVIATIONS

Probing the Passions of a Norman on Crusade: the Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum Emily Albu Gilbert Foliot et l’Ecriture, un exégète en politique Julie Barrau Writing Warfare, Lordship and History: the Gesta Consulum Andegavorum’s Account of the Battle of Alençon Richard Barton Anglo-French Peace Conferences in the Twelfth Century J.E.M. Benham Peter of Blois and the Problem of the ‘Court’ in the Late Twelfth Century John D. Cotts Normandy and Norman Identity in Southern Italian Chronicles Ewan Johnson Monastic Chronicles in the Twelfth-Century Abruzzi G.A. Loud The Impact of Rebellion on Little Domesday Lucy Marten Setting Things Straight: Law, Justice and Ethics in the Orationes of Lawrence of Durham Mia Münster-Swendsen The Angevin Kings and Canon Law: Episcopal Elections and the Loss of Normandy Jörg Peltzer Zooarchaeology of the Norman Conquest Naomi Sykes Was Thomas Becket Chaste? Understanding Episodes in the Becket Lives Hanna Vollrath

vi vii ix 1

16 32

52 68 85 101 132 151

169

185 198

ILLUSTRATIONS Writing Warfare, Lordship and History Table 1 Accuracy of the Gesta Consulum’s lists of particpants at Alençon Table 2 Comparison of names of the Angevin barons incorrectly cited in the Gesta with the actual lords in 1118 and after 1165

36 50

Anglo-French Peace Conferences in the Twelfth Century Map 1 Map 2

Peace conferences c.911–c.1190 Peace conferences during the reign of Richard I

59 61

Monastic Chronicles in the Twelfth-Century Abruzzi Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Map

Tympanum: west portal of the abbey church of Casauria King Berengar I grants a privilege to the monks of Casauria (BN MS Lat. 5411, fol. 124r) The Emperor Henry III, Abbot Dominic and the monks (fol. 205v) Pope Gregory VII excommunicates the Normans who menace the property of St Clement (fol. 233v) Pope Adrian IV and Abbot Leonas (fol. 253r) John Berard presents the chronicle-chartulary to St Clement (fol. 272v) The Abruzzi

104 113 116 118 119 129 102

The Impact of Rebellion on Little Domesday Table 1 The vill of Elvedon in Little Domesday

136

The Angevin Kings and Canon Law Map

The diocese of Sées

172

Zooarchaeology of the Norman Conquest Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3

Inter-period variation in wild mammal representation on sites of different type Skeletal representation pattern for post-Conquest deer Pre- to post-Conquest changes in perceptions of landscape and human-animal relationships

189 192 196

EDITOR’S PREFACE The twenty-seventh annual Battle Conference was held, in sunny weather as usual, from 29 July to 2 August 2004, and with the support of the British Academy. On this occasion no less than six of the twelve speakers came from abroad: three from the USA, one each from Denmark, France and Germany. The fact that so many speakers could be invited from overseas, making this proportionately the most international Battle Conference so far, we owe to the Academy’s generous grant. Throughout the conference the delegates were, as always, made to feel at home, and well supplied with food and drink, by Alison Martin, Bob Banks and all the staff at Pyke House. I am particularly grateful to Alison for her help in the organisation of the conference, as well as to Hastings College of Arts and Technology for their provision of indispensable facilities and administrative backup. By courtesy of the Headmaster of Battle Abbey School, the opening reception was held in Battle Abbey itself, on the terrace overlooking the battlefield, and was followed by the Allen Brown Memorial Lecture delivered by Simon Keynes in the splendours of the Abbot’s Hall. Owing, however, to unforeseeable circumstances arising from the implementation of a savings exercise in the University of Cambridge, publication of the Memorial Lecture itself has regrettably had to be held over until next year. Some of the delegates were later able to inspect the medieval parts of Battle Abbey School under the expert guidance of Ian Peirce, a tower of strength both before and throughout the conference. The annual outing took place on the last day of the conference. This year we visited the abbey and palace of Westminster. The fact that delegates were able to break their homeward journey in this most agreeable way is due to the kindness and organising skills of Malcolm Hay, Curator of the Palace of Westminster, and of Richard Mortimer, Battle veteran as well as Keeper of the Muniments at Westminster Abbey. After an introductory lecture by Dr Mark Collins, Architectural Archivist at the Palace of Westminster, Malcolm Hay guided us round both the great hall built by William Rufus and St Stephen’s Chapel. After lunch in the palace, Tim Tatton-Brown, without whom few Battle Conference outings are complete, showed us backstage around the abbey for which he was acting as consultant archaeologist. The day was rounded off with an exhibition of some of the abbey’s manuscript treasures specially arranged for us by Richard Mortimer. I am grateful to all of them. The Battle Conference has come to rely a great deal on the continuity provided by Boydell & Brewer, our publishers ever since volume one of the Proceedings. As editor I am particularly indebted to the experience and skill of Vanda Andrews, Helen Barber, Alison Coles, Pam Cope and Caroline Palmer for maintaining both our website (http://www.battleconference.co.uk), and the unsurpassed record of publishing each volume of Anglo-Norman Studies by the time of the next year’s conference. Thank you. John Gillingham

ABBREVIATIONS AA SS Actes Henri II AD ANS Antiqs. Journ. Arch. Journ. ASC ASC, Swanton ASE BAA BAR Bates, Regesta Battle Chronicle BIHR BL BN Cal. Docs France Cal. Pat. Rolls Carmen CCCM CCM CCSL CNRS Complete Peerage De gestis pontificum Diceto DNB Domesday Book

Acta Sanctorum (of the Bollandists) L. Delisle and E. Berger, Recueil des actes de Henri II, roi d’Angleterre et duc de Normandie, 4 vols, Paris 1909–27 Archives Départementales Anglo-Norman Studies The Antiquaries Journal (Society of Antiquaries of London) Archaeological Journal (Royal Archaeological Institute) Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. D. Whitelock et al., London 1969 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. and ed. M. Swanton, London 1996 Anglo-Saxon England British Archaeological Association British Archaeological Reports Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: the Acta of William I (1066–1087), ed. D. Bates, Oxford 1998 The Chronicle of Battle Abbey, ed. Eleanor Searle, OMT, 1980 Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research British Library Bibliothèque Nationale Calendar of Documents preserved in France . . ., i, 918–1216, ed. J. H. Round, HMSO, 1899 Calendar of Patent Rolls, HMSO, 1891– The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio of Guy, Bishop of Amiens, ed. F. Barlow, OMT, 1999 Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Medievalis Cahiers de civilisation médiévale Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, Turnhout 1953– Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, 13 vols in 14, London 1910–59 William of Malmesbury, De gestis pontificum Anglorum, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton, RS, 1870 Radulphi de Diceto Opera Historica. The Historical Works of Master Ralph de Diceto, Dean of London, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols, RS, 1876 Dictionary of National Biography Domesday Book, seu liber censualis . . ., i, ii, ed. A. Farley, 2 vols, ‘Record Commission’, 1783; iii, iv, ed. H. Ellis, 1816

Domesday People

K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, Domesday People: a Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents, 1066–1166, i, Domesday Book, Woodbridge 1999 Eadmer HN Historia Novorum in Anglia, ed. M. Rule, RS, 1884 EEA English Episcopal Acta EHD English Historical Documents, 2nd edn, i, 500–1042, ed. D. Whitelock; ii, 1042–1189, ed. D. C. Douglas and G. W. Greenaway, London 1979–81 EHR English Historical Review English Lawsuits English Lawsuits from William I to Richard I, ed. R. C. van Caenegem, 2 vols, Selden Society CVI–CVII, 1990–91 EYC Early Yorkshire Charters, i–iii, ed. W. Farrer (Edinburgh, 1914–16), and iv–xii, ed. C. T. Clay, Yorks. Archaeological Soc., Record Soc., extra series I–X, 1935–65 Fasti, 1066–1300 John Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1066–1300, ed. D. E. Greenway, London 1968– Fauroux Recueil des actes des ducs de Normandie (911–1066), ed. M. Fauroux, Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie XXXVI, 1961 Gesta Guillelmi The Gesta Guillelmi of William of Poitiers, ed. R. H. C. Davis and M. Chibnall, OMT, 1998 Gesta Regum William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom, 2 vols, OMT, 1998–9 Gesta Stephani Gesta Stephani, ed. and trans. K. R. Potter and R. H. C. Davis, OMT, 1976 Giraldi Cambrensis ed. J. S. Brewer, J. F. Dimock and G. F. Warner, 8 vols, RS Opera XXI, 1861–91 HBS Henry Bradshaw Society Historia Novella William of Malmesbury, Historia Novella, ed. E. King and K. R. Potter, OMT, 1998 HMSO Her Majesty’s Stationery Office Howden, Chronica Chronica Rogeri de Houedene, ed. W. Stubbs, 4 vols, RS, 1868–71 Howden, Gesta Regis Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi et Ricardi Primi, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols, RS, 1867 Howlett, Chronicles Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, ed. R. Howlett, 4 vols, RS, 1884–9 HSJ Haskins Society Journal Huntingdon Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon: ‘Historia Anglorum’, ed. D. Greenway, OMT, 1996 ITS Irish Texts Society JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History JMH Journal of Medieval History John of Worcester The Chronicle of John of Worcester, ii–iii, ed. R. R. Darlington and P. McGurk, OMT, 1995–8 Journ. BAA Journal of the British Archaeological Association JRSAI Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Jumièges Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis and Robert of Torigni, ed. E. M. C. van Houts, 2 vols, OMT, 1992–5

Lanfranc’s Letters Liebermann Med. Arch. MGH MGH SRG MGH SS Monasticon MRSN MSHAB MTB Newburgh NMT ns OMT Orderic os PBA PL PR PRIA PRO Regesta

RHF RIA Royal Writs RS S

SATF ser. SHR Torigni Trans. TRHS

The Letters of Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. H. Clover and M. Gibson, OMT, 1979 Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. F. Liebermann, 3 vols, Halle 1903–16 Medieval Archaeology Monumenta Germaniae Historica MGH Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in usum Scholarum MGH Scriptores William Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, ed. J. Caley, H. Ellis and B. Bandinel, 6 vols in 8, London 1817–30 Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniae, ed. T. Stapleton, 2 vols, London 1840–4 Mémoires de la Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Bretagne Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, ed. J. C. Robertson, 7 vols, RS, 1875–85 Historia Rerum Anglicarum of William of Newburgh, in Howlett, Chronicles, vols 1 and 2 Nelson’s Medieval Texts new series Oxford Medieval Texts Orderic Vitalis, Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. M. Chibnall, OMT, 1969–80 old series Proceedings of the British Academy Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina, ed. J. P. Migne, Paris 1841–64 Pipe Roll (as published by Pipe Roll Society) Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Public Record Office Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, i, ed. H. W. C. Davis, Oxford 1913; ii, ed. C. Johnson and H. A. Cronne, Oxford 1956; iii, ed. H. A. Cronne and R. H. C. Davis, Oxford 1968 Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, Paris 1738–1904 Royal Irish Academy Royal Writs in England from the Conquest to Glanvil, ed. R. C. van Caenegem, Selden Society LXXVII, 1959 Rolls Series, London Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography, ed. P. H. Sawyer, London 1968; revised edn, ed. S. E. Kelly et al., available online at www.trin.cam.ac.uk/chartwww. Société des Anciens Textes Français series Scottish Historical Review The Chronicle of Robert de Torigni, in Howlett, Chronicles, vol. 4 Transactions Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

VCH Vita Ædwardi Wace Waltham

Victoria County History The Life of King Edward who Rests at Westminster, ed. F. Barlow, 2nd edn, OMT, 1992 Wace, Le Roman de Rou, ed. A. J. Holden, 3 vols, SATF, Paris 1970–73 The Waltham Chronicle, ed. and trans. L. Watkiss and M. Chibnall, OMT, 1994

Probing the Passions of a Norman on Crusade

PROBING THE PASSIONS OF A NORMAN ON CRUSADE: THE GESTA FRANCORUM ET ALIORUM HIEROSOLIMITANORUM* Emily Albu When Pope Urban II preached the crusade at Clermont in 1095, he had good reasons to hope that Normans would volunteer for the mission. They were formidable fighters, a fine match against the Seljuq Turks, who had taken Jerusalem, overrun Syria, and swept through ‘Romania’ (the Byzantine heartland of Asia Minor) following the debacle at Manzikert in 1071. Surely Norman warriors could restore Jerusalem to the Christian world. Their journeys to Jerusalem would bring another benefit to Christendom, too: the disappearance of those fractious Normans from the west.1 Urban must have been pleased, then, with the list of Norman knights and lords who took the cross. Normans arguably dominated the First Crusade. Of course, sizable contingents of others, notably Flemings and Lotharingians and Provençals, also joined the expedition that has been considered ‘largely a French enterprise’.2 But the Investiture Conflict, the excommunication of Philip I, and the anti-clerical stance of William Rufus kept the German, French, and English rulers from heeding the pope’s call. Normans filled this vacuum. By one reckoning, six of the nine principal leaders were Norman by blood or allegiance.3 Among these was the duke of Normandy, Robert Curthose, who mortgaged the duchy to his brother, William * I am grateful to John Gillingham for his invitation to give this paper at the Battle Conference 2004 and for his guidance. I owe a debt of gratitude to many at Battle for their probing questions and welcome advice – including Rick Barton, Matthew Bennett, Jim Bradbury, Marjorie Chibnall, Howard Clarke, Michael Davis, Valentine Fallan, and Ann Williams. 1 In the prelude to his valuable account of the Council of Clermont, Fulcher of Chartres (eyewitness of the Crusade, if not of the Council) expressed the pope’s concerns about the mayhem that infested western Christendom of his day: Historia Hierosolymitana, ed. Heinrich Hagenmeyer, Heidelberg 1913, 1.1.2 (cf. 1.3.7 and n. 10 below), English translation by H.S. Fink, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, Knoxville 1969. Fulcher’s account of the call to crusade suggests a papal wish that the crusade could alleviate that problem by directing misspent energies toward the recovery of Jerusalem. On the other hand, Jonathan Riley-Smith has argued that the pope and other leaders of the Church anticipated and tried to mitigate the anarchy that resulted in the west when nobles were no longer there to enforce order: The First Crusaders, 1095–1131, Cambridge 1997, 145–6. 2 Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading, London 1986, 86. 3 These were ‘a son and son-in-law of William the Conqueror [Duke Robert of Normandy and Adela’s husband, Count Stephen of Blois], two sons of one of his tenants-in-chief in England [Godfrey and Baldwin, sons of Count Eustace of Boulogne], and a son and grandson of Robert Guiscard [Bohemond and Tancred]’: David C. Douglas, The Norman Achievement, 1050–1100, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1969, 162. Sidney Painter left Tancred off his list of crusading leaders when he wrote, ‘that of the eight chief lay leaders of the First Crusade four were Normans and a fifth had a Norman wife who supplied most of his ardor’: ‘Western Europe on the Eve of the Crusades’, in A History of the Crusades, I, ed. Marshall W. Baldwin, Madison 1969, 3–29, at 21. Lesser Norman princes joined them, including two more scions of the house of Hauteville: Tancred’s brother, William son of the marquis, and Bohemond’s cousin, Richard of the Principate.

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Anglo-Norman Studies XXVII

Rufus, to raise his expenses. It was the southern Normans, though, who went with the keenest secular purpose. They inherited their ambitions as the legacy of Robert Guiscard, who had died in 1085 on campaign against Byzantium, still dreaming of eastern domination. His son Bohemond, already on full military alert, joined the expedition in 1096.4 Not all Normans marched east in search of wealth and power. In Bohemond’s army was a humble crusader who kept a record of the journey, from the papal preaching in France in 1096 to the military victories at Jerusalem and Ascalon in 1099. It seems odd to imagine this chronicler in Bohemond’s company. Their sensibilities were so disparate, with the writer displaying virtually no longing for worldly acquisitions. He knew poverty and had an abiding concern for the poor, who made up most of the crusading band. Perhaps he was a younger son originally marked for the church, then released from his vows when family circumstances changed. Whether he was miles or cleric, he held a distinctively monastic outlook.5 This eyewitness wrote the Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum, the very first of the crusading chronicles. My aim here is to probe the Gesta to examine the evolving sensibilities of the crusader, whose consciousness was demonstrably altered by the journey. The privations of the march, the terrors of moving through unfamiliar and dangerous places, the horrors of battle and exhilaration of victory, the sense of wonder at pilgrimage to the holiest sites in Christendom – all these highly charged encounters changed him quite radically, as we will see from his own words. His transparently shifting attitudes suggest that he wrote in stages along the journey.6 Finally, I will ask: Was the Gesta author unique? Did crusade modify, even civilize, the Norman character? Repeated close reading of the Gesta Francorum with Latin students compelled me to ask these questions. As we read slowly, even the repetitive or unpleasant passages, we noted how pervasively the language of emotion filled the narrative. At first, the expressed passions belong to people in the crusaders’ path. The Byzantine

4

Perhaps as early as 1102, Albert of Aix (Albertus Aquensis) wrote that, as Bohemond was preparing to set out for the East, he tried to enlist Godfrey of Bouillon in his plot to ‘overcome the [Byzantine] emperor and invade his domain’: Historia Hierosolymitana 2.14; Recueil des historiens des croisades: Historiens occidentaux 4, Paris 1879. 5 Colin Morris has suggested that the crusader was a cleric, arguing against Rosalind Hill’s conclusion that he was a knight: Morris, ‘The Gesta Francorum as Narrative History’, Reading Medieval Studies 19, 1993, 55–71 (especially the Appendix, 67–8); Hill, ed., Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum, London 1962, xiii. I have benefited from the lively discussion of this question by participants at the Battle Conference, especially Graham Loud. As many have noted, the lines between cleric and layman blurred within the crusading armies. The Gesta author seems to me to be a fighting crusader with some clerical training and a deep piety. 6 Following the early editor of the Gesta, Heidelberg 1890, Heinrich Hagenmeyer (who considered the work a Tagebuch, or at least an account closely derived from one, because its author almost never showed foreknowledge of coming events), Steven Runciman thought it was written ‘probably as a diary’: History of the Crusades, Cambridge 1953, vol. i, 329. Colin Morris has demonstrated how shifts in vocabulary, alongside disjunctions in the narrative, also give the impression that the crusader was writing on the journey: ‘The Gesta Francorum as Narrative History’ (n. 5 above), at 58–9. Analysis of the epithets likewise delineates clear stages of writing, marked by distinct changes of attitude. John France has shown that the Gesta Francorum (which ‘seems to have been the first’ of the crusading chronicles to appear) influenced the slightly later works of crusade participants Raymond of Aguilers and Fulcher of Chartres: ‘The Anonymous Gesta Francorum and the Historia Francorum qui ceperunt Iherusalem of Raymond of Aguilers and the Historia de Hierosolymitano itinere of Peter Tudebode: An Analysis of the Textual Relationship between Primary Sources for the First Crusade’, in The Crusades and their Sources: Essays Presented to Bernard Hamilton, Aldershot, Hampshire, and Brookfield, Vermont, 1998, 39–69. Directly or indirectly, therefore, the Gesta Francorum influenced nearly every western crusading history.

Probing the Passions of a Norman on Crusade

3

emperor Alexios Komnenos became enraged (‘iratus’) at the havoc wreaked by the first band to pass through Constantinople (1.2), and the Turks came ‘jubilantly’ (‘cum magno gaudio’) to kill those unruly crusaders (1.2.). At the news of this disaster, Alexios rejoiced (‘gauisus est ualde’, 1.2).7 Back in southern Italy, as Normans took the cross, Count Roger of Sicily ‘grieved and mourned’ (‘dolebat et merebat’, 1.4) to lose his army. Once the Normans were on the march, the Gesta increasingly reported their emotions along with those of their foes. The crusaders rejoiced equally in victory (‘cum magno tripudio’, 5.13; ‘agente Deo triumphantes, et gaudentes de triumpho’, 7.18; ‘gaudentes felici triumpho’, 10.30) or martyrdom (‘letantes gaudentesque’, 2.8). But delight could turn quickly to terror (‘per nimium terrorem et pauorem’, 10.37), panic (‘nimio pauore correpti’, 10.30), wrath (‘accensi occisione nostrorum’, 7.18), anxiety (‘contristatus est ualde’, 9.26), shame (‘erubescendo’ 6.15; ‘maxima captus turpitudine’, 6.15), grief (‘nimis doluerunt’, 5.12; ‘tristes ualde fuimus’, 7.18), or despair (‘inter nos orta est immensa angustia et tristitia’, 8.20).8 The frequency of these dramatic shifts in strong feelings is a primary feature of this emotive narrative, which exposes the volatile moods of its characters. Even God’s angels share these passions. In a vision at Antioch, St Peter urges Jesus’ aid for the crusaders by affirming, ‘Just let your enemies be driven out, Lord, and the angels in heaven will at once rejoice.’9 All sides in the human conflict, meanwhile, play upon this volatility, waging psychological warfare to terrorize their foes. So the Gesta narrative becomes increasingly fraught. Its crusaders began their journey already in a heightened state of emotion. According to the Gesta (1.1), the papal call was responding to ‘a powerful agitation’ (‘motio valida’) through all the lands of the Franks that propelled the faithful to heed Jesus’ words (Matt. 16:24): ‘If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his own cross and follow me.’ Forms of the noun motio and the verb moveo, of course, mean ‘movement’/‘move’ and often indicate physical motion. They can imply a quickening, a sudden renewal of activity. Motio can also mean ‘emotion’, and with this word the chronicler suggests both the spiritual agitation of his world and the physical movement that this stirring inspired. He frequently highlights the interdependence of these twin agitations, the physical and the spiritual, as the narrative works its way to emotional peaks at Antioch and Jerusalem. From the first, suffering plays a prominent role in creating and defining this complex narrative structure. The Gesta’s opening chapter contains the pope’s promise of suffering as the crusaders’ road to salvation. In the first sentence Urban enjoins each participant to take up (‘tollat’) his own cross to follow God and faithfully bear the burden (‘baiulare’) of the cross. The Gesta’s summary of his preaching shows that this is no empty metaphor (1.1):

7

The Gesta’s early portrait of Alexios features intense emotionality. As the crusading leaders confer with him in Constantinople, for instance, and he plots how to trick them, Alexios is ‘anxians et bulliens ira’ (anxious and seething with rage, 2.6), fearful especially of Bohemond (‘ualde timebat’, 2.6). When Nicaea surrenders to his authority, he is ‘really, really delighted’ (‘magis magisque gauisus’, 3.9). For their part, the Turks first appear gleeful (e.g. ‘gaudentes et exultantes’, 2.8), but this exhilaration soon turns to fear and lamentation as the Christians exult in victory at Nicaea (‘Turci . . . timuerunt usque ad mortem, plorantes et lamentantes; Francique gaudebant’, 2.8). All translations are my own. 8 I am acutely aware of the difficulties in translating from another language the passions of an alien culture and age. The Gesta author himself was, in many cases, attaching imagined emotions to unfamiliar peoples. I have benefited here from the scholarship on the history of emotions, especially the essays in The Social Construction of Emotions, ed. Rom Harré, Oxford 1986. Though nimis meant ‘excessively’ in Classical Latin, its meaning in the Gesta is ‘very’, as in ‘nimis doluerunt’, 5.12, cited here. 9 Modo uero expulsis inimicis inde, Domine, letantur angeli in caelis (9.24).

4

Anglo-Norman Studies XXVII Brothers, you must suffer many things for the name of Christ – misery, poverty, nakedness, persecution, want, weakness, hunger, thirst, and other such woes, just as the Lord said to his disciples, ‘You must suffer many things for my name.’ (Acts 9:16)

Students of the crusade, from its own day to ours, have observed that Urban was pressing a revolutionary and troubling idea, ‘salvation by a sustained act of violence’.10 The Gesta’s beginning chapter, however, never implicates murder or mayhem. It does not mention fighting or suggest an enemy. The Gesta author understood the pope to be offering salvation through suffering. For this participant, the enduring heroism of the crusade lay in the people’s suffering on behalf of Jesus and like the saints. These very travails that tested the crusaders’ faith ultimately proved their worth as champions of Christ. At Antioch they learned that Jesus has guided them on their journey and suffered along with them, as he revealed to a priest in a vision, saying, ‘I have led you all the way here, and I felt your misery which you have suffered in the siege of Antioch’ (9.24). These crusaders found their reward, near the Gesta’s close, with the survivors entering Jerusalem as the hour drew near ‘when our Lord Jesus Christ deigned to suffer the yoke of the Cross for us’ (10.38). The evidence of the Gesta shows how human suffering also wrenched the sufferers into a new state of consciousness. Already in its second chapter, the Gesta offers an example of the misery that increasingly dominates the narrative. Early in the march a group of Italians and Germans left their main army, finding the Franci intolerable traveling companions. This splinter group, commanded by the Italian Rainald and an unnamed German leader, met a Turkish ambush and fled to a nearby stronghold. Here is the Gesta’s account of their agonies as they themselves were trapped (1.2): The Turks besieged it [the fort] at once and cut off their water supply. Our men suffered so greatly from thirst that they bled their horses and asses and drank their blood. Some let down belts and small garments into a sewer and squeezed out the liquid into their mouths. Some urinated into one another’s cupped hands and drank. Others were so parched with thirst that they dug up moist earth, then lay on their backs and spread the earth on their chests. This scene repeats itself, with terrible variations, throughout the Gesta’s account, most memorably at Antioch. This episode taught the crusaders the value of staying in relatively large units in order to deter assailants. In the early stages, while the crusaders traveled through rich lands that offered abundant food, their great armies could in fact sustain themselves.11 As they neared Constantinople, an imperial escort supplied some provi10 John France, ‘Patronage and the Appeal of the First Crusade’, in The First Crusade: Origins and

Impact, ed. Jonathan Phillips, Manchester and New York 1997, 5–20, at 5. As France notes, this idea unnerved many wary participants, as evidenced by the frequency with which they performed penance for their bloodshed. Note, too, how the Gesta author’s fellow crusader, Fulcher of Chartres, relates the pope’s call at Clermont (1.2.1–1.3.8), especially 1.3.7: ‘procedant, inquit, contra infideles ad pugnam iam incipi dignam et trophaeo explendam, qui abusive privatum certamen contra fideles etiam consuescebant distendere quondam. nunc fiant Christi milites, qui dudum exstiterunt raptores; nunc iure contra barbaros pugnent, qui olim adversus fratres et consanguineos dimicabant . . .’ (Those, he said, who have actually been engaging wantonly in their own private habitual warfare against the faithful should advance against the infidel for a combat worthy to be begun now and to be completed in victory. Let those who have long been plunderers now become soldiers of Christ. Let those who once brawled against brothers and kin now lawfully battle against the barbarians.) 11 The Gesta describes the three routes of the main contingents on this leg of the journey (1.2–3).

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sions. But when they left the Byzantine capital and entered Asia Minor, the journey became more arduous, over nearly impassable mountains and through waterless wastelands where food and water enough for this massive host became a constant preoccupation.12 Still, the crusaders had to fight exhaustion and stay on the move so they could pillage fresh territories every day.13 The Gesta explains how one group broke off to blaze a new trail where a preceding band had consumed the resources along the main road (2.7). Such detours through wilderness further exhausted the weary men, who had to hack their way with axes and swords, and the smaller size of such a company left it even more vulnerable to attack. Threats of hunger and thirst intensified when the army halted and reassembled to besiege a fortification in its path. Because the crusaders could not risk leaving enemy fortresses at their back, they had to capture and hold a series of towns, castles, and strongholds, including massively fortified and heavily populated cities in Asia Minor and Syria, especially Nicaea and Antioch. Nicaea was the first great obstacle, and here the entire force gathered together for the first time. The Gesta author marveled at the countless soldiers in this army of Christ – ‘the largest number of most valiant warriors (milites) that the world has ever seen or can ever see in future’. John France has estimated their total numbers at sixty thousand, including six or seven thousand knights.14 The vast size of this army, however, presented one huge problem. Camped for seven weeks in one spot, the crusaders experienced severe want. Mustered at Nicaea, they quickly ran low on supplies. It is natural to imagine how siege warfare tormented civilians – the women, children, and men trapped in besieged cities and towns. The Gesta author notes their distress, but he also shows the nightmare endured by the besiegers. His rhetoric of suffering accelerates at Nicaea. But these travails, he believed, bought a priceless reward. So the Gesta concludes its account of the redemptive suffering at Nicaea (2.8): We besieged this city for seven weeks and three days, and many of our men suffered martyrdom there and gave up their blessed souls to God with joy and gladness, and many of the poor starved to death for the Name of Christ. All these entered Heaven in triumph, wearing the robe of martyrdom that they have received, saying with one voice, ‘Avenge, O Lord, our blood which was shed for thee, for thou art blessed and worthy of praise for ever and ever. Amen.’ Leaving Nicaea in the hands of the Byzantine emperor, the surviving crusaders crossed Asia Minor to Antioch, whose massive walls and four hundred towers made it the best-fortified city in their path. While the heroism of the crusaders’ hunger and thirst and fatigue often dominates the narrative, the Gesta Francorum also features the terror of battle, the carnage and taking of prisoners, public executions and enslavement. In this war, all is fair, including psychological torture of civilians caught in the great sieges. At Nicaea the crusaders decapitated the Turkish dead and flung the heads into the city to horrify the Turks inside (2.8). This is the first example in the Gesta of a practice that the 12 E.g. 4.11; 5.13; 6.14; 6.15. 13 On plundering as the routine method of provisioning the armies of the First Crusade, see Jonathan

Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading, London 1986, 62. This chapter, ‘Conditions on the March’ (58–90), offers an exemplary description of the crusaders’ suffering and assesses the effects of that experience on the participants. 14 ‘Patronage’ (n. 10 above), 6.

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Christians refined and made a part of their siege repertoire. At Antioch they paraded captured Turks before the city gate and beheaded them in plain view of the citizens (5.12).15 Later in that siege they dug up the enemy dead, decapitated the corpses, and loaded four horses with their heads – a gift for the emir of Cairo – as Turks wailed in grief (7.18). When they took cities, the crusaders showed no mercy ‘to men or women, the great and the small’. So at Antioch the Christians filled the streets with their bodies until no one could endure the stench (8.20), at al-Bara, Count Raymond of St Gilles killed ‘omnes Saracenos et Saracenas, maiores et minores’ (10.30), and in Jerusalem the crusaders burned mountains of corpses, so many that only God could number them, including people slaughtered in the Holy Sepulcher itself (10.38–39). On their journey to Jerusalem, these brutal crusaders themselves were moving through perilous spaces. Enemies threatened even in a presumed safe haven, as at Constantinople or in the fortified encampments that Saracens harried with arrows (5.12). Beyond Constantinople, the local Christians of Asia Minor and the Levant (the generic ‘Armenians and Syrians’ of the Gesta) could prove friend or foe. Their loyalty shifted with the vagaries of warfare. Sometimes they delighted in turning on their Muslim overlords, silently applauding Christian successes (7.18) or ambushing Turks as they fled in defeat (6.17). When the Turkish governor of Antioch, Yaghi Siyan, escaped from the city as it was falling to the crusaders, local ‘Syrians and Armenians’ apprehended him and cut off his head, which they offered to Bohemond in exchange for their liberty (8.20). But such people were not to be trusted even by fellow Christians. When Armenians and Syrians posed as friendly merchants, trading in the crusader camp, they were really spying for the enemy (5.12) or selling scarce food at extortionate prices, apparently indifferent to the plight of the poor, who died from starvation (6.14). Sometimes they freely supplied the Saracens (8.19) or even joined them in battle against the crusaders (3.9; 8.20; 9.21; 10.34). The unpredictability of these eastern Christians kept the crusaders in a perpetual state of anxiety. Muslims at least offered a clear enemy. Yet this was no ordinary foe, but a demonic force whose howling intensified the terror of any encounter (3.9; 7.18).16 Not every crusader could endure such torment. Some fled home or surrendered to the enemy. The Gesta author first reports a deserter as early as its second chapter (1.2), at that ambush of Rainald’s contingent outside Nicaea. When a group of survivors holed up in a fortress, their German commander made a deal with the Turks ‘to betray his companions to them, and pretending to go out to battle he fled to them, and many went with him’. Their leader’s duplicity abandoned many men to death, with the rest being used for target practice by their captors or sold off into slavery and led away to Khorosan, Antioch, and Aleppo. The Gesta repeatedly emphasizes the uncertainty of the crusaders’ world, where even comrades and commanders might prove false. It was a tenuous landscape of sudden extremes, expressed by hunger or terror in one sentence, abundance or jubilation in the next. Just before reaching Antioch, for instance, the crusaders had to climb a steep mountain, accessible only by a narrow path with space for but one person or beast at a time (4.11). Horses lost their footing and careened off the cliff. Pack 15 Mortui sunt uero multi ex nostris inimicis, et capti alii ducti sunt ante portam urbis, ibique

decollabantur, ut magis tristes fierent qui erant in urbe. (We killed many of our enemies; others we captured and led before the city gate, and we beheaded them there to inflict misery on those in the city.) 16 On the Gesta’s language, likening Turks to devils and demons, see my Normans in their Histories: Propaganda, Myth, and Subversion, Woodbridge 2001, 170–1.

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animals, roped together, dragged others with them over the side. Unable to carry their heavy armor up the slope, knights sold it for a pittance if they could, or abandoned it along the side of the path. One sentence of the narrative has them wringing their hands in despair. But in the very next, these same crusaders have rejoiced to reach a town whose farmers rushed out to meet them, bringing abundant produce. When they arrived at Antioch at last, after many months of alternating joy and anguish, the crusaders met the truest test of their suffering. They invested that seemingly impregnable city for seven and a half months. In order to feed the army now camped in one depleted place, they had to send out foraging parties continually, at greater and greater distances. Bands of Turks terrified these isolated men, falling on them again and again with ‘a sudden screeching and jabbering and yelling with ferocious yelling’.17 Finally on 3 June 1098, in desperation because they knew that Kerbogha, emir of Mosul, was only days away with his huge Muslim army and supplies, the Christians discovered a way inside the city. Bohemond had bribed a commander named Firuz to let the Normans up the walls and into the tower that he held.18 The crusaders slaughtered the city’s inhabitants, except the men in the citadel, which they could not take. On 5 June the Muslim army arrived, greatly outnumbering the crusaders, who now found themselves starving and dying inside Antioch, surrounded by Muslims and harried from the citadel, with little hope and fewer provisions. In these weeks the Christians faced the worst ordeal of the crusade. Antioch occupies the center of the Gesta Francorum. The crusaders’ tribulations there fill almost exactly the middle half of the Gesta’s pages, chapters 12–32 out of its 39. Though the crusaders did in fact spend nearly half of their three years’ journey in northern Syria, some readers have assumed this Norman writer featured Antioch because the city became his lord Bohemond’s Norman principality.19 As we will see, however, the Gesta author opposed Bohemond’s hold on Antioch, which kept the Norman lord from fulfilling his vow to march on Jerusalem. For the chronicler, Antioch was an obstacle on the way to Jerusalem and by no means a final destination. But Antioch became the Gesta’s centerpiece because it was the culmination of the crusaders’ suffering. Here the language of suffering overwhelms the narrative, lingering on hunger, thirst, and terror as the Christians’ constant companions.20 Camped outside Antioch, the crusaders had already endured unspeakable famine. In those months many died because they could not afford to buy food that the Syrians and Armenians were selling at inflated prices. Knights who still had horses could not feed them. The 17 7.18. The Gesta elsewhere notes the demonic howling of Turks in battle, as here in Anatolia/ Dorylaeum: Continuo Turci coeperunt stridere et garrire ac clamare, excelsa uoce dicentes diabolicum sonum nescio quomodo in sua lingua. Sapiens uir Boamundus uidens innumerabiles Turcos procul, stridentes et clamantes demonica uoce . . . (At once the Turks began to screech and yip and yell, in a loud voice making some devilish sound in their own language. The wise hero Bohemond, seeing countless Turks in the distance screeching and yelling in a demonic voice . . . ; 3.9). 18 The Gesta calls this collaborator a Turkish emir, but the evidence of Raymond of Aguilers, Anna Komnene, and Muslim sources suggests, more plausibly, that he was an Armenian and erstwhile Christian. Having secretly secured the pact with this disaffected tower-defender, Bohemond proposed to the other crusading leaders that they cede the city to anyone who could engineer its capture. The Gesta frames that meeting with Bohemond’s changing expression, from his smug assurance when he entered the room (‘gauisus serenaque mente, placido uultu uenit’) to his unsmiling face when he left, his plan foiled for the moment (‘paulominus subridens protinus recessit’, 8.20). 19 Kenneth Baxter Wolf, ‘Crusade and Narrative: Bohemond and the Gesta Francorum’, Journal of Medieval History 17, 1991, 207–16. 20 9.26; cf. 9.23; 10.33; 10.37.

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Gesta reports that barely one thousand horses still had the stamina for battle (6.15). The suffering only increased when the Christians captured Antioch (9.26): These profane enemies of God held us shut up in the city of Antioch so that many died of hunger since a small loaf of bread sold for one bezant. I will not even speak of wine. They sold and ate the meat of horses and asses. And they sold a hen for 15 solidi, an egg for two, and a nut for a denarius. Everything was very expensive. So intense was their hunger that they cooked and ate leaves from figs and vines, and thistles and all the trees. Some cooked and ate the skins of horses and camels and asses and cattle or oxen. These afflictions and many other agonies that I cannot name we suffered for the name of Christ and to free the way to the Holy Sepulcher . . . and we suffered such tribulations, starvation, and terrors for twenty-six days. (Tales quoque tribulationes et fames ac timores passi sumus per viginti sex dies.) For some who had endured month after month of hardship, the torment was finally unbearable. Stephen of Blois deserted at Antioch and fled back to his disapproving wife, Adela, who would badger him until he returned to join the crusade of 1101, the so-called crusade of the faint-hearted, and die at Ramla. Bohemond’s brother-in-law, William of Grandmesnil, also escaped through the Muslim blockade. Many others, now starving inside the city, let themselves down from the walls on ropes, fearing the Muslims less than their own hunger. The Gesta tells of still others who cowered in Antioch’s homes, listless and forsaken, until Bohemond literally smoked them out and forced them to fight (9.26). It would not be surprising if these psychological tortures, after months of deprivation and fear of death, altered the mental states of the crusaders. The charged atmosphere of the besieged and desperate army bred dreams and visions that brought the army’s salvation. The sober author of the Gesta Francorum admits no miracles anywhere but at Antioch, where he has Jesus and Mary and St Peter appear to a priest as he lay cowering in the Church of St Mary (9.24).21 Jesus rebuked the crusading army for ‘taking your wicked pleasures with Christian women and wicked pagan women, so that a vast stench goes up to heaven’. Jesus promised ‘great help’ to the crusaders within five days if they would return to him and signal that renewal with daily singing of a psalm. When they heard this, the crusading leaders – Bohemond first – duly took an oath. Instead of agreeing to eschew pleasures with wanton women, however, the secular leaders pledged to avoid the sin that was apparently on their own guilty minds: They would not abandon their people and flee to safety. They would remain at Antioch. This remarkable episode thus offers a window into the minds of the beleaguered crusaders. When Jesus rebuked a priest, Stephen heard a charge of forbidden sex, while the lay princes, with their oath, disclosed fantasies or plans of desertion. Other sacred appearances to a poor priest named Peter directed the crusaders to the holy lance that pierced Jesus’s side as he lay on the cross.22 Somehow this sacred relic had found its way to Antioch’s Church of St Andrew the Apostle, where crusaders dug it up. The Gesta emphasizes the thrill of this discovery by first directing the reader to a dramatic encounter beyond the city. In a distinctively cine21 From other sources we learn his name, Stephen of Valence. 22 9.25. Other sources give his full name, Peter Bartholomew. On the significance of this episode see

Colin Morris, ‘Policy and Visions: The Case of the Holy Lance at Antioch’, in War and Government in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of J.O. Prestwich, ed. John Gillingham and J.C. Holt, Woodbridge 1984, 33–45.

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matic series of episodes, the Gesta author takes his audience to the scene of the Byzantine army, led by the emperor Alexios Komnenos himself, marching to relieve the crusaders in Antioch. But Stephen of Blois has intercepted that army as he was fleeing the siege, and he has persuaded the emperor that the crusaders, recently trapped inside the city, were doomed to die, if indeed they had not already perished. So Alexios reluctantly turned back, while Bohemond’s half brother, Guy, and his companions wept and pleaded with the emperor to continue his mission of mercy.23 Western crusaders with the Byzantine army moaned in grief, and the weakest of them lay down at roadside to die. Just at this point in the narrative the author cuts back to Antioch and the excavation of the lance. The Gesta Francorum conveys the energizing effects of this discovery, which rescued the crusade from its lowest depths, moving the crusaders themselves from despair to euphoria: ‘And they took up [the lance] with great joy and awe, and tremendous rejoicing arose in the whole city’ (9.28). So the starving and depressed men who had been sulking inside houses and unwilling even to defend the walls now exchanged contemptuous insults with Kerbogha. They turned from passive starvation – the Gesta calls this hunger ‘excruciating’ (‘cruciabilis fames’, 9.28) – to purposeful fasting. They fortified themselves further through processions, confession, communion, almsgiving, and masses. Then they rushed out to fight the Great Battle for Antioch. In the heat of this battle, the soldier saints, George, Mercurius, and Demetrius, rode down from the hills, leading a band of knights all in white. This heavenly army helped the crusaders crush the Muslim forces, offering the ‘great help’ that Jesus had promised (9.29). White-robed warrior saints, divine apparitions, the unearthing of the holy lance – for the Gesta author the near-death experience at Antioch, after two years of deprivation, uniquely evoked miracles, and miracles so potent that they delivered the crusaders from the brink of extinction. Here, too, at Antioch, the chronicler’s language discloses the crusaders’ deepest fears, that Jesus knows their individual sins, and their dearest hope, that their suffering has brought them closer to Jesus, closer to salvation. With the discovery of the lance the Gesta displays confidence in a miracle featuring Provençals favored with heavenly guidance. If this narrative lacks the fervor of the account by the Provençal chronicler Raymond of Aguiliers, still the Gesta’s belief in this miracle is a significant marker, signaling a genuine mental shift for the writer.24 Because the Provençals were touting this discovery as their own, and because the lance might therefore legitimize Provençal claims on Antioch, the authenticity of the lance became an intensely partisan issue. Tancred and Bohemond 23 ‘Cum Wido miles honestissimus talia audisset, cum omnibus statim coepit plorare, atque

uehementissimo ululatu plangere . . . Nemo namque poterat consolari Widonem plorantem et ferientem se manibus suosque frangentem digitos . . .’ (9.27). These are not the only men to cry in the Gesta. Most often the weepers are Turks. Fleeing in fright (‘tremefactus’) after his defeat at Dorylaeum, Suleiman (Qilij-Arslan II, emir of Rum) tearfully (‘lacrimabiliter’) explained why his men were running away in terror (‘timentes tam mirabiliter, ut uix euaserimus de illorum manibus, unde adhuc in nimio terrore sumus’, 4.10). When Turks inside Antioch watched the crusaders exhume and decapitate the Muslim dead, they ‘grieved every day and did nothing but weep and howl’ (‘nam cotidie dolentes, nichil aliud agebant nisi flere et ululare’, 7.18). Entreating his aid against the crusaders, the son of Antioch’s emir pleaded tearfully (‘lacrimabiliter’, 9.21) with Kerbogha, governor of Mosul. Crusaders weep the last tears in the Gesta, when they cry for joy as they worship at last at the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem (‘Venerunt autem omnes nostri gaudentes et prae nimio gaudio plorantes’, 10.38). 24 The Gesta author has gone to considerable effort to affirm the truth of all the miracles he reports at Antioch, but especially of the vision of the Lance, where he invokes truth three times: Jeanette M.A. Beer, Narrative Conventions of Truth in the Middle Ages, Geneva 1981.

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were already feuding with Count Raymond of Toulouse, and the lance became the focal point of their dispute. We see the hostile view of Norman lords in the quite different account of the Gesta Tancredi (‘The Story of Tancred’) by another Norman historian, Ralph of Caen.25 Ralph arrived in Norman Antioch in 1107 or 1108. He was then in his late twenties and a veteran of Bohemond’s Epirot campaign of 1107. But he had not experienced the First Crusade, and he did not share the crusader’s hard-earned sensibilities. Instead, writing after Tancred’s death in about 1113, he packaged Tancred’s deeds from the standpoint of a Norman court historian, using – so he claimed – the testimony of Bohemond and Tancred themselves.26 Ralph often betrays a fondness for miracles (e.g. chapters 120, 196). So it is memorable when he attacks the lance as a hoax, an Arabic spear point planted in the cathedral by Peter on behalf of the Provençals (chapters 100–102). Ralph is here presenting the Norman revisionist view, which has an immediately skeptical Bohemond cry: ‘Who hid the lance, and why? O rusticitas credula!’27 Ralph’s Normans delight when Peter’s death, after an ordeal by fire, exposes the fraud (chapters 108–110). The Gesta Francorum, on the other hand, never mentions the ordeal or questions the authenticity of the lance. If he heard Norman complaints as he was writing, this author did not report them. His silence may reveal a growing disillusionment with Bohemond, whose partisan scheming at Antioch imperiled the mission to Jerusalem. By this time the Gesta author has learned that ordinary crusaders could not count on their lay princes to stay the course or respect their common interests. At the death of Bishop Adhémar of Le Puy, the Gesta mourns the loss of the people’s defender (10.30): There was great trial and tribulation and terrible grief in the whole army of Christ since he was a supporter of the poor and a counselor of the rich, and he used to keep the clergy within proper bounds and preach to the knights and admonish them, saying: ‘None of you can be saved unless he honors the poor and succors them. You cannot be saved without them, and they cannot live without you. They ought to offer daily prayers for the forgiveness of your sins to God whom you offend in many ways every day. And so I beg you, for the love of God, that you love them and aid them as much as you can.’ These are the convictions of the Gesta author himself, feelings honed by the experience on crusade. For this writer the heroes most often were common folks in the Christian host, not only soldiers but also the women who aided them (3.9). He treats them with dignity as the moral center of the crusading army, and he grieves for their suffering. Of course, no crusading chronicle could neglect the pain and terror that dog the army. Even Ralph of Caen with his eagerness to please an elite audience, repeatedly noted the hunger, thirst, cold, and inadequate supply of weapons and horses (e.g. chapters 54, 57, 60, 64, 73, 97, 123). All this the anonymous crusader experienced first-hand.

25 Recueil des historiens des croisades, Historiens occidentaux, ed. Ludovico Antonio Muratori, 1866,

reprint Farnborough 1967, 3.589–716. 26 He also used the history of Fulcher of Chartres but not the Gesta Francorum. On this omission see my

Normans in their Histories (n. 16 above), 164. 27 Colin Morris has shown Ralph’s version to be a later reconstruction of events by Normans who needed

to discredit Provençal claims to Antioch: ‘Policy and Visions’ (n. 22 above), 37–9.

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He has witnessed the people’s piety and courage in daily struggles for existence, as their leaders wrangle and as Bohemond connives. At its close the Gesta Francorum memorializes the humble core of the crusading army with the lament of the defeated emir (10.39): superatus sum a gente mendica, inermi et pauperrima; quae non habet nisi saccum et peram . . . (I have been conquered by a tribe of beggars, unarmed and impoverished, who have nothing but a sack and satchel.) This concluding threnody returns the Gesta to its beginnings and the pope’s call for a crusade, with the poverty and suffering that it must entail (1.1). As we have seen, the Gesta Francorum offers frequent and vivid accounts of that suffering – hunger and thirst, the bone weariness of the journey, dangers that surface on the road and in battle and on the long sieges, but also through the betrayals and greed of their own Christian leaders. Already at Constantinople the Gesta author expressed suspicion of the leaders’ commitment and true motivation, as he watched Bohemond and other princes cut private deals with the emperor Alexios, selling out the common holy cause for personal profit.28 ‘Maybe all along we were going to be tricked often (sepe delusi erimus) by our leaders . . . Knights so brave and so tough!’ the author marveled, ‘why did they do this? Surely they must have been driven by some compelling need’ (2.6). After Antioch the writer could no longer try to defend his lord. Elsewhere I have shown how the crusader slows – and after Antioch, stops – the attribution of epithets that he had once showered on Bohemond.29 At first the prince was ‘bellipotens’ (1.4), ‘uir prudens’ (2.5; 6.14; 6.17), ‘uir sapiens’ (2.6; 6.14; 6.17), ‘honestissimus uir’ (2.6), ‘fortissimus Christi athleta’ (5.12), and ‘uir doctissimus’ (6.17). But at the moment when Bohemond sent sixty of his men up the ladder to Firuz’s tower, yet remained behind himself, the writer has Firuz apply the familiar epithets plaintively when he wailed, ‘Ubi est acerrimus Boamundus? Ubi est ille inuictus?’ One of Bohemond’s men had to climb back down the ladder, race to his lord, and ask, ‘Quid hic stas, uir prudens?’ here again with ironic application of an epithet (8.20). Soon the writer gives his lord an honorific epithet for the last time, as ‘uir uenerabilis Boamundus’ offered his standard to the emir who was surrendering the citadel of Antioch (9.29). When Bohemond snatched Antioch for himself, the Gesta author left his company and proceeded to Jerusalem with a group of Provençals. This was a radical move, given the tension between Normans and Provençals, at times so severe that they erupted into violence. Ralph of Caen expressed the Norman view nicely when he called them, metaphorically, a separate species. ‘Like a hen to a duck’ seemed the 28 2.6–7. August C. Krey argued that this was an interpolation made later on Bohemond’s orders, presum-

ably as he attempted to invent a legal claim to Antioch: ‘A Neglected Passage in the Gesta and its Bearing on the Literature of the First Crusade’, in The Crusades and Other Historical Essays Presented to Dana C. Munro, ed. Louis J. Paetow, New York 1928, 57–79. No manuscript evidence, however, supports this assertion. And by no means does Bohemond appear in a good light in this passage, whose awkward style exposes the writer’s struggle with his lord’s duplicity. Evelyn Jamison correctly assessed this as a plausible account of the actual negotiations between Bohemond and Alexios: ‘Some Notes on the Anonymi Gesta Francorum, with Special Reference to the Norman Contingent from South Italy and Sicily in the First Crusade’, in Studies in French Language and Mediaeval Literature, Presented to Professor Mildred K. Pope, by Pupils, Colleagues, and Friends, Manchester 1939, 183–208, at 193–5. 29 Normans in their Histories (n. 16 above), 155–61.

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Provençals to the other crusaders, who thought them ‘a little bit effeminate’ and the opposite of themselves in ‘customs, disposition, culture, and cuisine’.30 The Gesta author must have found Bohemond truly intolerable to abandon him for such men. Never again does he call Bohemond dominus or look back to the Norman Principality of Antioch. After this point he bestows an honorific epithet only once, uir uenerabilis to Raymond of Toulouse (10.31).31 As the chronicler’s attitude toward Bohemond shifted from loyalty to wary suspicion and finally to rejection, so he became less critical of Bohemond’s enemy, the Byzantine emperor Alexios Komnenos. Readers have imagined the Gesta author as essentially hostile to the Byzantines and their iniquus imperator from first to last.32 But early in the crusade the writer saw that Alexios tried to save poor pilgrims from rushing into combat when the foe would clearly overwhelm them (1.2). No pejorative epithets attach to Alexios when he promises alms to the poor crusaders (1.3; 3.9). The writer also realizes that the supplies that Bohemond found for the army came from Alexios.33 The Gesta launches its final attack on Byzantine authority when the imperial general abandoned the crusaders at Antioch (6.16). But the wily Bohemond may well have tricked Tatikios into leaving. Anna Komnene reports Tatikios’s version of the tale, that Bohemond persuaded him that his life was in danger and he should escape while he could.34 With Tatikios gone, Bohemond was able to claim that the Byzantines forfeited any rights to Antioch by abandoning the crusaders in need (Alexiad 11.6.1–2). The emperor himself, meanwhile, was marching toward Antioch, leading Byzantine reinforcements. Only the false reports of deserters from the crusading army, most notably including Count Stephen of Blois, compelled the emperor to turn back to Constantinople. Understanding that the culpability for this deed lay with western lords, the Gesta author makes another mental shift. Never again will he call Alexios iniquissimus or infelix. Did he at last appreciate the moral and political dilemmas that Alexios faced or even sympathize with the emperor’s viewpoint, as did his new lord Raymond of Saint-Gilles, who remembered his solemn oaths (10.31; 10.34)? Perhaps he was already predisposed to such a point of view, or at least willing to change his perspective on the Byzantine emperor when confronted with new evidence. Witness the similar transformation in the Gesta Roberti Wiscardi, 30 Gesta Tancredi, chapter 61: ‘His, quantum anati gallina, Provinciales moribus animis, cultu, victu

adversabantur.’ 31 The near abandonment of epithets may also indicate a slight shift in style, another sign that the author

wrote in stages, completing only this last section (10.30–39) after the battle of Ascalon (1099). Some copyists of the Gesta inserted epithets into the later chapters to elevate the Norman duke to heroic stature: ‘miles fortis’ (9.29); ‘dominus’ (10.30); ‘nobilissimus’ (10.33); ‘piissimus electusque miles Rotbertus uir nobilissimus Normannorum comes cum suo preclaro exercitu’ (10.37); ‘Normannorum princeps’ (10.39); ‘praeclarus comes Normannorum’ (10.39); ‘mitissimus comes Normanniae’ (10.39); ‘incomparabilis . . . miles, scilicet domnus Rotbertus comes Normanniae’ (10.39); ‘honorandus miles Rotbertus Normannorum nobilissimus’ (10.39). These are not the words of the Gesta author himself. 32 Jeanette M.A. Beer, for instance, found an ‘unremitting anti-Greek prejudice’ in the Gesta’s pages: ‘Gesta Francorum et Aliorum Hierosolimitanorum’, in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Joseph R. Strayer, New York 1985, 514. For a detailed discussion of the Gesta’s changing view of Alexios, see my Normans in their Histories (n. 16 above), 161–3. 33 This event occurs just after Bohemond made his secret treaty with the emperor, and the supplies seem to be part of the negotiations (2.7). 34 Alexiad 11.6.1–2. The daughter of Alexios Komnenos, Anna wrote the history of her father’s reign: Anna Comnena, Alexiade, ed. and trans. Bernard Leib, 3 vols, Paris 1937–45; English translation by E.R.A. Sewter, The Alexiad of Anna Comnena, Baltimore 1969. These editions Latinize Anna’s family name. I have transliterated the Greek as Komnene, following current practice.

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written by a cleric from precisely the same time and place.35 The shifting tone of the Gesta Roberti Wiscardi, triumphant in the first books and despondent in the last two, reflects the author’s disapproval of Guiscard’s Byzantine campaign. William of Apulia and the Gesta author may represent a larger class of south Italian Normans poised for critical scrutiny of their lords’ ambitions. At the same time the Gesta author learned to appreciate the admirable qualities of the Turkish warriors. Here is a well-known passage honoring them after the battle for Nicaea, all the more significant since it immediately follows a reckoning of the Normans who died in this fierce struggle (3.9): Who will ever be knowledgeable and learned enough to dare describe the prowess, fighting skill, and bravery of the Turks, who thought that they could terrorize the Franks by threatening them with their arrows, as they terrorized the Arabs, Saracens, Armenians, Syrians, and Greeks? . . . Here’s the truth, which no one dares deny: surely if they had ever been confirmed in the faith of Christ and holy Christendom, and had been willing to confess the One God in Three Persons, and had believed faithfully and righteously that the Son of God was born of a virgin mother, suffered and rose from the dead and ascended into heaven in the sight of his disciples and sent them the consolation of the Holy Spirit in all its perfection, and that he is reigning in heaven and on earth, then no one could find stronger or braver or more resourceful fighters. Of course, in the eyes of the Christian chronicler, these Turks had bizarre beliefs and weird customs, and he signaled their strangeness by making them speak an exotic Latin. But he came to see them as principled men, sharing the values of the ideal crusading knights, as also exemplified in the negotiations between Kerbogha and the loyal emir to whom he entrusted the citadel of Antioch (9.21). This passage offers repeated assurances that Kerbogha knew this fellow Muslim to be ‘truthful, gentle, and peaceable . . . utterly trustworthy . . . honorable and brave’.36 By this point at Antioch, the Gesta author has learned that, just as a Norman prince could be an oath-breaker, traitorous to the cause of his people, so a Turkish prince could be honest and loyal. This is not to say that the anonymous crusader developed anachronistic sensibilities. The psychological warfare of his crusade produced brutalities all around, and he was a willing participant. The writer routinely, and without reproach, reported his fellow crusaders’ slaughter of Muslims, including the public beheadings meant to torture the civilian viewers. He saw no disjunction in his comrade’s acts within Jerusalem, at journey’s end, and expressed no sense of irony or distress at the carnage. But he has come to view many elements of his world in a different light. He began his journey with a deep spirituality, a profound identity with the poor, and a willingness to undergo redemptive suffering. He also proved open to new understanding based on new experience. Of all the horrors that he witnessed, he seems especially shocked by the treachery of the lords. In the process, he rejected his own lord,

35 Like the anonymous crusader, William of Apulia seems to have considered Apulia his home. It is

impossible to know if either was Norman by blood, but they shared a common allegiance to Norman heroes, father and son. They wrote at exactly the same time, William composing a retrospective history of the Normans in Italy, culminating in the heroic exploits of Bohemond’s father, Robert Guiscard. William of Apulia shows considerable curiosity about Byzantium, whose politics he knew in some detail. Gesta Robert Wiscardi, ed. and trans. Marguerite Mathieu, La geste de Robert Guiscard, Istituto siciliano di studi bizantini e neoellenici, testi e monumenti 4, Palermo 1961. 36 ‘. . . ueracem, mitem et pacificum . . . fidelissimum . . . honestum et prudentem.’

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Bohemond, in favor of a Provençal, and he grew more understanding of Alexios, eastern Christians, even sometimes of Muslims. It is difficult to argue, though, that the crusade made most participants more humane. The evidence of the Gesta Francorum suggests that, if anything, the crusaders’ behavior deteriorated as they proceeded on their journey. The crusaders introduced public beheadings as a terror tactic at Nicaea and refined the policy at Antioch. On the way from Antioch to Jerusalem, crusaders holed up inside the town of Marra (Ma‘arret en Nu‘man) resorted to cannibalism, slicing up the bodies of the dead, cooking and eating them (10.33).37 This seems yet another innovation. At least, the Gesta author has never before mentioned the eating of human flesh, even when the Christians were starving to death at Antioch. By the time these crusaders reached Jerusalem, they appeared inured to butchery. As they entered the holy city after a six-week siege, they killed so many defenders from the walls to Solomon’s Temple that they waded ‘up to their ankles’ in blood (10.38). Soon enemy blood was flowing (‘flueret’) through the temple itself (10.38). The following day saw Jerusalem piled high with bodies (10.39). The stench was so great that the crusaders compelled the survivors to drag them outside the city for burning on gigantic pyres.38 In the midst of this carnage, the crusaders (as expressed in three successive sentences) looted the city of all ‘gold and silver, horses and mules’ and household items; ‘came to worship at the tomb of our Savior Jesus, rejoicing and weeping for great joy’; and in the morning climbed on the Temple roof to decapitate ‘Saracen men and women’ who had taken refuge there. The Norman princes, likewise, seem unimproved by the crusading experience. We have seen that the Gesta author found Bohemond no hero in the end and abandoned him to his dominion at Antioch. In his penultimate appearance in the Gesta’s pages, Bohemond promises to spare the lives of Saracen leaders and their families if they surrender. When they meet his terms, however, he betrays this promise, killing some and enslaving the rest (10.33).39 As for Duke Robert of Normandy, considerable post-crusade evidence suggests that he did not advance beyond his lackluster appearance in the Gesta Francorum, where he is always comes, never dux, often missing in action, absent from passages that confirm the daring of other crusading leaders or list the chiefs in conference. Unlike Bohemond, Tancred, Raymond of Toulouse, or the count of Flanders, he never gets a heroic epithet.40 The exception among the princes might be Tancred, who matured from the explosive and petulant youth of the Gesta Francorum into the brilliant architect of Antioch’s survival as a Latin state. Was his character forged through the suffering of crusade? Or did it develop only gradually, as he lived among the Armenians, Syrians, and Turks of his adoptive homeland? For the Gesta author at least, he remained a hothead from beginning to end. When some

37 ‘. . . alii uero caedebant carnes eorum per frusta, et coquebant ad manducandum.’ 38 Five months later Fulcher of Chartres (I.33.19) remarked on the putrid odor that still lingered along the

city walls. 39 Immediately after this, the Gesta tersely presents Bohemond for the last time, angrily (‘iratus’) return-

ing to Antioch when he cannot get Count Raymond to forsake his claim to the city. 40 Robert is absent from the narrative as leaders rush to help Bohemond, under attack from howling Turks

(3.9) and missing from the list of chiefs to whom Bohemond confides his plan for taking Antioch. His first-mentioned battle blow comes at Ascalon (10.39). Later copyists tried to correct this picture, assigning him the proper title of dux and moving his name to the top of the lists where it appears (Hill, Gesta Francorum, xxxix–xl; and see n. 31 above). But Robert’s contemporary witness, the crusading author of the Gesta Francorum, saw him as thoroughly undistinguished. For a modern attempt to rehabilitate Duke Robert’s reputation, see Judith A. Green, ‘Robert Curthose Reassessed’, ANS 22, 1999 (2000), 95–116.

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of the Saracen victims at Jerusalem jumped to their death from the Temple roof, Tancred ‘became really angry’ at their escape from the crusaders’ swords (10.38). Close reading of the Gesta Francorum shows how the crusading experience transformed at least one Norman – though not all. Many, perhaps the majority, succumbed to the dangers of the march, of starvation and battle. Nearly a third of the south Italian crusaders named in the Gesta were dead before 1099, with another quarter unaccounted for. Only three that we know of returned permanently to Italy.41If Pope Urban II hoped that the crusade would rescue western lands from rampaging Normans, he got his wish. University of California, Davis

41 Evelyn Jamison, ‘Some Notes on the Anonymi Gesta Francorum’ (n. 5 above), 208.

Gilbert Foliot et l ’Ecriture

GILBERT FOLIOT ET L’ECRITURE, UN EXÉGÈTE EN POLITIQUE1 Julie Barrau Les clercs médiévaux eurent longtemps un privilège presque exclusif sur la maîtrise du verbe écrit; le litteratus et l’homme d’Eglise se superposaient. Or, à l’origine de cette maîtrise du verbe, il y a le Verbe. Les clercs médiévaux, du moins ceux d’un certain niveau, sont supposés avoir une très bonne connaissance de la Bible, apprise dans les écoles, entendue, puis lue et méditée, enfin prêchée durant les offices. Et il est certes évident que la sacra scriptura, objet de l’exégèse, est aussi le matériau essentiel de la théologie et le support privilégié de la prédication. Cette place incomparable occupée par la Bible au Moyen Age a fait l’objet de nombreuses études importantes, surtout consacrées aux exégètes et à l’évolution de leur étude de la Bible.2 Le topos du monde-livre a été présenté par E.R. Curtius.3 Selon lui, le clerc médiéval se tourne à tout moment vers l’Ecriture parce qu’il peut y trouver, souvent sous couvert de l’allégorie, la réponse à toutes ses questions: une correspondance réciproque existe entre le monde créé par Dieu et la parole révélée. Le tournant constitué par le douzième siècle dans cette histoire a été particulièrement étudié: les nouvelles écoles urbaines furent le cadre d’une modification de la lecture biblique, dans ses formes, ses présupposés théoriques, ses priorités, ses objectifs. 4 Peu de travaux, en revanche, se sont intéressés de façon spécifique à l’usage de la Bible dans des textes qui ne sont ni exégétiques, ni théologiques, à l’exception cependant de textes ou de pratiques où le texte scripturaire est toujours mis en œuvre, comme la liturgie et la prédication. Ailleurs, pour de nombreux ouvrages édités (historiographie, recueils épistolaires, vers didactiques . . .) où la référence biblique est fréquente, il faut le plus souvent se contenter d’indices scripturaires et de quelques lignes dans l’introduction. Le contraste est net entre, d’une part, l’abondance de ces échos bibliques dans les textes médiévaux, notamment dans la 1

Je tiens à exprimer toute ma gratitude au Pr. John Gillingham pour m’avoir invitée à présenter ce travail à la conférence de Battle, pour sa confiance et sa gentillesse. Un très grand merci également à Robin Fleming pour son soutien si généreux, ainsi qu’à Tim Gowers pour sa collaboration à la version orale, et anglaise, de ce texte. Nicholas Vincent m’a suggéré de précieuses modifications. Enfin il va sans dire que je remercie le Pr. Jacques Verger pour son soutien et son encadrement depuis des années! 2 On peut citer deux ouvrages fondateurs, celui de Ceslas Sicq, Esquisse d’une histoire de l’exégèse latine au Moyen Age, Paris 1944, et celui de Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, Oxford 1952 (3e édition en 1983). Des ouvrages collectifs ont été consacrés à ce sujet, parmi lesquels Le Moyen Age et la Bible, éd. P. Riché et G. Lobrichon, Paris 1984, The Bible and Medieval Culture, éd. W. Lourdaux et D. Verhelst, Louvain 1979, et La Bibbia nell’alto Medio Evo, Spolète 1963. Gilbert Dahan a publié récemment une synthèse importante sur l’exégèse, L’Exégèse chrétienne de la Bible en Occident médiéval, Paris 1999. 3 Cf. La Littérature européenne et le Moyen Age latin, trad. française 1955, 390–9. 4 Cf. B. Smalley, op. cit., 46–262, G. Dahan, op. cit., 91–108, J. Châtillon, « La Bible dans les écoles du douzième siècle », dans Le Moyen Age et la Bible, 163–97. Les enjeux politiques de cette exégèse ont été étudiés par Philippe Buc dans L’ambiguïté du Livre: prince, pouvoir et peuple dans les commentaires de la Bible au moyen âge, Paris 1994.

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riche littérature latine du douzième siècle, et, d’autre part, le peu d’intérêt que le recours à cette suprême auctoritas a suscité chez les historiens. Pourtant cette pratique biblique pourrait être au moins aussi révélatrice de l’importance de l’Ecriture dans la société médiévale que l’exégèse ou la prédication, et cela notamment parce que les hommes d’Eglise vivent au cœur de la vie sociale et politique de leur temps – même la clôture monastique n’est pas hermétique aux échanges épistolaires. Les lettres, soumises aux règles du dictamen, sont des vecteurs privilégiés de circulation d’information, d’échanges amicaux ou formels, de jeux d’influence et propagande. La question abordée ici sera celle du rôle joué par la Bible dans leurs lettres, dont elle n’est pas, comme dans l’exégèse ou le sermon, le moteur nécessaire et naturel. Comment, combien, pourquoi intégrer le texte révélé aux multiples objectifs d’une correspondance? Abbé bénédictin de Gloucester, évêque de Hereford puis de Londres, Gilbert Foliot fut un homme cultivé, ancien élève du distingué théologien Robert Pullen, moine devenu prélat séculier – familier de la culture biblique des écoles comme de celle des cloîtres. C’était aussi un homme d’action, impliqué aux côtés de l’impératrice Mathilde; il exerce ses devoirs et prérogatives d’évêque diocésain, il a de nombreux et fidèles correspondants à travers tout le royaume, grâce notamment à une réputation de science juridique; il est enfin l’ennemi de Thomas Becket, celui que l’entourage de l’archevêque exilé rebaptisa Achitophel ou Judas. Dans leur édition de ses lettres, Adrian Morey et Christopher Brooke, ont fait un impressionnant travail d’identification des citations et allusions scripturaires.5 Pourtant, dans leur ouvrage de référence, Gilbert Foliot and his Letters, ils n’ont pas étudié en elle-même la place de la Bible.6 Or, Gilbert, homme de savoir, homme d’action, ayant laissé une correspondance, semble bien être un cobaye idéal. Le projet est ici de chercher à dresser son « profil biblique », en ayant comme ligne d’horizon une question plus générale: pourquoi recourir à la Bible? Quelle est la place et la valeur de l’auctoritas scripturaire dans la pratique sociale et politique d’un prélat anglais du douzième siècle? Les réponses apportées ici à toutes ces questions seront au mieux partielles, et prendront principalement la forme d’études de cas. Une approche quantitative est une première étape nécessaire, d’autant plus que, d’un auteur à l’autre, la fréquence du recours à l’Ecriture change notablement.7 Il pourrait sembler naturel et logique que la Bible soit inhérente à toute son écriture; en effet, c’est au sein du milieu monastique, dont il est originaire, que Jean Leclerc a identifié la pratique du « langage biblique ».8 Mais ce n’est pas le cas: sur 272 lettres 5

The Letters and Charters of Gilbert Foliot, éd. A. Morey et C.N.L. Brooke, Cambridge 1967. Cf. l’index des références bibliques p. 549–52. Ce relevé n’est cependant exhaustif. 6 A. Morey et C.N.L. Brooke, Gilbert Foliot and his Letters, Cambridge 1965. Ce manque est d’autant plus net qu’un chapitre est consacré à la formation et à la culture du futur abbé et évêque (« The master of the schools », 52–72). 7 Cette remarque, difficile à justifier en quelques lignes, s’appuie essentiellement sur l’étude de lettres contemporaines – celles de Jean de Salisbury (The Letters of John of Salisbury, t. 1, The Early Letters (1153–1161), éd. W.J. Millor, H.E. Butler, révisée par C.N.L. Brooke, Oxford 1986, et t. 2, The Later Letters (1163–1180), éd. W.J. Millor, C.N.L. Brooke, Oxford 1979), Thomas Becket (The Correspondence of Thomas Becket, Archbishop, éd. A. Duggan, 2 tomes, Oxford 2000), Arnoul de Lisieux (The Letters of Arnulf of Lisieux, éd. F. Barlow, Londres 1939) et sur celles des moines de Canterbury (Chronicles and Memorials of the Reign of Richard I, Volume II: Epistolae Cantuarienses, 1187–1199, éd. W. Stubbs, rééd. 1968), légèrement postérieures. 8 Ce phénomène a surtout été étudié par Jean Leclercq, dans ses études sur la spiritualité monastique. Cf. L’Amour des lettres et le Désir de Dieu, Paris 1957 (rééd. 1990), 70–86, et La Spiritualité de Pierre de Celle, Paris 1946, 59–69.

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conservées, 90 au moins sont dépourvues de références bibliques, et, dans beaucoup d’autres, il ne fait appel à la Bible que dans le salut initial ou les formules finales. Si écrire avec les mots et les formules de la sacra scriptura n’a rien d’un réflexe pour Gilbert, quelques hypothèses immédiates peuvent être avancées pour expliquer cette présence irrégulière. Peut-être, très simplement, la longueur et la complexité très variables de ces lettres sont-elles des critères éclairants. Il pourrait sembler logique que des lettres courtes et écrites dans un but précis soient moins propices aux raffinements stylistiques et à la multiplication des références. Ce n’est pas vraiment le cas. Il y a des exemples de lettres très courtes et débordantes de citations scripturaires, comme une missive à Bernard, abbé de Cerne, en 11459 – lettre de consolation où Gilbert lui promet son aide dans ses démêlés avec ses moines et l’évêque de Salisbury. Sur trente lignes, onze références bibliques ont été identifiées. A l’inverse, il écrit une longue lettre à Henri de Blois, évêque de Winchester et homme de pouvoir, absolument dépourvue de toute allusion ou formulation scripturaire. 10 La nature des sujets abordés et la personnalité ou le rang du destinataire ne semblent pas non plus être réellement discriminants. Une seule constante se dessine: il a presque toujours recours à une large palette de références quand il se plie à certaines genres, comme la lettre de consolation ou de félicitation – moments inévitables dans la correspondance d’un clerc médiéval de haut rang.11 En dehors de ces cas-là, il semble bien qu’il ne ressente aucune contrainte formelle à faire appel à l’Ecriture. Ses lettres aux papes successifs sont, pour plus de la moitié d’entre elles, dépourvues de références bibliques.12 La solennité n’est donc pas un motif suffisant pour faire appel à l’autorité au moins rhétorique du texte saint – ses lettres à l’archevêque Thibaud présentent les mêmes caractéristiques.13 On retrouve le même caractère apparemment aléatoire avec certains de ses correspondants les plus réguliers, comme Jocelin de Bohun, l’évêque de Salisbury. Gilbert Foliot lui écrit quatorze lettres sur plus de trente ans. C’est parfois l’occasion d’une démonstration d’habileté et de culture scripturaire;14 il doit donc juger l’évêque capable d’apprécier et de tenir compte de telles références soigneusement choisies et articulées. Cela ne l’empêche pas, à d’autres moments, de lui écrire sans aucun recours à la divina pagina. Il est également surprenant de constater qu’il ne ressent pas le besoin de se conformer à la tradition monastique d’écrire « en Bible » quand il s’adresse à des moines ou des abbés. Il y trouve certes l’essentiel de son autorité quand il désapprouve l’attitude des moines de l’abbaye de Cerne et les met en garde contre toute initiative d’appel auprès de Canterbury ou Rome.15 Mais il peut aussi écrire aux 9 Lettre 39, p. 77–8. 10 Lettre 22, p. 56–7. 11 Lettres de consolation (lettres 39, 64, 101, 108); lettres de félicitation, le plus souvent à l’occasion

d’une promotion (lettres 12, 23, 48, 147, 152). 12 Lettres aux papes dépourvues de références bibliques: 31, 78, 81, 83, 84, 86, 112, 127, 131, 149, 150,

156, 161, 162, 179, 185, 193, 200, 224, 233, 245, 246, 247, 248, 251, 265. Lettres incluant des références bibliques: 23, 34, 35, 36, 37, 53, 67, 80, 85, 99, 102, 133, 146, 155, 212, 213, 214, 218, 221, 222, 223 (les lettres 212–23 furent écrites au plus sombre des années 1170–1171; Gilbert, dans une situation très difficile, est sur la défensive et fait beaucoup appel aux psaumes, aux Proverbes et à Job dans ses suppliques à Alexandre III), 228. 13 Lettres avec Bible: 24, 33, 47, 52, 56, 62, 79, 92, 123. Lettres sans Bible: 51, 58, 66, 89, 91, 96 – les lettres 66 et 96 sont deux longues épîtres, ce qui rend l’absence de références scripturaires d’autant plus notable. 14 Comme dans les lettres 17, 206, 207, 208. 15 Lettre 49, p. 85–8.

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moines de La Charité sur Loire et à ceux de Tewkesbury sans aucun ornement biblique, pas même dans l’adresse ou les formules de salut final.16 Enfin, un doublet démontre à l’extrême le caractère apparemment aléatoire de la présence des références scripturaires. En 1165, il écrit deux lettres à Roger, évêque de Worcester, au sujet d’un petit groupe d’hérétiques, proches des cathares, qui sont apparus dans son diocèse: dans les deux lettres, il lui conseille de les mettre à l’isolement et de réunir les évêques pour décider de leur sort. Il est fort probable qu’une seule de ces deux versions fut envoyée; or l’une est remplie de références bibliques, d’ailleurs fort bien choisies, et l’autre en est totalement dépourvue! Il est possible que la lettre « avec Bible » soit la version plus élaborée, et donc celle destinée à être envoyée, mais rien n’est sûr. On pourrait aussi imaginer que la régularité et la densité de son recours à la Bible changent au cours de sa vie – il pourrait être plus abondant au début, sous la double influence de sa formation scolaire et de son environnement monastique, plus irrégulier et plus concurrencé par les deux droits canon et romain quand il devient un évêque impliqué dans les affaires politiques du royaume. On pourrait aussi, à l’inverse, imaginer une présence biblique plus forte la vieillesse et les inquiétudes liées à l’au-delà avançant. Il n’en est rien. Contrairement à Jean de Salisbury, qui se met à utiliser presque exclusivement la Bible à partir de 1165,17 on ne peut mettre en évidence de réel tournant dans la pratique biblique de Gilbert Foliot. Son irrégularité est elle-même régulière toute au long de sa vie épistolaire. Arbitraire, aléatoire, irrégulière, telle apparaît donc à ce stade la présence de la sacra scriptura. Cependant, une étude un peu plus approfondie reste tentante, parce que Gilbert Foliot utilise malgré tout beaucoup la Bible. S’il n’est pas motivé par les obligations formelles du dictamen, s’il n’écrit pas spontanément « en Bible » comme certains de ses contemporains, on voudrait essayer de comprendre ici quand et pourquoi il ressent le goût ou le besoin de citer l’Ecriture. A travers l’analyse de certaines de ses lettres, c’est la question du sens et de l’autorité attribuée au texte sacré qui est posée.

Une utilisation originale? Sans surprise, viennent le plus souvent sous la plume de Gilbert les psaumes, les évangiles et les épîtres pauliniennes – le contraire serait bien étonnant, étant donnée la place de ces textes dans l’histoire, le dogme et la liturgie de l’Eglise chrétienne. Les psaumes et les épîtres sont une source privilégiée de formules et de phrases sur la foi, la persévérance, la crainte de Dieu, l’espoir, la charité, la brièveté de la vie,18 etc. Mais il est parfaitement capable de faire appel à toute la diversité du canon – il n’est pas un des « clercs mondains », identifiés par Beryl Smalley, et dont la culture biblique active semble se limiter aux Psaumes.19

16 Lettres 134 et 135, p. 177–9. 17 L’essentiel du travail déjà effectué sur Jean de Salisbury et la Bible paraîtra dans un article des Cahiers

de civilisation médiévale, sous le titre « La conversio de Jean de Salisbury: La Bible au service de Thomas Becket? » 18 Un exemple de réécriture du memento mori se trouve une épître (lettre 20, p. 54–55) à son oncle Guillaume de Chesney: « Memento quod vita tua fumus exiguus est et tota tua gloria pulvis et vermis. Hodie es et cras non eris, vel si cras eris, nescis si eris post cras; et si exieris de corpore, de gloria tua nichil tecum portabis. » Ces phrases sont pour partie une concaténation de 1 Mach. 2:62–63 et de 1 Tim. 6:7. 19 B. Smalley, « L’Exégèse biblique dans la littérature latine », dans La Bibbia nell’alto Medio Evo, 645.

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Souvent, Gilbert n’hésite d’ailleurs pas à réécrire les mots de la Vulgate. Est-ce l’effet d’une mémoire approximative? Une reformulation pour rendre la référence plus adéquate à ce qu’il veut montrer? Une leçon différente tirée de la liturgie – notamment pour les psaumes? En tout cas, il peut citer explicitement un verset tout en modifiant le texte pour l’adapter à son propos: Une lettre à Richard de Belmeis en donne un exemple très net.20 Gilbert, comme tous les épistoliers de son temps, signale très rarement qu’il inclut une citation dans son texte; ici, pourtant, il le fait explicitement (scriptum nosti, illud apostoli, prophete dicens). Mais cela ne semble pas le contraindre le moins du monde à utiliser précisément les mots de la Vulgate: non contristabit devient minime perturbare, diligentibus devient bonis . . . et il se réfère au psalmiste comme à un prophète, ce qui est pour le moins inhabituel. L’usage de obumbrasti au lieu de protexisti s’explique mieux, car c’est une leçon fréquente du psaume 139, traduite à partir des Septante, très présente dans la liturgie et finalement retenue dans la Bible sixte-clémentine – peut-être Gilbert l’a-t-il entendu et retenu lors d’un office. Faut-il y voir une désinvolture dans le traitement du texte sacré? Il est possibled’y voir plutôt le signe d’une grande familiarité; les psaumes et les épîtres sont présents à son esprit, il ne ressent pas le besoin de se référer à une Bible pour vérifier, et il cite en pleine confiance. Ce fut un phénomène courant dans la littérature et les échanges épistolaires jusqu’au XIXe siècle: dans une culture où l’on apprend par coeur, familiarité et inexactitude vont de pair, rendant le travail des éditeurs modernes très complexe. L’Ecriture n’y fait pas exception, ce qui permet de relativiser, dans la pratique, la révérence pour la lettre de la Vulgate hiéronymienne – l’esprit est parfois préféré à la lettre, sans aucun sentiment de sacrilège. Gilbert, s’il ne parle pas souvent « en Bible », est pourtant parfaitement capable de montrer un vrai talent pour inventer une chaîne scripturaire thématique ou trouver des associations de citations originales et susceptibles de frapper le lecteur. Il sait ainsi associer une référence extrêmement bien connue et une autre beaucoup plus confidentielle pour créer une image nouvelle et efficace. Ainsi dans une lettre à Richard de Belmeis, évêque de Londres en difficulté (il a été élu par le chapitre de Saint-Paul, mais le roi s’oppose à cette élection, et le pape est mécontent du choix du nouvel archidiacre), il lui écrit: « [speramus . . . ] te quidem non in luto aquarum multarum vento agitatam harundinem, sed in virtutum Libano cedrum firme . . . » Il associe ici un verset du chapitre 13 de l’évangile de Mathieu (« videre harundinem vento agitatam », ce roseau agité par les vents est très souvent utilisé dans les sermons médiévaux pour représenter la faiblesse humaine) et une métaphore tirée d’Habacuc (« in luto aquarum multarum », dans la boue des grandes eaux).21 Il crée ainsi l’image parlante d’un roseau tremblant dans la boue d’une inondation, contrastant d’autant mieux avec la fermeté vertueuse des cèdres du Liban. Un autre exemple de citation parfaitement choisie, et qui apporte sa force à ce qu’il cherche à démontrer, se trouve dans une lettre écrite au pape Eugène III, au nom de l’abbaye de Reading qui souffrait alors d’être prise entre les deux camps de la 20 Lettre 101, p. 139–40. Texte considéré: « Scriptum nosti karissime ‘justo quicquid acciderit id ipsum

minime perturbare’. Illud enim apostoli cordis oculis intuetur: ‘bonis in bonum cuncta chooperari’. Unde prospera si affluant prophete concinit dicens: ‘Cantabo Domino qui bona tribuit michi’. Adversa si obvient, illud cordis labiis modulatur: ‘obumbrasti capud meum in die belli’. ». Références bibliques: Pr. 12:21: « Non contristabit justum quicquid ei acciderit »; Rm. 8:28: « diligentibus Deum omnia cooperantur in bonum »; Ps. 12:6: « cantabo Domino qui bona tribuit mihi et psallam nomini Domini altissimi »; Ps. 139:8: « Domine Deus fortitudo salutis meae protexisti caput meum in die belli. » 21 Lettre 101, p. 140. Références: Mt. 11:7 et Hab. 3:15.

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guerre civile.22 Gilbert a recours à l’épisode de la guérison de l’hémorroïsse (Luc 8:43–44), et forge ainsi une image émouvante: l’abbaye, qui se vide de son sang depuis longtemps en dépit des efforts des médecins, cherche la guérison dans le contact avec la frange du manteau du pape-Christ, s’il veut bien se tourner vers elle. Il est donc capable de références originales; il sait aussi composer de belles chaînes scripturaires, comme celle qu’il envoie à Warin, prieur d’une dépendance de Gloucester.23 Il veut l’assurer de son affection (caritas), et cette courte lettre (14 lignes) est principalement constituée d’une chaîne scripturaire dense autour de la caritas et de la nécessité d’y croire de façon inconditionnelle. Qu’en dire? Les références, très majoritairement pauliniennes, ne sont pas originales en elles-même (notamment « aimez-vous les uns les autres »), mais leur association l’est, d’autant plus que ces versets sont très peu présents dans le reste de la correspondance de Gilbert Foliot. Cette construction n’est pas seulement nouvelle, elle est aussi habile. En effet, en mettant sur le même plan la caritas de l’abbé (« caritatis sinceritatem nostre ») et celle du Christ, il réconforte Warin mais surtout le rappelle à ses devoirs canoniques: il ne doit pas douter de son abbé, il ne doit pas se laisser ballotter à tout vent, c’est une question de doctrine – c’est ce que montre la référence à Eph. 4,14. C’est donc un efficace rappel à l’ordre, mais cette lettre démontre aussi l’intérêt que porte l’abbé à son prieur: ses doutes sont pris au sérieux, puisque Gilbert se donne la peine de composer ce petit morceau de bravoure pour l’édification de Warin. Il y a de nombreux autres exemples de cette adéquation recherchée entre le propos et les références mobilisées. Il peut même s’agir de faire sourire, comme quand il écrit à Osbern, un moine isolé à la frontière galloise et qui se plaint d’être entouré d’un peuple « au front hirsute et à l’œil torve ».24 Il lui enjoint d’avoir moins peur, et de bien défendre l’endroit où il se trouve, à l’aide de deux citations bibliques concernant la maison de Dieu et sa défense (Ps. 142:12–13, Jér. 16:19 et Dt. 1:25): il ne doit pas bouger . . . et de toute façon les Anglais sont pires que les Gallois.25 Plus sérieusement, il est également très habile à adapter avec subtilité ses références à son interlocuteur. Ainsi quand il écrit une longue lettre au cistercien Guillaume de Hinet à l’occasion de la mort de Bernard de Clairvaux.26 C’est une belle composition, mêlant la déploration, l’éloge du défunt – imitateur du Christ jusqu’aux stigmates, grand abbé qui a développé son ordre per orbem, trésor de charité et grand doctor. Il utilise plusieurs fois le mot « saint » pour désigner Bernard. Le texte est pétri de références bibliques, comme il se doit dans un tel exercice de style. Et Gilbert fait preuve d’élégance dans son choix de versets: il cite huit fois le Cantique des Cantiques. Ce n’est pas le fruit du hasard, car ces huit références forment plus de la moitié de la

22 Lettre 85, p. 120, écrite entre 1148 et 1153. 23 Lettre 21, p. 55–6. Voici le passage étudié, qui forme l’essentiel de la lettre. Les parties en italique sont

les citations bibliques: « Non est credendum omni spiritui; quidam enim spiritus ex Deo non sunt. Unde, si caritatis nostre sinceritatem impius homo superseminatis zizaniis offuscare conatur, discretio nobis spirituum necessaria est; ut non circumferamur omni vento doctrine vel facile adquiescamus errori, sed probantes semper potiora solidemus in Christo caritatem, in quem anchora nostre spei projecta. Frustra namque credimus et speramus nisi invicem diligamus. Attendamus illud apostoli: caritas numquam excidit, verbum breve sed fecunda sententia. » 24 Lettre 10, p. 47. « Laudo etiam te seras portarum tuarum confortare, domum tuam vallo bono et muro inexpugnabili circumdare, ne scilicet gens illa que, sicut tu dicis, hirsuta fronte et torvis occulis respicit ...» 25 « Videmus enim gentem nostram timorem Domini et reverentiam sanctuarii parvipendere, et illos [= les Gallois] audimus Deum et loca sancta et personas consecratas Domino diligenter honorare. » 26 Lettre 108, p. 146–9.

