The Haskins Society Journal - Studies in Medieval History Vol 3: Volume 3

THE HASKINS SOCIETY JOURNAL STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL HISTORY

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THE HASKINS SOCIETY JOURNAL STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL HISTORY EDITED BY ROBERT B. PATTERSON

VOLUMES 1991

THE HAMBLEDON PRESS LONDON AND RIO GRANDE

Published by The Hambledon Press, 1992 102 Gloucester Avenue, London NW1 8HX (U.K.) P.O. Box 162, Rio Grande, Ohio 45674 (U.S.A.)

ISBN 1 85285 061 2

© The Contributors 1992

A description of this title is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

Printed on acid-free paper and bound in Great Britain by Cambridge University Press

The Raskins Society Officers and Directors

Officers: President: Eleanor Searle, California Institute of Technology Vice-President: Ralph V. Turner, Florida State University Conference Director: Sally N. Vaughn, University of Houston Executive Secretary: Victoria Chandler, Georgia College Treasurer: Leah Shopkow, Indiana University Newsletter Editor: David Spear, Furman University Journal Editor: Robert B. Patterson, University of South Carolina

Directors: Richard H. Helmholz, University of Chicago Derek Baker, University of North Texas Robert B. Patterson, University of South Carolina C. Warren Hollister, University of California, Santa Barbara

The Haskins Society Journal is produced with financial support and sponsorship of the Department of History, University of South Carolina. Major funding for the production and publication is provided by the University of South Carolina.

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Contents

Editor's Introduction Abbreviations 1

Feud in Medieval England Paul R. Hyams

2

King Alfred's Peace-Making Strategies with the Vikings Richard Abels

3

4

5

6

7

8

From Bede to Orderic Vitalis: Changing Perspectives on the Role of Women in the Anglo-Saxon and AngloNorman Churches Jean A. Truax

ix xi 1

23

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The Role of Kingship in Tenth-Century Normandy: Hagiography of Dudo of Saint Quentin Victoria B. Jordan

53

The Combat Sculptures at Fulk Nerra's 'Battle Abbey' (c. 1005-1012) Bernard S. Bachrach

63

A Reform of Investiture before the Investiture Struggle in Anjou, Normandy, and England Olivier Guillot

81

The Angevin Civil War and the Norman Conquest of 1066 W. Scott Jessee

101

Women's Estates in Later Anglo-Saxon England: The Politics of Possession Marc A. Meyer

111

9 10

11

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The Boethian Anselm Suzanne J. Nelis

131

The Role of Law in the Succession to Normandy and England, 1087 Emily Zack Tabuteau

141

Bristol: An Angevin Baronial Capital under Royal Siege Robert B. Patterson

171

King John in his Context: A Comparison with his Contemporaries Ralph V. Turner

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Editor's Introduction

Most of the following papers were read at the Society's 1990 International Conference, sponsored by the University of Houston. Those by Profs. Hyams, Guillot, and Tabuteau were the Conference's featured plenary addresses. Prof. Guillot is to be thanked for agreeing to deliver his paper in English so as to make its printed version conform to the uniform language format of the Journal. Two papers derive from Society-sponsored sessions at other annual conferences in 1990: the Editor's and Mrs. Jean Truax's, at those, respectively, of the Medieval Academy of America and the American Historical Association. A momentous occasion during the 1990 Conference was the transfer of the Society's presidency from Prof. C. Warren Hollister to Prof. Eleanor Searle. It was a time for retrospection. Warren Hollister was the first to hold this office, and the accomplishments of his presidency transformed a dream shared by a few into a vigorous, world-wide scholarly society. To be sure, some of the dramatic advances of his term were made possible because of the generosity of notable sponsors such as the University of Houston, Albion, Furman University, and the University of South Carolina (ante, 1 [1989], ix-x); but Warren's own personal contributions to this development were many and far reaching. Even the productive initiatives of his colleagues in the Society were to some extent the results of his ability to inspire others and to engage their energies. Publication of this volume also is an appropriate moment to reflect on the growth of the Journal. This is the last issue in the Society's first printing contract, and its production brings to a close the Journal's five-year development. At this writing, the Journal is distributed to members and institutions in most states of the U.S. and to at least nine other countries or territories. Its list of contributing authors reflects the international composition of the Society's members. The University of South Carolina and my department have underwritten the entire cost of the Journal's development and printing as well as my editorial operation. Contributing authors have simplified my editorial role by their unfailing co-operation; so too have a number of experts who have generously provided me with advice about aspects of authors' papers. Finally, it has never been far from my mind how much my effectiveness as Editor has depended on the hard work of a series of dedicated editorial assistants -

none more so than Richard C. Schellhammer, M.A., my new assistant, who helped in the preparation of this volume. Department of History University of South Carolina Columbia, S.C. 24 June 1991

Abbreviations A-NS B.L. B.N. De gestis regum

DNB Douglas, Conqueror EHD EHR Jumieges MGH MS(S) n.s. Orderic PL

Plummer, ASC

Poitiers

P.R. P.R.O. RADN

VCH Worcester

Anglo-Norman Studies London, British Library Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale William of Malmesbury, De gestis regum Anglorum libri quinque, ed. William Stubbs, 2 vols. (London, 1887-89). Dictionary of National Biography David C. Douglas, William the Conqueror (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964). English Historical Documents, 2, eds. David C. Douglas and George W. Greenaway (London, 1968). English Historical Review William of Jumieges, Gesta Normannorum ducum, ed. Jean Marx (Rouen, 1914). Monumenta Germaniae Historica Manuscript(s) new series The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. Marjorie Chibnall, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1969- 80). Patrologia Cursus Completus: Series Latina, ed. J.-P. Migne, 221 vols. (Paris, 1844-64). Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (Two of the Saxon Chronicles), ed. Charles Plummer, 2 vols. (1892; repr. ed., Oxford, 1965). William of Poitiers, Gesta Guillelmi duds Normannorum et regis Anglorum, ed. Raymonde Foreville (Paris, 1952). Pipe Roll London, Public Record Office Recueil des actes des dues de Normandie (911-1066), ed. Marie Fauroux, Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires de Normandie 36 (Caen, 1961). Victoria County History Florence of Worcester, Chronicon ex chronicis, ed. Benjamin Thorpe, 2 vols. (London, 1848-49).

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1

Feud in Medieval England Paul R. Hyams

This paper represents a sketch of my work in progress, a study of feud. There is surprisingly little on feud in recent historiography; some of the reasons may become apparent below. I hope, however, to do more than merely fill a gap. To approach the society and culture of medieval England through feud can be, I think, a particularly promising avenue. If this work takes me far beyond the legal history with which I am usually identified, so much the better. In life as well as career, I have reached that stage where some of the questions that exercise me probe more deeply into the human condition than I dared essay previously. I have always believed that when the historian asks questions about his period of interest, he/she should find answers about, in my case, the tenth through thirteenth centuries and the 1990s. The more I examine contemporary politics, the more I see avoidable, resolvable conflict with roots heavily influenced by individual behaviors springing in some degree from an individual's psychology, and I wonder how many of my own attitudes towards it, hence also my historical criteria, derive from my own childhood, upbringing, and background - parental, institutional, and societal. For instance, I absorbed a parental message not generally to show anger or retaliate; the cost of this accommodation, I now recognize, is repression of genuine feelings. How closely does this conditioning touch my 'liberal' attitudes on international relations, my preference for peaceful settlement at nearly any cost, and for treatment of crime by non-retributive sanctions? Clearly, I have some rethinking to do, and I sincerely hope it will not blow away my liberal stance. Equally, I see unexplored possibilities in the history of Law and Order in the middle ages if I can reinject into the analysis some of the emotion with which it must once have been charged. I claim no overweening originality. I am aware that others have had most of these thoughts before me and I shall greedily draw on their insights where I can. Let me begin with a few anecdotes in extenso to set the scene and prove that Feud does not cease be a topic for study after 1066. Then I shall sketch the scope of the full study yet to come.

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In his Vita Wulfstani William of Malmesbury was recasting in good Latin an Old English life of Wulfstan, bishop of Worcester (1062-95), written by Coleman, the saintly bishop's former chaplain.1 Although the stories come from Coleman, the value judgements and commentary are William's. Large crowds are gathering for the dedication of a village church. Everyone who counted in the area was present - the whole network of influential people on whose donations and support both the church itself and the bishop, when in the neighbourhood, relied. All, we are told, were eager for penance and the bishop's blessing. Wulfstan seized his opportunity to sermonize about peace and love over much of the day.2 William in his Vita offered his readers a brief report of the saint's purported speech on his pet topic of Peace - the key, so he argued, to Salvation.3 Though the Vita praises the skill and effectiveness with which he preached, it omits the exempla he aimed at the common herd, since these, he says, would be superfluous to our needs as his readers, the literati. Without doubt, he took his preaching very seriously indeed. The results were gratifying. Many previously recalcitrant disputants were reconciled with their opponents. There remained only a few of 'those impossible to pacify.'4 Wulfstan attacked this stiff-necked residue by creating a revivalist atmosphere where thepopulus incited each other on towards reconciliation. Bishop Wulfstan served as catalyst in a process that, once started, was self-fueling. They consulted him only in the hardest cases. The toughest nut to crack was William Bald, who had killed one of six brothers. Since the incident is explicitly described as an accidental killing, reconciliation should have been relatively easy to achieve upon the payment of some level of monetary compensation. However, the deceased man's five brothers refused all pleas for mercy or forgiveness at any price. They were bold men in their prime, too much of a handful for any single opponent. Their fury at their sibling's death frightened off conventional support from coming to William's aid. So William appealed to Bishop Wulfstan, encouraged by what he had seen achieved in other cases. The saint begged the brothers to pardon what he was pleased to describe as William's delictum, his offence. Their response was brusque and complete: They absolutely preferred to be excommunicated than not to avenge their brother's death.' Wulfstan, splendidly vestured in full pontificals, prostrated himself at their feet, implored their forgiveness with promises to say Masses and offer other spiritual benefits for the dead man's soul. All to no avail. Their furor made them spurn the efforts of his grey hairs. They may even have sworn an oath that they would never relent. 1 The Vita Wulfstani of William of Malmesbury, ed. R.R. Darlington, Camden Society, n.s. 11 (1928): 38-40 and cf. p. 45. Emma Mason, St. Wulfstan of Worcester, c. 1008-1095 (Oxford, 1990), 170-73, came to hand too late for use in this present essay. 2 This was quite probably his practice on such occasions; see Vita Wulfstani, 38-40. 3 For this claim of a pet topic, see ibid., 45. See also William's Gesta pontificum, ed. N.E.S.A. Hamilton (London, 1870), 283-84. 4 I find an echo of this in the residual trouble-makers who were the major target of the royal peace drive behind the Assize of Clarendon, a generation later in 1166.

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The Vita reproaches their total lack of humanitas and starkly contrasts their arrogantia with Wulfstan's holy humilitas. Their demeanor had so degenerated that they were now committing a further wrong, injuria, most heinously against God; thus, the initial feud against William Bald became subsumed in a larger one, as often happened, where higher authority, here God, took up the cause. Wulfstan toughened his stance. The brothers were doing the Devil's work; they were his sons and, therefore, the enemies of a God who said: 'Blessed be the Peacemakers.'5 This pronouncement polarized the situation. The populus began to shout reproofs at the brothers. The most recalcitrant of the brothers then fell into a fit and belched out an evil, patently diabolical smell. This dramatic blow succeeded where persuasion had failed. Now the brothers offered peace, begging for mercy as if the feud had now turned against them. Wulfstan quickly accepted. He cured the sufferer by laying-on his hands. To the others he gave his safeconduct and full security, and thereby re-established a peace that all recognized as exemplary. We have here a familiar situation, as the Vita explained the denouement. Dread of God's anger, that is fear of His revenge (ultio), had proved to be the decisive sanction.6 The brothers were thus driven by compulsion to accept what they had previously refused of their own free will. Their reverentia for the saint had finally extracted from them a belated and much-needed humilitas. This was the key. The central role of Wulfstan's personal charisma is highlighted by another account of attempted peacemaking described in the Vita immediately after this one. Because Wulfstan was absent, Coleman, his biographer, was the preacher. He commented ruefully that, where no man dared withstand Wulfstan when he preached peace - indeed they hung on his words - in contrast, he sadly wrote, many thought they might ignore a mere monk with impunity.7 The fact is that we remain here in an early medieval world.8 The expectation was that homicides without malice, such as these, might be emended. They were, in the first instance, matters for private negotiation toward a satisfactory and honorable deal. William will have sought first to offer terms directly, then through mediators and third parties. Success depended on persuasion, assisted by pressure from public opinion, that is, the views of the folk around. Bishop Wulfstan could mobilize and focus this social pressure by adopting the kind of methods utilized in the Peace of God movement on the Continent.9 William of Malmesbury deeply approved of such peacemaking. Having found a relevant text in Coleman's Vita, he doubtless inflated it.10 Nevertheless, 5

Matt. 5:9 is naturally a favorite in this context. I shall have to examine the decisive ambiguity of ultio (and similar words, such as vindicta)', they can mean 'punishment' as well as 'revenge.' See further here, the Nunnaminster prayer, infra, pp. 4-6. 7 Vita Wulfstani, 39^40. Even here, God did ultimately punish the contemptor. 8 The Vita Wulfstani gives no indication of the dating of these incidents. Since Wulfstan's episcopate ran from 1062 to 1095, the odds are for a post-Conquest date. 9 Geoffrey Koziol, 'Monks, Feuds and the Making of Peace in Eleventh-Century Flanders,' Historical Reflections/ Reflexions Historiques 14.3: 531^-9 is a recent description of comparable happenings. 6

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we should not discount the possibility that clerical peacemaking and private mediation functioned unrecorded for us behind the screen of a royal system of justice that was relatively well documented. To this line of argument I shall return in due course. Nunnaminster Prayer and Domesday Book Clamor I turn first to a prayer set in large script at the head of a text of the Mass, obviously designed to declare the intentio for the Mass that followed.! l Here then is an abbreviated, somewhat free translation: O, Lord, master of all, we beseech you who love all justice, avenge (vindicas) the wrong (injuriam) done to your servants and be with us in our present tribulation . . . Therefore O lord God, help us and avenge the wrong we suffer. Thou also holy Mary, perpetual virgin, be with us in our need and tear from our enemy's hand the possession offered to this your holy church . . . See to it, Lady, that the enemy who did not fear to invade your possession does not enjoy it. Pay him back according to the works of his malice, because he has perturbed our hearts that hope in thee and taken as nothing the reverence due thine house. Grant also that all participating in this shall feel the force of thine vengeance (ultionis tue vindictatri) and know the reason why, because of their acts of disgrace and humiliation in contempt of you. We pray to thee also St. Machutus, confessor [St. Malo], and thee venerable virgin St. Edburga, that you should commend our tribulation to God, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit and get Him to change the evil counsels of our enemies to perpetual damnation for them and eternal mercy for us.