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totalité des recours au Cantique dans l’ensemble de ses lettres. Il donne ainsi une finesse supplémentaire à son hommage à Bernard en le rédigeant grâce aux versets du livre scripturaire que le grand Cistercien avait tant aimé et commenté. Il semble donc que Gilbert choisit, à certains moments, d’utiliser la Bible – souvent avec science et discernement. Pourquoi ce choix? Cette question n’aura peut-être pas ici de réponse réellement satisfaisante, car ces interrogations sont au cœur d’une thèse encore loin d’être achevée. Il est en tout cas possible de montrer que l’abbé puis l’évêque ne fait pas appel au texte sacré seulement comme pieux ornement rhétorique de sa correspondance intime comme officielle. Il y cherche des arguments irréfutables, politiques et juridiques; c’est ce que l’on va tenter de montrer maintenant. Cela pose une question préalable: dans un conflit interne à l’Eglise, où s’affrontent des clercs, comment pouvait-on démontrer sa légitimité à interpréter l’auctoritas suprême pour défendre son point de vue et son camp? L’enjeu de la valeur politique de l’autorité biblique, c’est aussi, pour les protagonistes, celui de faire reconnaître leur maîtrise de l’Ecriture. Gilbert a été loué par ses contemporains pour sa connaissance des textes sacrés, ce qui n’a rien d’étonnant chez un clunisien distingué, ancien élève du théologien de Robert Pullen, lui-même formé à l’école de Laon. Il est particulièrement remarqué, si l’on en croit Pierre de Cornouailles, par son usage des distinctiones, c’est-à-dire de la déclinaison des différents sens que prend un mot dans la Bible: c’est une des premières attestations en Angleterre de cette technique identifiée comme telle.27 On a gardé de lui deux commentaires, un du Pater noster et un du Cantique des Cantiques, datant tous deux de la dernière décennie de sa vie.28 Ils n’ont rien d’original, si l’on en croit A. Morey et C. Brooke: « these books, it must be admitted, are not of great interest today. They show reverence, conscientious workmanship and dialectical ingenuity. »29 Gilbert était par ailleurs un prédicateur hors pair, suffisamment du moins pour qu’on lui demande un recueil de ses sermons – ce à quoi il consent avec de grandes démonstrations de modestie . . . et de références bibliques.30 Voilà donc un portrait contrasté, bon connaisseur des textes, capable d’innovation, excellent prédicateur, auteur cependant de commentaires méritants mais sans génie. Que peuvent nous apporter les lettres pour mieux comprendre quel exégète Gilbert était, et surtout pouvait prétendre être? On a déjà vu qu’il peut prendre grand soin à ses choix de citations et à la composition de chaînes scripturaires – il se donne ainsi l’image d’un bibliste cultivé et raffiné. Mais la culture biblique ne se limite pas à une bonne connaissance du texte. Il faut aussi à un clerc maîtriser l’exégèse, ses règles, ses techniques (les distinctiones en sont une), ses « sens » (littéral, moral, allégorique, pour ne garder que les plus courants). Or il semble bien, à travers certaines lettres, que Gilbert est capable de manipuler les outils de l’exégèse – et il est évident, à travers ces mêmes lettres, qu’il veut faire la démonstration éclatante de son savoir-faire. Une lettre envoyée à Robert de Béthune, évêque de Hereford, en est un exemple frappant:31 à l’occasion d’un échange relativement anodin, il déploie des trésors de 27 Texte édité par R.W. Hunt dans lTRHS 4e série 19, 1936, 33–4; cité dans Gilbert Foliot and his Letters,

op. cit., 71. 28 Chacun a été conservé dans un seul manuscrit. Commentaire sur le Cantique: BL Royal MS 2. E. vii.

Commentaire sur le Pater: Worcester Cathedral Library, MS Q 48, f. 60v–69. Le commentaire sur le Cantique se trouve en PL 202, 1147–1304. 29 Gilbert Foliot and his Letters, op. cit., 70. 30 Lettre 7 à Haimon, abbé de Bordesley, p. 44–5. 31 Lettre 6, p. 40–3.

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raffinement exégétique. Quel est le prétexte? Il remercie Robert de lui avoir envoyé deux poissons; les deux hommes se connaissent bien, et l’évêque l’a béni lors de son accession à l’abbatiat de Gloucester. Sa reconnaissance s’exprime par la composition d’un chef-d’œuvre exégétique, assez long (plus de 80 lignes), autour des thèmes de la pêche et des deux poissons. En voici les grandes lignes, en laissant de côté, pour la clarté du propos, nombre de digressions souvent érudites. Dès l’adresse, il donne un thème évangélique et poissonneux: « que tu ramènes sur le rivage plein de biens le filet lancé à la mer »; un peu plus loin, il annonce le thème « c’est deux poissons que tu m’as envoyés » (l. 8–9). Le mot thème a ici son sens homilitique, car cette phrase jour ici le rôle du thème d’un sermon, à partir duquel Gilbert, exégète et prédicateur, va déployer les filets de ses distinctiones. La première étape est un développement sur Pierre, le «pêcheur d’hommes» (« piscatorem illum ad memoriam revocasti »). Pourquoi deux poissons? Gilbert en trouve la signification amusante (« sua michi significatione jocundum est »): ce sont les tâches du prince des apôtres, compris dans un sens mystique (« labores misticos »). Quels sont ces tâches? Il s’appuie sur deux épisodes évangéliques de pêche miraculeuse: dans l’évangile de Luc, la pêche si abondante qu’elle rompt les filets;32 dans celui de Jean, les filets débordants ramenés sur le rivage. La première représente, explique Gilbert, la « vocatio » (car beaucoup de ceux qui sont appelés échappent à la grâce), et la seconde l’« introductio electorum in vita » (parce que nul ne peut arracher à Dieu ceux qu’il a élus). Une fois cette première distinctio développée, il en annonce une autre, en des termes explicitement exégétiques: il s’agit désormais, annonce-t-il, de l’« archanum sensus altius », du secret d’un sens plus profond. Ici, il a recours à la première multiplication des pains:33 les cinq pains sont, fort classiquement, compris comme les cinq livres du Pentateuque, et les deux poissons les psaumes et les prophètes. Ce sont des poissons des profondeurs (« nam vitam degunt dum profondum pisces inhabitant »), mais, grâce à l’Incarnation du Christ-pécheur, la prophétie est « extracta in lucem », et, comme un poisson porté à l’air, « quodamodo extincta », presque morte . . . et prête à nourrir les hommes! Cette métaphore est très bien construite, puisque Gilbert la poursuit jusqu’à la mort du poisson. C’est une reformulation plutôt réussie de l’idée du « dévoilement » de l’Ancien Testament par l’Incarnation, fondement de l’exégèse chrétienne: l’Ancien Testament ne trouve son sens entier et véritable que dans la nouvelle Alliance et l’Incarnation du Christ.34 C’est un exercice de style virtuose. Une telle déclinaison de la pluralité des sens allégoriques de ces deux poissons, comparable au travail accompli par Pierre de Celle sur le pain, est certainement propre à impressionner le destinataire. C’est honorer l’évêque que de lui envoyer un tel texte, d’autant plus que Gilbert prend soin d’attribuer à Robert de Béthune toutes ces subtilités: « tu as cherché à me rappeler », « l’intention de l’envoyeur », « tu représentes », « le sens plus profond que tu donnes », etc.35 Il explique ainsi que la distinction sur les prophètes et les psaumes 32 Luc 5:6. 33 Cf. Mt. 14:17–20. 34 On trouve cette idée dans l’évangile (Mt. 5:17: « N’allez pas croire que je sois venu abolir la Loi et les

Prophètes: je ne suis pas venu abolir, mais accomplir »). Le premier qui tira les conséquence exégétiques de cette affirmation est Paul (2 Co. 3:14, notamment) qui donne l’image du « voile » soulevé. La plupart des Pères de l’Eglise ont repris cette idée fondamentale, dont Augustin (Sermon 25, PL 38, 168 et Contra adversarum legis et prophetarum, PL 42, 623). 35 « istud michi pio suggeris ipse consilio », « mittentis ipsa intentione », « reprensentas », « tui sensus archanum altius intelligerem », « me spiritualiter excerceri desideras ».

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est clairement voulue par Robert pour inciter Gilbert à l’étude (par les hermétiques prophéties) comme à la prière (par la douceur des psaumes). C’est donc une double manifestation de savoir-faire: il maîtrise admirablement les ressorts de l’exégèse, et il sait les mettre au service de son propos, remercier dignement son évêque de tutelle pour son présent.

Un exégète en politique Cette dextérité érudite n’est pas seulement un élément de sa réputation d’homme cultivé. La Bible est l’auctoritas suprême, Gilbert veut en être un connaisseur au-dessus de la moyenne, il n’est donc pas surprenant qu’il y recherche des arguments intenses et irréfutables – mais il est remarquable qu’il le fasse y compris dans des contextes de grande difficulté ou de grande urgence. Il y en a de nombreux exemples; citons ici que deux lettres à Jocelin de Bohun, écrites dans les années d’anarchie, entre 1142 et 1148. 36 Dans la première, il demande à Jocelin de traiter un certain Adélard avec davantage de bonté, même si ce clerc est soutenu et patronné par une puissance laïque. Cette lettre assez courte (30 lignes) est tissée de neuf références bibliques. D’abord, il compose une série sur la miséricorde paternelle que l’évêque doit montrer, en réécrivant la parabole de l’ennemi importun et celle du fils prodigue.37 Il met ensuite l’évêque en garde contre l’acharnement: dans ce but, il cite David épargnant Saül et lui montrant l’inanité de sa hargne (c’est comme poursuivre « un chien crevé ou une simple puce »38), puis il rappelle l’insistance coupable de Asahel poursuivant Abner.39 Cet exemplum est intéressant, car il se réfère à une période de grand trouble et de guerre civile entre Juda et Israël – un prélat du niveau de Jocelin ne peut manquer cette allusion au contexte de ces années de violence et d’anarchie, d’autant plus que Gilbert clôt cette séquence par un avertissement prophétique, tiré d’Ezéchiel: « Attention qu’on ne te demande pas compte du sang d’un homme. »40 Ce ton peut sembler bien dramatique, il ne s’agit après tout que d’attribuer un bénéfice ecclésiastique d’importance modérée. Mais par les auctoritates mobilisées, par les échos entre le texte sacré et les troubles du temps, Gilbert incite Jocelin à relativiser son intransigeance et à être davantage conscient des vrais enjeux et des vrais problèmes. L’autre lettre proteste contre les déprédations de Jean le Maréchal et Gautier de Picquigny (1144–1145): Gilbert exhorte l’évêque au courage, car son office est de porter un glaive: son rôle n’est pas seulement la conversion et la prédication aux « étrangers » (« allophilos »), mais aussi leur punition s’il le faut, en les passant au fil du glaive (« in ore gladii »), comme le demande Ezéchiel. C’est le moment de faire preuve de virtus. Là encore, les violences du temps sont exprimées à travers le choix des références bibliques: le glaive de l’évêque est certes le glaive spirituel, mais il doit l’employer dans un contexte où des armes bien concrètes et ensanglantées menacent l’Eglise et ses membres. Il est d’ailleurs frappant que pendant les années d’anarchie et d’instabilité Gilbert Foliot a recours à un grand nombre de passages scripturaires concernant la guerre et 36 37 38 39 40

Lettres 17 et 32, p. 52–3 et 71–2. Cf. Luc 11:5–12 et Luc 15:20. Cf. 1 Sm. 24:15: « canem mortuum et pulicem unum ». Cf. 2 Sm. 19–23. Cf. Ez. 3:18.

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la violence – de façon nettement originale, si on compare sa correspondance avec celles de Jean de Salisbury et Thomas Becket qui ont pourtant eux aussi traversé des moments de crise grave. On trouve une exceptionnelle densité de citations bibliques impliquant les mots gladium, castra, agmina, sanguis, militare, etc. En voici quelques exemples. Il fait appel pendant ses années d’abbatiat à Gloucester (1139–1148) à au moins sept versets contenant le mot « glaive ».41 Le thème de l’homme d’Eglise comme miles Christi, si puissamment prêché par Bernard de Clairvaux, trouve des échos fréquents chez Gilbert. Il rappelle ainsi au doyen et à l’évêque de Hereford, quand en 1140 leur ville est la proie de Geoffroy Talbot et Milon de Gloucester que leurs devoirs sont ceux d’un soldat – ils doivent en avoir le courage et la résistance: « non delicatus miles in Domini bella venisti »,42 « Procedat ergo miles in castra, relia Domini bellaturus . . . ».43 Il rappelle aussi à l’abbé de Cerne, en difficulté, que Dieu, pour qui il combat (« cui militas »), préfère l’obéissance aux holocaustes, en référence au livre de Samuel.44 Gilbert émaille donc son discours de références bibliques martiales. Parfois, c’est le ton dominant de toute l’épître, comme dans la lettre juste citée à l’évêque de Hereford, Robert de Béthune; les appels à la Bible en sont un trait dominant. Il exhorte l’évêque à l’action, en lui rappelant, à l’aide d’abondantes chaînes scripturaires thématiques, qu’un évêque est un porte-glaive: « et tu n’as pas préparé tes mains au combat et tes doigts à la guerre? »45 Il lui intime d’agir: « tu le dois, parce que tu es un pasteur; tu le peux, parce que tu portes un glaive et tous les boucliers des preux te protègent ».46 Il aime aussi à utiliser l’expression agminum Dei Israel tirée du premier livre de Samuel.47 Il semble même parfois s’appuyer à dessein sur l’Ecriture pour dramatiser, comme dans une lettre à l’archevêque Thibaud. Il lui demande sa protection pour un chanoine de Hereford et renforce son argumentation en comparant la situation à celle, dans le livre de Daniel, où il s’agit de « préserver un sang innocent » – en l’occurrence celui de Suzanne.48 Dans ce cas, il craint que la référence échappe à l’archevêque, et la signale en parlant du prophète. De si fréquents recours à des versets bibliques imprégnés de violence sont-ils le reflet d’un goût individuel ou de l’influence des temps? Cela est évidemment difficile à dire; mais cela montre pour le moins une faculté à rechercher à travers l’Ecriture un grand nombre de versets correspondant à une thématique précise. Il n’hésite donc pas à utiliser la Bible comme argument politique, pour obtenir des résultats pratiques. Mais cette application de la sacra scriptura à des conflits d’ici-bas ne va pas sans difficulté: qui donc a la légitimité de prendre un verset et de l’interpréter pour en faire une arme? Gilbert est conscient de ce problème: à cinq reprises, il emploie l’expression du psalmiste, « leur bouche s’arroge le ciel »49 pour fustiger des recours abusifs à l’Ecriture chez ses adversaires. 41 Dt. 32:42 (lettre 2), Eccli. 28:22 (lettre 32), Ez. 21:9–10 (lettres 2, 32 et 35), Mt. 10:34 (lettre 57), Jean

18:10 (lettre 61), Eph. 6:17 (lettre 17), Hb. 4:12 (lettre 32). 42 Lettre 1 à Raoul, doyen de Hereford, p. 33–4. 43 Lettre 2 à Robert de Béthune, évêque de Hereford, p. 37. 44 Lettre 39, p. 77. Référence scripturaire: 1 Sm. 15:22; elle est utilisée à trois reprises dans la

correspondance de Thomas Becket. 45 « et manus tuas ad prelium et digitos ad bellum non aptasti? » C’est une adaptation de Ps. 143:1:

« Benedictus Dominus Deus meus, qui docet manus meas ad proelium, et digitos meos ad bellum. » 46 « et quidem debes, quia pastor es; potes, quia gladium portas. Portas quidem gladium et omnis

armatura fortium ipsa te munit »; cf. Ct. 4:4: « mille clypei pendent ex ea, omnis armatura fortium ». 47 Cf. lettres 2 et 35. La formule est tirée de 1 Sm. 17:45. 48 Lettre 123, p. 162: « Illum optamus igitur in vobis siritum convalescere, qui dudum in propheta

sanguinem salvavit innoxium. » La référence est à Dan. 13:62. 49 Ps. 72:9.

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Pendant le cours de l’affaire Becket, on l’a remarqué, Gilbert n’emploie pas davantage la Bible qu’auparavant ou plus tard.50 Mais, si l’on étudie de près les échanges entre les clercs ralliés au roi, dont il semble avoir rédigé l’essentiel des déclarations et appels successifs, et l’archevêque et ses eruditi, il apparaît évident que la Bible et sa légitime utilisation est un enjeu de cet affrontement brutal. On peut ainsi se pencher sur le fameux Multiplicem.51 Ce long texte est la réponse, au nom des évêques anglais, de Gilbert à une lettre de Becket; ce dernier y attaquait nominalement l’évêque de Londres comme son principal ennemi. Ce monument d’argumentation haineuse a été étudié en détail par A. Morey et C. Brooke.52 Mais, comme dans le reste de leur ouvrage de référence, ils ne s’intéressent pas à l’argumentation biblique. Or l’Ecriture est non seulement très présente dans Multiplicem, à travers plus de trente citations ou allusions, mais elle est clairement un des points disputés: Gilbert reprend explicitement certaines des références bibliques utilisées par Becket, et y répond point par point, en montrant que l’interprétation proposée par l’archevêque est fautive. Cette lutte pour imposer l’orthodoxie d’une interpretatio scripturaire est aussi consciemment menée dans l’autre camp. On le voit, quelques mois plus tôt, quand Jean de Salisbury réfute les arguments de l’appel des évêques contre Becket,53 rédigé très vraisemblablement par Gilbert Foliot. Dans cette lettre à Baudouin, évêque d’Exeter, l’auteur du Policraticus commence par contester certaines assimilations typologiques faites par l’évêque de Londres. Ce dernier se compare en effet, dans sa relation avec Henri II, à Jean-Baptiste sermonnant Hérode. Or, répond Jean de Salisbury, le Baptiste n’est pas une figure de l’épiscopat, il est le héraut qui dénonce les vices de l’humanité; de la même façon, ajoute-t-il, Elie, dans le premier livre de Samuel, sermonne ses fils en père, non en évêque.54 Jean n’accuse pas ici Gilbert d’incompétence, mais de mauvaise foi, de déformation volontaire de la signification du texte évangélique: « celui qui parle ainsi se laisse aller à la paresse plus qu’à l’ignorance, puisqu’il est certain que Jean à ce moment-là ne joue pas le rôle d’un évêque . . . »55 Il joue d’ailleurs assez habilement de la réputation de bibliste de son adversaire, en le montrant orgueilleusement certain de son interprétation, contre l’opinion de Moïse et saint Paul réunis: « mais peut-être le chef de la synagogue [G. Foliot] connaît une forme d’iniquité que Dieu ne condamne pas. . . . Si c’est le cas, Moïse et le docteur des Gentils n’en ont jamais rien su. »56 50 Une anecdote nous montre Gilbert, à la tête de l’ambassade envoyée en novembre 1164 à Alexandre

III, « parlant en Bible » quand il essaie de convaincre le pape de ne pas soutenir l’archevêque tout juste exilé. Alain de Tewkesbury rapporte qu’à un moment de son discours, il cherche à accabler Becket en lui appliquant un verset des Proverbes, « le méchant prend la fuite sans qu’on le poursuive » (Pr. 28:1) – ce qui est mal venu, puisque cette citation suscite une intervention du pontife qui suggère alors à Gilbert de se calmer. Cf. Alain de Tewkesbury, Vita S. Thomae Martyris, dans Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, éd. J.C. Robertson et J.B. Sheppard, Londres 1875–1885, t. 2, 337–40. Cf. B. Smalley, The Becket Conflict and the Schools, Londres 1973, 167–86. 51 Lettre 170, p. 229–43. 52 Gilbert Foliot and his Letters, 166–87. On trouve un autre point de vue sur Multiplicem dans F. Barlow, Thomas Becket, 153–5: il y est entre autres signalé l’allusion faite par Gilbert au prognosticon biblique lors de l’élection de Becket. Sur ce dernier sujet, cf. G. Henderson, « Sortes biblicae in Twelfth Century England: the List of Episcopal Prognostics in Cambridge, Trinity College MS R.7.5 », dans England in the Twelfth Century, éd. D. Williams, Woodbridge 1990. 53 Appel des évêques: lettre 167, p. 222–5. Lettre de Jean de Salisbury: The Letters of John of Salisbury. Vol. 2, op. cit., 231–51. 54 Ibid., 234. Cf. 1 Sm. 2. 55 Ibid., 234: « Quod utique dicens non tam impericiae quam ignaviae solacium quaerit, cum certum sit Johannem ibi non gessisse personam pontificis . . . » 56 Ibid.: « Sed fortasse archisinagogus iniquitatem novit quam Deus non prohibet. . . . Hanc sane Moyses et doctor gentium non noverunt. »

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Dans le contexte d’un affrontement aussi dur, il ne s’agit pas uniquement de persiflage entre intellectuels: l’enjeu est politique, et un des objectifs de cette lettre à un prélat anglais influent est de disqualifier la parole biblique de l’évêque de Londres. Il est intéressant de constater que ce besoin de légitimité exégétique sur la scène politique est patent dans la correspondance de Gilbert Foliot bien avant qu’il ne devienne, aux yeux des amis de Becket, le « nouvel Achitophel » ou l’« archisinagogus ». Ceci apparaît clairement au milieu des années 1150, dans un échange de trois lettres entre Gilbert, alors évêque de Hereford, et Roger de Pont-l’Evêque, archevêque d’York.57 Les deux hommes sont impliqués et opposés dans un procès (case) d’envergure, impliquant un appel au pape et la nomination d’autres évêques anglais comme juges délégués58 – ces trois lettres sont donc l’expression d’un rapport de force aux implications pratiques et concrètes. Dans la première, Gilbert annonce son intention de s’excuser pour avoir eu des mots durs envers l’archevêque. Mais, de réserves successives en allusions bibliques au sens ambigu, sa « palinodie » (son expression) se réduit à une pure forme, une coquille vide. C’est bien ainsi que le prend Roger, qui l’accuse à demi-mot de mal utiliser les « flèches de l’Ecriture sainte » (« sagittis sacre scripture »); il lui reproche également d’être trop prolixe, et pose une fielleuse question rhétorique: « est-ce que votre lettre, pourtant si bien fortifiée par les murailles de l’écriture sainte (« tot sacre scripture vallata presidiis ») . . . ne se donne pas tant de mal en vain et n’arrive pas vide à son seigneur – c’est-à-dire l’archevêque? « Bien sûr, ajoute poliment l’archevêque, il faut souhaiter que ce ne soit pas le cas (« absit ») . . . mais la suggestion est faite. A ces attaques sur son utilisation de la Bible, accusée d’être à la fois malvenue et inefficace, Gilbert répond par une manifestation de virtuosité. C’est une longue et subtile composition, où l’essentiel est de reprendre les thèmes scripturaires utilisés par Roger, d’en développer les distinctiones, et enfin, agilité suprême, de les réunir. Un exemple montrera la virtuosité qu’il sait déployer. L’archevêque utilise un verset du Lévitique sur le sacrifice d’une colombe59 (turtur), puis, quelques lignes plus loin, il parle de ces « flèches de l’écriture sainte » déjà citées. Dans sa réponse, Gilbert reprend l’image du sacrifice de la colombe, en développe un sens mystique qui l’amène à réfléchir sur l’eucharistie, puis au fait que le clerc doit se distinguer par le verbe comme par l’exemple . . . et il cite, pour illustrer cette efficacité du verbe divin lié à une vie pieuse, l’hommage de David à Jonathan, dont « l’arc ne recula jamais » (« sagitta Jonathae nunquam abiit retrorsum »60). Voici la flèche! Il reste à faire un lien plus direct entre la colombe sacrifiée du Lévitique et la flèche de Jonathan, image du verbe divin – Gilbert établit ce lien en recourant à une technique exégétique bien connue, l’étymologie. Il cite celle établie pour Jonathan par Jérôme dans son Liber de nominibus hebraicis: « Jonathan, qui est celui qui donne la colombe ou le don de la colombe ».61 Il est probable que notre protagoniste a fait quelque effort pour bâtir ce « pont scripturaire »: c’est en effet la seule utilisation de l’étymologie dans l’intégralité de sa correspondance!

57 Lettres 128–30, p. 165–71. 58 Cela doit être, d’après les éditeurs, un épisode du long affrontement entre l’archevêque d’York et

l’abbaye de Gloucester à propos de manoirs revendiqués par les deux parties. Il est logique que Gilbert prenne position en faveur de son ancienne abbaye. 59 Lv. 5:7–8. 60 2 Sm. 1:22. 61 « dans columbam vel donum columbe ». Cf. Jérôme, Liber de nominibus hebraicis, PL 23, 855.

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Gilbert affronte donc Roger sur un terrain qui ce dernier a choisi: la compétence biblique et exégétique. Il me semble que, par ce tour de force, il cherche à établir son droit à utiliser la Bible dans ce type de conflits sans que l’on puisse le lui reprocher.

La Bible, autorité juridique et judiciaire? La Bible est donc une des armes politiques de Gilbert, et il n’entend pas qu’on l’empêche d’en faire usage. Or qui dit politique au Moyen Age doit souvent se confronter à des enjeux juridiques, particulièrement quand c’est au sein de l’Eglise que des institutions ou des hommes se confrontent. Les litiges entre ecclésiastiques, des conflits les plus retentissants jusqu’aux querelles les plus locales, sont en général des questions de droit, portant sur des privilèges, des questions ecclésiologiques, et plus souvent encore des contestations sur la propriété de biens fonciers. Il est par ailleurs notoire que ces décennies du cœur du douzième siècle sont un moment de grand bouleversement du droit: en Italie, des juristes redécouvrent et glosent le droit romain, le droit canonique prend une forme cohérente et complète dans le Décret de Gratien. Ces nouveaux textes se répandent rapidement à travers l’Occident chrétien: le droit de l’Eglise est un des premiers à s’y référer, bien avant les droits vernaculaires des royaumes et des Etats. Comment ces nouvelles autorités se mêlent-elles aux traditions des églises locales, et à l’auctoritas biblique? Face au droit, quelle est dans ces années de grand bouleversement l’autorité proprement juridique de la Bible, dans la pratique quotidienne de l’Eglise anglaise? Le cas de Gilbert est fort intéressant à ce propos, car ses lettres nous prouvent qu’il est considéré par ses contemporains comme une référence en matière juridique. Il a manifestement, dès les années 1130, de réelles connaissances dans les deux droits. Ses biographes considèrent comme fort probable qu’il a séjourné et étudié à Bologne; près de quarante ans plus tard, il honore cette ville, qui domine les études de droit dans tout l’Occident, du nom de « Carihatsepher », la cité des lettres dont parle le livre de Josué.62 En tant qu’abbé, puis évêque, il est impliqué dans de nombreux cas judiciaires, au sein de l’Eglise ou entre clercs et laïcs. Il leur consacre une part importante de son effort épistolaire. Les lettres consacrées aux affaires de droit sont d’autant plus abondantes qu’il a ce statut d’expert. Ainsi, son oncle Robert de Chesney, évêque de Lincoln, lui demande de corriger et gloser son Digeste.63 Il semble reconnu comme spécialiste des questions épineuses d’appel auprès de l’archevêque, du pape ou des légats pontificaux. On le voit dans deux lettres, écrites en 1150, qui concernent des cas entre des laïcs: Raoul de Worcester et Gilbert de Lacy accusent tous deux le comte de Hereford d’avoir brisé l’interdit lié aux lieux consacrés en saisissant certains de leurs chevaliers, dans un cas dans l’enceinte d’une abbaye, dans l’autre cas dans un cimetière.64 Les deux plaignants font appel à Gilbert Foliot, parce que leur adversaire a fait appel à la cour de l’archevêque. Dans ses réponses, il leur explique pourquoi il ne peut pas intervenir, en s’appuyant sur un argumentaire étoffé tiré du droit romain. Bref, c’est un bon juriste, en tout cas comparé à ses pairs . . . il est donc remarquable que, dans un nombre non négligeable de cas judiciaires, il justifie son 62 Jos. 15:15. Lettre 192, p. 264, écrite en 1168–1169 à Robert Banastre, archidiacre d’Essex. Sur ses

études juridiques, cf. Gilbert Foliot and his Letters, op. cit., 59–69. 63 Cela est attesté par la réponse de Gilbert, lettre 106, p. 145. 64 Lettres 93, p. 127–30, et 95, p. 132–3.

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point de vue non pas grâce aux droits, romain ou canonique, mais à la Bible. Il semble parfois lui donner une valeur proprement juridique, prendre dans un sens littéral la lex divina. Or les relations entre Bible et droit sont une question complexe, même en droit canonique, car si son autorité suprême n’est jamais contestée, le pas à franchir entre lecture révérencieuse et application pratique est grand: cela nécessite des modes d’interprétations particuliers de l’Ecriture, et sa confrontation avec d’autres autorités.65 Le Décret de Gratien, fait un large référence à l’Ancien comme au Nouveau Testament, et insiste sur l’aspect autoritaire et juridique de la parole divine: le Christ est « dominus legis ».66 Mais Gratien reconnaît aussi qu’il est complexe d’appliquer l’Ecriture aux affaires de la pratique judiciaire, surtout pour l’Ancien Testament. Pour résoudre ce problème, il distingue ce qui peut être accepté sans aucun filtre (les moralia) et ce qui doit être interprété (les mystica). C’est donc sur ce terrain extraordinairement complexe que nous pouvons suivre Gilbert Foliot: donnons maintenant quelques preuves de sa pratique biblico-juridique. Dans une célèbre lettre écrite en 1143 ou 1144 à Brian FitzCount,67 il développe les revendications de l’impératrice Mathilde, en rappelant à Brian que les droits de l’impératrice revêtent, pour lui qui est l’obligé et le vassal du défunt roi Henri Ier, une triple légitimité fondée dans les droits divin, naturel et civil (humanum). Le droit divin, noblesse oblige, vient en premier: c’est la Bible. Remarquons qu’il n’est pas très fréquent que l’expression jus divinum désigne l’Ecriture sainte; dès l’époque de Gilbert, elle est bien davantage appliquée au droit canon. Il commence par une référence à un texte bien connu, l’épisode de l’enfant Jésus perdu et retrouvé au temple, et qui s’écrie « Ne savez-vous pas que je dois m’occuper des affaires de mon père? » Cela démontre, explique notre abbé, que ce qui appartient au père appartient 65 Sur cette question, nous avons beaucoup tiré de deux articles inclus dans Le Moyen Age et la Bible (cf.

supra n. 2): J. Gaudemet, « La Bible dans les collections canoniques », 328–69, et T. Izbicki, « La Bible et les canonistes », 371–84. Voir aussi G. Le Bras, « Les Ecritures dans le Décret de Gratien », dans Zeitschrift der Savigny Stiftung f. Rechtsgeschichte, Kan. Abteilung, 1938, 47–80, et B. Tierney, « Sola scriptura and the Canonists », Studia Gratiana 11, 1967, 345–66. Alain Boureau, dans La loi du royaume, Paris 2001, aborde aussi ces question, même si elles ne sont pas au coeur de sa problématique. Il signale notamment, p. 74, ce passage de la règle bénédictine: « Est-il, en effet, une page d’autorité divine, dans l’Ancien et le Nouveau Testament, qui ne soit pas une règle (norma) toute droite pour la conduite de notre vie? » (Règle de saint Benoît, 73, 3). Il n’est pas évident, cependant, que cette phrase signifie directement le caractère directement juridique de l’Ecriture. 66 C. 25, qu. 1, dict. post c. 16. L’édition utilisée est celle d’E. Friedberg, Corpus juris canonici I, Leipzig 1879, dans sa version électronique (http://mdz.bib-bvb.de/digbib/gratian). 67 Lettre 26, p. 61–2. Sur ce texte, cf. D. Crouch, « Robert of Gloucester and the daughters of Zelophehad », JMH 11, 1985, 227–43 (je remercie J. Gillingham de m’avoir signalé cet article). Voici le passage qui nous intéresse: « Videtur ad id quod asseris juris cujusque regula coaptari: est enim divinum jus, est naturale, est et humanum. Ex jure divino Dominum in Evangelio audivimus, dicente sibi matre sua, ‘Fili, quid fecisti nobis sic?’ respondit ei Dominus: ‘quid est quod me querebatis? nesciebatis quia in his que patris mei sunt oportet me esse?’ Magnus est Dominus ad comparationem ancille, et magna eterna hereditas temporali comparata et transitorie. Sic tamen loquitur Dominus ac sic neminem dubitare oporteat, quin ea que patris sunt naturali ejus filio jure debeantur. Sed qui nullam pretermittit occasionem (si sibi oblata est) quin tua dicta remordeat, non filium sed filiam de qua agimus esse contendet; et que filio magis competunt, non debere filie regalia sceptra addici. Quid contra istud lex divina respondeat, audiamus. In libro Numeri, capitulo ultimo, invenies quod a comite Gloec(estrie) sepe commemorasse audivimus: Salphaat homo erat Judeus de tribu Manasse; huic filie tantum erant et nullus filius. Visum est quibusdam illas ob sexus imbecillitatem non debere in bona patris admitti. De hoc requisitus Dominus legem promulgavit, ut filiabus Salphaat totum cederet in integrum quod fuerat ab earum patre possessum. Eant qui volunt, ponant in celum os suum, astris si placet machinentur insidias. Nobis fixum erit quod eterna lege sanccitum est. »

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naturellement au fils. Mais immédiatement il devance un contre-argument: cette interpretatio pourrait ne concerner que les fils, pas les filles – c’est bien le problème de Mathilde. Par chance, la lex divina elle-même répond à cette critique, en fournissant, dans le livre des Nombres, le cas des filles de Salphaat.68 Cet argument tiré de l’Ancien Testament présente plusieurs caractères intéressants. Il semble, s’il faut prêter foi à la remarque de Gilbert, que cet exemplum, assez rarement commenté au cours du Moyen Age, ait été une référence favorite du comte de Gloucester, demi-frère et soutien important de Mathilde. Signe de culture biblique chez un laïc, c’est surtout la preuve de l’utilisation de l’Ecriture dans le conflit. Le vocabulaire choisi est significatif: Gilbert utilise l’expression lex divina et présente l’épisode avec des vocables spécifiquement juridiques, requisitus remplaçant retulique causam earum Moyses,69 promulgavit remplaçant praecepit.70 Avec une grande efficacité, il ne garde de ce moment de la loi mosaïque que l’essentiel, exprimée en Nbs 27:8–11 – la transmission doit se faire en priorité aux filles du défunt, et non à ses frères: c’est exactement ce dont il avait besoin. Enfin, il met en garde ceux qui voudrait relativiser ce recours à la Bible: « pour nous sera définitif ce qui a été rendu irrévocable par la loi éternelle » (« nobis fixum est erit quod eterna lege sanccitum est »). Tout ceci semble indiquer que Gilbert présente cette référence de manière à en faire un usage réellement juridique de l’Ecriture, conçu comme un apport majeur à son camp dans l’affrontement politique central du temps. Le format requis pour cet article ne permet pas de donner ici beaucoup d’exemples détaillés d’un tel usage juridique. On peut rapidement évoquer, cependant, une lettre à l’évêque de Llandaff, sur un problème aride de dîmes où les seules autorités convoquées sont bibliques.71 Quand il raisonne les moines de Cerne pour qu’ils ne fassent pas appel contre leur abbé – là encore, alors que le droit canonique pourrait fournir de nombreux appuis, il se réfère abondamment à l’unique sacra scriptura.72 Il les exhorte à l’obéissance envers leur abbé, et à craindre, s’ils se commettent dans les complexités d’un appel, une sentence venue du ciel, « sententia ex alto ». C’est vers Dieu qu’ils doivent se tourner, non vers la justice humaine.73 Gilbert serait parfaitement capable, il le montre ailleurs, de mobiliser les autorités judiciaires – mais ici, il veut précisément détourner les moines de leurs pulsions judiciaires. Il utilise donc un abondant argumentaire biblique, dans un style épistolaire classiquement monastique parsemé de vocabulaire juridique, pour leur rappeler que leurs devoirs sont écrits en toutes lettres dans la règle bénédictine: silence, obéissance et ruminatio du texte saint. Il est même capable de pratiquer une exégèse à but juridique. Ainsi, quand Mathieu, archidiacre de Gloucester demande à l’évêque de Londres son avis sur une femme suspecte d’adultère: faut-il accepter de la croire si elle fait serment de son innocence, ou faut-il lui faire subir l’ordalie du fer chauffé à blanc, comme son mari lui en a extorqué la promesse?74 Gilbert y répond avec tout le sérieux d’un expert,

68 69 70 71 72 73

Nombres 27 et 36. Nbs 27:4. Nbs 27:11. Lettre 70, p. 104. Lettre 49, p. 85–8. Ibid., p. 87: « Justitie regula est ut qui justus est justificetur adhuc; et qui in sordibus est sordescat adhuc. Si qui ceci sunt et ut a ceco ducantur exspostulant sententia celi est ut pariter in foveam cadant. » Cf. Ap. 22:11 et Luc 6:39. 74 Lettre 237, p. 309–10.

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commençant par reformuler le problème, en utilisant le vocable juridico-scolaire quaestio,75 puis donne une plus grande ampleur à sa consultation: les cas sont fréquents! Il rappelle d’abord que la loi mosaïque comme le droit romain pousseraient à la sévérité, puis exprime un avis opposé, favorable à la solution douce. Il appuie son verdict sur deux autorités, toutes deux scripturaires. D’une part, le Christ a pardonné la femme adultère – référence attendue, mais que Gilbert développe, en expliquant qu’il faut remplacer les dures pierres de la loi (« duros lapides legis ») par les pierres de l’Eglise (« nostri lapides »), c’est-à-dire exhorter, corriger, inciter les pécheurs à pleurer, gémir, se confesser, etc.: c’est un moment parfaitement identifiable d’exégèse morale. D’autre part, il s’étonne que le mari puisse pousser sa femme à subir une ordalie: puisque les époux ne sont qu’une âme et un corps, comme le disent l’évangéliste et Paul, cet homme veut donc son propre supplice? Ce n’est pas raisonnable, conclut Gilbert. Et ainsi s’achève sa consultation juridique, construite sur l’Ecriture utilisée avec souplesse, et sans jamais perdre de vue le caractère concret du cas traité. Comment apporter une conclusion, après ces remarques un peu trop désordonnées? Que peut-on dire maintenant sur cette pratique biblique? On a parlé dans cette étude de réputation intellectuelle, de légitimité et influence politique, d’expertise judiciaire; dans tous ces domaines, Gilbert choisit d’utiliser l’auctoritas biblique pour donner du poids à son discours. Il se révèle peut-être bibliste plus habile qu’on ne le supposait, mais il reste bien, comme l’ont écrit les éditeurs de ses lettres, « a man with a more practical than speculative cast of mind ». Mais ils semblent moins pertinents quand ils poursuivent en disant qu’il est « an administrator more than a scholar ».76 Il est certes avant tout tourné vers l’action et le jeu des affaires humaines, mais c’est en homme de savoir qu’il entre dans l’arène. On l’a vu cultiver et défendre son statut de bibliste distingué: c’est, nous semble-t-il, au moins en partie parce que cette distinction lui est nécessaire dans son existence sociale et politique. Terminons donc par une hypothèse: au même titre que pour l’exégèse ou la prédication, mais moins théorisé et codifié, il existe un usage spécifique de la Bible dans les correspondances ecclésiastiques. Cette mise en écho de la divina pagina et des enjeux sociaux, mondains et politiques, répond à certaines règles, dont certaines s’opposent à celles de l’exégèse: ainsi la pluralité des sens d’un verset est une évidence pour un exégète – dans le cadre d’un affrontement dans le siècle, il peut au contraire s’agir d’imposer un sens unique, comme on l’a vu. Cet usage de la Bible a aussi ses spécialistes, capables d’intégrer des subtilités exégétiques à un propos bien précis; comparé à d’autres épistoliers, comme par exemple les moines de Canterbury, Gilbert est incontestablement bon. C’est donc, et le paradoxe n’est à mon avis qu’apparent, quand il se mêle aux affaires d’ici-bas qu’il révèle ses réelles qualités d’exégète, et non dans la composition de ses commentaires du Pater Noster et du Cantique des Cantiques. Paris 4 – Sorbonne

75 « Hec questio est quam formatis ut respondeatur exigitis . . . ». 76 Pour ces deux citations, cf. Gilbert Foliot and his Letters, op. cit., 63.

Writing Warfare, Lordship and History

WRITING WARFARE, LORDSHIP AND HISTORY: THE GESTA CONSULUM ANDEGAVORUM’S ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE OF ALENÇON Richard Barton In December 1118, outside of Alençon in southern Normandy, Henry I suffered one of the few outright military defeats of his long and illustrious career.1 While the impact of the battle is relatively well-known,2 the battle itself has received a great deal less attention. On the face of it this relative lack of attention is surprising, for unlike other less well-attested Anglo-Norman battles, the battle of Alençon boasts several contemporary accounts of differing lengths and historical value. Two, namely the entry in the Angevin Annals of Saint-Aubin and a sentence in Suger’s Life of Louis VI, are quite short. Two other accounts, however, stemming from Orderic Vitalis’s Ecclesiastical History and from one of the redactions of the Angevin Gesta Consulum Andegavorum, are far more detailed.3 As Hollister, Morillo, Chartrou, and Bradbury have noted, these separate accounts generally complement each other. As a result, on the few occasions that scholars have addressed the battle directly, they have tended to assemble a composite account that blends elements from these separate sources.4 Indeed, Bradbury, despite being one of the few scholars to note some of the difficulties presented by the Gesta Consulum’s version of the battle, was content to present a composite account because, as he said, ‘the basic outline of the Gesta is confirmed by Orderic’. Yet the Gesta’s version of the battle is much more problematic than all previous scholars have been willing to admit. Indeed, it is riddled with historical and prosopographical inaccuracies. The first section of this paper will thus demonstrate that the depth of detail found in this fragment of the Gesta is in fact its undoing. Careful analysis of charter evidence from this period demonstrates that a high proportion of the many men listed in the account could not have been present in December 1118, either because they were dead, in prison, or had never existed in the first place. Similar analysis also casts doubt on the Gesta fragment’s depiction of a harmonious fraternal lordship linking the most important barons of Maine and the Touraine to Count Fulk of Anjou. And yet the text should not be dismissed out of 1

I would like to thank the members of the 2004 conference, and especially David Bates, Matthew Bennett, Jim Bradbury, John Gillingham, Jane Martindale, Vincent Moss, Bruce O’Brien, and Kathleen Thompson, for their advice and comments on this paper. As always, Anne Barton has provided valuable editorial assistance. 2 C.W. Hollister, Henry I, New Haven 2001, 244–62. The battle is discussed at p. 252. 3 See Recueil d’annales angevines et vendômoises, ed. L. Halphen, Paris 1903, 7; Suger, Vie de Louis le Gros, ed. Henri Wacquet, Paris 1964, 192; Orderic vi, 206–8; and Gesta consulum Andegavorum, in Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou et des seigneurs d’Amboise, ed. L. Halphen and R. Poupardin, Paris 1913, 155–61. 4 Hollister, Henry I, 252; Stephen Morillo, Warfare under the Anglo-Norman Kings, 1066–1135, Woodbridge 1994, 170–1; Josèphe Chartrou, L’Anjou de 1109 à 1151, Paris 1929, 11–13; Jim Bradbury, ‘Battles in England and Normandy, 1066–1144’, in Anglo-Norman Warfare, ed. M. Strickland, Woodbridge 1992, 188–9.

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hand, and in the second half of this essay I will attempt to explain the errors and the overall intention of the fragment’s author. The text may still profitably be read as a model battle narrative, albeit as a largely invented one.5 Yet the prosopographical errors which riddle the Gesta fragment suggest that the author was not merely concerned to present a convincing and entertaining battle sequence; indeed, as will be argued below, he intended to present a message concerning proper lordship relations to the audience of the period 1155–1173, the time in which the fragment was redacted. The image of unanimous and filial baronial fidelity towards the count of Anjou that is presented in the fragment was, if clearly at odds with the reality of political and seigneurial life in 1118, exactly what the count of Anjou wished to make reality in the political world of the 1160s and 1170s. Careful comparison of the names included in the fragment’s account with names of men politically active in the late 1160s and early 1170s suggests, first, that the author intended to remind exactly those men living in the present of their proper course of actions and loyalty by placing them into symbolic, if ahistorical, positions in the past,6 and, second, that the fragment was intended, therefore, to be less a bald account of battle and more a carefully scripted narrative about lordship. Despite the obvious difficulties posed by this text, there can be little doubt that a significant military engagement took place at Alençon in December 1118. The annals of Saint-Aubin noted clearly in the annal for 1118 the ‘siege of the town of Alençon’. Suger, too, noting the widespread attacks on Henry I from Flanders, France, and Anjou, commented that: In the theater of Maine, the same king [Henry I], after many delays and in the company of Count Theobald [of Blois], decided to bring relief to those besieged in the citadel of the town of Alençon; he was repulsed by Count Fulk and was forced to retreat. In this inglorious affair he lost many of his men, the town, and the citadel.7 Orderic Vitalis was far more detailed in explaining the campaign, events, and impact of Alençon. For Orderic, the battle itself, and perhaps its outcome, was a consequence of the impetuosity and bad lordship of Henry I’s nephew, Stephen of Blois, who had been granted lordship over Sées, Alençon and neighboring castles in July 1118.8 Stephen’s lordship was marked by oppressive corvées, unjust exactions, and new customs.9 As a result, trouble broke out in November 1118, while Henry I and Count Stephen were occupied with the siege of Laigle.10 The citizens of Alençon threw off Norman rule and invited Arnulf of Montgomery, a member of the family of Bellême, which had traditionally held lordship over the city, to take up lordship of the town. Arnulf was in exile from the Anglo-Norman realm at the court of Count Fulk V of Anjou (also count of Maine since 1110). Arnulf referred the matter to

5

Neil Wright, ‘Epic and Romance in the Chronicles of Anjou’, ANS 26, 2003 (2004), 186–7, demonstrates how the most vivid battle scenes found in other parts of the same chronicle were largely derived from earlier sources. 6 A similar pattern has been observed in Wace’s anachronistic insertion of the names of Angevin court barons of the mid-twelfth century into his account of the battle of Hastings: Matthew Bennett, ‘Poetry as History? the “Roman de Rou” of Wace as a Source for the Norman Conquest’, ANS 5, 1982 (1983), 28–35. 7 Suger, 192. 8 Orderic vi, 196. 9 Orderic vi, 196. 10 Orderic vi, 204.

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Fulk, who rushed to the assistance of the burghers of Alençon, seized the town, and placed the citadel under siege.11 Henry I responded by summoning an army that included his nephews, Counts Theobald and Stephen. According to Orderic, Theobald and Stephen rushed ahead of the king’s forces and made a determined effort to relieve the garrison. They did not prevail, however, since Count Fulk ‘exited the town, dressed his battle lines, and engaged in fierce hand-to-hand fighting with them. Fulk killed some, captured and imprisoned many, and, having routed the rest, returned in triumph to Alençon with many spoils.’12 As a result Henry had to retreat and Fulk eventually took the citadel through a ruse. The final near-contemporary account, that of the Gesta Consulum Andegavorum, offers a great deal of unique information concerning the battle. The Gesta has a long and complex codicological history. Only one of four major redactions of the Gesta Consulum contains the account of the battle of Alençon; this redaction is likely the second oldest, and contains additions to an earlier redaction introduced from another complex manuscript, the Gesta Ambaziensium Dominorum, and probably from other sources deriving from Loches and Tours.13 Given its use of the Gesta Ambaziensium Dominorum, which Halphen has shown cannot have been produced earlier than 1155, this second redaction of the Gesta Consulum (with its account of Alençon) also cannot be dated earlier than 1155 (and may in fact date to the early 1170s).14 The second redaction has traditionally been attributed to Brito, a canon of Saint-Florentin of Amboise; although it is difficult to prove this, recent examinations of other redactions of the Gesta suggest that a connection between the Gesta and Amboise is not impossible.15 The account of the battle of Alençon given by the second redactor of the Gesta Consulum is long – six pages in the printed edition – and detailed.16 The general outline of events is similar to Orderic’s account. Count Fulk received a request for aid from the burghers of Alençon, who had been abused by the local garrison; he quickly seized the town, mounted a siege of the citadel, and then defeated a rash attack led by certain noble youths of the royalist army (including Stephen and Theobald). The result was a stunning victory in which many of the king’s ‘milites, pedites and archers’ were killed, captured, or injured. Henry was forced to retreat and Fulk’s men took the citadel shortly thereafter, also through a ruse.

11 Orderic vi, 206. Arnulf of Montgomery was one of the most frequent attestors of Count Fulk V’s

charters, appearing in eight acts between c.1109 and c.1125 (with a strong grouping between 1114 and 1120); see Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.[ièces] j.[ustificatives] nos 6, 12, 32, 42; Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Noyers, ed. C. Chevalier, Tours 1872, no. 439; Cartulaire de l’abbaye cardinale de la Trinité de Vendôme, 6 vols, ed. Charles Métais, Paris 1893–97, no. 434; Cartulaire de Saint-Maur-sur-Loire, in Archives d’Anjou, 3 vols, ed. Paul Marchegay, Angers 1843–54, i, no. 36; and Chartes de Saint-Julien de Tours (1002–1227), ed. L.-J. Denis, Le Mans 1912, no. 60. 12 Orderic vi, 208. 13 See Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou, vii, ix, xii, xxxvi–xliii, and lxxi; Bradbury, ‘Battles’, 188, accepts Halphen’s analysis. The manuscript of this redaction of the Gesta consulum is BN MS latin 6006. 14 For the dating of the Gesta Ambaziensium dominorum, see Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou, lxvii. On the dating of the second redaction of the Gesta consulum, see ibid., xxxvii. The third redaction of the Gesta consulum, which Halphen ascribes to John of Marmoutier, occurred between 1164 and, probably, 1173 (ibid., xxxix–xli); as the third redaction knew the second redaction, it must have been written at the latest by 1173. 15 Wright, ‘Epic and Romance’, 182; Nick Paul, ‘Crusade and Family Memory in Later Twelfth-Century Amboise: Bibliothèque Nationale de France MS lat. 5513 and the Gesta Ambaziensium dominorum’, paper presented at the International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, MI, May 2003. My warm thanks to Nick Paul for sharing this paper in advance of its publication.

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The most obvious deviation from Orderic’s account is the vast amount of detail that is unique to the Gesta. The Gesta alone, for instance, provides the names of those who allegedly fought in the battle: seven named aristocrats for the king, twenty-four named barons of Maine, Anjou, and the Touraine for Count Fulk. Only the Gesta reveals that each army was composed of milites, pedites and archers, as was expected in twelfth-century warfare.17 Only the Gesta goes on, moreover, to describe Fulk’s tactical deployment of these troops in three lines, or battles, as was common in medieval warfare.18 Only the Gesta reports the fortuitous arrival of an Angevin relief force composed of Fulk’s Manceaux vassals, whose surprise charge from a hidden ravine shifted the course of the battle.19 And, finally, only the Gesta describes the momentous aftermath of the Manceau charge when Fulk himself rose up, issued a stirring speech to his men,20 and led them in a final cavalry charge in which his epic-quality martial exploits secured his victory.21 As a battle narrative, then, the Gesta fragment has much to recommend it, particularly since it evokes so many of the standard elements of twelfth-century warfare. Yet the Angevin scribe was far less successful when it came to listing the persons involved in the battle. Indeed, the Gesta fragment’s authoritative listing of Norman, Angevin and Manceaux participants in the battle is highly problematic [see Table 1].22 On the Norman side, the Gesta lists the following men as present in Henry I’s army: Count Stephen of Mortain and his brother Count Theobald of Blois, Count William of Flanders, Ralph of Péronne, Count Rotrou of Perche, Robert of Bellême, and William les Males. The first two are obviously unproblematic, since every account mentions them. The presence of Rotrou of Perche is also easy to believe since Rotrou had married an illegitimate daughter of Henry I and had thereby become one of Henry’s most vigorous allies.23 Indeed, Rotrou took part in Henry’s expedition against the castellans of the Bellême lordship in 1113 and helped to storm Bellême itself.24 Yet the other four names in this list of Normans are impossible. Robert of Bellême had been seized by Henry I in 1112; in 1118 he remained in close confinement in an English prison.25 Ralph of Péronne was count of the Vermandois,

16 Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou, xxxvii, 155–61. 17 For archers, see J.F. Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, 2nd

rev. edn, Woodbridge 1997, 118–19, 126; and Jim Bradbury, The Medieval Archer, Woodbridge 1985. For foot soldiers, see Verbruggen, 111–203; and Morillo, Warfare, 150–63. For the tactical use of combined forces, Morillo, 163; and Verbruggen, 211–17. 18 On medieval tactical organization into conrois, see Verbruggen, Art of Warfare, 74–7; and Morillo, Warfare, 70 and n. 145. For other examples of well-defined battle lines, see Verbruggen, 94–5, 96 n. 407, 208–11; and Bennett, ‘Wace and Warfare,’ 247. 19 Gesta consulum, 158–9. Tinchebray (1106) featured a similar charge, also by Manceaux. On the trope of the ambush, see Matthew Bennett, ‘Wace and Warfare’, in Anglo-Norman Warfare, ed. Strickland, 245. 20 Gesta consulum, 159. On battle orations, see John Bliese, ‘Rhetoric and Morale: A Study of Battle Orations in the Central Middle Ages’, JMH 15, 1989, 217; and Bennett, ‘Wace and Warfare’, 243. 21 Fulk’s charge smacks of the use of a strategic reserve. See Verbruggen, Art of Warfare, 218. 22 Bradbury, Battles, 188–9, noted problems with the account, but did not expand on them. Chartrou generally accepted the account uncritically, although she did admit that Robert of Bellême could not have been present (Chartrou, L’Anjou, 13, n. 1). 23 For Rotrou’s marriage to Matilda, daughter of Henry I, see Hollister, Henry I, 179; Orderic vi, 40; Kathleen Thompson, Power and Border Lordship in Medieval France: The County of Perche, 1000–1226, Woodbridge 2002, 55 and n. 5. Thompson dates the marriage to around 1104. 24 Orderic vi, 182. 25 Hollister, Henry I, 178.

Angevins, first description: Hugh of Matefelon and Theobald his son Fulk of Candé Maurice of Craon Peter of Chemillé Jacquelinus of Maillé (and his 4 bros.) Hugh of Alluyes Adelelmus of Semblançay Hugh of Amboise Josselin of Ste-Maure (and his 2 brothers) Men of Maine: Lisiard of Sablé Guy of Laval Walter of Mayenne and his son Juhel Robertus Suliacensis (recte, of Sillé)

Forces of Henry I: Stephen of Mortain Theobald, count of Blois William, count of Flanders Ralph of Péronne Rotrou, count of Perche Robert of Bellême Willelmus les Males

all dead ante 1109

a minor in 1118 Hamelin was lord in 1118 William II was lord

yes no no no

change in lord 1106–25 Hugh was lord by 1116 Gawain was lord in 1118 change of lord 1109–22 son John becomes lord at some point after 1112

in prison since 1112 if Wm Malet, then no

confirmed by Orderic confirmed by Orderic not count in 1118 never fought for Henry I

Notes

yes perhaps no no perhaps perhaps yes yes no

yes yes no unlikely yes no unknown

Possibly present?

Accuracy of the Gesta Consulum=s lists of participants at Alençon

Name found in Gesta Consulum

Table 1

Angevin battle lines: 1. Hugh of Matefelon and his son 2. Renaud of Châteaurenault Jacquelin of Maillé and his 4 bros. Adelelmus of Semblançay 3. Hugh of Amboise Josselin of Sainte-Maure Geoffrey of Montrésor John of Alluyes Angevin forces, last description: count of Vendôme viscount of Sainte-Suzanne Peter of Preuilly William of Mirebeau Bellay of Montreuil-Bellay Geoffrey of Doué Peloquin of L=Île-Bouchard Renaud of Ussé perhaps perhaps no no perhaps yes yes no

yes (see above) yes perhaps (see above) yes (see above) yes (see above) no (see above) no yes

no such lord ante 1160s

Geoffrey Greymantle was count Ralph V was viscount no such lord ante 1160s Paganus was lord by 1098 lord was >Giraldus-Bellay=

Aubri was lord in 1118 above, at Hugh of Alluyes

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lord of Péronne and, from 1131 to 1137, seneschal of King Louis VI.26 Although Ralph had a very long career, and was alive in 1118, his close connection to Louis VI makes it impossible for him to have fought for Henry I in 1118. William, count of Flanders, could also not have been present for the simple reason that in December 1118, the count of Flanders was Baldwin VII (and not ‘William’). Moreover, Baldwin VII had been seriously wounded fighting against Henry I in September of 1118 and was, by December, lying on his deathbed.27 There eventually was a Count William of Flanders, but not until 1127. The second problem here is that by ‘William of Flanders’ the scribe can only have intended William Clito, son of Henry I’s brother, Robert Curthose. William Clito, who desired to rule Normandy in his father’s place, was in 1118 an implacable enemy of Henry I.28 Thus, no count of Flanders fought for Henry I in 1118, and William Clito was expressly allied to the king’s enemies. The final Norman name, William les Males, is unidentifiable. It is possible that this name is meant to represent William Malet, lord of Eye, but even if William Malet were intended, he could not have been present since Henry I had disseised and exiled him in 1110.29 The author of the Gesta fragment was only marginally better informed about the names he listed on the Angevin side. The composition of the Angevin forces is described in three distinct places within the narrative. First, in the initial description of the respective armies, the author lists nine Angevin barons as the companions of Count Fulk. Later, in naming the leaders of Fulk’s successive lines of battle, the scribe repeats five of these names and adds three new ones. Finally, just before Fulk’s climactic cavalry charge the scribe offers another list of Angevin barons; this one is entirely distinct from the earlier lists and adds eight names to the Angevin army. Of the nine barons mentioned in the first list, three can be proven to have been dead for some time in 1118. Maurice, lord of Craon, was dead before April 1117, and his son, Hugh, may be found as dominus of Craon in numerous charters between 1116 and 1138.30 Peter of Chemillé was also dead by 1115 at the latest, and his son Galvanus (or Gawain) may be found in numerous charters issued between 1115 and 1139.31 The third, Josselin of Sainte-Maure (cited as ‘Josselin of Sainte-Maure and his two 26 For Ralph of Péronne, see Achille Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros: Annales de sa vie et de son règne

(1081–1137), Paris 1890, lv–lvii and nos 81, 123, 134, 166, 299, 310 and 349 (among many others). From about 1112, Ralph is heavily associated with King Louis VI, first as a military supporter and later as the principal royal advisor. Ralph appears in none of the charters of Henry I of England. 27 Hollister, Henry I, 251. Baldwin died in June 1119 of wounds inflicted in September 1118. 28 Hollister, Henry I, passim. Henry I offered peace to the seventeen-year-old William Clito in October 1119 at the Council of Reims (ibid., 268–9), but William refused it out of honor to his still-captive father. 29 ASC, s.a. 1110; Hollister, Henry I, 225. 30 A. Bertrand de Broussillon, La Maison de Craon, 2 vols, Paris 1893, i, 61, demonstrates that Maurice I was dead before April 1117. The cartulary of la Roë reveals the presence of Hugh, dominus of Craon, in four acts given between 1116 and 1138: see AD de la Mayenne, H 154, fols 25r, 11v, 17v–18r, and 9v–10r. 31 Peter II, son of Sigebrand and lord of Chemillé, was active in the 1080s and 1090s (Olivier Guillot, Le comte d’Anjou et son entourage au XIe siècle, 2 vols, Paris 1972, i, 304–6). Galvanus, son of Peter of Chemillé, appears in 1093 (AD de Maine-et-Loire, H 39 H2), 1109–1115 (Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j. 5), 1135 (Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j. 47), 1136 (Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j. 49), 1139 (Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Saint-Aubin d’Angers, 3 vols, ed. A. Bertrand de Broussillon, Paris 1903, i, no. 9), and 1136–1148 (Cartulaire noir de la cathédrale d’Angers, ed. C. Urseau, Paris 1908, no. 207). A Paganus of Chemillé appears in acts of 1114 (Cartulaire Blésois de Marmoutier, ed. Charles Métais, Blois 1889–91, 135) and 1128 (Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j., 39), but this may be the same person as Galvanus/Gawain. Gawain had two brothers in religious orders: Peter the monk (AD de Maine-et-Loire, H 39 H2; and Cartulaire de Saint-Aubin, i, no. 177) and William, the canon of Saint-Maurice (Cartulaire noir, nos 59, 61, 64, 65, 68, 77, 83, 89, 100, 115, 116, 146, 147, 151, 160, 161, 163, 167, 192 and 203 [dates ranging from 1094 to 1136x1138]).

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brothers’) had died in 1109, as had his two brothers.32 The lord of Sainte-Maure in 1118 was a Hugh, even if it is not clear whether this was Hugh I or Hugh junior.33 While three more of the nine initial Angevin barons (Fulk of Matefelon,34 Hugh of Amboise,35 and Adelelmus of Semblançay36) do not pose such problems, the final three are difficult to analyze. In each of these cases a change of lordship occurred at an indeterminate date between 1110 and 1120, rendering it difficult to know whether or not the baron listed in the Gesta could have been present at Alençon. In the case of ‘Jacquelinus of Maillé and his four brothers’, whom the Gesta fragment lists as present at Alençon, the evidence reveals merely that at some point between 1109 and 1122 the lordship of Maillé shifted from Harduin to Jaquelin.37 Similar problems exist in trying to decide whether Fulk of Candé,38 who is mentioned in the initial list of barons, was in fact the lord of Candé in 1118. Finally, there is insufficient extant evidence concerning the last of the nine initial barons, Hugh of Alluyes, to make an informed decision. Most of Hugh’s activity appears prior to 1100, and Hugh’s son John is explicitly called dominus in a charter of the early twelfth century (c.1112–1131). For these reasons it seems more likely that John was lord in 1118, but the charter evidence cannot be dated closely enough to state definitively that Hugh was dead in 1118.39 32 William of Sainte-Maure was dead by 1087: Cartulaire de Noyers, nos 139 and 563. William’s broth-

ers, Josselin and Hugh, had been killed by their own vassals at La Faye in 1109: Gesta Ambaziensium dominorum, in Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou, 107. The dating of 1109 for their death is rightly given by Louis Halphen, Le comté d’Anjou au XIe siècle, Paris 1906, 172, and Guillot, Le comte d’Anjou, i, 467 (against Boussard, Le comté d’Anjou sous Henri Plantagenêt et ses fils, 1151–1204, Paris 1938, 51 and n. 2, who dates it to 1118). The boys’ father, Hugh I, made mention of their deaths in charters to Noyers: Cartulaire de Noyers, nos 367 (c.1109) and 308. 33 For Hugh junior, son of Josselin and grandson of Hugh I of Sainte-Maure, see Cartulaire de Noyers, nos 260, 281, 286, 303, 394, 415. Hugh junior is called nepos of Hugh I of Sainte-Maure in ibid., no. 407; yet because ibid., 416, calls Hugh junior the son of the son of Hugh I of Sainte-Maure, we must interpret nepos as ‘grandson’. By c.1135, Hugh junior, now lord of Sainte-Maure, was married to a certain Aalidis and had sons named William, Josselin and Hugh as well as a daughter named Agatha (ibid., 490). 34 Hugh of Matefelon was active in charters from c.1105 to the 1140s: see Cartulaire de l’abbaye du Ronceray d’Angers, ed. Paul Marchegay, Paris 1900, nos 130, 131, 133, 140, 152, and 376; Cartulaire de Saint-Aubin, nos 114 and 743; Cartulaire d’Azé, in Cartulaires d’Assé-le-Riboul, d’Azé, et du Genéteil, ed. A. Bertrand de Broussillon and C. du Brossay, Le Mans 1902, nos 8–9; and Premier et second livres des Cartulaires de l’abbaye Saint-Serge et Saint-Bach d’Angers (XIe et XIIe siècles), 2 vols, ed. Yves Chauvin, Angers 1997, pp. 481 n. 563 and 497–8. For the purposes of this paper, his appearance on 31 August 1118 (Cartulaire de Saint-Aubin, no. 743) is decisive. Hugh’s son Theobald is mentioned in 1110–1115 (Cartulaire du Ronceray, no. 130) and again in 1113–1133 (Cartulaires de Saint-Serge, pp. 497–8). 35 Hugh was lord of Amboise in 1114 (Cartulaire Blésois, no. 135) and, still, in 1128 (Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j., no. 39). Sulpice II of Amboise thus did not succeed his father until after Hugh left for the Holy Land with Count Fulk V (cf. John of Marmoutier, Historia Gaufridi, in Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou, 208). Boussard’s (Le comté d’Anjou, 41 n. 6, 42 n. 6, and 44 n. 1) belief that Sulpice had succeeded Hugh in 1118 is unconvincing, especially given the evidence of the charter of 1128. 36 Adelelmus of Semblançay appears in acts of 1108 (Cartulaire de la Trinité, no. 420) and 1129–1144 (Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j., no. 55). 37 While some scholars have suggested that Harduin died c.1110 (Chartes de Saint-Julien, p. 51 n. 6) and that Jacquelinus was lord between c.1114 and 1140 (ibid., p. 93 and n. 1), these dates are only approximations. An act of 1122 is the first firmly dated act in which Jacquelinus appears as lord of Maillé (ibid., no. 70). Harduin was still lord of Maillé in 1106–1109: BN, Collections manuscrites sur l’histoire des Provinces de France, Collection de Touraine et Anjou (Collection Housseau), no. 963. 38 Norman, lord of Petit-Montrevault, of Lion d’Angers and of Candé, was still alive in 1106; see Halphen, Le comté, 160 n. 1; and Cartulaire de Saint-Aubin, i, no. 172 (1082–1106). By 1126x1129, Fulk was lord of Candé: Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j., 45 (1126–1129) and 51 (1129–1141); Cartulaires de Saint-Serge, ii, no. 341 (1138–1150); and Cartulaire noir, no. 201 (before 1148). 39 For Hugh of Alluyes, lord of Saint-Christophe and Château-la-Vallière, see Halphen, Le comté, 173 n. 1; Dominique Barthélemy, La société dans le comté de Vendôme de l’an mil au XIVe siècle, Paris 1993,

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The author of the Gesta’s account is only marginally better in his second list of participants. The first Angevin battle line was led by Fulk of Matefelon and his son Theobald; despite some uncertainty as to Theobald’s age in 1118, there is no real problem with this section.40 The second Angevin sortie was led by Renaud of Châteaurenault, Jacquelin of Maillé and his four brothers, and Adelelmus of Semblançay. Renaud and Adelelmus were both alive in 1118; despite some question about his status, Jacquelin may well have been alive too.41 The third battle line was commanded by Hugh of Amboise, Josselin of Sainte-Maure, Geoffrey of Montrésor, and John of Alluyes. It has already been demonstrated that Hugh of Amboise was still lord in 1118. Josselin of Sainte-Maure had died in 1109. No lord of Montrésor called Geoffrey can be identified in this period. Aubri, not Geoffrey, held Montrésor in 1118.42 John of Alluyes, the last member of the third battle line, is less problematic, for John was acting as dominus by a date around 1118.43 The final list of Angevin barons adds eight entirely new names to the roster of Fulk’s army. The first two of these eight appear with their titles only: the count of Vendôme and the viscount of Sainte-Suzanne. By avoiding their proper names (perhaps because he was ignorant of them), the Angevin scribe is on safer ground; he allows us to supply the proper names (Geoffrey Greymantle and Ralph, respectively) in order to make the story work.44 His third name is Peter of Preuilly, but this is clearly impossible. Indeed, the main text of the Gesta Consulum informs us that just prior to his campaign before Alençon, Count Fulk had besieged the castle of Preuilly; although he did not take it, he made peace with its lord, Eschivardus.45 The fourth name offered is that of William of Mirebeau. But William’s charter activity ceases by 1092, and the lord of Mirebeau through the first years of the twelfth century is

724–5 (despite misidentifying Château-la-Vallière as ‘La Chartre-sur-Loire’); Cartulaire de Château-du-Loir, ed. Eugène Vallée, Le Mans 1905, no. 58 (1089); Cartulaire de l’abbaye de SaintVincent du Mans (premier cartulaire, 572–1188), ed. Robert Charles and Samuel Menjot d’Elbenne, Le Mans 1886–1913, no. 308 (1080–1100). Hugh’s son, John, is mentioned with his father in Cartulaires de Saint-Serge, p. 424 (1082–93). By some point between 1112 and 1131 John had become lord of Château-la-Vallière (Cartulaire de Noyers, nos 418 and 425). 40 See above, n. 34. In one charter, Hugh of Matefelon is called miles comitis (Cartulaire de Saint-Aubin, no. 114 [1117 and 1119]), a phrase which might suggest a close relationship between Hugh and the count. 41 Renaud III of Châteaurenault had succeeded his father, Guicherius, by c.1100. See Barthélemy, La société, 348, 726, 579–80; Guillot, Le comte d’Anjou, i, 330; Cartulaire de Marmoutier pour le Vendômois, ed. M. de Trémault, Paris 1893, nos 37, 98, 106 and 2A. 42 Aubri, son of Bouchard, was lord of Montrésor by 1109, when he aided Josselin of Sainte-Maure against Hugh of Amboise: Gesta Ambaziensium dominorum, 107 (since Josselin died in 1109 [above, n. 32], Aubri must have become lord before this date). Later, Aubri received military assistance from Hugh of Amboise at a time when Hugh’s son, Sulpice II, was already an adult: Gesta Ambaziensium dominorum, 114. This episode is hard to date, but probably occurred close to 1128, when Hugh left for the Holy Land (above, n. 35). 43 See above, n. 39. 44 In 1118 the count of Vendôme was Geoffrey Greymantle (r. 1100–1139): Barthélemy, La société, 407. In 1118, the viscount of Sainte-Suzanne was Ralph V, who held this title until after 1131; see Alphonse Angot, ‘Les vicomtes du Maine’, Bulletin de la commission historique et archéologique de la Mayenne 30, 1914, 198–200. Ralph appeared once with Count Fulk V of Anjou: Cartulaire du Ronceray, no. 194 (1109 to c.1122). Ralph’s son, Roscelin, married an illegitimate daughter of Henry I, but the date of this marriage is unknown: see Hollister, Henry I, 228–9. 45 Gesta consulum andegavorum, 68. Eschivardus, dominus of Preuilly and son of Count Geoffrey Jordan of the Vendômois, appears in several charters of the period: Cartulaire de Noyers, nos 319 (1101, dated by Halphen, Le comté, 203 n. 5) and 506 (c.1137); and Cartulaire de Marmoutier pour le Dunois, ed. Émile Mabille, Châteaudun 1874, no. 163 (1107). On his family, see Barthélemy, La société, 798–9. Much later in the twelfth century, a Peter of Montrabei became lord of Preuilly: Boussard, Le comté d’Anjou, 53 nn. 3–4.

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Paganus.46 So William of Mirebeau is also an impossibility. The fifth name in this final group is Bellay of Montreuil-Bellay. Here the facts are less clear, in part because the given name Bellay (Berlaius) appears in almost every generation of the seigneurial family.47 Bellay II appears to have died at some point in the 1110s, and was succeeded by his son Giraldus who, to make matters even more confusing, was sometimes called Giraldus-Bellay.48 While it seems most likely that Giraldus was lord of Montreuil in 1118, we cannot be absolutely certain of this; the scribe of the Gesta fragment was thus on safe ground in simply referring to the lord of Montreuil as ‘Bellay’. The next two names in the final list pose no prosopographical problems. Both Geoffrey of Doué and Peloquinus of L’Île-Bouchard were alive and well in 1118.49 The final name in the Gesta’s list, Renaud of Ussé, is, however, impossible. Despite a remarkable lack of clarity in the evidence, no Renaud of Ussé appears in the charter record until the late 1150s.50 The factual errors of the Gesta’s author are also made evident in his description of the smaller group of lords of Maine whose dramatic surprise attack turned the tide of the battle. The leader of the Manceaux, Lisiard of Sablé, is the only one of the four who can be shown to have been active in 1118.51 The other three men named in the account all pose significant problems. Although a Guy was indeed lord of the powerful castle of Laval in 1118, the evidence suggests that he was still a minor, and that his uncle Hugh was running his affairs for him.52 Walter, lord of Mayenne (who

46 William of Mirebeau was active in the 1080s: Halphen, Le comté, 327; BN MS latin 5441, part I,

pp. 323–4. Paganus of Mirebeau appears in 1092 (Guillot, Le comte d’Anjou, ii, C368) and 1105 (Cartulaire de la Trinité, no. 412 [1105]), and was one of the most faithful of the Angevin barons (Guillot, Le comte d’Anjou, i, 323 and nn. 196–9). At some point Mirebeau entered the comital domain, perhaps in 1130 after Count Geoffrey le Bel chased the rebel, Theobald of Blaison, to Mirebeau and laid siege to it (Chartrou, L’Anjou, 31). By the 1150s, it was one of the primary comital castles in the southern Touraine: Jacques Boussard, Le gouvernement d’Henri II Plantagenêt, Paris 1956, 21, 409, 474. 47 For this family see Guillot, Le comte d’Anjou, i, 254, 351; Boussard, Le comté, 35 n. 4 and 36 n. 1. 48 In an act dated 1107–1120, Bellay, lord of Montreuil, appears with his son Gerald: Cartulaire de Saint-Aubin, no. 144. Gerald was undoubtedly lord by 1133 (Boussard, Le comté, 35 n. 4). He is called lord of Montreuil in several acts of 1127–54 (Cartulaire de Saint-Aubin, nos 148 and 149), and ‘Giraldus-Berlai’ in several others from the early 1150s (ibid., nos 864 and 865). 49 For Geoffrey of Doué, see Boussard, Le comté, p.j. no. 2 (1105–1118). Peloquin is found as lord of L’Île-Bouchard in 1108 (Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j. no. 2), in 1136 (Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j. no. 49) and in many undated acts of Noyers from the abbatiate of Gaudinus of Noyers (c.1109–1125; Cartulaire de Noyers, nos 133, 238, 249, 382, 441, and 450). 50 Between 1100 and 1160 charter evidence reveals Arald, Walter, Geoffrey and Roscelin of Ussé: Cartulaire de Noyers, nos 318 (c.1103), 438 (c.1120), 455 (c.1127), 548 (c.1148), 557 (c.1147), 577 (c.1157), 578 (c.1157) and 617 (c.1181). Precise kinship relationships between these men are hard to establish: it is known only that Walter and Roscelin were brothers (ibid., no. 557), and that Geoffrey was the brother of an Arald (ibid., no. 455). The picture becomes clearer in the 1150s, when Geoffrey’s wife and many offspring, including the first known Renaud, appear in ibid., nos 578 and 617. Other men called ‘of Ussé’ appear in the first half of the twelfth century: Sigebrand (Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j. no. 19), Jacquelin (Boussard, Le comté d’Anjou, 49 n. 2), and Raymond, Jacquelin’s son (ibid.). It is not clear which if any of them possessed the castle at Ussé. 51 In 1112, Lisiard of Sablé led a major revolt against Count Fulk V; see Cartulaire de la Trinité, no. 427 (1112). Lisiard was still lord of Sablé in 1123–1124, when he waged war against Guy IV of Laval: Cartulaire Manceau de Marmoutier, 2 vols, ed. E. Laurain, Laval 1911–45, ii, 146–8. 52 Arthur Bertrand de Broussillon, La Maison de Laval, 1020–1605, 5 vols, Paris 1895, i, 59–60. Hugh of Laval was the son of Hamo of Laval (d. 1080), the brother of Guy II–III (d. c.1110), and the uncle of Guy IV of Laval. Hugh was active in charters from the late 1080s through the 1120s: Cartulaire des abbayes de Saint-Pierre de la Couture et de Saint-Pierre de Solesmes, ed. les Bénédictins de Solesmes, Le Mans 1881, nos 22 (1085–96) and 27 (1092–96); Cartulaire Manceau, ii, 7–8 (c.1118) and ii, 12–15 (c.1120). Hugh appears alongside his brother, Guy II–III, in one charter (1104–19: Bertrand de Broussillon, La Maison de Laval, i, no. 92), and is found directing the lordship of Laval during the minority of his nephew, Guy IV, in

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is listed with his son Juhel) had been dead since at least 1116, when his older son Hamelin was described as dominus of Mayenne.53 Hamelin was still lord of Mayenne when he appeared with Henry I in a charter given at Arganchy in October 1118, only weeks before the battle.54 Thus, while the Angevin scribe knew something of the history of the lordship of Mayenne, his facts were still wrong. Walter could not have been present. Hamelin, the current lord, was in 1118 a familiaris of Henry I. And Juhel, the younger son, was unlikely to have been in Fulk V’s army. The final lord of Maine listed in the Gesta is ‘Robertus Suliacensis’. Halphen interpreted this as ‘Robert de Seuilly’, but there is no Seuilly in Maine.55 Noting that Sillé was one of the great baronies of Maine, Manceaux antiquarians have for long interpreted this ‘Robertus Suliacensis’ as ‘Robert of Sillé’.56 Although this is clearly what the author of the Gesta fragment intended, he once again got his facts wrong, for in 1118 the lord of Sillé was William, not Robert.57 These prosopographical errors committed by the scribe of the Gesta fragment amount to more than a mere scribal error or two. They suggest that the author’s knowledge of the baronage of Normandy, Anjou, the Touraine and Maine was limited at best. Of the seven men placed in Henry’s army, only three could have been present; the other four reflect serious misapprehensions concerning Anglo-Norman political history. The Angevin barons make no better showing. Seven of the twenty men (35%) mentioned as supporting Count Fulk in this account could literally not have been present. For five more the evidence is not clear enough to know whether they were alive or dead. Only seven of the twenty were unambiguously alive in 1118. A similar story emerges with the Manceaux. Despite the prominence the author accords them in the battle, only one of the four could even potentially have been present. These errors betray the scribe’s fundamental ignorance of much of the seigneurial history of Maine, Anjou and the Touraine and, as a result, call the historicity of the entire account into question. It might well be argued, however, that to destroy the historicity of the account it is not enough merely to demonstrate that a particular person could not have been present at Alençon in 1118. After all, medieval narrative sources are often riddled with genealogical mistakes. We can imagine a scenario in which the author of the fragment, writing in the 1160s or 1170s, might have been relying either on hazy oral tradition or on a much less detailed written account to construct his narrative; in such a scenario he might merely have elaborated upon a sketchier text (or memory) by,

another (1119–23: ibid., i, no. 103). Guy IV was still considered a youth in 1123: Cartulaire Manceau, ii, 146–8. 53 Cartulaire de Saint-Michel de l’Abbayette, prieuré de l’abbaye du Mont-Saint-Michel (997–1421), ed. A. Bertrand de Broussillon, Paris 1894, no. 9. 54 Hamelin’s last attested appearance came with Henry I at Arganchy in October 1118: Regesta, ii, no. 1183. Juhel was lord of Mayenne by 1120: Cartulaire Manceau de Marmoutier, ii, 20–1. 55 Cf. Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou, 303 (index, sub ‘Robert de Seuilly’). Chartrou, L’Anjou, 12, uncritically accepts Halphen’s reading. 56 Thomas Cauvin, Géographie ancienne du diocèse du Mans, Paris 1845, 507, understood this figure to be Robert of Sillé. 57 Hugh, lord of Sillé, was still alive in 1112: BN MS latin 17125, fol. 30r (also in BN MS nouv. acq. latin 1022, pp. 382–3). William II, son of Hugh, was described as lord in an act given between 1109 and c.1122 (Cartulaire du Ronceray, no. 194), in another dated between 1097 and 1127 (Cartulaire des abbayes de Saint-Pierre de la Couture, no. 38), and in many subsequent acts between 1138 (Actes Henri II, ii, no. 1) and 1168 (BN MS nouv. acq. latin 1022, pp. 387–90). William had a brother named Robert, who is found in several acts of the first half of the twelfth century: BN MS latin 17125, fol. 30r; and BN MS nouv. acq. 1022, p. 383 (1138–1153). This Robert never appeared in charters on his own, and is thus unlikely to have been the person intended by the author of the Gesta fragment.

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perhaps, filling in the proper names as best he could, much as a scribe might expand abbreviations. Such a scenario, if impossible to prove, is nonetheless plausible, and would do much to preserve the essence of the text, if not its dramatic detail. Yet, other, more meaningful, problems exist in the account that cast further doubt upon the basic shape of the narrative. The most obvious problem with the larger structure of the narrative involves the dramatic charge of the lords of western Maine, who, springing from a hidden ravine and shouting their battle cries, came to the assistance of their lord and helped turn the tide of battle. While a stirring and significant element in the Gesta’s discourse on the affective bonds linking Fulk to his loyal vassals, this account runs contrary to everything that is known of the lords of Maine. Indeed, given that Angevin historiography accorded great prominence to a much earlier charge by the Manceaux (at Pontlevoy in 1016), we might well wonder whether the fateful charge of the loyal Manceaux had not become a stock narrative element for Angevin writers.58 Regardless of this suspicion, the loyalties of the Manceaux are a matter of historical record. Almost none of the lords of Maine may be glimpsed in the entourage of the counts of Maine prior to 1110, and few in the entourage of Fulk V after 1110. The collapse of comital authority in Maine by 1035 had meant that the castellans of Maine – the lords of the powerful castles of Mayenne, Laval, Château-du-Loir, Sillé, Beaumont, Malicorne, Montfort, Lavardin, and so forth – were largely independent of comital authority.59 Just as these men rarely appear in Manceaux comital charters, so too are they almost never found in the charters of Fulk V, count of Anjou and of Maine. Indeed, the only Manceaux barons to appear in Fulk’s charters at all were Lisiard of Sablé (twice), William of Sillé (once), and Ralph, viscount of Sainte-Suzanne (once).60 Fulk’s comital authority in Maine was based not on real authority over the castellans but rather on possession of the city of Le Mans and of the castles that had belonged to his father-in-law Helias’ patrimony. All of this suggests that the Gesta fragment’s depiction of these Manceaux as the loyal vassals of Count Fulk is strained. Its sentiment reflects not what was actual practice in the 1110s, but rather what the Angevin court of the 1150s–1170s wanted its subjects to believe to have been legitimate practice. Other, more significant, evidence exists to cast doubt on the Gesta fragment’s picture of the Manceaux. Charter and chronicle evidence shows that King Henry I had been busily securing the loyalties of precisely these men between 1113 and 1118. Immediately before the account of Alençon, the main text of the Gesta complained that ‘King Henry attacked Count Fulk, who was hateful to him, many times. Having frequently given large sums of money to the barons of Maine and Anjou, Henry caused the greatest injury to Fulk and, through these barons, many problems within Fulk’s own lands.’61 Orderic Vitalis confirms this, stating that after hostilities broke out with Fulk in 1111 ‘Many of the nobles of Maine went over to 58 Count Herbert I of Maine’s charge at Pontlevoy in 1016 helped win the day for Count Fulk III Nerra of

Anjou: Gesta consulum, 52–3. Later Angevin authors, including Count Fulk IV Rechin, gave a prominent role to Herbert’s assistance: Fragmentum historiae andegavensis, in Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou, 234; and Gesta Ambaziensium dominorum, 82. Again at Tinchebray in 1106 a charge by the Manceaux was instrumental in bringing victory to Henry I: Hollister, Henry I, 201. 59 See Barton, Lordship in the County of Maine c. 890–1160, Woodbridge 2004, chapters 2–5. 60 Lisiard appeared with Fulk V in charters of 1110 and 1116x1125 (Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j. 4 and 27). William of Sillé and Ralph, viscount of Sainte-Suzanne, appeared together with Count Fulk at some point between 1109 and c.1122 (Cartulaire du Ronceray, no. 194). The lesser Manceaux barons Fulk Ribola and Rotrou of Montfort appear with Fulk V once (Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j. no. 28 [1113–26]). No other lords of Maine appear in Fulk’s charters. 61 Gesta consulum, 68.

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Henry’s side, and after doing fealty surrendered their castles to him.’62 Charter evidence demonstrates the validity of these statements, by offering striking examples of Henry I winning important Manceaux lords to his side (or at least to neutrality) through gifts of land and marriages. Hence, in the years before 1118, Henry attracted Patrick, lord of Sourches in central Maine, Hamelin and Juhel, lords of Mayenne in western Maine, and Hugh, uncle and guardian of the minor lord of Laval in western Maine, to his lordship.63 To imagine any of these men fighting against Henry at Alençon is difficult, to say the least. While it is relatively easy to demonstrate the feebleness of Angevin comital control in Maine and, conversely, the strength of Henry I’s ties with the Manceaux lords, it is also possible to cast some doubt on the basic shape of the entourage of Angevin and Tourangeaux lords present with Fulk in the Gesta fragment’s account. First, as with the Manceaux, the charter evidence does not reveal any systematic pattern of Angevin or Tourangeaux baronial attendance at Fulk’s court. Indeed, none of the barons of Anjou or the Touraine appear with regularity in Fulk’s charters: Fulk of Candé, Gawain of Chemillé, Geoffrey of Doué, Hugh of Amboise, Hugh of Matefelon, Hugh of Sainte-Maure, Jaquelin of Maillé, Peloquin of L’Île, and Renaud of Châteaurenault each appear but once in the comital acta.64 Nor did any of these lords save Geoffrey of Doué seek Fulk’s confirmation for any of their donations.65 Rather than major barons of Anjou, the Touraine or the Saumurois, Fulk’s entourage and familia were composed of minor aristocrats and comital officials, men such as Archaloius the seneschal (fourteen attestations), Geoffrey of Ramefort (twentyfour), Gervase of Troo (thirteen), Geoffrey son of Garin (fourteen), Borellus of Saumur (eight), Harduin of Cinq-Mars (nine), Josselin Roonardus (seven), Adam nutricius (six), Herveus Rotundellus (five), Renaud of Saumoussay (six), and Robert of Blou (six).66 While loyal, useful, and potentially valuable militarily, these men were clearly from a different social, political and military stratum than the (absent) Angevin baronage. This cursory look at the witness lists of Fulk’s charters must not be pushed too far. Other reasons exist which might explain the absence of the barons from Fulk’s entourage. The relatively small sample of charters (around 100 in twenty years) is significant, as is what seems to be a clear trend in Fulk’s diplomatic for attestations by comital officers (seneschals, provosts, and vicarii) instead of by castellan lords. As David Bates, among others, has argued, we cannot make definitive arguments from a mere totting up of attestations.67 And yet, even with these qualifications, the 62 Orderic vi, 176. 63 See commentary in Hollister, Henry I, 228–9, citing an as-yet unpublished paper of mine. Patrick of

Sourches was a royal fidelis by 1100. Hamelin struck a bargain with Henry I before 1118. Hugh of Laval was granted Pontefract before 1118. Roscelin, the viscount of Sainte-Suzanne, married an illegitimate daughter of Henry I at some point before 1130. 64 Fulk of Candé: Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j. 45 (1126–29). Gawain of Chemillé: Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j. 5 (before 1115). Geoffrey of Doué: Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j. 5 (before 1115). Hugh of Amboise: Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j. 39 (1128). Hugh of Matefelon: Cartulaire du Ronceray, no. 194 (1109–c.1122). Hugh of Sainte-Maure: Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j. 16 (before 1117). Jaquelin of Maillé: Cartulaire de Cormery, ed. J.-J. Bourassé, Tours 1861, no. 55 (1123). Peloquin of L’Île-Bouchard: Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j. 2 (1108). Renaud of Châteaurenault: Chartrou, L’Anjou, p.j. 39 (1128). 65 AD de Maine-et-Loire H 3713, fol. 47r (1110–18), printed by Boussard, Le comté d’Anjou, p.j. 2. 66 These are rough figures derived from Chartrou’s incomplete and imprecise ‘catalogue des actes’ (Chartrou, L’Anjou, 255–81). A better regesta of Angevin comital charters is needed before more definite conclusions concerning Fulk’s entourage may be drawn. Still, these preliminary figures are striking. 67 David Bates, ‘The Prosopographical Study of Anglo-Norman Royal Charters’, in Family Trees and the Roots of Politics, ed. K.S.B. Keats-Rohan, Woodbridge 1997, 89–94.

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invisibility of the Angevin barons from Fulk’s official acts is remarkable. So too, moreover, are the almost complete absence of comital confirmations of baronial donations and the disappearance of the barons from the ranks of judices in accounts of the comital court. Indeed, other scholars have agreed that Angevin comital lordship over the castellans of Anjou had waned after 1060. Gone were the days when Fulk Nerra was able to replace castellans for breaches of the forma fidelitatis; these castellans were now firmly entrenched in hereditary seigneuries, and, as a group, tended to preserve their independence from the count whenever possible.68 This tendency is born out by the rather tedious frequency of active warfare between the count and his barons. Thus Geoffrey Martel II (d. 1106) spent his short adulthood attempting to subjugate the castellans of Anjou to the lordship of his father, Count Fulk IV; to this end he attacked the lords of Rochecorbon, La Chartre, Thouars and Candé.69 Fulk V followed suit. Before 1119, Fulk conducted major sieges of Doué, L’Île-Bouchard, Preuilly, Brissac, and Montbazon, all seats of important castellan lineages.70 Indeed, the author of the chronicle of Saint-Aubin in 1114 drily noted the ‘war of the barons against the count’.71 Finally, Count Geoffrey le Bel (1129–51) also labored mightily against his castellans, besieging Saint-Aignan, Meslay (held by Guy of Laval), Thouars, Blaison, Mirebeau, L’Île-Bouchard, Briollay, La Suze, Doué and Montreuil-Bellay.72 While any student of twelfth-century aristocracy knows that past actions do not predict future behavior, and hence that it is not impossible for recent rebels to join with their lords under favorable circumstances, this pattern of rebellious vassalage on the part of the Angevin baronage presents a radically different image from the one of unanimous and fraternal loyalty found in the Gesta fragment’s depiction of Alençon. It seems clear, then, that the scribe of the Gesta fragment for Alençon cannot be trusted either in his specific prosopographical information or in his broader picture of harmonious comital lordship over Maine and the important Angevin and Tourangeaux barons. What remains less clear, however, are the narrative strategies and intentions of the Angevin scribe who produced the Alençon fragment. Why should he have presented such a flawed image, especially if, as all scholars believe, the scribe lived and worked in Amboise, seat of one of the great baronies of the Touraine, where he presumably had access to oral and written sources which might have added greater verisimilitude to his account?73 One answer would be to state simply that it is all bunk and that the scribe simply invented it all – names, tactics, speeches, and so forth. While this is certainly possible, it would be rash to come to this conclusion. If the scribe’s errors are glaring, it is nevertheless true that he got the names of several lesser-known men right (Peloquin of L’Île-Bouchard, Geoffrey of Doué).

68 Guillot, Le comte d’Anjou, i, 351; Boussard, Le comté d’Anjou, 103–9; Boussard, Le gouvernement,

286; Chartrou, L’Anjou, 26–35. For the strong comital authority of a previous era, see Bernard Bachrach, ‘Enforcement of the forma fidelitatis: The Techniques Used by Fulk Nerra, Count of the Angevins (987–1040)’, Speculum 59, 1984, 796–819. 69 Halphen, Le comté, 174; Gesta consulum, 65–6. 70 Chartrou, L’Anjou, 26–7; Gesta consulum, 67–8. 71 Chroniques des églises d’Anjou, ed. Paul Marchegay and Émile Mabille, Paris 1869, 32. The manuscripts offer different readings of this passage. Two (MSS B and C) give ‘werra baronum contra comitem’; one (MS A) reads ‘werra burgensium contra comitem’. 72 Historia Gaufridi, 197, 202–16. 73 On the author of the second redaction of the Gesta consulum, into which was added the account of Alençon, see Gesta consulum, xxxvi–xxxvii and xxxvi n. 2; and Paul, ‘Crusade and Family Memory’.

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A second explanation would be to assume that the scribe took an existing account of the battle, whether oral or written, and ‘improved’ it with the addition of names, and perhaps of other details, which seemed likely and/or important to him. Such an explanation would help explain why the Gesta’s account bears such strong similarity in its general narrative shape to that of Orderic Vitalis, differing only in the ‘crunchy bits’, or names, tactics, and speeches. Yet even if this seems the more logical intepretation, it is still worth investigating the process and logic by which such a narrative ‘improvement’ might have occurred. Indeed, it would have been easy for the scribe to punch up the narrative a bit, perhaps along the lines of other narrative additions to the basic core of the Gesta consulum.74 There was a long history of adding colorful narratives to mid-twelfth-century Angevin texts, and it would therefore be possible to assume that the scribe of the Alençon fragment was merely following in the footsteps of his fellow redactors. And yet it is possible to make a more specific point about the goals and purposes of the author of the Alençon fragment. Indeed, the author’s account of the battle of Alençon contains a central, coherent, and conscious message about lordship, one that emphasises the rightful authority of the count of Anjou as lord of Maine and the Touraine. This discourse of lordship may be glimpsed, in fine medieval exegetical fashion, on a number of levels, including several of those presented above. First, on the surface level, the narrative of Alençon presents precisely this message. Count Fulk trusts both in God and in the ‘love of his barons’ that victory will be his.75 The men of Maine, afraid that they have missed the battle, exclaim ‘Have pity on us, who are so idle and sluggish, because we were not here with our lord, our fellow soldiers, our friends, and our brothers in so great a conflict!’76 And, in the key moment of the narrative, Fulk rallies his troops before leading the final charge with these words: ‘Come on knights! Knights, behold your Count! Stretch out your hands and arms, gladden your souls, and restore your strength. Behold, I am your brother, your lord, and your master, and what you see your lord doing, so do yourself!’77 The message present here could not be clearer: the proper role of the barons of greater Anjou was to embrace (and prosper under) the wise and firm lordship of the count of Anjou. This message also emerges on a deeper level, through the narrative and political contexts in which the author of the Gesta fragment on Alençon operated. Other texts produced in precisely the same period (c.1155–1173) by authors associated with Anjou, for instance, are also concerned to present a similar image of legitimate comital authority. It perhaps goes without saying that John of Marmoutier’s Historia Gaufridi, an unusual biography of Count Geoffrey le Bel (d. 1151) composed around c.1170–1180, emphasises the necessary and proper role of comital lordship.78 But

74 For epic, or quasi-historical, additions, see Gesta consulum, 37–44, 135–9, 140–2; and Historia Gaufridi, 178, 182, 184–91, and 195–6. Ferdinand Lot, ‘Geoffroi Grisegonelle dans l’épopée’, Romania 19, 1890, 377–93, discusses the epic-style additions to the chapter on Geoffrey Greymantle. Wright, ‘Epic and Romance,’ 178–9 and passim, notes the epic nature of many sections of the Gesta. 75 Gesta consulum, 157. 76 Ibid., 158. 77 Ibid., 159. This point is made further by the Gesta fragment’s description of how Fulk brought rebels in the Touraine into friendship just before the battle; ibid., 155–6. 78 Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou, lxxxiv–lxxxviii. John of Marmoutier was responsible for the third and fourth redactions of the Gesta consulum, and, while he incorporated the De majoratu et senescalcia Franciae into those redactions, he did not utilise the Alençon fragment (cf. Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou, xxxvi–xxxvii, xliii, lxxi–lxxvi). That John did not incorporate the Alençon fragment into his redaction of the Gesta consulum suggests that he had not, in fact, seen it, for John was eager to add such juicy descriptions to both the Gesta and the Historia.

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the peculiar nature of the Historia Gaufridi caused it to go far beyond a simple glorification of the count’s deeds. In one of the most famous episodes of the text, Count Geoffrey falls in with a rustic, who, not recognizing the count, proceeds to indict the comital officials for corruption and abuse. The message of this clearly didactic episode is that a good count, such as Geoffrey, will rule wisely and fairly and will force his men (here ministri, but perhaps meant also to imply castellans) to comply with his judgments and lordship. While suggesting that the count ought to pay attention to the ordinary people of his county, the story also serves to reinforce the notion that a good count commands complete obedience from all of the potentes of his county. In a more straightforward fashion, the Historia Gaufridi’s treatment of Count Geoffrey’s wars serves further to accentuate the value of comital lordship and to condemn baronial opposition to that lordship. Hence, in the Historia, Geoffrey le Bel mounts major military operations against a number of rebel barons, including several of the men (or their sons) who appear in the Alençon fragment: Geoffrey attacks the rebels Guy of Laval,79 Peloquin of L’Île-Bouchard,80 Lisiard of Sablé and his son Robert,81 Girard-Bellay of Montreuil-Bellay,82 and Sulpice II, son of Hugh of Amboise.83 The case of Robert of Sablé is particularly instructive. John of Marmoutier’s narrative condemns Robert’s rebellion in harsh terms for a number of reaons, including the fact that he and Count Geoffrey had been raised together and were familiares. One of the purposes of the Historia Gaufridi, therefore, was to promote comital lordship and condemn baronial opposition. As has been mentioned already, moreover, there are clear links between the Historia and the Gesta Consulum, even, perhaps, the fragment concerning Alençon. John of Marmoutier, the author of the Historia, was also the author of the third redaction of the Gesta. He thus knew the Gesta material intimately, and his ideas and beliefs concerning the ubiquity and necessity of comital lordship clearly run in both works. There is even a slight possibility that either John borrowed from the Alençon fragment (or vice versa), since one of the fundamental misapprehensions of the Alençon fragment of the Gesta – namely the impossible joint appearance of Counts Stephen, Theobald and William in Henry I’s army – makes a return appearance in John’s Historia. It will be recalled that ‘Count William of Flanders’ was neither count of Flanders in 1118 nor, at this time, an ally of Henry I; in fact, he was a bitter enemy of his uncle. Yet in one of the wonderfully epic early passages of the Historia, John has Count Geoffrey ride to Mont-Saint-Michel to take part in a tournament to be fought between Normans and Bretons. On the Norman side are found the powerful counts Stephen of Mortain, Theobald of Blois and William of Flanders. Despite being invited by the Normans, Geoffrey naturally elects to fight for the underdog, whose side he leads to victory.84 It is striking that John of Marmoutier groups the same three men – Stephen, Theobald, and William Clito – on the Norman side as does the Alençon fragment, and that both texts have an Angevin count humiliate the three comital nephews of Henry I in combat. This story, then, suggests some 79 80 81 82

Historia Gaufridi, 202. Ibid., 205–6. Ibid., 206–7. Ibid., 215–16. In the course of this war (1151), Geoffrey also assaulted Doué, which was held by André of Doué; I have been unable to find a link between this André and the Geoffrey of Doué mentioned in the Alençon fragment. 83 Ibid., 209–10. It should be noted, however, that the Historia Gaufridi only describes Hugh of Amboise (father of Sulpice) in favorable terms, as a friend and fellow-crusader of Geoffrey’s father, Count Fulk V. 84 Historia Gaufridi, 182ff.

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degree of shared material and a shared ideological outlook between the two texts, which itself suggests that the Gesta fragment may be seen as part of an Angevin set of writings designed to celebrate comital authority. The other text produced in the 1150s to which the Alençon fragment’s message might usefully be compared is the notorious De majoratu et senescalcia Franciae of Hugh of Clefs.85 This work was composed by a faithful aristocratic supporter of the Angevin dynasty, a man whose family had been seneschals of the comital castle of La Flèche on the borders of Maine and Anjou, and a man who appeared in the entourage of both Fulk V and Geoffrey le Bel.86 The De majoratu argued that Henry II, as count of Anjou, ought in the present (c.1158) to be seneschal of France. Hugh supported this claim through a tendentious, and largely fictional, account of a tenth-century scenario in which King Robert the Pious rewarded Count Geoffrey Greymantle of Anjou with the seneschalship (and with overlordship in Maine) in return for Geoffrey’s help in crushing a fictional rebel, Count David of Maine. There are links to the Gesta fragment on Alençon both in the location of its production and in its message. For one, the De majoratu states explicitly that Hugh of Clefs discovered the tale of King Robert’s gift in a particular ‘writing of Count Fulk Nerra of Anjou’, which had been deposited in the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Loches (in the Touraine).87 While few modern authors treat this seriously, it is nonetheless striking that Hugh claims authority for a text designed to promote Angevin comital rights from a second text located in, and perhaps produced in, the Touraine. Here the Touraine appears as a center for the production of texts designed to promote Angevin comital power, despite, of course, its long tradition as a center of baronial resistance to that power. Second, Hugh’s message, that Count David’s arrogant rebellion against his lord must be crushed by lawful comital power,88 stands up well to the Alençon fragment’s message of universal baronial fidelity to the count. The two texts, produced at about the same time in about the same place, thus share a coherent vision of Angevin comital authority. The last way by which the contemporary context in which the Alençon fragment was produced may have come to influence the shape and details of the text itself can be seen by comparing the names and events of the known rebels against King Henry II during the period 1155–1173 with the participants in the Gesta fragment. The rebellion of 1173 against Henry II, in particular, offers some potentially striking congruity with the Alençon fragment. It is significant that in the west of France the rebellion was centered in Maine and the southern Touraine.89 In Maine, the rebels against comital power in 1173 included members of the families of Sablé, Sillé, and Mayenne; these were all the same baronies whose lords supported Count Fulk so prominently in the Alençon fragment.90 Similarly, just as almost no representatives

85 Hugh of Clefs, De majoratu et senescalcia Franciae, in Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou, 239–46. 86 For Hugh of Clefs in the Angevin comital entourage, see Chartrou, L’Anjou, 296, 300, p.j. nos 28

(1113–26), 55 (1129–44), 63 (1144–50) and 64 (1145–50). 87 De majoratu, 241–2. 88 Ibid., 241: King Robert and Count Geoffrey are shocked by the ‘arrogantiam et indignationem’ of the

rebel count. 89 While Boussard, Le gouvernement, 477–8, argued for a fairly circumscribed revolt, Vincent Moss,

‘The Defence of Normandy 1193–8’, ANS 24, 2001 (2002), 145–63, and Nicholas Vincent, ‘Les Normands de l’entourage d’Henri II Plantagenêt’, in La Normandie et l’Angleterre au Moyen Age, ed. P. Bouet and V. Gazeau, Caen 2003, 75–89, demonstrate that it was widespread. My thanks to Vince Moss for these citations. 90 Boussard, Le gouvernement, 478 n. 2. It should also be noted that Maurice II of Craon (whose ancestor appears in 1118) was the sole prominent baron of Maine to support King Henry in 1173.

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from the major baronies of Anjou proper are to be found in Fulk’s forces in 1118 (only the lesser castellanies of Matefelon, Chemillé, and Candé), so too only three minor lords of Anjou are cited among the rebels of 1173. Finally, just as the bulk of Fulk’s forces in 1118 are represented by the lords of the powerful, and mostly independent, seigneuries of the Saumurois and the Touraine, so too the rebels of 1173 have a strong base in the Touraine: the rebels against Henry II included Hugh and William of Sainte-Maure, Peter of Preuilly, and Jacquelin of Maillé.91 If one sees the Alençon fragment as a narrative composed between 1155 and 1173 expressly to promote baronial fidelity towards a lawful count, then it is significant that the ancestors of so many rebels of 1173 show up as faithful comital men in 1118. In several instances, moreover, the author of the Gesta fragment seems to supply the (incorrect) names of participants in 1118 from the names of known rebels against comital authority between 1155 and 1173 (see Table 2). Indeed, in a striking number of cases, the incorrect name which he supplies for the lord of 1118 turns out to be the active lord of that barony during the period 1155–1173. Hence, the Gesta fragment scribe calls the lord of Preuilly ‘Peter’ in 1118, when it should have been Eschivardus. Yet the lord of Preuilly who rebelled in 1173 was, in fact, Peter.92 In the case of Chemillé, the Gesta fragment scribe calls this lord ‘Peter’ when it should have been Galvanus/Gawain; and yet by the 1170s and 1180s, a Peter had become lord of Chemillé.93 Furthermore, although the Gesta fragment clearly errs in having Josselin of Sainte-Maure and his two brothers fight for Count Fulk in 1118 (the lord of Sainte-Maure was, in fact, Hugh), it is significant that the brothers Hugh, Josselin and William of Sainte-Maure all rebelled against Henry II in 1173.94 Finally, there is a similar kind of inverse nominal relationship in the case of Sillé: the Gesta’s incorrect placement of Robert of Sillé at Alençon (instead of the true lord, William) looks very much like a projection and commentary upon the actions of that Robert of Sillé who caused much trouble to Henry II in Anjou, Poitou and the Touraine between 1168 and 1173. 95 This circumstantial point must not be pushed further than the evidence will bear. One cannot conclude that the evidence of the Gesta fragment is entirely constructed and hence untrustworthy merely because similar patterns of names may be found in texts written in the 1150s and 1170s. After all, naming patterns in the French aristocracy tended to value the perpetuation of common praenomina, and hence the same names tend to be repeated in alternating generations. In this way, because Maurice was the name of two real lords of Craon between 1102–1117 and between c.1150–1196, the scribe of the Alençon fragment might be excused his assumption that a Maurice was also lord of Craon in 1118.96 And as ‘Guy’ was the primary Leitname of the lords of Laval, and the name held by all lords of Laval from c.1080 through 1185, the author of the Gesta fragment might also be excused his belief that the lord of Laval who allegedly fought at Alençon in 1118 was also named Guy.97 In 91 For the Angevins, see ibid., 478 n. 3; for the Tourangeaux, ibid., 478 n. 4. Among the major lords of

this region only John, count of Vendôme supported Henry II in 1173 (ibid., 479). Boussard, Le comté d’Anjou, 53 nn. 3–4. Boussard, Le comté d’Anjou, 32 n. 10. Boussard, Le gouvernement, 478 n. 4. Torigni, s.a. 1173. Robert of Sillé and his brother Hugh (the dominus of Sillé) rebelled in 1168 (Torigni, s.a. 1168). Robert was captured in battle by William Malet in 1169 (ibid., s.a. 1169). Hugh of Sillé appears as a rebel in 1173: Boussard, Le gouvernement, 478 n. 2. 96 Bertrand de Broussillon, La Maison de Craon, i, 53–98. 97 Bertrand de Broussillon, La Maison de Laval, i, passim; and Daniel Pichot, ‘La seigneurie de Laval aux XIe et XIIe siècles’, La Mayenne. Archéologie, Histoire 17, 1994, 5–22. 92 93 94 95

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Table 2 Comparison of names of the Angevin barons incorrectly cited in the Gesta with actual lords in 1118 and after 1165 Name of lordship

Name(s) given in Gesta fragment

Actual lord in 1118

Actual lord(s) after 1165

Amboise Chemillé Craon Laval

Hugh Peter Maurice Guy

Hugh II (1160) Peter Maurice II (1173)

Mayenne

Walter and Juhel

Hugh I or Sulpice II Galvanus Hugh Hugh (guardian of Guy IV) Hamelin (d. 1118-20)

Montreuil

Bellay

Giraldus son of Bellay

Preuilly Sainte-Maure

Peter Josselin and bros.

Eschivard Hugh junior

>Sillé=

Robert

William II

Guy V Geoffrey II (d.1168), Juhel II (1168–1220) Bellay son of Giraldus (post 1157) Peter (1175) the brothers Hugh, William, Josselin (1173) William III with brothers Robert and Hugh

these cases (and others), it might appear as if the congruity of incorrect names found in the Alençon fragment with the names of actual lords from the period c.1165–1175 is due merely to the sloppy, but natural, assumptions of the scribe. While granting this possibility, it nevertheless seems equally probable that the Gesta fragment’s scribe was consciously creating a narrative of good Angevin lordship in his account of Alençon by placing together under the happy martial lordship of Count Fulk precisely those Angevin (and Manceaux) lords who were most troublesome to Angevin rule during his own day.98 What, then, may be said about the Battle of Alençon and about its chief, if extremely problematic, source, the fragment found in the Gesta consulum andegavorum? First, as should be obvious by this point, we must admit that we know a lot less about what actually occurred at Alençon in 1118 than has previously been assumed. Tantalised by the wealth of detail in the Gesta’s account, scholars have been too ready to overlook the serious flaws that mar the veracity of this text. The combination of prosopographical and political errors that riddle this text prevent us from using it to explain the actual events of 1118. This is not to say that the text is useless, but it is to argue that it cannot be used as a reliable source for the events, participants and tactics of the battle. This means that we are left merely with Orderic’s rather unforthcoming account: Stephen and Theobald rushed ahead of the main royal forces and Count Fulk inflicted a stinging defeat on them. Second, following the example of Neil Wright and Nick Paul, we need to examine more closely the authorial intentions and current political contexts which so clearly shaped the process by which the Alençon fragment was created. Indeed, what is perhaps most impressive about the fragment is how easily it can fill several hermeneutic categories at the same time. It can certainly be read as history, albeit as a largely constructed history. After all, it re-tells the story of an actual event and, given its broad similarity with Orderic’s account, it must have been based on some nugget 98 Cf. Bennett, ‘Poetry as History?’, 28–35.

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– however small – of earlier reporting, whether oral or written. It can also be read as an analogue, in some ways, to epic. Count Fulk’s prowess in slicing his enemies in half is an obvious case in point.99 And finally, and perhaps primarily, it can be read as a didactic piece, designed to accompany a set of other narratives produced in about the same time and place in hinting at how things ought to be in the present through a creative manipulation of how things were in the past. The ultimate beneficiary of this program was Henry II. Just as Hugh of Clefs used his De majoratu to produce a highly inventive and ahistorical narrative supporting Angevin claims to the seneschalcy of France and to overlordship in Maine, so too the anonymous author of the Alençon fragment aimed to reveal to the barons of Anjou how comital lordship ought to operate and how they ought to respond to it. Thus, despite its doubtful utility as a source for the history of the participants and tactics of the battle of Alençon, the Gesta fragment remains an imagined battle narative of remarkable complexity and sophistication, one that offers several simultaneous layers of meaning to its readers. Offering a powerful model of fraternal chivalry, a plausible depiction of twelfth-century armies and tactics, and a reminder of the importance of honor and reputation to aristocratic society, the fragment ought to figure more prominently than it does as an exemplar both of twelfth-century images of warfare and of aristocratic mentalities. And yet it also needs to be understood, alongside the Historia Gaufridi and the De majoratu, as part of a conscious and concerted effort to create rhetorically precisely that kind of strong comital lordship that was so evidently absent from the real world of 1118, and which was in question in the period 1165–1173. The Alençon fragment’s problematic lists of participants may thus be read as a catalogue of those areas over which the Angevin count (and Angevin king) claimed lordship and, therefore, as a reminder to the lords of the same areas of their debts of fidelity to the count/king. In this sense, although putatively about battle, the text is really about lordship. Fulk’s rallying speech to his assembled barons, in which he reminds them that he is their ‘brother, lord and master’, is thus the rhetorical and didactic key of the whole account. The truth of Fulk’s claim was borne out in the Alençon fragment’s carefully crafted narrative by Fulk’s triumphant and divinely sanctioned victory over Henry I. Readers in the 1170s, particularly those living in the rebellious Touraine, where the fragment was most likely produced, could not but have been struck by the force of this message. University of North Carolina, Greensboro

99 Gesta consulum, 159.

Anglo-French Peace Confer ences

ANGLO-FRENCH PEACE CONFERENCES IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY* J. E. M. Benham Few historical problems have received so much attention among those studying the modern period and so little attention among medieval scholars as that of peacemaking.1 Searching the shelves of any university library it soon becomes evident that the issue of peacemaking has been tackled from many angles in the modern period, so that, for instance, the 1919 conference of Paris intended to settle the unresolved issues of the First World War has seen studies from the vantage point of almost every individual nation represented on that occasion.2 Yet a similar search of the literature for the medieval period yields little on the subject of peacemaking.3 War, by contrast, carries an extensive literature for the medieval period, ranging from the detailed study of battles, foot soldiers, tactics and strategy by Verbruggen to studies of weapons, castles, the chivalric code or even the laws of war in the later Middle Ages.4 This lack of secondary literature on the subject of peacemaking was highlighted in 1998 by Professor Christopher Holdsworth in an article entitled ‘Peacemaking in the Twelfth Century’ published in Anglo-Norman Studies 14, 1996 (1997). In his article Holdsworth investigated the practices surrounding the making of peace in agreements concluded during the reigns of Henry I and Henry II, and showed that they all had certain themes in common: envoys and mediators, hostages, and the * I would like to thank Professor Nicholas Vincent, Dr Stephen Church, Dr Robert Liddiard and Dr Elisabeth van Houts for all their helpful comments and suggestions on the earlier drafts of this paper. 1 The exception is, of course, the vast literature on the Peace and Truce of God movements. See for example The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response in France around the Year 1000, ed. Thomas Head and Richard Landes, London 1992; Michel de Bouard, ‘Sur les origines de la Trève de Dieu en Normandie’, Annales de Normandie 9, 1959, 169–89; Jane Martindale, ‘Peace and War in Early Eleventh-Century Aquitaine’, in Medieval Knighthood IV: Papers from the Fifth Strawberry Hill Conference 1990, ed. Christopher Harper-Bill and Ruth Harvey, Woodbridge 1992, 147–76; T. Bisson, ‘The Organized Peace in Southern France and Catalonia, ca. 1140 – ca. 1233’, American Historical Review 82, 1977, 290–311. 2 See for example The Paris Peace Conference, 1919: Peace without Victory?, ed. Michael Dockrill and John Fisher, Basingstoke 2001; The Treaty of Versailles – A Reassessment after 75 Years, ed. Manfred F. Boemeke, Gerald D. Feldman and Elisabeth Glaser, Cambridge 1998; Francis Deák, Hungary at the Paris Peace Conference, New York 1972; Alma Maria Luckau, The German Delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, New York 1971; Démétrios Kitsikés, Propagande et pressions en politique internationale: la Grèce et ses revendications à la Conférence de la Paix, Paris 1963; A. Walworth, Wilson and his Peacemakers: American Diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, New York 1991. 3 François-L. Ganshof, Le Moyen Age. Histoire des relations internationale, Paris 1953, provides a broad setting to the topic of peacemaking. Ganshof’s work is available in English as The Middle Ages: A History of International Relations, trans. R.I. Hall, London 1970. For peacemaking in the early medieval period see Paul Kershaw, ‘Rex Pacificus: Studies in Royal Peacemaking and the Image of the Peacemaking King’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London 1999. 4 See for example J.F. Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, from the Eighth Century to 1340, 2nd edn, Woodbridge 1997; M.H. Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages, London 1965; Philippe Contamine, La guerre au moyen âge, Paris 1980.

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provisions made for keeping the terms agreed. It is, however, one feature of peacemaking that received little attention by Holdsworth that will be the focus of this discussion; namely peace conferences, and more specifically, the sites of the face-to-face, personal encounters. In 1202 King John, as count of Aquitaine and Anjou, was summoned by King Philip Augustus to his court at Paris to submit to its judgement, answer for his wrongs and comply with the law, as determined by his peers.5 In reply to this, King John is said to have answered that, as duke of Normandy, he was not obliged to attend a court in Paris, but only had to confer with the king of the French on the boundary between the kingdom and his duchy (inter utrosque fines).6 According to the chronicler who recorded this exchange of opinions, John furthermore claimed that this arrangement had been agreed in ancient times and confirmed in genuine documents.7 No documents survive today that prove incontrovertibly that the Norman dukes met with the French kings on the border between their respective territories, but it is clear that King John had strong precedents for such a claim, even if a document confirming this had never existed. Indeed it is clear that the dukes of the Normans and the kings of the French had a traditional meeting place on the border. According to the chronicler known to modern historians as ‘Benedict’, but in reality Roger of Howden, Philip Augustus in 1188 in a fit of rage and frustration chopped down the elmtree (ulmum) ‘inter Gisortium et Trie, ubi colloquia haberi solebant inter reges Francie et duces Normannie’.8 This is only one of a handful of references to this particular elm tree among the sources.9 Though the elm tree is not frequently mentioned in the sources, meetings between Gisors and Trie are. At least six conferences can thus be seen to have taken place at or near this elm tree. The first of the meetings recorded as having taken place here can be found in 1167, and another was recorded under the year 1173 when Louis VII tried to mediate between Henry II and his rebellious sons.10 In 1183 the question of Margaret’s dower was settled at the same spot, in response to the death of her husband, Henry the Young King.11 In January 1188, when Henry II met with Philip Augustus at the elm tree, the French king renewed his claim to the castle of Gisors and insisted on the marriage between his half-sister, Alice, and Richard, count of Poitou.12 Later that same year, King Philip decided to chop the tree down in a dramatic display of erasing the spot where peace had been concluded in the past.13 Despite this dramatic disappearance of the tree, the Norman barons seem to have met with Philip, upon his return from the third crusade in late 1191, at that same traditional meeting place.14 Apart from these meetings, there are other meeting places mentioned that may indicate that the French king and the Norman duke negotiated and made peace at or near the elm tree. In Roger of Howden’s entry describing the elm’s destruction, the

5 6 7 8 9

Radulphi de Coggeshall. Chronicon Anglicanum, ed. Joseph Stevenson, RS 66, London 1875, 135–6. Chronicon Anglicanum, 136. Chronicon Anglicanum, 136. Howden, Gesta Regis ii, 47; Howden, Chronica ii, 345. Howden, Gesta Regis ii, 47; Howden, Chronica ii, 345; Diceto ii, 55; History of William Marshal, ed. A.J. Holden and S. Gregory, London 2002, 394–5, lines 7765–78; Chronique Française des Rois de France par un anonyme de Béthune, in RHF xxiv, pt 2, 756. 10 The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, 2 vols, ed. W. Stubbs, RS, London 1879–80, i, 204; Howden, Gesta Regis i, 59–60; Howden, Chronica ii, 53–4. 11 Howden, Gesta Regis i, 304–5; Howden, Chronica ii, 280–1. 12 Howden, Gesta Regis, ii, 29–30; Howden, Chronica ii 334–5; Diceto ii, 51. 13 Howden, Gesta Regis ii, 47; Howden, Chronica ii, 345; Diceto ii, 55. 14 Howden, Gesta Regis ii, 236; Howden, Chronica iii, 167.

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conference held between Philip and Henry was initially referred to as taking place at Gisors.15 There were several other parleys supposedly held at Gisors. The first of these meetings was recorded as having taken place as early as 965, when King Lothar of the west Franks made an alliance with Duke Richard I near Gisors.16 Some hundred and forty years later, in 1113, Henry I met there with Louis ‘the Fat’.17 During Henry II’s reign at least seven meetings were recorded as having taken place at Gisors. The first of these took place between Henry and Louis VII in 1158, when the arrangements concerning Henry the Young King’s marriage to Louis’ daughter were discussed.18 During the 1160s three meetings took place near the town: in 1161, 1164, and 1168.19 In September 1173, one of two attempts to mediate between Henry II and his sons was also made near that same place.20 Only two years later, another conference took place there between Henry II and Louis VII, and in 1180, the so-called treaty of Ivry of 1177 was renewed at Gisors, as was also the alliance between Henry II and the count of Flanders.21 Next year King Henry used this particular meeting place again when he acted as a mediator between Philip Augustus and the count of Flanders.22 It is not very likely that these negotiations for peace actually took place at Gisors itself, the ownership of which had been fiercely disputed throughout the twelfth century.23 A meeting at this stronghold would surely have rubbed salt into wounds instead of providing the setting for negotiating agreements. Furthermore, an entry in the chronicle of Roger of Howden gives historians an insight into how some contemporary commentators recorded the places where conferences were held. In 1200 Philip Augustus and King John held a conference between Boutavant, castellum regis Anglie, and Goulet, castellum regis Francie.24 On the strength of this it is possible to suggest that when the English chroniclers stated that the French kings and the Norman dukes met at Gisors, they simply meant that this was a well-known fortress close to the place of the meeting. Thus a parley at Gisors could quite possibly have meant a meeting at the elmtree. This would make the total of known conferences at this elm around fourteen, in the twelfth century alone. There is another meeting place that seems to have been used regularly by the dukes of Normandy and the kings of France. Between 1181 and 1190, a place named by the chroniclers as ‘Vadum Sancti Remigii’ was associated with parleys at least five times. In 1181 and 1187 it was the setting for conferences between Henry II and Philip Augustus.25 In 1189, and twice in 1190, peace was made and confirmed in that

15 Howden, Gesta Regis ii, 47: ‘Deinde inter eos habito consilio apud Gisortium’. 16 De Moribus et Actibus Primorum Normannorum Ducum auctore Dudone Sancti Quintini decano, ed.

J. Lair, Caen 1865, 287. For a discussion of the dubious charter that refers to such a meeting at Gisors in 968 see Dudo, History of the Normans, trans. Eric Christiansen, Woodbridge 1998, 223, n. 450. 17 A. Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de sa vie et de son règne, Paris 1890, no. 158. 18 Continuatio Beccensis, in Howlett, Chronicles iv, 318–19. 19 Howden, Chronica i, 217; Torigni, 224, 231; Draco Normannicus, in Howlett, Chronicles ii, 677, lines 475–84. 20 Howden, Gesta Regis i, 59; Howden, Chronica ii, 53–4. 21 Howden, Gesta Regis i, 81, 246–7; Howden, Chronica ii, 71, 197. 22 Howden, Gesta Regis i, 277, 353; Howden, Chronica ii, 314–15. Howden also mentions a conference near Gisors between some papal legates and Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1167: Howden, Chronica i, 280. 23 L. Landon, The Itinerary of King Richard I, Pipe Roll Society, new series 13, London 1935, 219–34; Suger, Vie de Louis VI le Gros, ed. H. Waquet, Paris 1964, 103 (in English as The Deeds of Louis the Fat, trans. R. Cusimano and J. Moorhead, Washington 1992, 71). 24 Howden, Chronica iv, 114–15. 25 Howden, Gesta Regis i, 272; ibid. ii, 5; Howden, Chronica ii, 255, 317.

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same place between Richard I and Philip Augustus.26 Modern historians have often used the direct French translation ‘Gué St Remy’, without indicating that this is not only the name of a place, but also of a crossing point on the river Avre.27 The ford seems to have been near the Norman castle of Nonancourt.28 This should again alert historians to the fact that some colloquia said to have taken place at Nonancourt most probably did not, but instead took place at the ford. On the strength of this the number of meetings at this ford would total seven in the reigns of Henry II and Richard I. The fact that the elm tree and the ford of St Remigius served as two of the traditional meeting places between the dukes of the Normans and the kings of the French is of immense importance, because it highlights a problem in medieval history that has been much debated among modern historians: borders. It is, furthermore, a topic that is of vital importance for how historians view the relationship between the Norman duke and the French king and our views on both of these problems have an impact on how we think these two rulers made peace. The problem of borders has usually been tackled from two angles, answering the question whether historians should demarcate the political borders of medieval Europe in a linear fashion or as so-called ‘marches’? It is not my intention here to discuss the topic in the fullness it deserves, but merely to draw out the main principles from each side of the argument. There has been a tendency among historians to mark out the boundaries of medieval Europe chiefly through rivers and mountain ranges to create clear territorial units that most often contained a homogeneous population with similar religious beliefs, customs and laws.29 Historical geographers like W. Gordon East and Xavier de Planhol and historians such as Timothy Reuter have commented that the division of Verdun in 843, for example, saw, in geographical terms, the emergence of France and, to a limited degree, also the emergence of Germany.30 The division at Verdun set west Frankia within four rivers: the Escaut, the Meuse, the Saône, and the Rhône.31 In the east and north-east this was roughly the border that continued to separate France from the Empire until the sixteenth century.32 Similarly, the duchy of Normandy, as one of the earliest principalities to be formed out of the crumbling Carolingian empire, has often been seen as being contained within the distinctive lines formed by the rivers Epte, Eure and Avre.33 Several historians and historical geographers have commented on how these medieval political boundaries often followed much older demarcations.34 Charlemagne’s division of his empire into 26 27 28 29

Howden, Gesta Regis ii, 104–5; Howden, Chronica iii, 30. Howden, Gesta Regis i, 272; ibid. ii, 5, 104–5; Howden, Chronica iii, 30, n. 1; ibid. ii, 255. Howden, Gesta Regis i, 272; ibid. ii, 5. F.M. Powicke, The Loss of Normandy, 2nd edn, Manchester 1960, 184–5; N.J.G. Pounds, An Historical Geography of Europe, 450 B.C. – A.D. 1330, Cambridge 1973, 173; P. Fouracre, ‘Space, Culture and Kingdoms in Early Medieval Europe’, in The Medieval World, ed. Peter Linehan and Janet L. Nelson, London 2001, 366; J.-F. Lemarignier, Recherches sur l’hommage en marches et les frontières féodales, Lille 1945, 9–33. 30 W. Gordon East, An Historical Geography of Europe, London 1962, 230; X. de Planhol and P. Claval, An Historical Geography of France, trans. J. Lloyd, Cambridge 1988, 90–1; T. Reuter, ‘The Making of England and Germany, 850–1050: Points of Comparison and Difference’, in Medieval Europeans, ed. Alfred P. Smyth, Basingstoke 1998, 55; D. Matthew, Atlas of Medieval Europe, Oxford 1983, 73. Paul Fouracre, on the other hand, traces this emergence to late antiquity and the period between the fall of Rome and Verdun: Fouracre, ‘Space, Culture and Kingdoms’, 366. 31 Planhol and Claval, An Historical Geography, 90–1. 32 Planhol and Claval, An Historical Geography, 108. 33 Powicke, The Loss of Normandy, 184–5. 34 East, An Historical Geography, 155; Pounds An Historical Geography, 173; Fouracre, ‘Space, Culture and Kingdoms’, 366.

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some 300 pagi recognised in large measure the original pagi of Celtic and Roman Gaul, the equivalent in the German lands beyond the Rhine being the Gaue, many of which became the counties and duchies of a later period.35 Despite this, it is not at all clear that medieval men and women had this very neat concept of territorial units and their borders. Historians have increasingly tended to criticise descriptions of medieval territorial units enclosed by linear borders so that Jean-François Lemarignier’s epoch-making study Recherches sur l’hommage en marche et les frontières féodales, published in 1945, has provided a constant source for dispute. Lemarignier concluded that the duchy of Normandy had a homogeneous population enclosed by definite legal and administrative boundaries, roughly equivalent to the rivers Epte, Eure and Avre, comparable to that of a ‘state’.36 However, Timothy Reuter has rightly pointed out that though historians often speak of medieval kingdoms and duchies as states, to refer to France or even Normandy is a convenience and a far cry from the fully formed modern European nation states.37 Though descriptions such as Francia or Normannia often appear in contemporary narrative sources, it is surely significant that medieval princes, until the thirteenth century, did not usually in charters and treaties define themselves as rulers of specific territories, but as rulers of people.38 Thus Philip Augustus was not king of France, but king of the French, ‘rex Francorum’, and Henry II was not king of England and duke of Normandy, but king of the English and duke of the Normans, ‘rex Anglorum et dux Normannorum’.39 One of Lemarignier’s most recent critics, Daniel Power, has conclusively shown the difficulty in trying to locate the boundary of Normandy along the rivers of Epte, Eure and Avre, when both the Norman duke and the French king laid claim to and held patronage on both sides of this dividing line.40 Power and others, including Léopold Génicot and Michel Bur, two pioneers in the now blossoming genre of frontier studies, have focussed their research on describing borders not in terms of lines, but in terms of zones. Within these zones, rights and possessions resulting from marriage, inheritance, purchase and contracts blended, and the ‘frontier’ itself remained blurred and difficult to map on account of repeated alterations of individual details.41 Daniel Power has, for instance, noted how the waterways running through and surrounding Normandy subjected different parts of the duchy to contradictory influences from England, the Ile-de-France and Anjou.42 Thus the aristocracy living near the duchy’s borders often had more in common with their immediate neigh-

35 36 37 38 39

East, An Historical Geography, 155; Pounds, An Historical Geography, 173. Lemarignier, Recherches sur l’hommage, 9–33. T. Reuter, ‘The Making of England and Germany’, 53–4. Planhol and Claval, An Historical Geography, 95. Recueil des actes de Philippe Auguste, 4 vols, ed. H.F. Delaborde, Paris 1916–79, i, no. 7; Howden, Gesta Regis i, 247. 40 D.J. Power, ‘What did the Frontier of Angevin Normandy Comprise?’, ANS 17, 1994 (1995), 181–201; D.J. Power, ‘King John and the Norman Aristocracy’, in King John: New interpretations, ed. S.D. Church, Woodbridge 1999, 117–36. 41 Power, ‘What did the Frontier’, 184; M. Bur, ‘Recherches sur la frontière dans la région mosane aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles’, Actes du 103e Congrès National des Sociétés Savantes: Principautés et territoires et études d’histoire Lorraine, Paris 1979, 143; L. Génicot, ‘La ligne et zone: la frontière des principautés médiévales’, in Études sur les principautés lotharingiennes, Louvain 1975, 172–85; M. Bur, ‘La frontière entre la Champagne et la Lorraine du milieu du Xe siècle à la fin du XIIe siècle’, Francia 4, 1976, 237–54; Marc Suttor, ‘Le fleuve, un enjeu politique et juridique. Le cas de la Meuse, du Xe au XVIe siècle’, Médiévales 36, 1999, 71–80. 42 Power, ‘King John’, 120.

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bours on the ‘other side’ than with the inhabitants of central Normandy.43 In a period when kings and dukes were rulers of people and not territorial units, this ‘disunity’ is of crucial importance. Though Power recognises that the survival of Norman identity, a ‘gens Normannorum’, into the twelfth century can be seen in instances like the provincial tournament teams described by the author of the Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal, it is clear that in everyday practicality, religious endowments and patronage crossed those rivers that might be seen as the natural boundaries of the duchy.44 These different influences created divided loyalties among the aristocracies of these marches, and it was these loyalties and customs that were regulated in many twelfth-century treaties. For example, the 1195 peace between Richard I and Philip Augustus does not attempt to set down a record of the political border between the respective territories of the two kings, despite the fact that King Philip had, during Richard’s captivity in the Empire, captured several strongholds and thus altered the traditional border.45 Instead, the treaty shows a great concern with unravelling and determining the loyalty and adherence of certain ‘marcher lords’, such as Hugh de Gournai, and certain ‘marcher castles’, among them Pacy, Vernon, and Vaudreuil.46 In all of this linear borders seem neither vitally important nor particularly useful. Lemarignier’s study has influenced two generations of historians and despite some flaws, his definition of a border as something that keeps a well-governed and homogeneous population separate from their neighbours is an idea that has been accepted even among his fiercest critics. Whereas Power argued that Lemarignier’s idea was flawed because the well-defined boundaries of the duchy did not prevent cultural or political influences from Normandy’s neighbours dividing the so called Gens Normannorum, others, such as Robert Helmerichs, have concluded that the duchy had no clearly defined boundaries because the many rivers of the duchy, instead of forming barriers to entry, served as pathways, making it difficult to stop foreign invaders from entering the principality.47 Helmerichs’ and Power’s arguments have also been echoed by Michelle Warren who has commented that ‘topography does not . . . provide stable grounds for difference’.48 But no one claims or has claimed that a border or a boundary has to be impregnable. It is perhaps desirable but it is not a prerequisite. It is arguable that too many historians equate boundaries with barriers. All these historians, including Lemarignier, despite their different theories about frontiers, share the same erroneous starting point, a wish to decide firmly whether or not the divisions between the territorial units of medieval Europe should be referred to as ‘marches’ or borders. Yet this is almost certainly too rigid, since it is quite possible that medieval people made no such distinction. This is where the evidence of meeting places for conferences can provide an important insight. The evidence of the elm tree and the ford of St Remigius clearly shows that meeting places were a statement by two princes that those two sites were regarded as forming part of the border at the time of meeting. These two rulers did not meet in the ‘march’ as claimed by Ganshof in his influential work on international relations.49 They met instead on border sites, just as King John is supposed to 43 44 45 46 47

Ibid. Power, ‘King John’, 120–1. Recueil des actes de Philippe Auguste ii, no. 517; Powicke, The Loss of Normandy, 184–5. Recueil des actes de Philippe Auguste ii, no. 517. R. Helmerichs, ‘ “Ad tutandos patriae fines”: The Defence of Normandy, 1135’, in The Normans and their Adversaries at War, ed. R.P. Abels and B.S. Bachrach, Woodbridge 2001, 138–9. 48 Michelle R. Warren, History on the Edge: Excalibur and the Borders of Britain, 1100–1300, Minneapolis 2000, 5. 49 Ganshof, The Middle Ages, 127.

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have claimed in 1202.50 Moreover conferences were not held in the ‘march’. They had to take place in locations that were not controlled by either party, and, as has so convincingly been argued by Daniel Power, ‘marches’ were places where lordship overlapped; as such they were not places ideally suited for meetings between rulers. The only solution to such a problem would surely have been to hold parleys on sites that acted as clearly recognisable borders. The border did not have to act as a barrier, it merely needed to be a recognisable feature agreed by two or more parties and there can be no doubt that such features were often along rivers. Thus when Diceto stated that the elm tree was rooted within the limits of France, the chronicler probably meant that it stood on the French side of the bank of the river Epte and not that the Norman duke met with the French king on royal territory. Most importantly, every parley between the duke of the Normans and the French kings at the elm or at the ford near Nonancourt was a mutual agreement that this was a site marking the border at that particular time. This line of argument can clearly be seen to hold true by tracing the places where meetings between the Norman dukes and the French kings took place between c.911, the traditional year of the initial land grant to Rollo, and 1204, when Normandy was conquered by King Philip Augustus.51 The first recorded meeting is that very famous conference between Rollo, leader of the Vikings, and the Carolingian king, Charles the Simple, which according to Dudo of St-Quentin took place at Saint-Clairsur-Epte in 911.52 As Dudo is the sole authority for this conference and his narrative has been shown to be somewhat unreliable and, in parts, even fictitious, it is possible, as Eric Christiansen believed, that he had invented it in anticipation of later meetings.53 That Saint-Clair-sur-Epte was a likely meeting place is, however, confirmed by the Norman charter evidence. A charter of Richard II for St Ouen at Rouen lists a number of estates allegedly given to that church by Rollo, the majority of which have been identified as lying within twelve miles of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte.54 Other charters confirm that the earliest possessions of the ducal house were in the neighbourhood of Rouen, and, more particularly in the region formed by the angle of the Seine and the Epte.55 This is precisely the district that the chronicler Flodoard and a 918 charter of Charles the Simple describe as being in the possession of Rollo and his companions.56 Furthermore, as Saint-Clair-sur-Epte was half-way along the old Roman road between Rouen and Paris, this location would fit into the pattern of other meeting places used by the Carolingian kings and their nobles, which often seem to have been at half-way marks between major residences.57 The evidence thus suggests that on this point of fact Dudo was probably right. The ford at Saint-Clair-sur-Epte was used for at least one other parley during the tenth century. In the 940s a meeting was arranged between the Normans and Hugh the Great to discuss the release of King Louis IV, who had been captured by the Normans.58 In return for the release of the 50 Chronicon Anglicanum, 135–6. 51 The initial grant was certainly made before the 918 charter of Charles the Simple that mentions the

Viking settlement. Recueil des actes de Charles III le simple, roi de France (893–923), ed. F. Lot and Ph. Lauer, Paris 1949, no. 92. 52 De Moribus, 168. 53 Dudo, History of the Normans, 195, n. 201. 54 D.C. Douglas, ‘The Rise of Normandy’, in Time and the Hour: Some Collected Papers of David C. Douglas, London 1977, 99. 55 Douglas, ‘The Rise of Normandy’, 99. 56 Flodoard, Annales, ed., Ph. Lauer, Paris 1905, 16; Recueil des actes de Charles III, no. 92. 57 The Annals of St Bertin, ed. Janet Nelson, Manchester 1991, 153. 58 De Moribus, 246–7.

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Map 1. Peace conferences c.911–c.1190 king, the Normans received, via their young leader, Richard I, the confirmation of their landholdings at another meeting on the Epte.59 Dudo does not state where on the river this last parley was held, but it is at least possible that it also took place at the ford at Saint-Clair.60 In 965 King Lothar made an alliance with the Norman Richard I, again on the Epte, though seemingly not at Saint-Clair but near Gisors, probably the first of its kind to take place near the elm tree.61 During the tenth century then, at least two sites on the river Epte were already well-known boundary marks between the territory of the French kings and that of the leaders of the Normans. 62 The chroniclers of the eleventh century have not provided historians with the details of where peace conferences were held between the French kings and the dukes of the Normans. In fact, it cannot be conclusively proven that a single conference took place in the eleventh century. The often-quoted meeting between William the Conqueror and King Philip I in 1079 when William attested a charter of the French king near the siege of Gerberoi, a place in the march but not along the traditional border, would be a meeting place that falls outside the pattern outlined here.63 It is important to note, however, that it is not this meeting place that is of importance but that of 1077 when peace was made between the two kings.64 Unfortunately,

59 De Moribus, 247. 60 De Moribus, 247. 61 De Moribus, 287. For discussion of the dubious charter that refers to such a meeting at Gisors in 968

see Dudo, History of the Normans, 223, n. 450. 62 Bates, Normandy before 1066, London 1982, 8. 63 Bates, Regesta, no. 28 64 ASC MS E, s.a. 1077.

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contemporaries did not divulge where this peace conference took place. Nonetheless, when, in the twelfth century, the evidence appears again, it follows exactly the same pattern of being on sites on rivers. In 1109 negotiations took place between Louis the Fat and Henry I on the river Epte near Neaufles, possibly at the bridge.65 Further negotiations, eventually leading to a peace, were conducted near Gisors in 1113. 66 Historians might expect that conferences held after 1193, during the reign of Richard I, would provide a break with this pattern, as Philip Augustus’ conquest of parts of Normandy during Richard’s captivity in the Empire in 1193 had altered the landholdings of the Norman duke and the French king and consequently also altered the traditional border.67 Between 1194 and 1199 the sites where parleys were held clearly follow a pattern consistent with the chronology of changing ownership of castles. Thus in June 1194 a conference took place between the intermediaries of both kings at Pont-de-l’Arche, at the junction of the rivers Eure and Seine. This meeting, intended to negotiate peace, was a smokescreen for Philip’s intention to lay siege to the castle of Fontaines, and so another meeting had to be set up for later that same month.68 The second meeting was held near Vaudreuil, a couple of miles south along the river Eure from Pont-de-l’Arche.69 This conference also failed and a third meeting was set up between Verneuil and Tillières on the river Avre.70 During 1195 conferences were held near Verneuil on the Avre, near Vaudreuil on the river Eure, and, between Issoudun and Charost on the Arnon in Berry.71 According to William of Newburgh, at the conference near Issoudun, the two kings met in the space between their two armies and verbally agreed a peace, which was formally concluded at or near Louviers in January 1196, a place that stands on the river Eure.72 In the following three years, at least three conferences were held on the river Seine. The first meeting, in 1197, took place between Gaillon and Les Andelys, where a truce was agreed.73 The second conference took place between Les Andelys and Vernon in 1199.74 It would seem that there was no bridge or ford between Les Andelys and Vernon, hence Richard attended the conference standing on a boat in the river, while Philip was seated on his horse on the riverbank.75 The places where peace conferences were held during the reign of Richard I are instructive. If it proved necessary, because land had been won and lost in conflict, meetings shifted from one easily recognisable feature in the landscape to another, i.e. from sites on the rivers Epte, Eure and Avre to sites on the rivers Eure and Seine. According to R.R. Davies boundaries were ‘shaped by men; and what they shape they may also choose to reshape’.76 Nowhere does this statement ring more true than in Normandy during the reign of Richard I. By agreeing to conferences being held near Pont-de-l’Arche and near Vaudreuil on the Eure in 1194, both Philip Augustus

65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

Suger, Vie de Louis VI, 99–113 (The Deeds of Louis the Fat, 69–75); Luchaire, Louis VI, no. 72. Orderic vi, 181. See the map in J. Gillingham, Richard I, New Haven and London 1999, 351. Howden, Chronica iii, 253. Howden, Chronica iii, 254. Howden, Chronica iii, 257. Howden, Chronica iii, 301–5; Newburgh ii, 456, 459, 461; Landon, Itinerary, 106–9. Newburgh ii, 461; Howden, Chronica iii, 305. Howden, Chronica iv, 21, 24. Howden, Chronica iv, 79. Ibid. R.R. Davies, The Age of Conquest: Wales 1063–1415, Oxford 1991, 4.

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Map 2. Peace conferences during the reign of Richard I and Richard I agreed that sites near these two places marked the border, despite the fact that neither location had ever done so in the past. The crucial point of all of this evidence is that the place of meeting, and only the place of meeting, was the agreed border. Just because princes met at several places on the same river that does not mean to say that the whole stretch of that river was regarded as the border. What historians must not do is to map these meeting places and then draw a solid line, as if to define the boundaries of medieval principalities. Although simple, this view of medieval borders does, if nothing else, have the advantage of reconciling ‘marches’ and clear boundaries. It would furthermore seem that a comparable view of borders could be found in Ancient Rome. According to Florence Dupont, following Ovid, boundary-stones that identified the owner often marked pieces of land or territories.77 The space immediately surrounding that boundarystone was regarded as a zone at which people had to perform rites of passage.78 Each year on 23 February, at the annual feast of the boundary-stones, owners of neighbouring fields would advance upon one another and hold a banquet together at the stone in order to cement trust and friendship.79 The similarity between this Roman friendship gathering to that of peace meetings between medieval rulers is remarkable. While it may seem strange to modern historians that just an elm tree or a ford,

77 F. Dupont, Daily Life in Ancient Rome, trans. C. Woodall, Oxford 1992, 83. 78 Dupont, Daily Life, 83. A comparison can also be made with Mubadele: an eighteenth-century formal

ceremony of exchange wherein a visiting ambassador and an Ottoman ambassador change place across the frontier. For this see Mubadele: An Ottoman-Russian Exchange of Ambassadors, trans. Norman Itzkowitz and Max Mole, Chicago 1970, 66–75, 115–17, 125–8, 200–3. 79 Dupont, Daily Life, 83.

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and not the whole stretch of the river, should have marked the border, this may not have been such a foreign concept to medieval rulers. There is a good reason why historians should ask whether medieval rulers met to make peace on the border or in the ‘marches’. The place of meeting tells us something important about the relationship between the two participants, and it, furthermore, determines what will happen next in the peace process, as each relationship comes with a different set of rites and rules of how to make peace. Conferences on river sites were to be preferred when two rulers, claiming equal status, feared a loss of face.80 Meetings on river sites imply equal status amongst the participants, whether perceived or real. This is very clearly shown in the sources, even though the best such example is not Anglo-Norman but Scandinavian. In his description of the meeting on the river Eider in 1171 between King Valdemar I of Denmark and Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony, Saxo Grammaticus noted that Duke Henry was careful to advance only halfway across the bridge ‘in case the man he was approaching should seem to rank higher than him’.81 Though Saxo scornfully commented that Henry’s conduct was insulting and arrogant, it is significant that the Danish king agreed to meet Henry half-way across the bridge, thereby acknowledging that the two were equals. Why Henry and Valdemar met as equals is open to debate. It could be because they were both vassals of the emperor, or because in terms of real power, if one imagines this to be something that can be measured in land and patronage, Duke Henry was as powerful as the king of the Danes.82 Saxo himself indeed hinted at the latter reason.83 What matters is not why, but the fact that Henry and Valdemar did meet as equals. This principle also holds true for the Norman dukes and the French kings. Where these two rulers met and made peace shows the reality of their relationship regardless of their perceived differences. During most of the twelfth century, the dukes of Normandy were also kings of England, and as such the equals of the kings of France. However, on the continent the kings of England did not hold any land by virtue of their royal dignity but merely as dukes of Normandy who were in theory the French kings’ inferiors.84 Despite this, it is clear that parleys between these two medieval rulers for the most part took place on border sites, just as King John claimed in 1202.85 Furthermore, this was a practice that predated the 1066 conquest of England, so that border meetings served as recognition of the de facto power of the dukes rather than of their de jure status as inferiors of the kings of France. William of Jumièges, following Dudo, in his account of the 911 meeting between the Viking leader Rollo and Charles the Simple, makes it clear that the two leaders treated each other as equals. According to William, neither of the two was prepared to cross the river, or to meet in the middle. To solve the problem, envoys were sent backwards and forwards until a peace had been concluded.86 What matters here is not whether this meeting took place in exactly the manner described, but that William, writing in the eleventh century, before the Conquest, thought that this was how two princes of equal status would have made peace. The theme of the involved parties lining up on 80 J.G. Russell, Peacemaking in the Renaissance, London 1986, 78. 81 Saxo Grammaticus, Danorum Regum Heroumque Historia, Books X–XVI (herafter Saxo, Danorum),

3 vols, ed. Eric Christiansen, Oxford 1981, ii, 544–5. 82 For Valdemar’s homage to the emperor see Ottonis et Rahewini Gesta Friderici I Imperatoris, ed.

G. Waitz, MGH SRG 46, Hanover 1884, Bk III, c. 25, p. 158; Saxo, Danorum iii, 866, n. 625. Saxo, Danorum ii, 544–5. G. Koziol, ‘Political Culture’, in France in the Middle Ages, ed. Marcus Bull, Oxford 2002, 44. Chronicon Anglicanum, 135–6. Jumièges, i, 52–5, 64–5, 82–5, 92–3.

83 84 85 86

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either side of the river and then sending envoys across to negotiate the peace is, furthermore, a recurring one in William of Jumièges’ account. Apart from this famous and much discussed meeting at St-Clair in 911, there were at least three other meetings before the dukes of Normandy became kings of England that took place at boundary marks on the river Epte in the tenth century.87 Thus, just as Henry the Lion in terms of ‘real power’ considered himself the equal of King Valdemar of Denmark, the dukes of Normandy may have been considered the equals of the kings of France. Again, as in the example of Henry and Valdemar, what matters is that the Norman dukes and the French kings met to make peace at specific places marking the border, and, that each time they met at those border sites they re-asserted their de facto equality. The places where medieval rulers met to confer not only show a wish to preserve the equality of status in terms of princely dignity or in terms of political authority, but also in terms of not being victor and vanquished. Clear examples of such meetings are the conferences between Richard I, Philip Augustus and/or their respective negotiators in 1194–96.88 It was noted earlier how during these years some of Normandy had been conquered by King Philip and consequently parleys could not be held on traditional sites. Yet, despite this, all conferences were held at places along rivers.89 The reason why they still met on river sites, albeit new ones, is surely to mark, not some equality of status, but that neither side had ‘won’ the war. This is perhaps further confirmed by the fact that negotiators conducted four out of five parleys that were held in Normandy between 1194 and 1196.90 Even more clear-cut, in 1199 Richard attended a conference standing on a boat in the river, while Philip was seated on his horse on the riverbank.91 Similarly, Suger noted of the 1109 meeting near Neaufles that the hosts of Henry I and Louis VI confronted each other stood on either side of the river, ‘at a spot where neither side could cross’. Mediators were then sent across an old, shaky bridge to hold discussions.92 There is also an English example of a parley taking place under very similar circumstances between King Stephen and Henry, duke of the Normans. Henry of Huntingdon recorded how, in 1153, Stephen and Henry talked about arranging a lasting peace, and stood on either side of a stream.93 Again, this seems to have been in order to make the clear statement that neither side had, as yet, ‘won’ the war. It is clear that medieval rulers met to negotiate and conclude peace at places that contained features that had been, and would continue to be, visible in the landscape for generations. The elm tree, for example, must have been a huge tree, two or three hundred years old, which could be seen from a long distance.94 Furthermore, elms were often deliberately planted on boundaries between estates during the medieval period.95 It is thus possible that the elm had marked the border and been used as a meeting place for a considerable time, possibly already during Carolingian times. It is likely that the use of trees as meeting places was quite common. The most famous 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94

De Moribus, 246–7, 287. Howden, Chronica iii, 253, 254, 257, 301, 302, 304, 305; ibid. iv, 3. Ibid. Howden, Chronica iii, 253, 254, 257, 304. Ibid. Suger, Vie de Louis VI, 104–9 (The Deeds of Louis the Fat, 72–4). Huntingdon, 766–7; The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury i, 154. Though the author of the Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal refers to the tree as being young when it was cut down. This may, however, reflect the age of the new tree sprouted from the old, chopped down elm tree, at the time the author was writing in the 1220s. History of William Marshal, 394–5, lines 7765–78. 95 Oliver Rackham, Ancient Woodland, London 1980, 266–7.

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example of this must surely be at the battle of Hastings, which was said by the D-redaction of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to have taken place ‘near the hoary apple tree’.96 Why make any mention of this tree unless it was a feature that the English knew well? Margaret Gelling has also noted how hundred courts often met at ash trees, the practice being recorded in names such as Broxash, or Broc’s ash tree, and Bremesesce, or Br«me’s ash tree.97 Both the elmtree and Gué St Remy were clearly chosen as meeting places because they were easily recognisable features in the landscape along particular rivers. Other recognisable features along rivers found as meeting places are, naturally, bridges and islands. Though these are by far the two most featured for meeting places in the rest of Europe, there are no contemporary records of the use of an island for an Anglo-French or Franco-Norman conference, and there are seemingly only two references to meetings on bridges. According to the narrative of Suger and Clarius’s Chronica Sancti Petri Vivi Senoniense, Henry I’s meeting with Louis VI in 1109 took place at a bridge.98 A second example might be found in Philip Augustus’ meeting with Richard I at Pont-de-l’Arche in 1194.99 As the name of the place suggests, there was a bridge there which may have provided the setting of that particular conference.100 Not only did bridges serve as meeting places for peace conferences, but they also seem to have been among the most common sites for battles in this period. A large number of European battles took place on or near bridges, but more rarely are they recorded as sites of battles between the French and English kings. The battle of Bouvines in 1214, which seems to have taken place near a bridge, may, however, provide one exception.101 According to Michelle Warren, the reason why so many battles took place on or near bridges was because inhabitants of bordering lands often sought control over both banks of a dividing river in order to enhance safety, a suggestion that has also been furthered by Nicholas Brooks.102 Their observations clearly have some substance since the most prominent feature in many accounts of such battles is that neither side was prepared to allow the other to cross. This is of course most famously narrated in one account of the Battle of Stamford Bridge. 103 It is possible that more meetings took place on bridges than the evidence suggests currently. Most conferences between medieval rulers took place on river sites, but rarely do historians know exactly where. It is not unlikely that negotiations for peace prior to battles were relatively common and thus some of these negotiations would have taken place on, or near, bridges.104 There is at least one twelfth-century reference to such negotiations, and though not an Anglo-French example it gives historians a useful contemporary insight into this practice. In 1106 a battle took place

96 97 98 99 100

ASC MS D, s.a. 1066. M. Gelling, Signposts to the Past, London 1978, 211. Luchaire, Louis VI, no. 72; Suger, Vie de Louis VI, 99–113 (The Deeds of Louis the Fat, 69–75). Howden, Chronica iii, 253. M.N. Boyer, Medieval French Bridges, Cambridge, MA, 1976, 171–95; C. Gillmor, ‘The Logistics of Fortified Bridge Building on the Seine under Charles the Bald’, ANS 11, 1988 (1989), 88–91. 101 Annales Blandinienses, in Les Annales de Saint-Pierre et de Saint-Amand, ed. P. Grierson, Brussels 1937, 51. 102 Warren, History on the Edge, 5; N. Brooks, ‘Medieval Bridges: a Window onto Changing Concepts of State Power’, HSJ 7, 1995, 24. 103 ASC MS C, s.a. 1066. 104 For a discussion of the location of battles and negotiations prior to battles see J. Bradury, ‘Battles in England and Normandy, 1066–1154’, in Anglo-Norman Warfare, ed. M. Strickland, Woodbridge 1992, 183–90.

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between the supporters of Emperor Henry IV and his son, Henry V, on a bridge over the river Meuse, where, according to the anonymous author of The Life of the Emperor Henry IV, an agreement on the terms of battle had been reached just prior to the fight.105 It seems probable that meetings on bridges associated with negotiations prior to battles were seldom recorded simply due to the fact that if the discussions were unsuccessful the matter would be settled by a battle, which, then became the narrative focus. The fact that bridges could be places of battles can moreover tell historians something important about the security and the symbolism behind the two best-known twelfth-century meetings on bridges. On both occasions, the chronicler recording the event noted that the participants advanced to the middle of the bridge. According to Helmold of Bosau, a German chronicler, in 1162 Louis VII of France showed himself on the middle of a bridge from the third until the ninth hour, waiting in vain for the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to turn up for the conference.106 Similarly, Saxo recorded how, when Duke Henry the Lion met with King Valdemar of Denmark in 1171, the duke was careful to advance only half-way across the bridge.107 Though this practice was partly the result of the princes’ common desire to meet as equals, it seems likely that with so many battles also taking place on or near bridges, meeting in the middle of bridges was a signal of peaceful intent. Had either Duke Henry or King Louis crossed the bridges of the meeting, the action might have been interpreted as a hostile declaration of war.108 It has been argued by historians that the break-up of the Carolingian empire at the end of the ninth century saw meeting places being moved inside the residences of counts and dukes.109 It is, however, clear that this was rarely the case with meeting places intended for negotiations between rulers. Not only were these meeting places known points in the landscape, but many were large, open-air locations providing good visibility of what was happening. William of Jumièges is one example of an eleventh-century chronicler who reported on the importance of meetings taking place out in the open for all present to see. Reporting on events of the 960s, William records how a meeting was set up, during a truce, between King Lothar of Francia and Duke Richard I at a Viking camp at Jeufosse on the Epte. ‘As the day of his meeting with the king approached, our duke [Richard] gave orders for the building of a stage of remarkable size in the heathen camp at Jeufosse. When king Lothar and his barons had arrived and stood on the stage, he made satisfaction to the duke and concluded a pact with him, and both swore oaths to keep it.’110 The key was clearly that doing things in the open provided witnesses. Similarly, Philip Augustus’ display of chopping down the elm tree in 1188 would hardly have been visually effective had the tree stood in the middle of a forest or had the audience been watching the events unfold from inside the nearby castle. The whole point of chopping the tree down was,

105 Vita Heinrici IV, Imperatoris, ed. W. Eberhard, MGH SRG 58 (Hanover 1990), 30. 106 Helmoldi Presbyteri Bozoviensis Chronica Slavorum, 3rd edn, ed. B. Schmeidler, MGH SRG 32,

Hanover 1937, 178 (available in English as The Chronicle of the Slavs, ed. F.J. Tschan, New York 1966, 238–9). 107 Saxo, Danorum ii, 544–5. See also Karl Jordan, Henry the Lion, Oxford 1986, 83. 108 Dr Vincent Moss helpfully suggested during the discussion that the Norman rolls show that Nonancourt, close to where the ford lay, was also a meeting place for the Norman levy, again indicating the multi-functional aspect of many of these meeting places. 109 Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, 2 vols, 2nd edn, trans. L. Manyon, London 1989, ii, 370. 110 Jumièges i, 128–9. Eric Christiansen has, however, argued that the reading of the Latin word scenae should be ‘pavilion’ rather than ‘stage’ because the intention was to offer lodging, not ‘open-air theatre’: Dudo, The History of the Normans, 155, n. 431. As the incident compares well to other such ‘open-air theatres’, I would still like to concur with Elisabeth van Houts’ reading.

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of course, for Philip to vent his displeasure in the open for all to see. The events described by William of Jumièges and others appear to be almost as though the participants were performing a play for an audience, though most conferences were clearly not, as Gerd Althoff has claimed, pre-negotiated, calculated or exaggerated.111 Nevertheless, conferences were seemingly in many ways open-air shows and clearly regarded as such by contemporaries.112 It also seems likely, as argued by Philippe Buc, that these displays were inspired by practices in Ancient Rome, where it had been the mark of the civilis princeps to allow himself to be seen by all and to see all citizens.113 The visual availability of each to each furthermore demonstrated the presence of charity and served to foster unity of mind and the bond of peace. The common phrase ‘ore ad os’ used by contemporaries to describe the nature of peace conferences bears witness to the importance of this notion. Circles provided spatial metaphors for equality, and seating as opposed to standing signalled participation in authority, on behalf of both the ruler and his followers.114 Finally, I want to conclude by stating what I should perhaps have done at the beginning of this discussion: We are not very well informed about Anglo-French peace conferences in the twelfth century. In the first half of the century, contemporaries usually only stated that peace had been made and occasionally accompanied this statement with an approximate location. By the second half of the twelfth century this reportage had been expanded to usually include the location of the conference, a statement that an agreement had been reached, and often a copy of the text of that agreement. There exists no account of a complete peacemaking process and rarely do we get a glimpse of any ceremonies or festivities, such as feasting, gift exchanges or communal celebrations of mass, that are so commonly recounted in contemporary sources from the rest of Europe. That is naturally not to say that such ceremonies and festivities were not a feature of Anglo-French peace conferences, but merely that contemporaries did not record them. Why? Possibly because issues such as the place of meeting were far more important to twelfth-century observers than historians have previously thought. The place of meeting directly influenced the succeeding chain of events and it regulated the relationship between the two rulers making peace, or for that matter, war. As the English and French kings were in the twelfth century often at war, an event that could alter any relationship established, the place of meeting took on an added importance. Furthermore, in the context of establishing the rules of peacemaking, it is clear that agreements concluded on border sites tended to be couched in friendship terminology, and they were characterised by exchanges rather than one-sidedness. Thus the English and French kings referred to each other in texts of agreements as amicus noster and they exchanged oaths, hostages or sureties to enforce the terms of the agreements concluded. Contrast the importance of face-to-face meetings in the twelfth century with the late fifteenth-century statement by Philip de Commynes that it was very imprudent for two great princes of equal power to meet and that it would be much better if they

111 Gerd Althoff, ‘Das Privileg der deditio. Formen gütlicher Konfliktbeendigung in der mittelalterlichen

Adelsgesellschaft’, in his Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter: Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde, Darmstadt 1997, 101–3, 111–12, 124–5. 112 For one example see Ottonis et Rahewini Gesta Friderici I Imperatoris, Bk III, c. 12, p. 144. 113 Philippe Buc, ‘Martyre et ritualité dans l’Antiquité Tardive. Horizons de l’écriture médiévale des rituels’, Annales 48, 1997, 67–70. 114 R. Reynolds, ‘Rites and Signs of Conciliar Decision in the Early Middle Ages’, in Segni e riti, 2 vols, Centro Italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, Settimane 33, 1987, 207–78; H. Fichtenau, Lebensordnungen des 10. Jahrhunderts, 2 vols, Stuttgart 1984, i, 30–2.

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settled their differences by the mediation of wise and loyal servants.115 This development came about already in the early thirteenth century with the loss of Normandy in 1204, but also because of developments in law that gave envoys and mediators greater powers to negotiate and conclude agreements. Nevertheless, meeting places did not cease to be important for the peacemaking process. In the seventeenth century the French and Spanish kings still met on an island on the river border, and in the late eighteenth century Russian and Ottoman envoys met on a raft in a stream in order to preserve their equality of status.116 Even into the twentieth century the issue continued to matter: Who could forget the railway carriage in the forest near Compiègne where the German surrender of 1918 was signed and where, in the summer of 1940, Hitler’s armistice terms were read out to the vanquished French?117 Consequently, the rules of how to make peace have proved to be just as enduring as those of making war, and therefore are surely worthy of our attention.

115 Philippe de Commynes, Memoirs, trans. Michael Jones, Harmondsworth 1972, 141. 116 Peter Sahlins, Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees, Berkeley 1989, 25;

Itzkowitz and Mole, Mubadele, 66–75, 115–17, 125–8, 200–3. 117 Gordon Brook-Shepherd, November 1918, London 1989, 375–7; Alan Palmer, Victory 1918, London

1998, 280–1.

Peter of Blois and the Pr oblem of the ‘Court’

PETER OF BLOIS AND THE PROBLEM OF THE ‘COURT’ IN THE LATE TWELFTH CENTURY John D. Cotts Peter of Blois did not take criticism well, which was unfortunate because his career as a member of the secular clergy made him extremely vulnerable to several different traditions of satire and invective. We detect what would appear to be a persecution complex in an epistolary tract that he wrote to an anonymous regular canon sometime around 1198, a tract titled Invectiva in depravatorem in most of the extant manuscripts.1 Peter’s unknown adversary must have hit his mark, for the tract responds passionately and defensively to protect Peter’s reputation from charges that he had a less-than-stellar intellect, that as a secular cleric his morality could not match that of his monastic counterparts, and, perhaps most damagingly, that he had played an inappropriate role in secular affairs at the English royal court. Indeed, it is when he turns to his role as a secular cleric at the courts of the great that the tract reaches its rhetorical climax. ‘You call a man a flatterer of princes and an enemy of holy orders, and you do not even know him!’ His indignation obviously aroused, he continues: ‘The Spirit of God is my spirit’s witness that never was I a vendor of oil, nor am I wont to encourage magnates in their sins.’2 Peter’s language here is instantly recognizable as that of so-called courtly criticism, the attack on the culture of secular courts and especially of clerical involvement in secular government that was so prevalent in the late twelfth century. He was quite familiar with this language and referred to others as vendors of oil or flatterers with some regularity himself. The adeptness with which he could dish out this criticism perhaps heightens the urgency of his defense. The evidence of his innocence, Peter assures his reader, will be found in his own writing. Like any productive or at least self-enamored scholar, he supports his argument by providing a veritable curriculum vitae of all his writings, listing nearly a dozen works. In those writings, he claims, ‘I freely rebuke our king and other earthly magnates, where there is good reason, carefully suggesting whatever (short of injurious invective) human devotion could towards their salvation.’ Peter’s presence at court was a boon to the church, since ‘the curial multitude will testify that the king, thanks to my own poor prodding, with the aid of that one in whose hands are the hearts of kings, pardoned great debts for ecclesiastical persons, relaxed their burdens, and lightened the torments of the condemned’.3 1 2

Printed in PL 207, 1113–26. ‘Adulatorem principis, et sancti ordinis delatorem, vocas hominem, quem non nosti . . . Spiritus Dei reddit testimonium in spiritui meo, quia numquam fui olei venditor, nec soleo magnates palpare in vitiis, aut laudare peccatorem in desideriis animae suae’: Invectiva in depravatorem, 1115. 3 ‘et in quam plurimis aliis scriptis meis, regem nostrum, et alios terrae magnates, ubi materia offert, plena libertate redarguo, sollicite suggerens quidquid ad eorum aedificationem citra invectivae injuriam potest humana devotio . . . ad instantiam meam, inspirante Deo, frequenter regia manus in eleemosynarum gratia munifice et magnifice se effudit, et adhuc eleemosynas illas enarrat Ecclesia sanctorum. Testimonio

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The attack on Peter and his rejoinder illustrate opposite poles of clerical service in the High Middle Ages: on one extreme is the sycophantic flatterer at court derided by John of Salisbury, Walter Map, Nigel of Longchamps and others; on the other, the wise sage in the tradition of the Old Testament priests who advised the kings of Israel, or a good shepherd standing up for libertas ecclesiae.4 The Invectiva, into which Peter folds this consideration of the cleric-courtier, serves as his apologia pro vita sua, a justification for the clerical life when long-held ideals of thought and behavior struggled to adapt to new institutional contexts. It discusses educational models, the problem of action versus contemplation, as well as the conjoined issues of court service and the role of an intellectual in politics. Twelfth-century clerics like Peter indeed stood at the center of a profound transformation of European government and institutions, a transformation R.I. Moore has recently termed the ‘first European revolution’, the process through which Europe’s school-educated clerici assumed a primary position in the social order.5 At the heart of this social order was centralized power, exercised with renewed vigor, largely through the written word, by both the papacy and the rising monarchies, and especially in the Angevin realm. As a clericus litteratus who traveled in the circles of the great, Peter of Blois serves as an ideal witness to these changes. Born around 1130, he studied the arts at the famous cathedral schools of Chartres, Tours and Paris, spent time at the law school of Bologna, was captured by an anti-pope’s partisans during the Octavian schism, tutored the boy king of Sicily, served in the familiae of an archbishop of Rouen and three archbishops of Canterbury in the aftermath of the Becket controversy, traveled for a time with Henry II’s entourage, argued legal cases at Rome, and preached the Third Crusade, in the process becoming a canon at several important cathedrals.6 He died in 1211 as the archdeacon of London. Moreover, he produced a sizable letter collection that chronicles his career on an axis stretching from London to Palermo. Without this collection, we would know little about Peter and his career, but he made quite sure that it circulated widely, and carefully worked over its contents throughout the late twelfth century.7 When it comes to the problem of the court, and the cleric’s place there, the

multitudinis aulicae quandoque ad meae parvitatis instantiam, eo adjuvante, in cuius manu sunt corda regum, magna debita personis ecclesiasticis condonavit, relaxavit compeditos, et damnatorum supplicia levigavit’: ibid. 4 Among the more important studies on courtly criticism that pay attention to the place of clericcourtiers are: Reto Bezzola, Les origins et la formation de la litérature courtoise en occident (500–1200), 3 vols, Paris 1963; Joachim Bumke, Courtly Culture: Literature and Society in the High Middle Ages, trans. Thomas Dunlap, Berkeley 1991; Josef Fleckenstein, Die Hofkapelle der deutschen Könige, 2 vols, Stuttgart 1959; C. Stephen Jaeger, The Origins of Courtliness: Civilizing Trends and the Formation of Courtly Ideals, 939–1210, Philadelphia 1985; Egbert Türk, Nugae curialium: Le règne d’Henri II Plantagenêt (1145–1189) et l’éthique politique, Geneva 1977; Claus Uhlig, Die Hofkritik im England des Mittelalters und der Renaissance: Studien zu einem Gemeinplatz der europäischen Moralistik, Berlin 1973. 5 R.I. Moore, The First European Revolution, c.970–1215, Oxford 2000. Similar arguments about the importance of the clerical elite are found in: Alexander Murray, Reason and Society in the Middle Ages, Oxford 1985, esp. 213–314, and R.W. Southern, Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, Volume II: The Heroic Age, Oxford 2001. On the importance of literate administration see M.T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307, 2nd edn, Oxford 1993. 6 The most recent and comprehensive survey of Peter’s life is found in Southern, Scholastic Humanism ii, 178–218. 7 The letters and the extreme difficulty of their manuscript tradition are discussed in Lena Wahlgren, The Letter Collections of Peter of Blois: Studies in the Manuscript Tradition, Goteborg 1993. Cf. R.W. Southern, ‘Towards an Edition of Peter of Blois’ Letters’, EHR 110, 1995, 925–37, and the introductory material to C. Wollin, ed., Petri Blesensis Carmina, Turnhout 1998.

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testimony of Peter’s letters is not as straightforward as we might wish. The difficulties are made clear by an overview of Peter of Blois scholarship, which has reached disparate conclusions. Ralph Turner, for instance, has attributed to Peter the belief that ‘the clergy had to take positions of leadership in secular government’ while Stephen Ferruolo flatly states that ‘Peter was opposed to the presence of clerics, especially those trained in theology, in secular courts and to their involvement in political affairs.’8 These scholars are both, in a very real sense, correct, for either statement can be supported by references to the letter collection. We are clearly dealing with a slippery figure here. But while it is tempting to regard Peter as speaking disingenuously out of both sides of his mouth, the contradictions in his statements about courtly life, as he sought to maneuver between the good shepherds and the conniving flatterers, reflect a contemporary difficulty in conceiving of and discussing clerical service in the world. While Peter no doubt was an ambitious place-seeker who could shift with the winds, he also can be read as an insightful observer of the dilemmas of clerical life. In what follows I shall consider Peter’s career as a literate cleric who traveled in the circles of the great, and examine how he experienced the court as a professional, spiritual and political phenomenon. With regard to Peter himself and cleric-courtiers more generally, I would like to reframe the discussion in terms of the options available for professional service and the ideals available for discussing them. Peter of Blois’ anxiety about his career and spiritual health, and his reliance on varying and often competing rhetorical traditions when expressing it, offer a glimpse into the growing pains of a literate elite. The twelfth century inherited a number of ideas and ideals about clerical service, and few of them were kind to clerics who immersed themselves in secular affairs. Church councils, as well as polemical and satirical literature, had long objected to clerical involvement in the courts of the great, and specifically to their playing any role in judgments of blood. Peter of Blois’ courtly dilemmas were far from new, since criticism of courtly clerics appeared early in the Carolingian period with such works as De ordine palatii of Hincmar of Reims. In the eleventh century, as the ecclesiastical reform movement gathered momentum, Peter Damian wrote a tract Contra clericos aulicos, and various polemics of the Investiture Controversy condemned the secular involvement of many bishops.9 In 1139 the Second Lateran Council made it a spiritual imperative for clerics to resign positions at court and do penance for that service.10 When the Third Lateran Council, which Peter of Blois attended, strictly forbade clerics from lay service, it affirmed an old tradition.11 Thus by the time Peter wrote his letter collection the problem of clerici curiales had taken on a legal, not to mention at literary, life of its own, while clerics continued to place their minds and bodies at the service of lords both lay and ecclesiastical. The neat dichotomies of the Gregorian reform and the categories of turpitude beloved by satirists did not leave easy choices for the secular clergy, who occupied an ambiguous social space between monks and laymen. This ambiguity has also troubled modern scholarship. The secular clergy repre-

8

Ralph V. Turner, ‘Clerical Judges in English Secular Courts: The Ideal versus the Reality’, in his Judges, Administrators and the Common Law, London and Rio Grande 1984, 179; Stephen C. Ferruolo, The Origins of the University, Stanford 1985, 166. 9 Hincmar of Reims, De Ordine Palatii, ed. T. Gross and R. Schieffer, Hanover 1980; Peter Damian, Tractatus contra clericos aulicos, PL 145, 463–72. 10 Lateran II, Canons 9 and 22, in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman Tanner, London and Washington, DC, 1990, vol. i, 198–9, 202. 11 Lateran III, Canon 12, in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils i, 218.

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sent a kind of blank space on our conceptual map of the High Middle Ages: we take them for granted but do not have a single model for explaining their activities and ideals. Moreover ‘courtly culture’ remains a rather cloudy concept even as it inspires remarkably rich studies.12 The term ‘courtly’ now tends to refer to an all-encompassing ‘civilizing process’ involving the mingling of lay and ecclesiastical, Latin and vernacular, chivalry and barbarism, in the context of a court surrounding a lay magnate, and occasionally an ecclesiastical prince. All of this mingling suggests an obvious conflict with the reforming impulses of the Latin clergy. Studies of courtliness variously treat vernacular poetry, mirrors for princes, romances, and any source relevant to the problem of ‘courtly love’, in order to explore broad cultural trends, often in teleological fashion (with modern behavior, social control, and perhaps even the dinner fork, being the teloi). The work of the sociologist Norbert Elias on the early modern period has bestowed on the court enormous importance in social and cultural history as an arbiter of values and right behavior.13 Yet the court retains its value to political and institutional history as a stage in the centralization of government and the codification of administrative and legal procedures. Peter’s writings provide a point of contact between the more literary approach to courtliness, a record of the struggle to follow and to articulate codes of behavior appropriate to different centers of contemporary power. For Peter of Blois, who had an exalted sense of the value of learned scholars for the world, the court presented a complex and peculiarly clerical problem. It offered both spiritual dangers and immense possibilities, and it defied the sort of systematic classifications that were beginning to be favoured by twelfth-century theologians and canonists. The root of the problem, for historians as well as for twelfth-century clerics, lies in the fact that loaded terms like curia and curialis were and are often used without precise institutional referents. In this regard John Gillingham has noted that ‘not all administrators were curiales and not all curiales were administrators’ and has cautioned against seeing, in the English context, too close a connection between men with some connections to the royal court and Angevin administration per se.14 Peter’s language is itself occasionally imprecise; he makes use of the terms aula, familia, domus, capella, curia, palatium and their cognates. However, when he refers to the court in a negative connotation, or when he discusses it as a focus of others’ criticism, he nearly always employs curia and curiales. Indeed he seems extraordinarily sensitive to the implications of the latter term. Within this extreme lexical and semantic range, rife with conceptual imprecision, lies an opportunity to explore the richness of twelfth-century clerical culture with all its contradictions. If we dismiss Peter’s court criticism as the rantings of a disappointed office-seeker, as some have done, we miss this opportunity.15 His letters reflect a great deal of professional and spiritual anxiety, anxiety brought about in large part by the ambiguous nature of the medieval secular cleric. The dilemmas that Peter faced stemmed not only from his own prejudices and disappointments but from the conceptual difficulties that helped bring about the pronouncements against courtly clerics of Lateran IV, and its overriding concern with the role of clerics and

12 For example, those cited above, note 4. 13 Norbert Elias, The Court Society, trans. Edmund Jephcott, New York 1983; Elias, The Civilizing

Process, trans. Jephcott, Oxford and Cambridge, MA, 1994. 14 John Gillingham, review of Men Raised from the Dust, by Ralph V. Turner, Medieval Prosopography

12, 1991, 131. 15 See, for example, C.L. Kingsford, ‘Peter of Blois’, DNB vol. 46, 49.