The tone could hardly be considered edifying for a community of nuns. What can the explanation be? The key almost certainly lies in a Domesday land complaint concerning a Hampshire manor held T.R.E. (in the time of King Edward) by Hugh son of Baldric, a powerful man, a sheriff with substantial landed estates,12 which runs as follows: Hugh son of Baldric holds Itchen (Abbas) from the king. The abbey of (Nunnaminster), Winchester, held this manor T.R.E. [Details of property]. The abbess of St. Mary's 10

I know of no comparable English anecdote. This one resulted from a double chance. The continuing trickle of similar texts in continental sources may or may not reflect a much greater frequency of peace activities by bishops and others with the gift. So much depends on the chance of record. 11 Facsimiles of Horae de Beata Maria Virgine from English MSS of the Eleventh Century, ed. E.S. Dewick, Henry Bradshaw Society 21 (1902), cols. 1-2, cited by Mary Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1990), 70. 12 For Hugh son of Baldric and Itchen Abbas, see Domesday Book, i.48b, and cf. ibid., i. 230, 353d, 356b, 376a [Domesday Book Sen Liber Censualis Wilhelmi Primi Regis Angliae, ed. Abraham Farley, 2 vols. (London, 1783); vols. 3 and 4, ed. Henry Ellis, Record Commission (London, 1816)]; also Judith Green, 'The Sheriffs of William the Conqueror,' A-NS 5 (1983): 131, 134, 139-40. The position I took on the general purpose and significance of Domesday actions concerning land complaints in 'No Register of Title,' A-NS 9 (1987): 127-41, will require modification in the light of studies completed by Patrick Wormald (unpublished), and others by, for example, D.R. Roffe, that have appeared since the 1986 anniversary.

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(Nunnaminster) claims this manor; and the whole hundred and beyond that the whole shrievalty (shire) bears witness that it was in the abbey in the time of King Edward and of King William and justly ought to be.

A marginal note in another hand states that 'King William returned it to the same church.' Clearly, Hugh had taken this manor from the nuns some time in William's reign. Now as a result of the Domesday Inquest, they regained it, pursuant to a judgement based on a popular inquest verdict and, it would seem, sympathy at the highest level. This is the exactly the kind of action for which the Domesday Inquiry was designed and so often failed to produce. To reclaim lands stolen by a sheriff was hard enough; how could one hope to attain one's day in court in a shire run by an opponent? In a more perfect world, one would appeal directly to the king. But there, too, Hugh was influential and the nuns were not. By comparison with the great days before the Conquest, when a royal princess enabled the house to call with confidence for royal aid, the nuns were woefully powerless.13 Where else to appeal but on further upwards at the court of Heaven, to the suffragium of saints, since the nuns lacked comparable influence here below. Such a story explains the prayer. Apparently, however, it did not do the job. Only the unprecedented and unpredictable Domesday Inquiry gave them, and maybe dozens of other communities lacking friends at court, their opportunity. Perhaps their prayer did help in a way, for conventional historical methods are ill-equipped to assess the possible influence of the Virgin Mary and the other saints invoked. The invocation itself will certainly have assisted the nuns in publicizing their anguished plight and thus, very likely, in mobilizing local opinion to their support. At the very least, then, this malevolent prayer documents for once the kind of passions that must lie behind many of the dry-sounding Domesday entries recording damores and invasiones. Equally important, it hints at the range of methods which nuns and others might review when faced with the challenge of enforcing against the political odds what they felt sure were rightful claims. Whatever the legal position might be, the first step was to rally support from a network of friends, neighbors, and allies; then to appeal to lord and overlord (if any) or to sheriff or king (if they were likely to listen); and finally, if necessary, beyond them to saints and to God Himself. Often what the complainants sought through their prayers was more than simple restitution; they wanted real justice, vengeance on those who had injured their rights and those of their patrons, terrestrial or saintly. Feud, 'Strong' and 'Weak' The textual context of these two stories establishes the prima facie case I need that feud did not die with the Norman Conquest. Two rather dissimilar milieus 13

For St. Edith, daughter of King Edgar, see now Susan Ridyard, The Royal Saints of

Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1988), 149-151 and 80ff. passim.

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disgorge two very different groups of men and women who share a passionate desire for vengeance of their injuries, and no character in either story appears to argue either that Vengeance is the Lord's alone or that redress must be through royal law. Here, then, is feud. But, institutionally, what exactly is feud? Although a full definition is still emerging, I will offer here some preliminary remarks to set the context for my basic argument that the nub of the matter lies much less in the spectacular institutional forms attributed to the 'Blood Feud' than in questions of mentalite. In my own mind, I think of feud as appearing in 'strong' and 'weak' forms. By 'strong,' I mean the ritual of blood vengeance in forms prescribed by custom and even, on occasion, recognized by formal law. Scholars find anecdotes of its outlandish manifestations hard to resist, though some have recently turned sceptical about the genuineness of its claims to institutional existence.14 One purpose served by these ritual forms is to demarcate the vengeance of legitimate feud from other illicit killings and violence. Formal publication of a 'mortal enmity' conferred some kind of privilege against conventional criminal accusation.15 By following the proper procedures, avengers wished to proclaim higher motives than lay behind conventional crimes. This feud-like approach to questions of wrong impelled many 'victims' towards self-help. Where a wrong to an individual was perceived also as an injury to the honor of some group to which he belonged, thus shaming both himself and them into action, the sentiment approaches 'strong' feud. But the 'weak' sense turns on the emotions motivating actions that hostile observers and public law may term criminal. Both senses of feud draw from an almost identical palette of feeling. Each bespeaks attitudes that justify private action, in the one case by its own dedicated procedures, in the other often by applying public procedures in a very privatized manner. To omit consideration of 'weak' feud risks distorting any assessment both of 'strong' feud and of the whole tenor of social control and the maintenance of order, my ultimate target. That Anglo-Saxon sources surrender enough examples of 'strong' feud to establish its availability in the period is one starting-point. That these instances are heavily outnumbered by instances of 'weak' feud-like mentality is, however, the most telling point of departure for my study. 'Weak' feud naturally demands a less exacting standard of proof. Its investigation directs attention toward such evidence of emotional context as what has been called 'Divine Feud,' that is, the habit of invoking the aid of God and His saints

14 Peter Sawyer, 'The Bloodfeud in Fact and Fiction,' Acta Jutlandica 63.2 (1987): 27-38. See also infra, n. 24. 15 Robert Bartlett, '"Mortal Enmities": The Legal Aspect of Hostility in the Middle Ages' (paper presented to a conference on Dispute Resolution, Gainesville, Florida in April 1990) assembles materials and claims enmity as an institution; he may overargue their significance in the world of formal law. I certainly know of no evidence that such a plea was admissible in an English royal court.

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by transposing to them one's own human emotions.16 Men persuade themselves that God too feels their dishonor as His shame. He is therefore an ally amenable to be drafted in to avenge what is now a common burden. Multitudinous examples of such feeling range over the whole period under discussion, certainly from the ninth century into the fourteenth. One particularly cogent illustration with the widest possible impact is the way in which men seem often to have envisioned the Crusade during the period. Jonathan Riley-Smith has demonstrated convincingly that the language of vengeance and feud permeates crusading chronicles and narratives.17 While they may specify different parties to the feud, God, or Christ, or Christendom, they nevertheless share a common feud-like tone of discourse. Patently, writers felt confident throughout the twelfth century that a summons to join rightful avengers in a crusading feud would certainly strengthen its appeal. The emotions attributed to God and his friends were of demonstrably human origin. Their use here establishes their routine invocation at a more mundane level in everyday life. To establish the existence of Anglo-Saxon feud, even in the 'strong' sense, is relatively easy. Let me first sketch the role which I believe feud, in both strong and weak senses, played in Anglo-Saxon England. Then I shall investigate the evidence for its continued existence during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Old English Feud Old English has a word,fahbe, which scholars are usually happy to translate as 'feud' in most contexts,18 but they have a somewhat restricted supply of feud anecdotes, much more restricted than those which seem to lend cohesion to the Icelandic saga. For present purposes, however, Beowulf, the single best-known institution of Old English literature, suffices to establish 'strong' feud as a live feature of the culture. As read during the eleventh century - and it surely must have been - this great poem referred to at least a dozen feuds. It was structured around one feud between Hrothgar and the Geats to tell a story with substantial feud elements in the confrontation first with Grendel then his mother. It retained feud language even for what we should certainly call wars and constantly assumes the legitimacy of a feud mentality, reinforcing its sense of the licit by its firm condemnation of the illicit, such as Unferth's fratricide.19

16 See D.W. Rollason, 'The Cults of Murdered Royal Saints in Anglo-Saxon England,' Anglo-Saxon England 11 (1983): 1-22. 17 Jonathan Riley-Smith has had repeated recourse to this notion. See, for example, his 'Crusading as an Act of Love,' History 65 (1980): 177-92, esp. 190-91. 18 Contrary to what is sometimes said, Professor Jesse Byock advises me that Old Norse deilur (verb at deila) is an equally close equivalent. Contemporary terminology can be a problem. It is not unusual to discover that a modern translator uses the same word, 'feud,' to render several different terms in the original.

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Among the anecdotal proofs of 'strong' feud, perhaps the most striking is the 'saga' of Cynewulf and Cyneheard, incorporated in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 755 and recently expounded in its full feud context by Stephen White.20 These two texts alone, I think, establish a strong prima facie case that feud was a genuine and recurrent feature of life at the top of Anglo-Saxon society, in competition for the greatest prize of the royal crown. Data concerning royal succession in the various kingdoms strengthen one's suspicions. The eight kings who ruled in Northumbria between 759 and 796 came from three different, surely competing, families. In Wessex, no king was succeeded by a close kinsman between 655 and 802.21 Behind these suggestive scraps of information undoubtedly lay conflicts fought in the fashion of feud. Even at this early stage of my current study, I have collected enough information to convince me that 'strong' feud featured significantly in Anglo-Saxon political culture. Detailed argument must await another occasion, though some of the material that impresses me will appear below. For aid in interpretation I summon anthropological theories familiar to historians under the title of 'Peace in the Feud.'22 This approach argues that the very existence of strong feud may, contrary to our initial intuitions, function so as to bolster, rather than to fragment, social control. The theory requires critical appraisal, because its less cautious proponents sometimes imply that the process of social cohesion is something mechanical and inevitable, a notion rightly unacceptable to AngloSaxon historians. In any event, theory can usually only guide the historian toward questions he might not otherwise think of asking his sources. Other features of the anthropological discourse raise queries for the historian too. Can, for example, the great prominence claimed for kin relations in the construction of

19

I find feuds (subject to correction) as follows: [1], God v. Cain for the killing of Abel (11. 106-14); [2] Grendel (and his mother) v. Hrothgar (11. 151-58 and passim); [3] Beowulf v. enemies of Geats (11. 422-24); [4] Ecgtheow v. Wylfings (11. 459-72); [5] Unferth v. his brother (11. 587-89); [6] Sigemundf. Waels v. various (11. 877-79); [7] Finn and his Frisians v. Hengest and his Danes (11. 1071-1159, Finn Episode & Finnsburgh Fragment); [8] Geats v. Frisians (11. 1206-9, etc.); [9] Heathobards v. Danes (11. 2024-69, episode of Freawaru); [10] Dragon v. Hrothgra and Geats (11. 2280 sq.); [11] Onela v. Ohthere his brother, for the Swedish throne (11. 2,379^00); [12] Haethcyn v. Herebeald (11. 2435 sq.); and [13] Swedes v. Geats (11. 2,946-98, 3,000-3). 20 Stephen White, 'Kingship and Lordship in Early Medieval England: The Story of Sigebehrt, Cynewulf, and Cyneheard,' Viator 20 (1989): 1-18. 21 See Patrick Wormald, 'The Ninth Century,' in The Anglo-Saxons, ed. J. Campbell (Oxford, 1982), 132-50. 22 This is the title of Max Gluckman's popularizing essay which first appeared in Past and Present 8 (1955): 1-14. See also his book of essays, Politics, Law and Ritual in Tribal Society (Oxford, 1965). Although this line of argument is generally associated with Gluckman, Edward Evans-Pritchard can claim to be its real progenitor; The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People (New York, 1937).

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feud support groups really be sustained in the society of Anglo-Saxon England? I shall certainly make the case for a rather wider reading of relevant friendship in the summonses of lords, neighbors, and at least sometimes, 'plain vanilla' friends in the hour of need. Then again, much of the earlier anthropological discussion concerned 'stateless' societies and conveyed the impression that feud must be a substitute for state organization and the apparatus of formal justice. Whatever position modern scholars take on power in Anglo-Saxon England, all agree to start from kingship and the undoubted existence of some kind of public law. If feud really did figure to a significant degree in Anglo-Saxon life then, men may have had to pursue their enmities as much through the public courts as by ambush or on battle-fields. I would argue that the question of how much they did so is essential to any investigation of the character of Old English law and litigation. This plank of the hypothesis does not challenge directly the main features of the view, fashionable in recent historiography, which presses the case for a high degree of central authority during the tenth and eleventh centuries in what is increasingly labelled the 'Late Old English State.' This 'maximalist' interpretation of Old English kingship has greatly enriched our understanding of the political and administrative history of the period. Its achievements are too firmly founded to be jeopardized by any exaggerated case for the importance of feud. The West Saxon kings appear to have exercised a unique degree of central control over 'crime,' if that is an acceptable term at this stage of development. They certainly had at their disposal a decidedly impressive panoply of Carolingianstyle ideological arguments to justify their 'public' authority in this field. Their leges, too, constitute a remarkable monument to the high aspirations of Alfred and his successors, which form the solid base of maximalist accounts of the period. My approach poses an ancillary question: Do the leges really establish the achievement of royal routine control of everyday standards of order to the degree which some have claimed? One's answer must at least acknowledge the extent to which feud was itself a routine part of Anglo-Saxon culture at the time. The greater weight one assigns to feud, the less remains for the king's power to influence more or less directly everyday events far from the royal court. The Leges Extensive analysis of the leges will have to form an important part in my further research. At this point, however, my view is that the laws showed a gradual advance of royal claims, which only reached a full assertion of central jurisdiction over serious offences with the explicit reservation of 'bootless,' (i.e. unemendable) offenses in the time of Ethelred II and Cnut. Aware of the kind of considerations that have led Patrick Wormald, most notably, to take a less gradualist view, I reserve my right to change my mind after completing a fuller investigation.23 23

I welcome this opportunity to express again my warm gratitude to Patrick Wormald for

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A preliminary re-examination of one major witness to this legislative development, II Edmund,24 should test the continued feasibility of my interpretation against a genuine crux that apparently fails to substantiate it. II Edmund appears on the face of it to have been aimed squarely against feud in a manner quite unique for its tenth-century day. In Miss Robertson's much-quoted translation, it ends with a ringing denunciation: 'The authorities must put a stop to vendettas.' But, as so often, translation is a fickle guide. Other possible renderings of these words affect the tenor of the whole, particularly when one takes into account, as most scholars recommend, the contemporary tract known as Wer. The two texts together indicate royal endorsement of the overall strategy of Peace-in-the-Feud and proffer royal assistance to make it workable. The documents outline the deliberate, precise procedure necessary if fragile truces are to survive and extend into a more lasting peace culminating in the kind of full, public reconciliation known from continental sources. Edmund promises that he and his men will ride against those who flout the rules. The king is not yet ready to claim any monopoly of justice or pacification, even in 'serious' cases. He patently hesitates to rule out private efforts, despite his awareness that these require for their success credible threats of privately administered violent sanctions against the recalcitrant. In this context, I read 'Witan scylon faeh&e sectan,' to mean something like 'Wise men (i.e. elders, even arbitrators) should work to reconcile vendettas,' which has a very different ring from Miss Robertson's rendering.25 The expectation that private feud procedures should acknowledge publicly set standards would be alien to few of the societies that accepted feud. In essence, licit feud is a public act, to be sharply distinguished from sneaky acts of vengeance (murder) without good justification. Its only unusual feature was its promulgation in the guise of formal legislation. Let me broaden the argument. The exceptional II Edmund nevertheless represents one of the maximalists' strongest cards. Acceptance of a reading such as the one I propose highlights the context against which the leges as a corpus must have been produced. A suggestive paper by Simon Keynes prompts us to concentrate more on the situation targeted by the legislators.26 Words like

apprising me of his views at various draft stages of their development. I have undoubtedly gained far more than I have given in these exchanges. See his 'Charters, Law and the Settlement of Disputes in Anglo-Saxon England,' in The Settlement of Disputes in Early Medieval England, eds. Wendy Davies and Paul Fouracre, (Cambridge, 1986), 149-68, for an early statement of his developing views. 24 Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Felix Liebermann, 3 vols. (Halle, 1916-20), 1: 186-91; cf. ibid., 1: 392-4 ('Wer'). Also The Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry I, ed. and trans. A.J. Robertson (Cambridge, 1925), 8-10 and cf. Councils and Synods, 1, pt.i, eds. D. Whitelock, M. Brett, C.N.L. Brooke (Oxford, 1981), 64-65. 25 My Cornell friend and colleague, Professor Tom Hill, encourages me to believe that this is a defensible reading, with much fascinating commentary on the unusual sectan, apparently a loan-word from Old Norse.

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'illegal deeds of violence' bespeak an ambience with a certain feud-like quality, which can be documented from the occasional legal narrative. Incidentally, such narratives show how royal courts and officials were drawn into the dynamics of private conflict in a way rather far removed from the ideal prescriptions of the leges.27 Such materials make plausible, though not perhaps mandatory, the belief that litigants, disputants, and their supporters in the Late Old English period conceived of public institutions as private resources to be manipulated as necessary in order to win disputes.

Anger and Feud in the Post-Conquest Period My aim here has been merely to present the bare bones of the case for the importance of feud in Anglo-Saxon England. On the post-Conquest period, I favor an even more selective approach, if only because of the much larger mass of materials available. My modest goal at this time is to establish the utility of investigating many features of social relations in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, including the major theme of standards of Law and Order, through questions generated by the same theories of feud that have inspired my search for Anglo-Saxon feud. On this occasion I offer some illustrative enquetes a poursuivre, one secular and angled towards the Common Law, the other more ecclesiastical, even religious in orientation.

Trespass One of the great divisions of the Common Law, Trespass, grew by the end of the middle ages to comprise the majority of the routine civil remedies available to those with grievances for redress through the royal courts. Historians have now learned, with some pain, to remove historical misconceptions about its nature and origins purveyed by legal practitioners of the middle ages and early modern England. Trespass originally meant just what it said: 'wrong'; it was the medieval English equivalent of that other French loanword, Tort. Legal usage progressively narrowed down its scope from any wrong - as in the Lord's Prayer - to that body of wrongs actionable at Common Law, those for which the king's legal system was prepared to offer a remedy. The group so constituted can be

26

Simon Keynes, 'Crime and Punishment in the Reign of King Aethelred the Unready,' in People and Places in Northern Europe: Essays in Honor of Peter Hayes Sawyer, eds. I. Wood and N. Lund (Woodbridge, 1991), 67-68.1 am most grateful to him for a copy of a typescript draft. 27 For one illustration, see Liber Eliensis, ed. E.O. Blake, Camden Society, 3rd ser. 92, (London, 1962), 105ff.

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seen coalescing and growing on the records of the early Common Law from around the time of its inception in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The king and his justices had to decide which kinds of complaint to admit to hearing and possible remedy. Their grounds for inclusion of some and thus exclusion of others are satisfyingly diverse. In reality, the overall guiding principle now seems to have been little more than the king's political interest.28 The premise behind this account of the origins of Common-Law Trespass, seldom clearly stated, must be that age-old pattern by which powerless men with grievances seek the aid of the powerful to gain redress. The Common Law of Trespass emerges from royal practice in dealing with such petitions for aid. Legal historians seldom pursue this behavior pattern back beyond the birth of the Common Law.29 Yet the appeal of pauper to potens can be documented from all kinds of earlier sources, and the whole idea is integrally associated with feud. The man wronged by someone stronger than himself can hardly seek his revenge by a direct attack. He would simply suffer further humiliation, perhaps even death. Therefore, he must interest a greater power in taking up his case and hopefully in assuming his feud at a higher level. The task of persuasion resembles what one faces today when one seeks to extract a charitable contribution from some rich person or foundation all too used to such importunings. But styles vary. In the middle ages, the best strategy was likely a lively plaint (quereld) in which you told your story (conte} so as to move your listener to pity, identification, and then action. You might humble yourself before him with tears, gestures, even the tearing of garments and prostration on the ground. You sought to shame the great man into taking up your cause for fear that by his inaction shame would redound on him. You would strive to represent the wrong you had suffered as an injury to his honor as well as yours. Where the appeal was to a lord, this task was relatively easy. You had suffered the injury while on his service, for example, or in contempt of his protection or peace. What was he going to do about it? Of course success rates varied. Even the most dramatic plea could not guarantee action. But the almost ubiquitous existence of plaints along these lines is incontrovertible. They feature frequently in French-language chansons de geste, deeply ingrained into the epic culture. Of more respectable sources, the best is Abbot Suger's 'Life of Louis the Fat,' King Louis VI (ob. 1137). Here lie exposed Suger's exempla of how the old king had - or should have - behaved,

28 This paragraph is a selective distillation of the teaching of S.F.C. Milsom, Trespass from Henry III to Edward III' (1959), now most accessible as chap. 1 of his Studies in the History of the Common Law (London, 1985), 1-90. See also Morris S. Arnold, Select Cases of Trespass from the King's Courts, 1307-1399, Selden Society 100 (1985): ix-x and passim. 29 Commendable exceptions are H.G. Richardson and G.O. Sayles, Select Cases of Procedure without Writ, Selden Society 60 (1941), esp. clviii ff., and Alan Harding, 'Plaints and Bills in Medieval English Law, Mainly in the Period 1250-1330,' in Legal History Studies 1972, ed. D. Jenkins (Cardiff, 1975), 65-86.

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to show the young Louis VII what he in his turn needed to do as a good king. One central message was that good princes and fine knights heeded the tales of oppression that they heard and rode out to right the wrongs however unfavorable the odds. Much of the episodic structure of the Vie consists of plaints designed to stir Louis into action. Some, but not all, of the petitioners are churchmen. There is no reason to confine the behaviour to the quintessential ecclesiastical pauperes.30 No similar text was written, alas, about Louis's contemporary and sparring partner, Henry I, or any other English king of the period. If such a source had been written, it certainly would show substantial differences due to the much more fully established tradition of royal intervention in the quarrels of their subjects as part of their royal duties. Nevertheless, an English king's version would tell similar stories in similar terms. The grace of kings and magnates did not come cheaply - hence the proffers recorded on the single surviving Pipe Roll. Behind these and the many unrecorded ones that preceded them in the 1120s and earlier must lie similar appeals for aid.31 Basically such appeals could lead in any one of three directions. First, a lord might summon your opponent to come before him and answer your complaint. This approach worked best in cases where both disputants were vassals of the same lord, who therefore had a redoubled interest in settling the dispute before it led to violence. After all, he stood to lose one follower, whichever of his underlings won the fight. Only rarely was one outright winner between two vassals in the lord's own best interest. Thus a plaint between two of his vassals simultaneously presented the overlord both challenge and opportunity. The challenge was to deal with the dispute in a way which enhanced his reputation within his lordship and beyond. He then had an occasion to display his seignorial authority and wisdom by mediating and negotiating an honorable reconciliation between his men. Often the best way to broker such a settlement was to extract compensation for the victim from the one who has injured him. This payment should constitute an honorable repayment of any loss (dampnum), together with some allowance for the shame and humiliation suffered. This supplementary compensation for shame above actual loss continued to be reserved quite explicitly into the thirteenth century.32 It supplies a key to the transition from compensation arrangements as recorded in the early medieval leges (hot) to the damages that characterize Common-Law Trespass, in a manner that nicely confirms the links posited with feud and its modes of thought.

30

Suger of St-Denis, Vie de Louis VI le Gros, ed. Henri Wacquet, Classiques de 1'histoire de France, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1964). 31 Modern discussion of the Pipe Roll of 1130 and the kind of royal justice that produced its proffers should start with Judith Green, The Government of England under Henry I (Cambridge, 1986), chaps. 4-5. 32 John S. Beckerman, 'Adding Insult to Iniuria: Affronts to Honor and the Origins of Trespass,' in On the Laws and Customs of England: Essays in Honor of S.E. Thome, eds. Morris Arnold, Thomas A. Green, Sally Scully, and Stephen D White (Chapel Hill, 1981), 159-81.

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Although this response is the main origin of later Trespass, it does not stand alone. In matters of honor and shame, public opinion might not favor negotiated settlements. Not all injured parties were prepared to receive compensation, however honorably formulated and presented, especially where the offence was deep. Disputants feared criticism for cowardice or jibes that they had 'sold' their honor for 'thirty pieces of silver.' In cases where honor was at stake, physical force or military action was appropriate, particularly in the form of the judicial duel. From this standpoint, the duel ritualized, attenuated, and tamed feud. This second avenue of redress, the challenge to a contest of arms, required physical courage, but also offered the complainant the very serviceable benefit of catharsis. He could thus publicly vent his fury, chagrin, and anger at his wrong, and reverse any earlier humiliations by demonstrating on the occasion of battle his nobler qualities for all to see. Judicial duel was particularly helpful whenever a disputant's status as 'victim' was questionable, as when he lacked arguments or evidence to convince the lord (and his court) of the reality of the wrong he claimed to have suffered. Herein lies both the epic appeal of the chansons de geste and also the precursor of what English law comes to know as the Appeal of Felony. Such appeals surface into the light of legal records and survive long in the Common-Law world of the thirteenth century.33 The third possibility was that the lord himself would ride with his vassal to avenge their common shame by force. This response was the most basic of all; logically (and perhaps chronologically) it preceded money compensation or judicial duel. The lord may be so persuaded by your plea that he drops everything and accompanies you to avenge your mutual shame by force of arms. Wrongs committed by some other lord's man, especially those least traceable - for obvious reasons - in the emerging structure of law, were especially liable to elicit such a response. The disputant, then, successfully bequeathed his own injury and the duty to avenge it to his lord. The vassal's feud is now his lord's feud. An individual grudge may become a cause in which many men will die, far beyond the close kin or friends of the original disputants.34

Thomas of Eldersfield Elsewhere I have examined at length one story, unusual perhaps only in the scope of its documentation, that illustrates the sorts of choices and calculations behind

33

See S.F.C. Milsom, Historical Foundations of the Common Law, 2nd ed. (London, 1981), 285-6, for remarks on the connection between Trespass and the 'Appeal of Felony' seen in considerable part as a function of available proof. This concentration on proof, a Milsom trade-mark in much of his writing, has been an important influence on my thought. 34 Stephen D. White, 'Feuding and Peacemaking in the Touraine around the year 1100,' Traditio 42 (1986): 195-263, nicely documents the pattern for eleventh-century Touraine.

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the schema I have just outlined.35 Thomas of Eldersfield, a freeman of modest means, enjoyed a moderately successful career at court in the service of Geoffrey Fitz Peter, who, as chief justiciar of England was second only to the king himself. He accumulated enough money to settle down on land acquired in Eldersfield, on the Gloucester and Worcester border, where he had grown up. The wife of his father's lord became infatuated with young Thomas and gradually led him into a passionate affair. Thomas ended the liaison and confessed his sin. Though spurned, the lady did not desist; when widowed, she even proposed marriage to Thomas and offered him her landed wealth. Thomas steadfastly rejected her, and even after her remarriage to one George, she nursed her grievances. All three, members of the same local community, met frequently and apparently amicably until Whitsun 1217 when the two men spent the day drinking together. On the way home, the drunken George suddenly attacked Thomas with a club. In defending himself, Thomas knicked George's shoulder with an axe (that he just happened to be carrying) and drew blood. Immediately George raced off. He raised the hue and cry, acutely seizing the legal advantage against his opponent. Thomas had, he alleged, breached the King's Peace. Over the next four years, Thomas was compelled to devote considerable energy and expense to keeping himself out of gaol. Very possibly George and his lady had planned poor Thomas' ruination - physically as well as financially. George deliberately chose Appeal of Felony to ensure a trial before royal justices. He hoped to demand a duel and then to exact corporal punishment of Thomas. A Trespass suit would offer no such chance of revenge. George was not disappointed. Thomas vehemently denied the truth of the appeal 'word for word' and submitted his case to a jury from the neighborhood at the Gloucestershire eyre in June/July 1221. Many of these jurors were acquaintances of the prominent and influential lord and lady of Northway and knew what was expected. They found Thomas guilty. The court had little option but to order the pair to fight a duel. On 5 August 1221 George soundly defeated Thomas, who had prayed vigorously to St. Wulfstan, the Virgin Mary, and to God. Thomas was now at the king's mercy - or in practice, at the justices' discretion. Instead of ordering him to be hanged forthwith, they 'mixed mercy with judgement' and merely sentenced Thomas to castration and blinding. The sentence was executed by George's own kinsmen according to custom. What result could have been more satisfactory for the jealous lord and lady of Northway? Thomas was ruined, publicly humiliated, and so severely tortured that he was near death. The subsequent miracle which explains the major source for the story is of no concern here. The essential point is the basic corroboration of the facts behind the case as it is recorded on the Plea Rolls.