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their learning in the church.16 When Peter refers to the curia and to curiales he thus brings to the discussion related ideas on education, pastoral duty and the status of the clergy; his protests and apologies combine a number of different ideals and rhetorical strategies in order to mark out, in the course of a long career, a proper spiritual and professional course for a secular cleric that was consistent with prevailing trends in spirituality and ecclesiology. He was, to be sure, not entirely successful at doing so. What we know of Peter’s early life suggests that from a young age he set his sights on a career in the church, and had some early training at the cathedral school of Chartres. He refers to that church as his patria, was a nonresident canon there, and seems to have spent most of his life in search of a position of honor in the chapter.17 The political vicissitudes of Chartres form a recurring theme in Peter’s letter collection, and his fellow court critic and sometime correspondent John of Salisbury famously discovered that that difficult chapter could not be taken lightly when he became its bishop.18 From Chartres Peter proceeded to study at Tours, Paris and Bologna, where he abandoned his legal studies, claiming the study of civil law was not appropriate for a cleric.19 His discomfort with the law notwithstanding, by the 1160s Peter had an educational background comparable to some of the most exalted clerics of his day. He had followed a known path to influence in the church and the world.20 Peter initially appears as a prominent member of the literate elite between the years of 1166 and 1168, although his precise itinerary is unclear. The first evidence for Peter as an employed clerk is a letter of the mid-1160s that he wrote in the name of Rotrou, Archbishop of Rouen, on the subject of Henry the Young King’s education.21 There is no epistolary or documentary evidence, however, to suggest the nature of Peter’s duties with Rotrou during this period. In 1167 Rotrou answered an appeal from Queen Margaret of Sicily, who sought to shore up her position as regent during the minority of her son William II. According to ‘Hugo Falcundus’, Margaret asked him to send ‘one of her relatives, preferably Robert of Neubourg or else Stephen, son of the count of Perche’.22 Stephen offered his aid, and set off for Palermo with a group of knights and clerks, including Peter of Blois. 23 Once he was ordained a priest, Stephen of Perche became the consummate courtly cleric: he received the posts of royal chancellor and archbishopric of Palermo and so followed the example of Rainald of Dassel in the Empire and Thomas Becket in England. Peter of Blois, meanwhile, became the seal-keeper of the kingdom

16 Esp. Canon 42, in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils i, 253 17 See Epistolae 20, 130, 219, printed in PL 207; Peter’s entry in the Chartres necrology is printed in

Cartulaire de Notre Dame de Chartres, ed. E. de Lépinois and L. Merlet, Chartres 1862–65, vol. 3, 215. 18 For an example of John’s difficulties at Chartres, see The Letters of Peter of Celle, ed. Julian Haseldine, Oxford 2001, 676–77. 19 Epistola [hereafter Ep.] 26, PL 207, 91–2. 20 John Baldwin, ‘Masters at Paris from 1179 to 1215: A Social Perspective’, in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. Robert L. Benson and Giles Constable, Oxford 1982, 138–72, and ‘Studium et Regnum: Penetration of University Personnel in French and English Administration at the Turn of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, Revue des études islamiques 44, 1976, 20. 21 It is possible that the letter dates to 1168, after Peter’s return from Sicily. It is likely, however, that Peter and Rotrou knew each other before the expedition, since Rotrou assembled the clerics who accompanied it. On this period see also Southern, Scholastic Humanism ii, 188–9. 22 G.B. Siragusa, ed., La Historia o Liber de Regno Sicilie et la Epistola ad Petrum Panormitane Ecclesiae thesaurarium di Ugo Falcundo, Rome 1897, 109. 23 On this expedition see Hiroshi Takayama, ‘Familiares Regis and the Royal Inner Council in Twelfth-Century Sicily’, EHR 104, 1989, 363; John C. Hildt, ‘The Ministry of Stephen of Perche during the Minority of William II of Sicily’, Smith College Studies in History 3, 1918, 145–86.

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(sigillarius) and another Chartres canon named Odo Quarrel served as master of the royal household.24 There seem to have been several foreign clerics working in the south at the time, but this expedition amounted to a major infusion of northerners into the corridors of power. Although the historian ‘Hugo Falcundus’ portrays Stephen and his ministry in a rather sympathetic light, he makes it clear that warning signs appeared almost immediately: these clerks were unwanted foreigners. On more than one occasion during his time at Palermo Stephen’s methods seemed inappropriate to the new Sicilian context. Ultimately a palace revolt in Palermo combined with an urban revolt in Messina forced Stephen to flee the island. According to Peter of Blois only two members of Stephen’s entourage survived, including himself. While Odo Quarrel met a nasty end at the hands of an angry Messina mob, Peter apparently was convalescing from malaria in Salerno, whence he escaped for France.25 This episode raises a number of questions crucial to our understanding of clerical court service and the movement of clerical personnel around Europe. Was Stephen out of his depth, unfamiliar with the remarkable complexity of Sicilian court life? Was he unfit to take the reigns of power? Or was he simply the victim of intrigue? Peter’s role in all of this is somewhat perplexing as well. In later years he made extravagant claims as to his importance for Stephen and for King William II. As sigillarius he presumably held a position of some responsibility, but this office has not been noted as a crucial part of Sicilian administration in modern scholarship and ‘Hugo Falcundus’, who often goes into great detail about court life, does not mention Peter at all.26 Furthermore, royal administration was not only less itinerant in Sicily but structurally different from its counterparts in the north. Sicily possessed a notarial class with a distinct character and responsibilities, and the term familiaris, whose use with regard to royal and episcopal courts can be rather loose, seems to have had a more precise meaning.27 It was a dynamic and elaborate system drawing on Greek, Arabic and Latin elements.28 For whatever reason, the knights and clerks of Stephen of Perche did not find a place in this synthesis. The expedition to Palermo appears in Peter’s letters as a classic tragedy of a great man (Stephen) brought low by intrigue, with Peter himself as one of the heroes. He asserts that many great men recognized his importance, to the point that he was offered choice ecclesiastical appointments to take him away from the court scene.29 Boasting that he could have become archbishop of Naples, Peter expounds on the intrigue associated with the court: I recall how many plots of rivals I encountered at the court [in palatio] of William II, king of Sicily: Certain men, who had tried many times previously (and were not able) to take me away from the King’s side, finally had me nominated and solemnly elected to the metropolitan see of Naples. However, I could not be persuaded to do this by any deceitful artifice.30

24 For Odo’s appointment, see La Historia o Liber de Regno, 111–12. For Peter of Blois as sigillarius, see

Ep. 131, PL 207, 390. 25 La Historia o Liber de Regno, 152–3, 158–60; Ep. 90, PL 207, 281–85. 26 The various offices of the Sicilian regnum are discussed in Hiroshi Takayama, The Administration of

the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, Leiden and New York 1993. 27 Takayama, ‘Familiares Regis and the Royal Inner Council’, passim. 28 Takayama, ‘Central Power and Multi-Cultural Elements at the Norman Court of Sicily’, Mediterra-

nean Studies 12, 2003, 1–15. 29 Ep. 72, PL 207, 224. 30 ‘Recolo quantas insidias aemulorum in palatio regis Siculi Willemi secundi quando expertus: qui cum

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Peter claims that his insight into the true workings of the court led him to turn down a major ecclesiastical job offer (we have no independent corroboration of this). He had penetrated the king’s inner circle, and aroused such jealousy that cunning opponents threw honors at him in the hopes of ending his influence with the king. Irrespective of whether his enemies really would have gone through the trouble of procuring a metropolitan see for him, Peter’s point is clear: at court, one must always be on guard against flatterers and deceivers. This is indeed the negative pole of courtly life. Sicily itself becomes for Peter a hot, stinking symbol of corruption and licentiousness. 31 Still, as a cleric and advisor to William II, he saw himself living up to the ideal of a wise royal councilor. In a letter written some years after the fact to Walter, archbishop of Palermo, he claims that his presence in Sicily prevented the king from immersion in more worldly pursuits. Whether or not his tutelage was so efficacious, Peter at least strove for an ideal in which an erudite cleric is the ideal intimate of a potentially devious monarch. However, ‘as soon as I left his realm’, Peter laments, ‘he put his books aside and fled to the leisurely pursuits of the palace’.32 His discussion of royal instruction illustrates what is essentially a struggle for sacrality at the royal court. Peter’s reforming instincts co-exist with the ideal of sacred kingship that hinges on a king’s anointing. When he urges William II’s chaplain (perhaps Walter again) to thwart the designs of the king and the count of Loritello on the see of Agrigento, he writes, ‘would that the virtue of consecration steer him away from this man’s violence; for great is the effect of that sacrament’.33 Playing on the sacred qualities of kingship, Peter enmeshes the chaplain in a holy struggle to restore right order and to protect the liberty of a bishopric. This approach to courtly service is completely consistent with the demands of clerical ordo, and thus Peter can advocate it with no compunctions whatsoever, advising the chaplain to show the gentleness and wisdom of Gregory the Great’s ideal shepherd. Peter thus shows the right way for a cleric to approach dealings with the lay world, presenting ideal qualities of a courtly cleric: learning, mildness, patience, and considerable didactic skill. The sacred quality of kingship, moreover, significantly adds to the cleric’s responsibilities, for as an anointed of Christ the king must also learn to behave like a sage Christian. The cleric-courtier becomes an active instrument in reaffirming the divine powers of kingship through Christian learning. After escaping the Sicilian debacle with his life, Peter probably returned to Rouen where he re-joined the household of Archbishop Rotrou during the climactic stages of the Becket controversy. He held no formal office in that household or in the cathedral chapter, but he would eventually receive a prebend there and his letters from the period suggest that he had significant responsibilities.34 The one non-epistolary

multipliciter me a regis latere studuissent et non possent amovere prius ad unum episcopatum et alterum, demum ad Neapolitanam metropolim postulari et solemniter eligi me fecerunt. Ego autem ad hoc nullo potui fraudis artificione inclinari’: Ep. 72, PL 207, 224. 31 Ep. 46, PL 207, 133–7. 32 ‘Nam cum rex vester bene litteras noverit, rex noster longe litteratior est. Ego enim in litterali scientia facultates utriusque cognovi. Scitis quod dominus rex Siciliae per annum discipulus meus fuit, et qui a vobis versificitoriae atque litteratoriae artis primitias habuerat, per industriam et sollicitudinem meam beneficium scientiae plenioris obtinuit. Quam cito autem egressus sum regnum ipse libris abjectis ad otium contulit palatinum’: Ep. 66, PL 207, 198. For Walter see L.J.A. Loewenthal, ‘For the Biography of Walter Ophamil, Archbishop of Palermo’, EHR 87, 1972, 75–82. 33 ‘Virtus equidem consecrationis ab huius violentiis eum utinam temperasset; magna enim est efficacia sacramenti’: Ep. 10, PL 207, 28. 34 RHF, vol. 23, ed. M. Bouquet, Paris 1894, 364.

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document of this period on which Peter’s name appears is a charter from 1172, rather far down the witness list.35 In all he wrote six extant letters in Rotrou’s name. All of these treat weighty political topics and are addressed (with one exception) to important figures.36 In addition to writing letters, Peter may have had diplomatic duties with Rotrou, as evidenced by his participation in an embassy to King Philip on which he accompanied the archbishop and Arnulf, bishop of Lisieux.37 Soon thereafter, probably around 1174, Peter entered the service of Richard of Dover, the new archbishop of Canterbury. England would become Peter’s home for almost forty years, and it was there that he produced his most famous works of courtly criticism. To understand Peter as a court critic, it is necessary to understand what his experience of the English court was, and to situate him in the milieu of curiales. A rather simple way of putting the problem is to ask what Peter could have meant by the term curia when he claims in a letter that he entered, and then withdrew from, the ‘court’. His intimacy with the archbishop of Canterbury placed him in at least an outer ring of the circle of the royal court, and he claimed friendship with Henry II, but many of the usual markers of importance in the royal administration are absent in Peter’s case. He is almost nowhere to be found in the extant documents from the administration of Henry II, Richard I or John.38 In only one case does he appear in a known witness list in the presence of the king without the archbishop, in a charter dating to 1180 at Bur-le-Roy in Normandy.39 Granted, even a courtier as well known as Walter Map never appears as a witness in any of Henry II’s extant charters.40 It is relevant to consider that those courtiers who subscribed frequently on royal charters did tend to be the intimates of the king who would play a prominent role in the administration, ultimately acquiring episcopal sees for themselves. Even a cursory study makes it clear that Peter had a different relationship with the king and the curia regis than such men as Richard of Ilchester, Geoffrey Ridel and Walter of Coutances.41 He had some of the same training, but his intellectual and professional aims made him a different sort of curialis. He certainly attended the court of Henry II, representing Richard of Dover and his interests, occasionally complaining about the hardships caused by Henry’s manic schedule.42 While Peter dedicated several writings to Henry II, he

35 Archives of Calvados, MS H 1842, cited in Southern, ‘Peter of Blois: A Twelfth-Century Humanist?’

in Medieval Humanism and Other Studies, Oxford 1970, 112 36 There are two to Henry II, two to his son the young Henry, and one to Eleanor of Aquitaine, all dealing

with the political crisis caused by the revolt of Henry’s sons: Epp. 28, 33, 67, 153–5. 37 Ep. 71, PL 207, 219–21. 38 An exception is a close roll writ of 1208 ordering that Peter’s goods, confiscated while he was in

France during the Interdict, be returned to him: Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum in Turri Londoniensis Asservati vol. i, ed. T.D. Hardy, London 1837, 108b. 39 Cited in R.W. Eyton, Court, Household and Itinerary of King Henry II, London 1878, 235. 40 Nicholas Vincent, ‘King Henry II and the Poitevins’, in La cour Plantagenêt, ed. M. Aurell, Poitiers 2000, 107. 41 For the elevation of Geoffrey and Richard, see Henry Mayr-Harting, ‘Henry II and the Papacy 1170–1189’, JEH 16, 1965, 39–53; on Richard specifically, see Charles Duggan, ‘Richard of Ilchester: Royal Servant and Bishop’, TRHS 5th ser. 16, 1966, 13–15. On Walter of Coutances see Peter A. Poggioli, ‘From Politician to Prelate: The Career of Walter of Coutances, Archbishop of Rouen 1184–1207’, Ph.D. thesis, The Johns Hopkins University 1984. 42 ‘Habebam in desideriis ad vos cum festinatione reverti, sed auctoritas regia non permittit. Millies postulavi licentiam recessurus, sed nec repulsam passus, nec licentiam sum adeptus. Quoties causor moram, quam facio, et allego vestrae revocationis instantiam, unica et quotidiana est ejus responsio: Cras recedes. In omnibus diebus anni cras istud invenire non potui; dum quaeritur, latet: et fortasse, quando non quaeritur, occuret’: Ep. 5, PL 207, 13.

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only wrote one letter on behalf of the king himself;43 there is no evidence that he played a formal role in the royal administration. Rather, Peter found his true niche in the archiepiscopal household at Canterbury and served Archbishop Richard for the next ten years, earning the title cancellarius as well as the partially sinecurial archdeaconry of Bath.44 We cannot be sure of his exact duties in Richard’s household, though writing letters was certainly one of them. In addition, the sheer number of Richard’s extant acta witnessed by Peter – 12 of those published in the recent edition – implies that Peter figured prominently among the archbishop’s intimates at Canterbury.45 He represented Richard at the Third Lateran Council, and was in Rome long enough to rack up a considerable debt.46 Even though he did not attest royal charters or work in Henry’s exchequer, Peter operated in powerful circles, and as such was vulnerable to criticism. Members of the clergy were sometimes less than thrilled with Richard of Dover as an archbishop, and they often accused him of being the king’s lackey.47 Richard’s household came under rhetorical attack by the scholar Ralph of Beauvais, who according to Peter derided it as comprised of worldly curiales. Perhaps even more insulting to a man of letters like Peter, he backed up the charges with a reference to Juvenal.48 The attack is dangerous and potentially devastating. Peter’s career at the time centered around his work at Canterbury, so to attack the archbishop’s court is to attack the morality of Peter’s clerical life. He begins the debate on Ralph’s terms and addresses an old chestnut of courtly criticism: My good master! If you mindfully cling to that childish derivation that curia comes from cruor, then the clerics who associate with the prelates of the church are not curiales; for they do not exercise blood judgment.49 Peter not only dismisses the charge, he questions the etymology on which much of court criticism was based. But Peter does not simply justify the presence of clerics at a court, he reframes it in terms of the noblest ideals of intellectual life in the high Middle Ages: In the household of my lord archbishop of Canterbury are the most erudite men, among whom you can find all the righteousness of justice, every device of providence, and every model of doctrine. After praying and before dining they exert themselves in reading, disputation, and the judgment of cases. All the difficult 43 Ep. 136, noted at PL 207, 404, but the text is printed with the letters of Alexander III (to whom it is written) in PL 200. 44 On the dates for Peter’s tenure as archdeacon of Bath, see Elizabeth Revell, ed., The Later Letters of Peter of Blois, Oxford 1993, xxviii; EEA xxvi, London, 219–20; EEA x, p. xlix; and Diana E. Greenway, ‘The Succession to Ralph de Diceto, Dean of St Paul’s’, BIHR 39, 1966, 86–95. 45 EEA ii, Canterbury 1162–1190, nos 56, 68, 75, 82, 93, 120, 131, 132, 174, 198, 199, 220. 46 Ep. 39, PL 207, 119. 47 Ep. 5, PL 207, 13–16; see John D. Cotts, ‘Monks and Mediocrities in the Shadow of Thomas Becket: Peter of Blois on Episcopal Duty’, HSJ 10, 2001, 143–61. 48 ‘Clericorum curialium vitam damnatissimam reputatis, et in eius exsecrationem fere totam illam satyram Juvenalis expenditis: Si te propositi nondum pudet’: Ep. 6, PL 207, 17. The reference is to Juvenal’s fifth satire. 49 ‘Magister bone! Si puerilium derivationem naenias, quibus insenuistis memoriter retinetis, cum curia a cruore dicatur, clerici qui cum praelatis ecclesiae conversantur, curiales non sunt; nec enim apud eos judicium sanguinis exercetur’: ibid. For the cruor-curialis derivation, see Rolf Köhn, ‘Militia Curialis: Die Kritik der geistlichen Hofdienst bei Peter von Blois und in der lateinischen Literatur des 9–12. Jahrhunderts’, in Soziale Ordnungen im Selbstverständnis des Mittelalters, ed. Albert Zimmerman, Berlin 1979, 227–57; John W. Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants: The Social Views of Peter the Chanter and his Circle, Princeton 1970, vol. i, 175ff.

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and knotty questions of the realm are referred to us, and when we approach them among our fellows in common audience, each one of us sharpens his wits to speak his mind according to his own order and without quarrel or disparagement, and in a subtler vein offers what seems to him the sounder and better-advised course.50 Peter’s ideal, at once spiritual and intellectual, binds the cleric’s status as litteratus to his proper function in the service of the great. The ideal cleric that emerges from this passage is a school-trained polymath who thinks and prays, advises and rebukes, defends the church and the realm without sullying his hands through judgments of blood. Scholastic language pervades the passage to underscore Peter’s vision of an elite of pious scholars as the sinews of the realm. He seems to have found an ideal to fit men of his station, and he is careful not to embrace the title curialis completely. When it came to those more directly involved in the courtly life, men like the previously-mentioned Richard of Ilchester, Peter struggled to find an ideal, but he tried his best in a letter he wrote, in Richard of Dover’s name, to Pope Alexander III. Despite the repercussions of the Becket controversy, Henry II succeeded in placing his curiales in episcopal sees, and these men in particular attracted widespread criticism.51 In his letter Peter exonerates the bishops of Winchester, Ely and Norwich from the charge that they are overly involved in court affairs.52 Peter’s defense depends on an ideal of clerical service based on tradition, scripture and appeals to the common good: It is not new for bishops to enter the councils of kings. For just as they precede all others in wisdom and honesty, so they are considered very prepared and effective for the administration of the republic. For, as it is written, a kingdom that is not ruled by the counsel of wise men is governed in less salutary fashion.53 Peter goes on to refer to Old Testament priests like Joiadas and Zacharias who guided kings away from evil.54 The need for wise bishops to counsel kings had long been recognized, and played an important role in the episcopal hagiography of the central Middle Ages.55 In Peter’s construction of an acceptable curialis, the philosopher of John of Salisbury’s Metalogicon in effect takes on the attributes of Gregory the

50 ‘castra Dei sunt haec in quibus habitamus, et sciatis quia non est hic aliud nisi domus Dei et porta caeli.

In domo domini mei Cantuarensis archiepiscopi, viri litteratissimi sunt, apud quos invenitur omnis rectitudo justitiae, omnis cautela providentiae, omnis forma doctrinae. Isti post orationem et ante comestionem in lectione in disputatione in causarum decisione iugiter se exercent. Omnes quaestiones regni difficiles et nodosae referuntur ad nos; quae cum inter socios nostros in commune auditorium deducuntur, unusquisque secundum ordinem suum sine lite et obtrectatione ad bene dicendum mentem suam acuit, et quod ei consultius videtur et sanius, de vena subtiliore producit’: Ep. 6, 17. 51 See above, note 41. 52 ‘Detractores, Deo odibiles, serenitati vestrae de nostris episcopis enormia suggesserunt, asserentes quod venerabiles fratres nostri R. Winton. et G. Elien., atque Joannes Norvicen. episcopi, sequentes odorem munerum, et omnino abjecta sollicitudine pastorali, militiae ne dicam malitiae curialis fluctibus se immergunt. Dicunt quod judicia sanguinis exercent . . . et ad mensam Domini non accedunt’: Ep. 84, printed in PL 200, 1459. For a thorough discussion of the pun ‘militiae ne dicam malitiae’ see Kohn, ‘Militia Curialis’. 53 ‘Non est equidem novum quod regum consiliis intersint episcopi: sicut enim honestate et sapientia caeteros antecedunt, sic expeditores et efficaciores reipublicae administratione censentur. Quia, sicut scriptum est, minus salubriter disponitur regnum, quod non regitur consilio sapientium’: Ep. 84, 1459. 54 Ibid., 1459. 55 Jaeger, Origins of Courtliness, 19–48.

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Great’s good pastor while supporting an anointed monarch. It is an uneasy synthesis that dissolves when Peter turns to an artful exercise in self-examination. That self-examination appears in an extraordinary pair of letters that Peter wrote in the 1180s and revised by the mid-1190s, and which appear in most modern discussions of courtly criticism of the ‘clerical rebellion’ against courtly culture.56 The longer and more important of the two, numbered 14 in Migne’s Patrologia edition, actually exists in two versions, one of which appeared in the first collection of letters that Peter issued (with a terminus ante quem of 1184), the other in a later issue.57 An edition of the discrete versions of the letter appeared in Lena Wahlgren’s 1993 study of the manuscript tradition. Peter wrote his first version of letter 14 (14A) around 1182–84 after returning to Canterbury from the royal court. He speaks of having departed the curia, before which time he was accustomed to ride with the king’s entourage and serve in via, in camera, in capella. We can make an argumentum ex silentio that Peter spent the period from June 1182 to mid-August 1183 at Henry’s court, attending to the affairs of his archbishop, since he attests no Cantebury acta during that period.58 It is reasonable to suppose that the departure from the court Peter refers to in letter 14 is his return to Richard’s household. Yet Peter did not fully extricate himself from the circles of the great, which we know from his brief service with Queen Eleanor and his relationships with William of Ely and Walter of Coutances in the 1190s. The moment of crisis recounted in these letters, then, does not refer to a single, life changing decision but rather a continuing dilemma inherent to Peter’s chosen career. In the early 1180s numerous ideals of clerical service collided in his letters. Letter 14A begins with a friendly greeting to the clerics of Henry’s chapel who had helped Peter through times of adversity at the court, but immediately takes on a confessional quality. ‘Urged on by a certain spirit of ambition’, he writes ‘I immersed myself entirely in the waves of public life’ thus ‘rejecting my order.’59 Peter calls himself a glutton, a ‘putridissimus pulvis et modico flatu dispergendus in ventos’, again echoing a common theme in confessional and pseudo-confessional literature.60 He thus frames his discussion of the court in terms of confession and penance, as befits a man who began advanced theological study in Paris in the age of Peter Lombard. The language is that of conversion and personal reform, and a continual emphasis on proper ordo certainly reflects the current of ecclesiastical reform. Peter of Blois’ attack on curiales focuses above all on the threat to clerical order represented by royal clerks, and so echoes the pronouncements of the Second and Third Lateran Councils as well as the reforming literature of Peter Damian and others. They suffer the dangers of travel only to place their souls in mortal danger, grasping for royal favor and incurring God’s disfavor, all the while forgetting the virtue of poverty. It is clear that Peter has internalized a number of the currents of 56 The phrase ‘clerical rebellion’ is from Jaeger, Origins of Courtliness, 176–94. 57 The Patrologia edition of Peter’s works conflates the two versions, leaving a large rambling affair

which pursues several tacks at once, but Lena Wahlgren has now examined the manuscripts of the two versions and published a preliminary edition (Letter Collections: see above, n. 7). I here follow her lead in referring to the two versions 14A and 14B, and I take my citations from her edition. 58 Köhn, ‘Militia Curialis’, 228, supplies these dates, though he provides no reference except for letter 14, which is silent on matters of chronology; 1182–1183 does, however, represent a period during which Peter does not attest acta at Canterbury. 59 Ep. 14A, Wahlgren, Letter Collections, 152. 60 Cf. the poem Aestuans intrinsecus, the poem often known as ‘The Archpoet’s Confession’, in Die Gedichte der Archpoeta, ed., H. Watenpuhl and H. Krefeld, Heidelberg 1958, 73–6.

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reform, above all the neat separation of clergy from lay magnates. His choice of the term militia curialis clearly illustrates the unholy blurring of boundaries. 61 Peter cleverly interweaves his warning of spiritual dangers with the decided physical hardships and general wastefulness of the court. Yet he then shifts course a bit, in classic Peter of Blois fashion, in order to absolve Henry II himself from responsibility, since Henry is the greatest king since Charlemagne. Of course, he is also sure to emphasize his own close relationship with the monarch, and how the king has always granted his requests.62 But despite the king’s greatness, Peter concedes that men of our calling can more effectively serve princes in the churches than in the camps. I do not think it unreasonable that more simple men, who are not at all educated in the divine page, wish to fight in the service of the royal majesty. But as for one who has taken holy orders and is imbued with sacred eloquence, who now is thought to draw his springs openly, and to return his borrowed talent with profit to his lord – it is altogether inexcusable for him to enmesh himself in secular duties.63 Peter here makes a direct condemnation of clerical life at court; he again emphasizes pastoral duty, pointing to the impropriety of churchmen pursuing negotia saecularia. He seems to cast aside the model of the learned cleric advising the king here, since he suggests there are better uses for wisdom than serving royalty. The cleric, who can serve God’s flock because of his learning, is in fact not suited to courtly service, for that service is for the less learned. The very attribute that makes a cleric a cleric in most of Peter’s work, his proficiency with the written word and so in reading scripture, here excludes him from an arena of service. It is a troubling paradox, and one that could not have been lost on Peter. For Peter there is now no place for true learning, that of divina eloquentia, except in churches and schools. Taken out of its ideal context in the court of the archbishop, the model of the sage cleric becomes irrelevant. In addition there may well be an element of intellectual snobbery at work here: Peter obviously contrasts scholars steeped in literature and those who simply keep accounts and attest documents, including (one could infer), royal servants like Richard of Ilchester and John of Oxford. Peter concludes the letter by marveling that cleric-courtiers even put up with the hardship of courtly life. The food and wine are awful and disease-ridden, so much so that the courtiers die as a result. Furthermore, the king’s marshals (marescalli) are corrupt and rob those in the king’s train. By introducing another category of royal servant Peter draws an institutional boundary between himself and the depraved kind of official he detests. Finally, Peter reminds the recipients of his literary work extolling the king’s merits and bids them farewell with the hope it will not be taken to pieces by detractores.64 The notion that the court was a magnet for ambition was not new; Peter writes in an established tradition of court critique. But much of the imagery characteristic of that tradition – mimes, jester, lascivious knights – is absent in 14A. It is a sober

61 See Köhn, ‘Militia Curialis’, passim. 62 Ep. 14A, Wahlgren, Letter Collections, 148. 63 ‘tamen nostrae professiones homines efficacius possent in ecclesiis deservire principibus quam in

castris. Si simpliciores, et qui minus sunt in divina pagina eruditi, ad obsequium regiae majestatis militare proponunt, non arbitror hoc absurdum. Verum in sacris ordinibus constitutus, et in sacro eloquens pollens, qui iam tenetur fontes suos derivare foras, talentum sibi creditum cum lucro ad dominum reportare, omnino inexcusabilis est, si saecularibus negotiis se immiscet’: ibid., 149 64 Ibid., 151.

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critique rather than a rollicking satire. Although occasionally mordant his language is not unremittingly hostile. He is careful to praise the king, going farther than Walter Map to exonerate him from the evil taking place beneath his nose.65 The stated audience are themselves clergy whom Peter is seeking to exhort to proper pastoral duty. The main focus of Peter’s attack, however, is the discrepancy between the ideal of priests effecting the peoples’ salvation and the reality of ambitious clerics involving themselves in secular affairs for personal profit. At Henry II’s court Peter finds only clerics who fall short of the ideal. The first version of Peter’s letter collection, which he began circulating around 1184, includes a second letter to the clerici aulae regiae, probably written soon after his initial attack.66 In this piece, printed as letter 150, Peter apologizes to the clerics of the court for his earlier remarks. He begins his apology by attributing his earlier outburst to poor health and a misguided contempt of all worldly things. Since health problems seem to have continually troubled Peter, this claim is plausible. Because of his fear of the world, Peter wrote the earlier epistle ‘led by a weighty feeling of penitence’ (gravi paenitentia ductus). ‘I do not’, writes Peter, ‘condemn the life of curiales who remain engaged in prayer and contemplation, are concerned with the utility of the commonweal and frequently carry out the work of salvation.’67 He had already appealed to this ideal elsewhere (in his letter defending curial bishops), and perhaps he is tacitly admitting that his reforming zeal took him too far from it.68 It is crucial that Peter attributes his earlier diatribe to an overwhelming wave of penitential feeling, for Peter more than once claims that he has repented of his earlier transgressions. In letter 14 he had been ‘quoddam spiritu ambitionis ductus’, while in letter 150 he was ‘gravi penitientia ductus’. He is literally led in opposing directions, a dilemma that appears throughout his letter collection, and in the writings of other clerics. John of Salisbury once claimed that Becket had done penance for his service as royal chancellor, and Gerald of Wales, at the end of his life, claimed repentance for his service in the world.69 The theory of sacred kingship, which Peter had appealed to as tutor to the king of Sicily, drives much of Peter’s apology for attacking curiales. Service to the king is incumbent upon good clerics because of the ruler’s divine qualities, including curatio scrophularum, and his very status as Christus Domini. A consequence of kingship’s sacred character is that clerics in fact fulfill their proper role by serving the king; the letter inserts the curia and curiales into what seems to be a decidedly royalist theology of power. The nearly contemporary Dialogus de scaccario, similarly explains the role of the king’s administration within a framework of theocratic kingship.70 In many respects letter 150 is something of a regression to an ideal of kingship that ran counter to the reforming tradition most recently embodied in Thomas Becket, and in 1184 it sat uncomfortably in Peter’s letter collection alongside more explicitly reformist ideals. For Marc Bloch these letters represented simply 65 Walter Map, De nugis curialium, ed. M.R. James, rev. C.N.L. Brooke and R.A.B. Mynors, Oxford

1983, 512–13. 66 On the textual history and dating, see Wahlgren, Letter Collections, passim. 67 ‘sed nec vitam curialium damno qui licet orationi et contemplationi non vacent, rei tamen publicae

utilitatis occupantur et frequenter opera salutis exercet’: printed in Ep. 150, Wahlgren, Letter Collections, 170. 68 See above, n. 52 69 John of Salisbury, The Letters of John of Salisbury, vol. ii, ed. W.J. Millor and C.N.L. Brooke, London 1979, no. 167; De invectionibus, Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, RS 21, vol. i, 151. 70 Richard FitzNigel, Dialogus de scaccario, ed. C. Johnson, rev. F.E.L. Carter and D.E. Greenway, Oxford 1983.

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a sic et non, a rhetorical exercise not to be taken seriously.71 Yet this view ignores the seriousness with which Peter regarded the curial dilemma. Peter recognized at several points in his letter collection that he worked between incompatible ideological traditions, and this was a thorny problem for him. At any rate, in later years the apology ceased to circulate with Peter’s letters, and his later letters make no reference to the king as anointed.72 Peter struggled in the 1190s to reconcile competing ideals, and revealed his struggle by returning to letter 14 and revising it. In the versions of Peter’s letter collections that he issued after 1184, the revision of his attack on Henry’s curiales, edited by Wahlgren as 14B and dated by her to around 1193, appears without the apology that 150 had offered. Peter was not entirely removed from the circles of the great: he continued to witness acta and write occasional letters for Archbishop Hubert Walter, the quintessential royalist bishop who did not renounce his secular office; he was an intimate of William de Longchamps, bishop of Ely, and even appeared in the circle of Eleanor of Aquitaine.73 14B retains many passages from the earlier version, along with its confessional mood. But this mood has darkened considerably. It is not only a spirit of ambition but the ‘blanda principis promissa’ that led Peter to the court. A sense of professional disappointment surfaces in new phrases like ‘qui magis diligunt minus diliguntur’. Only worthless, worldly clerics receive promotion to the highest levels of government. The putrid food and wine of 14A is even fouler here,74 and Peter bids farewell with admonition rather than thanks. Moreover, this is the only place in Peter’s letters where the jesters, mimes and actors of John of Salisbury’s Policraticus take the stage. Once and for all, it seems, the ideal of the sage counselor recedes before the reality of ambitious, grasping clerks and courtly decadence.75 The passage enumerating Henry II’s virtues (he was in his grave by this time) is nowhere to be found. Peter repeats the sentiment that clerics should stick to ecclesiae but now goes even further: Some say that, with an eye to correction and edification, Moses was sent to Pharaoh, Jeremiah to Sedechias, Helias to Ahab, Joiadas to Josiah. Cleric-courtier, did the Lord really send you to the king? It was rather ambition that sent, or rather, intruded, you into his service. 76 Here Peter explicitly denies the applicability of a traditional Old Testament parallel, that of the priest ensuring that kings behave in a pious manner, to the reality of courts. Peter had made this exact comparison between the Old Testament priests and 71 Marc Bloch, The Royal Touch: Monarchy and Miracles in France and England, trans. J.E. Anderson,

New York 1989, 22. 72 See Ethel Higonnet, ‘Spiritual Ideas in the Letters of Peter of Blois’, Speculum 50, 1975, 218–44;

Wahlgren, Letter Collections, 166. 73 For Peter in the service of Hubert Walter, see EAA iii, Canterbury 1193–1205, nos 365, 369, 372, 394.

On his relationship with William de Longchamps, see Ep. 89, PL 207, 278–81, and Ep. 108, PL 207, 332; for his relationship with Eleanor, see Ep. 87, PL 207, 276. 74 At 14A, 149, Peter writes ‘apponitur in mensa militis aut clerici panis plumbeus loliatus et crudus. Vinum vero aut arcore aut mucore corruptum, turbidum, unctuosam, piceatum et vapidum.’ 14B, 159–60, reads: ‘Apponitur clerico aut militi curiali panis non elaboratus, non fermentatus, confectus ex cervisiae faecibus, panis plumbeus, loliatus et crudis. Vinum vero aut arcore aut mucore corruptum, turbidum, unctuosum, rancidum, piceatum et vapidum.’ He goes on to add, ‘Cervisa, quae in curia bibitur, horrenda gustu, abominabilis est in aspectu.’ 75 Ep. 14B, Wahlgren, Letter Collections, 158. 76 ‘ad correctionem et eruditionem regum, inquiunt, missi sunt Moyses ad Pharonem, Ieremias ad Sedechiam, Helias ad Achab, Ioiadas ad Iosiam. O clerice curialis, numquid Dominus te misit ad regem? In obsequium eius te misit aut potius intrusit ambitio’: ibid.

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Henry’s epsicopal appointees a decade earlier, so the ‘some’ of ‘some say’ includes Peter himself. Now, in the face of the miseries, disappointments and moral turpitude of court life, he rejects the comparison out of hand. His attempt to endow the court with an air of sacrality has failed. After 1193, Peter addresses the problem of curiales intermittently in his corpus, and while his view become more hostile, he continually calls attention to the morally ambiguous position of the secular cleric in worldly affairs, and makes a few appeals to his old ideals. He composed a letter in the name of Hubert Walter, archbishop of Canterbury, excusing a Salisbury canon (where Peter also held a prebend) from the rule of residency on the grounds that he had weighty duties for the king.77 In general, however, his letters urge clerks to leave courts, and after 1198 he seems to have more or less settled in as archdeacon of London, where he tenaciously defended the honor of the office from threats real and imagined, and wrote lengthy letters on various subjects to Pope Innocent III. The days of defending the intellectual elite of Canterbury long over, he now usually urged his correspondents to flee secular cares and courts. He presents one letter as a kind of dialogue with an abbot of Reading, in which the aging abbot complains of the days he had lost following the courtly life and ‘living wretchedly’ (vixi perdite).78 He congratulates the archdeacon of Norwich for leaving the ‘furnace of curial cares’. Peter’s point about the continuing dilemmas of the clergy is borne out by this same archdeacon’s return to royal service.79 One of the pro-Henry bishops of whom he had written so glowingly to Alexander III, former royal justiciar Richard of Ilchester, is portrayed in a letter to Innocent III as the antithesis of a good cleric, a man who, ‘ignorant of practically all literature’, insisted on employing less than holy associates as officials.80 Again, Peter’s self-awareness as an unusually gifted intellectual surrounded by demi-savants immersed in secular cares adds to his vitriol. His episcopal handbook De institutione epsicopi, dedicated to John of Coutances, the son of Richard I’s chief justiciar, still clings to a courtly ideal, but the relationship between church and state seems somehow more adversarial, the royal administration more rapacious and dangerous. In this piece he compares to Pilate bishops who serve at court but absolve themselves of responsibility for judgments of blood.81 Yet bishops are needed to check the excesses of magnates; in one extraordinary passage Peter writes of how knightly entourages trample the gardens of peasants and how judges sentence to mutilation those who steal to feed their families.82 The clergy, argues Peter, has an obligation to intervene in these circumstances. As a secular cleric he never gave up on searching for a pastoral ideal for service in the world. He never entered a monastery, and even admitted, in one of his very last letters: ‘I am of the world and I follow the world, and it drags me down with it.’83 What does all of this mean for our understanding of the court as an administrative, legal or cultural center? Although Peter can rightly be termed a curialis in broad terms, he is a man of the court by virtue of his proximity to royal power rather than complicity in its exercise. The documentary evidence does not allow us to call him a

77 78 79 80 81 82

Ep. 135, PL 207, 403–4. Ep. 102, PL 207, 314–26. Revell, Later Letters, 30–7. For the archdeacon’s relapse to royal service see Revell’s note on p. 31. ‘prorsus omnis literature ignarus’: Revell, Later Letters, 48. De institutione episcopi, PL 207, 1110. Ibid. Cf. the injunction to leave peasants and others at peace in the field in Canon 11 of the Second Lateran Council, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 199. 83 ‘In seculo sum et seculum sequor, immo trahit me secum’: Revell, Later Letters, 169.

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royal administrator or truly one of the king’s men, despite his penchant for dedicating writings to Henry II. Yet Peter’s fleeting appearances in Gervase’s histories and the Epistolae Cantuarienses, which recount his role in legal entanglements between the Archbishop Baldwin and the Christ Church chapter, show that his enemies saw him as part of a threatening royal conspiracy.84 While he sometimes numbers himself among the curiales, he is also careful to distinguish his ideal clerk in the archbishop’s court from clerks who participate in judgments of blood. He identifies himself with the court as one of the learned, as a litteratus in its noblest sense, and saw his writings as the main proof of his value to the res publica. It is clear, however, that his adversaries and the few outside observers who mentioned him saw him only as a royal agent. Moreover, his critique of the court is not limited to men we would call ‘administrators’, but rather it attacks larger problems inherent to the world of the secular clergy. He tied together disparate elements of clerical duty in order to create a place for himself in the saeculum, just as the church, in the years prior to Lateran IV was working out the role of the pastor in its ecclesiology.85 Peter’s critique cannot be considered as only the lament of a disappointed careerist, for it provides insight into larger cultural trends. He wrote about the court as it affected him, as the place where he worked and tried to balance secular and spiritual obligations. His critique is as rich as it is because it ties together debates over clerical service, the relative merits of law, the arts and the divina pagina, and introduces spiritual questions relevant to pastoral duty, with a pious concern for penitence and charity. That Peter could approach the court from so many angles suggests that idea of the court in the twelfth century was hardly monolithic. He could draw from several ideological traditions to discuss it, and his discussions collectively place it in a somewhat ambiguous position in the political culture of the time, standing at the border of several ideals. J.E.A. Jolliffe, discussing the lack of a firm conception of Angevin kingship, has argued that the schools of the day ‘were not poor in ideas about monarchy’, but that none of these ‘could be made the working principle of a state’.86 Courtly service, intimately interwoven with Angevin kingship, similarly had no single guiding premise. The schools, along with polemical literature and the tradition of church councils, had left a number of sometimes incompatible ideas which could be used to discuss the court, and especially the place of churchmen in it. As a cleric, courtier and master, Peter was heir to all these ideas. Peter also found himself swept up by social and institutional change. The social order he subscribed to depended on an ideal of the clericus litteratus. Although twelfth-century laymen were literate in larger numbers than is generally assumed, the ideal litterati, as Peter’s writings make amply clear, were still clergy.87 Yet the new style of administration, whose transgressions against morality are described by Peter in stark detail, had shown that the new governments and their administrative class could be anything but ideal. The texts suggest that Peter took for granted the presence of clerics at different kinds of courts, and understood this task to include not only counseling great men, but also attending to minor matters of business where the

84 See John D. Cotts, ‘The Critique of the Secular Clergy in Peter of Blois and Nigellus de Longchamps’,

HSJ 13, 1999, 137–50. 85 Leonard E. Boyle, ‘The Inter-Conciliar Period, 1179–1215, and the Beginnings of Pastoral Manuals’,

in Miscellanea Rolando Bandinelli Papa Allessandro III, ed. Filippo Liotta, Siena 1986, 43–56. 86 J.E.A. Jolliffe, Angevin Kingship, 2nd edn, London 1963, 19. 87 Ralph Turner, ‘Miles Litteratus – How Rare a Phenomenon?’ in his Judges, Administrators and the

Common Law, 119–136.

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temptation to enter whole-heartedly into negotia and secularia arose. He brought together all aspects of clerical duty in his corpus in order to determine where he stood in this dynamic world of professional opportunity and spiritual pressure. For Peter of Blois the problem of the court lay in finding a clear, spiritually acceptable ideal that could justify his participation in twelfth-century clerical culture. Whitman College, Washington

Normandy and Norman Identity

NORMANDY AND NORMAN IDENTITY IN SOUTHERN ITALIAN CHRONICLES Ewan Johnson In Book Eleven of his Ecclesiastical History Orderic Vitalis records the feelings of Robert of Montfort, who was in Italy after fleeing Normandy in 1106, upon discovering the presence of others from the duchy in the entourage of Bohemond, prince of Antioch (1098–1111): ‘there to his joy [Robert] discovered some of his own fellow countrymen. Hugh of Le Puiset and Simon of Anet, Ralph of Pont-Echanfray and Walchelin his brother, and many others from North of the Alps were there with Bohemond’.1 The suggestion is that those Normans from north of the Alps formed a separate group of countrymen to those of Norman descent now based in the South. The suggestion is all the more striking because it talks of Robert’s feelings, suggesting that he was comforted by the presence of those familiar to him whilst in a strange land, and uses language, the word compatriotas, which Orderic often used to denote not just that two or more individuals shared a place of residence or ethnic origin, but specifically that they felt friendship and obligations to one another as a result of these links.2 Orderic therefore suggests that Robert felt some sense of shared identity with those from north of the Alps, but not to those of Norman descent then living in Italy.3 Orderic is not a writer often credited with drawing a distinction between the different parts of the Norman world.4 Although we should question the extent to which Orderic was informed about southern Italy, he was clearly interested in the deeds of those who went from the duchy to Italy in the eleventh century, and wove their adventures into a more general picture of Norman expansion.5 By the mid-1130s, when these passages of the Ecclesiastical History were written, Orderic could, however, write as if these links were no longer perceived as sufficient to sustain a sense of shared identity between the inhabitants of the two regions when they actually met.6 Orderic, indeed, is happy to suggest that such a break had

1

Orderic vi, 100–1. Le Puiset is not in Normandy, perhaps suggesting that Robert felt closer the northern French generally than to the southern Normans. 2 Orderic ii, 68–9 (on feelings of the Norman Ansgot towards Abbot Thierry); Orderic ii, 222–3, 258–9, 322–3, 348–9 (on English loyalty to one another). 3 A similar suggestion, making southern Italian Normans a group distinct in terms of kinship and homeland, occurs at Orderic v, 278–9. 4 As Marjorie Chibnall notes in her discussion of Orderic’s technique and influence, the rediscovery of the text influenced both Haskins and Douglas in their portrayals of a unified Norman world: M. Chibnall, The Normans, Oxford 2000, 114–17; C.H. Haskins, The Normans in European History, Boston and New York 1915; D.C. Douglas, The Norman Achievement, London 1969. Ralph Davis saw Orderic’s influence as great but entirely distorting: R.H.C. Davis, The Normans and their Myth, London 1976, 14–15. 5 On the limits of Orderic’s information see G.A. Loud, ‘The Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of England’, History 88, 2003, 540–67, at 546–8; Davis, Norman Myth, 63–4. 6 The two passages were composed in their final form between 1135 and 1137. Orderic i, 47.

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occurred as early as 1106 and, since he had been resident in Normandy for over twenty years at that point, we might wish to believe him.7 This break is not wholly due to the fact that Normans in the South had forgotten their origins in Normandy. The Normans in the South did indeed intermarry with existing elites, and by doing so enabled themselves to work alongside members of the Lombard aristocracies they had partially displaced.8 Yet Italian charters from throughout the eleventh and twelfth centuries record a continual stream of individuals who refer to their Norman ancestry, albeit in diminishing numbers once the first generation of immigrants die.9 It is therefore unlikely Orderic viewed Robert of Montfort as isolated from southern Italian Normans simply because they had no knowledge of their Norman past, or because none of them could have described themselves as Norman. What I would instead argue is that what was understood to constitute Norman identity in the South had diverged from what was understood in the North, in much the same way as the Irish of Brooklyn have a fundamentally different ethnic identity to those of Dublin. This article concentrates on the construction of Norman identity within the two extant Latin histories of early Norman activity in Italy: William of Apulia’s Gesta Roberti Wiscardi and Geoffrey of Malaterra’s De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae comitis et Roberti Guiscardi ducis fratris eius.10 Both have featured in previous work on Norman identity, but always as texts in comparison with others from the corpus of Norman historical writing. The result has been that the similarities between them and texts from Normandy have implicitly been suggested as the central points in their portrayal of Norman identity.11 On the other hand Kenneth 7 8

Orderic arrived at St Evroult in 1085: Orderic i, 5; vi, 552–3. On intermarriage see: L. Buisson, ‘Le più antiche forme dell’organizzazione politica normanna’, in I Normanni in Italia, ed. P. Delogu, Naples 1984, 223–34; E. Cuozzo, ‘Quei Maledetti Normanni’. Cavalieri e organizzazione militare nel Mezzogiorno normanno, Naples 1989; V. D’Alessandro, ‘Il nobile’, in Condizione umana e ruoli sociali nel Mezzogiorno normanno-svevo, ed. G. Musca, Bari 1991, 405–21; J. Drell, Kinship and Conquest: Family Strategies in the Principality of Salerno during the Norman Period, 1077–1194, Ithaca, NY, 2002; G.A. Loud, ‘How “Norman” was the Norman Conquest of Southern Italy?’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 25, 1981, 13–34, at 23; G.A. Loud, ‘Continuity and Change in Norman Italy: the Campania during the Eleventh Century’, JMH 22, 1996, 313–43, at 325–32. V. von Falkenhausen ‘I ceti dirigenti prenormanni al tempo della constitutzioni degli stati normanni nell’Italia meridionale e in Sicilia’, in Forme di potere e struttura sociale in Italia nel Medioevo, ed. G. Rossetti, Bologna 1977, 321–77, at 326. On co-operation and mixed retinues see E. Cuozzo, ‘ “Milites” et “Testes” nella contea normanna di Principato’, Bullettino dell’Instituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo 88, 1979, 121–63; Loud, ‘Continuity and Change’, 332–3; G.A. Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, Harlow 2000, 288–9. 9 For summaries of the evidence from the documents of La Cava see J. Drell ‘Cultural Syncretism and Ethnic Identity: The Norman ‘Conquest’ of Southern Italy and Sicily’, JMH 25, 187–202, at 198–200; generally L.-R. Ménager, ‘Inventaire des familles normandes et franques émigrées en Italie méridionale et en Sicile (XIe–XIIe siècles)’, in Relazioni e communicazioni nelle Prime Giornate Normanno-Svevo del Centro di Studi normanno-svevi, Bari 1973, Roberto Guiscardo e il suo tempo, Rome 1975, 259–390. 10 M. Mathieu, ed. and trans., La Geste de Robert Guiscard, Palermo 1961. E. Pontieri, ed., De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae comitis et Roberti Guiscardi fratris eius auctore Gaufredo Malaterra, Bologna 1927. Graham Loud’s extremely useful English translations of these and other key texts are available at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/history/weblearning/MedievalHistoryTextCentre/medievalTexts.html. 11 Graham Loud and Laetitia Boehm use them to draw out common characteristics in descriptions of the Normans: G.A. Loud, ‘The Gens Normannorum: Myth or Reality?’, ANS 4, 1980 (1981), 104–16; L. Boehm, ‘Nomen gentis Normannorum: Der Aufsteig der Normannen im Spiegel der normannischen Historiographie’, in I Normanni e lor expansione in Europa nell’alto medioevo, Settimane di studio del centro italiano di studia sull’alto medioevo 16, 1969, 623–704. Emily Albu views the pessimism with the Norman character she claims they share with other texts as critical: E. Albu, The Normans in their Histories: Propaganda, Myth and Subversion, Woodbridge 2001, 106–44. Marjorie Chibnall sees ‘essential elements’ of the broader Norman myth in the two texts: Chibnall, Normans, 117–19.

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Wolf’s study of the Normans in these texts is to my mind overly cautious about relating their constructions of Normanness to the societies in which they were produced.12 It is an explanation of how Normanness is constructed in these texts, and what this might suggest about the portrayal of Norman ethnicity and political power in southern Italy, that this article seeks to offer.

William of Apulia’s Gesta Roberti Wiscardi The Gesta Roberti Wiscardi is an epic poem written in dactylic Latin hexameters, which relates the history of eleventh-century Italy and its Norman conquerors in five books, the last two of which concentrate on Norman campaigns across the Adriatic. Its author was connected to the court of Roger Borsa, whom William acknowledges as patron and whose position as duke of Apulia (1085–1111) the poem defends against the rival claims of his half-brother Bohemond.13 Although there is as yet no scholarly consensus, the internal evidence from the text suggests that William, whether a native of or immigrant to southern Italy, had spent considerable time there before writing his poem.14 Internal evidence suggests the poem was being written in the summer of 1097, and was completed soon after that of 1099. 15 The poem contains no description of Normandy, but rather sets out from the start its intention to concentrate on how the Norman people used their military skills against the Greeks to capture southern Italy from them.16 The idea that the focus of the work is the population and territory of the southern Italian mainland and the change in who controls it is no mere statement, but fundamentally influences the work’s structure and content. Greek leaders are condemned specifically for their treatment of those who lived in these areas, which is contrasted with Robert Guiscard who ‘treasured those he made his subjects, and was himself loved by them’.17 The first three books of the work, those concerned with the conquest of the mainland, are

12 K.B. Wolf, Making History: The Normans and their Historians in Eleventh-Century Italy, Philadelphia

1995, 123–68, 172–5. 13 William of Apulia, Bk V, line 410, pp. 258–9; Bk IV, lines 186–92, pp. 214–15; Bk V, lines 345–51,

pp. 254–5. Wolf, Making History, 124. For Bohemond’s rebellion from 1087 to 1090, and the semi-reconciliation of the half-brothers see F. Chalandon, Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile, 2 vols, Paris 1907, i, 294–6; Loud, Guiscard, 255–8. 14 He pays considerable attention to the otherwise unimportant town of Giovinazzo. M. Manitus, Bildung, Wissenschaft und Literatur im Abendland von 800 bis 1100, Crimmitschau 1925, 660; Wolf, Making History, 124; William of Apulia, Bk III, lines 540–605, pp. 94–7; Bk III lines 627–36, pp. 198–9. He also had good knowledge of Byzantium, probably obtained through Apulia: Albu, Normans in their Histories, 133–5; M. Angold, ‘Knowledge of Byzantine History in the West: the Norman Historians (Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries)’, ANS 25, 2002 (2003), 19–33, at 24–8. The text’s editor claims he was Norman on the grounds of North French motifs in his work (William of Apulia, pp. 22–3) although these could be present in a text written for a Norman court without the author himself being Norman. Chibnall, Normans, 117 follows suit. For a summary of the debates and a review of Mathieu’s hypothesis see M. Fuiano, Studia de storiografia mediovale ed umanistica, 2nd edn, Naples 1984 1–91, esp. 1–6, 93–103. 15 It mentions the opening of the way through Anatolia in 1097, but the not the capture of Jerusalem in 1099 (William of Apulia, Bk III lines 100–5, pp. 168–71); and omits Urban II from the epilogue when he had featured in the prologue, suggesting it was completed after the pontiff’s death in July 1099 (William of Apulia, Bk V, lines 410–15, pp. 258–9). See generally William of Apulia, pp. 11–13. 16 William of Apulia, Bk I, lines 1–5, pp. 98–9. On the peninsula before the Normans see B. Kreutz, Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, Philadelphia 1991; G.A. Loud ‘Southern Italy in the Tenth Century’, in New Cambridge Medieval History III, ed. T. Reuter, Cambridge 2000, 624–45. 17 William of Apulia, Bk I, lines 445–60, pp. 122–5; Bk III, lines 149–51, pp. 172–3.

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the most heavily classical in tone and language, normally referring to the Normans as Galli, so that they are portrayed as at their most classical when operating in the heartlands of classical Rome.18 Yet this tendency stops once the events described move across the Adriatic, as if these adventures are inappropriate for such an epic tone.19 Similarly, as Emily Albu has noted, there is a marked shift in the moral tone of the poem in Books Four and Five, and it becomes much more critical of the Normans.20 This structure, with its emphasis on the transference of the right to rule Italy from Greek Empire to Normans, is crucial to the construction of ethnicity that appears within the text. One immediate effect of this focus on conflicts between Normans and the Byzantine Empire is to downplay the conflicts between the incoming Normans and those indigenous to the peninsula, especially the Lombard princes. This focus is supported by the way the Lombards are described. William, unlike Geoffrey Malaterra, rarely describes the southern Lombards in negative terms; he clearly distinguishes them from the other Italian contingents at the battle of Civitate in 1053.21 When conflict between Normans and Lombards is mentioned, it is often only as it comes to an end. William writes, for instance, of the changes in the nature of Norman power which followed the marriage in 1058 of Robert Guiscard to Sikelgaita, the sister of Gisulf II (1052–77), the last Lombard prince of Salerno. After this, he tells us, it was no longer force which bound Lombards to Normans, but an acceptance of the legitimacy of power exercised by the family of more long-standing conquerors.22 That this bond might lead to a certain blurring of the ethnic distinction between Norman and Lombard is confirmed by William’s rendition of the lament of Sikelgaita as her husbands dies in 1085. Her worries immediately focus on the problems that will ensue for her, her son and his dynastic claim, and for those Robert’s power has protected: ‘Behold, your wife and son are left to be torn apart by wolves, and your people will never be safe without you. You were the courage of our people, and without you they cannot be brave.’23 Who exactly ‘your people’ might be is unclear, given that the passage is directed at the Norman Robert by a Lombard princess. The final slippage to ‘our people’ (populi nostri), however, suggests that William’s Sikelgaita saw her and Robert’s people as including both Lombards and Normans, even if tacitly acknowledging that there are Norman wolves among those who threaten her.24 It is tempting to see this as more evidence to support the hypothesis advanced by Cassandra Potts that the Normans as a people were proud of their ability to assimilate with others and become one people.25 Yet even if 18 Wolf, Making History, 129. 19 Kenneth Wolf unconvincingly suggests William grew bored of his framework: Wolf, Making History,

138. 20 Albu, Normans in their Histories, 132–6. 21 William of Apulia, Bk II, lines 100–11, pp. 138–9. 22 William of Apulia, Bk II, lines 436–41, pp. 156–7; Wolf, Making History, 127–8; H. Taviani-Carozzi,

La Principauté Lombard de Salerne (IXe–XIe siècle): pouvoir et société en Italie Lombarde méridionale, 2 vols, Rome 1991, ii, 918–45, suggests such legitimacy was both essential and led to the ‘spiritual adoption’ of the Normans by the Lombard princes. Her argument, however, is problematic, being based on the fourteenth-century French terminology of a translation of Amatus of Montecassino’s original Latin text: V. de Bartolomaeis, Storia de’Normanni di Amato di Montecassino volgarizzata in antico francese, Rome 1935, IV.18–25, 194–9. 23 William of Apulia, Bk V, lines 312–15, pp. 252–3. 24 Albu, Normans in their Histories, 144. On the wolf motif as code for Northmen in other texts see Ibid., 41–5, 62–4, 91–105, 205–10. 25 C. Potts, ‘Atque unum ex diversis gentibus populum effecit: Historical Tradition and the Norman Identity’, ANS 18, 1995 (1996), 139–52; C. Potts, Monastic Revival and Regional Identity in Early Normandy, Woodbridge 1997, 2–4.

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the admission of mixed ancestry in other texts is an expression of pride, rather that an unavoidable statement of fact, the identity that results from such a blending conforms with the way other medieval peoples are described.26 The Normans portrayed by Dudo of St Quentin might have ethnically mixed ancestry, but they are portrayed, by Dudo’s time, as one cultural and political group, not as separate cultural groups owing allegiance to one political body. In this Dudo is conforming to the norms of both diplomatic and narrative writing, which saw medieval polities as populated by distinct peoples with their own customs. William’s text as a whole, however, does distinguish between Lombard, Greek and Norman, using cultural factors such as dress or language. Sikelgaita’s ‘people’ cannot therefore represent a new hybrid yet homogenous identity, whether it is called Norman or not. What merging of peoples does take place is rather between the Normans and some of those they meet and teach their customs to, and between the Normans and other Franks, with all immigrants referred to throughout as Galli, Franci or Normanni.27 Sikelgaita’s conception of people can therefore only mean those over whom Robert has political control, and it is appropriate that it should be voiced by a Lombard princess so politically active in securing power for her Norman husband and their half-Norman son.28 It raises the problem, however, of how the tensions between such a conception of a people, and those inherent in William’s broader cultural understandings of Greek, Lombard or Norman to describe those in southern Italy, might be resolved. My argument here is that within William’s text such terms are rendered politically neutral, and that a common political identity limited geographically to those in southern Italy is developed alongside other, more culturally based, definitions of an ethnic group. In examining Norman ethnicity in William’s poem, and in Geoffrey’s narrative, it is important to study not just the contents of the descriptions of the various peoples, but the various ways in which membership of a people is defined within the text. Any writer, modern or medieval, can choose to do this in a variety of ways, most obviously by using parentage or place of birth, but also by using more temporary and transferable motifs such as a particular tendency in a people’s character, or a tendency to dress or act in a certain way.29 Both logically, and in practice where these texts are concerned, the choices made in defining ethnicity affect the ways in which the relationship between an individual’s ethnic identity and their political allegiance can be handled. Within William’s text, ethnic terms, such as the words Norman or Greek, are associated with both birth and behavioural traits. The relationship between the transferable traits and those fixed at birth is, however, as problematic in the text as it is in life. There are, for example, a series of traits asserted as held by one group. Hence the first mention of the ‘Norman people’ is as ‘warlike knights’, and their bravery is a feature of their victories.30 The Greeks, by contrast, are ‘avaricious’ and behave ‘like women’.31 The latter is linked to the Greeks’ primary trait, that discovered by the Normans when they first encounter them, that is as people who ‘lacked strength and

26 Loud, ‘Gens Normannorum’. 27 William of Apulia, Bk I, lines 165–8, pp. 108–9. 28 P. Skinner, ‘ “Halt! Be Men!” Sikelgaita of Salerno, Gender and the Norman Conquest of Southern

Italy’, Gender and History 12, 2000, 622–41. 29 Loud, ‘Gens Normannorum’, 109–15, discusses the intellectual environment in depth. I differ here in

examining how the tensions between each definition are acknowledged and mediated within the texts. 30 William of Apulia, Bk I, line 4, pp. 98–9. 31 William of Apulia, Bk I, lines 210–13, p. 110.

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were identified not as brave fighters but as cowards’.32 This identification is specifically linked to the whole Greek gens in a later passage, where those Normans who encountered the Greek army during the invasion of Apulia in 1040 are portrayed as unafraid because although their ‘general had changed the people had not’.33 Yet these traits are not applicable to a gens in all situations. This is made clear when Exaugustus, the Greek general whose arrival did so little to frighten the Normans, encourages his troops to ‘march in the footsteps of their ancestors’, in whose time no ‘people, hearing the name of the Greeks, dared to stand before them in the field’.34 It is also made clear that contemporary Greeks were not always weak. Indeed, the speech on Greek effeminacy quoted earlier was intended by the leader of the Normans in 1041, the Lombard Arduin, to rally them precisely because they ‘had previously been forced to leave Apulia by the valour of the Greeks’.35 Hence there is an open admission within the text that character traits, such as bravery, do not naturally accrue to individuals simply as a result of their being born a member of a particular people. This is equally true of a second group of factors used to identify ethnic groups, that is through markers such as dress or language. The Normans are defined by their ‘language and customs’, although they teach these to others.36 One of these Norman customs is later defined as placing a silk cloth over the face of the dead during burial.37 It is possible to be clothed in a specifically ‘Greek style’, which involves a wrap-round bonnet.38 In the description of the Apulian campaign of 1041 this costume is linked to Greek weakness by Arduin, the Normans’ second Lombard leader, who claims that this ‘dress is unsuitable for battle’.39 Yet when this Greek dress is first mentioned, it was being worn by the Normans’ first leader, Meles, who is identified as an enemy of the Greeks and specifically as ‘born a Lombard, a noble citizen of Bari’.40 The identification of individuals as performers of the customs of one group and, explicitly, as members of another, could only be possible if performance of that one act alone did not define group membership. It is possible, since we are dealing with specific customs, that within the text membership of an ethnic group is defined through a cluster of behaviours, and that Meles remains a Lombard when dressed in Greek clothing because all his other behaviour could be described as Lombard. Yet the explicit textual explanation offered is not this, but the fact that Meles was ‘born’ a Lombard. For such a descent-based definition of ethnicity to have political conse32 William of Apulia, Bk I, lines 78–9, pp. 102–3. The first encounter between Normans and Greeks in

this text happens during the revolt of Melus against Greek rule in 1017, for which see Chalandon, Histoire i, 54–8, and Loud, Guiscard, 67–8. There were Normans in Italy before this point, although the variety of Norman activities makes it difficult to reconcile the various chroniclers’ accounts. For varying accounts of early Norman activity see H. Hoffmann, ‘Die Anfänge der Normannen in Unteritalien’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 49, 1969, 95–144; Loud, Guiscard, 60–6; J. France, ‘The Occasion of the Coming of the Normans to Italy’, JMH 17, 1991, 185–205; E. Joranson, ‘The Inception of the Career of the Normans in Italy – Legend and History’, Speculum 23, 1948, 353–96. I find the first two the most convincing. 33 William of Apulia, Bk I, line 370, pp. 118–19. For the Apulian ‘campaign’ of 1040–41, during which time the Normans were led by a Lombard named Arduin and then by another named Atenulf, see Loud, Guiscard, 92–4; Chalandon, Histoire i, 96–102. 34 William of Apulia, Bk I, lines 354–72, pp. 118–19, at lines 323–4 and 369. 35 William of Apulia, Bk IV, lines 229–30, pp. 110–11. 36 William of Apulia, Bk I, lines 167–8, pp. 108–9. 37 William of Apulia, Bk II, line 343, pp. 150–1. 38 William of Apulia, Bk I, lines 14–15, pp. 100–1. 39 William of Apulia, Bk I, lines 228–9, pp. 110–11. 40 ‘Se Langobardum natu civemque fuisse ingenuum Bari’: William of Apulia, Bk I, line 18, pp. 100–11.

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quences, to inspire group loyalty or disagreement, it would be necessary for individuals within the text to be shown as particularly loyal to members of their descent group. Yet this is not the case. Most obviously, Normans frequently fight one another without any suggestion being made that this represents disloyalty to the group as a whole.41 When descent does feature in a political sense, it is in terms of an individual’s breeding. In 1041 William poetically has the Normans elect Argyros, Meles’ son, because of their memories of his father.42 When Arduin defected to the Greeks, the Normans he had led instead elected from among themselves ‘twelve noblemen, distinguished by descent (genus), good character and age’, to act as their leaders.43 Descent here cannot have a meaning beyond the individual, for all are Normans and have the same degree of Normanness. The fact that descent within the text is used as a criterion only for the choice of leaders, not as a focus of group loyalty, suggests that the association between a political unit and a descent group is weak within William’s text. The boundaries which seem to matter most in the text are, in fact, not those of blood between ethnic groups, but rather geographic ones between political groups, and specifically between the Greek Empire and Norman Italy. The easiest way for William to have maintained these political boundaries would have been to create a poetical fiction in which everyone behaved as a stereotypical member of a group, and in which groups are portrayed as unchangingly good or bad according to William’s desired political outlook. Yet this is incompatible with the way in which politics is usually portrayed in epic verse, which makes individuals and their leadership the critical factor in success or failure. The poem describes a variety of the qualities good leaders should possess, but in no case are they particular to individuals from one ethnic group. Courage, for example, is used to characterise Norman figures such as Richard (d. 1078) and Jordan (d. 1090), the son and grandson of Rainulf, the first Norman count of Aversa (d. 1045), and Guiscard, but also to characterise the Greek emperor Alexius (1081–1118). 44 The other leadership credential shared between Norman and Greek is the ability to use cunning and persuasion. Guiscard is praised for his ability to ‘overcome. . . . by cunning’, as is Alexius.45 Neither is there ever any suggestion that any leader’s appeal rests in ideals shared only by members of that leader’s ethnic group. Indeed, the distinction between a leader’s values and those of his people is made explicit at some points: Gisulf II, Sikelgaita’s brother, acknowledges that Robert Guiscard is a praiseworthy man despite his own low opinion of the Norman people as a whole. 46 This stress on individuals exercising leadership also helps to minimise portrayal of conflict between the native Apulians and Calabrians and the conquering Normans. These groups never themselves compete for mastery in Apulia and Calabria, where Greeks fight Normans, but instead participate in and react to this conflict for leadership. This is especially true when the conquest involves the capture of fortified towns, whose leaders make ‘pacts’ with both groups according to circumstance, so 41 For a summary of the extent and causes of conflicts between Normans see Loud, Guiscard, 133–4,

234–44. 42 William of Apulia, Bk I, lines 425–6, pp. 122–3. The reason was probably more pragmatic, namely to

use Argyrus’s position in the Adriatic coastal towns, especially Bari, to bring them to the Norman side. Loud, Guiscard, 95. 43 William of Apulia, Bk I, lines 233–4, pp. 110–11. The status of the twelve counts so chosen was to have important consequences, and their holders and their descendants maintained some grip on at least the titles throughout the Norman period. Loud, Guiscard, 97–8. 44 William of Apulia, Bk I, lines 175–8, pp. 108–9; Bk II, lines 297–307, pp. 148–9; Bk IV, lines 81–3, pp. 208–9. 45 William of Apulia, Bk III, lines 568–70, pp. 194–5; Bk IV, lines 96–114, pp. 208–11. 46 William of Apulia, Bk II, lines 424–8, pp. 154–5.

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that Robert’s conquest of Bari in 1071 is due to the support of Argyritos and to the latter’s persuasive power over its other leading men, and then theirs over the populace.47 This idea of Italian peoples of all kinds as groups who do not compete for leadership, but rather whose support is competed for by Norman and Greek leaders, is encouraged by an accurate portrayal of Lombard politics as too intrinsically divided to allow the Lombards to unite southern Italy.48 The idea that political virtue is primarily an individual rather than a group trait, and the role given to Lombards, Apulians and Calabrians in choosing between Greeks and Normans, renders the creation of a distinct new people encompassing all those Guiscard ended up ruling over extremely problematic, for to do so would mean assigning the new group intrinsic political qualities and removing the Italian groups altogether since their role is never as political leaders. Political differences between peoples within the new polity are here diminished not by denying the existence of different peoples, but instead by describing all peoples as sharing similar political values. This is best illustrated by the slippage in the poem’s description of Norman involvement in Lombard politics. Although it mentions the Normans as a ‘people (populus) who preferred battles to treaties’, its main thrust is that ‘the major part of the evils which arise among mortals (mortales)’ do so because of humanity’s struggle for domination and vainglory in this world.49 The Normans are thus no worse than any other group, and prove to be considerably better once in power. Within the poem the stress on various behaviours as human or individual, rather than specific to any ethnic group, goes further than this and impinges directly on the cultural sphere. There are clearly cultural meanings inherent in its description of Greek dress and Norman language, which assert particular behaviours as normative for a particular group. Yet there is also clearly some undermining of any attitude which would make such tendencies central to understanding the new polity. The description of people who give too much credence to the ethnic behaviours cited above is overwhelmingly negative. Norman burial customs appear only as part of a deceitful attack. Here, the face is covered with a silk cloth to allow the Normans to smuggle weapons and men into a citadel since the Calabrians, who believe this to be a Norman custom, are thus prevented from recognising that the ‘corpse’ is not, in fact, dead.50 Other characters who give credence to particular group traits are made to look foolish. Arduin’s comments on the Greeks’ natural weakness, and on their customary dress being unsuitable for battle, are immediately contradicted, for the very next sentence mentions the Normans having been driven back by Greek valour.51 The Greek Emperor Constantine believes reports in which he ‘had heard that the Norman people were prone to avarice’, yet of all the attempts at bribery in the text, it is precisely this one that fails.52 Situations in which a behaviour is specifically identified as particular to one group are thus often accompanied by a negative comment on those who believe in this identification.

47 E.g. William of Apulia, Bk I, lines 400–1, pp. 20–1. For Bari see William of Apulia, Bk III, lines

144–62, pp. 172–3. 48 William of Apulia, Bk I, lines 154–64, pp. 106–9. 49 William of Apulia, Bk I, lines 140–55, pp. 106–7. Wolf makes a similar point about post-lapsarian

desire for domination in relation to Geoffrey Malaterra’s text, but does not extend it to cover William’s, even though William’s uses the Augustinian phrase dominandi libido, to describe politics at Bk I, line148. Wolf, Making History, 167–8. 50 William of Apulia, Bk II, lines 234–54, pp. 150–1. 51 William of Apulia, Bk I, lines 229–30, pp. 110–1. 52 William of Apulia, Bk II, lines 39–6, pp. 134–5.

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By implicitly raising the problems inherent in belief in strict, stereotypical behavioural boundaries between ethnic groups, William’s broader purpose of justifying Norman rule is well served. This is done first by the use of a universalised concept of political good. The explicit textual contradiction of any stereotypical framework it plays with, so that Greek dress is not exclusive to Greeks, nor bravery to Normans, also contributes. Finally, there is the implication that characters who believe the rhetoric that associates a form of behaviour with one particular ethnic group are exercising poor judgement. Terms such as Greek, Norman, Apulian, Calabrian or Lombard are thus drained of meanings which reliably associate them with behavioural norms or particular value systems. What values are asserted are instead the universals of good political behaviour. By draining terms associated with different ethnic groups of these cultural and political associations, and by stressing a shared political value system, the actual fractured political scene in Italy is unified within the text. It simply makes no sense, within the framework provided by the poem, to oppose Norman rule simply because it is Norman. This goes a long way to reconciling the almost wholly political use of ‘people’ by William’s Sikelgaita with the general cultural framework in which different ethnic groups exist. Yet one further problem remains, since even stripped of their broader cultural and political associations, the terms Norman, Lombard or Greek do not refer only to peoples within the new polity. When referring to the Normans, this problem can be side-stepped by excluding, in contrast to the other major chronicles which survive from the period, Norman history which took place outside Italy.53 Normandy itself is never described, and exists only as a land from which people come to Italy. The only general explanation of who the Normans were is an etymological derivation which rightly states them to be men from the North.54 This is cunningly vague, in that it remains true to an aspect of the Normandy tradition likely to be remembered by Normans, a Scandinavian origin, but gives no more detail and thus serves just as well as a simple description of their route to Italy.55 Greek actions in Asia Minor are, however, referred to, as is Norman intervention on the Greek Adriatic coast. The text, however, exploits these tales to suggest a distinction should be drawn between southern Italy as a whole, and Greece, with the boundary defined by the Adriatic. Although the narrative is dominated by two Norman-Greek wars, one in Italy, between 1041 and 1072, and the other on the Adriatic coast between 1080 and 1085, it is notable that the two conflicts are treated differently.56 In the second conflict, which takes place across the Adriatic against a Greek army commanded by Alexius, the two sides are better matched and the Normans are eventually comprehensively defeated. Thus Normans lose outside Italy, and Greeks lose when fighting in Italy, even though both groups are essentially the same. That danger to the ‘people of Italy’ (Italiae populus) comes from across the Adriatic is even confirmed by mythical fish. After the fall of Bari and the end of a Greek presence on the peninsula, Guiscard catches a ‘huge fish, horrid of body and incredibly shaped’ in the Adriatic, the sea which divides the Byzantine Balkans from southern Italy. This fish, which had previ53 E.g. Malaterra (see n. 10 above), Bk I, ch. 4, p. 9; Bk I, chs 39–40, pp. 24–5; Amatus of Montecassino

(see n. 22 above), I.3–8, 12–6; I.20, 23–4. 54 William of Apulia, Bk I, lines 6–10, pp. 98–9. 55 On the ways in which Italian chronicles attached importance and meaning to the Northern origin to the

Normans, see E. Johnson, ‘Origin Myths and the Construction of Medieval Identities: Norman Chronicles 1000–1200’, in Texts and Identities in the Early Middle Ages, ed. R. Corradini, R. Meens, C. Possel, and P. Shaw, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 13, Vienna 2005 (forthcoming). 56 For the conflicts in Apulia see Loud, Guiscard, 92–137. On the Durazzo campaign, Chalandon, Histoire i, 265–71, 278–81; Loud, Guiscard, 214–19, 222–3.

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ously terrorised the local population, is then used to feed Guiscard, his men and those from Calabria and Apulia.57 I find it hard not to see this as a reference to his defeat of the Greeks, particularly since it contrasts so strongly with the only other metaphoric use of the natural world in the text: a heavy snowfall upon the Norman’s arrival, which is described immediately before the first battle between Greeks and Normans in Italy and affects all of – and only – southern Italy.58 All this suggests that William is asserting geographic limits to the proper sphere of operation for his Norman patrons, and that the lands across the Adriatic are outside them. It is, specifically, Greeks from across the Adriatic, in the service of the Byzantine Emperor, that pose a threat to the Normans. This reinforces the sense of southern Italy as a political entity by providing it with a boundary and an enemy. It is more than likely that William inserted this geographically defined boundary simply to explain Norman failures outside Italy, and to suggest tacitly that the maintenance of proper order in, and the defence of their new realms from further aggression, should be his patrons’ main concern. He must also have been aware of the serious problems the Normans had had in maintaining their hold over the coastal towns of Italy. Yet, in terms of the way ethnic identity has been constructed in the text, the boundary fulfils another purpose. The implication of the text is that within southern Italy there are no clear boundaries between Greeks, Normans and Lombards in the political sphere. The conflict with the Greek Empire, however, draws attention to the Greek elements within southern Italy, and does so in a highly politicised context. Since the only term available for these Greeks was ‘Greek’, its use by William would have meant the collapse of the elaborate system by which he stripped ethnic terms of their meaning in order to justify Norman control. His approach was only saved by making a clear distinction between southern Italy and elsewhere, and hence between Greeks in Italy and elsewhere. To summarise, it is clear that the construction of ethnicity within William’s text coincides closely with one of its political functions, which is to legitimise Norman rule, especially to those the Normans have recently conquered. It does so by suggesting that boundaries which might exist between ethnic groups within the new polity are politically unimportant, and that what matters instead is the geographic boundary between the new polity and the wider world. This territorial definition of the polity, that is as the duchy of Apulia and Calabria, was adopted by Pope Nicholas II (1059–61) in 1059 when he gave Guiscard licence to conquer it. From now on Guiscard and his successors were styled ‘dukes of Apulia and Calabria’ in charters.59 For Nicholas this break from the standard medieval practice of defining polities in terms of their peoples might have been due simply to the existing territorial division of the region into two Byzantine themes. For William, however, it becomes something much more; it provides a solution to the problem of reconciling the cultural and political affiliations of those within the new polity. It was not, however, the only way in which the polity was defined by those writing in late eleventh-century Italy.

57 William of Apulia, Bk III, lines 167–81, pp. 172–5, quotes at lines 170 and 168–9. 58 William of Apulia, Bk I, lines 47–50, pp. 100–2. Other interpretations of the fish vary: Wolf, Making

History, 124, sees it as portending the fall of Palermo; Albu, Normans in their Histories, 123, interprets it instead as a sign of Robert’s cunning. 59 Malaterra places this immediately after Civitate: Malaterra, Bk I, ch. 14, p. 15. However, Geoffrey may not have been in Italy at the time, and all other sources suggest the title was granted later: William of Apulia, Bk II, lines 400–5, pp. 154–5; P. Fabre and L. Duchesne, eds, Le Liber Censum de l’Eglise Romaine, 3 vols, Paris 1889–1952 i, 421–2.

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Geoffrey Malaterra’s De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae comitis et Roberti Guiscardi ducis fratris eius This prose account of the Norman conquest was, like William’s poem, written in Italy at the time of the first crusade.60 Its narrative recounts events up to July 1098, paying particular attention to the conquest of Sicily by Roger, the brother of Robert Guiscard, and it then stops abruptly. Its stated patron was Roger I of Sicily (1072–1101), by then in his sixties and perhaps seeking to use the text to legitimise his Sicilian conquests and ensure a smooth succession.61 The author was a first-generation immigrant from across the Alps, and a monk, although Ernesto Pontieri’s assertion that he came from St Evroult seems improbable.62 He knew the work of Dudo of St Quentin, and so was most likely, although not provably, a Norman himself.63 Roger’s patronage of Geoffrey’s work, and the fact it was composed in Sicily, meant that Geoffrey’s immediate audience differed from William’s, and this obviously affected the way in which his work was constructed. The boundary between a history of the Hauteville family and a history of the Norman conquest of Italy is nowhere thinner than in Geoffrey’s text, where Geoffrey’s desire to please his patron led him to include several tales involving Count Roger’s kin in Normandy, all of which are of little import either for the history of Italy or the duchy.64 This concentration on the Hauteville family is central to Geoffrey’s conception of the Normans. Immediately after his opening section, with its description of the Normandy and the Normans, he provides a similar description of the geographic origins and family history of the Hautevilles.65 Although Geoffrey suggests that Lombard malice lay behind various mainland revolts, Count Roger’s use of Sicilian, and indeed Muslim, troops to support his nephew Roger Borsa and Richard of Aversa against these revolts is justified not in terms of Norman solidarity, but rather in terms of aid to kin, so that Count Roger became the ‘protector of all his family’ (totius progeniei suae sustentator).66 The potentially hostile audience of particular concern to Geoffrey in legitimising Roger’s conquest was thus not a non-Norman group who had previously 60 One passage talks of Bohemond’s departure, but not the capture of Antioch, suggesting this passage

was composed in the summer of 1097. Malaterra, Bk IV, chs 24, 20–6, p. 102. Wolf, Making History, 146–7. 61 Malaterra, Letter, 4; Wolf, Making History, 147. 62 Malaterra, iv. The assertion is echoed by L.T. White, Latin Monasticism in Norman Sicily, Cambridge, MA, 1938, 106, 117; and by Marjorie Chibnall in Orderic ii, xxii. Orderic Vitalis failed to mention that Geoffrey had any connection with St Evroult when referring to his works: Orderic ii, 100–1. It is unlikely Orderic knew of such a connection and neglected to mention it, and Orderic’s spell at St Evroult began well within the lifetimes of those monks who would have known of Geoffrey had he emigrated to Italy from the monastery. 63 The text refers to Rollo’s (the first ‘duke’ of Normandy) past in Frisia, information which can only have come from Dudo’s text, since William of Jumièges removed it from his re-working of the Gesta: Malaterra, Bk I, ch. 1, p. 7; J. Lair, ed., De Moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum auctore Dudone Sancti Quentini decano, Caen 1865, II.9–10, 149–51 (English translation: E. Christiansen, Dudo of St Quentin: History of the Normans, Woodbridge 1998); Jumièges i, 47–51. Geoffrey gives the name of the French king at the time of Rollo’s arrival in Normandy as Louis rather than Charles as in Dudo, and comments that this was a guess: Malaterra, Bk I, ch. 2, p. 7; Dudo, II.27–8, 167–70. This suggests he did not have a copy of Dudo’s text in Italy and that most probably he read Dudo in Normandy. Gerda Huisman, ‘Notes on the Manuscript Tradition of Dudo of St Quentin’s Gesta Normannorum’, ANS 6, 1982 (1983), 122–36, esp. 125. 64 Malaterra, Bk I, chs 38–40, pp. 24–5. 65 Malaterra, Bk I, chs 3–5, pp. 8–9. 66 Malaterra, Bk IV, ch. 26, p. 104 (line 10). More generally see Malaterra, Bk IV, ch. 1, p. 85; Bk IV, ch. 4, p. 87 and esp. Bk IV, ch.s 26–8, pp. 104–6.

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held power, but all those on the mainland who might use Count Roger’s death to disinherit his young sons or who questioned the Sicilian count’s increasingly active role on the mainland. Geoffrey therefore stated that Guiscard had granted Count Roger all of Sicily except for Palermo, and stressed the role played by Roger, as head of the Hauteville family, in ensuring Roger Borsa’s succession and in settling disputes on the mainland.67 Moreover the Latin nobility of Sicily were of a different ethnic composition to William’s audience on the mainland. Count Roger, who captured a non-Christian province, had no need or opportunity to legitimise his conquest through marriage to women drawn from the native aristocracy, and instead married high-status Norman emigrées such as Judith of Grandmesnil and Eremburga, daughter of the former count of Mortain. Roger reinforced his power over major landholders, nearly all of whom were from the duchy, by marrying them to his own female relations.68 The highest-status noble women in Sicily were thus Normans, which in turn meant that the nobility as a whole was much more Norman than on the mainland. The fact that Geoffrey’s narrative was written for a patron and a nobility who were in the main Norman, and that the greater part of the work deals with the conquest of a Muslim island by a Christian people, allowed Geoffrey to be much more conventional in his choices over how ethnicity could be constructed and exploited than William had been. His history opens with a description of Normandy, a brief history of how Normandy came to be in the hands of the Normans, and then a description of the character of the Normans.69 The one certain model for Geoffrey’s work, Dudo of St Quentin’s History of the Norman Dukes, opens in a similar fashion: with a geographic description of the world and of Scandinavia in particular, a history of the mythical wanderings that brought the Danes to Scandinavia, and then a description of the customs and character of the Danish people.70 Dudo himself, however, had clearly drawn on late antique and early medieval models when writing his work.71 Geoffrey was thus using a long-standing Latin historiographical tradition deemed appropriate for describing and justifying the actions of immigrant conquerors, and one which assumed those conquerors to be a culturally and politically distinct group from those they conquered. Geoffrey’s text is seemingly straightforward in the way in which membership of an ethnic group is defined, and in the relationship between this and political loyalties. Exotic Saracen practices which intrigue Geoffrey, such as captured camels or the use of carrier pigeons, serve both to define Muslim groups, and to legitimise Roger’s conquest by emphasising the otherness of those the Normans took Sicily from.72 The unproblematic stereotyping of cultural practices as specific to one group is not,

67 Malaterra, Bk II, ch. 45, p. 53. Both Amatus of Montecassino and Falco of Benevento portray

Guiscard’s grant as rather smaller: Amatus of Montecassino, VI.21, 283; E. D’Angelo, ed., Falco di Benevento: Chronicon Beneventum, Florence 1998, 68. 68 For a summary of the evidence for Roger’s family see H. Houben, Mezzogiorno normanno-svevo Monasteri e castelli, ebrei e musulmani, Naples 1996, 106–13; for Sicilian landowners see Loud, Age of Guiscard, 176–9; and for these individual families L.-R. Ménager, ‘Inventaire’, 312, 323, 353–4. 69 Malaterra, Bk I, chs 1–3, pp. 7–9. 70 Dudo, I.1–3, 129–31. 71 Dudo used both Isidore’s Etymologies and Jordanes’s Getica. W.M Lindsay, ed., Isidori Hispalensis episcopi Etymologiarum sive originum libri XX, 2 vols, Oxford 1910–11; Th. Mommsen, ed., Iordanis Romana et Getica, MGH Auctores antiquissimi 5, Berlin 1882, 56–138. For more precise references to his use of these texts see notes in Christiansen, Dudo of St Quentin: History of the Normans, 182–3; Jumièges i, 12–17. 72 Malaterra, Bk II, ch. 33, p. 44; Bk II, ch. 50.