35

Paul R. Hyams, The Strange Case of Thomas of Eldersfield,' History Today 36 (1986): 9-15.

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Often such details can and should be reconstructed. From them we shall doubtless see that the impersonal, lawyerly records of the Common Law conceal many indications of feud-like motives and behavior from which much dispute and litigation originate even in the thirteenth century. The job of the Common Law was to impose global standards of law and order. Its records therefore intentionally skeletonize the very human passions that brought disputes into the courts. Thus they symbolize that aspiration to judicial impartiality as the proper goal for justices and jurists which is one of the leading characteristics of Western justice. Some of them may even have attained close approximation to its ideals. None of which should blind us to the much more human motivation of many litigants or, for that matter, the self-interested reasons why lawyers accepted their cases.

Other Common Law Actions: Novel Disseisin and Raptus The historian's interpretative dilemma stems from the very success with which the courts, and hence the Plea Roll records, excluded from their purview factual information not relevant to judgements presented in strictly legal terms. Nevertheless, in at least some of the myriad cases on the Plea Rolls, these concealed passions can be elicited. Two categories of action seem particularly promising: actions of novel disseisin, and rape/abduction cases. Actions of novel disseisin were often much more than the impersonal tests of seisin the legal textbooks imply. They sometimes named a very large number of defendants headed by a reeve or bailiff. Some certainly resembled violent disputes between lords or noble families prosecuted by musters of villagers. Then there are actions of rape, or rather raptus. Many entries under this head concern abduction rather than rape, as now understood. The concatenation of the two offences has a long prehistory stretching back into Roman Law and still awaiting English clarification.361 intend to attempt this on a future occasion; here it suffices to note that with help from external source materials, the Plea Rolls disgorge many anecdotes of potentially violent and very feud-like noble family disputes centering on rights to women. Over the medieval period, the concentration of coercive power in legitimate hands - not necessarily those of crowned princes alone - entailed a transformation of private vengeance. In this development, the church played a role, simultaneously prominent and ambiguous, by licensing the use of force in a variety of circumstances, not least to counter laymen's illegitimate recourse to violence.37

36

See, for an introduction, James A. Brundage, 'Rape and Seduction in the Medieval Canon Law,' in Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church, eds. Vern L. Bullough and James A. Brundage (Buffalo, 1982), chap. 13.

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Ecclesiastical Peacemaking At all levels of society, the church promoted peace actively if sometimes capriciously, rather as a reflection among men of the perfect heavenly peace. This did not imply any absolute ban on violence. Often the church tried to channel violence toward approved ends, such as the crusades or even into 'Just War.' The crusader's opposition was, as we have seen, often labelled an enemy - not merely of himself, but of God, Christ, Christendom, or the Church. To justify its position, the church hijacked the pervasive mentality of feud and thereby promoted its own ends. This line of argument inevitably gave apparent moral force to laymen's natural inclination to avenge wrongs, real or alleged, with physical force. The ambiguity of the church's influence stemmed from the paradoxical necessity that alongside the marshalling of coercive force against external enemies lay the goal of repressing evil within society. Preaching retributive justice against the wicked was, thus, the very antithesis of gentle diplomacy, reconciliation, or negotiation of compensatory compromises. The church was continually engaged in both activities. Beyond dealings with kings and magnates, how far did churchmen actively intervene in the secular world? To what degree did they manage to inhibit men from settling their differences by force? Did clerics offer to disputants a means to extricate themselves from violent confrontation? For the moment, I merely pose these questions. That churchmen in the early middle ages figured prominently in lay justice, too, in a manner beyond their importance as advisers to lay kings and magnates, is indisputable. The way proof was made in contemporary courts required clerics' participation. Men always purported to leave the final decision to the Judgement of God. Even when evidence involved documentary or witness proof, clerics administered oaths on holy relics or gospel books. Where judgment revolved, as often, around trial by ordeal, clerical participation was essential.38 Thus, churchmen orchestrated the central ritual of many trials and influenced the outcome. Into the thirteenth century ecclesiastical peacemaking probably continued along much the lines of Wulfstan's efforts before 1100, where conditions

37

Richard M. Fraher, 'The Theoretical Justification for the New Criminal Law of the High Middle Ages: "Rei Publicae Interest, Ne Crimina Remaneant Impunita,'" University of Illinois Law Review (1984): 577-95, and also 'Preventing Crime in the High Middle Ages: the Medieval Lawyers' Search for Deterrence' in Popes, Teachers and Canon Law in the Middle Ages, eds. James Ross Sweeney and Stanley Chodorow (Ithaca, 1989), 212-33, rightly suggests that the church's progressive attempts to restrain violence contributed to a revolution in penal ideology. 38 For my earlier view on the ordeal, see 'Trial by Ordeal: The Key to Proof in the Early Common Law,' in On the Laws and Customs of England: Essays in Honor ofS.E. Thome, 90-126. Robert Bartlett, Trial by Fire and Water (Oxford, 1986), passim, has ably shown some of the shortcomings of previous studies including my own. His approach does not fully convince me, and I hope to return to the subject.

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permitted. Such at least was apparently the case across the Channel in Flanders, an area where 'public' justice was only slightly less prominent than England.39 In the course of my researches, I expect some texts to emerge; only their absence would be surprising.40 Prescriptive, as opposed to anecdotal material, clearly shows that some churchmen were indeed interested in contributing to interpersonal relations within their flocks. This concern with overt conflict is a reasonable corollary of the injunction to love thy neighbor as thyself. To my knowledge, this line of investigation remains largely untried. The most suggestive treatment to date comes from an early modern historian himself trespassing, as it were, on medieval turf: I refer to Professor John Bossy's brilliant speculation on the social history of the Mass.41 John Bossy is one of the first scholars to study the liturgy from the perspective of social history. He has persuasively shown how the Mass might operate, inter alia, as a kind of peace ritual. Enmity was recognized as a major barrier to sacramental unity of a congregation awaiting the Eucharist.42 Enmity between people was particularly troublesome; to deal with this problem, the canon of the Mass gathered around the moment of the Eucharistic sacrifice many supplementary prayers, some for the living and some for the dead. These exhorted laymen attending Mass to pray that God remember and protect an expanding circle of people. The list starts with blood kin and moves on to affines, familiares (who would surely include neighbors), and amid, which I take to mean 'plain-vanilla' friends not coming under any earlier category. The strikingly close resemblance of this list to a feud support group - the only obvious omission is lords and vassals - is enhanced by the further injunction to pray for, among other things, 'our friends' peace when they are in conflict.' To the implicit question (conflict with whom?), there is an obvious answer: with enemies, theirs, and ours. In pursuance of the Gospel injunction, some authorities advised prayer for these enemies, too. But most believers would dismiss this counsel of perfection for its evident absurdity. Why pay to have Masses said for the souls of enemies? Other voices counselled prayers for good things only. But a majority apparently saw nothing wrong with prayers directed against enemies, and some of these

39

Henri Platelle, 'Vengeance prive"e et reconciliation dans 1'oeuvre de Thomas de Chantimpre,' Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiednis 42 (1974): 269-81. 40 Cf. Adrian Morey, Bartholomew of Exeter, Bishop and Canonist (Cambridge, 1937), 210, 274, for clear indications from 1150/70 albeit from a penitential fettered by archaic sources. 41 John Bossy, The Mass as a Social Institution, 1200-1700,' Past and Present 100 (1983): 29-61. 42 I hope eventually to pursue this point, toward some understanding of the development of the Pax section of the canon. The weakening of the Kiss of Peace from direct physical contact between worshippers into the kissing of an object (the osculatorium) specially constructed for the purpose is very thought-provoking. A sequential structure replaced an act between equal neighbours, and one result apparently was squabbling over precedence. Moreover, this important change began in England.

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results, such as a Mass according to the Sarum Use contra adversaries, survive to be read today. Religious communities very likely continued to rely on this useful option in the thirteenth century, as had the Winchester nuns in the eleventh. Possibly this tool was less used in England than on the Continent, where analogous materials have been studied by Patrick Geary and Lester Little. Only a determined search for evidence can justify a firm judgement.43 Bossy goes further. He suspects that some of those attenders actually sought to pursue their enemies into and beyond the grave. To do so, they would insert their enemy's name into the list for the commemoration of the dead, which amounted to an invitation to God to amend the 'error' on their behalf. If common, such instrumental manipulation of the Mass must have been a sore trial to confessors. Understandably, some confessors' manuals attempted to deal with the problem of fraternal hatred within the parish and its potential effects on the efficacy of the Mass. As Thomas of Chobham recognized, the existence of anger between communicants jeopardized the sacrifice by rendering it hateful to God. Therefore, he counsels, anyone who remembers such an enmity even on his way up to the altar should halt then and there and walk over to seek reconciliation on the spot with his enemy.44 The Summa confessorum is only one of various kinds of text that employ a whole system of arguments concerning vengeance. Thomas of Chobham and his like did not write in a vacuum. By the thirteenth century, they were able to tap a mounting bibliography on the central Christian texts, from the Fathers and contemporary short-cut guides to them, to the burgeoning literature of the contemporary Schools themselves. There are hidden riches here for the historian of feud. I have yet to discover scholastic treatises devoted exclusively to feud, though some could well exist. Perhaps the most obvious approach to the topic is through the Bible, the eternal source of medieval reflection on every kind of matter. Direct citations and much allusion bear witness to the high proportion of reflection and argument that pivoted on biblical texts. The supply was rich enough to buttress almost any proposition on peace, violence, and the taking of

43

Patrick Geary, 'Humiliation of Saints,' in Saints and their Cults: Studies in Religious Sociology, Folklore and History, ed. Stephen Wilson (Cambridge, 1983), chap. 3; Lester K. Little, 'La morphologie des maledictions monastiques,' Annales E.S.C. 34 (1979): 43-60. I have been able to read in early draft relevant chapters of Prof. Little's forthcoming book on Benedictine Maledictions, where he deploys evidence from Ireland and Wales, but not from England. For an English translation (said by Prof. Little to be of seventeenth-century date) of a twelfth-century cursing ritual from the Liber Roffensis, see Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Bk. Ill, chap. 11. 44 I owe this point to a paper by Lauren Jared of the University of California, Santa Barbara, presented at the 1990 Kalamazoo Congress of Medieval Studies. See also Thomas of Chobham, Summa Confessorum, ed. F. Broomfield (Louvain, 1968), 416-7, building on Matt. 5:23—4.1 expect in due course to examine at length the data offered for my subject by Thomas and his English predecessors, Bartholomew of Exeter and Robert of Flamborough.

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vengeance. Everyone, then as now, had their favorite texts. Against 'Blessed are the Peacemakers' (Matt. 5:9), the admonition to love your enemies (Matt. 5:44, Luke 6:27-8) and the divine assertion of monopoly with the declaration that 'Vengeance is mine' (Deut. 32:35; Heb. 10:30) can be placed a whole body of Old Testament illustrations of righteous vengeance in action. These juxtapositions clearly need to be studied through the glosses that taught their interpretation in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.45 The degree to which medieval men (and women too in all probability) continued to justify the righteous taking of vengeance will then become much clearer.

Late Literary Sources: Chaucer That it was still necessary for the peacemakers to argue their own case well after 1300 can be established by one final English illustration, from what is probably Chaucer's least esteemed Canterbury Tale. In the 'Tale of Melibee,' the name character had been engaged in some kind of enmity. In pursuance of this, his adversaries inflicted five 'mortal' wounds on his daughter Sophie. The question naturally arises: how should he respond? His inclination, expressed in clear, unexciting prose, is to seek to muster his friends and avenge the injury by force. His aptly named wife Prudence argues long and subtly to dissuade him. Most of the points each deploys can be traced back into the Schools literature, whither I shall in due course follow them. Of course, much about this tale is directed at ends far removed from the social realities of enmity of feud. Its raison d'etre nevertheless revolves around the polarity between Christian neighbourliness and the worldly propensity to avenge injuries and seek at least an eye for an eye. Chaucer sees nothing anachronistic for his own day. The pursuit of his sources and their intellectual context surely has much to add to our understanding of twelfth-and thirteenth-century England, too. I can conclude only with a few suggestions; I am patently in no position to offer firm conclusions yet. I certainly believe that 'strong' feud deserves far more attention from historians of the Anglo-Saxon period. Besides the interest of the anecdotes themselves, their implications for the political and general culture of the 'Late Old English State' demand exploration. Once the search is underway, some feuding will be discovered well into the twelfth century and occasionally beyond. From this approach will emerge a periodization that will encourage scholars to ask of high medieval sources similar questions that are second nature to students of the allegedly more turbulent England of 'Bastard Feudalism' and the Wars of the Roses. Patently, 1066 marked no obvious end; there is no

45

Work in this area will be much easier for non-specialists like myself when Brepols fulfil their promise to publish a facsimile of the Strassburg 1480 edition ofBiblia Latina cum Glossa Ordinaria with introductions by M.T. Gibson and K. Froelich.