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however, exclusive to Muslim groups. Particular clothing is identified with Greeks, and with the small population of Sclavi, seemingly members of the small Slav population around Gargano.73 Geoffrey tells how early in his career Robert Guiscard entrusted a vital mission to these Slav followers, but joined them in disguise, donning their traditional tunic and cloak, and only revealing his identity at a critical juncture by throwing the cloak back and speaking.74 The Norman rebel Goscelin, appointed to a Byzantine command, likewise adopts a different form of clothing and returns dressed in the Greek clothes appropriate for such a commander.75 Within Geoffrey’s text, therefore, both Robert and Goscelin are able to exploit stereotypical associations about clothing to denote with certainty their supposed roles and ethnicity. Hence whilst in William’s text the framework which associated clothing with one ethnic group was weakened when individuals of another group adopted it – Meles could not pass as a Greek even when dressed as one – in Geoffrey’s it is strengthened by the implication that Robert can pass as a Slav, and the stereotype is reinforced rather than weakened. As Robert Guiscard revealed his Norman nature by speaking and had to remain silent when in disguise, it is clear that Geoffrey portrays ethnic groups as having their own languages and, elsewhere, as having distinct religious practices and, linked to this, laws and dietary requirements.76 The explicit description of the character of the Norman people includes not just character traits, but also forms of behaviour that would mark them out, such as hunting, hawking, fancy clothing and painted weapons.77 There is also a clear link between descent, membership of an ethnic group and political loyalty within the text. Geoffrey suggests that Roger Borsa’s naivety and mixed parentage were responsible for his decision to favour Lombards as well as Normans, despite the Lombards’ supposed hatred of the Normans and their rule. Robert Guiscard accompanies his men in disguise precisely because he feared their ethnic ties to the local population made them untrustworthy.78 Beyond such explicit statements, political actions are often described in terms of the character of a particular people, with three groups being identified, in the same terms, as ‘always most treacherous’.79 Rebellions and plots were not uncommon among the Norman nobility of southern Italy, but attributing non-Norman rebels’ actions to their ethnicity makes Geoffrey’s tale one of competing peoples, and allows its author to use the norms of description inherited from Dudo and the wider Latin world. Geoffrey’s description of peoples as having particular characteristics is most explicitly stated in his description of the Normans: They are a very astute people, keen to avenge injuries, looking to enrich themselves from others rather than from the fields of their homeland. They are greedy and keen for profit and power, almost always pretending to be what they 73 For a brief history of the Slav population see J.-M. Martin, La Pouille du VIe au XII siècle; Rome 1993, 504–9. 74 Malaterra, Bk I, ch. 16, pp. 16–17. Slavs wore ‘vili veste et scarpis’ (line 27). 75 Malaterra, Bk II, ch. 43, p. 51. Goscelin of Corinth is clothed ‘graeco more’ (line 31). 76 E.g. the Greeks of Rossano wish for a bishop ‘ex sua gente . . . sibi Graeci’ rather than a ‘latinus’ (Malaterra, Bk IV, ch. 21, p. 100 [line 26]); the Muslim community of Palermo are allowed to live by their own laws (Malaterra, Bk III, ch. 45, p. 53 [lines 11–14]); Saracen troops accompanying Roger need different food (Malaterra, Bk IV, ch. 26, 104 [lines 35–9]). 77 Malaterra, Bk I, ch. 3, p. 8. 78 Malaterra, Bk IV, ch. 24, p. 102; Bk I, ch. 6, p. 16. 79 The phrase ‘genus semper perfidissimum’ is used of the Apulian Lombards (Malaterra, Bk I, ch. 13, p. 14 [line 25]); of the Calabrians (Malaterra, Bk I, ch. 23, 22 [line 4]) and of the Greeks (Malaterra, Bk II, ch. 29, p. 40 [lines. 2–3]).

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The ability to withstand hardship, and an unrestrained desire to enrich oneself, are the central components of the quality Geoffrey uses most often to describe both the Normans in general and the individual Normans within his text, namely strenuitas. This traditional military virtue, used as a personal epithet in Frankish charters and even, by William of Apulia, of the Greek leader Alexius Comnenus, becomes in Geoffrey’s text the exclusive preserve of the Normans, ancestral pride in which can even rally them at times military crisis.81 In particular, the Hautevilles possess it in abundance, and have a ‘naturally ingrained habit’ of being ‘greedy to rule’.82 Such a habit is, of course, a rather double-edged attribute, capable according to the circumstances of either causing trouble or driving the Normans on to great deeds of conquest. The fact that the merit of Norman actions depends on circumstance is inherent not only in the nature of strenuitas, however, but also in Geoffrey’s description of them more generally. Geoffrey’s description of their character is far from simple flattery, and contains within it potential criticisms of the Normans and their actions.83 It is also clear that Geoffrey artfully constructs this passage in order to exaggerate the tension between various aspects of the Norman character, and that this is obvious even without reference to other texts. He arranges his portrayal as a series of apparent contradictions: the Normans are not especially liberal, but are very liberal to gain a reputation; they are capable of withstanding extremes of hardship but love luxury; they want to avenge injuries but seek to conquer those who have done them no harm. This reaches its extreme in the simple use of a pair of opposites to describe their character: both simulatrix and dissimulatrix. None of these pairings are actual contradictions, and it is perfectly possible that the Normans are at different times all that Geoffrey says them to be. Neither do they represent good and bad sides of the Norman character: both display and an ability to withstand hardship are necessary virtues among a military aristocracy held together by personal ties. What the passage does, however, is draw the audience in and force it to think about the contradictions of the Norman character portrayed here, and how context specific certain actions are, even when described as natural and permanent. This is also true of passages where the Normans are contrasted with other peoples in southern Italy. When describing the response of the Lombards around Prince

80 Malaterra, Bk I, ch. 3, p. 8. 81 Malaterra, Bk II, ch. 35, p. 46 (lines 11–17); William of Apulia, Bk IV, ch. 82, pp. 208–9. The term

miles strenuus is sufficiently common for Michael Prestwich to treat it as an accepted military term in his, ‘ “Miles in Armis Strenuus”: The Knight at War’, TRHS 6th ser. 5, 1995, 201–20. I am grateful to Dr Kathleen Thompson for two specific instances of its use to describe two members of the comital family of Mortagne: Rotrou II (d.1144) and his grandson Geoffrey III (d.1202), for which see L. Merlet, ed., Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Tiron, Chartres 1883, vol. ii, and Bibliothèque Municipale d’Alencon MS 112, Recueil sur la chartreuse de Val Dieu, fol. 9. 82 Malaterra, Bk II, ch. 28, p. 48 (lines 6–7). 83 Wolf, Making History, 166–8, claims the criticism works for an ‘educated’ audience by reminding them of Sallust’s description of the tyrant Catiline, and Augustine’s description of the desire to dominate which is central to a post-lapsarian world.

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Guaimar IV of Salerno (1027–52) to the Normans in his employ, Geoffrey is scathing about their mistrust: The race of the Lombards is indeed a most untrustworthy one, and always treats honest men with suspicion. They [the courtiers] secretly criticised those [Normans] in the prince’s entourage, secretly suggesting that he drive them from him less any wicked person do harm to him in the future. With their innate malice they added this further calumny, suggesting that a people who combined such astuteness and valour might by their cunning drive the prince out and seize his property.84 Here, as is typical in Geoffrey’s text, we see political conflict described in ethnic terms, and peoples given innate qualities. Yet for any reader of Geoffrey’s text, the Lombard suspicion is known to be valid, since the Norman Robert Guiscard did indeed, in 1077, drive out the ruling male Lombard prince of Salerno and seize his property. This passage thus casts doubt on the idea that the Lombards are in reality innately malicious, rather than merely politically astute, without ruling out the possibility that they are by nature malicious but just happened to be right on this occasion. Once again, the audience is forced to face up to and explain an apparent contradiction, and relate it to the Norman character. This second passage would, for a reader who identified with the Lombard position, allow some criticism of the Normans into a text otherwise hostile to non-Norman groups. Seen within the context of Geoffrey’s support for his patron, however, it also has a function for a Norman audience. If any criticism of the Normans is offered, it is of those ‘wicked men’ who drove the prince of Salerno’s descendants out, namely Robert Guiscard and hence, by implication, his son Roger Borsa, who also suffers from association through birth with the malicious Lombards. Geoffrey thus manages to reconcile implicit criticism of the actions of some Normans with a general pro-Norman framework, and to implicitly portray Count Roger, who conquered only non-Christians, as a good Norman. By forcing the audience to understand how the Normans act differently in different circumstances, he manages to reconcile both his political aims of defending one emerging Norman polity against another, and the problems inherent in applying a simple oppositional framework to the mixed ethnic polities that emerged in southern Italy. It is a very different approach to William’s, but one no less determined by the specifics of patronage, southern Italian politics, and intended audience.

Conclusion Who precisely constituted such an audience is, however, almost impossible to determine. Geoffrey states that Roger could read other histories, and that this motivated him to commission Geoffrey’s text, but this topos is so common that we should not necessarily assume that Roger ever read it.85 Crucially, there are no extant early manuscripts from Italy that would suggest where either work was being read, and the earliest traces of their influence are found instead in Normandy, where echoes of Geoffrey’s description of the Norman character were used by Orderic Vitalis, and where Robert of Torigni incorporated William’s etymologicial derivation of the

84 Malaterra, Bk I, ch. 6, p. 10. 85 Malaterra, Letter, 4.

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Norman name into his continuations of the Gesta normannorum ducum.86 These two writers’ treatment of the texts illustrates a further problem, namely that medieval readers would not necessarily have read the whole works as I have done, but may instead have mined them for sections which seemed relevant to the Norman identity they wished to illustrate. Yet both share features in their construction of ethnicity which must be related to how writers understood Norman identity in Italy. First, they both write as if origin is acknowledged, but is no longer a primary factor in determining political loyalty or response to the text. This is most obvious in William’s text, but is also evident in Geoffrey’s, for his construction too owes much more to the needs of Count Roger than to those of Norman origin as a whole within southern Italy. Linked to this is the relatively scant attention both pay to the history of the Normans outside Italy. The exception to this is the detail Geoffrey gives of the adventures of those Hautevilles who stayed in Normandy. Yet these are family legends, not attempts to explain the history of the duchy or of the Norman people in general. This is in sharp contrast to the history produced by Amatus of Montecassino only twenty years earlier, which uses tales of Norman adventures precisely to locate the expedition to Italy within a broader framework of Norman expansion.87 The suggestion can only be that by the 1090s the duchy of Normandy was becoming less central to the identity of Italian Normans, and was coming to serve only as a point of origin remembered, not as a potent force for political identification. Second, both works define ethnicity using physical markers such as clothing styles. Anglo-Normanists will be aware of such definitions in differentiating between English and Norman in the descriptions of the conquest of 1066.88 Yet this is rare elsewhere within the tradition of Norman historical writing. It can only make sense in an Italian context, where being in Italy brought to the fore ways of defining Norman identity otherwise hidden by the similar material culture of the French principalities. Ultimately, the passing of a pressing political interest in the point of origin that united them, and the explicit definition of ethnicity through fluid and easily assumed markers such as dress, can only have made it easier for the Normans to interact peaceably with those about them. Although neither text can be proved to be influential in constructing Norman identity in Italy, the evidence from both suggests that it was William’s vision, not Geoffrey’s, that was most likely to come true in the long run.

86 William of Apulia, pp. 70–3; Malaterra, li–lvii; Orderic iv, 82–3; v, 24–5; Jumièges i, 16–17. 87 Amatus of Montecassino, I.1–15, 9–20; Loud, ‘Gens Normannorum’, 105. 88 E.g. dress: Gesta Guillelmi, II.42, 176–7; Orderic ii, 256–7. On hair styles: D. M. Wilson, ed., The

Bayeux Tapestry, New York 1985, 177, 185, 193, 208; Carmen, line 325, 20–1; Gesta Guillelmi, II.44, 178–81; R. Bartlett ‘Symbolic Meanings of Hair in the Middle Ages’, TRHS 6th ser. 6, 1994, 43–60, at 45.

Monastic Chr onicles in the Abruzzi

MONASTIC CHRONICLES IN THE TWELFTH-CENTURY ABRUZZI G. A. Loud The genre of chartulary-chronicles, that is a combination of an historical narrative with a substantial collection of original documents, usually pertaining to a monastic house, was relatively unusual, but far from unknown in medieval Europe. Students of Anglo-Norman England will be familiar with the Abingdon Chronicle and the Liber Eliensis, in particular, and a small number of other histories of this type were written in England and northern France, mostly in the middle or late twelfth century.1 While there has been a tendency to dismiss such texts as a rather inferior form of history writing, a recent study of the Liber Eliensis has reminded us that these are not just, or at least not always, ‘a jumble of documents, narrative and miracles’, and that such chartulary-chronicles, like more overtly narrative histories, could have very clear and distinct authorial strategies which were enhanced by the interplay of narrative and document.2 Furthermore, as Patrick Geary has pointed out, even ‘pure’ chartularies, through their principles of selection and organisation, represent an attempt to shape and re-interpret the past of the institution concerned.3 There are no less than five examples of the chartulary-chronicle which survive from central and southern Italy in the twelfth century, four of which come from the regions which became incorporated into the new kingdom of Sicily created by Roger II after 1130. While they display considerable differences one from another, all combine to some degree narrative text and monastic chartulary. I shall omit discussion of the Chronicon Farfense of Gregory of Catino (written c.1105–25), both because it was part of a much wider and more ambitious historical and record-keeping project, which deserves a study in its own right, but also, and primarily, since it came from a monastery in Sabina, within the papal states, and thus from outside the Norman regno.4 Of the others only one, the Chronicon Vulternense, written between c.1090 and 1118, fits the ‘classic’ model of the chartulary-chronicle, in that it has a single continuous text, in which a broadly chronological series of documents is interspersed with narrative sections weaving them together to form a I am grateful to Professors Laurent Feller, John Gillingham and Ian Wood for their helpful comments on the first draft of this paper. My debt to Professor Feller is clear from the footnotes, although we differ considerably in our conclusions. 1 There are further examples from Peterborough and Ramsey in England, St Bertin in Flanders, and the work of Hariulf of St Riquier in Picardy. 2 J. Paxton, ‘Monks and Bishops: the Purpose of the Liber Eliensis’, HSJ 11, 2003 (for 1998), 17–30, at 19–20. Cf. J. Paxton, ‘Textual Communities in the English Fenlands: a Lay Audience for Monastic Chronicles’, ANS 26, 2003 (2004), 123–37, especially 124. 3 Patrick J. Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millenium, Princeton 1994, 81–114. 4 Chronicon Farfense di Gregorio di Catino, ed U. Balzani, 2 vols, Fonti per la storia d’Italia (henceforth FSI), Rome 1903. On Gregory and his work, see M. Stroll, The Medieval Abbey of Farfa, Target of Papal and Imperial Ambitions, Leiden 1997, especially 7–13, and Chronicon Farfense, introduction, xxii–xxxvii.

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The Abruzzi

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history of the abbey of St Vincent on Volturno from its foundation in the early eighth century through to c.1066, where the text breaks off.5 At about the same period a monk or monks of the monastery of St Sophia, Benevento, produced the so-called Chronicon Sanctae Sophiae. Here the strictly narrative element was confined to a relatively brief set of annals at the head of the manuscript, which continues with a short canonical collection, and then the extensive chartulary of the monastery, the Liber Preceptorum, the preface to which is dated 1119, a date which is in accordance with the material contained within the chartulary (the handful of slightly later charters are clearly insertions).6 These two texts, from Molise and Samnium respectively, are relatively well known, and are cited here merely as contrasting methodological examples to the two further texts which are the subject of the discussion below. Both of these are from the Abruzzi, the frontier region incorporated into the regno by Roger II and his sons in the years after 1140, and definitively recognised as part of the kingdom of Sicily by Pope Adrian IV in the Treaty of Benevento of 1156. Both texts date from the last quarter of the twelfth century. The chronicle-chartulary of S. Clemente a Casauria was written by a monk called John Berard, and completed soon after the event with which it concludes, the death of Abbot Leonas on 25 March 1182.7 The abbey of Casauria, situated on an island in the Pescara River some 25km upstream from Chieti, had been founded by the Carolingian Emperor Louis II in, or shortly before, 873 and was the wealthiest and most important abbey in the region during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.8 However, the infiltration of the southern Abruzzi by the Norman conquerors of the south in the years after 1060 had seriously de-stabilised the area, and Casauria and its possessions had undergone grave vicissitudes, particularly in the 1080s and 1090s. These problems were to be one of the main themes of its historian. At the time of writing the abbey was undergoing something of a renaissance under the direction of Abbot Leonas (1152/5–1182), a member of a prominent indigenous local family who was elected after some time spent as a papal subdeacon, and in the teeth of considerable opposition from the Norman count of Manopello, the chief lay

5

Chronicon Vulternense del Monaco Giovanni, ed. V. Federici, 3 vols, FSI, Rome 1925–38. For the dating, H. Hoffmann, ‘Das Chronicon Vulternense und die Chronik von Montecassino’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 22, 1966, 181–8. See also A. Pratesi, ‘Il Chronicon Vulternense del monaco Giovanni’, in San Vincenzo al Volturno (Atti del I Convegno di Studi sul medioevo meridionale), ed. F. Avagliano, Miscellanea Cassinese 51, Montecassino 1985, 221–31, who suggests, 227, that the compiler/author may have known of the Chronicon Farfense. There is a brief but interesting comparison of these two texts by B. Resl, ‘Vom Nutzen des Abschreibens: Überlegungen zu mittelalterlichen Chartularen’, in Vom Nutzen des Schreibens. Soziales Gedächtnis, Herrschaft und Besitz im Mittelalter, ed. W. Pohl and P. Herold, Vienna 2002, 209–13. 6 Chronicon Sanctae Sophiae (Cod. Vat. Lat. 4939), ed. J.-M. Martin, 2 vols, FSI, Rome 2000. See G.A. Loud, ‘A Lombard Abbey in a Norman World: St Sophia, Benevento, 1050–1200’, ANS 19, 1996 (1997), 273–306 (reprinted in G.A. Loud, Montecassino and Benevento in the Middle Ages: Essays in South Italian Church History, Aldershot 2000). 7 Chronicon Casauriense, in L.A. Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (henceforth RIS) ii(2), Milan 1726, cols 775–916. It should be noted that, while Muratori’s transcription is accurate, there are a number of omissions from his edition, the headings contained therein are not in the manuscript, and (most misleading) the documents quoted within the text of the chronicle are in fact from the chartulary. Furthermore, both within his text of the chronicle and in his Additamenta ad Chronicon Casauriense, RIS, 917–1018, Muratori published no more than a twentieth of the documents from the chartulary. 8 Louis may have chosen the site for his new monastery as early as 860, certainly during the pontificate of Nicholas I (858–67), although building only commenced in the early 870s, A. Pratesi, ‘L’Abbazia di Casauria e il suo cartolario’, Bullettino della Deputazione Abruzzese di Storia Patria 71, 1981, 27–34. The size of the convent can only be inferred, but the notice of the election of Abbot Dominic in 1046 was signed by thirty-two monks, of whom nineteen were priests and one a deacon, Chron. Casauriense, cols 855–6.

To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Fig. 1. Tympanum (photo: author). Top: Louis II presents the church of Casauria to St Clement; on the left are Clement’s disciples Cornelius and Phebus. Borrom row: Left to right (1) the pope presents the relics of St Clement to Louis II; (2) translation of the relics to Casauria, the two monks are Beatus (the second abbot) and Celsus; (3) the church; (4) Louis II invests Abbot Romanus with the property of the abbey, using his sceptre (i.e. in accordance with the procedure laid down at the Concordat of Worms 1122); (5) Louis endows the monastery (the four other figures are identified as counts Suppo and Heribald, a noble called Sisenandus, and Bishop Grimbald of Penne, all benefactors recorded in the chartulary at the time of the foundation).

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook.

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authority in the region. Leonas was responsible for extensive rebuilding within the precinct, including the great sculptured doorway of the abbey church, which still survives (Fig. 1), the acquisition of furnishings and textiles for the church, and extensive copying activity within the scriptorium.9 His very considerable personal prestige was shown by his appointment as a cardinal c.1169, while Alexander III was in exile at Benevento.10 The work of John Berard was of course a primary manifestation of the revival and re-organisation of the abbey under Abbot Leonas. The author can be identified as the notary who wrote many of the abbey’s documents in the 1160s,11 and as its provost; that is the abbot’s deputy in charge of its estates and economy, from 1169–71.12 He was thus ideally qualified to organise and record its muniments. He tells us that he was raised in the monastery from boyhood, and from the witness lists of charters he had copied it is clear that he was ordained as a priest between May 1158 and August 1159.13 He is last recorded as the abbey’s sacristan in June 1179.14 Our other text, which will be considered more briefly, and essentially as a counterpoint to the Chronicon Casauriense, is the chronicle of S. Bartolomeo di Carpineto, another Benedictine house founded in 962 on an isolated mountain side about 15km north-west of Casauria. This work was written by a monk called Alexander in the years between 1194 and 1198.15 While by no means negligible, Carpineto was a smaller and less notable abbey than Casauria, and slipped into relative decline soon after the chronicle was written. In 1258 it was united with the Cistercian house of S. Maria di Casanova.16 In contrast to our other three examples, Alexander’s chronicle does not survive in the original, but only in early modern copies.17 Nonetheless, it is clear from these that the manuscript comprised a chronicle history of the abbey, followed by some 161 documents, some of them copied in full and others only in summary form. Although the author made no attempt to integrate these documents directly into the narrative section of the text (in which he referred to only 88 out of the 161 documents), it is clear that he considered these charters to be an integral part of the whole work, and not merely an appendix, for he began with a list of capitula that started with the six libri of the chronicle text and

9 Chron. Casauriense, cols 914–15. 10 According to the chronicle, he was named as a cardinal on Easter Saturday, 21 March 1170, Chron.

Casauriense, col. 907. However, the chronicle may have been a year in arrears, for he was already called cardinal in a charter of June 1169, BN MS Latin 5411, fol. 267v. 11 E.g. BN MS Latin 5411, fol. 256v (the lease of a house in Sulmona in June 1163): ‘Scripsi ego Frater Iohannis Berardi indignissimus presbiter et monachus in monasterio nostro quod dicitur casa aurea.’ 12 ‘Ego frater Iohannes Berardi inutilis prepositus, sacerdos et monachus’ witnessed the donation of a church to Casauria on 30 May 1169, BN MS Latin 5411, fol. 260r, and John Berard indignus prepositus witnessed an agreement between Abbot Leonas and Mallerius de Pagliara in November 1171, ibid. fols 271v–272r, printed in Additamenta, cols 1016–18. This second document is dated in the manuscript to 1161, but it is clear both from the regnal years of King William II and from its place in the manuscript that this ought to be corrected to 1171. In each case he was listed immediately after the abbot. 13 Chron. Casauriense, col. 900. Cf. BN MS Latin 5411, fol. 254r (May 1158) (‘Ego Iohannes Berardi humillimus monachus Sancti Clementi’) with ibid. fol. 254v (August 1159) (‘Scripsi ego iohannes berardi presbiter et monachus’). 14 BN MS Latin 5411, fol. 268r. 15 There are two modern editions: Alexandri Monachi Chronicorum Liber Monasterii Sancti Bartholomei de Carpineto, ed. B. Pio, FSI, Rome 2001, and Il Chronicon di S. Bartolomeo di Carpineto, ed. E. Fuselli, L’Aquila 1996. References (henceforth Carpineto) will be given below to both editions. 16 R. Pacciocco, ‘I Monasteri cistercensi in Abruzzo: le linee generali di uno sviluppo (fine sec. xii – inizi sec. xiv)’, in I Cistercensi nel Mezzogiorno medioevale, ed. H. Houben and B. Vetere, Galatina 1994, 213. Casanova had been founded in 1197 by Count Berard of Loreto, and had already, in 1237, been entrusted with another long-established Benedictine house, St Maria of Tremiti, ibid., 206, 211–12. 17 Carpineto, ed. Fuselli, 84–90; ed. Pio, lix–lxxxiii.

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then gave summary headings for each of the documents subsequently copied. Indeed, in his preface he stated that the reason for compiling his text was that ‘some of the documents of this church had almost perished through great age’, while others were written in a script that was very difficult to read, and this was causing problems ‘for the business of this monastery’.18 The chronicle-chartulary of Casauria was however a far more ambitious and complex work than either that of Carpineto, or those emanating from St Vincent on Volturno or St Sophia, and it presents a further contrast in method. It is, first of all, notable for its sheer scale. The manuscript, BN MS Latin 5411, comprises 272 folios, and the chartulary copied, sometimes in full, but often in abbreviated format, more than 2,150 charters. (The Liber Preceptorum of St Sophia, by comparison, contains 158 documents, and the Chronicon Vulternense 207).19 The internal layout of the manuscript reflects not merely the work of John Berard in the 1170s, but also two earlier stages in the organisation of the abbey’s records. The first of these comprised documents relating to the abbey’s property, arranged on a topographical basis, a system begun very soon after Casauria’s foundation and maintained for a considerable part of the tenth century, until the existing territorial organisation was rendered obsolete by the incastellamento of the region, largely accomplished between c.980 and 1020.20 This section occupied fols 6r–72v of the twelfth-century manuscript. Many of the documents in this section, especially those relating to particular properties before they were acquired by Casauria, were recorded in summary format only.21 Thereafter fols 73r–180v were organised chronologically, effectively as a documentary history of the abbey from Louis II up to the accession of Abbot Guido, c.1024/5, on an abbot by abbot basis.22 This section was almost certainly either copied from, or was based upon, an earlier chartulary, compiled during the reforming régime of Guido (1024/5–1046). John Berard ended this second book on fol. 180v with the words: ‘Expliciunt prima instrumenta cartarum et privilegiorum que residua sunt de tenementis, rebus et possessionibus abbatiae Sancti Clementis temporibus imperatorum et regum, aliorumque potestatum.’ It should be noted that the bulk of the Casauria documentation dates from before the arrival of the Normans, and a substantial amount from the foundation era, when much of the abbey’s original endowment had been acquired by purchase. Thus the chartulary records some 58 purchases by the first abbot, Romanus, between 873 and 889.23 Thereafter there were, for example, almost 250 property leases between 960 and 1040, and nearly 200 donations to the abbey during the slightly more than twenty 18 Carpineto, ed. Fuselli, 83; ed. Pio, 3. This was, however, something of a cliché among the compilers of

twelfth-century chartularies: Gregory of Catino made similar remarks in the Farfa chartulary (the Registrum Farfense), Resl, ‘Vom Nutzen des Abschreibens’, 211–12. 19 Chronicon Sanctae Sophiae, 808–11 (not counting three thirteenth-century additions); Chronicon Vulternense, i. p. xix. Chron. Carpineto, ed. Fuselli, 31. A more appropriate comparison is the Registrum Farfense, which contains 1,324 documents, around 350 of which date from before 900, Chronicon Farfense, xxv. 20 This topographical arrangement was common in Carolingian-era chartularies, Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance, 88–90, 96–7. 21 A practice also followed by Gregory of Catino in the Regestum Farfense, H. Zielinski, ‘Gregor von Catino und das Regestum Farfense’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliothken, 55/6, 1976, 398–400. 22 The rule of each abbot is expressly divided in the chartulary, hence, e.g. BN MS Latin 5411, fol. 132v: ‘Explicit Ildericus abbas. Incipiunt in temporibus primi Ade Abbatis sub temporibus Ottonis primi et Ottonis secundi imperatorum. Preceptum de libertate monasterii Sancti Clementis. . . .’ 23 L. Feller, Les Abruzzes médiévales. Territoire, économie et société en Italie centrale du IXe au XIIe siècle, Rome 1998, 388.

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years of Guido’s abbacy.24 By contrast, the problems after c.1060 led to a marked decline in the gestation of documents, and significant gaps in the record. There are, for example, no documents at all in the chartulary between 1086 and 1093, and there was then a much longer gap in the documentary record during the rule of Abbot Oldrius (1127–52). Some 89 charters from the time of Abbot Leonas were included, but this is a mere bagatelle compared with the extraordinary documentation from the later ninth century.25 While the manuscript compiled by John Berard was primarily a very substantial chartulary, it also included a chronicle, and in contrast to the other texts described above, this was neither incorporated with the documents as a continuous whole nor entirely separate – rather it was written in the margins of the chartulary. To some extent it was a commentary on the charters, and details of donations in particular were included in the narrative, but (especially after 1024) it was also an independent record of the abbey’s history, and at times – in the late eleventh century and again in the 1130s and 1140s – it provides the primary, or in the later period almost the only, record of its history. Hence, in contrast to the rest of the manuscript, the account of the 1140s, where there were no charters, was sometimes arranged over the whole page in three columns, as on fols 248v and 249v, and again on 251v–252v. The margins of the first part of the chartulary were devoted to two celebrations of the foundation, one in prose and the second (considerably shorter) in verse, followed by a description of the region and the abbey lands in the early part of its history. The chronicle proper begins in the margin of part II, the material drawn from the early eleventh-century chartulary.26 John appears to have drawn for his chronicle on several earlier narrative sources, including these two histories of the foundation of the abbey, which began his account in the margins of the chartulary. Here he may, like Gregory of Catino at Farfa with the Destructio Farfensis,27 have been copying earlier texts verbatim, although it is possible (as we shall see) that the prose account was a relatively recent text, written in the early twelfth century, and that it was revised not long before John Berard compiled the chronicle. The core of the prose account of the foundation concerned, not the actual creation of the monastery, but the translation of the body of St Clement, which had itself only recently arrived in Rome, from that city to Casauria in 872, as a result of the direct personal intervention of the abbey’s founder, the Emperor Louis II.28 John also drew on a contemporary biography of Abbot Guido, although this text was certainly not copied in extenso. It was anyway, he said, in very bad Latin (humili stylo).29 But it did enable John to give a detailed and enthusiastic account of the revival of the abbey after c.1024. However, we can also see where his sources were deficient. Above all, he had the utmost difficulty in constructing any

24 Feller, Abruzzes médiévales, 401–2, and L. Feller, ‘Caseaux et castra dans les Abruzzes: San Salvatore

a Maiella et San Clemente a Casauria (XI–XII siècles)’, Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome – Môyen-Age, Temps Modernes 97, 1985, 150. 25 Feller, Abruzzes médiévales, 66. The charters of Leonas, BN MS Latin 5411, fols 253r–72r, unlike those of earlier abbots, are not in strict chronological order. 26 For a detailed description of the manuscript, C. Manaresi, ‘Il Liber Instrumentorum seu Chronicorum Monasterii Casauriensis della Nazionale di Parigi’, Rendiconti del istituto Lombardo. Classe di lettere e di scienze morali e storiche 80, 1947, 29–62. For the composition of the chartulary, L. Feller, ‘Le Cartulaire-Chronique de Casauria’, in Les Cartulaires, ed. O. Guyotjeannin, L. Morelle and M. Parisse, Paris 1993, 261–77. 27 Chronicon Farfense, i.27–70. 28 Chron. Casauriense, cols 775–84: the verse account, 785–8. 29 Chron. Casauriense, col. 841.

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narrative record for the early history of the monastery from after the death of Abbot Romanus in 889 until the time of Abbot Adam (967–87). Here the problem was caused by one of the few events recorded for this intervening period, the destruction of the abbey by ‘Agarenes and pagan people’ c.910; possibly by Muslim raiders (as had happened to St Vincent on Volturno and Montecassino in the early 880s), but perhaps by the Magyars, who penetrated deep into Italy in the early tenth century. The chronicler suggested that the monastic community was for a time close to dissolution, its lands abandoned and the abbey itself in ruins, and that when the congregation mustered once again it was ‘forced by necessity’ to alienate much of its landed property.30 The account is extremely vague, and indeed it is possible that the chronicler conflated two separate attacks on the monastery, one (by Muslims or local enemies) c.910, and a second about a quarter of a century later by the Magyars, known to have raided as far south as the Campania c.937.31 But whatever the truth of this, the community was in disarray for a considerable period, and spent some time in exile.32 Charters from the early 960s still referred to the destruction wrought by the pagans, and this explains why, as Laurent Feller has rightly suggested, ‘the historical memory of the community only began around 960’.33 Even thereafter there were periods when John Berard faced considerable difficulty. Thus he was clearly puzzled by the apparent presence of two different abbots at the same time in the charters around the turn of the eleventh century; noting that in the middle of the rule of Abbot Giselbertus there was a single charter of Abbot Grimoald, although in the list of abbots to which he had access Grimoald was entered after Giselbertus.34 It is possible that he was the victim of palaeographical error, or that there was some otherwise unrecorded challenge to the authority of Giselbertus – but it is clear that John was attempting to construct his account of this period from the charters, with no earlier narrative other than a simple list of the abbots to guide him. Even where he had such a source there were clearly problems, especially in resolving the chronology. Thus he recorded the appointment of Abbot Guido, an outsider who was a monk of Farfa, by the Emperor Henry II during his Italian expedition (which took place in the first half of 1022). He also included a letter from the monks to the emperor, begging for his assistance, which appears to be a later forgery.35 Yet the charters make clear that Guido’s predecessor Abbot Stephen held office between March 1023 and May 1024, while the first document recording Guido as abbot dates only from June 1025.36 Clearly he was not appointed in 1022, and since Henry II died in July 1024 it seems unlikely that he appointed Guido at all. Furthermore, John Berard suggested, on the basis of a list of the abbots to which he had access that there was a further abbot, Peparus, between Stephen and Guido ‘of whose acts nothing is

30 Chron. Casauriense, cols 797, 822–4. 31 Chronica Monasterii Casinensis, ed. H. Hoffmann, MGH SS xxxiv, Hanover 1980, I.55, pp. 140–1. 32 In May 911 the monks were living in the county of Aprutium, ‘tu Lupo abbas de monasterio Sancti

Trinitatis quod situm fuit in territorio pinnensis in insula piscarie in locum qui dicitur Casaurea. et modo estis habitatores cum vestra sancta congregatione in territorio aprutiense in loco qui dicitur ad sanctam eliam’, BN MS Latin 5411, fol. 123r. 33 Feller, Les Abruzzes médiévales, 216–18 (quote, 216). Cf. BN MS Latin 5411, fol. 131r–v: ‘dedimus tibi hilderico a[bbate] ex monasterio abbatiae sancti Trinitatis. quod situm est in territorio pinnensis iuxta fluvium pescarie. loco ubi nuncupatur Casaurea. de mobile nostro valente libras duas. ad ipsum monasterium restaurandum. quod a gente pagana desolatum est’ (September 960). 34 Chron. Casauriense, col. 836. Giselbertus was abbot 997–1010, the one charter of Abbot Grimoald [I] was dated December 999, BN MS Latin 5411, fol. 168r. 35 Chron. Casauriense, cols 840–3. 36 BN MS Latin 5411, fols 179v–180v, 181v (Guido).

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known, since neither in the charters nor by report is anything that he did to be found’.37 It appears that the earlier vita of Guido had said little or nothing about his immediate predecessors, and here John Berard was both misled by his sources, and had problems constructing a coherent account. He also may have had difficulty reconstructing the abbatial succession for the period c.1080, when the abbey was under serious pressure from the Normans, although he possessed quite a lot of information about this time, whether oral or written we do not know. At first sight his error appears to be no more than a minor problem of chronology, claiming that Abbot Transmund of Marsia was appointed by Pope Gregory VII in 1073, was abbot for eight years, for much of which period he was also Bishop of Valva, but then recording that he died on 27 November and in 1080 the monks subsequently elected Abbot Adam [III]. The charters do indeed show Transmund as abbot for the last time in November 1079 and Adam, formerly the provost of the monastery, as abbot in January 1080.38 But in fact what happened was more complicated than just getting the number of years Transmund was abbot wrong, for a letter of Gregory VII reveals that he was still alive in December 1080, when the pope was attempting to remove him as bishop of Valva, for disobedience.39 So, although the chronicler does not make this clear, the monks had in fact elected another abbot to replace Bishop Transmund during his lifetime, probably (so one may infer from the chronicle) because he had abandoned the abbey and retired to his bishopric. There had, indeed, been a precedent for this, for an earlier abbot, Dominic, had been appointed to the same see c.1053, and had himself arranged for the appointment of a new abbot to replace him.40 A number of themes emerge from the chronicle as a whole. First and foremost there was the importance to the monastery of its patron St Clement, of its possession of his relics, and of his role as the protector and defender of the monastery. Then there was the significance of the imperial connection derived from its founder Louis II, at least in the first two centuries of its existence, followed by the decline of imperial influence and patronage during the later eleventh century and the slow growth of the abbey’s relationship with the papacy. At the same period there was the impact of the Normans, whose penetration of the Abruzzi region from the 1060s onwards put the abbey increasingly in jeopardy. The later part of the chronicle was dominated by Casauria’s difficult relations with its Norman neighbours. Finally, there were the consequences of King Roger’s conquest of the Abruzzi in the early 1140s and the new-found stability brought by the imposition of effective royal rule into what had hitherto been an area where local authority and law and order had been weak. The role of St Clement was central to the chronicle. The possession of his relics was a key factor in its prestige and influence, especially after their inventio, or more properly rediscovery, in the presence of a Roman cardinal, in November 1104, and 37 Chron. Casauriense, col. 840. 38 Chron. Casauriense, col. 866. BN MS Latin 5411, fols 234r, 235r. For Adam as provost, ibid., fol. 230r

(January 1067), Additamenta, col. 1002 (August 1078). 39 Registrum Gregorii VII, ed. E. Caspar, MGH, Berlin 1920–3, VIII.15, pp. 535–6 = H.E.J. Cowdrey, The Register of Gregory VII, 1073–1085. An English Translation, Oxford 2002, 381. 40 Chron. Casauriense, cols 861–2. The chronicle claimed that Abbot Berard enjoyed ‘the name and office of abbot’, albeit under Dominic’s supervision, for some six years; he is, however, found as abbot in only two charters, in December 1059 and September 1064, while documents in 1061, including a papal bull, were addressed to ‘Dominic bishop and abbot’. By July 1065 Dominic was once again acting as abbot, though his later charters make no reference to his episcopal title, BN MS Latin 5411, fols 226r–229r, Italia Pontificia, ed. P.F. Kehr, 10 vols, Berlin 1905–74, iv Umbria, Picenum, Marsia, 1909, 301 no. 2. The reality may therefore have been more complex than the chronicle implies.

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their ceremonial translation to a new tomb under the high altar eleven months later. Thereafter Clement intervened to protect his monastery, in visions and once at least in (allegedly) corporeal form, and his tomb became the focus for devotion, especially in time of trouble. On one occasion, for example, c.1137 when Casauria was under threat from the violence of the Norman count of Manopello, both Clement and Louis II appeared in a vision to two devout monks who: were accustomed in the time of Lent, for purposes of religious devotion, to rise from their beds before the morning services, and on bended knee to pour out prayers and tears before the relics of the most holy Martyr, singing psalms and begging the saints with litanies to help Christian people.41 Before going to meet King Roger of Sicily in 1140, the abbot and monks spent the night in the church, ‘reciting the Psalter with genuflections, litanies and prayers before the most holy body of Clement’.42 Yet the abbey’s possession of the body of St Clement raises some significant problems for modern scholars, and indeed did for some people at the time. In 1104 the papal envoy who witnessed the inventio of the relics, Cardinal Augustine of Quattro Coronati, had initially been highly sceptical about the abbey’s claims: ‘nothing would induce him to believe this, until the abbot promised to show him this most sacred body’. And according to the Chronicle, Abbot Grimoald himself was mightily relieved when the tomb with a body and an inscription identifying the saint was opened, ‘for he was now certain of what previously the doubts of many had rendered even him a little bit dubious’.43 But whatever was in fact discovered in 1104, his doubts were actually justified, for his and John Berard’s confidence in their abbey’s possession of the relics was almost certainly misplaced. St Clement, thought (albeit probably wrongly) to have been St Peter’s immediate successor as pope, had according to later sources been martyred in the Crimea during the reign of the Emperor Trajan. What was believed to be his body had been discovered there in 861 by the celebrated Greek missionaries Constantine and Methodius, during a diplomatic embassy from Constantinople to the Khazars. The two brothers, later famous as the Apostles to the Slavs, had then brought the relics to Rome in 867/8, where Constantine had subsequently died (taking the name Cyril, by which he is more usually known, on his deathbed entry into religion). The translation of his relics to Rome was described soon afterwards in a letter of Anastasius the bibliothecarius to Bishop Gauderic of Velletri, written in 875.44 This same Bishop Gauderic, with the collaboration of John the Hymnographer (the biographer of Gregory the Great), then wrote a life of Clement, completed before 883. In turn, this ninth-century text subsequently formed the basis for a reworked version of the life and an account of the translation, both by Leo Marsicanus, the historian of 41 42 43 44

Chron. Casauriense, col. 887. Chron. Casauriense, col. 888. Chron. Casauriense, cols 875–6. ‘Anastasii Bibliothecarii Epistolae sive Praefationes’, ed. E. Perels and G. Laehr, MGH Epistolarum vii (Epistolae Karolini Aevi v), Berlin 1928, 430–4 no. 13, at 433. Amid the huge literature on Cyril and Methodius see, for example, F. Dvornik, Byzantine Missions among the Slavs, Rutgers, NJ, 1970, 53–72, 105–89, and (more succinctly) D. Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe 500–1453, London 1971, 136–47. However, one should note that doubts have recently been raised about the authenticity of the supposed ‘contemporary’ lives of Constantine and Methodius, none of the manuscripts of which date from before the twelfth century, T. Lienhard, ‘ “Les Chiens de Dieu”. La Politique slave des Mérovingiens et des Carolingiens’, doctoral thesis, Université Charles de Gaulle – Lille III, 2003, 48–77. Ian Wood kindly drew this study to my attention.

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Montecassino, and written after his appointment as Cardinal Bishop of Ostia and Velletri c.1101/5.45 None of these three texts made any mention of a subsequent translation to Louis II’s new monastery on the Pescara river, nor was it likely, whatever the Casauria account of the translation claimed, that Pope Adrian II would have consented to allow the body of his illustrious predecessor to have been removed to a remote back-country foundation so soon after it had been ceremoniously welcomed back to Rome. Leo’s version of the translation to Rome was indeed written at the express request of Anastasius, Cardinal-priest of S. Clemente, the Roman church on the Via Sacra where the saint’s presumed relics had been interred in 868. 46 In fact, as the account of the foundation of Casauria noted, Louis II’s new monastery had originally been dedicated, not to St Clement, but to the Holy Trinity. The ninth-century charters similarly carry this dedication. Most tellingly, the one undoubtedly genuine diploma of Louis II for his new monastery copied in the chartulary, dated 31 May 873, also records the dedication to the Trinity, and makes no mention of the body of St Clement, despite the foundation narrative dating the interment of the relics there to almost exactly a year earlier, 27 May 872.47 One should note that the four other diplomas ascribed to Louis in the chartulary have all been interpolated, but even so two of these still have no mention of the relics of St Clement, although both are dated after the alleged translation.48 It would seem therefore, as the early twelfth-century reviser of Leo’s Montecassino chronicle noted (somewhat cynically?), when discussing the foundation of Casauria: ‘Thereafter that church was enriched by its abbots, and was called by the name of St Clement, for it was pleasing to them.’49 One seemingly plausible explanation that has been advanced for the claim to possess the relics of St Clement is that it developed, or was deliberately invented, during or immediately after the period of exile in the first half of the tenth century. If there was any truth to this tale, it can only have been derived from the gift of a small fragment of the relics, such as the piece contained in a silver reliquary ‘for the relief of the sick’ after the inventio of 1104.50 According to this theory, it is possible that when the monks returned to the Pescara River an association was made between the discovery of a tomb and the memory that some relic of St Clement had been donated around the time of the foundation, and the claim to possess the body was born.51 Thus there can be no doubt that the account of the foundation narrative, of Louis II personally inspecting the bones to check that none were missing, and then enclosing ‘the whole body’ in an alabaster sarcophagus, was later fiction.52 Indeed, it may have been a good bit later, for the translation narrative 45 P. Meyvaert and P. Devos, ‘Trois enigmes Cyrillo-Méthodiennes de la “Légende Italique” résolues

grâce à un document inédit’, Analecta Bollandiana 73, 1955, 375–461. Leo’s account of the translation is edited in ibid., 412–13, 455–61. 46 Ibid., 413. 47 Die Urkunden Ludwigs II, ed. K. Wanner, MGH Diplomata Karolinorum iv, Munich 1994, 182–3 no. 59. 48 Ibid., 180–2 no. 58; 190–1 no. 63. The other two are ibid., nos 64 and 68. A sixth diploma of Louis II, existing only in a transcript of 1380, is an outright forgery, ibid., 234–7 no. 86 There is an extended discussion of these diplomas by H. Zielinski, ‘Zu den Gründungsurkunden Kaiser Ludwigs II. für das Kloster Casauria’, in Fälschungen im Mittelalter iv Diplomatische Fälschungen (II), MGH Schriften 33, Hanover 1988, 67–96. 49 Chronica Monasterii Casinensis, I.37, p. 103. Cf. Chron. Vulternense, i. 225–6. 50 Chron. Casauriense, col. 876. 51 Pratesi, ‘L’Abbazia di Casauria e il suo cartolario’, 40–1, also A. Pratesi, ‘Ubi Corpus B. Clementis Papae et Martyris Requiescit’, in Contributi per una storia dell’Abruzzo adriatico nel medioevo, ed. R. Pacciocco and L. Pellegrini, Chieti 1992, 129–30. 52 Chron. Casauriense, col. 781.

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contained within the chronicle, and a related but separate account which may date from c.1200, the Translatio Piscariam (BHL 1851b), drew on Leo of Ostia’s version of the translation of the relics to Rome. The most likely agent for transmission of a copy of this latter text to Casauria was Abbot Leonas, who had been a subdeacon at the Curia before becoming abbot, and who c.1170 instituted the feast of the translation on 27 May.53 It was Leonas who commissioned the great west portal of the abbey church, with its scenes of Clement enthroned in majesty on the tympanum, and of the translation of the relics to Casauria, as related in the chronicle account of the foundation (Fig. 1).54 Nevertheless, we cannot be sure that the foundation narrative was written in the later twelfth century, let alone by John Berard himself. A monk called Otto wrote a text that ‘proclaimed the merits of the Blessed Clement’ soon after the inventio of 1104: was this earlier text reworked with the aid of Leo’s treatise?55 Certainly the new dedication of the monastery to St Clement, rather than to the Trinity, was already established by the early years of the twelfth century, as for example in the bull confirming the abbey’s property issued by Calixtus II in 1121. 56 Yet the charters from the chartulary suggest a slightly different story, for the first reference therein to the relics of St Clement (ignoring those charters of Louis II that have undoubtedly been tampered with) comes in a legal case as early as 910, which may (just) antedate the first destruction of the monastery.57 The body of Clement was also mentioned in a (seemingly genuine) diploma from King Berengar I of 917 (Fig. 2), which according to the chronicle followed the destruction of the abbey. Furthermore, the formula in this document was copied from one of the suspect diplomas of Louis II, which in turn suggests that these had already been confected, no later than the early tenth century.58 But, while the claim to possess the relics of Clement went back to this period, there was no concerted stress upon it for about half a century. The relics were mentioned in no more than a handful of charters before the late 960s, and while there are relatively few documents from this difficult period, enough have survived to make the omission significant.59 From the time of Abbot Adam I (967–987) onwards mention of the relics became much more common,60 53 P. Meyvaert and P. Devos, ‘Autour de Léon d’Ostie et de sa Translatio S. Clementis’, Analecta

Bollandiana 74, 1956, 226–35. Italia Pontificia, iv.304 no. 19. The Translatio Piscariam was edited by A. Poncelet, Catalogus Codicum Hagiographicarum Latinarum Bibliothecae Vaticanae, Brussels 1910, 522–5. 54 L. Feller, ‘La fondation de San Clemente a Casauria et sa representation iconographique’, Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome – Môyen-Age, Temps Modernes 94, 1982, 711–28. For a detailed description, see also H. Bloch, Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages, 3 vols, Rome 1986, i.580–3. 55 Chron. Casauriense, col. 877. 56 BN MS Latin 5411, fol. 245r (Italia Pontificia, iv.301–2 no. 6). 57 I Placiti del Regnum Italiae, ed. C. Manaresi, 3 vols, FSI, Rome 1955–60, i.453–5 no. 121: ‘Lupo vir venerabilis abbas de monasterio Sancti Trinitatis ubi reconditum est Corpus Sancti Clementis in insula piscarie, in loco qui dicitur Casa aurea.’ 58 I Diplomi di Berengario I, ed. L. Schiaparelli, FSI, Rome 1903, 299–302 no. 116. Also in Chron. Casauriense, cols 823–4, but whereas Muratori’s edition prints this document within the chronicle text, in fact it is in the chartulary, not the chronicle, BN MS Latin 5411, fols 124r–125r. The phrase ‘almificium beatissimi pontifi atque martyris Clementis corpus reconditum’ was taken from one of the interpolated charters of Louis II, Die Urkunden Ludwigs II, 191–4 no. 64, at 192. Zielinski, ‘Zu den Gründungsurkunden’, 91, also suggests that these documents, some of which refer to the relics of St Clement, date from c. 900. 59 Charters that mention the relics include a lease in July 930, a gift to the abbey in 934, neither of which appears to have been drawn up by the monks themselves, a purchase in May 943, and a lease in October 948, BN MS Latin 5411, fols 123r–v, 127r, 128v, 129r. 60 E.g. in a legal case of June 969, held in the presence of Count Transmund of Chieti, I Placiti del Regnum Italiae, ii.91–3 no. 162; in an exchange with Bishop John of Penne in October 969, Additamenta, col. 959; and a lease in April 970, BN MS Latin 5411, fol. 138r.

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Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Fig. 2. King Berengar I grants a privilege to the monks of Casauria (BN MS Lat. 5411, fol. 124r). Cliché Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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although one should note that there was no mention of the actual dedication of the abbey to St Clement until c.1050,61 and for a considerable time thereafter some documents still retained the older dedication to the Trinity, or in a few cases employed a double dedication.62 Indeed we find the single dedication to the Trinity in a charter of Abbot Giso as late as 1114.63 But however slowly the cult of Clement and his relics had developed, to the late twelfth-century chronicler he was a living presence, intervening to defend the abbey whenever this should be needed, and the inventio of 1104 had proved beyond doubt that his remains did indeed rest complete under the high altar of its church. Thereafter the presence of the relics was validated in the chronicle by signs, wonders and instructive stories. Thus the body of one of the abbey’s vassals who had scoffed at the relics and at the value of burial in its cemetery was washed overboard as it was being ferried across the Pescara river for burial and was never recovered. A young aristocrat who added insult to injury by denying that the saint was buried at Casauria, as well as wanting to plunder its lands, was only saved from drowning after his more pious companion had prayed to Clement to rescue him. In the words attributed to the virtuous of the pair: He [Clement] always knows about and strikes down those who do him harm, and also looks after those faithful to him, watches over their property, and, as we see guards and magnificently defends his church, as one of the most powerful princes of Heaven.64 Next in importance to Clement, in the chronicler’s mind, was the abbey’s founder, Louis II, whose role was also stressed in the carvings on the west portal of the church. As we have seen (above, p. 110), on one occasion he too appeared in a vision, alongside Clement. When recounting periods of difficulty, as for example after the destruction of the early tenth century, John Berard noted the contrast between the parlous state of affairs then and the earlier glory under Louis.65 Even in the late twelfth century, the monks still recalled with pride that Casauria was an imperial foundation, even though a substantial part of its original endowment had been acquired through purchase, rather than gift from Louis II.66 This prestigious connection, and imperial political and military support, remained important up until the mid-eleventh century, as the chronicler was well aware. He recorded, for example, the appointment of Adam [I], one of the most active and successful of the monastery’s abbots by Otto I in 967. Adam had been ‘a man of note at the court of the emperor’. John Berard discussed Adam’s recourse to Otto at Rome a year later, 61 ‘per hanc cartulam tradimus in commutatione Dominico abbate de Sancto Clemente’, BN MS Latin

5411, fol. 217v (August 1050) 62 E.g. I Placiti del Regnum Italiae, iii(1).255–7 no. 411 (February 1061), BN MS Latin 5411, fol. 228v

(1064). 63 ‘Ego Giso humilis abbas de monasterio sancta et individue Trinitatis que dicitur Casa aurea. ubi

reconditum est corpus beate Clementis martyris’, BN MS Latin 5411, fol. 244r (June 1114). 64 This section was omitted from Muratori’s edition; it has been published for the first time by H. Houben,

‘Laienbegräbnisse auf dem Klosterfriedhof. Unedierte Mirakelberichte aus der Chronik von Casauria’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 76, 1996, 71–5 (quote 72). 65 Chron. Casauriense, col. 824. 66 Feller, Abruzzes médiévales, 175–6, and L. Feller, ‘Autour de la fondation de San Clemente a Casauria: la constitution d’un patrimonie foncier à la fin du IXème siècle’, in Montecassino dalla prima alla seconda Distruzione. Momenti e Aspetti di Storia Cassinese (secc. vi–ix) (Atti del II Convegno di Studi sul medioevo meridionale), ed. F. Avagliano, Miscellanea Cassinese 55, Montecassino 1987, 513–26. Louis had indeed provided endowments as far away as Rome and Tuscany, but these had been lost during the tenth century.

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once he had realised how parlous the situation of his new charge was, and then again to Otto II in 981, to secure their protection for the abbey’s property, and the aid of imperial missi to browbeat the local aristocracy into returning alienated abbatial property. John claimed too that the former emperor had given Adam licence to erect fortifications, and he noted that the abbot had taken part in the imperial expeditions to Apulia in 969 and 981/2.67 While he may have been in error concerning the date and circumstances of Guido’s appointment (above, pp. 108–9), it was clearly important for him to claim that this was an imperial appointment. Similarly, although Guido’s successor Dominic was, he said, elected by the brothers because of his ‘honesty, prudence and holiness’, John noted his confirmation in office by Henry III early in 1047.68 Above all, he recorded the placita heard before Duke Hugh of Spoleto, acting on the orders of Conrad II, in 1028, as a result of which Abbot Guido recovered some of the monastery’s alienated property and ensured that those who retained the rest held it from the abbey, servili conditione. Guido was able to do this because the monastery’s enemies ‘feared rather the emperor than God’. This action brought stability to the abbey’s landholding for a generation or more. 69 The significance of this imperial patronage was reinforced in the chronicle by a series of illustrations, in which royal and imperial benefactors were shown giving charters to the abbot and monks, from the Carolingian Charles the Fat (fol. 118v) through to Henry III (fols 205r and 208r) (Fig. 3). Such drawings were invariably placed in a prominent position at the head of the relevant document (see Appendix 1). By contrast, up to the middle of the eleventh century, Casauria had little or no contact with the papacy. The chronicler noted that Abbot Dominic ‘was the first abbot of Pescara to seek a privilege . . . from the Roman pontiff, for his predecessors were either unable to do this or they considered it unimportant’.70 Yet subsequently, when the Normans invaded, ‘the brothers began to forget the court of the emperor’ (c.1064).71 In 1073 the monks sought the help of Gregory VII in choosing a new abbot, and John Berard noted that ‘they were unable to go to the emperor on account of the disagreement and discord that had arisen between the Roman Church and the emperor of the Germans’. This appears to have been a subsequent rationalisation, for in 1073 the breach with the empire had not yet, quite, occurred. Nonetheless, the monks sought papal protection and Gregory VII pronounced sentence of excommunication on the invaders of the property of St Clement.72 Later on, in the 1090s, the chronicler suggested that the monks still considered the emperor as their potential, or theoretical, protector against Norman aggression, but in practice this was a dead letter. Abbot Grimoald

67 Chron. Casauriense, cols 827, 829, 833, 835. The right to erect fortifications was included in Otto I’s

privilege to the abbey of May 969, MGH Diplomatum i Conradi I, Heinrici I et Ottonis I, ed. T. Sickel, Hanover 1879–84, 511–13 no. 373, although Feller, Abruzzes médiévales, 683n, suggests that this clause may be an interpolation. 68 Chron. Casauriense, cols 854–5. 69 Chron. Casauriense, col. 847. Cf. I Placiti del Regnum Italiae iii(1), 15–22 nos 327–9. 70 Chron. Casauriense, col. 859. For Leo’s privilege (22 June 1051), Italia Pontificia, 300–1 no. 1. This bull survives in the original, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Fondo Chigi, E. VI.182, no. 6; the version in the chartulary, BN MS Latin 5411, fol. 218v, has been interpolated, Feller, ‘Le Cartulaire-Chronique’, 275. The chronicler’s chronology was here in error, for he placed the granting of this bull after the battle of Civitate (1053). 71 Chron. Casauriense, col. 863. 72 Chron. Casauriense, cols 864–5.

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Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Fig. 3. The Emperor Henry III, Abbot Dominic and the monks (BN MS Lat. 5411, fol. 205v). Cliché Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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was neither able to go to the emperor, nor was he able to let the emperor know what was happening – for the Normans who had invaded the whole land refused to hear the name of emperor, nor would they permit anybody to go to him. So instead he sought the aid of Pope Urban II who placed Casauria under the protection of the Roman Church, ‘of which previously the abbey of St Clement had known little since it had been governed by the emperors’.73 Relations with the papacy would appear from the chronicle to have been relatively intermittent during the first half of the twelfth century; and as late as 1110, when Henry V was coming to Rome for his imperial coronation, Abbot Grimoald set off to meet him – although he died on the way.74 But the decline of imperial authority, and the increasing rarity of the emperors’ visits to Italy, meant that up until 1140 the pope was the outside authority to which the abbey had recourse in time of trouble. In 1123, for example, Honorius II excommunicated the lords of Tocco, a castellum a few kilometres from the monastery, for seizing some of its dependent churches.75 Furthermore, the opening of the tomb of St Clement and the inventio of his relics in 1104, one of the defining incidents in the whole chronicle, was the consequence of a visit to the abbey of a papal envoy. Again, the growth of papal patronage and protection was reflected by the presence of illustrations, of Leo IX and Abbot Dominic (fol. 218v), Gregory VII and Abbot Transmund (fol. 233v) (Fig. 4), Urban II giving the pastoral staff to Abbot Grimoald (fol. 238r), Calixtus II and Abbot Giso (fol. 246v), and subsequently Adrian IV with Abbot Leonas (fol. 253r) (Fig. 5). However, outside intervention and protection was occasional, whereas to the chronicler the struggle to protect the abbey’s lands, either against the local aristocracy or after c.1060 against the Norman invaders, was continuous. John Berard was not disposed to underestimate the difficulties of the task, nor to shrink from upbraiding some of its abbots for their failure properly to fulfil the duties of their office. Thus, c.1000, he described the losses that the abbey sustained at the hands of an aristocratic kin-group called the Sansonseschi and concluded that, ‘this evil was believed to be totally due to the cowardice of a lazy and unworthy shepherd’ (Abbot Giselbertus).76 He recorded at the accession of Abbot Guido: The carelessness of some of the abbots, and the lack of religion of the brothers, had brought the monastery of St Clement of Pescara to such great misery that hardly anyone could be found who wished to rule over them. They were so oppressed that their house had almost lost the name of an abbey.77 Similarly Abbot Adam III was ‘overcome by carnal enjoyment’, and thus too weak to resist the Normans.78 But John Berard was also clear that the development of incastellamento had posed particular problems for the abbey, and indeed the significance of this process was the theme of the prologue to the whole chroniclechartulary. While some castella were constructed by the abbots, others ‘were built through violence on the monastery’s property by those who had intruded themselves’ 73 Chron. Casauriense, cols 871–2. 74 Chron. Casauriense, col. 879. A few early twelfth-century Abruzzi charters still mentioned the

emperor in their dating clauses, e.g. Il Cartulario della Chiesa Teremana, ed. F. Savini, Rome 1910, 63–5 no. 30 (December 1100), 96–8 no. 53 (November 1101), and BN MS Latin 5411, fol. 242r (March 1105), but these were in the minority. 75 Chron. Casauriense, col. 882. 76 Chron. Casauriense, col. 837. 77 Chron. Casauriense, col. 841. 78 Chron. Casauriense, col. 867.

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Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Fig. 4. Pope Gregory VII excommunicates the Normans who menace the property of St Clement (BN MS Lat. 5411, fol. 233v). Cliché Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Monastic Chronicles in the Abruzzi

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Fig. 5. Pope Adrian IV and Abbot Leonas (BN MS Lat. 5411, fol. 253r). Cliché Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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and taken away from its lordship. The transition from one pattern of settlement to another was of particular interest to him. For the notice of those coming later, we have tried truthfully to make known from which villages and casales these fortresses and castella were raised up, both by the account of those who know and the evidence of the charters. This we have made clear partly in the chapters of this volume and partly by the headings of the charters.79 And indeed in the headings (effectively an index) to the first part of the chartulary, the section organised topographically according to the pre-incastellamento land divisions, a number of places mentioned were identified according to the territory of the castellum in which they now lay.80 The incastellamento of the Abruzzi, the foundation of new fortified villages or in some cases the fortification of existing open settlements, which began c.970, did indeed work to Casauria’s detriment. The process was begun by the lay aristocracy, and the monastery’s participation was belated and partial. Although a few castella were built by the abbots as a means of defence, this was limited to the area north of the Pescara river. Far from using incastellamento to consolidate its landholdings, the abbey was still issuing precariae on a large-scale, usually long-term leases for three generations. The abbots made over a hundred such leases in the last quarter of the tenth century,81 as the incastellamento of the region developed, and whereas up to the death of Abbot Adam I in 986 these leases were almost all of small parcels of land to peasant cultivators, thereafter the beneficiaries were often of a higher status and the property conveyed more extensive. Thus these precariae were becoming the instrument through which the abbey’s property was haemorrhaging; nor were there many donations at this period to counterbalance such losses.82 There was a further wave of castral foundations c.1020, very much against the abbey’s interests, and indeed it was this renewed pressure on its lands which sparked Casauria’s appeal for help to Conrad II in 1027–8. By this stage there were, for example, five castella south of the Pescara river in the immediate vicinity of the monastery, of which only one was under its control, and three were in the hands of nobles who were actively hostile to it.83 The vigorous rule of Abbot Guido, and imperial support in the land pleas of 1028, to some extent stabilised the situation, but this occurred above all through the build up of the abbey’s clientelia and alliances among the local landowners.84 But while for the chronicler the abbey’s history was a series of setbacks and revivals, and relations with the indigenous Lombardo-Frankish aristocracy were 79 80 81 82

Chron. Casauriense, cols 797–8. Feller, Abruzzes médiévales, 78–9. Feller, Abruzzes médiévales, 225, 401. F. Roscini, ‘Il Monastero di S. Clemente a Casauria dal 987 al 1024: crisi e decadenza di un abbazia’, Bullettino della Deputazione Abruzzese di Storia Patria 85, 1995, 5–55. The most flagrent example came in August 993, when Abbot John I leased some 2,200 modii of land in the three counties of Aprutium, Penne and Chieti, and a third share in an estate of another 200 modii, to Count Atto I of Chieti and his grandson Transmund II and their heirs for a further two generations, in return for a down payment of movables worth 1000 solidi, but thereafter a token annual census of only 5 solidi, Additamenta, cols 984–6. Some of this land ended up in the possession of the counts’ own foundation, the abbey of St John in Venere, near the mouth of the river Sangro, Roscini, ‘Il Monastero di S. Clemente a Casauria’, 12–13. (The modius = about 0.3 hectares.) 83 Feller, Abruzzes médiévales, 252. 84 For a more extended discussion, L. Feller, ‘Pouvoir et société dans les Abruzzes autour l’an mil: aristocratie, incastellamento, appropriation des justices (960–1035)’, Bullettino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo 94, 1988, 1–72, and Feller, Abruzzes médiévales, 213–87.

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often difficult, the greatest challenge it faced in the century before the chronicle was written was the coming of the Normans.85 The continued threat that they posed was the most important theme of the later part of the chronicle. The chronicler also made clear that their arrival in the 1060s encouraged some of the abbey’s erstwhile tenants to throw off its yoke and garrison their castella against it.86 But such actions paled into insignificance compared with the persecution of Casauria by Hugh Mamouzet, and after him, in the early years of the twelfth century, by William Tassio, of the kin group of the counts of Loritello (an offshoot of the Hauteville dynasty), and by another Norman, Count Richard of Manopello.87 Mamouzet in particular was the bête-noir of the chronicler, kidnapping Abbot Transmund, damaging the abbey’s buildings and fortifications, and then trying to impose first his own monastic candidate and then one of his chaplains as abbot. While the latter was in charge he looted the abbey’s valuables. Hugh was a ‘tyrant’, filled with ‘pride, greed and perversity’, whose ambitions could never be quenched – ‘what he had in his hands would never satisfy him, even if he had the whole world’. John Berard recounted with relish his eventual comeuppance, lured into an ambush by his lust for a pretty girl, forced to disgorge his ill-gotten gains and reduced to poverty.88 Yet while to the Casauria chronicler Hugh Mamouzet was both an oppressor and an alien, in fact the picture is more complicated. He was also a patron and benefactor to St Bartholomew of Carpineto, and to its chronicler Alexander he was something of a hero, who saved that abbey from the indignities heaped upon it by the descendants of its original founder. Far from resenting his interference in the appointment of its abbots, its monks asked his advice, and allowed him effectively to nominate Abbot Sanso (c.1075).89 Furthermore, Mamouzet described himself in his charters as being, not a Norman but a ‘Frank’ (which in the context of the Abruzzi might point to, or suggest a claim to be part of, the indigenous aristocracy rather than being simply a synonym for ‘Norman’), and he appears to have lived by Lombard law.90 If he was a newcomer, therefore, he would appear to have been akin to the Norman described by Orderic Vitalis who also settled in the Abruzzi, married a Lombard wife, and ‘forgot Normandy’.91 Whereas the Casauria chronicler accused Mamouzet of destroying the monastery and dispersing the monks, his counterpart of Carpineto said that it was Mamouzet who, seeing this monastery ruined and the monks scattered through the oppression of its Lombard lords, ‘greatly sympathizing with the wretchedness of the monks,

85 For a detailed, and still valuable, account of the Norman invasion of the Abruzzi, see C. Rivera, ‘Le

conquiste dei primi normanni in Teate, Penne, Apruzzo e Valva’, Bullettino della Reale Deputazione Abruzzese di Storia Patria 16, 1925, 7–94. 86 Chron. Casauriense, col. 863. 87 Chron. Casauriense, cols 871–2. William’s father Drogo, called Tassio (‘the badger’) was the younger brother of Count Robert of Loritello (d. c.1095), and thus the nephew of Robert Guiscard. Richard was the son of a Count Perto (or Peter?), possibly Count Peter of Lesina (on the north side of the Gargano peninsula), Rivera, ‘Le conquiste’, 62. 88 Chron. Casauriense, cols 866–70 (quote 869). On Mamouzet, see also L. Gatto, ‘Ugo Mamouzet, conte di Manopello, normanno d’Abruzzo’, in Studi sul Medioevo Cristiano offerti a Raffaello Morghen, 2 vols, Rome 1973, i.355–73. However, contra Gatto, there is no evidence that Hugh ever had a comital title. 89 Carpineto, ed. Fuselli, 105–7; ed. Pio, 36–9. 90 ‘Ubo de generatione francorum. Ego inhabitator sum in terra pinnense in ipsum castellum quod nominatur Bectorrita. et ad legem langobardorum vivo’, BN MS Latin 5411, fol. 236r (July 1086); cf. Carpineto, ed. Fuselli, 297–300 no. 120: ed. Pio, 253–6 (c. 1091); Codice Diplomatico Sulmonese, ed. N.F. Faraglia, Lanciano 1888, 23–5 no. 16 (April 1092). 91 Orderic, ii.126–7.

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recalled the abbot and monks and restored to them their own abodes, recovered the alienated property of the abbey, repaired what had been destroyed and preserved it intact’.92 The Casauria chronicle admitted that Hugh Mamouzet had (c.1090) allowed the monks to elect Abbot John, ‘a man of noteworthy life and religion’, who briefly ruled the abbey before being elected to the bishopric of Valva. But it was Alexander who revealed that in fact John had already been abbot of Carpineto for more than a decade, that Mamouzet had indeed played a major role in his appointment there, and that it was still the monks of Casauria who actively requested his transfer to their house. However, Alexander emphatically did not describe the earlier election at Carpineto as in any sense a work of lay tyranny. The monks felt that none of their number was suitable to be abbot, and so: The brothers went to Hugh Mamouzet, who was bound to the monastery by an unshakeable devotion and great love; they discussed with him how they would find a person able to rule over the monastery and suitable to be its head. With his advice and help they elected a monk of Cassino, the provost of the church of Sette Fratri in Aprutium, noted for his religion and way of life, called John.93 Thus the outsider brought first to Carpineto and then to Casauria during the period of Hugh’s domination in fact came from Montecassino, the leading reformed monastery in late eleventh-century southern Italy. Nor indeed does the charter evidence from the Casauria chartulary entirely support the chronicle’s picture of the cruel tyrant despoiling the abbey. In 1086 Hugh was indeed described as ‘the advocate’ of Casauria, but in a charter in which the new Norman bishop of Chieti, apparently acting under his influence, restored three alienated churches to the abbey (see Appendix 2, no. 1); and in the same month Hugh himself made a minor territorial donation to the abbey.94 While he may have wanted the abbey under his control, it is not clear that the impact of this was quite as malign as the later chronicler suggested. Far from being simply bandits who oppressed the local churches, the Normans of the Abruzzi were rather selective in their patronage. Casauria was too powerful and too wealthy to gain their backing, or more than occasional benefactions, but they did favour and endow the lesser monasteries of the area, notably Carpineto and the eremitical house of the Holy Saviour on Monte Majella.95 However, by bringing down the local secular power structure, and particularly by ruining the authority of the Attonid counts of Chieti, they induced a breakdown of local stability, and a competition for local power, that continued until the absorption of the region into the kingdom of Sicily by Roger II.96 Casauria was a principal victim of this destabilisa-

92 Chron. Casauriense, col. 867; Carpineto, ed. Fuselli, 105; ed. Pio, 36. 93 Carpineto, ed. Pio, 37. 94 BN MS Latin 5411, fol. 236r. Massarus son of Farolf, who witnessed this, also witnessed Hugh’s

charter. Bishop Rainulf and the abbey also conducted an exchange of lands in the same month, but there is no mention of Hugh in this charter, Additamenta, cols 1003–4. On Rainulf, see L. Feller, ‘Le développement des institutions féodales dans les Abruzzes adriatiques et l’épiscopat de Raynulf de Chieti (1087–1105)’, in Cavalieri alla Conquista del Sud. Studi sull’Italia Normanna in Memoria di Léon-Robert Ménager, ed. E. Cuozzo and J.-M. Martin, Bari 1998, 194–215. It will be observed that these charters show that he actually became bishop a year earlier than Feller allows. 95 Thus Casauria received a total of only twenty-five donations between 1060 and 1080, whereas the Holy Saviour on Monte Majella received forty-four in those two decades. Thereafter there were relatively few to either monastery, but in the 1140s the Holy Saviour still received nineteen donations, Casauria none at all, Feller, ‘Caseaux et castra dans les Abruzzes’, 150–1, 157. 96 For a brief summary in English, see L. Feller, ‘The Northern Frontier of Norman Italy, 1060–1140’, in The Society of Norman Italy, ed. G.A. Loud and A. Metcalfe, Leiden 2002, 47–74, at 59–64.

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tion, and it was not therefore surprising that its later chronicler tended to ‘demonise’ the Norman intruders. If the situation stabilised once more in the early years of the twelfth century, and the abbey was thereafter better able to defend its lands than it had been (at least by the chronicler’s account) against Hugh Mamouzet, it still remained vulnerable both to the Norman intruders and some of its traditional rivals among the indigenous nobility. Admittedly, as time went on, it became a something of a rallying-point for the local Lombard nobles, many of whom entered into vassalage to the abbots. A growing ability to raise troops from among their ranks enabled the abbots on occasion to resort to self-help. Indeed in 1123 Abbot Giso was able to raise a force of nearly 4000 men against the lords of the nearby castellum of Tocco.97 But the fact that the abbot was faced by enemies based in a castellum no more than 4km from the monastery itself, who had gone so far as to kidnap him, was emblematic of the abbey’s continued problems. In these circumstances, and faced with hostile and exploitative Norman neighbours, the monks of Casauria looked to divine as well as human protection, and to divine punishment of their enemies. Above all, they looked to their patron, St Clement. On a number of occasions, the chronicle noted the deaths of those who had laid sacrilegious hands on its property, strongly implying that the former were a consequence of the latter. Hence God and St Clement ‘overthrew the house’ of Hugh Mamouzet, and afflicted him ‘with a most serious illness which brought him to his grave, and in the year in which he died five of his sons followed him in death’.98 St Clement also appeared in visions to comfort the monks and foretell the downfall of their enemies.99 On two occasions during the first half of the twelfth century St Clement intervened personally to rescue the monastery, and on a third his relics saved it from natural disaster. Two of these miracles were essentially benign; but the earliest of the three, while it may seem to us merely the rationalisation of a natural event, was to John Berard a timely but terrifying manifestation of divine vengeance. In the first years of the twelfth century the abbey, along with the bishopric of Valva, had come into the sphere of influence of Count Richard of Manopello, who had bought out the claim to act as its patron from William Tassio, when the latter decided to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Richard sought to recoup his outlay, and more, from a levy on the monks and their property, threatening to destroy the house if they did not pay up, although he eventually contented himself with the seizure of its animals. Abbot Grimoald begged St Clement for his help, and the latter appeared to the count as he feasted in his hall on meat from the stolen beasts, striking him on the head with the key that he was carrying. He was carried to bed, paralysed, where he rallied briefly just before he died, moaning ‘Clement, don’t persecute me, I don’t want this, Clement!’100 From the description, Richard would seem to have had a stroke, but to the chronicler this was the work of the monastery’s patron. To what extent this view was shared outside the monastery cannot be ascertained, but some

97 98 99

Chron. Casauriense, col. 883. Chron. Casauriense, col. 870. In 1128 Clement appeared in a vision to two brothers in the chapter house to announce the expulsion and disinheritance of a treacherous abbey vassal who had seized some of its animals, and when Clement and Louis appeared to two sleeping monks c.1138 Clement announced, ‘I want you to know that I shall soon have revenge on my enemies, and I shall have them driven from their paternal inheritance, and they will live and die miserably in exile in a land that is not their own’, Chron. Casauriense, cols 884–5, 887. 100 Chron. Casauriense, cols 873–4.

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years later, on his return for the Holy Land, William Tassio did make substantial restitution for his earlier sin of selling the abbey (see Appendix 2, no. 2). About fifteen years after the death of Count Richard, c.1118, a plague of locusts consuming the abbey’s crops was ended by the parading of the relics in their capsula around its fields. ‘So great was the virtus of St Clement’ that the locusts fled and flew into the Pescara river, and the famine they had caused ended soon afterwards.101 The third manifestation of St Clement’s protection of his monastery, and the most overtly miraculous, occurred in 1140 when King Roger visited the Abruzzi. A delegation from the abbey had set off to meet the king, to secure his protection but more especially to vindicate Casauria’s possession of one particular castellum that it had previously been granted by the counts of Manopello. Since these last had just been expelled by the king, the monks were worried that they would be tainted by their association, and that the comital grant would be annulled. A laggard member of the party encountered an elderly pilgrim, who told him that the king would grant what was sought, but that Abbot Oldrius should not, as he intended, offer Roger any money. He knew this because he had been present at the royal council the night before. The monk was puzzled by this. He wondered to himself how that man could know the king’s secrets, since he appeared to be a pilgrim and a poor man, and men of this type were not accustomed to be admitted to the counsels, nor even into the halls, of kings. Despite being offered charity at the abbey, the pilgrim subsequently disappeared, but what he had prophesied came to pass. The king treated the abbot with great respect, and confirming its property and granting his protection, and the monks subsequently realised that the ‘pilgrim’ was actually their patron saint.102 King Roger’s privilege to Casauria in 1140 was not in fact as generous as the chronicler suggested, and he confirmed to it only three out of the many castella to which it had claims.103 Nevertheless, the chronicler’s attitude to the king and to his successors was entirely favourable, for they brought peace and stability to the region, which allowed the abbey once again to flourish. ‘From now on, the church of St Clement could concentrate on the religious life in abundant peace, while its temporal prosperity was increased by a good shepherd [Abbot Oldrius]’.104 Roger was portrayed as restraining the claims of his officials, and especially of the new count of Manopello, Bohemond of Tarsia, over the monastery, even if the letter of reproof from king to count which John Berard purported to quote verbatim was undoubtedly a forgery.105 The chronicler’s sympathies were clear when the new king of Sicily, William I, faced rebellion from his cousin, Count Robert of Loritello, in

101 Chron. Casauriense, col. 880. 102 Chron. Casauriense, cols 888–9. For other instances of the miraculous in this text, and the wider south

Italian context, see G.A. Loud, ‘Monastic Miracles in Southern Italy, c.1040–1140’, Studies in Church History 41, 2005, forthcoming. For a detailed account of the royal conquest of the Abruzzi, see C. Rivera, ‘L’Annessione delle terre d’Abruzzo al regno di Sicilia’, Archivio Storico Italiano 84, 1926, 199–309. 103 Rogerii II Regis Diplomata Latina, ed. C.-R. Brühl, Codex Diplomaticus Regni Siciliae I.ii 1, Cologne 1987, 139–40 no. 49. The Catalogus Baronum, ed. E.M. Jamison, FSI, Rome 1972, 252, art. 1217 (c.1150) subsequently recognised Casauria’s ownership of five castella, but the two bulls listing the abbey’s property of Adrian IV in 1159 and Alexander III in 1166 laid claim to some nineteen, Italia Pontificia iv.303 nos 13–14, Feller, Les Abruzzes médiévales, 65. 104 Chron. Casauriense, col. 888. 105 Chron. Casauriense, cols 890–2. Brühl, Rogerii II Regis Diplomata Latina, 144 no. †51, described the letter as ‘the product of monastic wishful thinking’. For Bohemond, who came from a family of royal officials in Calabria, E. Cuozzo, Catalogus Baronum. Commentario, FSI, Rome 1984, 287–91.

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1155. Whereas other contemporary and near-contemporary sources, and above all the History of Pseudo-Falcandus, portrayed King William in a most unfavourable light, to John Berard he was ‘a man of extraordinary wisdom and great courage’.106 Count Robert was, by contrast, ‘acting treacherously against his lord’, and his uprising caused widespread devastation and suffering. ‘So great was the greed of his followers that they spared no one, neither (I say) among secular persons, nor indeed from those who dwelt in the cloister to be free for the service of God.’107 The only good effect of his rebellion was the temporary expulsion from the region of Count Bohemond, which allowed the monks to send an embassy to Pope Adrian IV, to secure the abbot they wanted, Leonas, whose election Bohemond had opposed but whom the king subsequently accepted. Even thereafter the continued attacks of the king’s enemies caused problems, and a further, albeit temporary, expulsion of Leonas, who travelled to Sicily to ensure the king’s continued support. But once the rebels had been finally expelled (c.1162), the rule of law enforced by the king enabled the abbot to protect and to restore the monastery. Thus in 1163 Leonas was able to recover a church of which the abbey had been unjustly deprived ‘through his own determination and by royal authority’.108 Relations with the counts of Manopello admittedly remained difficult, for the latter still wanted to control the wealth and curb the privileged position of the abbey. But whereas before 1140 the monks had faced the seizure of their property by violence, and on one occasion during the 1130s a threat to murder the abbot, the dispute was now carried on in the royal courts, which tended to uphold the abbey’s claims.109 In addition, members of the new royal aristocracy became benefactors of the abbey.110 The gratitude of Casauria to the Sicilian monarchy was also shown by the portrayal of King William II on the bronze doors of the abbey church, immediately below the sculptures of St Clement and the Emperor Louis.111 The Casauria chronicler was not alone in welcoming the creation of the kingdom of Sicily and the extension of royal authority into the Abruzzi. Similar sentiments were expressed by Alexander of Carpineto. To him, Robert of Loritello was ‘the lover of sedition’, William I ‘a magnificent . . . a most famous king’, and the latter’s viceroy in the late 1150s, Simon the Seneschal, ‘a man of prudence and discretion, strong and most wise’. These opinions were far from disinterested, since Simon had upheld Carpineto’s property claims against its lay neighbours, while the troops of Robert of Loritello had plundered that property and held the abbot to ransom.112 But like the Casauria chronicler, Alexander recognised that Sicilian rule had brought peace, and that the interests of his church, and of society as a whole, benefited from this. He directly linked the tribulations of his church in 1156–7, ‘afflicted and 106 Chron. Casauriense, col. 895. Cf. The History of the Tyrants of Sicily by ‘Hugo Falcandus’ 1154–69,

trans. G.A. Loud and T.E.J. Wiedemann, Manchester 1998, esp. 60. 107 Chron. Casauriense, col. 897. 108 Chron. Casauriense, col. 900: ‘sua fortitudine et regia auctoritate’. 109 Chron. Casauriense, cols 887, 903, and the section omitted from the edition on BN MS Latin 5411,

fol. 260v, describing a legal case presided over by the royal chamberlain Samarus of Trani (1163). Cf. also the royal mandates to the count of Loreto (actually from the chartulary, not the chronicle), in Chron. Casauriense, col. 913 (1172). For a more extended discussion, see R. Pacciocco, ‘I rapporti tra l’autorità regia, istituzioni monastiche e potere locali nell’Abruzzo adriatico normanno. I casi di S. Clemente a Casauria e S. Bartolomeo di Carpineto’, Benedictina 42, 1995, 335–74. 110 The most notable were counts Geoffrey of Lesina and Gilbert of Gravina, Chron. Casauriense, col. 900, Additamenta, cols 1010–13, both appointed to their positions by William I. 111 Bloch, Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages, 589–91, and plates 225–6. These date from 1182–9, during the rule of Leonas’s successor, Abbot Joel. 112 Carpineto, ed. Fuselli, 131–5; ed. Pio, 78–86 (quotes 79–80, 81).

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despoiled, escaping by Divine power from the greedy mouths of the wolves’, with the defeat of the royal army.113 When Robert of Loritello finally submitted to William II and was in turn restored to his county (in 1169), ‘then fortune began to show itself favourably in this happy time’, and the monastery ‘forgot former calamity’. From being its enemy, as a royal justiciar Count Robert became its defender.114 Furthermore the good relations between the king and the papacy after 1156 enhanced such concord. The election of Bohemond de Luco, a monk of Casauria, as abbot of Carpineto in 1181 symbolised this. It took place under close supervision at the royal court, but the elect was still the unanimous choice of the brothers. He was confirmed by Alexander III, went to Palermo to swear fealty to the king, and then received benediction from the new pope, Lucius III, who quashed the objections of the diocesan to this infringement of his rights. Bohemond turned out to be an energetic and excellent abbot.115 Furthermore, the royal court and especially the vice-chancellor Matthew, supported the monastery in a long-running legal dispute with one of its neighbours, Richard de Padula.116 By contrast, Alexander saw the death without an heir of King William II and the resulting civil war as a disaster. ‘The whole land, which had formerly flourished happily in fruitful peace, afterwards shuddered in sedition, and they who had previously turned their swords into ploughshares and their lances into scythes, thereafter abandoned this and took up arms once more.’117 The abbey’s lands and immunity came once more under attack, both from the local aristocracy and from the German invaders. To the monastic chroniclers of the Abruzzi, therefore, the strong rule of the Norman kings of Sicily offered the hope of prosperity and peace in a world that was otherwise uncertain. King Roger, for example, might to the Casauria chronicler be ‘a man who was so terrifying that he could even force mountains to tremble before his face’, but he was the Church’s friend, who spoke to the abbot ‘with great kindness, not so much as a lord but rather as though a servant’.118 In his hands, the abbey’s future was secure. Without this royal protection, monks and their houses were terrifyingly vulnerable. University of Leeds

113 Carpineto, ed. Fuselli, 135; ed. Pio, 85–6. 114 Carpineto, ed. Fuselli, 137–8; ed. Pio, 88. 115 Carpineto, ed. Fuselli, 144–7, 335, 340; ed. Pio, 97–8, 101–4, 291–2, 296. For the documents about

this election, see also W. Holtzmann, ‘The Norman Royal Charters of S. Bartolomeo di Carpineto’, Papers of the British School of Rome 24, 1956, 94–100. 116 Carpineto, ed. Fuselli, 151–2, 349–50; ed. Pio, 107–9, 306–7. 117 Carpineto, ed. Fuselli, 153–4; ed. Pio, 111–12. 118 Chron. Casauriense, col. 889.

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APPENDIX I Paris, BN MS Latin 5411, the ‘Chronicon Casauriense’ MAIN TEXT: THE CHARTULARY

fols 1v–4v: topographical index to documents in part I. Book I = fols 6r–72v: early charters concerning the abbey’s property, arranged on a topographical basis. Begins on fol. 6r: ‘Cartule vel instrumenta de rebus et possessionibus abbatie Sancti Clementis in territorio piscarie’. Book II = fols 73r–180v: charters relating to the history of the abbey, arranged chronologically, based upon or copying an earlier chartulary from the time of Abbot Guido (1024/5–1045). Ends on fol. 180v: ‘Expliciunt prima instrumenta cartarum et privilegiorum que residua sunt de tenementis rebus et possessionibus abbatiae sancti Clementis temporibus imperatorum et regum aliarumque potestatum.’ Marginal note: ‘Explicit liber secundus. incipit tertius’. Book III = fols 181r–237v: charters from Abbot Guido until 1096. Ends on fol. 237v: ‘Explicit liber tertius’ Book IV = fols 238r–272v: charters from 1097 onwards. Begins on fol. 238r with illustration of Urban II presenting the pastoral staff to Abbot Grimoald. THE MARGINS: THE CHRONICLE AND RELATED TEXTS

Prose account of the foundation = fols 6r–29v. Begins on fol. 6r: ‘Ante conditionem monasterii Piscariensis invenitur Ludovicus Imperator per diversas Italiae provinciae . . .’ [Muratori, RIS ii(2).775–84] Metrical account of the foundation = fols 30r–39r. Begins De Ludovico francorum Rege loquamur Musa para calamos et eum modulando sequamur . . . [Muratori, RIS ii(2).785–8] Description of the region, followed by a list of the vills and casales belonging to the abbey (in its first years) = fols 40r–68v. Begins on fol. 40r: ‘Illis temporibus quibus ecclesia Christi sub imperatore Ludovico florebat. Piscariense cenobium desiderabiliter per eundem Clementissimum augustum a fundamentis edificatum . . .’ The list of the vills begins on lower part of fol. 57r: ‘Hec vero sunt nomina villarum et casalium ipsorum [fol. 58r] secundum quod astruunt instrumenta cartarum . . .’ Ends with the total of money paid out for the purchase of these lands by the monastery and its benefactors, totalling 3,770 solidi and four oxen. [Muratori, RIS ii(2).789–96] Prologue to Chronicle proper = fols 68v–69v (very faded). [Muratori, RIS ii(2).797–8] Casauria Chronicle = fols 70r–272r. Begins on fol. 70r: ‘Coepit igitur et creatum est

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piscariense monasterium tempore quo papa gloriosissimus Nycolaus . . .’ [Muratori, RIS ii(2).797–916] The MS ends on fol. 272v with drawing of Fr. John Berardus presenting his book to St Clement (Fig. 6), and this verse: Clemens ob lumen scriptum tibi tolle volumen Hac ut scriptura tua sint in lumine jura Scriptis noscantur que sunt tua iura leguntur Sit liber gratus quem servulus est operatus Cui tu sis clemens proprio de nomine Clemens Perpetuis annis fratris memor esto Iohannis. (Clement, take for yourself this volume as a written light. So that your rights may be in light through these writings. Let it be known and read in these documents what your rights are. May this book which your little servant has worked upon be welcome, May you be clement to him as your own name is Clement, May the memory of brother John last through the years for ever.) ILLUSTRATIONS

fol. 118v: Emperor Charles [the Fat] and the provost Celsus (diploma of 20 June 883 follows). fol. 120v: Abbot Aimeric and Emperor Guido (diploma of 22 June 891 follows). fol. 124r: King Berengar I giving a privilege to the monks ‘de libertate monasterii casauriensis’ (October 917) (Fig. 2). fol. 129v: Kings Hugh, Lambert, Lothar and Berengar II at the monastery, with Abbot Ildericus. fol. 131r: King Adalbert, Abbot Ildericus and Bishop John of Penne. This follows the text of a diploma of Adalbert (27 May 960). fol. 132v: Otto I, Abbot Adam [I] and the monks (diploma of 23 December 967 follows). fol. 135r, bottom of page: Otto I and Abbot Adam [I] (diploma of 1 May 969 follows). fol. 181r: Henry II and the monks of Casauria (forged [?] letter of the monks to Henry follows). fol. 181v: Henry II, Abbot Guido and the monks. fol. 184v: Conrad II and Abbot Guido (diploma, probably March 1027, follows). fol. 185v: Duke Hugh of Spoleto, Bishop Adalbert of Senigallia and Abbot Guido (two placita of January 1028 follow). fol. 205r: Henry III and four monks (letter of the monks to the emperor follows). fol. 205v: Henry III, Abbot Dominic and monks (diploma of 1 January 1047 follows) (Fig. 3).

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Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of this book.

Fig. 6. John Berard presents the chronicle-chartulary to St Clement (BN MS Lat. 5411, fol. 272v). Cliché Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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fol. 208r: Henry III and Abbot Dominic (diploma of 13 March 1047 follows). fol. 218v: Leo IX and Abbot Dominic (bull of 22 June 1051 follows). fol. 233v: Gregory VII and Abbot Trasemundus (bull of March 1074 follows) (Fig. 4). fol. 238r: Pope Urban II giving the pastoral staff to Abbot Grimoald. fol. 243r: Abbot Alberic and the Sansoneschi clan (charter of 4 February 1111 follows).1 fol. 245r: Pope Calixtus II and Abbot Giso (bull of 29 March 1121 follows). fol. 248r: King Roger and Abbot Oldrius (diploma of August 1140 follows). fol. 253r: Pope Adrian IV and Abbot Leonas (bull of 14 March 1159 follows) (Fig. 5). fol. 272v: John Berard presenting his book to St Clement (Fig. 6). Drawings of the abbots are present in the margins throughout the manuscript, e.g. fols 122v (Lupus, 910–14), 125r (Alparus, 927–43), 160v (John, 987–996?), 167v (Giselbertus, 997–1010), 172r (John II, 1010–11), 177v (Adam II, 1019–22), 179r (Stephen, 1023–24), 204v (Franco, 1046), 235r (Adam III, 1080–86), 236v (John III, Abbot and Bishop of Valva, 1093–94), 237v (Grimoald, 1097–1110), 242v (Alberic, 1110–12), 243v (Giso, 1112–27), 246v (Oldrius, 1127–52).

APPENDIX II Casauria Charters2 [1] Bishop Rainulf of Chieti restores three churches in the valley of Caramanico3 to the abbey of Casauria (July 1086). Paris, BN MS Latin 5411, fols 235v–236r. In domini nomine. brebe recordationis vel rememorationis. Refutatio ecclesiarum de caramanicu./ seu obligationis qualiter pro futuris temporibus causa memorie recordandi qualiter actum/ est in comitatu pinnensis. ante ipsam ecclesiam et monasterium Sancti Trinitatis. ibi reconditum est corpus Sancti Clementis./ in presentia ugonis qui presenti tempore advocatus est de predicto monasterio. et Iohanne archipresbitero./ et conone iudice. et Racterio filio neroni. et Nebili et Massari. filii Farulfi. et aliis/ pluribus circumastantibus vel residentibus bonis hominibus. Sic venit Rainulfus vir vene/rabilis episcopus modo ordinatus est in sancta venerabilis sedis Teatensi ecclesia sancte Thome. Inve/stivit et refutavit Adammo venerabili abbati de suprascripto sancto monasterio. ipsas ecclesias. monasteria/ [fol. 236r] Sancti Nycolai. et Sancte Eufemie. et Sancti Crucis. cum suis pertinentiis qu(a)e sita sunt ipsa monasteria/ in ipsa valle de Caromonacho. unde 1 2 3

Edited by Feller, Abruzzes médiévales, 919–20. Spelling, punctuation and capitalisation have been left as in the manuscript. Caramanico Therme, 11km south-east of the abbey of Casauria.

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cartulam ostendebat suprascriptus episcopus. et ipsa cartula facta erat/ a trasmundo episcopo et abbate. In tali autem tenore suprascriptus episcopus Rainulfus vel sui successores atque/ advocatores qui de suprascripto episcopatu rectores fuerint. Si predictas ecclesias Sancti Nycolai et Sancte Eufemie./ et Sancti Crucis. cum illarum pertinentiis. quiete ad suprascriptas ecclesias pertinent. vel pertinere debent. amodo/ vel in antea qualiscumque temporibus retollere vel minuare aut contraire presumpserit. aut in causationem mittere presumpserit. suprascripto Adammo abbati Sancti Trinitatis aut suis successoribus/ atque advocatoribus qui de suprascripto monasterio rectores fuerint. si per quolibet ingenium causare presump/serit. aut per se ipsum aut per quamlibet suppo(s)itam personam. ut componamus penam auri ipse pre/dictus episcopus vel sui successores suprascripto abbati vel suis successoribus libras viginiti. et taceat per in/ vitum. Hoc factum est in istorum omnium suprascriptorum presentia. Ego Petrus iudex et notarius scripsi in anno/ ab incar(natione) domini nostri iehsu christi Mlxxxvi. de mense Julio. per indictionem viiii. Actum in tete feliciter./ † Ego Cono Iudex rogatus ibi fui. et meo manu scripsi. † Iohannis archipresbiterus ibi fui. † Racteri/ filius Neroni ibi fuit. † Nebilo filius Farolfi ibi fuit. † Massary filius Farolfi ibi fuit. [2] William son of Tassio grants Casauria the castellum of S. Mauro,4 in recompense for his sin of having earlier sold the abbey [to Count Richard of Manopello] (March 1114). Paris, BN MS Latin 5411, fols 243v–244r. In domini nomine. Ab incarnatione domini nostri iehsu christi. Anno M.C.xiiij. In mense martio. per indic/tione vii. Hoc breve recordationis in futuris temporibus rememorandum. et ad memo/riam reducendum. Actum in comitatu pinnensi. Qualiter ego Guilgelmus filius/ quondam taxonis comitis bona et spontanea mea voluntate. propter nominem domini nostri iehsu christi. et propter re/medium salutis animae meae. et de genitore meo. et de genetrice mea. et de coniuge mea. et/ de omnibus parentibus meis. ut omnipotens deus dignetur minuere et dimittere pecca/tum quod ego habeo de venditione monasterii Sancti Clementis de insula. quod casa aurea vocita/tur. pro istius peccati remissione. Ego Wilgelmus reddo et offero ad ipsum sanctum monasterium/ beati Clementis martyris atque pontificis. quod casa aurea nominatur. ipsum castellate de / [fol. 244r] Sancto Mauro cum suis pertinentiis. cum terris cultis et incultis. cum vineis et presis et silvis./ cum salectis. et pomis. et arboribus. et cum cannetis. et quattuor hominibus. omnia et in omnibus/ reddo pro peccato venditionis ipsius monasterii. qualiter ad ipsum castellare pertinentem et pertin/ere debent. Sic ego Wilgelmus supradictus reddo et concedo et trado tibi Gisoni abbati. et/ successoribus tuis. supradictum castellare ad proprieta[te]m ipsius monasterii ad habendum et te/nendum im5 perpetuum. Et qualiscumque persona magna seu parva hanc meam redditionem/ et traditionem. atque donationem. frangere aut mutare aut diminuere temptave/rit non habeat partem in regno dei. Et sciat se esse excommunicandum et maledicendum./ et a deo separandum. et cum iuda traditore et cum diabolo et membris eius sine emendaverit et ad/ penitentiam non venerit. Fiat. fiat. fiat. Fuer[unt] autem ibi testes Petrus prepositus Sancti Cle/mentis. et Johannes sacerdos et monachus. et Moricus sacerdos et monachus. Milite suo Fulcerius. et Alpherius. et Ildeprandus. et Rusticus vicecomes. 4

No longer extant; near the coast of the Adriatic, about 5km north of Pescara, and just south of the Fiume Saline. 5 Sic.

The Impact of Rebellion on Little Domesday

THE IMPACT OF REBELLION ON LITTLE DOMESDAY Lucy Marten In 2001 Stephen Baxter began his important paper on the representation of lordship and land tenure in Domesday Book, with a quote from the contemporary Inquisitio Eliensis: ‘Who held it in the time of King Edward, who holds it now?’ (‘Quis tenuit eam tempore Regis Edwardi, quis modo tenet?’).1 The fact that Domesday frequently provides information for two dates, one representing the position under the last acceptable (to the Norman compilers) English king and the other giving the position under William I in 1086, is part of what makes this text such a uniquely rich source. In this paper, I want to begin by looking at one of the sentences that follows that fundamental question in the Inquisitio prologue, specifically the instruction that: ‘All this to be given three times, namely in the time of King Edward, when King William gave it, and at the present time’ (‘Hoc totum tripliciter, scilicet tempore regis Æduardi, & quando Rex Willelmus dedit & qualiter modo sit’). This statement is given credence by the fact that Domesday Book does indeed often record values for three points in time, a fact that is well-known, but little studied.2 The prologue from which these quotes are taken is not, of course, from Domesday itself, but from a contemporary collection of texts from the abbey of Ely related to the Domesday survey. Within this, a series of questions to be answered is given which is often taken to be those asked at the Domesday inquests themselves. A comparison of this list with the answering information and order in both the Inquisitio and Domesday reveals that the correlation between them is neither straightforward nor unequivocal. The prologue may be a retrospective production, maybe one written comparatively late in the Domesday process and which attempts to makes sense both of the initial terms of reference and of the resultant Great Domesday redaction.3 The abbey of Ely held lands in counties covered by both Great and Little Domesday volumes and the diplomatic formula that the first half of this paper is concerned with can be found throughout these two volumes; it is however, particularly prevalent in the eastern counties of Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk and this

1

S. Baxter, ‘The Representation of Lordship and Land Tenure in Domesday Book’, in Domesday Book, ed. E. Hallam and D. Bates, London 2001, 73–102; ‘Inquisitio Eliensis’ (hereafter IE), in N.E.S.A. Hamilton, Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensis, London 1876, 97. I would like to express my thanks to John Gillingham for inviting me to present this paper to the Battle Conference, to Ann Williams for her advice and to all the medievalists at the University of East Anglia for their support and encouragement. The research has been financially supported by the AHRB and by the award of a Fellowship by the Institute of Historical Research. I am extremely grateful to both institutions. 2 Further discussion on the IE and its prologue can be found in J.H. Round, Feudal England, London 1895, repr. 1964, 114–20; F.W. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, London 1897, 48; R. Welldon Finn, An Introduction to Domesday Book, London 1963, 6–7; V.H. Galbraith, Domesday Book: Its Place in Administrative History, Oxford 1974, 39; H.B. Clarke, ‘The Domesday Satellites’, in Domesday Book: A Reassessment, ed. P.H. Sawyer, London 1985, 55, and D. Roffe, Domesday: The Inquest and the Book, Oxford 2000, 100–1. None of these authors comment on the giving of values for three dates. 3 Roffe, Inquest and Book, 113–17.

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paper will focus upon this area. This is the region covered by what has become known as circuit VII of the Survey, which resulted in the misnamed ‘Little Domesday’, a volume that famously contains more data than its ‘Great’ counterpart. Whether, despite the differences between it and Exon Domesday, it really is a ‘circuit return’ or, as David Roffe has recently suggested, the first attempt of the compilers to get to grips with the mass of information presented to them, is a matter of current debate. Either way, what is generally known as volume II of Domesday is actually closer to the collection and collation of that original data than the Exchequer or Great Domesday text. Analysing the diplomatic within one circuit has the advantage of removing some of the elements of regional variation that occur within Domesday. Over recent years, there has been a perceptible shift in Domesday scholarship with previous assumptions that regional distinctions within the text always implied real differences in social or tenurial structures on the ground, moving to an acknowledgement that many of the apparent differences are actually the result of the various processes that eventually culminated in Domesday Book. Examining and analysing variation within one circuit helps to illuminate the tenurial complications in post-conquest East Anglia and the political circumstances that produced them, but it should also pose questions about the construction and expected function of the Little Domesday text. A detailed examination of many Domesday entries reveals the enumeration of what I shall term ‘three-fold values’. Numbers of demesne plough-teams, the value of renders and occasionally personnel from manors are often given for three instances, rather than the generally expected two. The standard tempus regis Ædwardi (hereafter TRE) or 1066, usually given as tunc or ‘then’ and tempus regis Willelmi (hereafter TRW), 1086 or modo, ‘now’, are joined in many cases by a vaguer chronological point in between, usually described using postea, and generally translated as ‘later’ or ‘afterwards’. Within the circuit there is some evidence of changing formulae to express this value that indicates a growing confidence in the use of abbreviated text. Little Domesday begins with the folios relating to the county of Essex. In very many ways, the Essex entries are different to those for Norfolk and Suffolk demonstrating variations even within circuits – but in this specific context, they give the fullest explanation of what it is that the third value is recording. To take examples from the holding of Rannulf Peverel, in Essex his demesne manor of Hatfield (Peverel) has the value for the customary TRE and TRW dates followed by the line, ‘And he received this manor at as much value as now’ (‘et hoc manerium recepit tantum valens ut modo’).4 This is subsequently shortened to a formula which has a value followed by the phrase ‘when acquired’ (quando recepit), and within a few entries, reduced again to simply ‘later’ or ‘afterwards’ (postea). Exactly the same progression in terminology can be seen in the Essex fief of Eudo dapifer, but in few others.5 Most either use the phrase ‘when acquired’ at the beginning of the fief and then reduce this to ‘later’ or simply use the latter. Norfolk follows a similar pattern; in Suffolk, the ‘later’ or ‘afterwards’ term is dominant.6 This variation in the termi-

4

A. Williams and G.H. Martin, eds, Little Domesday Book: A Facsimile, 6 vols, London 2000 (hereafter LDB) fol. 72. As with anyone who works on Domesday, I must acknowledge the usefulness of the Phillimore edition – particularly its indexes and notes – (J. Morris, ed., Domesday Book, vols 32–4, Chichester 1983–86), but for the sake of consistency and clarity, all references to Domesday have been made by folio number, and all translations have been taken from the Williams and Martin text, either in print or electronic form, The Digital Domesday, 2002. 5 LDB, fols 49–51v. 6 It should be noticed that there is a difference in the new translations used by the Williams and Martin

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nology between fiefs, particularly noticeable in Essex, would indicate that the third value may have been initially recorded in the seigneurial breves, the returns made by the 1086 holder for the Domesday Inquest, and that variations in its use may be due to this fact.7 This conclusion would also explain the lack of correlation between the occurrence of three-fold values and any geographical or administrative unit such as hundreds or counties, a fact that makes it less likely that oral testimony given at these places was the source. As the above example illustrates, the values given have often remained static between the different dates (Hatfield Peverel was worth the same in 1086 as when Rannulf Peverel acquired it), but a distinction was still made, and it is important to try and understand why. In such an abbreviated text wherein the diplomatic formula and marginal notation have been shown to have conveyed complex information, there must have been a purpose in recording the third chronological point.8 This question seems particularly relevant for those entries where the third value was recorded despite the fact that there has been no change in value; numerous entries, for example, follow a format that states, ‘Then and afterwards worth 40s, and now the same’. Part of that purpose is perhaps revealed in the fact that a general survey of the use of the third value throughout Little Domesday establishes that these values were generally given for manor entries, but not for appurtenant berewicks or sokeman entries. The twenty-carucate manor at Desning in Risbridge hundred in Suffolk is a good example. In 1086 it was held by Richard, son of Count Gilbert of Brionne, a part of the large estate that he had gained from the pre-conquest thegn, and his principal antecessor, Wihtgar son of Ælfric. The entry for Desning, after detailing the specifics of the manor, gives the render value for three points in time: ‘Then it was worth £30, afterwards and now £40’.9 Little Domesday does not group together manors with their appurtenances and so the details of Desning’s berewick of Cavenham occur a few folios on within Richard’s holding. Despite their explicit relationship and their descent from the same thegn – ‘Wihtgar, Richard’s predecessor (antecessor), held Cavenham as a berewick in Desning as 5 carucates of land, with the soke’ – the third value was only given for the central manor as claims to title lay there.10 From the mass of manorial details given by Little Domesday, those used as the mechanism for expressing the third value are also indicative of questions of rightful tenure. In general, it is either the manorial render and/or the number of demesne ploughs that is used as a vehicle for recording this information.11 Little Domesday generally uses the valuit/valet diplomatic form to express the render or value which can be seen as the sum for which a manor could be, or was, farmed; the payment of this recognised a soke relationship with concomitant links into questions of tenure

edition. Throughout the Essex folios, postea is translated as ‘later’ whereas in Norfolk and Suffolk the same Latin term has been rendered as ‘afterwards’. 7 For more on these returns see P.H. Sawyer ‘The “Original Returns” and Domesday Book’, EHR 70, 1955, 177–97; Clarke ‘The Domesday Satellites’, 50–70, esp. 60–2; R. Fleming Domesday Book and the Law, Cambridge 1998, 2–3; Roffe, Inquest and Book, 141–6. 8 C. Thorn ‘Marginal Notes and Signs in Domesday Book’, in Domesday Book Studies, ed. A. Williams and R.W.H. Erskine, London 1988, 113–35; Roffe, Inquest and Book, 191–211; Baxter, ‘Representation of Lordship’, 73–102. 9 LDB, fol. 390. 10 LDB, fol. 391v. 11 On occasion in both Essex and Norfolk, but more rarely in Suffolk, three-fold values are given for ploughs belonging to the men or personnel (‘then and later, 13 villans, now 15; then and later 9 bordars, now 14’ etc.), but rarely for livestock, a fact discussed further on p. 140 below.

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and the right to hold land. The number of demesne ploughs has been described as a measure of agricultural reality, what David Roffe has called ‘an index of the agricultural exploitation of the estate’ – a conclusion supported by supplementary evidence from the Inquisitio Eliensis.12 The work by McDonald and Snooks in Essex has shown that both the value and the resource endowment of a manor bore a strong relationship to the gelded hidage.13 The importance of the geld value for a manor is that its payment constituted a right to title.14 So exactly where and why do these third values appear? One method of examining the evidence is to look at it geographically. Although I have suggested that the seigneurial breve is likely to have been the means through which this information was collected, grouping together the entries relating to one vill from their various folio references, brings together information given by the same hundred jury during the process of the inquest and highlights the differences between them. In the case of the site chosen here, the vill of Elveden in west Suffolk, it also provides a convenient vehicle for exploring some of the conclusions to be drawn from the East Anglian evidence. Table 1 presents in tabular form all the entries for Elveden in Little Domesday. It is clear that both before and after the conquest, rights in Elveden were split between four individual holders; each held land rated at two carucates with rights in one-quarter of a fishery, in 1066 each holding supported two demesne ploughs, was valued at thirty shillings and supported a church with fifteen acres of land, although later medieval evidence would suggest that this was actually quarter rights in one church with an original endowment of sixty acres.15 The third column in the table relates to the holding of the abbey of Bury St Edmunds. They held their two carucate manor, together with some additional land held by free men, in both 1066 and 1086 and in such conditions of tenurial continuity, any indication of a third value would be unexpected – and none is given, a pattern repeated throughout their lands. Where there is an exception, the context within which the third value is given is clearly expressed. For the principal manorial entry of Brooke in Norfolk, for example, Domesday records that ‘Earl Gyrth held

12 D. Roffe ‘An Introduction to the Norfolk Domesday’, in A. Williams and G.H. Martin, eds, Little

Domesday: Norfolk, London 2000, 22. 13 J. McDonald and G.D. Snooks, ‘Were the Tax Assessments of Domesday England Artificial? The Case

of Essex’, Economic History Review ns 38, 1985, 352–72; and Domesday Economy: A New Approach to Anglo-Norman History, Oxford 1986, 72. Within circuit VII, land was given a fiscal rating in hides (for Essex) or carucates (for Norfolk and Suffolk) – a method that may have been superseded in the latter counties as a means of assessing geld liability by 1086. In Norfolk and Suffolk, geld payments are recorded for vills as ‘so many pence when the hundred pays 20s’, a system not found, or at least not recorded, anywhere else. In this context, it should be noted that there is no reference to the much-debated ‘ploughland’ in Little Domesday; the diplomatic formula ‘there is x land for y ploughs’, ubiquitous throughout much of Great Domesday, does not occur. For more on this see S. Harvey, ‘Taxation and the Ploughland in Domesday Book’, in Sawyer, ed. Domesday Book: A Reassessment, 86–103, which includes a summary of previous scholarly debates on the issue, and Roffe, Inquest and Book, 149–65. 14 T. Hearne, ed., Hemmingi Chartularium Ecclesiae Wigorniensis, i, Oxford 1723, 278; R.W.H. Erskine and A. Williams, eds, Great Domesday, 6 vols, London 1986–92 (hereafter GDB), fols 141 and 216. 15 Elveden in the tenth and early eleventh century was probably one large estate with a well-endowed church and a fishery which was split sometime before the conquest into four equal parts – possibly as the result of partible inheritance, although no obvious links can be made between the 1066 holders. Three of the four entries explicitly state that the land is held ‘as a manor’ (pro manerio); it is probable that this also applied to the fourth holding, that held by William de Warenne in 1086, but was missed in the diplomatic because of the need to record the fact that it was held as part of a land exchange and the complex situation of the pre-conquest holder.

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Table 1 The vill of Elveden in Little Domesday LDB Folio reference:

303

358v

In Elveden, Ælfric, and later St Edmund held Elveden TRE as a Engelric, held . . . manor . . . Holder in 1066 ‘Later’ Holder in 1086

Ælfsige Engelric Eustace of Boulogne

St Edmund — St Edmund

Land

2 carucates as a manor

2 carucates as a manor

Demense ploughs 1066 ‘Afterwards’ Demense ploughs 1086

2 demesne ploughs 2 demesne ploughs 1 demesne plough

2 demesne ploughs — 1 demesne plough

Men’s ploughs 1066 Men’s ploughs 1086

— 1 men’s plough

1 ½ men’s ploughs 1 ½ men’s ploughs

Personnel: Villans (1066) Bordars Slaves

3 3 2

4 4 1

Fishery

¼ part

¼ part

Church

a church with 15 acres

a church with 15 acres

Additional holding

4 free men and a half with 1 carucate then 3 ploughs, now 2. These could give and sell the land but the sake and soke and commendation continued to belong to St [Edmund]. Then it was worth 10s, now 15s. The [whole manor] in geld 20d

1066 value ‘Afterwards’ 1086 value

30s — 40s

30s — 40s

Third value

demesne ploughs

none

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391v

398

Leofgeat, a free man under Wihtgar under commendation only and in the soke of St Edmund held Elveden as a manor . . .

In Elveden 1 free man under commendation only to St Æthelthryth, in the soke of St Edmund, held . . .

Leofgeat, a free man commended to Wihtgar — Richard fitzGilbert

1 man, commended to St Æthelthryth [of Ely] — William de Warenne

2 carucates as a manor

2 carucates in exchange

2 demesne ploughs 1 demesne plough 1 demesne plough

2 demesne ploughs 2 demesne ploughs 1 demesne ploughs

— ½ men’s plough

1 men’s plough 1 men’s plough

4 3 1

4 2 1

¼ part

¼ part

a church with 15 acres

a church with 15 acres

30s 30s 30s

30s 30s 50s

demesne ploughs and value

demesne ploughs and value

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TRE and King William gave it to St E[dmund] when he first came to St E[dmund]’.16 Despite the well-recorded depredations that the neighbouring abbey of Ely suffered, similar conditions of tenurial stability across the conquest existed for the majority of its holdings, and consequently there are very few three-fold entries within its fiefs – a fact that makes the reference to the collecting of information for three dates in the prologue to the Inquistio Eliensis particularly interesting.17 The Bury entry is also a good example of the effect that the seigneurial breve could have on the finished Domesday product. The phrase found within the additional holding of free men – ‘these could give and sell the land but the sake and soke and commendation continued to belong to St Edmund’ and its variations – is repeated in almost every entry throughout the Bury fief and found almost nowhere else in the Suffolk folios. The Elveden example contains two instances where the third value was used to support other statements that detail post-conquest tenurial change. From the holding of Eustace of Boulogne in Elveden (column two in table 1) we learn that there has been a succession of holders since 1066: ‘In Elveden, Ælfsige and later Engleric held two carucates of land as a manor, now Eustace holds.’ The information about the intermediate tenure of Engelric is supplemented by the giving of a third value, in this case for the number of demesne ploughs. In another example from Stow hundred in Suffolk, Domesday relates that the 1066 holding of a thegn named Wulfnoth, had passed through the hands of Count Brien, before becoming part of the fief of Robert of Mortain – in a complex entry, three-fold values are given for the number of demesne ploughs, the ploughs belonging to the men, the number of slaves and the manor’s value.18 When Little Domesday records a change in tenure between the expected dates of 1066 and 1086, a third value is usually included in the text. The fifth column in the Elveden table is an example of a very specific form of post-conquest tenurial transfer – land exchange. Approximately 83 of the 450 Little Domesday folios contain one or more entries which explicitly refer to an exchange of 16 A subsequent reference to free men reveals more: ‘King E[dward] had the soke and sake over all those

free men and afterwards Gyrth obtained it by force. But King William gave the soke and sake of the free men of Gyrth’s with the manor just [as] he himself used to hold it. This the monks claim. Then and afterwards it was worth £10; now [£]15’, LDB, fol. 210–210v. The ‘Feudal Book of Abbot Baldwin’ describes Gyrth as the ‘very powerful earl’ (prepotens comes) and notes that William’s gift was made with a ‘bowed head and a ready heart’, that it was ritually confirmed with the giving of a small sheathed knife upon the altar of St Edmund and that it was accompanied by the giving of ‘letters with his seal’ (litteras suas cum sigillo) which the monks still held. D.C. Douglas, ed., Feudal Documents from the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, London 1932, 13. 17 The exceptions, as so often, are interesting cases. In their two-carucate holding in the Norfolk vill of Banham, LDB, fol. 213v gives a third value without a reason, except to say that it was (in 1086) held from the abbey by William d’Ecouis. He gained almost all of his East Anglian lands in the wake of the rebellion of 1075 (see n. 45 below); the IE, 180, adds the information that this land was ‘thegnland’, in other words held on a lease from the abbey. Many existing landholders had difficulties in enforcing leases held over the period of the conquest. Ely had obviously regained this parcel of land, although the three-fold values would indicate a break in tenurial continuity. The IE also provides additional information on the only other incidence of a three-fold value on Ely’s lands, at Billingford (Norfolk), LDB, fols 214v–215. Here the TRE holder, given as ‘a free man’ in Domesday, is named as Ælsige (IE, 135). It is possible that this was Ælsige, the nephew of Earl Ralph, as all other references to the name in Norfolk can be linked to this individual. If so, then his forfeiture in 1075 may have led to the abbey’s temporary loss. In 1086 it was the only holding held by Roger of Rames ‘from the Abbot’, a phrase used elsewhere in the Ely entries in connection with lands regained after dispute: see for example LDB, fol. 214 (Oxwick), 214v (Calveley) or 383v (Barham), and the corresponding disputes recorded in Bates, Regesta, no. 117. 18 LDB, fol. 291. Count Brien, son of Count Eudo, regent of Brittany, was granted lands in England following the conquest but seems to have returned to Brittany soon after 1069. K.S.B. Keats-Rohan, Domesday People: A Prosopography of People Occurring in English Documents, 1066–1166, vol. I, Woodbridge 1999, 127 under the heading for his brother, Count Alan.

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lands, stating that the manor in question was held, or sometimes claimed, ‘by exchange’ (pro exambio), usually supported by the inclusion of a third value to denote that the land had changed hands.19 Very often such exchanges concerned only small parcels of land or the lands of commended men, but the very fact that they were recorded as such is another example of the concern of the Domesday inquest to record the means by which Norman lords held/claimed tenure. These transactions between lords could neither appeal to the legal fiction of antecessorial succession, nor, presumably, claim a writ or deliverer from the king, although one reference indicates that the exchange was effected before Hubert de Port who is known from other entries to have acted as a royal legate in the region.20 Despite what might be considered the insecure nature of the title to exchanged lands, this mechanism of land acquisition was employed by post-conquest lords to serve many different ends.21 The example from Elveden forms part of the large transfer of lands known as the ‘exchange of Lewes’ throughout William de Warenne’s fief, wherein lands in East Anglia (and particularly in Norfolk) had been ‘exchanged’ for some of his lands in Sussex.22 Hugh de Montfort appears to have used land exchange to consolidate some small holdings around his honorial caput and castle at Haughley,23 whilst the lands of Isaac, a ministerial official who survived the downfall of Earl Ralph in 1075, were the subject of exchanges with Roger Bigod, the sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk. Isaac’s pre-conquest estate and those he had held from Earl Ralph had been exchanged for new lands, held in 1086 either in chief or from Roger, probably as a means of ensuring his loyalty.24 Lands held in this way are usually recorded in Little Domesday at the end of a series of entries under a hundred rubric and almost invariably, as can be seen in the Elveden case, the information that lands were held by exchange is supplemented by the giving of a third value. The Warenne fief in Norfolk also includes examples of land delivered to ‘make up a manor’ and again, the third value records this post-conquest change in landholder.25 Two of the Elveden entries then, use a third value to support the information given more explicitly that a post-conquest transfer of lands between Norman lords has taken place. More examples of this can be found in the lands of the King. This fief, like those of the undying monastic and episcopal institutions, is perhaps one within 19 The number of entries concerned is still relatively small. In Suffolk, for example, the phrase occurs in

only twenty-four entries: LDB, fols 331, 398 (x4), 403v–404, 409v (x2), 410 (x3), 413 (x2), 414, 414v (x2), 415 (x3), 420 (x2), 436, 440, 449. 20 LDB, fol. 66v. The exchange of lands by monasteries is more visible in charter evidence. See, for example, the ‘Charter of Jumièges’ detailing an exchange between the Norman monastery of Jumièges and the Aquitanian house at Bourgueil, dated 1012: E. van Houts, ed., The Normans in Europe, Manchester 2000, 213. See also E.Z. Tabuteau, Transfers of Property in Eleventh-Century Norman Law, Chapel Hill 1988, 35–6. 21 R. Welldon Finn, The Eastern Counties, London 1967, 31, saw claims of holding ‘by exchange’ as a dubious form of claiming possession; he throws doubt upon the legitimacy of the action and describes it as a means of concealing ‘an absence of authorised title’. If this were the case, it is surprising that instances of exchanged land do not appear within the ‘Annexations’ section, and are not recorded within the fiefs of both parties to the transaction, as might be expected if the exchange were disputed. In fact, the notification of exchanged land appears only in the Domesday entries of those actually holding the land in 1086. 22 L.F. Salzman ‘The Rapes of Sussex’, Sussex Archaeological Collections 72, 1931, 25–6, and The Chartulary of the Priory of St Pancras of Lewes, 2 vols, Sussex Record Society 38 and 40, 1933–35. J.F.A. Mason, ‘The Rapes of Sussex and the Norman Conquest’, Sussex Archaeological Collections 102, 1964, 80–7. 23 LDB, fols 403v–404, 409v. 24 For more on Isaac see LDB, fols 179, 331, and L. Marten, ‘The Rebellion of 1075’, in Medieval East Anglia, ed. C. Harper-Bill, forthcoming 2005. 25 See for example LDB, fols 170v–171.

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which the giving of a third value is unexpected; King William, after all, simply took over all the land of his predecessor – given in Domesday as King Edward of course – when he assumed the throne. Nevertheless, it is clear that in East Anglia, much of what is recorded as the king’s lands were not taken into William’s possession immediately after 1066, and that these lands had been subsequently acquired through the forfeiture of Earl Ralph in 1075. One subsection, distinguished by a separate heading in the text, is unambiguous in its declaration that what follows are the ‘Lands of Earl Ralph which Godric the steward has custody of, in Suffolk, in the king’s hand’.26 This contains manor entries which give a third render value for ‘when Godric acquired it’, that is when Ralph’s forfeiture brought them back into royal hands, to be administered on the king’s behalf by Ralph’s former steward. Other subsections with named officials holding custody, which again contain three-fold values, detail lands previously held by earl Gyrth and Archbishop Stigand and their lands too had passed through the rebellious earl’s hands, necessitating their redistribution in the wake of his forfeiture.27 Before moving on to discuss the final example from Elveden, it is worth highlighting two types of post-conquest tenurial change when the third value was not used, namely the widespread practice of sub-enfeoffment and the transfer of lands through inheritance. The phrase ‘when he acquired it’ could easily have been applied to those holding from their tenant-in-chief lords. Little Domesday is comparatively thorough in recording those individuals that can be dubbed as ‘mesne-tenants’, allowing not just the reconstruction of lordship and tenurial ties between a great lord such as Richard fitzGilbert of Clare and his men, but also illuminating those occasions when tenants-in-chief held from their colleagues.28 Nevertheless, there are very few instances where the appearance of three-fold values can be linked to sub-tenancy, and where they do occur, the manorial values involved are livestock numbers, not the manorial render or number of demesne ploughs.29 The Ely fief, for example, records the 1086 tenancy of previously disputed land in Chedburgh by Frodo, brother of Abbot Baldwin of Bury St Edmunds, ‘Frodo holds this from the abbot’, and notes that ‘when he acquired it, [there were] four horses, now none’ (‘quando recepit iiii runcinii, modo nullus’), the only example of a three-fold value within the entry.30 Horses appear frequently in this context; in Stonham Aspal, Miles 26 LDB, fol. 284v. 27 Godric also had custody of part of the king’s land in Norfolk, most of which can be linked to Ralph:

LDB, fols 119–135v. Also in Norfolk, William de Noyers had charge of part of Stigand’s lands, some of which are explicitly linked to Ralph: LDB, fols 135v–142. The situation in Suffolk is similar except that no connection with Ralph is recorded: LDB, fols 288–289v. In Suffolk, in addition to those held by Godric mentioned above, Peter de Valognes had charge of Harkstead, an outlier of Harold’s Essex manor of Brightlingsea (LDB, fol. 286v), which is not connected to Ralph explicitly although much of Harold’s land had passed through his hands, possibly due to a connection with comital holdings (Harold was earl of East Anglia between 1044–51 and 1052–53). Other lands of Harold’s and Gyrth’s (earl between 1057 and 1066) that record Ralph’s tenure were held for the king in 1086 by Ælfric wanz: LDB, fols 287–8. 28 R. Mortimer, ‘Land and Service: The Tenants of the Honour of Clare’, ANS 8 1985 (1986), 177–97, and LDB, fols 373 and 385 for examples of tenants-in-chief holding from other tenants-in-chief, specifically Roger Bigod holding from Odo of Bayeux and Richard fitzGilbert from the abbey of Ely. 29 There is also a slight variation in the diplomatic: as in the examples given below, instead of the ‘then, afterwards, now’ formula, entries tend to simply note the number of beasts present ‘when he acquired it’ and contrast that to the 1086 position. 30 LDB, fol. 384v. Cedeberia in Domesday is translated in the Williams and Martin edition as ‘Chattisham’. I have been unable to locate a Chattisham within Risbridge hundred and instead prefer the identification with the modern-day Chedburgh. Frodo’s holding in Chedburgh appears in the Ely plea of the early 1070s (Bates, Regesta, 117) wherein he is accused of unjustly holding ‘the demesne land of Chedburgh which Æthelric gave to the abbey with his son, Æthelmær’ (‘terram Ceddrbiri de dominio quam

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de Belefol held from Roger of Rames with Domesday noting that ‘he acquired 4 horses, now 1’.31 Another potential sphere for the use of three-fold values was in the recording of lands inherited in the post-conquest period. But the estates of at least three East Anglian tenants-in-chief were in the hands of their sons by 1086, and none demonstrate a correlation between three-fold values and this transfer of lands between generations. Roger and William, the sons of Serius d’Auberville, are both listed as minor tenants-in-chief in Little Domesday, and some of their holdings can be traced as disputed lands between their father and the abbey of Ely in a legal plea of the early 1070s.32 The holding of William d’Auberville contains no three-fold values, whilst they can be found in that of his older brother only when the lands have been subject to an exchange – a situation examined above (pp. 138–9). Both Swein of Essex and Robert Malet inherited the lands of their fathers (Robert fitzWymarc and William Malet respectively) during the 1070s. Both fiefs contain examples of three-fold values, but in both cases, it is clear that they are not linked to the tenure of either Swein or Robert. To use the terminology of Domesday, these men did not ‘acquire’ their lands, they inherited them. The pattern discussed above of recording post-conquest changes in tenure with both a notification in the text and a third value is repeated across Little Domesday, but entries such as these are in the minority. The vast majority of entries that contain three-fold values are much more like the fourth column in the Elveden example. No explanation is given and no intermediate tenure is noted, the third value merely records that there has been a break in the tenurial continuity of the manor that seemingly cannot be explained by reference to the 1066 conquest and its dating parameters for the transfer of land alone. In this case, information from other sources indicates that Wihtgar, the pre-conquest holder, did not lose his large estate in Suffolk and Essex until after the rebellion of 1075; the third value is recording that point of tenurial transfer.33 Wihtgar’s extensive estate in north-east Essex and south-west Suffolk was held in 1086 by Richard, son of Count Gilbert of Brionne, and Richard’s fief in Domesday is an example of three-fold values not being linked with any specific usage such as land exchange. They occur without explanation across his entire East Anglian fief. While the recording of these values may have supported Richard’s claim to tenure in some way, the entries give no clue as to how this might have worked. Examination of a complex fief wherein three-fold values occur only intermittently provides some crucial evidence that helps to explain precisely why, and in what circumstances, these values were employed. The Malet fief in East Anglia is one of the largest and most complex in the region; it includes holdings in all three counties, many, but not all, containing three-fold

dedit Aðritus sancta Aldrede cum suo filio Ailmero’). The same plea records that Hugh, a miles of Frodo, was holding Æthelric’s soke land in Depden, the adjacent vill to Chedburgh. According to LDB, Frodo also held in Depden (fol. 396) – his only other holding in that hundred. The grant of Ceaddeberi to Ely is recorded in E.O. Blake, ed., Liber Eliensis, London 1962, 139–40 (hereafter LE). 31 LDB, fol. 422. A similar example involving horses can be found on fol. 386–386v. For Miles de Belefol see Keats-Rohan, Domesday People, 298. 32 Bates, Regesta, no. 117. 33 Wihtgar’s involvement in the rebellion of 1075 was tentatively suggested by R. Mortimer, ‘The Beginnings of the Honour of Clare’, ANS 3, 1980 (1981), 129. Some additional snippets of evidence are given in L. Marten, ‘The Rebellion of 1075’.

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values.34 In Essex, for example, where Robert held only three manors, the entries for two of them contain three-fold values, one does not.35 The two that do, Stanstead Hall and Goldingham, had both been previously held by a thegn named Godwin, whereas Robert’s demesne manor of Wakes Colne had been held in 1066 by Azur, and no third value is recorded there. The vast majority of the Malet lands were in Suffolk where it is possible to identify by name at least nine English thegns whose lands had contributed the 1086 Honour of Eye. The recording of the third value is only evident in the entries relating to three of these individuals – Godwin, son of Ælfhere; Godwin, son of Ælsige and Eadric of Laxfield.36 One of those Godwins is probably the same individual who held in Essex, but precise identification is impossible. The majority of Malet lands in East Anglia, including Eye, the honorial caput, had previously been held by Eadric of Laxfield, which explains the widespread occurrence of the third value across the fief, but the important point is that the recording of this information can be seen to be directly connected to the identity of the pre-conquest antecessor, a pattern that can be traced across many fiefs. The sheer scale and complexity of Eadric’s holding makes it unlikely that there is an unknown intermediate holder of the lands that Little Domesday does not recognise or mention. The third value in this and other cases seems to be highlighting the fact that the pre-conquest holder did not lose his lands in the immediate aftermath of the 1066 conquest – a time-frame that may have lasted until the Christmas court of 1067 when the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that William ‘gave away every man’s land’.37 Instead, these lands were transferred to Norman hands at a point sufficiently removed from the conquest to warrant the inclusion of extra information – possibly as a means of justifying tenure. In the case of the Malet fief, a partial chronology of acquisition can be deduced. Other fiefs, such as those of Rannulf Peverel and Richard fitzGilbert, contain so many three-fold entries relating to all their named predecessors that the conclusion to be drawn must be that they did not obtain their East Anglian lands until some time after 1066. Potentially then, these three-fold values, far from being an occasional interruption to the 1066–1086 picture, can offer valuable evidence for the process of Norman settlement in the twenty years between the usual Domesday dates. On their own, of course, they merely note a post-conquest transfer of land without dating it, when used with other evidence they can help to build a picture or when and how land was transferred from English to Norman hands. Occasionally, for odd parcels of land, this may have been through the enterprising acquisitiveness of new lords, even when Domesday is silent on the matter – and that seems less likely in these three Eastern Counties than elsewhere as this circuit contains 44 per cent of all the cases including legal terminology identified and collated recently by Robin Fleming.38 Yet, where a

34 For more on the Malet fief in Domesday, see C.R. Hart ‘William Malet and his Family’, ANS 21 1995

(1996), 121–65. 35 LDB, fol. 88–88v. 36 This figure for the number of antecessores to the Malet fief in Suffolk is based upon work done by

David Roffe which can be found at http://www.roffe.freeserve.co.uk/tsf.htm. The nine individuals were: Aelfric, Durand, Eadric of Laxfield, Eadric, Godwin son of Ælfhere, Godwin son of Ælsige, Leofric, Stigand and Wulfeva. For Godwin son of Ælfhere see LDB, fol. 304; for Godwin son of Ælfsige, fol. 306, and for Eadric of Laxfield, fols 305, 311, 311v, 328, 328v for examples where Eadric is clearly named as the individual from Laxfield. His name is a common one and he often appears without his byname. 37 ASC, 1067. 38 R. Fleming, Domesday Book and the Law, Cambridge 1998. For methods of acquisition practised by some of William’s sheriffs in particular see R. Abels ‘Sheriffs, Lord-Seeking and the Norman Settlement’, ANS 19, 1996 (1997), 19–49. The record of Ely pleas dated to the early 1070s (Bates, Regesta, 117) is itself

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clear link of succession can be made between the holder in 1066 and 1086 over a number of entries, it may be possible to infer more. Drawing conclusions from Domesday is often a case of weighing probabilities and hoping that an additional scrap of evidence will tip the scales in one direction; knowledge of the specific uses of three-fold values and their application may help in some cases. Hugh de Montfort, for example, who fought at Hastings and whose Kent lands were granted to him soon after 1066 held the constableship of both Dover and Saltwood castles at various times. Yet he made the obscure vill of Haughley in Suffolk his honorial caput. His East Anglian lands are spread across all three counties and are characterised throughout by three-fold values; some were the result of exchange (see p. 138 above), a few are evidently from lands that he gained after the rebellion of 1075, but the majority are connected to his two principal predecessors – thegns named Bondi and Guthmund. It is tempting to suggest that Guthmund at least was involved in the Fenland revolts of 1069–71 and forfeited as a result. We know from the Liber Eliensis that he was the brother of Wulfric, the Abbot of Ely before the conquest, that the majority of his lands were held from the abbey and that Haughley was the location of his hall.39 Forfeiture at that time would fit with the appearance of various men of Hugh in the Ely plea of the early 1070s when they were accused of unjustly holding Ely lands.40 Another Norman fief wherein three-fold values can be found in the entries relating to almost every named predecessor is that of Rannulf Peverel. His principal antecessor was a king’s thegn named Siward of Maldon who is described in the Liber Eliensis as a benefactor of the abbey and a ‘companion of Hereward’ (socius Ærewardi).41 Again the abbey claimed in the plea dated between 1071 and 1075 that Rannulf was holding some of Siward’s land unlawfully. A further link between Rannulf’s 1086 East Anglian fief and lands formerly belonging to the abbey is shown in an entry relating to another of Rannulf’s predecessors, Saxi. His ‘one carucate of land in the demesne of the Abbot of Ely . . . was held for his wages’.42 This, like the other entries relating to Saxi, also contains three-fold values. Situated on the border between the old East Anglian kingdom and Mercia, the abbey of Ely around which Hereward’s revolt became based was a large and influential landholder in East Anglia.43 As well as jurisdiction over the five-and-halfhundreds of Suffolk that comprised the ‘Liberty of St Ætheldreda’, and their one-and-half Norfolk hundreds, Ely had lands and commended men spread throughout the region. The extent of their involvement in this revolt has never really been looked at, but in cases such as these it seems likely that the third value in Domesday records the participation and consequent losses of men such as Siward and Saxi in the insurrections of 1069–71. As Ann Williams once noted with regard to the Northern uprisings, men such as Saxi are rarely mentioned in chronicle sources and yet they must have formed the bulk of those Englishmen involved.44 Similarly, English participation in the ‘rebellion of the earls’ in 1075 has never been acknowl-

testament to the many small parcels of land ‘acquired’ by incoming Norman lords and their men by various means. 39 LE, 167. 40 Bates, Regesta, no. 117. 41 LE, 291. 42 LDB, fol. 418. 43 S. Keynes, ‘Ely Abbey, 672–1109’, in P. Meadows and N. Ramsey, eds. A History of Ely Cathedral, Woodbridge 2003, 32–3. 44 A. Williams, The English and the Norman Conquest, Woodbridge 1995, 34.

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edged, yet thegns such as Wihtgar, son of Ælfric and Finn the Dane – men who had not only held onto their extensive estates, but had profited from some of the upheaval that followed the 1066 conquest – were prepared to risk all in joining Earl Ralph’s rebellion nine years later.45 Both revolts are usually viewed through the narrow lens of chronicle narrative and what is often missing from those accounts are the tenurial and political consequences of the rebels’ actions. Just over a decade later, the disruption caused can still be traced in Little Domesday; not just in the modern-day reconstruction of tenurial patterns and the chronology of change, but as part of the diplomatic of that text. It was not the Norman conquest per se that brought men such as Hugh de Montfort, Rannulf Peverel and Richard fitzGilbert their vast East Anglian fiefs; it was revolt and rebellion in 1069–71 and 1075. It was in the aftermath of these events that their honours were created and their castles built. Whereas the incidence of three-fold values gives clues to the many dispossessions of the twenty years between 1066 and 1086, there is one particular part of the diplomatic of Little Domesday that can be more firmly attributed to the rebellion of 1075. Throughout this paper I have followed customary practice in using the terms ‘forfeiture’ and ‘forfeited’ in relation to a number of individuals whom we know from various sources lost their lands in the period from the battle of Hastings to the writing of Domesday Book; a diverse group that includes men such as Earl Gyrth, Archbishop Stigand, Earl Ralph, Siward of Maldon, Walter of Dol and Wihtgar, son of Ælfric. A closer examination of Little Domesday reveals that the terminology of that text may, in fact, be a lot more specific in its use of the term ‘forfeiture’, derived from the Latin forisfacere. Virtually all the uses of this term in Little Domesday that relate to the forfeiture of an individual can be shown to have been written in direct response to the 1075 rebellion.46 So far, one hundred and twenty entries in Little Domesday have been identified that contain the term ‘forfeiture’ or ‘forfeited’, used in at least three distinct legal senses. Twenty-six entries (or just over twenty percent of the total) refer explicitly to hundred, borough, or Liberty forfeitures; these are couched in general rather than specific terms and were therefore excluded from the main part of this analysis.47 The second form of usage notes forfeiture as the result of a specified legal case. Land in Plumstead (Norfolk) for example, was annexed as a forfeiture by Bishop Æthelmær 45 For Finn the Dane, another predecessor of Richard of Clare whose survival after the conquest is

recorded in Domesday, see LDB, fols 41,41v, 98v, 352, 391, 392–395v, 418v, and GDB, fols 149v, 153, 196v. He can also be identified as ‘Finn the Englishman’ in Bates, Regesta, 117. Another example is probably Fathir, described as a ‘thegn of King Edward’. When reconstructed, his ten-and-a-half carucate estate, mostly in Norfolk, is characterised throughout by three-fold values but was later split between those known to have benefited from Ralph’s fall in 1075. Part went to Richard fitzGilbert, two Norfolk manors went to William of Ecouis who gained land in Herefordshire (also affected by the rebellion) and the East Anglian lands of Earl Ralph’s brother, Hardwin; Fathir’s remaining manors were granted to Ralph de Beaufour alongside those that had previously belonged to Eudo son of Glamahoc, whose Breton patronym makes him a likely companion of the earl, LDB, fols 391, 222v, 226 and 226v. 46 Fleming, Domesday Book and Law, references on pp. 535 and 538. These have been cross-referenced using The Digital Domesday, 2002. This revealed three entries which appear in the main body of the Fleming text but which were missing from the index: nos 2354 (LDB, fol. 175v), 2612 (LDB, fol. 264v) and 3202 (LDB, fol. 448). This has also been cross-referenced with the list given in P. Wormald, ‘Domesday Lawsuits: A Provisional List’, in England in the Eleventh Century: Proceedings of the 1990 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. C. Hicks, Stamford 1992, Appendix A nos 16–29 where, unfortunately for the purposes of this investigation, the entry for Ralph in Hertfordshire was followed by the comment ‘uncounted subsequent references, esp. in Norfolk, Suffolk’. 47 See for example LDB, fol. 22 (de forisfacturis de hundret); fol. 118 (Norwich for the annual custom of 1d besides forfeitures [forisfacturas]); or fol. 391 (for the six forfeitures of St Edmund [vi forisfacturas sancti eadmundi]).

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TRW because the woman who held it married within a year of her husband’s death (‘pro forisfactura quia mulier que tenuit nupsit intra annum post mortem viri’), and a free man from Rainham (Essex) forfeited because he had stolen (forisfecit eam quia furtus est).48 A further six entries are less specific.49 Some of these cases may date from the immediate aftermath of the 1066 conquest when the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that Englishmen ‘bought their lands’ from the king.50 Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of entries to use this term evidently relate to the rebellion of 1075. Excluding only those two cases that detail the specific offence mentioned above, ninety-three per cent of entries that mention the forfeiture of an individual, name people who were part of the revolt. Domesday is a text that invites statistical analysis, but rarely lends itself to the process. Nevertheless, this magnitude of correlation is significant. Over ninety per cent of that number mention Earl Ralph himself, either because he had held lands or men, or because his forfeiture was used as a dating reference. The remaining entries refer to the forfeitures of his brother Hardwin, Walter of Dol, Humphrey of Saint-Omer (probably the Saint-Omer in Brittany) and Wihtgar, son of Ælfric.51 In the wake of Ralph’s rebellion, the forfeiture of his brother is not unexpected, and the toponyms of both Walter and Humphrey give them a Breton provenance with presumed affiliation to the part-Breton earl as well as the tenurial connections that Domesday reveals.52 Wihtgar’s inclusion on this select list supports evidence found elsewhere that he lost his lands in 1075. The conclusion that it was the rebellion of 1075 that provided the impetus for this use of the term ‘forfeiture’ in Little Domesday is borne out by a comparison with its use in Great Domesday.53 As in East Anglia, the term was recognised and used in its various legal senses throughout the country, the most common usage being a general one within the ‘borough customs’ of towns such as Dover, Lincoln or Chester.54 Again, for the purposes of this analysis, entries such as these were disregarded,

48 LDB, fol. 199 (Fleming ref. 2424) and fol. 66v (Fleming ref. 1969). 49 One, for example, refers to the hide at Bowers Gifford (Essex) which was ‘from men [who] forfeited

[it] to the king’ (de hominibus forisfactis erga regem), LDB, fol. 98 (Fleming ref. 2050), whilst a sokeman in Creeting St Peter (Suffolk) held 3 acres of forfeited land, LDB, fol. 350v (Fleming ref. 2050). The other four can be found in LDB, fols 98 (Fleming, 2051), 214 (2462), 271v (2473) and 443v–444 (3179). 50 ASC ‘E’, 1066. This may well have been the time when ‘Godmann, a free man, held 20 acres and [he] forfeited [them because] he could not pay the fine [for this land]’, or when Wulfric forfeited to King William because of £8, LDB, fol. 98 (Fleming ref. 2051) and LDB, 214 (Fleming ref. 2462). 51 For Ralph see LDB, fols 110v, 114v–115, 117v, 120v, 121, 123v–124, 124, 124v, 125, 126v, 129v, 130, 130v, 131, 132v–133, 133, 133v, 135v–136, 137v, 137v–138, 139v, 149v (x2), 150, 150v, 157, 166, 175v, 182v, 185v, 188v (x2), 188v–189, 193, 199, 204v, 204v–205, 205v, 214, 214v–215, 218, 221v, 223v, 242, 244v–245, 258, 262, 264v, 270v, 273, 275v, 276v, 277v, 277v–278, 278 (x3), 279, 279v, 284v, 294, 294v (x2), 301, 318, 333, 335, 377, 397, 446, 448v, 449, 450. For Hardwin see fols 223v, 382v–383. For Walter of Dol see K.S.B. Keats-Rohan, ‘William I and the Breton Contingent in the Non-Norman Conquest 1060–1087’, ANS 13, 1990 (1991), 167, and LDB, fols 299v, 321v, 322, 371, 377, 407v. For the forfeiture of Humphrey of Saint-Omer see fol. 158v, and for Wihtgar see fol. 448. 52 It is impossible to conclusively associate Humphrey with the Saint-Omer in Brittany, rather than the Norman location. His connections with Earl Ralph are, however, clear from the entries in Domesday wherein he held lands and men attached to the manor of Cawston, held in 1066 by Harold and presumably gained by Ralph on his succession to the earldom as his name is mentioned frequently within this series of long and complex entries: LDB, fols 114v–115v, 158v, 172r–v. 53 Once again, the references from Fleming, Domesday Book and Law, 535 and 538, have been collated with those from The Digital Domesday, 2002. 54 See, for example, GDB, fol. 1v, 366v, 262v. Here, as elsewhere, it refers to the penalty for breaching certain customs, or is generally given because, as county towns, these places must often have been the location of the county or shire court where forfeitures were promulgated. Fleming, Domesday Book and the Law, Cambridge 1998, 44–5.

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leaving all instances where the term is used to indicate the forfeiture of land by individuals for unspecified action. The number of entries concerned is tiny; within the entirety of the Great Domesday volume, I have so far only found only ten entries that contain the term. Two concern forfeited messuages within towns; the remaining eight refer to the forfeiture suffered by seven persons, although in most cases there is little indication of their offences. There are two pre-conquest cases. One relates to the time when Gruffydd of Wales forfeited (i.e. during the Confessor’s reign); the other states that Grimkel, a holder of sake and soke TRE, had forfeited his lands ‘in the same year in which that king died’ – presumably a circumlocution for the reign of King Harold.55 Post-conquest examples are either from the ‘Clamores’ section of the Yorkshire folios where, for example, the land of Gunnhvati was described as ‘forfeited’, or from circuit III.56 In Buckinghamshire, the land of Alric Bolest was forfeited ‘after the coming of King William’, possibly as a result of the 1066 campaigns,57 whilst the remaining two entries, both from Hertfordshire, can be more closely dated as they both refer specifically to Earl Ralph of East Anglia. One uses the events of 1075 as a chronological reference ‘. . . after Earl Ralph’s forfeiture’, whilst the other states that Ralph had been seised of the land in question, ‘but not on the day on which he forfeited’.58 When the ‘forfeiture’ entries in the whole of Domesday are examined, the term has been employed in circuits I, III, V and VI as well as in Little Domesday’s circuit VII. This particular term thus occurs in five of the seven Domesday circuits and over three reigns, demonstrating a wide geographical spread and consistency of usage, despite the small number of entries. There is an obvious methodological problem with this analysis. Words and their translation vary in usage, and as has already been noted, the processes and procedures that eventually culminated in the production of Domesday Book could determine aspects of the tenurial diplomatic. Such a vivid difference in usage between Little and Great Domesday could simply be an idiosyncrasy of circuit VII for example, merely a reflection of the vocabulary of the commissioners or scribes. In order to put the use of this term into context, albeit a context wholly within this one source, the terms of reference for this analysis were expanded to include as many cognate lexical terms as possible. Thus, all the references to expressions such as outlawry, specific references to outlaws, to capture, to individuals leaving the country, wronging the king, being exiled or fleeing were included although it is recognised that, as with forfeiture, some of these may relate to legal offences of all kinds. Expanding the lexical range allows for the inclusion of entries such as that for Burghill and Brinshop in Herefordshire which refer to the time ‘when Godwine and Harold were outlawed’, a reference to the political crisis of 1051–52, which indicates that the term is being used in a comparable legal sense to the forfeiture of Ralph in 1075.59 A similar conclusion can be drawn from the references to when Earl Tosti

55 GDB, fol. 263 (Fleming ref. 276) for the time when Gruffydd of Wales forfeited (forisfecit), and GDB,

fol. 376 for when Grimkel forfeited to the sheriff, Mærle-Sveinn (‘Grinchel . . . fuit ipse forisfactus et dedit illas Merlosuen’). 56 Another thegn, Vighlak, also had ‘left the land and forfeited it’, GDB, fol. 375 (Wiclac . . . terram exiuit et forisfecit) 57 GDB, fol. 153 (fuit forisfacta). 58 GDB, fol. 137 (postquam comes Radulfus forisfecit); fol. 140v (sed die qua forisfecit non erat saisitus). 59 GDB, fol. 186, Fleming ref. 746 (Goduinus et Heraldus erant exulati); ASC, 1051. Other references to forfeiture in the reign of Edward can be found, e.g. GDB, fol. 252v detailing that Spirites had been outlawed or banished (fuisset exulatus) and fol. 263 for the forfeiture of Gruffydd. Fleming includes three

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left (exiit) England, an allusion to the rebellion of 1065 and his outlawry recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.60 Analysing the geographical distribution of the cognate terms both reveals local preferences for particular expressions and demonstrates that certain legal terminology had more widespread patterns of usage. The descriptive term ‘fled’ (aufugerit or fugeret), for example, is only found in connection with an individual named Hereward in Lincolnshire, who is probably the leader of the Fenland revolt.61 Again in Lincolnshire, Rainier the Deacon was described in four entries as having ‘left this country’ or his land (exiuit de hac patria), the only use of this verb form in the survey to refer to a post-conquest situation.62 One entry in Cambridgeshire is unique in referring to an individual as having ‘offended the king’ (deliquit). The individual was Earl Ralph of East Anglia and the land in question was the actual site of the battle of Fageduna in 1075.63 The term with the widest use was ‘outlawry’ and its derivatives, with expressions such as ‘made an outlaw’ (factus est utlagh) hinting at the legal process involved.64 Again the number of entries is small as it was not the purpose of the survey to record the legal status of individuals who had placed themselves outside the law and therefore could not hold land. In total there are seventeen entries in circuits I (specifically Kent and Berkshire), V (Worcestershire and Shropshire) and VII (Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk). As with ‘forfeiture’, the term was not evidently restricted to one area but commonly known and understood across England. It is noticeable, however, that eleven out of the seventeen instances of this term occur within East Anglia. As in Great Domesday, they cover cases under both Edward the Confessor and William. Eadric of Laxfield, for example, was outlawed at an unknown point during Edward’s reign and was back in favour (and on his lands) before the conquest, whilst a thegn named Skalpi, one of Harold’s huscarls, died in outlawry at York ‘after King William came’.65 This concentration demonstrates that the preponderance of ‘forfeiture’ terms in East Anglia was not simply a local synonym for a term used more widely elsewhere; on the contrary, the numerical

other entries that do not use any specific legal terminology, but where the mention of Earl Tosti (known to have been exiled in 1065) has led to their inclusion: GDB, fols 133 (Fleming ref. 770), 217 (54), 217v (56) 60 LDB, fol. 200v; ASC, 1065. 61 GDB, fols 376v, 377. 62 GDB, fols 375v, 376. 63 GDB, fol. 196v. For the identification of this as the battlefield site see B. Dickins ‘Fageduna in Orderic (AD 1075)’, in Otium et Negotium: Studies in Onomatology and Library Science presented to Olof von Feilitzen, ed. F. Sandgren, Stockholm 1973, 44–5, although he does not make the connection with this Domesday entry. The entry concerns a one-virgate piece of land that was geographically removed from anything else held by the victor at Fageduna, Richard, son of Count Gilbert. He had obviously staked a particular claim to this land, however, despite the fact that it ‘did not pertain to the predecessor of Richard, nor was he ever seised of it, but Ralph Guader [interlined] held it on the day on which he offended against the king’. 64 In general Domesday uses a Latinised term derived from the Old Norse utlaga. For more on the use of this term throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries, see E. van Houts, ‘The Vocabulary of Exile and Outlawry in the North Sea Area around the First Millennium’, in Exile in the Middle Ages, International Medieval Research 13, ed. L. Napran and E. van Houts, forthcoming. This paper arrived too late for me to make full use of it, but I am extremely grateful to Liesbeth van Houts for allowing me to see it ahead of publication. There are three instances in Norfolk where a more conventional Latin form was used: ex lex (LDB, fols 200 and 277v) and fecit illegam (fol. 277v), although in other Norfolk entries the more standard form was used (utlagavit, fols 273v–274). 65 For Eadric of Laxfield see LDB, fols 310v–311, 312v–313, 342v. P. Clarke, The English Nobility under Edward the Confessor, Oxford 1994, pp. 115–16, has suggested that Eadric may have been involved in the rebellion of Osgod Clapa in the 1040s. See LDB, fol. 59 for reference to Skalpi (mortuus fuit in Ebroica in utlagaria).

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concentration of both of these phrases within circuit VII is an indication of the legal difficulties faced in this region and of Little Domesday’s efforts to record them. I have used the Domesday terms derived from the Latin verb forisfecere and the Latinised utlagh as related lexical expressions in order to facilitate this comparative analysis, but a closer examination raises the possibility that the terminology employed by Little Domesday was more specific and precise. There are eleven entries in Little Domesday that explicitly refer to outlawry. Of these three refer to the pre-conquest case of Eadric of Laxfield mentioned above, and the others can be probably be assigned to the years immediately following the 1066 conquest. Trying to ascribe dates to events and people in Domesday can be a dangerous occupation and one to be undertaken with some trepidation, but in this case most entries name the official who took the land involved ‘into the king’s hand’. The resultant group of office-holders and ministerial thegns is one that is known to have been active in the late 1060s, and possibly the early 1070s, but certainly not a decade later. The transaction involving Bishop Æthelmær, for example, must have taken place before his own downfall in 1070 and similar reasoning can be applied to the Essex entries that note the land of an outlaw taken by Robert fitzWymarc who died around the same time, and the land appropriated by Lisiois de Moutiers, who himself forfeited in 1075.66 Æthelwig of Thetford probably held the position of sheriff both before and after 1066, but is unlikely to held onto his office for long; it is his son, Stanheard, who is mentioned in Domesday.67 A complex entry for Mundham in Norfolk has Ulfketil the king’s reeve holding the land of the outlawed pre-conquest holder, Ælfric, described as ‘a free man under Stigand’. The reeve also swore that this land been held by Earl Ralph before he forfeited, which dates Ælfric’s transgression to before 1075.68 The most likely time in which to place Skalpi’s death in York is 1069x1070. Two entries use the phrase ‘when King William came into this land’ or ‘after King William came into England’ which, whilst certainly not conclusive dating evidence, does suggest a timeframe shaped by the events of 1066. The first of these concerns the outlawing to Denmark of Eadric, the steersman of King Edward’s ship; it is this same entry that notes that his land was annexed by Bishop Æthelmær, dating Eadric’s offence to within four years of the conquest. 69 The term ‘outlawry’ in Little Domesday would thus appear to have been used to describe events that happened before 1066, in the aftermath of conquest, and the years following that event. But it was not used for those associated with the rebellion of 1075, when the term ‘forfeiture’ was universally employed. In entry after entry, Ralph’s forfeiture is referred to, yet in no hundred-jury testimony nor in any of the seigneurial returns from the many who benefited from his fall, was a description of him as an ‘outlaw’ put into the finished text. Although these terms are distinct in their meanings (as outlawry applies to the person and forfeiture to their lands), it is generally assumed that they are inter-dependant in their application.70 66 LDB, fols 200, 48, 49v. 67 Waleran, Robert Malet, Roger Bigod, Robert Blund, Ivo Tallebois and Godric dapifer all held shrieval

office in Norfolk and/or Suffolk before 1086: J.A. Green, English Sheriffs to 1154, PRO Handbook 24, London 1990, 61 and 76; for Stanheard see LDB, fols 174, 179, 180, 183, 185, 278, 330v. 68 LDB, fol. 176v. 69 The remaining entry is more obscure. It refers to ‘4 free men with 30 acres of land who were outlawed’ and to the fact that ‘now, Swein’s men have taken the land’. Again the terminology suggests a period had elapsed between the outlawry and Swein’s tenure of the land, but it is impossible to place this within a specific timeframe. Swein appears as sheriff of Essex during the period 1066–86. 70 Incidentally, the ASC uses neither term, using alliterative poetry to describe the rebels’ fate and referring only to the fact that some Bretons were driven from their lands, using the indigenous form, sume of

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Why the events of 1075 should have been distinguished linguistically from what appear to have been other similar transgressions against the king is not yet clear, but it may provide an insight into the construction of Little Domesday. The consistency of expression applied to Ralph and his adherents is remarkable. The use of specific terminology and its distribution across the three counties and many post-conquest fiefs would indicate that it stems from the production of Domesday itself, rather than being a product of any of the different sources that contributed to the Survey and Book. It is possible that the consistent use of this term ultimately derives from a pre-existing document, maybe that which proclaimed Ralph’s forfeiture publicly through the shire-courts.71 This is however, a lexical distinction found only in Little Domesday, which raises some interesting questions about the production of that text and perhaps points to a local centre for its production. The scribal hands identified as working on the East Anglian text are not found in Great Domesday, and more pertinently perhaps, the main scribe of the Exchequer text is not found in East Anglia.72 What is clear is that the sheer number of entries that refer to ‘earl Ralph’s forfeiture’ in Little Domesday is an indication of the tremendous impact that the events of 1075 had upon the political and tenurial situation in East Anglia and upon the legal memory of the region – ‘the day upon which earl Ralph forfeited’ is the commonest expression used as a dating reference found within those folios. It was suggested above that the seigneurial breves were likely to have been the mechanism through which three-fold values were introduced into the Domesday process, although the consistency with which they appear does suggest that the Inquisitio Eliensis prologue may indeed reflect one of the initial questions posed by the Domesday Survey, at least in circuit VII. Recent work has highlighted the extent to which the seigneurial breves may have been manipulated to present landholding issues in the most favourable light, and East Anglia certainly contains examples of that practice.73 Yet neither the distribution of three-fold values nor the repeated references to Earl Ralph across so many fiefs indicate text manipulated at that stage; rather the widespread occurrence may be best seen as expressions of tenurial concern. If it were possible to take the prologue of the Inquisitio Eliensis as an accurate indication of the organising principles of the Domesday Survey itself, then the correlation between the recording of information for three dates and the purpose of the Survey would be explicit. As it is, all that can safely be said is that the Inquisitio Eliensis expresses a contemporary perception of the function of Domesday and that a part of that involved the giving of information for the third chronological point. To ask why, is to question the purpose and function of the entire Domesday process, a topic that is certainly outside the remit of this paper, but one that I should like to touch upon in conclusion.

lande adrifene: ASC 1075. Elsewhere the Chronicle uses both Old English terms and the Old Norse derived utlagh, van Houts, ‘Vocabulary of Exile’, 17. 71 To my knowledge, no example of such a document exists for this period, but the procedures that must have accompanied the forfeiture are likely to have been supported by administrative or judicial documentation. I thank the conference delegates, and especially Bruce O’Brien, for their help on this point. Some of the complications – and documentation – arising from an earlier example of outlawry, that of Eadric of Laxfield, can be glimpsed in the entry for Fordley in Suffolk. After his outlawry and reconciliation it was noted that King Edward had given Eadric a ‘sealed charter’ (dedit etiam brevem et sigillum) so that ‘whichever of his free men by commendation wished to return to him, could return by his permission’: LDB, fols 310v–311. 72 M. Gullick ‘The Great and Little Domesday Manuscripts’, in Domesday Studies, ed., R.W.H. Erskine and A. Williams, London 1987, 93–112. 73 Baxter, ‘Representation of Lordship’, 73–102.

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In the absence of any record of King William’s actual thoughts at the inception of the Domesday Survey, historians have been left to deduce the initial impetus and rationale from the composition of the resultant text and/or the applications to which it was – or could have been – put. Any survey of this scale and complexity inevitably has many applications, some no doubt only emerged during the process of collating data; to use modern terminology, Domesday was ‘multi-functional’. Little Domesday, like its ‘Great’ counterpart was, of course, concerned with manorial resources, with geld and with the question of ‘who held it then, who holds it now?’ A fact that is less frequently acknowledged is that it was also concerned with events that occurred between the Domesday date bookends of ‘the day on which King Edward was alive and dead’ and ‘the time of King William’. The uses to which the third value was put and the emphasis throughout Little Domesday upon the forfeiture of Earl Ralph fit well with J.C. Holt’s suggestion that the impetus for the Survey was linked to the giving of oaths of homage at Salisbury in 1086, and that, for the tenants-in-chief, it provided warranty for their tenure of lands that had been granted, delivered, acquired, inherited, exchanged, annexed and appropriated over the previous twenty years.74 Whether emanating from the seigneurial breves, from oral testimony or from a pre-conquest document, one of the only constants across the entire Domesday text is that it records who held what in 1086. Efforts made, admittedly variable in quantity and quality, to record who had held the same manor, piece of land or men twenty years earlier must be an attempt to provide justification either for continued tenure, or for the subsequent changes; the same can be said of the repeated references to writs, deliverers, antecessores and other means of claiming the right to hold. The numerical concentration in the Eastern Counties of the diplomatic formulae and lexical terms discussed in this paper, may be partly due to the position of Little Domesday in the corpus of extant Domesday texts, and the greater quantity of information given within it, but it is surely also a reflection of massive redistributions of land in the aftermath of insurrection and rebellion and of the tenurial insecurity that this engendered. Recently David Roffe has suggested that the military crisis of 1085 provided a context for the commissioning of the Survey, and that Domesday Book itself was produced in the aftermath of the 1088 rebellion.75 Whatever the impetus for its production, the evidence from Little Domesday indicates that in East Anglia people were preoccupied with the tenurial consequences of earlier rebellions, and that these events had a considerable impact upon the resultant diplomatic form of its text. University of East Anglia

74 J.C. Holt, ‘1086’, in his Domesday Studies, Woodbridge 1987, 41–64. 75 Roffe, Inquest and Book, 239 and 246.

Setting Things Str aight

SETTING THINGS STRAIGHT: LAW, JUSTICE AND ETHICS IN THE ORATIONES OF LAWRENCE OF DURHAM Mia Münster-Swendsen Who eventually becomes a hallowed name in the literary canon for a given historical period is often a matter of coincidence, diverse conjunctures or, simply, inexplicable arbitrariness. Hence for various reasons some medieval authors undeservedly continue to languish in the shade of their better-known contemporaries. One such is Lawrence of Durham, generally neglected and only recently, yet still slowly, rediscovered – mainly by German philologists. The first edition of his main work, the Hypognosticon appeared as late as 2002. Yet judging from the quality of his works and the variety of genres and rhetorical devices he skilfully employed, Lawrence was and is far from being a literary dwarf.1 Considering the historical value of his writings, the neglect appears similarly surprising; he did after all witness a most stormy period in the history of Durham in particular (the contested episcopacy of William Cumin)2 and England in general (the reign of Stephen). Lawrence’s writings do reflect these contemporary conflicts, though from a distinctly partisan perspective, and no matter what one may think of his literary achievements,3 his varied opus certainly merits closer attention for several reasons. This article will give a brief introduction to the biography of Lawrence of Durham, his personality and writings, before taking a closer look at a single text, the third and longest of his five forensic declamations, known as the orationes. Finally, I will touch upon a number of central

1 A.G. Rigg states that ‘perhaps the most interesting writer of the whole period was Lawrence of Durham’. The period in question is that between 1066 and 1154. A.G. Rigg, A History of Anglo-Latin Literature 1066–1422, Cambridge 1992, 54. 2 For descriptions of the Cumin affair see A. Young, ‘The Bishopric of Durham in Stephen’s Reign’, in Anglo-Norman Durham 1093–1193, ed. D. Rollason, M. Harvey and M. Prestwich, Woodbridge 1994, 353–68, and Marjorie Chibnall, The Empress Matilda, Oxford 1993, 138–9. 3 In general the reception of Lawrence’s work among literary scholars ranges from the lukewarm to the enthusiastic. Leland had the following impression: ‘Non possum equidem hoc non laudare, fuisse homines tales in illa barbara aetate, qui tum alacri impetu ad studia progrederentur’. J. Leland, Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Oxford 1709, 204 (cited in A. Hoste, ‘A Survey of the Unedited Work of Laurence of Durham’, Sacris Erudiri 11, 1960, 249). While both Manitius and Raby were not overly enthusiastic, they found Lawrence’s Latinity clear and, in Raby’s turn of phrase, ‘nearly always readable’ (see Max Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters iii, Munich 1931, 816–20, and F.J.E. Raby, A History of Secular Latin Poetry in the Middle Ages ii, Oxford 1957, 108–10). Susanne Daub, recent editor of the Hypognosticon, commends Lawrence as ‘literarisch hochbegabt’ and gives the following evaluation of the stylistic quality of Lawrence’s work: ‘In dem komplexen Werk, das entsteht, verbinden sich ein Jahrhunderte übergreifendes gelehrt-theologisches Denken, künstlerische Virtuosität und der Esprit eines bischoflichen Höflings zu einem Zeugnis für die sonst selten beobachtende hohe literarische Ambition eines geistlichen Hofs am Rande Europas. . . . Dabei experimentiert er mit verschiedenen literarischen und paraliterarischen Techniken, was den Reiz dieses grossen Sprachkunstwerks ausmacht.’ Susanne Daub, ed., Gottes Heilsplan – verdichtet: das Hypognosticon des Laurentius Dunelmensis, Erlangen 2002, 3.

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aspects, concerning the meanings and implications of law and justice, and how they may fit into a broader ideological context. Lawrence was born in Waltham, Essex, in the early years of the twelfth century.4 His family background remains unknown, but there was a standing connection between Durham and the church of Waltham, where Lawrence received his early education from the secular canons. At some point Lawrence moved to Durham, took the Benedictine garb at St Cuthbert’s and quickly rose to the position of cantor or praecentor.5 During the years c.1133–41 he served at the episcopal palace as chaplain to Bishop Geoffrey Rufus, where, as he tells, he participated in causarum actiones, that is, handling legal cases at court.6 During the upheavals marking the period of William Cumin’s rule (1141–44), Lawrence was momentarily forced into exile; regaining favour after Cumin’s disgraceful defeat, he finally became prior of Durham in 1149, hence holding the second most powerful office in the diocese next to the bishop. In 1153 Lawrence accompanied the bishop-elect, Hugh of Puiset, on the journey to Rome to obtain the Pope’s support against the candidate of Bernard of Clairvaux and Henry Murdac, the archbishop of York. Unfortunately, the prior fell ill on the return trip and died in a small French village in spring 1154.7 His body was later shipped to Durham at the request of his community, and the main manuscript of Lawrence’s work appears to have been collected at Durham shortly after his death as an act of commemoration.8 It was furnished with a splendid portrait of the author at his writing desk, which is frequently reproduced in other contexts. The biographical details concerning Lawrence are almost solely to be deduced from his own writings in which he provides a vivid self-portrait, though lacking in hard facts and exact dates. The picture we get is of a deeply self-conscious writer who was not loath to praise himself for his extraordinary literary talents, which, he implied, were not a result of other people’s teachings but of disciplined self-education. In the prologue to the Hypognosticon, Lawrence refers to himself as capellanus palatinus and complains that court-service leaves him too little time for studies and books. The text itself contains a curious anecdote concerning its conception: Lawrence relates that he worked on it for three years, and when the oeuvre was finished, for some untold reason he brought the single draft with him to a festive courtly gathering. Rather mysteriously, the manuscript got lost there and Lawrence 4

The exact year of Lawrence’s birth remains an undecided issue: the editor of his minor works, Udo Kindermann, decides on 1114, and so does Susanne Daub, whereas Manitius and Raby claimed an earlier date, around 1100. In the commentary to his English translation of the Dialogi, A.G. Rigg opts for a compromise, placing the date tentatively around 1110. 5 As leading singer and master of the choir the author was especially sensitive to oral and musical aspects, and he uses musical metaphors in several, sometimes startling, contexts. In the Dialogi (Book II, lines 419–20), the henchmen of William Cumin become a cacophonic choir of malicious chanters: ‘Iam modulis mala nostra novis loca sacra prophanas,/ Insonat in sacris hic latro saepe locis’ (‘Now with novel songs you profane our wretched holy places; frequently the brigand intones at holy sites’). James Raine, ed., Dialogi Laurentii Dunelmensis Monachi ac Prioris, Publications of the Surtees Society 70, Edinburgh 1880, 27. 6 Daub, ed., Hypognosticon, 69. The thirteenth-century chronicler Geoffrey of Coldingham added the following description to his mention of Lawrence, which stresses his legal learning and acumen: ‘Vir magnae discretionis, in iure peritus, eloquentia praeditus, divinis institutis sufficienter instructus nec habens opus ab alius mendicae consilium in adversis.’ James Raine, ed., Historiae Dunelmensis Scriptores Tres, Publications of the Surtees Society 9, Edinburgh 1839, 4. 7 His successor, Absalon, was also involved in matters of jurisprudence. See Geoffrey of Coldingham: ‘Defuncto igitur Laurentio priore, Prioratum accepit Absalon, vir quidem de forinsecis edoctus, sed minus literis eruditus.’ Raine, ed., Historiae Dunelmensis Scriptores, 7. 8 Durham University Library MS Cosin V. iii. 1 (twelfth century). The portrait is found on fol. 22v at the incipit of the Hypognosticon.

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insinuates that an envious colleague simply stole it. Luckily our workaholic author managed to mend the disaster in a month, recreating the 3,076 verses from memory.9 Lawrence was not the self-effacing type. He boasts that despite his many duties and involvements he was normally able to compose forty lines of verse a day, and even in his later years, he looked back on his youthful ambition with a slightly veiled sense of self-gratification. In the dialogue with his friend Peter, he tells that even as a boy ‘I sought to vanquish older, mature men’,10 and as a youth his surroundings marvel at his talents: My happy body leapt to higher tasks, For blood and choler had the upper hand. You’d think my elements aspired to reach For their own kin, my spirit leapt so high! I still was beardless, but my lofty head Surpassed the height of many upright men. My body, fame, and reputation grew; My honour and acceptance were widespread. ... In verse I could accomplish all I wished: My poems witness this in many forms. And, no less skilled where metric laws don’t bind, I’d treat my friends to rhythmic verse as well. And see how glad the clergy were in church, And how the thronging people showed their joy To hang upon my lips and hear my song: My singing voice provided their delight. It imitated trumpets, as it wished; It gaily sang with many varied sounds.11 And like the bells enhanced by tinsmith’s art Alone it often sang three notes at once.12 As a master of textual and musical polyphony Lawrence was able to combine various, even contradictory elements. Similarly he was keenly aware of the discrepancy between his monastic calling and his activity in palace and courtroom.13 Still,

9 Daub, ed., Hypognosticon, 70–1. 10 ‘coepi maturos vincere velle senes’, Raine, ed., Dialogi, 43 (Book III, line 436). 11 The modulation of Lawrence’s voice (high and low pitch) becomes an image of fortune’s mutability.