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watershed date to feud in the 'weak' sense, the prevalent feud-like mentality behind political calculation at all levels. Recognition of this hypothesis by English historians must entail some softening of conventional contrasts between its precociously centralized regimes and some in continental Europe. Feuding was not just a function of 'backward' societies such as the German Empire is often considered to be.46 Rather, feud must be seen as an integral part of the culture of the medieval nobility everywhere, even in areas of strong order under a well-defined central authority like Flanders and England. Just how much adjustment is required is another matter. Private vengeance and public justice are neither mutually exclusive alternatives nor incapable of coexisting with each other. That they can function quite happily in tandem is easily demonstrated. Whether they in fact did so in a specific area at a particular time, how often and in what way - these are questions of fact. And that is the best possible justification for further research in the subject, both mine in the current project and, I hope, that of others.47 Cornell University

46

Otto Brunner, Land und Herrschaft, 4th ed. (Vienna, 1959). F.R.H. Du Boulay, 'Law Enforcement in Medieval Germany,' History 63 (1978): 345-55, is a recent brief introduction to the accepted contrast between the two countries. 47 I ought to put on record that this essay owes a great deal to my wife, Elaine Marcotte Hyams, just like in the old days, before she became my feuding partner.

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2 King Alfred's Peace-Making Strategies with the Vikings Richard Abels

Few kings have ascended a throne under more daunting circumstances than those faced by Alfred in the spring of 871. In that year the West Saxons had fought nine battles and numerous skirmishes with the Vikings. The 'great heathen army' that had first wintered in England in 865-66 was now joined by a new band of adventurers, a 'great summer army' (myeel sumer lida), apparently led by three more Danish 'kings,' Guthrum, Oscetel, and Anwend.1 Alfred's first battle as king took place a month after his accession. Greatly outnumbered, he engaged the enemy at Wilton and was defeated. 'Nor should it seem extraordinary, to anyone,' commented Alfred's biographer Asser, 'that the Christians had a small number of men in the battle: for the Saxons were virtually annihilated to a man in this single year.'2 Asser's hyperbole aside, the new king probably had few resources at his disposal, and his forces probably were no match for the raiders. Alfred had no alternative but to make peace with the Vikings, 'on the condition that they would leave [his kingdom], which the pagans did.'3 Alfred's attempts to make peace with the Vikings and his attempts to resolve the conflict and bind them to that resolution became a leitmotif of his reign. The methods that he chose reflect both changes in his and his enemies' circumstances

1 Plummer, ASC, 1:73 (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a. 871); English Historical Documents, 1: c.500-1042, ed. Dorothy Whitelock, 2nd ed. (London, 1976), 193 (hereafter cited as EHD). On the coming of the 'Summer army,' see Alfred Smyth, Scandinavian Kings in the British Isles, 850-880 (Oxford, 1977), 240-43. The 'great heathen army' was an amalgamation of independent companies led apparently by the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok, Ivar the Boneless, Halfdan, and, perhaps, Ubbu, but including the forces of at least one other sea-king, Bagsecg (Plummer, ASC a. 871), as well as a number of earls. 2 Asser, 'Life of Alfred,' chap. 42, in Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred and other Contemporary Sources, eds. Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge (Hamondsworth; 1983), 81. Asser repeats this assertion twice in his annal for 871. 3 Alfred the Great, 81.

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and in his understanding of the threat the Vikings posed to him and his kingdom. As in other aspects of his reign, Alfred's peace-making strategies force us to reconsider the received view of the king. The 'earnest, kindly, simple' Alfred of Victorian historiography, the Dark Age Prince Albert enshrined on the High Street of Winchester and in the market square at Wantage, must give way to another vision of Alfred, that of a flexible, pragmatic, and, when the occasion demanded, even ruthless warrior king, whose Christian piety did not preclude him from attempting to bind the 'heathens' by means of a pagan ritual.4 The difficulties Alfred experienced in making peace with the Vikings also call into question whether Christian Anglo-Saxon kings and pagan Viking sea-kings shared a common political culture and held the same concept of 'peace.' The primary lesson that Alfred learned from his failures to bind the Vikings to their promises was that to make a lasting peace with a Danish king one had to recreate him into a Christian English monarch. What do the sources mean when they say that Alfred 'made peace' with the Vikings in 871? Asser's claim that Vikings promised to vacate the kingdom is found neither in the surviving recensions of the Chronicle nor in /Ethelweard's rendition. Nevertheless, all the sources make it clear that the Vikings did leave Wessex to take up winter quarters in Mercian London. The quid that Alfred paid for this quo was undoubtedly cash, much as the Mercians were to do in the following year.5 Cash and plunder, after all, were what the Vikings sought, and when one was dealing from a position of weakness, as were Alfred in 871 and King Burgraed of Mercia in 872, cash was what one offered and hoped would be accepted.6 The precedent Alfred followed was Prankish. The payment of tribute was the primary way in which Charles the Bald and other Prankish princes dealt with

4

For the traditional view of Alfred, see especially Charles Plummer, The Life and Times of Alfred the Great (Oxford, 1902), and Eleanor Shipley Duckett, Alfred the Great: The King and His England (Chicago, 1956). For a revised view of Alfred, see Janet L. Nelson, 'Wealth and Wisdom: The Politics of Alfred the Great,' in Kings and Kingship: Acta, ed. Joel Rosenthal, 9 (1984; published in 1987), 31-52; Robin Fleming, 'Monastic Lands and England's Defence in the Viking Age,' EHR 100 (1985): 247-64; Richard Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England (Los Angeles, 1988), 59-81, 85-86. A judicious appreciation of Alfred is offered by Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, Alfred the Great, 9-48. 5 The Chronicle of/Ethelweard, ed. Alistair Campbell (London, 1962), 40: 'Myrcii confirmant cum eis faederus pactum stipendiaque statuunt.' The Chronicle and Asser simply say that the Mercians made peace with the army, but a charter issued in 872 by Waerfeth, bishop of Worcester, explains that the bishop leased the land in question 'chiefly because of the very pressing affliction and immense tribute of the barbarians, in that same year when the pagans stayed in London.' EHD, 1: 532; Alfred the Great, 244, n. 80. See also Plummer, ASC, a. 865, 866, 868, 872, 873. 6 Cf. ibid., a. 865, and Asser, ch. 20 (a. 864), Alfred the Great, 74, where the men of Kent concluded a peace treaty with the Viking army encamped on the Isle of Thanet. Despite the Kentish men's promise of money 'to ensure that the treaty was kept,' the Vikings decided that they could do better by plundering eastern Kent, and so they did.

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the Vikings throughout the second half of the ninth century.7 Given Charles's domestic problems with his nobility and the tactical challenge presented by the mobile raiders, such a policy was not unreasonable; indeed, until Charles created an effective system of fortified bridges on the Seine and Loire he had few other options.8 Whether they came to plunder, to extort tribute, or to grab land, Viking chieftains and their warbands were after the same thing: the acquisition of wealth.9 In this, as Timothy Reuter has recently reminded us, the Viking predators were no different from their aristocratic English, Irish, or Carolingian prey.10 This shared culture of predation is evident even in the chronicles of the victims.11 The reader of the Annals of Ulster is hard-pressed to distinguish between the plundering of the 'good guys,' the Irish high-kings, and that of the 'bad guys,' the Danes and Norse (dub- mdfinngallaibh), their sometime allies.12 Aed mac Niall of Tara laid waste the rival kingdom of Laignin, burning the churches as

7

See Einar Joranson, The Danegeld in France (Rock Island, Illinois, 1923). The first Danegeld seems to have been paid by the Frisians in 810 during the reign of Charlemagne and in 836 and 837 under Louis the Pious. Joranson, 236-38. The first 'royal' Danegeld was the 7,000 pounds paid by Charles the Bald to the Viking chieftain Ragnar in 845 (Joranson, 26-38). Charles was to resort to payments again in 853, 860, 861, 866, and 877 (twice). Lothar II had made a similar payment in 864. Since the composition and leadership of the Viking companies that ravaged Francia and England often overlapped, it is not surprising that the Danes in the mid 860s would begin to extort Danegeld from their English hosts. 8 For Charles the Bald's military problems in fighting the Vikings, see Carroll Gillmor, 'War on the Rivers: Viking Numbers and Mobility on the Seine and the Loire, 841-885,' Viator 19 (1988): 79-109. Dr. Gillmor has also produced a series of excellent conference papers on the fortified bridges of Charles the Bald that still await publication. 9 Lucien Musset proposes a schema for the 'phases' of Viking activity in the West, which posits a shift over time from raids of plunder, to systematic extortion of Danegeld, to direct exploitation through invasion and settlement. Lucien Musset, Les Invasions: Le Second assaut contre I'Europe chretienne (Paris, 1965), 127-28. While a model of this sort does, roughly, describe the changing aspirations and activities of Viking armies in Francia and England between c. 800 and c. 900, it also overly systematizes the process. Eleanor Searle, Predatory Kinship and the Creation of Norman Power, 840-1066 (Berkeley, 1988), 16-17. 10 Timothy Reuter, 'Plunder and Tribute in the Carolingian Empire,' Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser. 35 (1985): 75-94. 1 ' What most upset the clerical author of the Annals ofFulda about Charles the Fat's negotiations with the Vikings of Asselt in 882 was not that the emperor failed to engage the Northmen in battle, but that he paid them tribute when they ought to have paid him. Reuter, 'Plunder,' 75, quoting Annales Fuldenses, ed. Friedrich Kurze, Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum Separatim Editi (MGH) 1 (Hanover, 1895), a. 882, p. 99. 12 Nor was it uncommon for Irish kings to seek allies among the Vikings when they needed some additional muscle against their neighbors. Annals of Ulster (to A.D. 1131), eds. Sean Mac Airt and Gearoid Mac Niocaill, Part 1: Text and Translation, Institute for Advanced Studies (Dublin, 1983), 850, 863, 868. The newly arrived Danes were not above plundering the encampments of the established Norse (ibid., a. 851). For early mediaeval Irish kingship and political history, see Francis John Byrne, Irish Kings and High-Kings (New York, 1973); Michael Richter, Medieval Ireland: The Enduring Tradition (New York, 1983).

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he went.13 The Norse of Dublin joined forces with Cinaed son of Conaing, king of the Ciannachta, to plunder the lands of the high-king 'from Shannon to the sea,'sparing neither the land nor its churches.14 The Danish sea-king Ivarr sacked the Norse settlement of Dublin, slaughtering all he encountered. The names and nationalities may change, but the activities described in the Annals remain the same.15 Anglo-Saxon kings of Alfred's day undoubtedly had similar aspirations. As the Beowulf poet sang: Often Scyld Scefing took mead-benches away from enemy bands, from many tribes, terrified their nobles . . . [He] became great under the skies, prospered in honours until every one of those who lived under him. . . had to pay tribute. That was a good king.16 By this measure, Alfred's son Edward the Elder and his grandsons ^thelstan, Edmund, and Eadred were very good kings.17 In 871 Alfred was not yet one; by the end of his reign, however, he would be, not simply because he saved Wessex from conquest and his dynasty from extinction, and not just because he issued law and translated Latin works into English, but because he defeated Guthrum and imposed his royal lordship over and undoubtedly exacted tribute from Danes, west Mercians, and the southern Welsh.18 'If once you have paid him the Dane-geld/you never get rid of the Dane,' Kipling observed.19 Perhaps, but you could get rid of him temporarily. Alfred's purchase

13

Annals of Ulster, a. 856, 863, 874. Ibid., a. 850; Smyth, Scandinavian Kings, 129-30. Annals of Ulster, a. 851. On the complex struggle between Norse and Dane in Ireland in the 850s, see Smyth, Scandinavian Kings, 127-142. 16 Beowulf: A New Prose Translation, trans. E. Talbot Donaldson (New York, 1966), 1. 17 The language of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and the royal styles preferred by Alfred and his successors point toward a redefinition of the House of Cerdic from a West Saxon to an Anglo-Saxon dynasty. P.M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1971), 259, 343; Keynes and Lapidge, Alfred the Great, 38. A sense of 'Englishness' may well have even predated Alfred and aided his and his son's military and political efforts. Patrick Wormald, 'Bede, Bretwaldas and the Origins of the Gens Anglorum,' in Ideal and Reality in Prankish and Anglo-Saxon Society; Studies Presented to J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, eds. Patrick Wormald, Donald Bullough, and Roger Collins (Oxford, 1983), 99-129. All that being said, one must still remember that the East Anglians, Mercians, and Northumbrians whom Edward and ^Ethelstan 'liberated' from Danish rule were no more their traditional subject than were the Danes themselves, and when Edmund 'redeemed' the Danes of the Five Boroughs from their 'bonds of captivity to the heathen' (ASC, a. 942), the hegemony he restored was not one created by distant ancestors, but one established by his father and his brother. The hidage assessments that Edward the Elder imposed upon the newly conquered Midlands were for the levying of royal tribute. Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation, 102-3. Cf. Pauline Stafford, Unification and Conquest: A Political and Social History of England in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (London, 1989), 24-44. 18 Abels, Lordship, 83. 14 15

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of peace in 871 bought him a five-year respite, as the Danes turned their attention to Northumbria and Mercia. Except for a naval skirmish in the summer of 875, Alfred was at peace with the Vikings. In the following year, however, King Guthrum led his army from Cambridge into Wessex and, slipping past Alfred's forces, seized the convent and royal burh of Wareham, an eminently defensible site bounded by the rivers Frome and Tarrant. From there he began to raid the countryside.20 Alfred reacted promptly, laying siege to Wareham, but the best he could achieve was a stalemate: the Vikings could not escape, and he could not force his way in. Alfred's essential pragmatism is revealed by the negotiations that followed. Unable to achieve military victory over the Danes, he attempted to find common ground with them, some ceremony or ritual of peace-making that the Vikings would recognize as binding. He thought he found it by combining a payment of money with an exchange of hostages and the swearing of oaths.21 As the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates: and then the king made peace with the enemy and they gave him hostages, who were the most important men next to their king in the army, and swore oaths to him on the holy ring - a thing which they would not do before for any nation - that they would speedily leave his kingdom.22

Sacred oaths played a critical role in resolving disputes in ninth-century England. Sworn on holy relics, they drew upon a force more powerful than any wielded by an earthly king, the shared Christian belief that Divine retribution would visit oathbreakers. A supernatural sanction was needed to secure a man's promise in a period when the coercive power of government was so weak.23 This was even more true for ending hostilities between kingdoms of equal or near equal power. Because of their blithe contempt for the wrath of the Christian God, the pagan Northmen must have appeared untrustworthy in the extreme to the English. How

19 Rudyard Kipling, 'Paying the Danegeld,' A Choice of Kipling's Verse, selected by T.S. Eliot (London, 1941), 288. 20 This account of events in 876 is based on: Plummer, ASC, a. 876; jEthelweard, Chronicle, 41^42; Asser, chap. 49, Alfred the Great, 82-83. Asser and ^thelweard add information to the more laconic narrative in Plummer, ASC. The former is especially informative about the location and defenses of Wareham. 2 ' yfithelweard, Chronicle, 41, says that Alfred gave them money at the same time that he made a pact of peace ('rex pactum cum eis pacis confirmat, simulque pecuniam dando'). Neither Asser nor Plummer, ASC mention a cash payment. 22 EHD, 1: 194. The 'A' recension omits the reference to hostages, but Asser and jEthelweard both mention them. 23 Alfred's emphasis upon oaths in his laws and his successors' insistence on oaths of fidelity from their subjects underscore just how important the oath was to maintaining the Anglo-Saxon political and social order. Abels, Lordship, 83-90, esp. 85-87. Patrick Wormald emphasizes this point in his forthcoming The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Norman Conquest. I am grateful to Dr. Wormald for making a manuscript of this work available to me.