From a happy youth, he later suffers misfortune during the reign of William Cumin. Lawrence reinterprets this as a lesson (‘adversity showed me prosperity’, line 501) concerning the inconstancy of mundane things – everything flows, and one should not try to cling to fleeting things such as earthly fame. 12 ‘Exilit interea mihi corpus in ardua laetum,/ Sanguine vel colera plus dominante mihi./ Ad cognata sibi conscendere velle putares/ Haec elementa, mihi cursus in alta fuit./ Namque genas implumis eram, celsisque quibusdam/ Vertice sublimi celsior ipse fui./ Sic corpus, plus fama tamen, plus gloria laudis,/ Plus honor, atque mihi crevit ubique favor;/ . . . Insuper et poteram versu quaecunque volebam,/ Remque probant variis carmina facta modis./ Nec minus ipse potens in carmine lege soluto,/ Scripta dabam sociis lege soluta meis./ Conspice praeterea quam laetus ab ore canentis/ Clerus in ecclesia, quam vel ad ista frequens,/ Et satis exultans populus pendere solebat;/ Vox pro deliciis, Petre canentis erat,/ Quae varias imitata tubas, quaecunque volebat/ Cantum diverso lusit amaena sono./ Et quasi campanae stagni quibus amplius addit/ Fusor, saepe simul tres dabat una sonos.’ Raine, ed., Dialogi, 44 (Book III, lines 449–70). Trans. A.G. Rigg, ‘Lawrence of Durham. Dialogues and Easter Poem: A Verse Translation’, The Journal of Medieval Latin 7, 1997, 86. Rigg’s is not a word-for-word ‘philological’ translation, but meant to provide a non-Latinate reader with the sense and flavour of the original. 13 As he states in the prologue of Book II, lines 5–6 of the Hypognosticon: ‘Raptum sibi curia curis/

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he defended this double stance as being quite orderly and well-established by tradition, as here in the dialogue with the rather sceptical friend, Peter. Peter: For Lawrence, why were you a castle-man, avoiding city walks, when at the time you were a chanter? Lawrence: There it was my job to serve – and rule – both long and frequently. When ordered, I obeyed, for then my ‘rule’ was not of cloister but of court and tower. Peter: An order new! Lawrence: No old. Peter: Then none, I think. Lawrence: You ‘think’? To think is not the same as ‘know’. My order’s long established rule is this: At every place and time to live aright, to think the cloister’s everywhere and men around are priors, and the court your cell. When, Peter, you’re alone, think yourself observed, for every wood has ears, and fields have eyes. The ancients held this precept; thus, for me, the castle was my cloister, court my rule.14 Lawrence’s earliest work, a vita of the Irish saint Bridgit,15 was not included in the aforementioned Durham collection.16 The text represents a centuries-old practice in education: that the ‘dissertation’ of an aspiring magister usually took the form of a rewriting of a hagiographical text. In this case Lawrence’s was a rendition of an older ‘barbaric’ prose version, undertaken at the request of Eilaf, the father of Aelred of Rievaulx. Lawrence dedicated it to the latter and attached a letter of friendship in which he informed Aelred that he had been called to court.17 The Vita Brigidae was followed by the grand biblical epos, the Hypognosticon of 1134, which is extant in no less than twenty-one manuscripts, English as well as Continental, of which only three are incomplete.18 Dedicated to a friend, Gervase, it consists of 3,076 verses in Implicat et sibi dans me michi tollit atrox.’ Daub, ed., Hypognosticon, 83. In the general prose prologue, Lawrence makes the distinction between court and monastery parallel to that between public and private life. Ibid., 69. 14 ‘P. Cedo; sed ut quid ita?/ Ut quid Laurenti discursus urbis abhorrens/ Incola castelli sivi minister eras,/ Tunc etiam cum cantor eras?/ L. Quod, Petre, minister/ immo magister ibi saepe diuque fui./ Jussus obedivi, tamen et claustri vice castrum,/ Et mihi saepe quidem curia norma fuit./ P. Ordo novus./ L. Non; immo vetus./ P. Quin, ut puto, nullus./ L. Hocne putas? Non est scire putare tuum./ Ordinis est virtus, est et vetus haec ut honestum/ Moribus exhibeas semper ubique virum./ Et claustrum loca cuncta putes, et adesse priores/ Qui prope sunt homines, antraque crede torum./ Et socium cum solus eris te, Petre, putato,/ Aures namque nemus, lumina campus habet./ Hunc veteres tenuere modum, sed et hinc mihi crebro/ Castrum pro claustro, curia norma fuit.’ Raine, ed., Dialogi, 14–15 (Book I, lines 509ff), trans. Rigg, ‘Lawrence of Durham Dialogues’, 58. 15 Ed. Smedt and Backer: Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae, Edinburgh 1896, 1–76. 16 See note 8. Apart from the vita, the manuscript represents the complete, collected works of Lawrence of Durham. 17 See the comment of A. Hoste to his edition of the Epistola Laurentii ad amicum suum Ethelredum: ‘We may take it for granted that Laurence was a former master and guide of the boy Aelred, and that the following confession of Aelred may include a reference to Laurence of Durham’s own copy of Cicero’s De amicitia: “Cum adhuc puer essem in scolis . . . tandem aliquando mihi uenit in manus, liber ille quem de amicitia Tullius scripsit.” ’ Hoste, ‘Survey of the Unedited Work of Laurence of Durham’, 261. 18 Other works of Lawrence are found scattered in several collections in Britain and abroad and he is mentioned in earlier library catalogues, among these that of Cluny. Furthermore, excerpts from the Hypognosticon are found in medieval manuals on poetics and style, where they serve as examples of high rhetoric. For example, in the ‘Larger Documentum’ formerly attributed to Geoffrey of Vinsauf (the so-called ‘Tria sunt’) we find eight lines in chapter three (on amplification) and a few more in chapter seven (on rhetorical figures). In both places Lawrence is directly mentioned as the author. The eight-line quotation of chapter three is similarly found in the De coloribus rhetoricis and Documentum 2.2.27, which

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nine books, chronologically framing the whole biblical history while merging it with contemporaneous events and figures of the Greco-Roman world, mainly the philosophers from the pre-Socratics to the late Roman oratores. To give a brief overview of the work’s plan: books one to three concern God and the exterior world of creation, books four to six ‘the time of the Law’, i.e. the Old Testament, and finally, books seven to nine focus on ‘the time of Grace’ (the New Testament and the figure of Christ). The ‘time of the Law’ coincides with the flourishing of Greek philosophy, of which Lawrence shows a considerable knowledge. Both God and the pagan thinkers contemplate the world in a philosophical manner as a meaningful cosmological whole made up of signs to be interpreted. Book six, which specifically deals with the judgmental wisdom of King Solomon, contains two lectures on the themes of love and power. In this part we already sense Lawrence’s interest in matters of jurisprudence. Book seven proceeds with a discussion of the virtues exemplified by Our Lady, book eight deals with the figure and teachings of Christ, and the final conclusion is found in book nine, entitled De diversis karismatibus, which also contains a series of individual poems which could easily stand alone or be applied for liturgical use. The local saints, first and foremost St Cuthbert, are commemorated here. It should be noted that the overarching theme of Law versus Grace, which runs through the Hypognosticon as a whole, re-appears in several of Lawrence’s later writings. After this gargantuan task, Lawrence composed the five rhetorical speeches, entitled Orationes,19 to which I will return shortly, followed by the Consolatio de morte amici,20 a dialogic prosimetrum in the Boethian tradition of philosophical selftherapy, and the Dialogi between Lawrence and two friends in 1,101 distichs which centres on the Cumin affair. The latter, which appears as a highly individualistic, moral-didactic treatise, contains marked ascetic elements and seems to herald a sort of second conversion of Lawrence: having experienced how swiftly one can literally fall from grace, he finally sees things as they really are; everything is inconstant, and his personal suffering comes from clinging to things which are impermanent, learned ambition among them. The solution is found in a spirituality which teaches the art of living by contemplating the inevitability of death and by practising an all-embracing caritas. From the late 1140s we have a dramatised rhythmus21 in 109 strophes cast as a series of dialogues between Christ and his disciples, followed by a remarkable Easter sequence, which contains a number of verses in which the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection is described as transgressing against legal principles. In Geoffrey of Coldingham’s Durham chronicle from the thirteenth century, Lawrence is described as being ‘in iure peritus, eloquentia praeditus’ (‘experienced in law, gifted with eloquence’)22 – abilities which are clearly reflected in the five orationes, all of which are extant in five English manuscripts. In the first oratio, Lawrence defends himself against his calumniators at court, and as a counterreaction, reveals a conspiracy among the courtiers. The second, a defence of a group of shipwrecked men, is addressed to the burghers of Durham. The third case, to are safely attributed to Geoffrey. I owe this information to e-mail correspondence with Marjorie C. Woods and Martin Camargo. The latter is preparing an edition of the ‘Tria sunt’ and has kindly provided the references. 19 Udo Kindermann, ed., ‘Die fünf Reden des Laurentius von Durham’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 8, 1971, 108–41. 20 Udo Kindermann, ed., ‘Laurentius von Durham. Consolatio de morte amici’ (dissertation), Erlangen-Nürnberg 1969. 21 Udo Kindermann, ed., ‘Das Emmausgedicht des Laurentius von Durham’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 5, 1968, 79–100. 22 See note 6 above.

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which I will return shortly, bears a certain resemblance to the second, though with more parties involved and more far-reaching implications. The fourth differs from the others as it bears the title invectio – here Lawrence appears as accuser against a fellow courtier; and in the fifth oratio, Lawrence is back in his role as defender, here speaking for a young man accused by his father of an illicit liaison with a young girl. All the cases seem realistic and quotidian, but we have no other information about them than what can be derived from Lawrence’s statements. Though the names of those involved have been suppressed, the local lord presiding over the court is invariably addressed as princeps and pater, which makes it reasonable to assume that he is identical with the bishop of Durham who exercised the double function of bishop and lord of the ‘province’. The editor of Lawrence’s Orationes, Udo Kindermann, was quick to classify them as ‘school exercises’, dismissing their content as ultimately belonging to the realm of fiction. This judgment has recently been questioned by another German historian of rhetoric, Thomas Haye, who is the first to have seriously considered Lawrence’s speeches as based upon real cases.23 The question must remain a contended issue, yet I see no reason whatsoever to assume that these model texts of the classroom, if so they are, should not also reflect at least certain elements of legal practice in an episcopal courtroom: first and foremost a mode of arguing a case and a way of conceiving law and justice. To examine these aspects, I have singled out for closer analysis the longest and most complex of these professedly oral, forensic performances, entitled Oratio pro juvenibus compeditis (Speech for the young men in shackles). Lawrence’s third oratio is cast as a speech in defense of a group of local young men arrested and submitted to arbitrary measures of punishment. The events which are the background for the case are these: a group of shipwrecked foreigners have landed on the coast, and the young men have taken the goods from the shipwreck and brought the shipwrecked men into custody, where they have been maltreated. As a result the young men have now been arrested by the local lord’s officials and subjected to severe and public abuse. Lawrence is now in the difficult position of defending a group of men who are themselves accused of maltreating another group. Consequently, besides the orator, there are four, or rather five, parties involved in the affair: the shipwrecked men who have been despoiled and physically abused, the local young men (whom Lawrence is defending), their ‘servants’, the local lord himself, and his officials. The distinction between the latter two will turn out to be crucial for Lawrence’s argument. Lawrence of Durham begins in the panegyric mode, praising the mores of the ruler. But the function of the encomium here is far from innocently straightforward; from the very beginning it contains a thinly veiled criticism. The virtuous qualities that the unnamed princeps was supposed to display, or which he would normally exhibit, are enhanced to drive the point home: the ruler has strayed from the path of good conduct: justice, compassion and moderation; he does not live up to his own standards – which are set high by Lawrence when speaking as an encomiast. The oratio is a lecture on Virtue and a call for the show of justice, compassion and 23 Thomas Haye, Oratio – Mittelalterliche Redekunst in lateinischer Sprache, Mittellateinische Studien

und Texte 27, Leiden 1999, 124–35. Haye gives the text of the third Oratio, accompanied by a German translation and a brief presentation of the case. He concludes that ‘In jedem Falle sind die überlieferten Texte nicht nur literarischen Stilübungen, vielmehr dürften sie aus der gerichtlichen Praxis hervorgegangen sein. . . . Die rhetorische Qualität der von Laurentius komponierten orationes ist somit kein Argument gegen die Möglichkeit einer mündlichen Aufführung.’ Ibid., 142.

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humanity on the basis of rational enquiry, through the medium of rhetorical eloquence. In his role as mediator and pacifier, Lawrence seeks to bridge the gap between how things actually are and how they should be. You do not destroy them, good prince, whom you strike, no, you punish in order to be able to spare them; nor do you abuse your power in acts of cruelty, because you assert that a prince’s greatest power lies in his temperance. For he who cannot control himself reigns badly. Whereas he rules best who governs himself well. You, my good prince, possess such self-government; in whom no sudden eruptions of fits of fury occur and whom cruelty does not seduce into tyranny.24 Lawrence explains that punishment should only be used as a means which aims towards the correction and betterment of the delinquents. Because punishing should have this educational function – the model is indeed that of the schoolmaster – it may not be meted out because of revenge or anger, nor in a fit of arbitrary passion. Furthermore, penal measures can only be just and rational if imposed with compassion and leniency which come from the possession of a well-balanced moral habitus, and hence, that rule can only be good which begins with the ruler’s own self-control. In stating these general principles, Lawrence implicitly criticises the conduct of the lord in this particular case, and turning to hyperbole, he infers that the habitus of the accused young men, guilty or not, is wholly in accord with the morals of justice: They would not even seek to be spared, if they had been guilty. Thence follows a description of the terrors of physical torture, and from that, Lawrence turns to the central matter of conscience: Yet in his wrath, as he thus punishes them with every kind of destructive affliction, he will not achieve as much as the thought of the offence to you punishes and afflicts them. This distress no physician can alleviate, neither can any ruler restrain such an exactor of pain. It hides in the interior, disrupts the soul, preys on the heart, devours all internal organs.25 Thus, if punishment should be corrective, affecting the conscience is much more effective. And Lawrence continues, exploring the more legalist elements of the case: For although the young men have done nothing but what the law permits, they still grieve to have offended him whom they believe cannot be offended if not justly. They place another’s righteousness before their own. So, prince, when you consider this case, what have they done? Obviously nothing against the laws. Have they done anything against you? Absolutely nothing! No one offends you who does not offend the laws. An offence against the laws is an offence against you. For you rule by the laws, and rule because of the law, in order to preside over the laws and over your subjects through the laws.26 24 ‘Non perdis, princeps bone, quos percutis, immo percutis, ut possis parcere, nec tua in crudelitatem

abuteris potentia, qui magnam princeps clementiam maximam eius esse potentiam asseveras. Male namque imperat, quisquis sibi non potest imperare. Imperat autem optime, qui sibi bene. Bene autem tibi, bone princeps, imperas, in quem furoris impetus irruptionem non facit et quem crudelitas in tirannidem non abducit.’ Kindermann, ed., Fünf Reden, 134. The translation is mine. See Appendix, p. 000 below, for a translation of the full text. 25 ‘non faciet tamen iratus, ut sic eos afficiat cuiuslibet afflictionis contricio, sicut afficit et affligit tue recordatio offensionis. Hunc morbum nullus medicorum lenire potest, nemo principum hunc exactorem potest cohibere: Heret interius, animum despascitur, predatur viscera, omnia consumit interiora.’ Ibid., 135. 26 ‘Licet enim nichil egerint iuvenes, nisi quod lege licet, dolent tamen offensum, quem non nisi iuste offendi potuisse credunt. Sue innocentie iusticiam preponderant alienam. Si tamen, princeps, rem attendas,

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The statement is moralistic, rather than a detailed legalistic exposition. What has been trodden underfoot is not only the human dignity of the punished youths. It is the general sense of justice, which is endangered by arbitrary measures enacted by a lord’s officials who are themselves beyond any self-control. Their delight in imposing pain and suffering has nothing to do with the maintenance of law; it is sadistic perversity comparable to that of the greatest criminals of the past. And furthermore, injustice prevails because penalties are not meted out through legitimate jurisdictional procedures which, by the way, pertain to all, lord and servant, high and low. Thus Lawrence introduces the crucial principle of equity before the law: What, then, is this justice under the guardian of justice? Equity thrives with the lover of equity, and similar cases should not be treated in dissimilar fashion. What the law permits to others, even the smallest, should not be denied to these; what the law forbids to others, why should it be conceded to their like? It is proper that those who are in no way dissimilar should be treated by the same law, and for those who are in accordance in everything else, the laws should not be in mutual disagreement. The law of the land should be either denied or conceded to all its inhabitants. If the law is good, it will be satisfying in all cases, especially those that are similar to each other; if it is bad, it will be satisfying in none.27 Not only the injustice, but the sheer brutality in the treatment of the prisoners has moved Lawrence to compassion, revulsion and indignation. No one, even if he is guilty, deserves such treatment. The woes of the young men, the utter indignity of the whole affair, which makes shame mutually shared by both punisher and punished, is thrown right in the face of the ruler. It is established that your officials did this, they who were sent to chastise, but instead endeavoured to destroy those who should be chastised; ordered to restrain, they strove to oppress those who should be restrained; intended to correct, they did their utmost to shatter those who should be corrected. 28 Humanitarian ideals clash with the disgraceful punitive practises described by the orator in painful detail which conjures up the whole spectacle vividly before the mind’s eye of the listeners. Rhetorically the description mirrors the former hyperbolic enumeration of imagined tortures, yet this is acutely realistic. There is no hint of the heroic or martyr-like in the sufferings undergone by the young men, as they are described by Lawrence; this is not a grand theatrical staging of cruelty to shock and excite onlookers. Rather, the whole scene is merely distasteful, the acts utterly shallow and completely devoid of reason. It should be noted that these tortures are not meted out to exact truths from the

quid egerunt? Certe nichil contra leges. Num aliquid contra te? Prorsus nichil. Nullus enim te offendit, nisi qui leges. Iniuriam legum tua est. Lege enim regnas et regnas propter leges, ut leges regas et subiectos per leges.’ Ibid., 135. 27 ‘Que est ergo hec iusticia sub tutore iusticie? Vigeat equitas apud equitatis amatorem et in causa pari dispari modo non tractetur. Quod aliis lege licet etiam minoribus, istis non negetur, quod istis interdicitur, horum similibus quare conceditur? Par est, ut simili lege teneantur in nullo dissimiles, et in quibus cetera consonant, leges non discordent. Lex provincialis provincialibus aut negetur omnibus aut concedatur. Si lex bona est, in omnibus, presertim sibi similibus, placeat, si mala est, placeat in nullo.’ Ibid., 135. 28 ‘Quod tuos officiales fecisse constat, qui missi castigare, conterere nisi sunt castigandos, iussi reprimere, reprimendos obruere studuerunt, emendare destinati, certaverunt emendandos conquassare.’ Ibid., 135.

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accused.29 Their function, according to Lawrence, is apparently to crush those subjected to them, especially to make them lose face in front of a public including members of their own family. What further aggravates the injustice is the involvement of passions on the part of the lord’s officials. Their lack of the correct habitus and self-control somehow reflects a general lack of order and control in local society. This may indirectly indict the local lord himself, whom Lawrence then addresses directly: But, pious prince, who would think these things done by you, although the men who do them have been sent by you?30 Still, the problem remains, that those who initiated the abuse of physical power are those very men whom Lawrence is now defending. To acquit them, Lawrence infers that the original maltreatment of the shipwrecked was perpetrated by the young men’s servants, and he argues that no law places responsibility on a superior for what his inferior has done without his knowledge. The strategy is rhetorically clever, as it acquits the local lord too, since he is, through the deeds of his officials, not only a neutral party or even an arbiter in the conflict, but one of the (implicitly) accused as well: But the master is punished for the wrongdoing of his servant. According to what law? Is it perhaps Caesar’s? Certainly not. But neither is it Pompey’s. Or is it Theodosius’? It is not Justinian’s either. No general law prescribes this, that the lord shall atone for whatever folly the servant commits, even without the lord’s knowledge; but neither does the law of this land do so. Why then is it overthrown because of these youths? Because the servants of the youths did to foreign men just what your servants did to these young men. And even if the young men should be guilty, still there ought to be moderation in their punishment. Part of the crime is excused by their young age; nobody is born old, nobody is born wise either.31 Lawrence here plays with the topos of the good ruler who is being kept in ignorance of the trespasses and abuses of those in his service. The idea is that he will of course interfere if these misdeeds are made known to him. Yet reading between the lines it appears that the lord was well aware of his officials’ atrocities, which makes him responsible for the maltreatment. This, of course, cannot be stated explicitly, especially as the lord presides over the court. What Lawrence expresses here is the general principle that a superior cannot be held responsible for the acts of his inferiors as such, but that he will become morally, if not legally responsible if he does not interfere. If he does not, then it must be concluded that these actions have his consent, that they may even have been done on his command. This is a central ideological element in a system which is ‘reactive’ – 29 They do seem to involve the extortion of money though, thus mirroring similar practices that Lawrence

mentions in the context of the terrors of William Cumin’s rule. See Raine, ed., Dialogi, 22–6 (Book II, lines 245 – 376). 30 ‘Quis autem hec estimet, pie princeps, fieri per te, quamvis illi, qui hec faciunt, missi sunt a te?’ Ibid., 136. 31 ‘Sed quod deliquit servus, plectitur dominus. Qua hoc lege? Nunquid Cesaris? Minime. Sed neque Pompeii. An Theodosii? Nec etiam Iustiniani. Lex nulla generalis hoc statuit, ut dominus luat, quicquid etiam domino nesciente servus delirat; sed neque lex provincialis. Quare ergo sic iuventutis affligitur? Quia hoc fecerunt servi iuvenum viris alienis, quod tui iuvenibus tuis. Et licet iuvenes essent in culpa, modus tamen esse debuit in pena. Excusat partem criminis etas iuventutis, nemo nascitur senex, nemo etiam nascitur sapiens.’ Ibid., 136.

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legal action is only undertaken because of incoming complaints. A lord does not have any autonomous responsibility to identify or seek out problems or to take the initiative to solve them. A consequence of this is that it is his clerical advisors, men like Lawrence, who must act as the ‘conscience’ of the powerful superior. Accordingly, such curial clerics perceive themselves as carrying a moral responsibility towards society to act to preserve or restore justice.32 And, as stated above, the lord while holding the reins of the law, does not stand above it, hence the principle of legal aequitas. In the concluding passage of his oratio Lawrence returns to moral lecturing – or rather, direct chastisement: Thus you too: restrain the cruelty of your men, if it displeases (you); if you do not restrain it, it will be given to understand that it pleases you. But your might will be tempered by your habitual clemency, and those who were not guilty will be absolved of the punishment. It is great to avenge the injuries of others; it is greater to forget one’s own; the greatest is to do good when you can, and to want to when you cannot. For he will be slow to undertake the good, who first began to do evil as a result of not wanting to do good when he could not. 33 Rhetorically the text proceeds through a series of reversals and inversions of the argument. Throughout his speech, both in the narrative and the argumentative parts, Lawrence holds a balance between two approaches: one that seeks to temper the wrath of the powerful by exciting compassion, and the other a rebuking, magisterial mode, where he teaches the means and measures of legal justice. The content shifts back and forth between encomiastic praise of the ruler and outrage at the deeds – or rather, at his reluctance to intervene. Let us briefly rehearse the logic of Lawrence’s argument as he gradually constructs it: in the first place, it is not illegal that the young men have taken the belongings of the shipwrecked. The law of the region allows this. The servants of the young men have abused the shipwrecked persons just as the lord’s servants have maltreated the young men. From this it follows that if the young men are to be punished because of this, then the lord himself should likewise merit punishment for the acts of his servants. The real culprits in the case are the lord’s men; they are the ones who should be chastised, and the lord becomes co-responsible if he does not do so. If these brutal types are punished, Lawrence will then be able to acquit both the young men and the lord, as the two offences nullify each other. The thrust of Lawrence’s arguments is both emotional, exciting the compassion and humanity of his listeners, and legalistic, discussing matters of Roman law versus the law of the local province, if only rather cursorily. Whether a delinquent is guilty or not (which must be established in a law court and not arbitrarily by some irate official), what matters is that punishment requires moderation and is only given any meaning and utility by having a corrective function. Revenge, that is mere emotionalism in contrast to rationality, is no valid foundation for public justice. Humanity, though, is. In the end all just governance rests on self-governance and every law should be 32 This is precisely the argument commonly used to defend the involvement of clerics and monks in

secular affairs. 33 ‘Sic et tuorum crudelitatem reprime, si displicet; si non reprimis, intelligi dabitur, quod placet. Sed

tuam solito more clementia moderetur potentiam et absolvantur pena, qui non fuerunt in culpa. Magnum est alienas ulcisci iniurias, maius oblivisci suas, maximum prodesse cum possis, velle cum non possis. Sero enim bonum incipit, qui tunc primo nolle cum non posse malum incipit.’ Ibid., 136.

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directed towards the common good. Legislation as well as the daily maintenance of law by established legal procedures are tools in the process of civilising – that is, in the medieval context, the extinguishing of arbitrariness and oppression (tyranny) and the minimising of violent measures. If this text is based upon an actual case, it would have placed our author-orator in a rather delicate situation. He needed all the tools of his trade to achieve his goal, to remain a defender while implicitly accusing his superior of misconduct. And he chose to record his mastery of eloquence in a text that could be used in the classroom, studied in private, and used as a model for similar oral performances. Indeed, it is possible that this oratio is not just a later, overembellished textual rendition made by Lawrence. The orator himself may have been speaking from a manuscript or simply from notes which later served as backing for the present text, though this must of course remain a hypothesis. No matter what, the complexity of reasoning in a text like this is not a logical argument against its application in actual legal practice in some form or another. Furthermore, if this is ‘merely a schooltext’, it does not render it less relevant as a source for the understanding of medieval legal reasoning. On the contrary: textual models like this one taught skills that might come in handy in practice, and there is no reason to believe that for the medievals rhetoric remained an ‘abstract’ art of literary embellishment. For now, my contention is that Lawrence’s Orationes contain reminiscenses of both school and courtroom, and that we should reconsider the daily practices of both milieus not as an either-or between oral or textual modes of expression, but as employing both to reach a similar educational and character-shaping goal. The many purposes and potential uses of a text like this one, the many situations where it could be brought into play, should bring us full circle. It stands as a testimony to the fact that the social spaces of classroom and court, oral performance and textual elaboration, learned erudition, moral lectures and legal manoeuvering, the humanist ideals and the pragmatism of political action, were all interconnected. In his role as defender, Lawrence saw it as his task to set things straight through correction and admonition in a manner which closely resembles that of a lecturing schoolmaster. Now, how can we assess Lawrence’s arguments from a larger context? Or more precisely, what does Lawrence mean by the term Law? It should be noted that in the oratio he shifts between speaking of law in the plural and in the singular, and that he seems to operate with several conceptions of lex without any clear distinction between them. Judging from his use of the term, Lawrence’s perception of ‘law’ appears fluid or even ambiguous. It seems as if he mainly appeals to an unwritten law, which is, it should be stressed, not necessarily the same as ‘customary’ secular law, which I believe he subsumes under the heading ‘the laws of the land’ (written and unwritten) employed in several places in the text. He never cites law codes or ‘canonical’ statements directly, yet at the same time he is quite clear when it comes to the central principles of justice, and he takes it for granted that his listeners or readers are well-acquainted with these and first and foremost with the principle of equity. Indeed in Lawrence’s forensic rhetoric, law seems to be a plurality, but he never represents law as consisting of a religious and a secular part: rather Law as such is a harmonious whole, made out of different modes of law, and one which can contain within itself a baffling concordance of discordances. If I may be allowed a play on the statement, quoted earlier, concerning Lawrence’s talent as a chanter: law comes to expression as several tones and different pitches while still singing with the same voice: that of universal justice. Diversity does not necessarily entail fragmentation – when everything is in its rightful place the unity achieved is that of polyphony. Indeed the majority of eleventh- and twelfth-century thinkers were keenly aware that

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the unity of the cosmos rested upon a diversity of elements, and that reality contained numerous contradictions existing side by side, adding to the profoundly musical harmony of Creation – the ultimate model for the structuring of human society. Whereas in the orationes the notion of Law remains rather vague, in other writings Lawrence apparently conceives law as being twofold. In his Dialogi, among the passages dealing with the miseries of William Cumin’s rule, the author produces the following statement: ‘when civil justice dies, both laws are sick’ (‘Ius plessum civile datur, lex utraque languet’).34 Through Cumin social order is destroyed, and the passage on the two laws leads directly to the description of ghastly public tortures perpetrated during the malicious pseudo-bishop’s tyranny. The two laws might refer to local law versus ‘canon law’, but they may also be seen as reflecting the same sentiments as stated in Causa 19 in the collection of ‘Gratian’.35 In the Decretum, the pronouncement is attributed to Urban II, and it concerns the rights of a secular cleric, who wishes to become a monk to act against the orders of a bishop who is unwilling to give his consent. The causa exists in different versions, and here I will only cite the central parts: There are two laws, he said, one public and the other private. The lex publica is what has been confirmed by the writings of the holy fathers, that is canon law. Whereas the lex privata is that which by the instigation of the Holy Spirit is inscribed in the heart. And furthermore: ‘The lex privata is more dignified than the lex publica.’36 This idea of the two laws would fit with Lawrence’s mode of arguing his cases. He appeals to conscience and general morality rather than referring to any established canon or written legal statement, and while he mentions earlier law codes, or rather, the persons whose names they bear (Justinian, Theodosius etc.), this mentioning functions more to underscore Lawrence’s own learned authority than as a direct legal reference. The ‘Law of God’ mentioned, but rarely defined, by thinkers of this period, Anselm of Canterbury among them, might possibly be seen as referring to this law of conscience, instilled in the sons of virtue, those of upright, Christian lives. This law is the new Law, which superseded the law of the Old Testament – a shift which also undergirds the conception of history in Lawrence’s Hypognosticon. What is more, this new law apparently cannot be contained in writing – it is guided by individual habitus, intention, and in concord with necessity and contingency; thus it can be altered to fit the immediate situation. Equally, different laws may be played out against each other in the context of a court case. Lawrence was not alone in advocating a twofold view of law and justice. His contemporary John of Salisbury would discuss the matter in a crucial chapter of book four of the Policraticus: See that the prince must not be ignorant of law and, although he takes pleasure in many privileges, he is not permitted to be ignorant of the laws of God on the 34 Raine, ed., Dialogi, 17 (Book II, line 43). 35 For a more detailed discussion, see Peter Landau, Officium und Libertas Christiana, Bayerische

Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte 3, Munich 1991. 36 ‘Due sunt, inquit, leges, una publica, altera privata. Publica lex est que a sanctis patribus scriptis est

confirmata, ut est lex canonum. Lex uero priuata est que instinctu sancti spiritus in corde scribitur. . . . Dignior est enim priuata lex quam publica.’ Decretum 19 q. 2 c. 2. E. Friedberg, ed., Corpus iuris canonici, i. Decretum magistri Gratiani, Graz 1959, 839–40. I am not claiming that Lawrence knew this statement but that he may have shared the general idea that lies behind it.

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pretext of the martial spirit. The law of Deutoronomy, that is, the second law, is therefore to be written in the book of his heart so that the first law, which is impressed upon the page, corresponds to the second, which is recognised by the mystical intellect. The first could be written on stone tablets; but the second was not imprinted, except upon the purer intelligence of mind. . . . For in fact the letter destroys, while the spirit confers life, and with the ruler rests the moderate interpretation of human law and equity in accordance with necessity and general circumstance.37 It is no coincidence that this is the very chapter which also most ardently advocates the necessity of learned government – and ultimately, confirms the direct, political empowerment of the literati. In the well-ordered res publica the lord does not rule single-handedly, he consorts with, and is reciprocally supported by, men of letters. Let him, therefore, stand beside the prophet Nathan and the priest Zadok and the faithful sons of the prophets who will not permit him to be diverted from the law of God, and when what is before his eyes is not manifested in his soul, men of letters are to introduce it through speech into the opening of his ears. Accordingly, the mind of the prince is to read through the tongues of the priests, and anything illustrious he observes in their moral conduct he is to venerate as the law of God. For the life and speech of the priesthood is like a book of life set before the sight of the people.38 In the canon presented and discussed by ‘Gratian’, the notion of lex privata allows the monk or secular cleric to go against his superior – that is, ultimately, the bishop. Moreover, the exact elements of this lex eludes codification, it is purely spiritual, a matter of conscience. Literally, this law is based upon inspiration, which is itself founded in the possession of virtue – or even, one may suspect, in the more mysterious force of charisma. And thus we return to the question of authority, or rather the basis of authority. The idea of a conscience-based lex privata rests upon the notion that certain people, those worthy of wielding real authority, here mainly educated clerics, possess prudence and discretion in a manner which is neither founded solely upon texts nor on received tradition. They embody the law. They are, perhaps, even illumined by it. Their spoken word contains the Truth. Hence, the voice of the Holy Spirit speaks directly to their ears, at it did to Gregory the Great. Jurisprudence and discernment (discretio) become gifts, charismata, transferred directly from the source of all justice: the trinitarian God. The ultimate law, then, is a matter of individual conscience, of which writing can only be a pale reflection, and this furthermore introduces contingency into the idea of justice and jurisprudence: while the ethical foundation is universal-

37 ‘Ecce quia princeps non debet esse juris ignarus, et licet multis privilegiis gaudeat, nec militiae

praetextu legem Domini permittitur ignorare. Describit ergo Deuteronomium legis, id est secundam legem in volumine cordis; ut sit lex prima, quam littera ingerit; secunda, quam ex ea mysticus intellectus agnoscit. Prima quidem scribi potuit tabulis lapideis; sed secunda non imprimitur, nisi in puriore intelligentia mentis? . . . Littera namque occidit spiritus autem vivificat (Cor 2.3), et penes ipsum, humani juris et aequitatis, media interpretatio necessaria et generalis exstat.’ Joannes Saresberiensis Polycraticus, PL 199, 0522C–0522D. Trans. C.J. Nederman, John of Salisbury – Policraticus, Cambridge 1990, 41. 38 ‘Assistant ergo ei Nathan propheta, et Sadoc sacerdos, et fideles filii prophetarum, qui cum a lege Domini divertere non patiantur, et quam ipse oculis et animo non ostendit, linguis suis introducant, quasi quodam aurium ostio, litterati. Legat ergo mens principis in lingua sacerdotis, et quidquid egregium videt in moribus, quasi legem Domini veneretur. Nam et vita et lingua sacerdotum, quasi quidam vitae liber est in facie populorum.’ Ibid., 0524D–0525A. Trans. Nederman, Policraticus, 44.

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istic, Law cannot be made universal and valid for all in all situations. Without becoming arbitrary, it must take immediate circumstances and necessities as well as individual intention into account. It must remain negotiable, and justice is served through dialectics and debate in which several laws and differing interpretations are confronted. Equity and reciprocity, non-arbitrariness, the meaning of punishment as correction rather than revenge, and last but not least, the sense of human dignity: these remain the core of Lawrence’s argument. Schooltext or not, as teacher and courtier, Lawrence spoke from the cathedra of an educator. Yet this magisterial position did not exclude doubt or self-scrutiny, as here in a sentence which marks the turning-point in the most personal of Lawrence’s works: ‘Who am I, Peter, I who know? I’m like a stone that falls into a quiet pool.’39 In his dialogue with his Breton friend Peter, Lawrence elaborated upon the metaphor of the gradually forming rings in the pond, slowly spreading his message and cause outwards in a centrifugal fashion, and to the bemused Peter, he explained the image as referring to the universal role of teachers: their learning spreads almost unnoticed as rings in still water. The pool is quiet and the waves coming from the plunge of even a mighty rock grow fainter with the ripples of time. Lawrence was an author who somehow anticipated his own reception: his name was, in certain respects, writ in water. University of Copenhagen

APPENDIX Translation of the Oratio pro iuvenibus compeditis1 It is quite difficult, prince of invincible piety, once integrity has been achieved to maintain it for long on a firm foundation. Indeed no one can wear a false mask for long, since every individual soon reverts to his true nature. But your integrity is not an acquired merit in you, but inborn, it is natural, not for sale; since it always rests upon truth and uninterruptedly advances towards the better, it grows ever higher. And while displaying Prudence in doubtful cases, Fortitude in adversity, Moderation in prosperity, Justice towards everyone, and it is even on fully intimate terms with the attendants of those queens, yet it is in the embrace of Clemency that it rests most intimately. It is her that it extends in judgments, displays in deliberations, consults in issuing commands, takes hold of in anger, contemplates in retribution, holding her especially dear because she is most closely allied to Reason. For Clemency, the friend of a good prince, is not vulgar and can never be indiscriminate. She is true and sincere, subdues the wicked, spares the good. This is what Reason’s counsel suggests

39 ‘Quis sim, Petre, sciens? De me mihi credo, quietas sum veluti saxum grande ruens in aquas.’ Raine,

ed., Dialogi, 50 (Book IV, lines 129–30). Trans. Rigg, ‘Lawrence of Durham Dialogues’, 92. As often in Lawrence’s writings, the metaphor works in two ways – the waters that swallow up the stone also signify the textual abyss engulfing the reader. 1 My translation is based upon the Latin edition of Udo Kindermann, ‘Die fünf Reden des Laurentius von Durham’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 8, 1971, 134–7.

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to Clemency, and Clemency to you. But that you carry out the words of this admonisher in deed, this the people prove, whom you protect; the knight, whom you love, experiences it, the clergy, whom you revere, realise it, even the harassed young men, who are reproved and whom you prepare to correct, openly declare it. For you reprove evildoers in order to correct them, you oppress the wicked in order to make them good. You do not destroy them, good prince, whom you strike, no, you punish in order to be able to spare them; nor do you abuse your power in acts of cruelty, because you assert that a prince’s greatest power lies in his temperance. For he who cannot control himself reigns badly. Whereas he rules best who governs himself well. You, my good prince, possess such self-government; in whom no sudden eruptions of fits of fury occur and whom cruelty does not seduce into tyranny. Clemency does not permit patience to be wrenched from your most calm breast – Clemency who is foreign to our times, repudiated by kings, detested by princes, disdained by the powerful; in you alone, prince, does she still reside. She prepared you to be the one she would love, and she judged you worthy of being the one she would always cling to. Your Clemency frequently inspires shame in your subjects when they transgress, and if it does not to so when they transgress, it makes them ashamed after the deed. Hence, for these young men under arrest it is seen as the greatest torment to be considered as deserving to be punished by you. For them, the gravest penalty is to have offended the clemency of a temperate prince; under you, most compassionate father, they consider it a lesser thing to suffer flogging than to have deserved it. A torturer would be permitted to work on their exterior: to oppress the necks of the young men with collars, to afflict their milky white skin with lashes, to shove delicate hands into manacles of iron, to restrict the tender feet in fetters, light a fire below and apply bundles of easily inflammable brush; he could suspend them from gallows, let them be torn to pieces on the rack, inter them in prison, display and expose them before bears and lions. He could actually outdo Tereus in perversity, Atreus in atrocity, Perseus in brutality, Tarquinius in arrogance, Polymestor in perfidy, Nero in iniquity, the strategems of Sinon, the cunning of Ulysses, the crafts of Pygmalion, in tormenting Dionysius, in tyranny Antiochus, in ferocity Domitian. Yet in his wrath, as he thus punishes them with every kind of destructive affliction, he will not achieve as much as the thought of the offence to you punishes and afflicts them. This distress no physician can alleviate, neither can any ruler restrain such an exactor of pain. It hides in the interior, disrupts the soul, preys on the heart, devours all internal organs. For although the young men have done nothing but what the law permits, they still grieve to have offended him whom they believe cannot be offended if not justly. They place another’s righteousness before their own. So, prince, when you consider this case, what have they done? Obviously nothing against the laws. Have they done anything against you? Absolutely nothing! No one offends you who does not offend the laws. An offence against the laws is an offence against you. For you rule by the laws, and rule because of the law, in order to preside over the laws and over your subjects through the laws. But the law which has until now been observed in this province assigns a shipwreck to the one on whose possessions the flow of the sea deposits it. If this is granted by the law, why is it denied to these? If it is prohibited by the law, why is it granted to others? The young men thought that this was allowed to them; that which, set out in the ancient laws, is allowed to clerics, is allowed to laymen too; no one has shrunk from doing it, everyone has done it with impunity. Only these have been found not to be covered by the law as it has been observed, on the contrary, for them that brings loss which for others brings profit.

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What, then, is this justice under the guardian of justice? Equity thrives with the lover of equity, and similar cases should not be treated in dissimilar fashion. What the law permits to others, even the smallest, should not be denied to these; what the law forbids to others, why should it be conceded to their like? It is proper that those who are in no way dissimilar should be treated by the same law, and for those who are in accordance in everything else, the laws should not be in mutual disagreement. The law of the land should be either denied or conceded to all its inhabitants. If the law is good, it will be satisfying in all cases, especially those that are similar to each other; if it is bad, it will be satisfying in none. But perhaps the shipwrecked man shocks you more when he is imprisoned than when he is plundered, more when he is in chains than when he is relieved of his goods, and more when he is wretched than when he is lucky. Indeed injustice towards others torments anyone the more, the farther it is removed from himself. That is why the unjust cruelty and cruel injustice of your men hurts you more than that which the sea took away, the law gave, and the young man received. But why then do these young men atone for what they did not do? And why are they, who have no guilt, overwhelmed by punishment? But I believe that whenever the servant transgresses, it rebounds upon his master. Do not let it be so! Do not allow yourself, righteous prince, to be blamed for the cruelty of those men whom you sent to investigate the truth, to chastise falsehood, to put a rein on ferocity. When he is allowed to, every man shows what kind of person he is, reveals what he wants to do when he can and, given the opportunity, betrays his desires. It is established that your officials did this, they who were sent to chastise, but instead endeavoured to destroy those who should be chastised; ordered to restrain, they strove to oppress those who should be restrained; intended to correct, they did their utmost to shatter those who should be corrected. For they bound the delicate hands of the young men with straps that were far too tight, with their rods and scourges they made marks into the bare flesh; necks were buried under enclosing chains and little feet held tight by huge shackles. The young men were tortured in this manner before the eyes of their tender sister and their honest mother, while at the same time in front of these maltreated boys, mother and sister are almost destroyed by verbal abuse. Thereupon the noble woman is despoiled of her sons who dissolve in tears, the brothers watch as their young sister is dragged away by her golden hair; under torments money is extorted from the devoted family without their lords being able to come to their aid. Finally, a new prison is constructed in an old dung pit, two foot wide and not much more in length, so that no one can lie down in it and even a single inmate would have difficulty standing up. The whole wall is covered with nail-studded posts, and with its sharp iron points sticking out, it can frighten anyone, even were he made of stone; parts of the floor are covered with sharp splinters of flint in order to do harm, and parts are left uncovered so that worms can get in and hurt even more. As soon as the young men have been placed there, a roof is made out of branches and turf, so that it shuts out almost all light yet by heavy rain lets in a sooty fluid. A mighty hunger weakens them who stand in such a den, an intolerable stench torments them who are buried in this grave, abundant worms harass them unto death, nay worse than death, those who are fettered in the dark cave. But, pious prince, who would think these things done by you, although the men who do them have been sent by you? Far, far be it from the mildest father that he do what Busiris could not have done so savagely, Thiestes would not have permitted under him, Phalaris would have refrained from, Poliphemus would have abhorred. What your servant has committed without your knowledge does not rebound on you. Thus let also what these young men’s servants perpetrated without their knowledge be far from rebounding on them:

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that the wardens sent to the shipwrecked became their torturers. He who is free from guilt is also free from vengeance. As the shipwrecked resisted and hurled insults like darts at the young men, the youthful group advanced towards them and seized the mockers in order to restrain their abuse. They took the insulters into custody in order later better to investigate who these people were, who were so presumptuous despite being in utmost distress. The young men did not subdue anybody, did not afflict anybody, did not oppress anybody. They took the captives into custody. This was done lightly, it can be told lightly. Would that they were not also punished in many ways beyond measure! The only fault of the young men is to have arrested those who fought back, and assigned the resisters to custody. What in this act merits punishments with shackles, fetters and imprisonment, with torments which until now have been unknown to us? But the master is punished for the wrongdoing of his servant. According to what law? Is it perhaps Caesar’s? Certainly not. But neither is it Pompey’s. Or is it Theodosius’s? It is not Justinian’s either. No general law prescribes this, that the lord shall atone for whatever folly the servant commits, even without the lord’s knowledge; but neither does the law of this land do so. Why then is it overthrown because of these youths? Because the servants of the youths did to foreign men just what your servants did to these young men. And even if the young men should be guilty, still there ought to be moderation in their punishment. Part of the crime is excused by their young age; nobody is born old, nobody is born wise either. And is it so astonishing that young people commit one offence? Old men offend too. And if only it were not frequently! But it is a fact that our young men are innocent of cruelty. For neither did they afflict the shipwrecked, nor did they wish for them to be afflicted; on the contrary, they grieved for the afflicted and strove to avenge their affliction. So as not to tire you, I will explain briefly. After they had arrested the shipwrecked and brought them into custody, the young men were compelled by necessity to travel far away, thereby not ordering a punishment, but delaying mercy. Indeed they granted them (: the shipwrecked) the clothes that the law had taken away; they ordered that they should be given food, which their impertinence had not even deserved; they wished that they should be treated humanely, even though no previous merit entitled them to it. However, they were deceived in that they assigned their custody to vulgar mobs. Indeed nothing is more unbridled than a powerful rustic. Where a rustic prevails, there one hopes for measure in vain. When the masters had departed, the rude servant grew insolent; without the young men’s knowledge, the rustic guard went mad, and the plebeian band did not fear to oppress those that they were ordered to guard – against the will of the young men, as we are given to understand. For when the savagery of the wardens reaches the ears of the young men, they immediately put down what they had in hand, postponed the business they had begun, put honesty before profit, and having sent a messenger ahead with orders to dismiss the guards, they gather their companions and set out, placing themselves in physical danger in travelling, and arrange for the captives to get their freedom back together with the money that had been seized from them. They would have completed the task if they had not been taken prisoner before they could set the imprisoned free. What will you do now, you who are not Fury’s companion, you who take great counsel with Reason and Clemency? You see these young men wrapped in knots of misery, when you could take them as models of compassion. They wanted hastily to liberate the captives whom they had heard to be evilly chained by their men. Displeased by the savagery of their

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men, they were commanded by righteous benevolence and benevolent righteousness to put an end to it at once. Thus you too: restrain the cruelty of your men, if it displeases you; if you do not restrain it, it will be given to understand that it pleases you. But your might will be tempered by your habitual clemency, and those who were not guilty will be absolved of the punishment. It is great to avenge the injuries of others; it is greater to forget one’s own; the greatest is to do good when you can, and to want to when you cannot. For he will be slow to undertake the good who first began to do evil as a result of not wanting to do good when he could not.

The Angevin Kings and Canon Law

THE ANGEVIN KINGS AND CANON LAW: EPISCOPAL ELECTIONS AND THE LOSS OF NORMANDY* Jörg Peltzer Eight hundred years ago, in 1204, sixty years of Angevin rule in Normandy came to an end when King John failed to defend the duchy against Philip Augustus, king of France. This dramatic change of the ruling dynasty in what had been a central region of the Angevin empire has been much discussed among historians. In particular the extent to which John’s own behaviour contributed to the events of 1204 has been controversial. The judgements ranged from James Holt’s view that the structure of the Angevin empire was the major reason for its collapse,1 to John Gillingham’s verdict that King John was an incompetent ruler badly mishandling the opportunities given.2 During the past decades scholars assessing John’s scope of action at the eve of 1204 have paid particular attention to the question of his financial resources.3 The question of his relationship with the Norman bishops, by contrast, has only very recently been re-addressed. The matter seemed to have been settled in 1922, when Sidney Packard concluded in his article on ‘King John and the Norman Church’ that ‘the Norman Church was an important factor in the complex situation which made the loss of Normandy inevitable; at the very least, the Norman Church willingly permitted that event to take place’.4 Subsequent scholars came to no substantially different conclusions: the Norman church welcomed a ruler promising less harsh treatment;5 considering the whole of the Angevin dominions, Odette Pontal even concluded that ‘l’épiscopat manifeste son esprit de corps contre la tyrannie de Jean sans Terre’.6 Daniel Power, however, has challenged this view. Looking at the behaviour of Norman churchmen in politics up to 1204 and comparing Angevin and Capetian patronage, he came to the conclusion that the Norman churchmen had not been eagerly waiting for a change of regime.7 * I would like to thank John Gillingham for the invitation to speak at Battle. 1 J.C. Holt, ‘The End of the Anglo-Norman Realm’, PBA 61, 1975, 3–45. 2 John Gillingham, The Angevin Empire, 2nd edn, London 2001, 95–102. 3 Gillingham, Angevin Empire, 95–100; J.C. Holt, ‘The Loss of Normandy and Royal Finances’, in War and Government in the Middle Ages. Essays in Honour of J.O. Prestwich, ed. J. Gillingham and J.C. Holt, Woodbridge 1984, 92–105; J.L. Bolton, ‘The English Economy in the Early Thirteenth Century’, in King John: New Interpretations, ed. S. Church, Woodbridge 1999, 27–40; P. Latimer, ‘Early Thirteenth-Century Prices’, in ibid., 41–73; N. Barratt, ‘The Revenues of John and Philip Augustus Revisited’, in ibid., 75–99; V. Moss, ‘The Norman Exchequer Rolls of King John’, in ibid., 101–16. 4 S. Packard, ‘King John and the Norman Church’, Harvard Theological Review 15, 1922, 31. 5 J.W. Baldwin, ‘Philip Augustus and the Norman Church’, French Historical Studies 6, 1969, 6; J.W. Baldwin, The Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages, Berkeley 1986, 179–90, 307–8; R.V. Turner, ‘Richard the Lionheart and the Episcopate in his French Domains’, French Historical Studies 21, 1998, 525–6, 39, considered the incessant warfare the prime motive for episcopal defection. 6 O. Pontal, ‘Les évêques dans le monde Plantagenêt’, CCM 29, 1986, 129. 7 D. Power, ‘The Norman Church and the Angevin and Capetian Kings’, JEH 56, 2005, 205–34. I am grateful to Daniel Power for having sent me a copy of his article prior to publication.

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Scholars who argued that John alienated the Norman church emphasize his heavy handed interferences in episcopal elections, in particular the election at Sées in 1201–3.8 Yet despite their apparent importance for the argument, these elections have not been subjected to detailed analysis. The bishop occupied a central place in medieval society and, depending on the extent of the temporal wealth of his bishopric, he might be counted among the most powerful lords of the area. A variety of groups, therefore, would be interested in his election. The electoral process was regulated by a normative framework, which in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries was being considerably reshaped by the constant clash of developing canonistic electoral theories and long established local electoral customs. Episcopal elections, therefore, can only be properly understood if both the varying interests of groups and contemporary legal theory and practice are taken into account. Looking at Norman episcopal elections under the Angevin rulers, in particular under King John, such an analysis will provide a much more secure platform from which to assess John’s behaviour on the eve of 1204. At the time of King Henry I’s death the duke played the decisive role in the election of a bishop in Normandy. Gregorian reform had to some extent been embraced by Norman churchmen,9 but it had failed to eradicate their belief that the duke should be involved in the selection of the bishop.10 Henry’s death, however, changed the political situation in the duchy. The war between his daughter Empress Matilda and his nephew King Stephen weakened ducal authority in Normandy11 and gave other forces opportunity to raise their voices in episcopal elections. In two cases this led to serious dispute and in both cases the role of the ruler in the electoral process was an issue. The first instance took place at Lisieux, when after the death of Bishop John in 1141, his nepos Arnulf, archdeacon of Sées, was elected.12 However, Empress Matilda’s husband, Count Geoffrey Plantagenet, who had just brought the diocese within the sphere of his influence, was strongly opposed to this decision: he prevented Arnulf from taking up office and appealed to the pope to have his election annulled. According to Bernard of Clairvaux, Geoffrey’s appeal was based on the electors’ failure to ask him for the licence to elect (licentia eligendi).13 If this was Geoffrey’s argument, their appeal strongly suggests that he and his advisors believed their position to be in line with current canon law. In any case, Geoffrey had good 8

Packard, ‘King John and the Norman Church’, 17, 20–4; Baldwin, ‘Philip Augustus and the Norman Church’, 4–6; Pontal, ‘Les évêques dans le monde Plantagenêt’, 137 and n. 52. 9 Heinrich Böhmer, Kirche und Staat in der Normandie im XI. und XII. Jahrhundert. Eine historische Studie, Leipzig 1899, 270–83; for the spread of the decretal collections attributed to Ivo of Chartres in Normandy, see L. Barker, ‘Ivo of Chartres and the Anglo-Norman Cultural Tradition’, ANS 13, 1990 (1991), 24ff. 10 The Norman Anonymous, which was probably composed at Rouen, defended the position of the ruler, assigning him the leadership of the church: George Williams, The Norman Anonymous of 1100 A.D., Harvard Theological Studies 18, Cambridge, Mass., 1951; K. Pellens, ed., Die Texte des Normannischen Anonymus, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für europäische Geschichte Mainz 42, Abteilung für abendländische Religionsgeschichte, Wiesbaden 1966; Karl Pellens, Das Kirchendenken des Normannischen Anonymus, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für europäische Geschichte Mainz 69, Abteilung für abendländische Religionsgeschichte, Wiesbaden 1973; W. Hartmann, ‘Beziehungen des Normannischen Anonymus zu frühscholastischen Bildungszentren’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 31, 1975, 108–43. For electoral practice under Henry I, see David Spear, ‘The Norman Episcopate under Henry I, King of England and Duke of Normandy (1106–1135)’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of California at Santa Barbara 1982. 11 M. Chibnall, ‘Normandy’, in The Anarchy of King Stephen’s Reign, ed. E. King, Oxford 1994, 93–115. 12 Torigni, 142. 13 J. Leclercq and H. Rochais, eds, Sancti Bernardi opera, 8 vols, Rome 1957–77, viii, no. 348; Chibnall, ‘Normandy’, 101–2.

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political reasons to be discontented with Arnulf’s election. The flouting of traditional ducal prerogatives was a severe blow to his attempts to establish his authority as new ruler and the choice of a man who had advocated King Stephen’s case in the papal court was hardly acceptable.14 But Arnulf defended himself with the support of influential friends. Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, and Bernard of Clairvaux wrote on his behalf to Pope Innocent II.15 Bernard in particular, used the ideal of the Gregorian reform movement, the freedom of the church from secular influence, to argue Arnulf’s case. He stressed the regularity of Arnulf’s election and urged the pope to defend the libertas ecclesiae and to reject Geoffrey’s appeal. Their efforts were to a large extent successful. Innocent II firmly supported Arnulf.16 But he never openly condemned Geoffrey’s actions. When, in 1143, Geoffrey and Arnulf finally negotiated a compromise, its terms sent an ambiguous message to contemporaries: Geoffrey accepted Arnulf as bishop of Lisieux in return for a fine of 900 livres.17 On the one hand the compromise implied that an election could be valid without the participation of the ruler in the selection process. On the other hand, however, the huge fine could be interpreted as a remedy for violated ducal rights which in future had better be respected. The second incident occurred at Sées after the death of Bishop John in 1144. Sées was a special case by Norman standards. First, the frontier bishopric was of considerable geo-political significance. It connected Normandy with the Chartrain and Greater Anjou; some of its southern territory, the western Perche, lay beyond the Norman frontier. A loyal bishop, therefore, was of considerable importance for the Angevin rulers.18 Second, Sées was the only cathedral chapter of regular canons in Normandy since in 1131 Bishop John had transformed the secular cathedral chapter into a regular one.19 When executing this transformation, however, John had not forced the existing secular canons to turn regular. This co-existence of secular and regular canons was probably at the root of the electoral conflict of 1144–7. Instead of waiting for the assigned electoral day and the arrival of all electors, a group of canons elected Gerald, one of the remaining secular canons at Sées.20 The other group led by the prior and Arnulf of Lisieux, brother of the deceased bishop, protested loudly. Arnulf urged the pope to annul Gerald’s election, because Gerald had canvassed his electors, who themselves had been full of worldly ambition.21 Arnulf claimed that his motive for acting against Gerald’s election was the protection of his brother’s reform at Sées. Arnulf admired his brother’s achievements at Sées and his concerns about the election of a secular canon as head of a regular community were doubtless sincere.22 However, this might not have been the sole motive for his actions. Arnulf, who had greatly benefited from his family’s control over bishoprics, may also have had an interest in keeping the see of Sées within the sphere of influence of his family.

14 M. Chibnall, ed., The Historia pontificalis of John of Salisbury, Oxford 1986, 84. 15 Leclercq and Rochais, eds, Sancti Bernardi opera viii, no. 348; G. Constable, ed., The Letters of Peter

the Venerable, 2 vols, Cambridge, Mass., 1967, i, no. 101. 16 F. Barlow, ed., The Letters of Arnulf of Lisieux, Camden Society 3rd ser. 61, London 1939, nos 124,

132. 17 Ibid., no. 137. 18 D. Power, ‘What Did the Frontier of Angevin Normandy Comprise?’, ANS 17, 1994 (1995), 191;

Kathleen Thompson, Power and Border Lordship in Medieval France: The County of the Perche, 1000–1226, Royal Historical Society, Studies in History ns, Woodbridge 2002, 17–18. 19 Barlow, ed., Arnulf, xii–xiii, xxxiv, no. 34. 20 RHF xv, 696–7, no. 7. 21 Barlow, ed., Arnulf, no. 3. 22 Ibid., nos 34–5.

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The diocese of Sées

But Arnulf’s attempt to prevent the confirmation of Gerald’s election failed. Pope Eugenius III insisted on Gerald becoming a regular canon and on his swearing to uphold the regular community at Sées, but he did not annul his election.23 Perhaps Gerald had the support of the majority of the chapter and therefore Eugenius was not inclined to give way to Arnulf’s arguments. In any case Geoffrey Plantagenet’s intervention may have strongly influenced Eugenius’s decision. As in the case of Lisieux three years earlier, Geoffrey had not been asked to grant the licentia eligendi. Receiving the news of Gerald’s election he sent men to Sées to prevent Gerald from taking up office.24 Again Geoffrey had good reasons to intervene. In 1144 he had conquered Rouen and obtained recognition as duke from Louis VII in the summer of that year.25 Yet the situation was anything but stable. In the same year Robert, count 23 Ibid., no. 34. 24 MTB iii, 56. 25 W.L. Warren, Henry II, 4th edn, Yale 2000, 31.

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of Dreux and younger brother of King Louis, married Hawise, widow of Rotrou, count of Perche. Since Rotrou’s son was still a minor, Robert gained control of an area that greatly mattered to Geoffrey.26 Geoffrey may also have been worried about Gerald’s political loyalties. There is no certainty about Gerald’s allegiances at the time of his election. It is noteworthy, however, that in 1145 he included Count Robert and the king of France in dating clauses of his charters, while ignoring Geoffrey Plantagenet.27 This was certainly due to Geoffrey’s opposition to his election, but may also point to bonds existing prior to his promotion. At Sées, Geoffrey’s men acted with great brutality; later anti-Angevin writers even claimed they had castrated elect and electors.28 Geoffrey realised that the behaviour of his men was counterproductive. According to Arnulf of Lisieux, he withdrew his men, handed them over to the ecclesiastical courts for punishment, and left the administration of the church with the archbishop and bishops in an attempt to ensure that no one believed that he was working against the libertas ecclesiae.29 It may well have been Geoffrey’s claim to have the right to grant the licence to elect and the cruel treatment of the canons that persuaded Eugenius not to annul Gerald’s election. If he had done so, this might have been interpreted as giving way to Geoffrey and thus would have been damaging to his efforts to exclude lay influence from ecclesiastical matters. Eugenius confirmed Gerald’s election and reconciled the bishop with the count in Paris at Easter 1147.30 Thus during the years of political instability following Henry I’s death the Gregorian ideal of an election without secular interference was voiced and defended at Lisieux and Sées. However, these are just two particular cases. There was no mass movement trying to implement this ideal in practice at any price. The first election to a Norman see after Henry II had become king of England took place, once again, at Sées. In 1157 Bishop Gerald died and the regular canons rushed to elect Achard, abbot of St Victor, Paris, as his successor. This choice was not surprising. A good number of the regular canons recruited in 1131 had come from St Victor and had brought with them their electoral customs. At St Victor the chapter would select a group of men, who would then elect the new abbot. He should be chosen from within the community or, if this proved impossible, from another regular community.31 In line with their electoral custom the canons had not involved Henry II in the selection process.32 This, however, caused considerable problems. In his attempt to recover all the prerogatives enjoyed by his grandfather Henry I, Henry II was not prepared to make an exception for episcopal elections. He considered it his right to be involved in the electoral process. Moreover, the political difficulties in this area had not diminished since 1144. Robert of Dreux had left the Perche in 1152, when he married Agnes, heiress of Braine in Champagne, but the counts of Perche 26 Thompson, Perche, 86–8. 27 R. Barret, ed., Cartulaire de Marmoutier pour le Perche. N.-D. du Vieux-Château, Collégiale de

Saint-Léonard de Bellême, Prieuré de St-Martin-du-Vieux-Bellême, Documents sur la province du Perche 3e sér. 2, Mortagne 1905, no. 28 and cf. no. 29. I would like to thank Kathleen Thompson for having discussed this point with me. 28 MTB iii, 65; Giraldi Cambrensis Opera viii, 160, 301, 309. 29 Barlow, ed., Arnulf, no. 3. 30 Diceto i, 256. 1146, the year given by Diceto, is wrong, P. Jaffé revised by W. Wattenbach et al., ed., Regesta pontificum Romanorum ab condita ecclesia ad annum post Christum natum MCXCVIII, 2 vols, Leipzig 1885–88 (henceforth Jaffé), ii, 40. 31 L. Jocqué and L. Milis, eds, Liber ordinis Sancti Victoris Parisiensis, CCCM 61, Turnhout 1984, c. 1, 15–18; Joachim Ehlers, Hugo von St Viktor. Studien zum Geschichtsdenken und zur Geschichtsschreibung des 12. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurter historische Abhandlungen 7, Frankfurt 1973, 9–10. 32 A. Duggan, ed., The Correspondence of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1162–70, OMT, 2 vols, Oxford 2001, i, no. 170.

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continued to move outside the Angevin orbit. Rotrou III, son of Hawisa, married Matilda, daughter of Count Theobald IV of Champagne, and throughout the 1150s and 1160s the Perches were close to Matilda’s brothers, Theobald V, count of Blois, and Henry, count of Champagne.33 Since King Louis’ relationship with the counts of Blois and Champagne was improving in the second half of the 1150s,34 Henry II was confronted with a powerful alliance that posed a constant threat to south-western Normandy and eastern Greater Anjou. In this situation a loyal bishop, experienced in royal politics, would be extremely useful. Achard, although by no means disliked by Henry and later recompensed with the less important see of Avranches,35 was not such a man. Henry’s candidate Froger, however, fitted that profile. The king’s almoner and archdeacon of Derby had been very active in the royal administration and was familiar with Henry’s political aims.36 In 1159 the chapter of Sées accepted Henry’s man and elected Froger.37 This was a remarkable result. The two years between 1157 and 1159 were undoubtedly marked by recurrent and tough negotiations. If Thomas Becket is to be believed, Hadrian IV even confirmed Achard’s election,38 but the case was decided neither by the pope nor by Angevin violence against the chapter. Henry’s success was probably due to two factors. First, between 1157 and 1159 Henry strengthened his political position in the region. In December 1158 he concluded an agreement with Count Theobald V of Blois, that brought him the castles of Amboise and Fréteval, and probably also included a settlement with the count of Perche.39 The chapter of Sées must have started to realise that Henry was establishing himself as the dominant political force in the area and that it was in their own best interest to create friendly relations with him. Second, Achard had good contacts with Empress Matilda and therefore may not have wanted to fight against the Angevins.40 Indeed the fact that only two years later, in 1161, he received the bishopric of Avranches suggests that he was not defending his election at Sées at all costs but was, together with the king, trying to find a solution. The decision of the chapter of Sées to accept Froger strengthened Henry’s position, and subsequent elections in Normandy show that he succeeded in re-establishing the situation that had existed at the time of his grandfather Henry I.41 The ruler’s participation in the process of selecting the bishop became the accepted norm again in Normandy. A monk of the Norman monastery at Savigny, writing between 1173 and 1186, described the reality of the situation when he wrote that a man might be approached with an offer of a bishopric from either king or clergy.42 In 1168 Thomas Becket wrote a furious letter to Alexander III about Henry II’s oppression of the church. In support of his case he referred to the affair of Sées and Achard’s 33 Thompson, Perche, 91–6. 34 Marcel Pacaut, Louis VII et son royaume, Bibliothèque générale de l’école des hautes études, VIe

section, Paris 1964, 180–2. Torigni, 207, 210. For Froger, see J. Peltzer, ‘Henry II and the Norman Bishops’, EHR 119, 2004, 1211–12, 1222. Actes Henri II i, 367. Duggan, ed., Correspondence i, no. 170. Torigni, 199; Thompson, Perche, 92–3; cf. K. Thompson, ‘The Lords of Laigle: Ambition and Insecurity on the Borders of Normandy’, ANS 18, 1995 (1996), 188–91. 40 Torigni, 211; RHF xvi, 27, no. 90; A. Luchaire, ed., Etudes sur les actes de Louis VII, Paris 1885, no. 445; Barlow, ed., Arnulf, xviii; Marjorie Chibnall, The Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, Queen Mother and Lady of the English, Oxford 1991, 180. 41 Jörg Peltzer, ‘Episcopal Elections in Normandy and Greater Anjou between ca 1140 and ca 1230’, unpublished D.Phil. thesis, Oxford University 2002, pp. 79–185. I am preparing the thesis for publication. 42 E.P. Sauvage, ed., ‘Vitae b. Petri Abrincensis et b. Hamonis monachorum coenobii Saviniacensis in Normannia’, Analecta Bolandiana 2, 1883, 477–8, 521. 35 36 37 38 39

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subsequent election at Avranches, and claimed that ‘the dispute between us concerning the liberties of the Church would have been extinguished if he [i.e. Henry] had not found patrons for his will – not to say perversity – in the Roman church’.43 In drawing attention to the acceptance of Henry’s position among churchmen, Becket probably had in mind not just episcopal elections. However, if these ‘patrons’ had to defend Henry’s participation in the electoral process they could have referred to current canonistic thought to strengthen their case. The major canonists of the time did not categorically exclude the ruler from the electoral process. In Gratian’s Decretum the ruler was not admitted among the electors. He should only be consulted after the election had taken place.44 But canonists of the Bolognese, French and Anglo-Norman schools developed theories that allowed, in certain circumstances, the prince to participate in the selection process. Johannes Faventinus, for example, a representative of the first generation of the Bolognese school (1145–75), wrote c.1171 that the arbitrium and the consilium of the honorabiles was necessary. Most notably he gave the founder and/or benefactor of collegiate churches, including cathedral churches, the right to take part in elections.45 Similarly, the most famous representative of the second generation of Bolognese canonists (1175–92), Huguccio of Pisa, considered the participation of laymen possible. Writing between 1178 and 1190 he stated that the electoral right could be granted to laymen, that the maiores should be consulted, and that patrons of churches, including cathedral churches, had the electoral right.46 This last point was not taught in the French school, where it was believed that cathedral churches could not have patrons.47 Up to 1200 the canonists of the French school were divided over the issue of the prince’s electoral right. While some attached little weight to the ruler’s opinion, others, like the anonymous author of the Summa Parisiensis (c.1165), believed that the voluntas regis had to be consulted.48 The ruler was perhaps accorded the strongest position in the writings of the Anglo-Norman school until around 1200. According to the summa Omnis qui iuste iudicat, written around 1186, the founder and benefactor of a cathedral church was to be admitted among the electors. Around the same time Master Honorius wrote that the custom of some cathedral churches gave the prince the right to participate in the election. John of Tynemouth was opposed to the idea that benefactors and patrons of episcopal churches should have the right to vote, but he stated that in some parts of England the consent of the prince was required.49 These theories, which to some extent were shaped by local electoral customs, make clear that until the last quarter of the twelfth century canonists from all three schools of thought accepted, in certain circumstances, the prince among the electors. This shows that the claims of the Angevins to be consulted in the electoral process were not archaic demands stemming from a long bygone world, but well engrained in current thought. Thus when Henry II participated in the electoral process and asked for the election of a certain candidate, a good number of churchmen would not have considered this a violation of canon law. 43 Duggan, ed., Correspondence i, no. 170. 44 E. Friedberg, ed., Corpus iuris canonici, 2 vols, Leipzig 1879–81, i, D. 63; Hubert Müller, Der Anteil

der Laien an der Bischofswahl. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Kanonistik von Gratian bis Gregor IX., Kanonistische Studien und Texte 29, Amsterdam 1977, 25–34. 45 Müller, Anteil, 48–50. 46 Ibid., 109–16. 47 Ibid., 77. 48 Ibid., 52–77. 49 Ibid., 121–4, 130–3, 136–8.

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However, this situation changed from the last decade of the twelfth century onwards when papal decretals and their reception by canonists reshaped the thought on the role of the prince in episcopal elections. In 1190 Pope Clement III issued the decretal Nobis fuit which declared that patrons of churches should only be asked for their consent after the election had taken place, unless their jurisdiction or a special privilege said otherwise.50 Nobis fuit only concerned the ius patronatus, but canonists quickly applied it to episcopal elections as well.51 Two other decretals also contributed to reducing the prince’s influence in elections. Cum terra issued by Celestine III in 1191/2 and Quid sicut issued by Innocent III in 1202 determined that the prince should only be consulted after the election had taken place, not before.52 Here, as in Nobis fuit, the aim was to redefine the position of the prince; he should no longer participate in the selection of the bishop. The schools quickly adopted this new doctrine. For example, the summa Prima primi uxor Ade of the Anglo-Norman school, written in the first decade of the thirteenth century, stated that in past times princes may have had the right to participate in elections, but that more recent laws had annulled this right. Referring to Nobis fuit, the anonymous author of this summa believed that patrons of churches should only be asked for their consent after the election had taken place. Princes could only participate if they had been invited to do so, whether to give advice or to fight off heretics.53 In 1215, canon 25 of the Fourth Lateran Council was very explicit: any election by a secular power was invalid.54 Yet a number of exceptions still facilitated the participation of the prince in the electoral process. In addition to those allowed by Nobis fuit and the summa Prima primi uxor Ade, the decretal Quia requisistis, widely known through its inclusion in Compilatio secunda, provided another one. In this Alexander III permitted an English cathedral chapter that feared to hold an election without King Henry II’s consent (assensus) to hold the election in the king’s presence.55 Despite Cum terra and Quod sicut, Quia requisistis found sufficient recognition among canonists to justify the presence of the ruler in exceptional circumstances.56 The state of affairs was summarised by Raymond de Peñafort. In his Summa iuris, written between 1216 and 1222, he cited four exceptions that allowed for the participation of the ruler: first, if there was fear that the election might cause a great scandal; second, if the patron had acquired a special privilege; third, if the patron had the customary right; and fourth, if he had acquired the electoral right because he had founded the church. He added that some canonists believed that the last two exceptions were invalid.57 This 50 E. Friedberg, ed., Quinque compilationes antiquae nec non collectio canonum Lipsiensis, Leipzig

1882, 2 Comp. 3.24.2 = E. Friedberg, ed., Corpus iuris canonici ii (henceforth X), 3.38.25 (= Jaffé ii, no. 16466). 51 See, for example, Alanus Anglicus in the second version of his Apparatus Ius naturale, Müller, Anteil, 143–5. 52 E. Friedberg, ed., Quinque compilationes, 2 Comp. 1.3.6 = X 1.6.14 (= Jaffé ii, no. 17656); O. Hageneder et al., eds, Die Register Innocenz’ III., Publikationen der Abteilung für historische Studien des österreichischen Kulturinstituts in Rom 1–4, Publikationen des historischen Instituts beim österreichischen Kulturinstitut in Rom 5– , 8 vols, Rome 1968– , v, no. 82 (83) = E. Friedberg, Quinque compilationes, 3 Comp. 1.6.13 = X 1.6.28 (= A. Potthast, ed., Regesta pontificum Romanorum inde ab anno post Christum natum MCXCVIII ad annum MCCCIV, 2 vols, Berlin 1874–5 [henceforth Potthast], i, no. 1735). 53 Müller, Anteil, 135–6. 54 A. García y García, ed., Constitutiones concilii quarti Lateranensis una cum commentariis glossatorum, Monumenta iuris canonici series A: corpus glossatorum 2, Vatican City 1981, 71. 55 E. Friedberg, ed., Quinque compilationes, 2 Comp. 1.3.2 (= Jaffé ii, no. 13728). 56 For example, Müller, Anteil, 185, 196. 57 J. Rius Serra, ed., San Raimundo de Penyafort. Summa iuris, Barcelona 1945, 119–20; Müller, Anteil, 198–9.

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development came to its logical conclusion when, between 1227 and 1234, Pope Gregory IX issued the decretal Massana ecclesia which ruled that any election in which a layman took part was invalid and that any contrary custom was corrupt.58 Thus towards the end of the twelfth century a fundamental change started to take place in the interpretation of the ruler’s place in the electoral process. He was no longer to be involved in the selection process, but only to be asked for his consent after the election had taken place, and even then his consent was not a constitutive element of the electoral process. The election was valid regardless as to whether the ruler gave his consent. The new doctrine reached Normandy. It was most likely the cathedral church of Rouen that acquired in the mid-1180s a copy of the decretal collection Francofortana.59 In its section on episcopal elections Francofortana contained Quia requisistis.60 However, this decretal was immediately followed by Qua fronte which Alexander III had sent to Richard, archbishop of Canterbury, condemning elections held in the presence of the king.61 The Apparatus of the Francofortana shifted the balance between these two contradictory decretals towards Qua fronte. Commenting on the value of Quia requisistis, it stated that this decretal might perhaps refer to churches in which the king was the patron or to churches that were not yet consecrated, before going on to refer to decretals that forbade the participation of the ruler in the electoral process.62 Any remaining doubt on this question was settled when at Rouen new decretal collections were added to the Francofortana. One of these collections, Rotomagensis prima, contained Cum terra, which forbade any custom that required the ruler’s consent in the selection process.63 Thus at Rouen itself, the stronghold of ducal power in Normandy, the new doctrine was gaining ground. The knowledge of the latest developments in canon law and the increasing popularity of the papal court as a court of appeal also affected episcopal elections in Normandy.64 A dispute broke out at Avranches in 1197 over the translation of the bishop-elect, William de Chemillé, from Avranches to Angers and the subsequent election of William Tolomeus at Avranches. Significantly this conflict, during which the question of the ruler’s role in the electoral procedure was not debated, was not decided in Normandy or Greater Anjou, but at the papal court.65 For the first time since the election of Gerald at Sées in 1144–7 a Norman episcopal election was 58 L. Auvray, ed., Les registres de Grégoire IX. Recueil des bulles de ce pape, Bibliothèques des écoles

françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 2nd sér. 9, 4 vols, Paris 1890–1955, i, no. 695 = X 1.5.56 (= Potthast i, no. 9545). 59 Christopher Cheney and Mary Cheney, Studies in the Collections of Twelfth-Century Decretals: From the Papers of the late Walther Holtzmann, Monumenta iuris canonici series B: corpus collectionum 3, Vatican City 1979, 135–207. 60 Francofortana 10.4, BN Lat. 3922A, fol. 178va. 61 E. Friedberg, ed., Quinque compilationes, 1 Comp. 2.20.41 = X 2.28.25 = Francofortana 10.5, BN Lat. 3922A, fol. 178va (= Jaffé ii, no. 14312). 62 BN Lat. 3922A, fol. 178va: ‘Forte loquitur de ecclesia in qua rex habet ius patronatus ut xviii q. ii. Abbatem’ (C.18 q.2 c.4). ‘Maxime si non est consecrata ut in extrav. et di.l [gap] et di.lxiii Omnis [D.63 c.7] et xvi q. ult. Si quis [C.16 q.7 c.12] et c. aliis.’ 63 E. Friedberg, ed., Quinque compilationes, 2 Comp. 1.3.6 = X 1.6.14 = Rotomagensis prima 3.1, BN Lat. 3922A, fol. 152va (= Jaffé ii, no. 17656). 64 Harald Müller, Päpstliche Delegationsgerichtbarkeit in der Normandie (12. und frühes 13. Jahrhundert), Studien und Dokumente zur Gallia pontificia 4, i/ii, 2 vols, Bonn 1997. 65 Hageneder et al., eds, Register Innocenz’ III. i, nos 117, 442 (= Potthast i, no. 457), 443 (= Potthast i, no. 454), 447 (= Potthast i, no. 451), 530 (532) (= Potthast i, no. 575); ii, no. 18 (= Potthast i, no. 630); A. Theiner, ed., Vetera monumenta Slavorum meridionalum historiam illustrantia maximam partem nonum edita ex tabulariis Vaticanis deprompta collecta ac serie chronologica disposata, 2 vols, Rome and Zagreb 1863–75, i, 49, no. 91 (= Potthast i, no. 1058).

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decided by the pope – an unmistakable sign that the pope was starting to replace the king as supreme authority in these matters.66 When King Richard died in 1199 his younger brother John faced considerable difficulties in succeeding him in the continental dominions of the Angevin empire. John’s problems seemed solved when in 1200 he concluded the treaty of Le Goulet with King Philip of France and was recognised as Richard’s heir. In return he made Philip substantial concessions, among them the cession of most of the county of Evreux including the episcopal city of Evreux.67 Soon after the treaty had been concluded, Philip ordered an enquiry into the rights held by the Angevins in elections at Evreux. According to Philip, this established that the Angevins had had no rights. Philip took the opportunity to portray himself to Norman churchmen as protector of the church by granting the chapter of Evreux the right ‘to elect their bishop freely just as the other canons of French churches have the power to choose their bishops’.68 Regardless of what this meant in practice the canons of Evreux considered this document an important step forward. The electoral procedure was put into writing and the prince was not assigned a place among the electors. Clearly there was still enough room for interpretation, but in principle the charter took the electoral procedure out of the ill-defined sphere of unwritten custom – custom that was very much subject to the ruler’s will. The canons asked Pope Innocent to confirm Philip’s grant. Interestingly, Innocent’s confirmation does not contain the clause ‘just as the other canons of French churches’.69 Perhaps by closing this loophole the canons aimed at the total exclusion of the prince from the electoral process; in any case they now had a document on which they could base the defence of their electoral freedom. There is no precise information as to what extent Philip’s grant was known among Norman churchmen or at the Angevin court. It is possible that King John knew about it when in late 1200 the neighbouring see of Lisieux fell vacant and the chapter apparently attempted to elect the new bishop without involving John in the process. In November 1200 John wrote a stern letter to the dean and the chapter of Lisieux to remind them of his right to participate in the electoral process. He wrote that they knew very well the right (ius) and dignity (dignitas) he and his ancestors had had in appointing to vacant cathedral churches within their dominions. The appointment to the church of Lisieux depended on old custom (consuetudo) and for many reasons on his wish (voluntas) and consent (assensus). Furthermore he informed the chapter that he had already appealed to the pope to have his rights protected and that he was renewing this appeal. He ended the letter by prohibiting the chapter from electing anyone without consulting his voluntas and asking for his assensus, adding that he expected them to respect his rights as they would want him to respect theirs.70 John’s message was understood at Evreux. The dean joined the king for negotiations and

66 The observation that the existence of Innocent III’s registers makes it easier to find appeals to the papal

court, and that the number of appeals, therefore, reflects the survival of records rather than historical developments, while valid in principle, is not entirely satisfactory in this particular case. Given that there is evidence for papal appeals concerning Norman elections in the 1140s, the fact that there is no evidence for such appeals during the next fifty years, from which there exists a much greater volume of documentation, suggests that in this case the varying number of appeals to the papal court is indeed a real historical phenomenon. 67 Baldwin, Government of Philip Augustus, 96–7. 68 H.F. Delaborde et al., eds, Recueil des actes de Philippe Auguste, roi de France, Chartes et diplômes relatifs à l’histoire de France, 4 vols, Paris 1916–79, ii, no. 637. 69 Evreux, AD Eure G 122 (Cartulary, cathedral chapter of Evreux), fol. 3r, no. 6 (= Potthast i, no. 1363). 70 T.D. Hardy, ed., Rotuli chartarum in turri Londonensi asservati, London 1837, 99a; cf. Christopher Cheney, Pope Innocent III and England, Päpste und Papsttum 9, Stuttgart 1976, 127.

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they agreed on Jordan du Hommet, archdeacon of Lisieux, son of William du Hommet, constable of Normandy and a major ally of John. 71 In the case of Lisieux John’s firm assertion of what he considered to be his rights prevailed. At Coutances in 1202 he was also successful in securing the election of the royal cleric Vivian de L’Etang, archdeacon of Derby and canon of St Martin de Tours.72 At Sées, however, he failed.73 After the death of Bishop Lisiard in 1201 the chapter convened and agreed that they would only elect one of their members,74 but when the prior presented their candidates to John, the king rejected all of them. Instead he asked the prior to elect the dean of Lisieux, William, who had just proved his loyalty to John in the affair of Lisieux. But the prior and canons refused, arguing that William’s family was hostile towards them; they had better men among their own number. When during the next round of negotiations once again no solution could be reached, the prior appealed to Rome. This was a very significant step. Until then cathedral chapters in Normandy had always given way to the wishes of Henry and his sons. The prior, however, believed that, while the king should be involved in the electoral process, the ultimate choice lay with the chapter, not the king. Here he represented the electoral tradition of the regular canons of Sées and was in tune with current developments in canon law. When John heard of the prior’s appeal, his reaction was as swift as it was harsh. He sent men to take control of the cathedral church of Sées. They, together with the mayor of the town, informed the canons that they would receive neither drink nor food until they had accepted John’s wish (voluntas). As a countermeasure the prior proclaimed an interdict over the diocese. Faced with this deadlock, John charged Walter de Coutances, archbishop of Rouen, with care of the matter, declaring that he himself would no longer be involved. The prior lifted the interdict and in January 1202 the chapter came together at Rouen to discuss the election. The negotiations showed that John’s pressure had left its mark. The chapter split into two parties. One group, led by the prior, insisted on the choice of a canon regular. The other group led by William, archdeacon of Corbon, Master Garin, Presbyter Ernaud and Martin Blandin was ready to accept a candidate from outside the chapter and to cooperate with the king. When, despite the agreement to conduct the 71 For the dean’s journey, see T.D. Hardy, ed., Rotuli Normanniae in turri Londonensi asservati, Johanne

et Henrico quinto, Angliae regibus, London 1835, 34–5; for Jordan’s archdeaconry, see MRSN i, lxvi, 363; for his father William, see V. Bourrienne, ed., Antiquus cartularius ecclesiae Baiocensis, livre noir, Société de l’histoire de Normandie, 2 vols, Rouen 1902–3, i, no. 121; Maurice Powicke, The Loss of Normandy 1189–1204: Studies in the History of the Angevin Empire, 3rd edn, Manchester 1999, 262. 72 M.J. Franklin, ed., EEA XIV: Coventry and Lichfield 1072–1159, Oxford 1997, lvi; T.D. Hardy, ed., Rotuli litterarum patentium in turri Londonensi asservati, London 1835, 4a; H.G. Richardson, ed., The Memoranda Roll for the Michaelmas Term of the First Year of the Reign of King John (1199–1200), Pipe Roll Society ns 21, London 1943, 92; Hageneder et al., eds, Register Innocenz’ III., v, no. 159 (160) (= Potthast i, no. 1831). 73 An extensive account of this election is given by Packard, ‘King John and the Norman Church’, 20–4. 74 When the election was discussed at the papal court the prior claimed that they took this decision because the two previous bishops, Froger and Lisiard, had wasted the patrimony of the church. This must be read cautiously. Froger in fact augmented the church’s fortunes, Torigni, 311; S. Bidou, ‘La réforme du chapitre cathédral de Sées en 1131’, Société historique et archéologique de l’Orne 106, 1987, 24–32. As to Lisiard, the evidence quoted by L. Guilloreau to substantiate the claims of his wastefulness is unsatisfactory. He refers mostly to Lisiard’s confirmations of donations made by a third party, L. Guilloreau, ‘L’élection de Silvestre à l’évêché de Séez (1202)’, Revue Catholique de Normandie 25, 1916, 427. While in general Packard’s evidence also fails to prove this accusation beyond doubt, he discovered a charter that may help to explain the prior’s discontent with Lisiard’s time in office. Lisiard and the chapter had a quarrel over the distribution of offerings made to the church of Sées, Packard, ‘King John and the Norman Church’, 21, 36 n. 43, Sées, Bibliothèque de l’Evêché, ‘Livre rouge’, fols 81v–82r (= BN Lat. 11058, fols 35r–v, quoted by Packard).

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election in the presence of all the canons, the prior’s party went ahead and elected Ralph de Merle, the rupture between the two parties became irrevocable. Further appeals were launched and while the prior and his supporters started their journey to the pope to have Ralph’s election confirmed, the other party joined King John and elected Herbert L’Abbé, son of Ralph L’Abbé, a burgess of Sées and one of John’s leading administrators in the duchy. Subsequently John aimed at preventing the prior from reaching the papal court, but neither his attempts nor the fact that the elect Ralph de Merle died en route stopped the prior and his men. They elected Archdeacon Sylvester instead and continued their journey. In the meantime the other party had also started their journey to Rome. When they met in the papal court Innocent III decided the case in favour of Sylvester.75 But John was by no means prepared to accept this decision. He prevented Sylvester from taking up his office. In August 1202 he wrote a letter to Archbishop Walter asking him not to consecrate Sylvester. John claimed that Sylvester had committed adultery and that his election violated his dignity and contravened ius scriptum, because he had been elected without his consent.76 John pursued two aims with this letter. First, he wished to prevent Sylvester becoming bishop of Sées and so accused him of unsuitability. Second, and probably more importantly, he aimed for official recognition of his role in the selection process of a bishop. Here he developed two lines of argument. On the one hand he followed a very traditional line by referring to his dignity. His dignity was intact, and thus his position as ruler, when his prerogatives were respected. From John’s point of view his participation in the selection process was a god given prerogative, which had to be defended at all costs.77 On the other hand, by referring to ius scriptum he followed a new line of argument.78 Christopher Cheney has pointed out that, like the term dignitas, the term ius belonged to the traditional armoury of royal propaganda in defence of royal rights.79 However, the deployment of the term ius scriptum was something new and, considering the legal expertise of its addressee, Archbishop Walter, certainly not accidental. We can only guess what written law John had in mind when writing this letter. It is certain that it cannot have been Roman law, as this offered no support for his case.80 He may have meant the royal records. The importance of the recording of legal proceedings for the genesis of the common law in England is well known.81 It is possible that John and his advisors considered all royal records declaring royal rights as written law. If so, John could have been referring to the letter he had sent to the chapter of Lisieux the previous year and which had been copied into the Charter Rolls. In all probability, however, John referred to canon law. He and his advisors had easy access to the works of the Anglo-Norman school. The canonists Honorius and John of Tynemouth, for example, had begun to work for John’s chancellor, Hubert 75 Hageneder et al., eds, Register Innocenz’ III. v, no. 68 (70) (= Potthast i, no. 1708); for Herbert’s elec-

tion, see Hardy, ed., Rotuli litterarum patentium, 6b, 8a–b; for Ralph L’Abbé, see D. Power, ‘Between the Angevin and Capetian Courts: John de Rouvray and the Knights of the Pays de Bray’, in Family Trees and the Roots of Politics: The Prosopography of Britain and France from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century, ed. K.S.B. Keats-Rohan, Woodbridge 1997, 383. 76 Hardy, ed., Rotuli litterarum patentium, 16a–b. 77 Cf. Christopher Cheney, From Becket to Langton: English Church Government 1170–1213, Manchester 1956, 94. 78 I would like to thank Professor Dolezalek for his advice on ius scriptum. 79 Cheney, Innocent III, 127. 80 See J. Fehe et al., eds, Corpus iuris civilis Iustinianei: cum commentariis Accursii, scholiis Contii, et D. Gothofredi lucubrationibus ad Accursium, 6 vols, Lyons 1627. 81 Michael T. Clanchy, ‘Literacy, Law, and the Power of the State’, in Culture et idéologie dans la genèse de l’état moderne, Collection de l’école française de Rome 82, Rome 1985, 25–34.

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Walter, around 1200.82 In 1202 teachings like theirs, which allowed, in certain circumstances, the ruler to take part in the electoral process, still offered John a platform from which he could hope to argue his case successfully. He and his advisors had apparently realised that they increased their chances of winning an argument with ecclesiastical authorities when they placed, in part at least, their argumentation within the legal framework accepted by the church – canon law. They were unfortunate, however, that the canonistic interpretation supporting their case was rapidly becoming old fashioned and ultimately untenable. Obeying John’s order, Archbishop Walter refused to consecrate Sylvester. He may have been aware of the scepticism with regard to John’s position expressed in the copy of Francofortana at Rouen, but Walter was neither an opponent of King John nor a radical supporter of the principles of the Gregorian reform.83 He was a loyal ally of Angevin kings, greatly experienced in royal politics, who on the grounds of a few decretals alone was not prepared to risk a breach with his king over the election of a bishop.84 The political attitude of bishops evidently played an important role in the way canon law was applied. But Walter was not the highest ecclesiastical authority involved. Innocent III, who had a very clear position on episcopal elections, remained concerned with the case. In February 1203 he admonished John not to interfere in elections and to admit Sylvester to his see.85 Yet John did not give in. His political situation had dramatically worsened. He was at war with King Philip and his position, in particular in the diocese of Sées, had been greatly weakened by the defection of Robert, count of Alençon, in January 1203.86 Around the same time Philip probably arranged the marriage between the widowed countess of Perche, Matilda, and his cousin, Enguerrand de Coucy.87 The temporal possessions of the bishopric were John’s last foothold in this strategically important area. Faced with John’s intransigence, Innocent lost his patience. In May 1203 he ordered Archbishop Walter to persuade John to admit Sylvester as bishop and to return the temporal possessions of the see within the next month, otherwise he was to proclaim an interdict over the whole ecclesiastical province of Rouen.88 Confronted with this ultimatum John gave in. He could not afford to add the pope to the already impressive list of his enemies. In October 1203 he granted Sylvester safe conduct for his journey to Rouen to be consecrated by Walter; he ordered his seneschal Bartholomew Crassus to restore its possessions to the church of Sées, and to make good any losses incurred. But John refused to accept the wider implications of Innocent’s instruction. In his letter to Bartholomew he wrote that he admitted Sylvester only out of his deference to the pope. Sylvester did not have a just claim to the see, because his election had violated John’s right, dignity and old and approved custom of the duchy. Accordingly this letter was copied into the Liberate Rolls, the rolls for one-off royal favours.89 82 Christopher Cheney, Hubert Walter, London 1967, 164–5. 83 Cum terra became part of the collection after September 1199, but whether it was already at Walter’s

disposal in 1202 is impossible to say, see Cheney and Cheney, Studies, 160–8, 176. If not, it is open to speculation whether the affair of Sées motivated its collection. 84 John Gillingham, Richard I, New Haven 1999, 111, 227, 229, 247, 301–4; Power, ‘The Norman Church and the Angevin and Capetian Kings’; Peltzer, ‘Henry II and the Norman Bishops’, 1219–29. 85 Hageneder et al., eds, Register Innocenz’ III. v, no. 159 (160) (= Potthast i, no. 1831). 86 D. Power, ‘The End of Angevin Normandy: the Revolt at Alençon (1203)’, Historical Research, 74, 2001, 444–64. 87 Thompson, Perche, 147–9. 88 Hagender et al., eds, Register Innocenz’ III. vi, no. 73 (= Potthast i, no. 1919). 89 Hardy, ed., Rotuli litterarum patentium, 33b; T.D. Hardy, ed., Rotuli de liberate ac de misis et praestitis, London 1835, 72.

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Eight months later John’s reign in Normandy was finished. Clearly he and Sylvester, who in the course of 1203 styled John in one of his charters as ‘former king of England’, never became great friends.90 But there are no signs that the other Norman bishops were driven into despair by John’s conduct, in particular by his conduct in elections; nothing indicates that they welcomed King Philip with open arms as their liberator. On the contrary, they appear to have been loyal to Angevin rule until 1204.91 The Norman bishops did not contribute to Philip’s relatively smooth conquest of Normandy. On the other side of the Channel, however, John’s attitude towards episcopal elections had a considerable affect on politics in the decade following 1204. John continued to defend his position on episcopal election. For him this was a matter of principle. But so it was for Innocent III. As a consequence it was not long before they were again at loggerheads over this issue. This time they clashed over the election of Hubert Walter’s successor as archbishop of Canterbury in 1205–7. The events of this dispute are well known and need not to be repeated here in detail. At the end of two years of negotiation Innocent III consecrated Stephen Langton as archbishop of Canterbury against the will of King John, who had promoted the election of John de Gray, bishop of Norwich.92 When John refused to allow Langton to enter England, Innocent ordered that an interdict be laid over England; this was pronounced in March 1208. John refused to comply and was excommunicated in November 1209. But John saw little reason to give in; his authority in his realm remained unquestioned. Only when political fortune turned against him in the course of 1212 was John moved to come to terms with Innocent III. In view of his difficulties with the Welsh, potentially rebellious barons and rumours about his deposition by the pope, he could no longer afford to ignore the interdict and excommunication which offered his opponents an easy justification for attacking him. John accepted Stephen Langton and promised to compensate the clergy for the financial losses incurred during the interdict. Most importantly, however, in May 1213 he surrendered his crown to Innocent III, becoming the pope’s vassal for the kingdoms of England and Ireland.93 In July 1213 John was absolved from personal excommunication and from then on he started to experience the advantages of full papal support. On 31 October 1213 Innocent instructed the papal legate Nicholas de Romanis, cardinal bishop of Tusculum, to ensure that bishops elected to English sees in future were to be not only ‘distinguished by their lives and learning, but also loyal to the king, profitable to the kingdom and capable of giving counsel and help – the king’s assent having been requested’.94 The legate and Peter des Roches, the king’s justiciar, put this programme into practice immediately.95 In this period John must have realised that the collaboration with the pope was much more helpful in creating a loyal episcopate than the categorical insistence on official recognition of what he regarded as his right in episcopal elections. His claim became dispensable. When in autumn 1214 John returned from his ill-fated campaign against King Philip he faced opposition from barons and from churchmen who were discontented with the legate’s actions. John needed to act immediately. A formal renunciation of his claims in relation to elec-

90 91 92 93 94

‘. . . J. quondam Regis Anglie.’, Alençon, AD Orne H 1335 (Charters concerning the abbey of Silli). Power, ‘The Norman Church and the Angevin and Capetian Kings’. Cheney, Innocent III, 147–54. Ibid., 298–343. C. Cheney and W.H. Semple, eds, Selected Letters of Pope Innocent III Concerning England, London 1953, no. 62 and n. 1; cf. no. 76. 95 C. Harper-Bill, ‘John and the Church of Rome’, in Church, King John, 309.

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tions was one way of strengthening his relationship with the church while weakening the ranks of his opponents. On 21 November 1214 John issued a charter granting free election to all cathedral and monastic churches in England and Wales. The pope confirmed this charter in March 1215 and later that year this promise was included in Magna Carta.96 In theory, at least, the question of John’s rights in episcopal elections was settled. Episcopal elections do not offer a straightforward answer to the question of whether John was an incapable ruler or the powerless victim of changing structures. This study has shown that towards the end of the twelfth century the legal framework of elections, its macrostructure, started to undergo a significant change in the interpretation of the role of the prince in the electoral process. Until the last quarter of the twelfth century the active participation of the ruler in the selection process was accepted by a good number of churchmen and, in certain circumstances, also by canonists. Subsequently, however, this view changed and the more radical attitude aiming at the exclusion of the ruler from the selection process gained momentum, winning over more and more churchmen across Europe. As a consequence the common perception of how an election ought to be conducted was transformed; the ruler was no longer counted among the electors. It is also clear that local conditions, the microstructures, considerably influenced elections. In the particular case of Sées the geo-political significance of the bishopric ensured the ruler’s interest in elections. A divided chapter and the ruler-unfriendly electoral custom of its regular canons were added to the mixture, creating a microstructure in which disputed elections were almost inevitable. King John was firmly rooted in the tradition that assigned the ruler a place among the electors. He did not make his claims arbitrarily, but based them on prerogatives held by his predecessors and accepted by canonists. From his point of view his leading role in the selection process was his right; a right that needed to be claimed and defended. This need was all the greater as a result of his difficult succession to the Angevin dominions on the continent. He was bound to set great store on the rights exercised by his predecessors. Moreover the bishops were an important tool in controlling the duchy of Normandy, a central region of the Angevin empire. Considering these circumstances John’s behaviour in elections in Normandy becomes comprehensible. This, however, is not to say that John was the innocent victim of an unfortunate coincidence of unfavourable structural developments and adverse political circumstances. No doubt he was facing a difficult situation. But there was an alternative way to deal with the changing conditions of episcopal elections. John’s great opponent, Philip Augustus, showed that informal ways of influencing elections could be quite as effective as formal ones.97 The failure of John and his advisors was to realise this at an early stage. Instead they pursued a strategy that, even though built on great legal expertise, was doomed to fail. The future in dealing with elections was flexible collaboration with chapters and popes, not the stubborn insistence on rights that were becoming outmoded. John had to learn this the hard way, but the price he paid for his slowness was paid not in Normandy but in England. In Normandy his attitude towards elections did not provoke resistance among the leading churchmen of the duchy. Sometime in late 1204 or early 1205 Walter, archbishop of Rouen, William Tolomeus, bishop of Avranches, Jordan du Hommet, bishop of Lisieux, Vivian de L’Etang, bishop of Coutances, and Sylvester, bishop of Sées, wrote a letter to Inno96 Cheney, Innocent III, 168–70, 364–5, 377. 97 Baldwin, Government of Philip Augustus, 180–2, 306–9.

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cent III asking him whether they should follow the example set by the laity and swear fealty to the new ruler of Normandy, King Philip, who had been urging them to do so. Innocent, who replied in March 1205, left the decision to them.98 Sidney Packard referred to this letter in support of his conclusion that ‘at the very least, the Norman church willingly permitted that event [i.e. the conquest] to take place’.99 Yet the fact that bishops asked this question after the conquest had taken place and after the barons had sworn fealty suggests that there was no strong movement among the Norman episcopacy towards Philip Augustus. Only one of them, Sylvester, had probably been supportive of Philip during the conquest. Around the time the letter to Innocent was composed, another, Jordan du Hommet, whose father had already joined Philip, probably decided for the Capetian.100 The other three prelates, however, appear to have been hesitating; having been very close to the Angevins they were not yet willing to jump ship. As a result the bishops found themselves in a very awkward position: if Sylvester or Jordan had precipitated Archbishop Walter’s decision and publicly sworn fealty to Philip this might have resulted in ecclesiastical censures against them; furthermore the return of King John remained a possibility. Walter, in turn, faced a conqueror pressing his claims and the danger of becoming isolated. Facing this complicated situation they found a solution that suited everyone. In writing to the pope they asked him to take responsibility for their decision. By the time Innocent returned the ball into their court the course of events had persuaded them to go along with Philip’s wishes. The prelates’ decision to put their problem to the pope was a remarkable piece of crisis management. Their move, however, was not unusual. Confronted with problems arising from the administration of their dioceses, prelates turned ever more frequently to the pope for guidance.101 This increase of papal authority going hand in hand with the growing importance of a precise knowledge of canon law changed the framework of ecclesiastical politics in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Rulers across Europe needed to adapt to this new situation if they wished to be successful in their relations with the church. Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg

98

Hageneder et al., eds, Register Innocenz’ III. viii, no. 7 (= Potthast, i, no. 2434). The bishopric of Evreux was in Philip’s hands from 1200, see above, n. 67. Henry, bishop of Bayeux, died in November 1204: Caen, AD du Calvados G 149 (Obituary, cathedral chapter of Bayeux), fol. 53v; Alençon, AD de l’Orne H 1069 (Obituary, abbey of Silli), fol. 102v; Hageneder et al., eds, Register Innocenz’ III. viii, no. 35 (= Potthast i, no. 2472). 99 Packard, ‘King John and the Norman Church’, 31. 100 His father had joined Philip shortly before the fall of Rouen in June 1204, Powicke, Loss, 262. In October 1204 Philip Augustus confirmed the bishop of Lisieux’s extensive jurisdictional rights in the episcopal city and its surroundings, A. Teulet et al., eds, Layettes du trésor des chartes, 5 vols, Paris 1863–1910, i, no. 731; cf. J. Baldwin, ed., Les registres de Philippe Auguste, I. Texte, Recueil des historiens de la France, Documents financiers et administratifs 7, Paris 1992, carte, no. 36. 101 See, for example, the questions put forward by Archbishop Walter: W. Holtzmann and E. Kemp, eds, Papal Decretals Relating to the Diocese of Lincoln in the Twelfth Century, Lincoln Record Society 47, Hereford 1954, no. 21 (= Jaffé ii, nos 14965–6); J. Ramackers, ed., Papsturkunden in Frankreich, Neue Folge, II. Normandie, Abhandlungen der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, philologischhistorische Klasse 3, Folge xxi, Göttingen 1937, no. 252 (= Jaffé ii, no. 15282); Jaffé ii, nos 15185, 16594, 17019; Hageneder et al., eds, Register Innocenz’ III. i, nos 259 (= Potthast i, no. 268), 264 (= Potthast i, no. 275).

Zooarchaeolo gy of the Norman Conquest

ZOOARCHAEOLOGY OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST* Naomi Sykes The Norman Conquest is widely held to be an important historical watershed, with eleventh- and twelfth-century texts suggesting occupation by a self-possessed people, the Gens Normannorum.1 Yet in contrast to the abundance of textual evidence concerning it, the social and economic effects of 1066 are poorly documented in the archaeological record. Absence of a distinct material culture has led some scholars to question whether the Normans did indeed possess a common identity, whilst others have argued that without guidance from written sources the Norman Conquest would remain archaeologically invisible.2 Without doubt, clear archaeological evidence for Conquest-related change is scarce. Research has demonstrated that many elements traditionally viewed as part of an imported ‘Norman Package’ (for instance, feudalism, castles, Romanesque architecture and deer parks) were already present in Anglo-Saxon England and should not therefore be viewed as Norman achievements.3 Nevertheless, it seems that the current dearth of archaeological data may be due to lack of investigation rather than actual absence. To date, most studies have focused on the more visible symbols of Normanitas, whereas portable artefacts are extremely under-researched, which is surprising because when detailed analyses have been undertaken they have produced promising results.4 However, perhaps it should not be expected that Norman influence or expressions of Norman identity would be detectable as obvious changes in artefact form, since there is seldom a fixed one-to-one relationship between group identity and material culture. Instead, symbolic assertions of ethnicity are fluid, situational and generally enmeshed with a group’s existing cultural practices and social, economic and political structure. To detect them archaeologically requires material culture to be

* I am grateful to Robin Fleming, Ewan Johnson, Chris Lewis, Rob Liddiard, Graham Loud, Bruce O’Brien and Anne Williams for useful discussion and their helpful comments on my paper. I should also like to thank Michael Jones for reading and commenting upon an earlier version of this text. 1 G.A. Loud, ‘The “Gens Normannorum”: Myth or Reality?’ ANS 4, 1981 (1982), 104–16; L. Shopkow, History and Community: Norman Historical Writing in the 11th and 12th Centuries, Washington DC 1997. 2 R.H.C. Davis, The Normans and their Myth, London 1976; T. Rowley, Norman England: An Archaeological Perspective on the Norman Conquest, London 1997; T. Rowley, The Normans, Stroud 1999, 13. 3 B.K. Davison, ‘Early Earthwork Castles: A New Model’, Château-Gaillard 3, 1969, 37–47; E. Fernie, The Architecture of the Anglo-Saxons, London 1982, 163–73; J. Campbell, The Anglo-Saxons, London 1991, 236–7; M.W. Thompson, The Rise of the Castle, Cambridge 1991; R. Liddiard, Landscapes of Lordship: Norman Castles and the Countryside in Medieval Norfolk, 1066–1200, Oxford 2000; R. Liddiard, ‘The Deer Parks of Domesday Book’, Landscape 4 (1), 2003, 4–23. 4 D. Brown, ‘The Social Significance of Imported Medieval Pottery’, in Not So Much a Pot, More a Way of Life, ed. C.G. Cumberpatch and P.W. Blinkhorn, Oxford 1997, 95–112; J. Cotter, A Twelfth-Century Pottery Kiln at Pound Lane, Canterbury: Evidence for an Immigrant Potter in the Late Norman Period, Canterbury 1997; A. MacGregor, ‘Antler, Bone and Horn’, in English Medieval Industries: Craftsmen, Techniques, Products, ed. J. Blair and N. Ramsay, London 1991, 355–78.

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examined not simply in terms of form but with the purpose of highlighting changes in its patterns of production, distribution and consumption.5 It was using this type of approach that I set out to undertake a detailed zooarchaeological investigation of the Norman Conquest, whereby the use of different animals and their products was followed, across social boundaries, for the period between the fifth and fourteenth century.6 The last thirty years have witnessed considerable work in medieval zooarchaeology and, as a result, it was possible to synthesize animal bone data from more than 300 assemblages, derived from all types of site (rural, urban, high-status and religious houses) in England, northern France and other areas of Europe. This dataset allowed the impact of 1066 to be examined from a number of perspectives. First, at the micro-scale, analysis focused on assemblages from individual sites, in particular those with known or suspected Norman occupation.7 These assemblages were investigated to see whether or not dietary practices changed at the point of the Conquest. In terms of detecting the Gens Normannorum the study of diet is of considerable importance since cuisines are culturally determined, with food consumption being one of the more potent methods for constructing and reproducing identity.8 However, since diet and group identity are invariably tied to socio-economic status it is also necessary to consider the evidence at a wider level, the meso-scale, or Saxo-Norman England. By bringing together data from all site types it was possible to examine broader patterns of change and ask questions such as whether social division became more marked as a result of the Conquest or if the events of 1066 impacted upon the Saxon animal economy? The Normans are frequently hailed as catalysts, rather than importers, of change but the possibility that shifts, if present, were brought about by external Norman influence prompted the decision to examine the evidence at the macro-scale, the Norman Empire. This last level of investigation considered evidence for cultural exchange and revisited the question of the ‘Norman Package’. Although scholars in most academic fields now reject the concept of Norman-imposed change, the idea that the Conquest impacted dramatically on British wildlife – with the importation of fallow deer (Dama dama) and rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) – is prevalent amongst zooarchaeologists and natural historians.9 Widespread support has also been retained for the idea that the Normans altered hunting traditions, both through the imposition of Forest Law and the introduction of the chasse par force de chien – the classic form of medieval hunting whose terminology was heavily Gallicised.10 The possibility that the Normans established new animal species or hunting traditions in post-Conquest England is as significant as whether they introduced castles or 5

S. Jones, The Archaeology of Ethnicity: Constructing Social Identities in the Past and Present, Cambridge 1997; P. Graves-Brown, S. Jones and C. Gamble, eds, Cultural Identity and Archaeology: The Construction of European Communities, London 1996. 6 This paper is based upon my ‘The Norman Conquest: A Zooarchaeological Perspective’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Southampton 2001, in which all the raw data are presented. See also N. Sykes, The Norman Conquest: A Zooarchaeological Perspective, Oxford forthcoming. 7 These sites included Pevensey Castle (Sussex), the Cheddar Palaces (Somerset), Guildford Castle (Surrey) and Portchester Castle (Hampshire). 8 J. Goody, Cooking, Cuisine and Class: A Study in Comparative Sociology, Cambridge 1982; S. Mennell, All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present Day, Oxford 1985; C. Counihan and P. van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A Reader, New York 1997. 9 O. Rackham, The History of the Countryside, London 1997, 131; D. Yalden, A History of British Mammals, London 1999; A. Henderson, ‘From Coney to Rabbit: The Story of a Managed Coloniser’, The Naturalist 122, 1997, 101–21; J. Langbein and N. Chapman, Fallow Deer, London 2003, 3. 10 J. Gilbert, Hunting and Hunting Reserves in Medieval Scotland, Edinburgh 1979, 58.

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Romanesque architecture, but it is a question that has received surprisingly little attention. In this paper I hope to redress the balance. It is not possible to present all the details of my findings here but I hope to provide an overview of my work and demonstrate that, through zooarchaeological analysis, it is possible to gain new insights into old questions. I shall begin by presenting the evidence for both continuity and change in the management, distribution and consumption of domestic and wild animals. Where present, indicators of change will be considered to determine whether they represent the expansion of existing English trends or novel developments. The origins of any introductions will then be considered to see if they might legitimately be labelled as Norman achievements. Together this evidence will be reviewed to see what it might suggest about the Gens Normannorum. Finally I will consider the validity of labelling William I’s invasion as ‘archaeologically invisible’.

Continuity and Change The Norman Conquest occurred at a time of economic dynamism: the creation of burhs in the late ninth century fundamentally changed urban development; at the same time multiple estates were being broken up in favour of smaller manors whilst dispersed settlements were abandoned for nucleated villages, a move invariably accompanied by the adoption of the open field system.11 Against this background it is, understandably, difficult to detect changes attributable exclusively to the Normans and, at the most basic level, none are apparent. Unlike the Roman Conquest, there is no evidence to suggest that domestic stock changed, either through the importation of new breeds or the deterioration of husbandry techniques. Certainly there is little indication that the French economic set-up – a mixed regime geared towards local production – was imposed on post-Conquest England. Some changes to the animal economy are apparent for the late eleventh and twelfth centuries: cattle and sheep were maintained to ages much older than in any preceding period and there was a significant decrease in cattle abundance with an associated increase in the frequency of sheep.12 When one looks more closely at the data, however, it becomes apparent that these pre- to post-Conquest shifts actually reflect long-term agricultural intensification. The increase in cattle and sheep age suggests a growing emphasis on secondary products, with cattle being managed for little other than traction, whilst sheep were needed in increasing numbers to manure fields and provide wool for the growing market in grain and textiles. Whilst these changes had clearly begun by at least the mid-ninth century, the mid-eleventh to mid-twelfth centuries do seem to mark a point of definition, with all areas of the animal economy witnessing intensification. For instance, there is good evidence for the establishment and centralisation of professional tanners, horners and bone and antler workers – crafts which were undertaken on no more than a domestic

11 For an overview of these changes see D. Hinton, Archaeology, Economy and Society: England from the

Fifth to the Fifteenth Century, London 1990; G. Astill, ‘Towns and Town Hierarchies in Saxon England’, Oxford Journal of Archaeology 10, 1991, 95–114; C. Lewis, P. Mitchell-Fox and C. Dyer, Village, Hamlet and Field: Changing Medieval Settlements in Central England, Manchester 1997. 12 N. Sykes, ‘From Cu and Sceap to Beffe and Motton: The Management, Distribution and Consumption of Cattle and Sheep AD 410–1550’, in Food in Medieval England: History and Archaeology, ed. C. Woolgar, D. Serjeantson and T. Waldron, Oxford forthcoming.

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scale before the mid-eleventh century.13 Butchery patterns and skeletal representation data also suggests a formalisation of aristocratic provisioning, whereby animal products were increasingly channelled through urban markets rather than obtained, through food rents, directly from the rural producer.14 Indeed, it seems possible that the Norman re-labelling of choice joints of meat according to French titles, for instance ‘beef’ (boeuf), ‘veal’ (veau) and ‘mutton’ (mouton), whilst the poorer cuts retained their Saxon names (such as ox tail) may reflect these changes in the provisioning system.15 Again, the seeds of these changes were already sown in late Saxon England – we know for instance that food rents were beginning to be commuted for cash payments during the reign of Edward the Confessor – but the foundation of towns by new Norman lords, together with the imposition of heavy taxes, must have been a strong impetus for the centralization of artisans, for market exchange and the development of a coin-based economy.16 One change cannot, however, be attributed to this new emphasis on agricultural production: the post-Conquest increase in the representation of pigs.17 Arable farming and pig husbandry are not highly compatible and usually an increase in grain production is accompanied by a decline in the abundance of pigs. The fact that pig frequencies increase at the point when arable production reached a peak suggests that this rise was dictated by cultural, rather than economic, factors. Credence is added to this suggestion when the data are considered by site type and it is revealed that the overall pre- to post-Conquest increase in pig abundance is entirely due to increased pork consumption at the aristocratic level.18 It seems possible that this change reflects Norman dietary preferences, a possibility that will be considered further below. Norman preferences may also explain pre- to post-Conquest shifts in wild animal exploitation. This is a subject of interest in its own right since in any farming society, where the exploitation of wild resources is unnecessary for survival, hunting is a social action typically used to generate and legitimise power, authority and identity.19 As such, patterns of wild animal exploitation tend to mirror social and political change and by examining the way in which hunting practices changed through the medieval period there is every possibility that the social impact of the Conquest may be decipherable. Few assemblages dating to between the fifth and mid-ninth century contain high frequencies of wild mammals (Fig. 1) and game can have made little contribution to the early- and mid-Saxon diet. This is not to suggest, however, that the capture and consumption of wild animals lacked social meaning. Early medieval iconography 13 A. Grant, ‘Some Observations on Butchery in England from the Iron Age to the Medieval Period’,

Anthropozoologica 1, 1987, 53–7; M. Shaw ‘The Excavation of a Late 15th- to 17th-Century Tanning Complex at the Green, Northampton’, Post-Medieval Archaeology 30, 1993, 63–127; A. MacGregor, A.J. Mainman and N.S.H. Rogers, Craft, Industry and Everyday Life: Bone, Antler, Ivory and Horn from Anglo-Scandinavian and Medieval York, York 1999. 14 Sykes, ‘Cu and Sceap’. 15 Goody, Cooking, Cuisine and Class, 136; A. Davidson, Oxford Companion to Food, Oxford 1999, 67 and 604. 16 P. Stafford, ‘The “Farm of One Night” and the Organisation of King Edward’s Estates in Domesday’, EHR 2nd ser. 33, 1980, 491–502; R.H. Britnell, The Commercialisation of English Society 1000–1500, Cambridge 1993. 17 Ten per cent of mid-eleventh to mid-twelfth century assemblages are pig dominated compared to just 2 per cent of those dating between the mid-ninth and mid-eleventh centuries. 18 Whereas 6 per cent of Late Saxon elite sites are pig-dominated, this figure rises to 29 per cent for high-status assemblages dating to between the mid-eleventh and mid-twelfth centuries. 19 For examples see S. Kent, Farmers as Hunters: The Implications of Sedentism, Cambridge 1989.

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12

Percentage total assemblage

10 8

Rural Urban

6

High status Religious House

4 2 0 5th - mid-9th

mid-9th - mid-11th mid-11th - mid-12th mid-12th - mid-14th

Fig. 1. Inter-period variation in wild mammal representation on sites of different type. Frequencies are expressed as a percentage of the total fragment count (excluding fish). and funerary deposits certainly show an association between hunting and the social elite, a situation which is confirmed by the zooarchaeological evidence: Figure 1 shows that, although generally scarce, wild animals are far more abundant on elite settlements than on any other site-type. This suggests that occasional hunting and game consumption would have been a powerful sign of social identity. Hierarchical patterns of game consumption became defined further between the mid-ninth and mid-eleventh centuries. All site-types, except rural settlements, demonstrate a rise in wild mammal frequency with increases being especially marked for assemblages from religious houses and elite settlements (Fig. 1). Considering that hunting practices chart social change, these shifts in game representation can be seen as symptomatic of the widespread shifts that characterize late Saxon England.20 For instance, this was a period of growing gender definition and social hierarchy, with emphasis being placed increasingly on masculinity as well as aristocratic authority and military activity. Increased hunting, with its references to male identity and warfare, must be symbolic of these changes. That members of the newly landed thegnly class also used hunting as a mechanism for stamping their authority on the landscape is evidenced by the establishment of numerous private game reserves, which served to separate the lord’s hunting landscape from the domestic world of the peasants.21 Documentary evidence suggests that this privatization of wild resources was given legal status: article eighty of Canute’s law (issued between 1020 and 1030) restricted hunting within royal reserves, whilst a charter for the manor of Tidenham limited fishing rights and claimed every rare fish, such as sturgeon and porpoise, as the lord’s property.22 Zooarchaeological evidence suggests

20 P. Coss, The Lady in Medieval England 1000–1500, Stroud 1999, 13–21; A. Reynolds, Later Anglo-Saxon England: Life and Landscape, Stroud 1999; R. Fleming, ‘The New Wealth, the New Rich and the New Political Style in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, ANS 23, 2000 (2001), 1–22. 21 Liddiard, ‘Deer Parks’, 19–20. 22 Select Charters, ed. W. Stubbs, Oxford 1929, 88; Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. and trans. A.J. Robertson, Cambridge 1939, 109.

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that the reservation of swan (Cygnus sp.) for the royal and aristocratic table also had its origin in the late Saxon period. So, on the eve of 1066 restrictions were already being applied to certain wild animal resources but they were seemingly not extensive in their remit, as the lower echelons of society were clearly permitted to capture, sell and consume wild animals. At the point of the Conquest this situation appears to have changed quite dramatically (Fig. 1). Unlike the preceding centuries, which had witnessed a steady rise in wild animal frequencies across the board, the mid-eleventh to mid-twelfth centuries saw significant increases in game representation only for elite assemblages, whereas frequencies for urban and religious sites remain entirely static. Whilst wild animals do become more numerous in rural assemblages overall, division between high- and low-status sites becomes particularly pronounced in this period, suggesting marked social division. This pattern of inequality was retained, but not defined further, into the mid-twelfth to mid-fourteenth centuries, when game consumption again increased at all social levels. The century following 1066 was, therefore, the period during which the most dramatic change occurred and the resulting disparity in game representation is highly suggestive of the unequal access to wild resources that would have accompanied Forest Law. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers to how William I enacted Forest Law to protect, above all, harts and hinds – red deer (Cervus elaphus).23 The effectiveness of his ban is perhaps demonstrated by urban assemblages which show a dramatic pre- to post-Conquest decline in the representation of red deer.24 By contrast, assemblages from elite settlements show a contrary shift away from roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) and towards red deer, a move that can probably be linked to changes in hunting strategies and, in particular, hunting grounds.25 In Saxon England aristocratic hunting appears to have been centered on enclosed wooded parks, environments for which roe deer are adapted, and it is perhaps unsurprising that they were the prime targets of the pre-Conquest hunt. The Norman introduction of the ‘Forest’ concept changed perceptions of the hunting landscape away from these enclosed parks and towards the favoured habitat of British red deer: unbounded tracts of open moor, heath and agricultural land.26 The uptake of red deer hunting can thus be linked to the introduction of the Forest concept. Changes in the ratio of red to roe deer are not the only pre- to post-Conquest shifts in deer representation: fallow deer also appear for the first time after 1066. The introduction date of this species has long been the subject of debate but, through detailed analysis of the zooarchaeological evidence, it is now clear that modern populations of fallow deer descend from animals that were brought to England within the first few decades after the Conquest, most probably before the end of the eleventh century.27 As exotic and highly prized animals, fallow deer would have been jealously guarded in enclosures and the twelfth-century increase in parks directly parallels their burgeoning population. Whilst fallow deer undoubtedly arrived in England while it was under Norman

23 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. G.N. Garmonsway, London 1967, 221. 24 The red:roe deer ratio changes from 2:1 in the pre-Conquest period to 1:3 in the late eleventh and

twelfth centuries. 25 On elite sites the red:roe deer ratio changes from approximately 1:1 to 3:1. 26 T. Legge and P. Rowley-Conwy, Star Carr Revisited, London 1988, 13–16, provides an overview of the

behavioural ecology of red and roe deer. 27 N. Sykes, ‘The Introduction of Fallow Deer to Britain: A Zooarchaeological Perspective’, Environ-

mental Archaeology 9, 2004, 75–83.

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rule, the same cannot be said for rabbits. Both the historical and archaeological evidence suggests that they were not introduced before the end of the twelfth century: rabbits and, by association warrens, should not, therefore, be viewed as symbols of Normanitas.28 The status of other managed species, notably doves (Columba livia), is more difficult to ascertain from the zooarchaeological evidence. In theory it is possible to differentiate domestic dove bones from other members of the pigeon family, but in practice few researchers attempt this. As a result it cannot be stated conclusively whether or not the Normans were responsible for introducing the concept of dovecotes. Other bird species can be more closely allied with the arrival of the Normans. Peafowl (Pavo cristatus), for instance, are scarce before the mideleventh century but are found much more regularly in post-Conquest assemblages, in particular those from elite sites.29 A striking pre- to post-Conquest change in bird representation is also seen for heron (Ardea sp.), a species which is almost entirely absent from pre-Conquest assemblages but becomes increasingly well represented after the mid-eleventh century. Why heron suddenly became the choice bird of the post-Conquest population is difficult to determine but it may be linked to changes in falconry traditions. There is evidence that this hunting method was practised, albeit sporadically, from the eighth century onwards but it would seem that ducks and cranes were the species most commonly targeted. By the later medieval period heron had become the most prized of birds to be taken by the hawk and it seems that the origins of this tradition began shortly after the Conquest. Pre- to post-Conquest changes in deer hunting are also apparent. On the basis of historical evidence it has been suggested that the most common pre-Conquest hunting technique was the ‘drive’ (or bow and stable), whereby groups of deer were chased into enclosures, known variously as haga or haia, and then killed by archers.30 The bow and stable method would have been a highly efficient method of gaining large quantities of venision in a single event, although to be successful it would have required the participation of many people. Domesday Book mentions that citizens of Hereford, Shrewsbury and Berkshire were obliged legally to act as drivers, and the ability to muster manpower was probably used as a conspicuous display of royal or thegnly resources.31 Once captured and killed, the deer carcasses appear to have been loaded onto carts, or at least brought back to settlements whole, as assemblages from high-status sites contain deer bones from all parts of the body, forelimb elements being particularly well represented. Surprisingly, assemblages from multi-period sites suggest that this pattern of skeletal representation does not continue into the post-Conquest period. Where dating permits, it can be seen that deer body part patterns change dramatically before the end of the eleventh century. Far from being represented by large numbers of meat-bearing bones, elements from the upper forelimb (scapula and humerus) are scarce and the pelvis is almost entirely absent (Fig. 2). Instead, bones from the lower hind limb, which carry negligible amounts of meat, are overwhelmingly the best represented parts of the skeleton. These bizarre skeletal patterns are well known for the later medieval period but, to date, their occurrence has not been explained satisfactorily. I propose that they reflect the origins of the ‘unmaking’ 28 N. Sykes, ‘The Rabbit’, in The Extinct and Introduced Fauna of Britain, ed. T.P. O’Connor and N.J.

Sykes, in preparation. 29 K. Poole, ‘The Peacock’, in The Extinct and Introduced Fauna of Britain, ed. T.P. O’Connor and N.J.

Sykes, in preparation. 30 Gilbert, Hunting and Hunting Reserves, 54; J. Cummins, The Hound and the Hawk: the Art of Medi-

eval Hunting, London 1988, 51. 31 H.R. Loyn, Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest, London 1970, 366.

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Fig. 2. Skeletal representation pattern for post-Conquest deer. Abundance of each element is shown as a percentage of the minimum number of individuals (MNI). procedure, a ceremony associated with par force hunting, that is well documented for the later medieval period. The chasse par force was fundamentally different from the bow and stable technique. It was a wide-ranging hunt of day-long duration in which a single deer was stalked, killed and ‘unmade’ (skinned, disemboweled and butchered) in a ritualised and formulaic manner. By comparison with the drive, the par force technique was an inefficient means of obtaining venison and it must be assumed that sport and, more particularly, social display were the prime motivations for this form of hunting. The unmaking of the deer took place at the kill-spot and was the crescendo of the hunt where the hunters were able to display their skill and knowledge of the complex unmaking procedure. The earliest account of the process is provided by Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan (written c.1210) but the fullest description is given by the fifteenth-century Boke of St Albans.32 These texts suggest that, in the case of the stag, its testicles and penis were first removed and hung on a forked stick (forchée) which was used to collect together all the prized organs and titbits: the forchée was later carried at the front of the homeward procession. The animal was then skinned, first split from the chin down to the genitals and out to each leg before being flayed down 32 Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan, trans. A.T. Hatto, Harmondsworth 1960, 78–81; for the unmaking procedure as given in the Boke of St Albans see E. Brewer, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Sources and Analogues, Cambridge 1992, 86–91.

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to the spine. At this point the feet were removed from the carcass but left attached to the skin, which was now used as a convenient blanket upon which to undertake the butchery. The shoulders and haunches were removed and then the rest of the carcass de-fleshed with the meat and antlers being carried home in the skin, presumably using the feet as handles. Certain parts of the carcass did not, however, return with the lord to his abode: the pelvis was left at the kill-site as an offering to the raven, whilst the right and left shoulders were presented to the best huntsmen and the forester or parker as his fee. It must surely be the gifting of these body parts that account for the under-representation of the shoulder bones and pelvis within the assemblages from high-status sites. By the mid-twelfth century knowledge of these unmaking rituals and, in particular, the French terminology surrounding them was deemed to be a mark of nobility, a fact condemned by John of Salisbury who wrote that ‘the scholarship of the aristocracy consists in hunting jargon’.33 That the language of the hunt was French and that deer body part patterns suggestive of the unmaking appear shortly after 1066, strongly implies the Normans as importers of the chasse par force. Indeed, the timing of many of the changes that I have outlined (the increased consumption of pork, the rise in hunting, the change to hunting red deer, the appearance of fallow deer, peafowl and heron) suggest Norman influence. But do these changes represent the importation of a pre-existing Norman package? This is something that may be checked by examining the evidence from Normandy and northern France.

A Norman Package? Turning first to the issue of pork consumption. Without doubt pigs are the best-represented domestic animal on French elite sites, their bones vastly outnumbering those of cattle and sheep, and it is tempting to conclude that these dietary preferences were brought to England by the Norman elite.34 Although pig frequencies in post-Conquest England never attained the level seen in France this probably reflects the agricultural set-up of England, the economy and landscape not being conducive to intensive pig husbandry, a regime far better suited to the wooded environment of northern France and Germany. As well as providing pannage for pigs, woodland would have been the natural habitat of all manner of game animals. These wild resources appear to have been more regularly exploited in France than Anglo-Saxon England but even in France, where game was presumably more widely available, hunting never reached the level seen in post-Conquest England. From this it may be inferred that the celebrated Norman ‘love of hunting’ was not so much a Norman tradition but more a passion that could be indulged only with the occupation of England and the personal wealth that this brought. Zooarchaeological evidence also confirms J. Gilbert’s suggestion that the Forest Law introduced on this side of the Channel was more strictly applied than was the case in Normandy, since wild animal assemblages from France demonstrate less status-based inequality than those from post-Conquest England. 35 Where direct Norman influence can be seen is in the pre- to post-Conquest changes in species representation, particularly those exhibited by assemblages from high-status sites. The sudden appearance of heron and peafowl, for instance, finds 33 John of Salisbury, Policraticus 1.4, ed. C.C.J. Webb, Oxford 1909, I, 23. 34 Of the thirty-four French assemblages considered in this study, twenty (59 per cent) are pig-dominated. 35 Gilbert, Hunting and Hunting Reserves, 11.

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meaning when viewed against the French data set: both of these birds, and in particular heron, are found regularly in assemblages from elite sites in northern France.36 Peafowl, although less well represented archaeologically, are found exclusively on elite settlements. In the Bayeux Tapestry they are shown in association with William’s palace and even in the time of Charlemagne they are said to have been kept on royal estates.37 The clear pre- to post-Conquest shift in England from roe to red deer exploitation can also be linked to Norman influence since the red to roe deer ratio for seigneurial sites in northern France is almost identical to that seen in post-Conquest England.38 The significance of this change in quarry should not be underestimated as it reflects a deliberate decision on the part of the hunters and may suggest the uptake of the chasse par force, which was suited to both the unbounded forest landscape and the pursuit of red deer. Historical evidence certainly suggests this hunting style is of French origin. In the hunting scene of Gottfried von Strassburg’s story of Tristan, for instance, the king of Cornwall’s hunting party had already caught a red deer and was beginning to dress it according to local traditions – to split the carcass into four equal portions – when Tristan, the French hero, arrives. Horrified at the Cornish huntsmen’s uncouth techniques he instructs them in the techniques of his homeland, explaining the language of the hunt and the ‘correct’ French manner of unmaking the animal.39 As has been noted above, this form of hunting, with its ritualised unmaking techniques, created distinctive skeletal patterning in deer bone assemblages. If the unmaking rituals were indeed a Norman tradition, it should be abundantly clear from the zooarchaeological record. This is not the case. There is no evidence for skeletal patterning akin to that seen for post-Conquest England in eleventh- or twelfthcentury assemblages from Normandy, France or anywhere else in northern Europe. Patterns suggestive of the unmaking tradition do begin to appear in France from the fourteenth century but there is every indication they reflect the uptake of English hunting traditions. Before it is concluded that the Anglo-Normans simply ‘made up’ a suite of new rituals, I would like to consider the evidence relating to the introduction of fallow deer. Considering that the exploitation of red deer, heron and peafowl can be traced to practices in Normandy, one might anticipate that the same would be true for fallow deer. Again, this is not the case. Zooarchaeological evidence demonstrates that this deer species was absent from the rest of northern Europe until at least the late thirteenth century.40 By the end of the eleventh century, England was the only area in northern Europe where fallow deer populations were established – elsewhere they were restricted to regions of the Mediterranean, notably Turkey (their country of origin), Sicily, and possibly Greece and southern Italy. Sadly there has been little investigation into the medieval archaeology of these areas and it is difficult to be 36 S. Lepetz, P. Meniel and J.-H. Yvinec, ‘Archéozoologie des installations rurales de la fin de l’Âge du

Fer au début du Moyen Âge’, Histoire et sociétés rurales 3, 1995, 169–82. 37 L. Thorpe, The Bayeux Tapestry and the Norman Invasion, London 1973, plate 17; A. Hagen, A Second

Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food and Drink: Production and Distribution, Huckwold cum Wilton 2002, 142. 38 The red:roe deer ratio in assemblages from French elite sites is also 3:1. 39 The relevance of this text to the immediate post-Conquest situation is debatable. Not only was it written more than 140 years after 1066, but it has been shown that the historical writings and translations of the twelfth century were more a reflection of that time than of the social changes that followed the Conquest. See I. Short, ‘Patrons and Polyglots: French Literature in Twelfth-Century England’, ANS 14, 1991 (1992), 229–49; B. O’Brien ‘The Instituta Cnuti and the Translation of English Law’, ANS 25, 2002 (2003), 175–97. 40 Sykes, ‘Introduction of Fallow Deer’, 80–1.

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certain from which area fallow deer were imported into England. The Norman kingdom of Sicily might, however, be targeted for further investigation since one site, that of Brucato, has demonstrated not only the presence of fallow deer but also a fallow deer assemblage with body part patterns suggestive of the unmaking rituals.41 Whilst data from a single site need not be representative of the wider situation, the evidence from Brucato does hint that both fallow deer and the unmaking rituals may have been of Sicilian origin. The links that existed between England and Sicily in the late eleventh century may have provided the opportunity for exchange of concepts concerning hunting and the maintenance of deer.42 These findings add to the growing list of evidence which suggests that influence from Norman Sicily was as strong as that coming from Normandy itself, if not more so. In addition to fallow deer and hunting rituals, there is a suite of elements (including recipes, a free-threshing variety tetraploid wheat and perhaps the pheasant) that appear to be absent in Normandy and may have been introduced to England directly from Sicily.43

The Gens Normannorum As an ideological phenomenon evidence for ethnic identity will always be easier to determine from the historical than archaeological record. In the case of Norman England, however, there is every reason to examine the situation from an archaeological perspective. The Conquest, which saw Norman identity become enmeshed with power, created precisely the kind of climate that heightens ethnic consciousness and leads to symbolic – thus archaeologically tangible – expressions of identity. Guidance to the spheres in which the Normans may have chosen to objectify these assertions is provided by the numerous eleventh- and twelfth-century histories that they wrote or commissioned. The self-image projected by these texts is one of ethnic and moral superiority founded, above all, on the Normans’ god-given military virtues.44 Whilst at face value ethnic identity based on martial supremacy would appear to be inaccessible to zooarchaeological research, there is a well-documented association between warfare and hunting.45 We have already seen that evidence for aristocratic hunting increased dramatically in post-conquest England and it would seem that, in the absence of actual war, the Normans chose hunting as a method by which they could actively demonstrate their military prowess. At the same time hunting served as an important mechanism for the generation and legitimisation of Norman power and control. At the most basic level this was achieved simply with the introduction of Forest Law, which not only restricted wild resources to the elite (i.e. the Normans) and changed perceptions of hunting space but also challenged ideology concerning the ‘chain of being’; the relative position of animals to humans (Fig. 3). In pre-Conquest England, hunting spaces were distinctly separate from the domestic 41 C. Bossard-Beck, ‘Le mobilier ostéologique et botanique’ in Brucato: histoire et archéologie d’un

habitat médiéval en Sicilie, Rome 1984, 615–71. 42 G. Loud, ‘The Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of England, 1066–1266’, History 88, 2003,

540–67. 43 L. Moffet, ‘The Archaeobotanical Evidence for free-threshing tetraploid wheat in Britain’, in

Palaeoethnobotany and Archaeology: International Work-Group for Palaeoethnobotany, 8th Symposium, ed. S. Výtlačok, Nitra-Nové Vozokany 1989, 233–43; C.B. Hieatt, ‘Medieval Britain’, in Regional Cuisines of Medieval Europe: A Book of Essays, ed. M. Weiss Adamson, London 2002, 19–45. 44 C. Potts, ‘Atque Unum ex Diversis Gentibus Populum Effecit: Historical Tradition and the Norman Identity’, ANS 18, 1995 (1996), 139–75. 45 For examples see Kent, Farmers as Hunters.

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Pre-Conquest

Post-Conquest

Perceived wild

Chain of Being

Perceived domestic

Low status

High status

Access permitted

Restricted

All restricted High status Low status

Category 1

Category 2

Human

Animal

High-status human Low-status human (Norman) (English) Game animals Domestic animals

Fig. 3. Pre- to post-Conquest changes in perceptions of landscape and humananimal relationships. landscape and it was only within aristocratic and royal reserves that hunting was restricted; elsewhere people were largely free to exploit wild resources. Under this system all humans, regardless of social status, were classified as higher beings than animals. With the introduction of Forest Law, geographic definition of wild and domestic space became blurred as the Normans superimposed their own hunting landscape over the existing domestic one. By restricting hunting rights to the elite, the wild became associated with high social status whereas domestic equated to the lower classes. Rather than all humans having domination over nature, Forest Law placed game animals in the same macro-category as the aristocracy, a category above the peasantry who were now essentially classified together with domestic animals. Statements of authority, rank and social exclusion were strengthened by the introduction of fallow deer, an exotic animal only available to the rich and maintained in increasing numbers of parks that placed not only legal but also physical barriers on the hunting landscape. Although largely benefiting the Norman aristocracy, these post-Conquest changes to hunting did not exclude those members of the wealthy Saxon elite who retained their lands and position after 1066 – these individuals were presumably still entitled to hunt. How the Normans set out to differentiate their hunting from that of the native aristocracy was, therefore, to introduce new and complicated hunting rituals (such as the unmaking procedure) that were steeped in French terminology, thus creating a linguistic hurdle to outside involvement. We have seen that the unmaking rituals were, in all probability, of Sicilian origin but it seems highly unlikely that the meaning behind them remained the same after their adoption in England. Traditions are dynamic, frequently being invented or manipulated in order to legitimize change.46 The Normans of Sicily were held in great esteem by the Anglo-Normans who seem to have used the achievements of their Mediterranean kinsmen to bolster their own identity.47 I would argue that the Sicilian unmaking rituals were adopted as a device to reinforce the Normans’ social and political authority, and that in much the 46 S.N. Eisenstadt, ‘Some Observations on the Dynamics of Traditions’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 11, 1969, 451–75. 47 E. Jamison, ‘The Sicilian Norman Kingdom in the Mind of Anglo-Norman Contemporaries’, PBA 24, 1938, 237–85; G. Loud, ‘Kingdom of Sicily’, 545.

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same way as is depicted in Gottfried’s story of Tristan, these rituals were suggested to be more ‘correct’ than, even morally superior to, the English techniques. Hunting provided the Normans with an outlet through which they could project everything they wished to emphasize about themselves: their ‘Frenchness’, social superiority and martial supremacy. By embedding social status and ethnicity in law, landscape and language, hunting would have been a powerful statement of Norman identity and it is perhaps no wonder that the ‘love of the chase’ has come to be a character trait so frequently attributed to the Norman elite.

An Invisible Conquest? Debates concerning the Norman Conquest have generally centred on the issue of continuity versus change and, if change did occur, whether it was ephemeral or archaeologically tangible. This paper has sought to tackle the subject from a new perspective, that of zooarchaeology. Through a synthesis of animal bone data from fifth- to fourteenth-century sites on both sides of the Channel it has become clear that 1066 did not result in the wholesale imposition of a pre-packaged Norman system on post-conquest England. To this extent my findings support current perceptions of Saxon to Norman continuity. At the same time, there are too many changes to suggest that the events surrounding 1066 had no effect at all: Norman dietary preferences can be identified in assemblages from elite sites, where pork and heron were consumed more regularly than in the preceding period; new species of animals – peacock and fallow deer – were brought to the country, hinting at links with the Norman kingdom of Sicily, which also appears to have been the source of novel hunting techniques and rituals. Here we see the importation of what might be labelled a ‘Norman Package’, but other pre- to post-Conquest changes seem to have fewer roots. Exploitation of wild animals in post-conquest England, for instance, surpasses the situation seen in France, in both terms of scale and level of social inequality. These post-Conquest changes in hunting reflect, in part, the increased social division of late eleventh- and twelfth-century England. But, whilst the Conquest conferred fantastic personal wealth upon the new Norman aristocracy, it also encouraged them to re-think how they wished to be perceived. Through the adoption and modification of the Sicilian unmaking rituals the Normans regularly employed hunting as an effective mechanism to negotiate their power and ethnicity. The Norman Conquest is far from archaeologically invisible: animal bone data provide evidence for Conquest-related change, the importation of a Norman package and the Gens Normannorum. Despite this, I agree that without other kinds of historical evidence these changes would be difficult, if not impossible, to detect, let alone understand. However, there is such evidence, and by using this as a guide it has been possible to highlight areas of Norman influence that may not have been detectable through purely traditional historical investigation. In this way I hope that this study serves as an example of how history and archaeology can be used to common advantage in Anglo-Norman studies. University of Southampton

Was Thomas Bec ket Chaste?

WAS THOMAS BECKET CHASTE? UNDERSTANDING EPISODES IN THE BECKET LIVES Hanna Vollrath Who was Thomas Becket? Many learned scholars have asked this question. What were his thoughts and convictions, what made him act the way he did? Was he a staunch defender of ecclesiastical rights against the encroachments of an imperious king? Was he convinced that canon law left him with no other choice? He certainly claimed to be speaking for the whole English Church, but on the way he somehow lost his fellow bishops. Was he just a very unpleasant person? But if so, why did the king not notice that when he was chancellor? Did he undergo a dramatic change of personality after having been made archbishop? Did he dissimulate his true character while chancellor? The question of Becket’s character is an ever-present issue when scholars try to come to terms with his actions as archbishop. Much hinges on the perception of Becket as chancellor and on his transition from chancellor to archbishop. A few years ago it was argued that the Lives don’t support the view that Thomas Becket underwent a radical change on becoming archbishop. Obviously all the Lives are emphatically pro-Becket – otherwise they would not have been written – and they, it is argued, present a consistent picture of sanctity from birth to death, building their arguments on the dichotomy of outward wordliness and inner spirituality. In their view Becket always was and always remained his own pious self.1 But the biographies are a difficult type of source to read. The biographers’ memories or the information they got from others cannot but have been influenced by the fact that it was a saint and a martyr they were writing about – and saints tend to be saintly. A saint’s life follows the lines of its genre.2 Something else has to be taken into account. It has been argued that the biographers didn’t simply tell the Becket story on the basis of their own recollections and episodes told them by others, but that they wrote as participants in a network of disputing discourse.3 This means that contemporaries were not unanimous on how and what to write about Thomas Becket, how to view and judge what he had done or what rumour said he had done. Many a remark that we read as a statement of what happened may actually be an argument against a supposition the writer wished to refute. For contemporaries there were a few facts that were known about Becket – and many opinions. All authors of Becket Lives had more than their memories and hearsay to rely upon. Becket letter collections circulated, small ones at first, to which seem to have 1 2

Michael Staunton, ‘Thomas Becket’s Conversion’, ANS 21, 1998 (1999), 193–211, at 194. This even though recent scholarship has shown that historiography and hagiography share the same general outlook on the world, Felice Lifshitz, ‘Beyond Positivism and Genre: “Hagiographical” Texts as Historical Narrative’, Viator 25, 1994, 95–113. 3 See Stephanie Jansen, Wo ist Thomas Becket? Der ermordete Heilige zwischen Erinnerung und Erzählung, Husum 2002.

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been added more comprehensive ones based on Becket’s own archive.4 From these and from the Lives, we know there was a network of communication during Becket’s lifetime that spanned large parts of Latin Europe. We know what people who belonged to this network wrote to each other, although – and this is frustrating for historians – quite a number of letters do not contain the most important information the writer wanted to give, instead merely referring to the letter-bearer as the person who will make known the rest of the message by word of mouth. There seems to have been something like a standard formula often used by Becket himself: I put my words into his mouth. This was done mostly for safety reasons but the formula itself is a useful reminder of the fact that the Becket controversy was talked about. And it continued to be talked about after his death. To take just one example. In 1967 John Baldwin called attention to a learned dispute that supposedly took place in Paris. Peter the Chanter and a Master Roger (who cannot be identified with any certainty) debated the question: was Becket an upright defender of church rights or a traitor to his king who justly deserved death?5 Not even Becket’s martyrdom, so it seems, had put an end to the controversial opinions about him. It is possible, on the other hand, that the disputation did not take place at all, but was invented to serve as an exemplum used for academic purposes in the French schools. When we look at the way the knowledge of this disputation was transmitted to posterity it becomes even more apparent that it took a long time for a standardised Becket story to emerge. We know of the disputation today because somehow or other it found its way into the Dialogus Miraculorum written in the early thirteenth century by Caesarius of Heisterbach.6 Caesarius was born c.1180, possibly in Cologne, became a Cistercian in 1199 in the priory of Heisterbach (near Bonn), of which he was made prior c.1227. Because of their system of filiations and visitations the Cistercians got around a lot and were thus in an excellent position to hear and spead news. Like many contemporaries all over Europe, the Cistercians took sides in the Becket controversy; they were staunchly pro-Becket.7 It could be that Caesarius got his story of the disputation by way of his order’s information network. It seems just as likely, however, that he got it somewhere else, in Cologne. This is where he studied until 1198, first at the foundation of St Andrew, where he received his elementary training, and afterwards in the then famous Cathedral school of canon law. It has been argued that the Englishman named Gerard who presided over that school from 1166 to 1168 and around 1180 was none other than the renowned canonist Gerard Pucelle, close friend and correspondent of Becket’s friend and biographer, John of Salisbury.8 Is it possible that Becket’s friends fabricated the report of the Paris disputation in order to use an authority like Peter the Chanter to

4

Anne Duggan, Thomas Becket: A Textual History of His Letters, Oxford 1980; for the existence of smaller collections see the review of Professor Duggan’s work by Timothy Reuter, Deutsches Archiv 39, 1983, 238–9. See now the recent analysis of the manuscripts containing letter collections in Anne Duggan‘s masterly edition, The Correspondence of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury 1162–1170, Oxford 2000. 5 John Baldwin, ‘A Debate at Paris over Thomas Becket between Master Roger and Peter the Chanter’, Studia Gratiana 11, 1967, 119–32. 6 Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus Miraculorum, ed. Joseph Strange, Cologne 1851, vol. II, lib. III, cap. 69, 139. 7 Bennet D. Hill, ‘Archbishop Thomas Becket and the Cisterican Order’, Analecta Cisterciensia 27, 1971, 64–80. 8 Stephan Kuttner and Elisabeth E. Rathborne, ‘Anglo-Norman Canonists of the Twefth Century: An Introductory Study’, Traditio 7, 1949/50, 279–358; Johannes Fried, ‘Gerard Pucelle in Köln’, Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonistische Abteilung, 68, 1982, 125–35.

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refute allegations against the archbishop? Whether real or invented the disputation stands witness to the fact that long after Becket’s death his stance was thought interesting enough to keep people talking about it. Were those such as Caesarius of Heisterbach who, for one reason or another, chose to put into writing the news, rumour and gossip they had heard, always aware of the routes by which this information reached them? Those who wrote about Becket had to form a consistent story out of the bits and pieces that happened to reach them. And for all the exceptional quality and quantity of the source material now extant on Becket, we possess only a fraction of what at least some contemporaries would have known and talked about. Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence, an itinerant cleric and poet from the Ile-deFrance who wrote a Life in French verse around 1174, claims to have written a now lost earlier poem on the basis of hearsay. When he later came to Canterbury and ‘learned the truth’, he was unable to correct the faulty version because it had already been stolen and disseminated by copyists.9 How could those who heard or read his first poem know that its author now disclaimed it as based on mistaken information? When the struggle between the king and Becket grew fiercer – and that was particularly the case in the time of Becket’s exile from 1164 until 1170 – there are instances that show that both sides tried to influence peoples’ opinions by deliberately spreading wrong information.10 The controversy was accompagnied by a war of propaganda. The Becket biographers must have talked to people, must have listened. Were they able to distinguish rumour from reliable information? Were they always able to sort out the correct from the false, especially when it came to the tricky matter of intentions? Is it not more likely that they were above all concerned to put together stories that made sense to them, stories that carried meaning? As pilgrims began to flock to Canterbury after the murder, the ‘Becket story’ must have been told and retold many, many times, growing into a kind of standardised version. But was that the kind of story – presumably told in the vernacular – that the biographers cared to write down? William of Canterbury shows that he was well aware of these difficulties, just as everybody else must have been. He includes a story about a bishop of Perigueux who had heard of a Becket miracle in his diocese. A doctor suffering from a fatal disease was – according to common rumour (vulgo . . . relata sunt) – miraculously healed by the intervention of Saint Thomas. But the bishop, so William reports, took care not to be seduced by common gossip (ne vulgari multiloquio seduceretur) and went to ask the doctor himself. He believed what this man told him ‘and it is from his mouth that we [i.e. William], too, heard what we say’.11 Medieval historians were fully aware of the distortions of gossip, and went to some trouble to evoke reliability, hence their common practice of naming witnesses for the events they related, even though they cannot always have been true. Inevitably there were parts of Becket’s life for which it was particularly hard to get reliable information, especially the earlier parts, less central to the ‘Becket story’. What type of information could we expect to circulate about the youth of a man of humble origin for whom nobody could have predicted a memorable ecclesiastical

9

Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence, La vie de Saint Thomas Becket, ed. Emmanuel Walberg, Paris 1964 (repr.), 5. 10 I have tried to show that the accusation against Henry II of having made his legates swear at the diet of Würzburg in 1164 that he would support Barbarossa’s anti-pope against Alexander III was unjustified and based on a deliberately false report in an anonymous letter: ‘Lüge oder Fäschung? Die Überlieferung von Barbarossas Hoftag zu Würzburg im Jahr 1165 und der Becket-Streit’, in Stauferreich im Wandel, ed. S. Weinfurter, Stuttgart 2002, 172–88. 11 William of Canterbury, ‘Miracula sancti Thomae Cantuariensis’, lib. III, cap. 4, MTB i, 261–2.

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career, let alone sainthood? Who would have been able to remember what the chancellor had done or not done? Becket’s youth and chancellorship only became meaningful and memorable as a result of his martyrdom. What chances did the biographers have if, after his murder, they tried to get information about events that lay many years back? Not surprisingly, the majority of the Lives have very little to say on Becket the chancellor, even though he had been chancellor for about seven years (1155–62), too long a time to simply be passed over. The best-known depiction of Becket the chancellor is that by William fitz Stephen. His detailed account of and open delight in the chancellor’s extravagant lifestyle make us wonder what the less wordly biographers, particularly those with a monastic background, would make of the saint’s early life. I shall start with a somewhat detailed analysis of the accounts given by John of Salisbury and William of Canterbury. Their Lives have so much in common that there is no reason to doubt that one had the work of the other before him when he wrote, although it has been questioned whether John used William’s Life or whether it was the other way round.12 John of Salisbury was in Becket’s company at the time of the murder. He composed a vivid report of what had happened in a letter to his friend Bishop John of Poitiers.13 In the prologue to his Vita et Passio S. Thomae Martyris he makes it clear that it is the martyr-bishop he intends to praise; he refers potential listeners or readers looking for information on the earlier years to the writings of others and to Becket’s letters, which must already have been circulating when he wrote this passage. Accordingly he devotes no more than three pages to the first forty-two years of Becket’s life, from his childhood up to his election as archbishop in 1162. He gives details, just summary evaluations of three stages in Becket’s earlier life: the period of secular employment immediately after finishing his schooling in the artes liberales; his days in the household of Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury; and finally his time as chancellor. John mentions very little of what Thomas actually did during these years. He mentions his amiable disposition and his remarkable intellectual faculties, although he admits to certain shortcomings in the level of Becket’s erudition. He praises his piety, his charity and his generally good and laudable intentions. John quotes Thomas as having said that it was ‘his mother who had taught him the fear of God and to turn to the blessed Virgin as a guide on all his ways and as the patron of his life’.14 Although this may very well have been true, the reference to the mother as the one responsible for the religious instruction of her children is so common in twelfth-century writing that it is almost a stereotype. Yet, for all Becket’s exceptional qualities, John does have something critical to say of this first stage, the time when, according to William fitz Stephen, he learned ‘worldly prudence’ while training as an office clerk of the sheriffs of London.15 In this period Becket, John says:

12 That John copied William has been argued by Emmanuel Walberg, La tradition hagiographique de

Saint Thomas Becket, Geneva 1929, 130, who assumes a date of composition of John’s Life of Thomas Becket between 1174 and 1176; Frank Barlow, Thomas Becket, London 1986, 5, believes John of Salisbury to have been the very first to have written a Life very shortly after the murder. Michael Staunton, The Lives of Thomas Becket, Manchester 2001, 7–8, alludes to the differences, but does not venture an opinion. 13 The Letters of John of Salisbury, ed. W.J. Millor, S.J. and C.N. L. Brooke, OMT, 2 vols, Oxford 1979, ii, no. 305, pp. 724–38. 14 John of Salisbury, ‘Vita S. Thomae’, MTB ii, 302–3. 15 William fitz Stephen, ‘Vita S. Thomae Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi et Martyris’, MTB iii, 14. According to Edward Grim, for three years Thomas lived with and worked for an affluent relative, Osbert ‘Huit-denier’, a renowned London citizen. MTB ii, 361.

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indulged in the gay pursuits of youth and was immoderately eager for popular attention; what we read of the blessed Brictius of Tours can undoubtedly be said of him, namely that he was proud and vain (superbus et vanus) and silly enough to show the face and utter the words of lovers. But he was nevertheless praiseworthy and exemplary in his chastity.16 What John implies here is that there were two sides to Thomas Becket: the one stood for worldly pleasures, the other – his chastity – for distancing himself from the enticements of the world. On Thomas entering the household of Archbishop Theobald, John presents us with a once silly young man miraculously transformed into the most serious defender of ecclesiastical rights who quickly advanced to become a favourite in the archbishop’s inner circle. Small wonder that it was Thomas whom the archbishop recommended as chancellor to the young King Henry II. In this new position, too, John’s Becket behaved wonderfully prudently, never forgetting his duty as a cleric, ‘having to fight every day for his King’s well-being and honour as well as for the needs of Church and People either against the King or against the King’s enemies’.17 For all this he met with so much malice and evil persecution from the ‘beasts of the court’, that he confided to his friends his desire to die instead of continuing in this situation. It is possible that John here wants his readers to understand that it was to him that Becket confided his real feelings since he too was a member of Theobald’s household at this time, although he seems to have been abroad most of the time as his master’s envoy. The image that John of Salisbury gives of Becket’s earlier years is that of an exceptionally talented young man who for a short time indulged in juvenile follies at an age when this is to be expected, but with no lasting harm done, and who upon reaching maturity never failed in his dedication towards Church, King, and Country. The image William of Canterbury evokes in his Life of Becket is somewhat different, despite sharing many elements with John’s Life. Like John of Salisbury, William belonged to Becket’s entourage at the time of the murder; he had been ordained deacon by him shortly after his return from exile. After the archbishop’s death he remained in close touch with the martyr. He became a guardian of his tomb and miracle-working and was responsible for an early collection of miracles. But he had not been in England during the years of Becket’s early career; indeed he had not become a monk of Christ Church Canterbury until 1164, joining the community at Canterbury only after Becket had left to seek asylum in France. Unlike John of Salisbury, he has next to nothing to say about Thomas’s earliest years. No pious mother teaching her son, no pride and vanity alleviated by chastity as in the story of the blessed Brictius! On the other hand, compared with John of Salisbury he has far more to say about Chancellor Becket. He devotes a whole chapter (almost two pages in the Rolls Series edition) to the chancellorship. He describes the chancellor’s worldly predilections, the way he adjusted to the king’s ways and tastes, the way he outdid other nobles in the splendour of his household, his enjoyment of courtly refinement, large followings, glory and public admiration. Like John, and in partly identical terms, he too has Thomas fighting the ‘beasts of the court’ and invokes his dedication to the needs of the Church even against the king ‘as far as royal severity and honour permitted’.18 None the less, his overall image of Becket the chancellor is 16 MTB ii, 303. 17 Ibid., 305. 18 ‘Vita S. Thomae auctore Willelmo Cantuariensi’, MTB i, 5.

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quite different from the one given by John of Salisbury. John’s Chancellor Becket is a sober man worn out by his incessant endeavour to hold a balance between his duties to Church and King, remaining so much a stranger to the courtly frivolities around him that he wished to die. In contrast William’s chancellor heartily enjoys the amenities, the luxury, and the public admiration his elevated station offers him. But it is at this point in his account that William too mentions Becket’s chastity and it is precisely here that he too refers to Brictius: ‘Finally, although this rarely happens with those living in such affluent circumstances, he was admirable and exemplary in the chastity of his body, so that according to his vanity and chastity he seemed to follow Brictius who ridiculed Saint Martin.’19 John of Salisbury and William of Canterbury clearly refer to the same Brictius, and in almost – though not completely – identical words. William seems to know more about this Brictius than John does, because only William calls him derisor beati Martini, a man who derided Saint Martin. This might suggest that John was following William here, were it not for the fact that we happen to know more about Brictius. Gregory of Tours has a lengthy chapter on him in his Ten Books of History. He introduces Brictius as the man who succeeded Martin as bishop of Tours after the latter’s death in 397. He inserts an anecdote in which Brictius, while still a young man, mocks the holy man behind his back, calling him wind-bag and imbecile. Martin miraculously knows about Brictius’s jibes but nevertheless tells him that he will be his successor, and that he would suffer much ill-treatment during his episcopate. All of the saint’s predictions come true, of course. Gregory relates that after his election as bishop, Brictius was assiduous in his prayers. ‘For, although he was proud and vain, he was known as one who remained chaste in his body.’20 His reputation was greatly damaged, however, when a woman in his service, who had made a vow of chastity, gave birth to a son. Rumour accused the bishop of being the child’s father. When Brictius was able to get the one-month-old infant to make a public proclamation of his innocence, the miracle was denounced as witchcraft by the townspeople of Tours. Brictius was driven out, went to Rome, told the Pope about his calamities and was eventually restored to his see for the last seven years of his life. A comparison between the three Latin passages suggests that William of Canterbury knew more about Brictius than John of Salisbury, not just because he calls Brictius derisor beati Martini.21 He also writes castitas twice which looks like a mistake, because superbia (superbus) – as in Gregory and John – makes much more obvious sense in this context. It is just possible, on the other hand, that he did not make a mistake, but deliberately eliminated pride (superbia) because in Christian tradition it was one of the principal vices. Indeed in Pope Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Job it was the basic sin whence all other sins take their origin. Gregory’s Moralia were read widely, especially in monastic circles. They were one of the all-time favourites of Christian ethics, particularly in England, which claimed a special relationship with Gregory, remembered as the pope who brought Christianity

19 ‘Postremo, quod rarius accidere solet in affluentia rerum, mirandus et imitandus erat corporis castitate,

et secundum vanitatem et castitatem derisorem beati Martini Britium videretur exhibere’, ibid., 5–6. 20 Gregory of Tours, Historiarum Libri decem, lib. 2, chap. 1, ed. R. Buchner, Berlin 1955; in English

translation as The History of the Franks, trans. L. Thorpe, Harmondsworth 1974, 104–6. 21 Gregory of Tours: ‘Quia quamquam esset superbus et vanus, castus tamen habebatur in corpore.’ John

of Salisbury: ‘. . . quod de beato Brictio Turonensi legitur . . . quod etsi superbus esset et vanus . . . admirandus tamen et imitandus in corporis castitate’. William of Canterbury: ‘. . . mirandus et imitandus erat corporis castitate, et secundum vanitatem et castitatem derisorem beati Martini Britium videretur exhibere’.

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to the country. In the intellectual revival known as the ‘Twelfth Century Renaissance’ moral questions received a great amount of attention. John of Salisbury, who had been a student of Abelard’s in Paris, certainly knew what he was doing when attributing superbia to Becket, and so too William of Canterbury if he omitted superbia deliberately. By using the Brictius episode as a foil they both implicitly accepted that it was relevant to Becket’s character. There was no attempt to deny the negative aspect of this: yes, Becket was (proud and) vain, but he preserved his chastity, and this, they tacitly imply, made up for that. At the same time they tried to modify the severity of the judgment: John by attributing it, as Gregory had, to juvenile folly, and William by (perhaps) deliberately replacing superbia by castitas, a change which considerably tones down the inherent reproach. If, as seems likely, William did not copy John, so John cannot have copied William because it is next to impossible that he would have replaced William’s second castitas with exactly the same word that Gregory of Tours had used here. Moreover it is unlikely that either of them read Gregory of Tours in order to find an adequate comparison with Thomas Becket. It is far more likely that Brictius figured as a well-known example of a man who did nasty things to a saint, was proud and vain, but nevertheless preserved the chastity of his body, subsequently became a good bishop, and then lost his bishopric because of vile accusations made against him, only recovering it after he had gone complaining to the pope. Brictius did indeed find his way into a collection of episodes originally taken from the Life of St Martin by Sulpicius Severus. These formed the basis of a collection known as the ‘Martinellus’, a little book on St Martin as compared to the big book, the Vita by Sulpicius. The first manuscripts of the Martinellus known today date from the fifth century. By the eighth century episodes about other saints taken from Gregory of Tours’ Ten Books of Histories had been added to it and this is how Brictius found his way into the ‘enlarged Martinellus’,22 which was also widely diffused. It is far more likely that John of Salisbury and William of Canterbury had come to know the Brictius story through an exemplar of the enlarged Martinellus than through Gregory of Tours himself. As Saint Brice’s day (13 November) was used in England for dating events both before and after the Conquest there may well have been some knowledge of his life in England, although it is also possible – if far less likely, I believe – that both John of Salisbury and William of Canterbury learned about Brictius on the continent. Be that as it may, their use of Brictius shows how differently John and William composed their works. John quoted that part of a sentence from the Brictius story that expressed precisely what he wanted to say, whereas William seems to have worked more sloppily by including the mocking of saint Martin, which is clearly redundant here since it offers no parallel with Thomas Becket.23 Yet for all the differences between them it is quite evident that both John and William considered chastity to be of very great importance. 22 Pascale Bourgain and Martin Heinzelmann, ‘L’oeuvre de Grégoire de Tours: la diffusion des

manuscrits’, in Grégoire de Tours et l’espace gaulois: actes du congrès international, Tours 3–5 novembre 1994, textes réunies par Nancy Gauthier et Henri Galinié, 13e supplément à la Revue Archéologique du centre de la France’, Tours 1997, 273–317. I am most grateful to Martin Heinzelmann for having pointed this paper out to me. 23 E. Walberg, La tradition hagiographique, 119–31, particularly 126 n. 1, lists this passage as one of those which indicate for him that John of Salisbury used William’s Life when writing his own, which he therefore considers largely derivative. I hope to have shown that a closer reading does not substantiate this, but neither does it prove that William followed John. The relationship between the two Lives and the question of John’s dependence or independence merits closer investigation. It certainly seems to me that the Life written by John of Salisbury has been underestimated. His main purpose was to write a Passio with a

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There is another difference between them, namely the period of Becket’s life that is in question. John of Salisbury inserts the Brictius episode into the account of Becket’s youth and very early manhood and explains his ‘pride and vanity’ as juvenile folly. What John implies, Herbert of Bosham, who also links the Brictius quotation to Becket’s youth, expresses directly: ‘His juvenile excesses, which left the integrity and the chastity of his body untouched, were due more to nature than to sin and more to his age than to fault, as wise men and those who are experts of this age apparently declare.’24 William, on the other hand, mentions Becket’s chastity in the context of his chancellorship. As is usual in medieval historiography and even more so in hagiography, he does not give a date. But as Becket became chancellor at approximately the age of thirty-five, it was much less easy to attribute his ‘pride and vanity’ and his extravagant way of life to juvenile folly. Accordingly it was even more urgent to highlight the fact that the courtly appearance and the worldly lifestyle represented only one side of the chancellor, and that the other side was his untainted piety and spirituality. Moreover Becket the chancellor had already been ordained a deacon and was therefore under the obligation of chastity according to canon law. William of Canterbury highlights his chastity in the following episode. The king was said to be the lover of a beautiful woman who lived in Stafford. When the chancellor happened to visit the town, the woman sent him so many presents that the chancellor’s host, a Stafford citizen, suspected her of wanting to entice him into her embrace. At nightfall he took a lamp and, peeping through the key-hole of Thomas’s room, he saw the bed untouched and empty. For a moment he thought he had trapped the chancellor. But on looking more closely he saw Thomas lying asleep on the floor, exhausted from vigils of prayer. ‘And so it happened that he, who was suspected of wantonness, turned out to be a pious ascetic; and we, who easily judge a man without knowing his inner self, are being shown our presumptiousness by the Lord God.’25 Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence also includes this touching little story in his vernacular verse. As mentioned above (p. 200), Guernes visited Canterbury about four years after the murder. He relied on, in addition to hearsay, the memories and talk of other people, such as Becket’s sister Mary, and on two of the Lives, those composed by Edward Grim and William of Canterbury. As it is William and not Edward who relates the Stafford episode, it seems that Guernes got it from him. The fact that he supplements William’s written account with further details, giving the names of the lady and of Becket’s host at Stafford, suggests that he may well have talked with William himself. In essence it remains the story as William told it. Both Edward Grim and William fitz Stephen have a good deal to say about Becket’s chancellorship. Although their focus is somewhat different, they do not contradict each other. Edward Grim builds his story around the general statement that ‘the more someone is bound to earthly affairs, the more difficult it is for him to aspire to the divine; the more prudence he shows in things human, the more he is removed from true Wisdom, for carnal wisdom is the enemy of God, and prudence is death’.26 He mentions Thomas’s worldly ways and aspirations while serving Osbert Huit-deniers, but above all it is the moral ambiguity of the chancellor’s activities that

Vita to precede it – which explains the shortness of the Vita. But for all its brevity it is a very well argued piece of prose. 24 ‘Vita Sancti Thomae Archiepiscopi et Martyris auctore Herberto de Boseham’, lib. II, 6, MTB iii, 168. 25 ‘Et factum est ut religiosus inveniretur qui luxuriosus putabatur; forsan ostendente Dominus temeritatem nostram, qui facile iudicamus hominem, nescientes quid sit in homine’, MTB iii, 6. 26 ‘Vita S. Thomae auctore Edwardo Grim’, MTB ii, 364.

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Grim underscores. ‘Who can tell’, he asks, ‘how much death, how much persecution he inflicted’, and he goes on to say that Thomas attacked and destroyed villages and towns, that he burnt houses and other possessions without compunction and that he was relentless in fighting his king’s enemies. ‘But in all this (although others may think differently about it), his body was chaste and his heart was humble, but among the humble only, for among the mighty ones he appeared mightier and more sublime than they did.’27 Of all Becket’s biographers, William fitz Stephen is the one who takes the greatest delight in the chancellor’s worldly splendour, and he is the only one to depict him as at the same time deeply religious. He too mentions Becket’s chastity and names Robert of Merton (Becket’s confessor and chaplain) as a witness for it.28 But he finds nothing to excuse or reprimand in the chancellor’s grand lifestyle. Rather he seems to accept it as grandeur that quite naturally becomes a man in a grand position, and this means that he does not need chastity in order to assure his readers of Becket’s ‘purity’. To all appearances he would not have subscribed to Edward Grim’s view of secular prudence, that ‘the more prudence one shows in human affairs, the more one is removed from true Wisdom’. William fitz Stephen describes the chancellor’s way of acting in the king’s interest as if he thought that prudence is a good thing in a king’s most important counsellor. He describes Becket, of whom he says that he possessed prudence, as a chancellor who did many sensible things for his king and country. For him Chancellor Becket was a great lord, and when he lived, dressed, and travelled like a great lord it was only what people expected of him – certainly nothing to find excuses for. Because of his many merits, his virtue and his magnificence ‘the chancellor was highly appreciated by everybody, by the King, the clergy, the noble knights, and the people’.29 For William fitz Stephen, Becket’s behaviour as a lord was entirely compatible with his piety. This is where Becket’s chastity comes in, not as a single isolated merit to alleviate pride and vanity, but as one asset among others such as alms-giving, flagellations, and acts of penance, all of them characteristic of a deeply religious person. For William fitz Stephen, all were valuable in themselves and they combined to complete the personal portrait of a man who exerted a beneficial influence on Henry II, inducing him to show favour to churches and monasteries. The Lives known as Anonymous I and II have very little to say on Becket’s early years except that Anonymous I, in the Life written c.1176, makes its own contribution to the question of Becket’s chastity with an anecdote that seems to be unique to this Life. The author (who claims to have served the archbishop in exile and to have been ordained priest by him) writes that whenever the chancellor’s doctors recommended that he take up an active sex life for the benefit of his health, he replied that such medicine would not suit him, as it would only cause harm to both his body and his soul.30 Herbert of Bosham was the last of Becket’s companions and personal witnesses to write a Life. He wrote as late as 1184–86 and clearly used earlier Lives to supplement his own memory. He was an intellectual and liked to show it by garnishing his account with philosophical reflexions. Herbert starts his account of Becket’s youth

27 ‘Sed inter his omnibus (licet aliter aliqui aestimaverint) corpore castus, corde humilis, sed inter

humiles, nam inter potentes potentior ipse ac sublimior apparebat’, ibid. 365. 28 ‘Vita S. Thomae Auctore Willelmo Filio Stephani’, MTB iii, 21. 29 MTB iii, 24. 30 The author explains that he had been told this by informants who had been in Becket’s service for

twenty years and more, MTB iv, 14. Virtually identical stories were told of other holy men and their doctors.

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by distinguishing two kinds of grace, civil (i.e. secular) grace and spiritual grace. Both are God-given, but secular grace, so Herbert says, is devoid of goodness and therefore less acceptable to God. In his youth Thomas is said to have been without goodness, as he was attracted by the frivolities of the court, was vain, ambitious and loved fashionable dress. ‘But one thing is most certain, that, notwithstanding the fervor of youth and his love for the luxuries of the world, he was a fervent lover of chastity; in this he was similar to a certain saint, of whom one reads that although he was proud and vain, he none the less preserved his body’s chastity.’31 This is clearly Brictius again, even if Herbert does not name him directly. A little later Herbert resumes the theme when he explains how Archbishop Theobald came to take Thomas into his household, ordained him priest and afterwards procured the chancellorship for him. For this reason, so Herbert explains, Thomas laid aside the priesthood for a while and put on the chancellorship instead. Then follows a learned little tract on dissimulation spiced with biblical references on how certain situations can force a person to keep secret what he felt he had to do, ‘so that he seemed to do what he did not do and seemed not do what he did. Thus it often happened that out of love he acted against love, against the law for the sake of the law and against piety out of piety . . .’ All in all Herbert has nothing but praise for the chancellor’s achievements. ‘He was more magnificent than anybody else. Everything about him was great, everything was magnificent.’32 When we compare not single traits but the images created by the different biographers it appears that they differ greatly from one another. Although there are several elements that recur in all the Lives – Becket’s love of worldly spendour, his elegance, his vanity, his devoted service to the king, his chastity – the different ways in which the different authors put them into a coherent order, also sometimes adding various other elements, show that each of them has set out to create a meaningful image of the younger Becket in a way that makes sense to him. William fitz Stephen and Herbert of Bosham do not seem to see anything inappropriate in Becket’s behaviour as a young London clerk in secular service and as the king’s chancellor. William fitz Stephen seems most at ease with Becket’s grandeur and worldly splendour. He sees him combine quite naturally service to the king and personal piety. With him the two corroborate each other. He does not say that Becket gave Caesar what is Caesar’s and God what is God’s in so many words but this biblical phrase epitomises the story he has to tell. His Becket is chaste because he is a pious cleric who lives according to the rules of canon law. He serves both God and his king. Neither are service to the king and piety incompatible for Herbert of Bosham, nor, to a lesser degree, for John of Salisbury. When Herbert makes Becket conceal his pious inner self, it is because he sees him surrounded by the ‘beasts of the court’. William fitz Stephen, John of Salisbury and Herbert of Bosham all more or less appreciate Becket’s worldly prudence; they see Chancellor Becket using his elevated position for the benefit of the Church and her needs, and they clearly distinguish his beneficial actions from his less pleasant traits – pride, vanity, vainglory. William of Canterbury, Guernes de Pont Sainte Maxence and Edward Grim take an altogether different approach. They all reduce their accounts of Becket’s early years to moral evaluations. Becket, in their view, was a man of the world. Although William of Canterbury mentions Chancellor Becket’s commitment to the needs of

31 ‘Vita S. Thomae auctore Herberto de Boseham’, MTB iii, 166: ‘. . . in hoc jam uni sanctorum similis, de

quo legitur quod, etsi superbus et vanus, castus tamen habebatur in corpore’. 32 Ibid., 173, 176.

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the Church, this passing remark is thoroughly overshadowed by his description of Becket’s pride, vainglory and extravagant display of riches. It seems clear to me that there were quite a few people who had trouble coming to terms with Becket’s earlier years (and possibly not only with those; note that no biographer states explicitly that Becket dropped the problematic traits when he became archbishop). When the Lives were written most of the people who had witnessed Becket’s ‘pride and vainglory’ must still have been alive. Moreover Becket’s chastity even seems to have been a matter of public debate, because when mentioning that Becket’s ‘body was chaste and his heart was humble’, Edward Grim added ‘although others may think differently about it’.33 In the eyes of his biographers, Becket’s demeanour before he became archbishop at the age of about forty-two needed explanation and justification. For all of them Becket’s chastity was a key-word, the means by which they communicated a particular message, namely that Becket was indeed worldly for the world, but that for all his pride and vanity he had remained pure at heart and had never endangered his soul. In view of all this it is hardly surprising that none of the biographers fails to mention Becket’s chastity in a more or less elaborate way. They not only mention it, but some devote small episodes to it: the Staffordshire ‘affair’, the doctors’ recommendation that the chancellor practise a vigorous sex life, the Brictius story. The insistence of the biographers on Becket’s chastity is clearly more than just a description of a physical status (of which nobody could have been certain), but a statement which contained a particular meaning, a message. In a more general way the notion of chastity as a moral value is based on the notion of the dichotomy of body and soul. The body, the flesh, is the part in human beings that belongs to the sphere of degeneracy and putrefaction, as against the soul, which is eternal and pure. The moral hierarchy of Christian ethics accords the highest place to virgins, both male and female. To people in the twelfth century chastity carried a more specific meaning, one which had gained momentum in the second half of the eleventh century, the time we call the era of church reform or – less appropriately – of the investiture controversy. Reform started as a movement against the often scandalously deep involvement of churchmen in wordly affairs. For the influential monks who surrounded reforming popes the most obvious signs of wordliness were money and sex, so they saw church reform epitomised in the fight against simony (money) and nicolaitism (sex), as encapsulated in two of the three monastic vows. But even reform-minded clerics were far from going along with that, and in consequence there was a tremendous amount of opposition from priests all over Europe against the demand for chastity. Most priests were married, so it seems, and learned tracts written in defence of clerical marriage insisted that a distinction be made between marriage and licentiousness. None the less the policy that had finally been adopted by the Church was that chastity stood for the true servant of God, one who did not endanger his pure soul by ‘fornication’. What the biographers say when they unanimously praise Chancellor Becket’s chastity is that, whatever worldly ways he seemed to have adopted, he had in fact always remained true to his clerical vocation. Was the belief in Becket’s chastity an accurate belief? This nobody can know for sure. We can at least say that Henry II would probably not have presented a man as his candidate for Canterbury who had no religious qualifications whatever to recommend him; such a man certainly would not have been acceptable to the other bishops.

33 See above, n. 27.

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It is also evident, however, that the monks of Canterbury who initiated the ‘Canterbury tradition’ lacked the conceptual categories needed to understand the life and career of Becket the courtier. I believe that the emphasis on Becket’s chastity tells us more about the trouble the biographers had in coming to terms with Becket the courtier than it does about what Becket did or did not do. It is possible that William fitz Stephen presented an accurate image of the chancellor as the paragon of elegance and courtliness who personally remained a pious man. Or perhaps John of Salisbury was closer to the truth in giving Becket the image of a man weary of the burden put upon his shoulders, of an outsider in a society in which he did not belong. There is no way for us to know, no possibility of looking behind the constructs contemporaries created in their endeavours to write something that made sense both to themselves and to others. Little anecdotes came in handy as a way of impressing their most important points in favour of Chancellor Thomas upon the memories of their listeners. Who first told them, who picked them up and made them known to an avid public? Were they outright propaganda? Whatever they were, they did not put an end to the gossip. Chancellor Becket remained an enigma even to his devout followers. Otherwise Edward Grim would not have written that Becket ‘kept his body chaste – although some think differently about that (licet aliter aliqui aestimaverint)’.34 Ruhr-Universität Bochum

34 I am very grateful to John Gillingham for his help with the English text of this article.