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could one deal with a foe to whom oaths were mere words, to be honored or broken as the situation required? An exchange of hostages and a mere promise of good behavior, Alfred realized, was insufficient warranty for the withdrawal of Guthrum and his army. An oath was necessary to bind the enemy with supernatural fetters, but oaths upon relics could bind only a Christian foe. To bind heathens one needed something that they believed sacred, hence the 'holy ring,' an arm-ring associated with the worship of Thor.24 Asser realized the implications of such a ceremony and was embarrassed enough by it to alter the text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, changing the holy ring into 'relics in which the king placed the greatest trust after God.'25 His hero had been willing to engage in a pagan ritual, in fact had insisted upon a pagan ritual, to resolve a conflict.26 Embarrassed as Asser may have been, Alfred's only regret probably was that his clever stratagem failed. 'But one night, practising their usual treachery, after their own manner, and paying no heed to the hostages, the oath and the promise of faith, they broke the treaty, killed all the hostages they had, and turning away they went unexpectedly to another place called Exeter.... There they spent the winter.'27 Why had the oath failed? That, unfortunately, is an unanswerable question. The Danes of Wareham may simply have been a slippery crew, even by Viking standards. Or perhaps they did not regard an oath to a Christian as binding, even if taken on the ring of Thor. Or maybe Alfred just got it wrong. We know precious little about pagan practices in Viking-age Denmark. Most of the evidence comes from Icelandic and Norse sagas of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In a number of these, notably Eyrbyggja Saga and Landndmabok, we read about a holy ring of Thor upon which oaths were taken, and in others, about peace-oaths taken before the formal handshakes or handslaps that ended conflicts.28 This evidence, however, is late, and even in the sagas oaths do not

24

A number of Icelandic sagas, most notably Eyrbyggja saga, trans. Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards (Toronto, 1973), chaps. 4 and 16, and Landndmabok, trans. Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards (Winnipeg, 1972), iv, chap. 7, refer to a silver altar ring consecrated by being dipped into the blood of a sacrificial ox that was to be kept in the inner sanctuary of pagan temples and worn by chieftains during the meeting of the Thing. According to Eyrbyggja saga, chap. 4, all oaths in matters relating to ordeals were to be sworn on such a ring. That the Danes in 876 swore upon an arm-ring is confirmed by ^Ethelweard, who describes it as armilla sacra. Chronicle, 41. 25 Asser, ch. 49, Alfred the Great, 83. 26 Asser, however, did retain the Chronicler's boast (made meaningless by the alteration) that 'the Vikings had never been willing before to [swear such an oath] to any race.' Cf. the explanation offered by Keynes and Lapidge, Alfred the Great, 245^6. 27 Asser, chap. 49, Alfred the Great, 82-83. 28 The Prankish Annals describe that when Charlemagne's embassy of twelve Franks met with twelve high-ranking Danes to conclude a peace-treaty in 811, they confirmed the peace with an exchange of oaths, but we do not know the form of the oath, upon what it was taken, or who initiated the ceremony.

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have the same centrality as in Anglo-Saxon law and literature. It is possible that oaths were not as essential in resolving disputes in ninth-century Denmark as in Anglo-Saxon England.29 In any event, Alfred's attempt to find common ground failed. The betrayal of the oath was sufficient to justify Asser's bitter comment that the heathens were by nature perfidious. When enemies do not share the same idea of what is honorable and dishonorable, it is easy to demonize the foe. A well documented example from Roman history offers an interesting parallel to Alfred's situation. In 150 B.C. a praetor named Galba pursuing a war with the native Celtiberians did a most un-Romanlike thing: he treacherously annihilated a tribe of Lusitanians after agreeing to a truce. Tired of war, the Lusitanians had sued for peace, asking Galba to restore the terms of a treaty that they had recently violated. Feigning sympathy, Galba persuaded them to lay down their arms under a promise of friendship and then slaughtered them. As Appian commented, 'Thus he avenged treachery with treachery, imitating barbarians in a way unworthy of a Roman.'30 Underlying this atrocity was an unbridgeable cultural gulf. For the Romans treaties were sacred, and those who broke them lacked fides. For Alfred the same was true for oaths and for oath-breakers. From his failure in 876 Alfred learned that to make a secure peace with Vikings they had to cease to be Vikings. To bind them, one had to recreate their leaders in the image of Christian Anglo-Saxon (or Carolingian) territorial rulers. Once defeated, their sea-kings had to be provided with a political ideology that emphasized stability and legitimacy. For this Christianity, as well as military superiority, was essential, not merely for the pious purposes of saving the souls of the heathens, but to 'civilize' them, to make them into people with whom one could deal. Alfred's opportunity came with his decisive victory over Guthrum at Edington in the spring of 878. He pursued the remnants of Guthrum's army to its stronghold, probably Chippenham, and laid siege to it. He seized all the horses and cattle and summarily killed all the men he found outside the burh. Alfred was playing for keeps. He and his army camped outside Chippenham for a fortnight, until: the heathens, thoroughly terrified by hunger, cold and fear, and in the end by despair, sought peace on this condition: the king should take as many chosen hostages as he

29 For references to oaths in the sagas, see Paul Du Chaillu, The Viking Age: The Early History, Manners, and Customs of the Ancestors of the English-Speaking Nations (London, 1889), 553-59. Du Chaillu, of course, is completely uncritical. It is striking how little role oaths play in the reconciliation of disputes in the Icelandic saga. They are virtually absent from Jesse Byock's Feud in the Icelandic Saga (Berkeley, 1982). 30 Appian Roman History VI.x.59-60, ed. and trans. Horace White, Loeb's Classical Library (1912; repr. ed., Cambridge, MA [1958]), 1: 229-33.

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Haskins Society Journal wanted from them and give none to them; never before, indeed, had they made peace with anyone on such terms. When he had heard their embassy, the king (as was his wont) was moved to compassion and took as many chosen hostages from them as he wanted. When they had been handed over, the heathens swore in addition that they would leave his kingdom immediately, and Guthrum, their king, promised to accept Christianity and to receive baptism at King Alfred's hand; all of which he and his men fulfilled as they promised. For three weeks later Guthrum, the king of the heathens, with thirty of the best men in his army, came to King Alfred at a place called Aller, near Athelney. King Alfred raised him from the holy font of baptism, receiving him as his adoptive son; the unbinding of the chrism took place at a royal estate called Wedmore. Guthrum remained with the king for twelve nights after he had been baptized, and the king freely bestowed many excellent treasures on him and all his men.31

Alfred's dealings with Guthrum in the wake of Edington, like his payment of Danegeld, finds an echo in ninth-century Francia. Carolingian rulers ordinarily required conversion before they would ally themselves with Viking chieftains.32 When in 826 the exiled Danish king Harald Klak sought aid from Louis the Pious in the recovery of his kingdom, the emperor agreed only on condition that his pagan suppliant convert, because (in the words of St. Anskar's biographer Rimbert): 'there would then be a more intimate friendship between them, and a Christian people would more readily come to his aid and the aid of his friends if both peoples were worshippers of the same God.'33 Harald was baptized with his wife in Louis's palace at Ingelheim. Then,' according to Thegan, 'the Emperor gave him a large part of Frisia, and having honored him with many gifts, he sent him and his messengers away in peace.' Similarly, in 862 Charles the Bald required the Viking chieftain Weland to accept baptism along with his family, before accepting his oath of fealty.34 And in 873, a mere five years before Edington, Charles required conversion from a group of Vikings whom he had defeated at Angers who expressed a desire to remain in his territories.35 Though Alfred's peace-making strategy in 878 may not have been as innovative as his attempt in 876, it was far more successful. He was now dealing from strength. Guthrum's forces had been crushed in battle, and the Danish king's very survival had depended upon Alfred's mercy. Alfred's insistence upon Guthrum's conversion should be regarded as an attempt to remake his enemy after his

31

Asser, chap. 56, Alfred the Great, 84-85. Eleanor Searle has some interesting comments about two apparent exceptions to this practice, Lothar I's grant of Walchern to Harald in 841-842 and Charles the Simple's negotiations with the still pagan Seine Vikings in the mid-890s. Predatory Kinship, 16, 41-42. 33 'Vita Anskarii austore Rimberto,' in Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum im Usum Scholar um Separatim Editi 55, ed. Georg Waitz (Hanover, 1884), chap. 7; trans. C.H. Robinson, Anskar the Apostle of the North (London, 1921), 38. 34 Annales Bertiani, a. 862. 35 Ibid., a. 873. cf. the conversion of Gotfrid, 'king of the Norsemen,' as described by Regino of Prum. Reginionis abbatis Prumiensis Chronicon, ed. Friedrich Kurze, Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum Separatim Editi (MGH) 50 (Hannover, 1870), a. 882 (pp. 119-120).

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own image.36 With his baptism the Danish sea-king Guthrum had been reborn; Christened ./Emelstan, he was now Alfred's adoptive son. The ceremonies at Aller and Wedmore were intended to impress Guthrum and enmesh him in webs of obligation and dependency. By standing sponsor at the baptism, Alfred was asserting his political as well as spiritual superiority over his new adoptive son.37 The rich gifts that he showered upon Guthrum and his followers were freely given and freely accepted, in pointed contrast to the payments of tribute that he had made in the past. Alfred was now the ring-giver, the open-handed lord, and Guthrum the grateful recipient of the largess. Alfred had not only received Guthrum into the body of Christian believers, but had welcomed him to the political community of English rulers. This is clearly reflected in the treaty between the two kings in or soon after Alfred's seizure of London in 886.38 Although the frontiers established by this treaty may have collapsed within a decade,39 the document is nonetheless interesting for the light is sheds on Alfred's relationship with Guthrum after Wedmore. Its prologue establishes the tone: 'This is the peace which King Alfred and King Guthrum and the councillors of all the English race and all the people who are in East Anglia have all agreed on and confirmed with oaths, for themselves and for their subjects, both for the living and the unborn, who care to have God's favour or ours.' The language is that of traditional Anglo-Saxon law, emphasizing oaths and the favor of God. The agreement that follows defines the social classes of Danish East Anglia in terms equivalent to those of Wessex, so that redress and compensation for crimes could be offered. It also attempts to minimize opportunities for conflict by regulating movement and commerce between the two kingdoms. The Guthrum of this treaty is no longer the sea-raider of the summer army of 871; he is now a king. The success of Alfred's peace-making is reflected in the numismatic evidence. The 'Cross-and-Lozenge (i.e., geometric)' and 'Two Emperors' issues of the early 880s and the famous London Monogram and Two-line types of the latter

36

The power and authority of Danish kings in the ninth century is difficult to determine on the basis of the extant sources. It would seem, though, that the growing power of the Jelling dynasty may have been, at least in part, the result of its contact with the Carolingians, who provided in the early ninth century both a model of kingship and a threat. (It is wise to remember that the ramparts that Godfred ordered to be built across the southern part of his kingdom in 808 - possibly the Kovirke south of Hedeby - were undertaken to defend his kingdom against the Prankish menace.) For good recent studies of Viking Age Danish kingship and aristocracy, see Else Roesdahl, Viking Age Denmark (London, 1982); Klavs Randsborg, The Viking Age in Denmark (New York, 1980); P.H. Sawyer, Kings and Vikings (London, 1982), 46-56. 37 Keynes and Lapidge, Alfred the Great, 249 (n. 110). The practice goes back to the seventh century. See, e.g., Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, eds. Bertram Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1969), 233. 38 Keynes and Lapidge, Alfred the Great, 171-72. 39 R.H.C. Davis, 'Alfred and Guthrum's Frontier,' EHR 97 (1982): 803-10.

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part of his reign represent a significant coinage reform, replacing the debased, light 'Lunette' series (50 per cent fine under Aethelred I, falling to less than 20 per cent fine in the 870s40) with a new coin of fine silver.41 The restoration of the coinage eloquently attests to the new political stability and prosperity Alfred enjoyed after Edington. That prosperity may have been funded in part by the spoils of victory; it would be reasonable to expect that Guthrum more than returned the victor's baptismal gifts.42 The numismatic evidence also underscores Alfred's success in acculturating his enemy to the Anglo-Saxon political culture. The Danes lacked a tradition of minting coins, and 'the Vikings who settled in Britain and Ireland seem to have been unfamiliar with the use of coin per se.'43 The large, well-regulated coinages of pennies and halfpennies struck in the Danelaw at the end of the ninth century suggest that the new Anglo-Danish rulers quickly learned the value of a monetary system. Guthrum was the earliest to adopt this attribute of kingship. Between 880 and 890 he issued a series of Two-line coins under his baptismal name ^Ethelstan. The coin type was not only based on a West Saxon issue, but some of Guthrum's coins were minted by moneyers who also struck for Alfred. There is even evidence that the two kings shared a mint.44 One cannot assess how seriously Guthrum regarded his conversion, but his use of his baptismal name on his coinage implies that he at least wished to present himself as a Christian king. By the mid 890s the most popular coinage in the southern Danelaw was the St. Edmund's penny commemorating a king martyred by the fathers of those who placed his name and image on their coins. In this way the Christian Viking rulers of East Anglia associated themselves with the English royal dynasty they had extinguished and replaced a generation before. The power of the Anglo-Saxon model of kingship is demonstrated in the widespread minting of 'Alfred' coins throughout the Danelaw at the beginning of the tenth century.45 This does not mean that the Vikings of Northumbria accepted even the theoretical overlordship of West Saxon kings, anymore than Offa's imitation Arabic coins meant that he recognized the superiority of the Caliph. But it does indicate the integration of the victorious Viking chieftains into an AngloSaxon Christian culture and an adoption of the conquered people's concept of rulership. This is not to say that the Vikings ceased to be Scandinavians, any more than Kublai Khan ceased to be a Mongol. What it does imply is that, for

D.M. Metcalf and J.P. Northover, 'Debasement of the Coinage in Southern England in the Age of King Alfred,' Numismatic Chronicle 145 (1985): 155-71. 41 Philip Grierson and Mark Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, I, The Early Middle Ages (5th-10th Centuries) (Cambridge, 1976), 312. 42 J.R. Maddicott, Trade, Industry and the Wealth of King Alfred,' Past and Present 123 (1989): 14-15. 43 Grierson and Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, 318. 44 Ibid., 318. 45 Ibid., 315-20. 40

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their own purposes, the Viking 'kings' exchanged their powers and authority as Herekonigen for that of territorial Anglo-Saxon kings. One is reminded both of the Roman 'creation' of German political tribes with which they could deal,46 and of the British and French reshaping of traditional African chieftainship (and redefinition of traditional concepts of property) in the late nineteenth century in order to have kings with whom a 'civilized' power could deal and contract treaties.47 In the case of both the Romans and the European imperialist powers, the giving of gifts to chieftains and the promise of material and miliary support helped create 'big men' who in fact had the power posited to them in theory by the 'civilized' powers with whom they dealt. One perhaps could even note here that the 'civilizing' of Africa entailed not only the creation of stable political units, but the Christianization of the native populace to provide a common cultural ground upon which to deal.48 Alfred's dealings with the Viking raiders of 892-96 provide a coda for our inquiry into his peace-making strategies. When the Vikings returned from a suddenly inhospitable Francia in the 890s, they found an England that had been militarily transformed through Alfred's efforts. Between 878 and 892 he had instituted a new integrated defensive system of garrisoned boroughs and rotating contingents in a standing, mobile field army.49 Alfred's military power in the 890s was thus far greater than it had been a decade or two before. 46

Patrick J. Geary, Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World (New York, 1988), vi-viii, 39-75. See also Edward James, The Franks (Oxford, 1988), 163: 'We are unlikely to find very much in the way of "traditional Germanic characteristics" in Merovingian kingship. The institution grew up within the Roman Empire, partly in response to the need of the Romans themselves to manipulate and organize military support.' 47 The case of Matola I and Matola II of Newala between the 1870s and 1930s is a dramatic example of the impact of (well-meaning) Europeans on traditional African political authority. The British (and later the Germans) came to southeast Tanzania expecting to find an ethnically based political authority with whom to work and, failing to find one, created one. Terence Ranger, 'European Attitudes and African Realities: The Rise and Fall of the Matola Chiefs of South-East Tanzania,' Journal of African History 20 (1979): 52-63. See also A.E. Afigbo, 'The Establishment of Colonial Rule, 1900-1918,' in History of West Africa, 2, eds. J.F. Ade Ajayi and Michael Crowder (New York, 1976), 424-83; John E. Flint, 'Nigeria: The Colonial Experience from 1880 to 1914,' Colonialism in Africa, 1 (Cambridge, 1969), 220-60, esp. 244-58; Terence Ranger, 'The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa,' in The Invention of Tradition, eds. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (London, 1983), 211-62, esp. 220-36. 48 The other side of the coin is the Vikings' creation of friendly rulers, such as Ceolwulf II of Mercia and Egbert of Northumbria, who are portrayed in the Chronicle as puppets of the Viking invader. From the language used in the ASC it would appear that these client rulers had formally submitted to the lordship of Viking chieftains, pledging their aid and support in return for protection. That this protection was needed is evidenced by the Northumbrian revolt against King Egbert and Archbishop Wulfhere, the former dying in exile and the latter being restored to power only through the intervention of Halfdan. The Viking clients seem to have held their kingdoms as subrulers, as custodians; in 876 Halfdan took part of Northumbria to be his own kingdom, and in the following year Ceolwulf similarly gave up a portion of his. It would not be surprising if Guthrum's East Anglian kingdom did not have a similar arrangement with local aristocrats. 49 Abels, Lordship, 58-78.

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Alfred attempted to deprive the raiders of support among their compatriots settled in East Anglia and Northumbria by taking oaths and hostages from the native Danish rulers. The lure of plunder, however, seems to have been too great, and 'contrary to their pledges, as often as the other Danish armies went out in full force, they went either with them or on their behalf.'50 Alfred attempted to pacify the Viking chieftain Haestein through conversion and gifts, as he had done before with Guthrum. Haestein accepted baptism and gladly took Alfred's gifts and then proceeded to build himself a fortress at Benfleet from which he could raid Alfred's kingdom. Alfred tried once more to bind the chieftain to him through the moral obligation arising from the acceptance of gifts, when he generously restored to Haestein his wife and two sons (Alfred's and Ealdorman ^Ethelred's godsons), whom he had captured when he took Benfleet in893.51 It didn't work. What was missing was clear military superiority and a territorial settlement. This was Alfred's last attempt to make peace with the new army. Over the next two years, he pursued the raiders and fought them; when he caught them, he killed them. Two Viking ships, trying to escape a naval engagement near the Isle of Wight in 896, ran aground on the Sussex shore. The crews, many of whom were wounded, were immediately seized and brought before Alfred at Winchester. The king's decision was to hang them all.52 By the summer of 896 it had become obvious to Haestein and his followers that their raid had been and would continue to be unprofitable. The support provided by the East Anglians and Northumbrians ought not to be regarded as proof of the failure of Alfred's policies. By supporting the Danish invaders, the rulers of these Anglo-Scandinavian principalities were behaving no differently from Irish kings and Prankish princes who viewed the Vikings as useful allies in expeditions of plunder. Nor were they behaving that differently from previous Anglo-Saxon warrior-kings and aethelings. Alfred had succeeded in bringing the Viking chieftains into the Anglo-Saxon political structure, but this made them no more safe or reliable than their Anglo-Saxon counterparts. Nevertheless, the support given the Vikings by native Danish leaders underscored a problem for the West Saxon dynasty, a problem which came into clearer focus in 900 when the aetheling ^thelwold, son of Alfred's elder brother King jEthelred, contested the succession of Edward and sought allies among the Danes of Northumbria and East Anglia, who, according to all but the 'A' recension of the Chronicle, took him to be their king and lord. Edward's first campaign against the Danelaw was, in fact, a response to yEmelwold's harrying of English Mercia. From 902 to about 913 the campaigns of Edward and the Mercian rulers vEthelred and yEthelflaed were probably defensive; by 914 Edward and his sister had taken the war to the Danes. From that point on, peace-making was to be indistinguishable from conquest. 50 51 52

United States Naval Academy Plummer, ASC, a. 893. Ibid. Ibid., a. 896.

3

From Bede to Orderic Vitalis: Changing Perspectives on the Role of Women in the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman Churches Jean A. Truax

No female character in Bede's eighth-century Historia ecclesiastica received greater praise than St. Etheldreda of Ely, who preserved her virginity through twelve years of marriage to two husbands before entering the monastery at Coldingham. She is a fitting example of the type of woman who found favor with Anglo-Saxon chroniclers, for the women who loom largest in their tales are the queens and princesses who abandoned positions of power and influence to enter nunneries.1 But although monasticism for women remained a vital force in the religious life of the twelfth century,2 chroniclers such as William of Malmesbury, 1

In Bede's///s/on'a ecclesiastica, ed. Christopher Plummer, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1896) consider Hilda of Whitby, 178, 183, 252-62; Etheldreda of Ely, 243^8; Ethelburga and Hildelith of Barking, 221-25; Earcongota and the saintly daughters of King Anna of East Anglia, 142^-4. For ^Ifflaed of Whitby, see Eddius Stephanus, The Life of Bishop Wilfrid, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave (Cambridge. 1927), 128-32, and Bede, 'Life of Cuthbert,' in Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert, ed. and trans, idem (Cambridge, 1985), 230-38. Several of these women also appeared in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Earcongota (a.640), Etheldreda (a.679), Hilda of Whitby (a.680): The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. and trans. G.N. Garmonsway (London, 1986): In his De virginitate, Aldhelm praised virginity as the supreme good, but also paid tribute to those who had left their spouses to enter the religious life, praising those who 'break the yoked union of marriage, and by devout mind remove particular temptations, spurning the permissible joys of worldly pomp.' 'Poema: De virginitate,' in PL, 89, col. 211. 2 Sharon K. Elkins, Holy Women of Twelfth Century England (Chapel Hill, NC, 1988); also, my own unpublished paper 'Anglo-Saxon Female Monasticism after 1066,' delivered at the 24th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, 1989. Christina of Markyate was of course one of the women who attained sanctity according to the previous model. The Life of Christina of Markyate, ed. and trans. C.H. Talbot (Oxford, 1959). For the fact that stories of Anglo-Saxon saints like Etheldreda continued to be of interest, see the discussion of the works of Goscelin of Saint-Bertin in The Liber Confortatorius of Goscelin of Saint-Bertin,' Analecta Monastica, ed. idem, 3rd ser. 37 (Rome, 1955), 5-14. Also, Susan Millinger, 'Humility and Power: Anglo-Saxon Nuns in Anglo-Norman Hagiography,' in Distant Echoes: Medieval Religious Women 1, (Kalamazoo, MI, 1984), 115-29. Susan J. Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England: A Studv of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults. (Cambridge, 1988).

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Henry of Huntingdon, and Orderic Vitalis seem to have developed an additional model of ideal Christian womanhood that emphasized the contributions of lay noblewomen.3 These writers altered their predecessors' stories about women and added new ones that reflect an increasing awareness of the power of AngloNorman women in their families and in their society as a whole.4 A comparison of their stories with those of earlier writers should point out the critical elements of the new model. The evolution of Etheldreda's story indicates that the Anglo-Normans no longer considered it praiseworthy for an individual to leave a spouse for the sanctuary of the cloister as she had done. At least Etheldreda's second husband, Ecgfrith of Northumbria, clearly objected to her departure, since Bishop Wilfrid of York told Bede that the king had promised to give him 'estates and great wealth' if he could persuade the queen to consummate her marriage.5 Bede told Etheldreda's story in great detail, praising her flight from the world and ending with an acrostic poem in which he compared her with the virgin martyrs Agatha, Eulalia, Thecla, Euphemia, Agnes, and Cecilia.6 The Anglo-Norman writers, however, were unimpressed with Etheldreda; Henry of Huntingdon accorded her only a single sentence in the year of her death, noting under the year 678 that she had been married to King Ecgfrith but had remained a virgin.7 Florence of Worcester alluded to the disagreement between husband and wife that preceded the separation, writing: Etheldreda, queen of the Northumbrians, begged King Ecgfrith for a long time for permission to set aside the cares of the world and serve Christ the Lord in a monastery,

3

For general discussions of the use of types and models of right conduct in the middle ages, see Sally N. Vaughn, Anselm of Bee and Robert ofMeulan: The Innocence of the Dove and the Wisdom of the Serpent (Berkeley, 1987), 149-55, 265-312. Also Caroline Walker Bynum, 'Did the Twelfth Century Discover the Individual?' in Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1984), 82-109. For the life of Margaret of Scotland, discussed infra, as a model for her daughter Edith Matilda, wife of Henry I, see Lois L. Huneycutt, 'The Idea of the Perfect Princess: The Life of St. Margaret in the Reign of Matilda II (1100-1118),' A-NS 12 (1990): 81-97. 4 Cf. Eleanor Searle, Predatory Kinship and the Creation of Norman Power, 840-1066 (Berkeley, 1988). For the fact that women in other times and places had also exercised such power within their families, see David Herlihy, Medieval Households (Cambridge, MA, 1985), 29-78; Suzanne Fonay Wemple, Women in Prankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister: 500-900 (Philadelphia, 1981); Jo Ann McNamara and Suzanne Wemple, 'The Power of Women through the Family in Medieval Europe: 500-1100,' in Feminist Studies 1 (1972): 126-41. 5 Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, 243. 6 Ibid., 247-48. 7 Henry of Huntingdon, Henrici Archidiaconi Huntendunensis Historia Anglorum, ed. Thomas Arnold (London, 1879), 63. He also discussed Bishop Wilfrid's two exiles without mentioning the controversy with the king over Etheldreda's refusal to consummate her marriage, 100-03.

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and having finally succeeded, she entered the monastery of the holy Aebbe [at Coldingham] . . . .8 Similarly, William of Malmesbury wrote: Etheldreda, though married to two husbands, yet by means of saintly continence, as Bede relates, without any diminution of modesty, without a single lustful inclination, triumphantly displayed in heaven the crown of perpetual virginity.9 Elsewhere in his work, William of Malmesbury made a surprising statement about Ecgfrith's role in the story: The king was to be commended for two things, 'his allowing his wife to leave him, seeking the serenity of the monastery; and his promoting the blessed Cuthbert . . . to a bishopric . . . .'10 Malmesbury's statement implies that Ecgfrith was willing to respect his wife's wishes, when in fact Bede's account had clearly stated that the king begged Bishop Wilfrid to convince Etheldreda to change her mind. His comment stressed the spouses' consent to the sacrifice of sexual relations in the marriage. Similarly, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reported that Cuthburg, the wife of King Aldfrith of Northumbria, separated from her husband to enter a convent and later founded a monastery at Wimbourne.11 Her separation from her husband passed with little comment from the later chroniclers. Florence of Worcester indicated that the queen and her husband 'both renounced carnal intercourse before her death.'12 William of Malmesbury added the detail that they dissolved the marriage soon after it took place.13 These alterations seem somewhat contradictory, since the first implies a marriage abandoned only in old age, while the second suggests a union that was soon set aside. Nevertheless, both statements again

8

Worcester, 1: 30. William of Malmesbury,. Willelmi Malmesbiriensi Monachi, De gestis regum Anglorum libra quinque, ed. T.D. Hardy, English Historical Society, 2 vols. (London, 1840; repr. ed., Vaduz, 1964), 2: 368. His De gestis pontificum Anglorum, (Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi, De gestis pontificum Anglorum Libri quinque, ed. N.E.S.A. Hamilton [London, 1879], 219,256,323-24) recorded only Etheldreda's support of Bishop Wilfrid, her foundation of the monastery at Ely, the incorruptibility of her corpse, and some miracles at her tomb. Etheldreda's story remained well-known, however. In addition to Bede's account, Etheldreda's story was retold in full detail in the Liber Eliensis, a post-Conquest work produced at Ely with the intention of promoting her cult. Liber Eliensis, ed. E.O. Blake (London, 1962), 10-51. Ely had suffered severely after the Conquest because it became a sanctuary for Hereward's rebels, who swore allegiance to their cause on the saint's bones. Susan Ridyard has demonstrated that St. Etheldreda's story became a powerful weapon in Ely's later struggle to regain its lost prestige. The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England, 176-210. Writers who did not have a specific interest in the monastery at Ely seem to have remained unimpressed. 10 William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum, 78. 1 ' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a. 718. 12 Worcester, 1:49. 13 William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum, 49. 9

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reflect the new concern for mutual consent prior to the abandonment of marriage for the cloister.14 A new story about the eleventh-century Queen Margaret of Scotland further suggests that these twelfth-century Anglo-Norman writers recognized the contribution that a Christian noblewoman could make to her society and perhaps valued it more highly than the preservation of physical virginity. When King Malcolm of Scotland began to show an interest in Margaret, she refused to consider the marriage, preferring a life of virginity. Her brother Edgar Aetheling, however, consented to the marriage, having little choice in the matter because he and his mother and sisters were by this time refugees from William the Conqueror's England and dependent upon the charity of the king of Scotland. The chronicler went on to voice his approval, writing: The prescient Creator knew beforehand what His will was for her for she was destined to increase the glory of God in that land, to turn the king aside from the path of error, to incline him, together with his people, to a better way of life, and to abolish the vices which that nation had indulged in in the past - all of which she accomplished.15

Her biographer Turgot also implied that it was God's will that Margaret marry, for he wrote: '. . . she was united in marriage with the most powerful king of the Scots, Malcolm, . . . by the will of her relatives more than by her own; or rather, by God's disposition.'16 Besides leading her husband and children along the paths of Christian virtue, Margaret also enriched churches and monasteries, cared for the poor, and conducted a church council in which the practices of the Scottish church were brought into conformity with those of the rest of Europe.17 Her biographer Turgot also noted with approval that she encouraged foreign merchants to bring their goods to Scotland and that she 'instituted more ceremonious

14

The notion of consent occurs again in William of Malmesbury's account of the abandonment of his kingdom by Offa of Essex. Malmesbury wrote: 'Urged by Kyneswith, the daughter of King Penda whom he had hoped to marry, to aspire after heavenly teachings, he went to Rome with Coenred king of the Mercians, and St. Edwin bishop of Worcester, and being tonsured there, in due time entered the heavenly kingdom.' Gesta regum, 139. This statement implies that Offa abandoned not a wife, as Bede stated (Historia ecclesiastica, 322), but perhaps only a fiancee who was in full agreement with his decision. 15 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, D Version, a. 1067. The chronicler went on to quote 1 Corinthians 7:14. 'For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband.' 16 Turgot, Life of Queen Margaret, ed. Hodgson Hinde in Surtees Society Publications 51 (London, 1868), 238. 17 Ibid., 240-5. The ecclesiastical reforms instituted by Queen Margaret included changes in the liturgy of the Mass and in the observance of the Lenten fast. She instituted the custom of receiving the Eucharist on Easter and required the Scots to show proper reverence for the Sabbath by not working on that day. She also forbade marriages with step-mothers and between brother and sister-in-law. In addition, the queen constructed a pilgrim hostel at the church of St. Andrew.

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service of the king.' 18 The virginity that Bede had so highly praised in Etheldreda of Ely was no longer the supreme glory of the queen or noblewoman; by the twelfth century the accomplishments of a Margaret of Scotland as ruler, wife, and mother appeared more praiseworthy. Other stories told by the Anglo-Norman chroniclers also illustrate the new value that they attached to a woman's contribution to her family and to the country that she adopted when she married. Sometimes the benefit came simply from the marriage itself; for example, the author of the Encomium Emmae Reginae evidently believed that Emma's marriage to Cnut resulted in peace between the English and the Danes, for he speculated: '. . . perhaps this war would not have ended for a long time, or perhaps never, if he had not at last secured by the Savior's favoring grace a marriage with this most noble queen.'19 Orderic Vitalis noted the more active role that William the Conqueror's daughter Constance played in Brittany after her marriage to Count Alan Fergant: '[She] . . . did everything in her power to further the welfare of her subjects and fellow creatures. For she longed for sweet peace wherever she went, loved the poor, and showed great reverence to all the servants of God. . . .'20 The chroniclers' accounts include numerous examples of women ruling on behalf of their husbands, defending besieged castles and even leading troops in battle. Orderic stated that on several occasions Queen Matilda acted as regent for William the Conqueror, and one occasion he described her as 'a powerful ruler with vast resources at her command.'21 Fulk of Anjou's wife and sons governed his lands while he went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, 22 and Adela of Blois acted as regent when her husband Stephen left to take part in the First Crusade.23 Orderic Vitalis mentioned several colorful cases of wives who led troops in battle in support of their husbands' causes. For example, when rivalry between Countess Helwise of Evreux and Isabel of Conches, the wife of Ralph of Tosny, led to a war between their husbands, Isabel dressed as a knight and led troops in battle. Even in this case, the chronicler seems to have approved of Isabel's actions, for he described her as 'generous, daring and gay, and therefore lovable and estimable to those around her' and compared her with the legendary Amazon queens.24 In another case, when Robert Bordet, a Norman knight who had gone adventuring in Spain, returned to Normandy to recruit additional companions in arms, he left his wife Sibyl in charge of his newly acquired county of Tarragona.

18

Ibid., 241-42. Encomium Emmae Reginae, ed. and trans. Alistair Campbell, Camden Society, 3rd ser. 72 (London, 1949), 6. Also, 'This was what the army had long desired on both sides, that such a great lady, bound in marriage to so great a man, worthy of her husband as he was worthy of her, should lay the war to rest.' Ibid., 32. 20 Orderic, 2: 352. 21 Ibid., 2: 284. For other mentions of her regency, see 2: 208-10, 222-24, and 280. 22 Ibid., 6: 310. 23 Ibid., 6: 42. 24 Ibid., 4: 212-14. 19

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Concerned about a possible surprise attack by the surrounding Moors, Sibyl put on a soldier's hauberk and patrolled the walls at night to keep the guards awake. Orderic exclaimed: 'How greatly the young countess deserves praise for serving her husband with such loyalty and unfaltering love, and watching dutifully over God's people with such sleepless care!'25 Perhaps because of the example of such forceful and competent noblewomen in their own world, the story of King Alfred's daughter jEthelflaeda particularly inspired the Anglo-Norman chroniclers. After her husband Ethelred died, jEmelflaeda became the ruler of the Mercians and actively assisted her brother, Edward the Elder, in his campaigns against the Danes. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle preserves only a bare account in the years 910 to 918 of the fortresses that she built, her capture of the towns of Derby and Leicester, and her death at Tamworth while besieging York.26 Twelfth-century writers, however, were eloquent in praise of jEthelflaeda's activities in support of her brother's cause. In Henry of Huntingdon's opinion, she could have 'surpassed the most valiant of men' if she had not died prematurely.27 William of Malmesbury wrote: This most powerful woman assisted her brother greatly with her advice and was of equal service in building cities. You could not easily discern whether it was more due to fortune or her own exertions that a woman should be able to both protect her own men and to terrify foreigners.28

Malmesbury also offered a novel explanation for the fact that ^thelflaeda bore only one child, a daughter, explaining that the birth had been so difficult that jEthelflaeda afterwards refused the embraces of her husband, 'protesting that it was unbecoming for the daughter of a king to give way to a delight which later produced such painful consequences.'29 The author mentioned her continence in passing, as an explanation of the fact that she had not provided her husband with a male heir; chastity did not become the cornerstone of the story as it did in the case of Etheldreda of Ely. For William of Malmesbury and his contemporaries, jEthelflaeda was remarkable for her governance and her spirited support of her

25

Ibid., 6: 404. Contemporary chroniclers recorded many other less colorful wives who also defended their husband's castles from armed aggressors. For example, during the Earls' Rebellion in 1075, the earl of Norfolk fled the country, leaving his castle to be defended by his wife. Worcester, 2: 11; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a. 1075. In 1095 the wife of Robert of Mowbray, earl of Northumbria, held the castle of Hamburgh against the forces of William Rufus until the king seized her husband and threatened to put out his eyes. Ibid., a. 1095. Orderic noted that when Hugh of Montfort rebelled against King Henry I, he commanded his wife and retainers to hold his castle for him while he went to Brionne to warn Count Waleran of the impending arrival of royal forces. Orderic, 6: 334. 26 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a. 910-18. 27 Henry of Huntingdon, 158. 28 William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum: 196. 29 Ibid.

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brother's military campaigns, not for her resistance to marital embraces. The monastic chroniclers' embellishment of the story of ^thelflaeda suggests that the new Anglo-Norman model of ideal womanhood called for her to remain active in the world, supporting the aims of her family and promoting the welfare of the church and the people in the lands that they ruled. A second component of this new model seems to have called for the wife to promote moral reform and instill Christian virtues in her husband.30 For example, Turgot remarked that Margaret of Scotland, with God's help,'. . . made the king himself very readily inclined to works of justice, mercy, alms and other virtues.'31 Women received credit for inspiring their husbands' charitable donations and for generally reforming their husbands' lives.32 For example, according to Orderic Vitalis, a Breton named Geoffrey was guilty of 'much brigandage and theft in his youth,' but after marrying the virtuous Hildeburg, he '. . . [obeyed] her wise counsels, ceased to associate with his cruel and murderous followers and earned his living by the labor of his own hands.'33 Similarly, the young Walter of Auffay allowed himself to be dominated by foolish companions, wasting his inheritance and causing many injuries to his honest neighbors. However, the good influence of his wife Avice, whom Orderic described as 'prudent and golden-tongued,' inspired him to mend his ways. 34 Orderic pictured Adela of Blois urging her husband Stephen 'between conjugal embraces' to repent of his desertion from the First Crusade and return to the Holy Land.35 By contrast, Anglo-Saxon accounts seldom showed queens giving advice, which is particularly remarkable because several queens were the agents who introduced Christianity into the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Bede's accounts, however, stressed the contribution of the Christian bishops who accompanied these women to their new homes.36 In general, the Anglo-Norman chroniclers who 30

Sharon Farmer, 'Persuasive Voices: Clerical Images of Medieval Wives,' Speculum 61 (1986): 517^3. 31 Turgot, 241. 32 Orderic Vitalis, for example, recorded that Beatrice of Auffay suggested that her husband Walter establish a cell of monks at Auffay (3: 246) and that Countess Helwise of Evreux advised her husband to found the cell at Noyon (6: 146). He also praised Robert of Montgomery's second wife, Adelais of Le Puiset, because she encouraged her husband to befriend the monks and protect the poor (3: 138). 33 Ibid., 3: 342. 34 Ibid., 3: 256. Interestingly, Avice enlisted the help of her three brothers in the reform of her young husband. 35 'His wife Adela also frequently urged him to [return] . . . and between conjugal caresses used to say, "Far be it from you, my lord, to lower yourself by enduring the scorn of such men as these for long. Remember the courage for which you were famous in your youth, and take up the arms of the glorious crusade for the sake of saving thousands, so that Christians may raise great thanksgiving all over the world, and the lot of the heathen may be a terror and the public overthrow of their unholy law.'" Ibid., 5: 324. 36 King Peada of the Middle Angles, for example, agreed to become a Christian in order to marry the daughter of the Christian Oswy of Northumbria (Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, 169-70) and the Christian queens Bertha of Kent (p. 45) and Ethelburga of Northumbria (p. 97) first introduced their pagan husbands to the new religion. In the case of Ethelbert of

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retold Bede's stories closely followed his lead,37 but William of Malmesbury made a small addition to the story of the conversion of Northumbria that highlighted the role of the Christian queen Ethelburga. Perhaps believing that Ethelburga must have conformed to his own model of the good wife who watched over the moral and spiritual welfare of her husband, William of Malmesbury wrote: '. . .the faith of Christ our Lord, infused into those parts by the preaching of Paulinus, first reached the king himself, whom the queen was perpetually instructing with wifely affection . . . .'38 By contrast, when queens appeared elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon stories, their advice was often bad. For example, the wife of King Redwald of East Anglia persuaded him to give up his Christian faith.39 Similarly, Eddius Stephanus blamed King Ecgfrith of Northumbria's persecution of Bishop Wilfrid on the evil influence of his second wife.40 Driven into exile by the quarrel, Wilfrid took

Kent, Bede did note that the king first heard of the new religion because his wife's parents had made it a condition of the marriage that Bertha 'should have freedom to hold and practice her faith unhindered with Bishop Liudhard, whom they had sent as her helper in the faith,' (ibid.) Undoubtedly this explains why Ethelbert initially agreed to allow Augustine and his fellow missionaries to remain in the kingdom. Bede went on to explain that the king agreed to be baptized because of his admiration for 'the pure lives of these holy men and their gladdening promises, the truth of which they confirmed by many miracles. . . .' (p. 46) In Northumbria, Bede noted that Bishop Paulinus, who had accompanied Ethelburga, 'began to toil unceasingly not only by God's help to maintain the faith of his companions unimpaired, but if possible to bring some of the heathen to grace and faith by his teaching.' (ibid.) 37 For the Middle Angles, see Henry of Huntingdon, 96. For Kent, see Henry of Huntingdon, 68, and William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum: 17. For Northumbria, see Henry of Huntingdon, 83-86, and William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum: 68-69. 38 Ibid., 68-69. Although Bede gave most of the credit for the conversion to the bishops, he also included a letter from Pope Boniface V to Ethelburga of Northumbria in which the pope urged the queen to 'Melt the coldness of ... [the king's] heart by teaching him about the Holy Spirit, so that the warmth of divine faith may set his mind on fire through your constant encouragement. . . .' (Historia ecclesiastica, 105-6). The pope's statement leads the reader to suspect that a Christian queen was expected to be more active in the conversion of a pagan people than Bede himself admitted. Perhaps William of Malmesbury made his small addition to the story because he concluded that the queen must have followed the advice given in the papal letter. 39 Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, 116. Also, William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum: 134, and Henry of Huntingdon, 87-88. Bede also stated that Redwald's queen had advised him not to kill Edwin of Northumbria, who had taken refuge at his court. Since Bede does not give the queen's name, we do not know if this was the same woman or not, Historia ecclesiastica, 110. 40 'But now she corrupted the king's heart with poisonous tales about Wilfrid. . . . She used all her eloquence to describe to Ecgfrith all St. Wilfrid's temporal glories, listing his possessions, the number of his monasteries, the vastness of the buildings, and his countless followers arrayed and armed like a king's retinue. Her darts pierced the king's heart and took effect. From then on the pair of them used their cunning to secure the condemnation of this holy head of the Church and to snatch all the gifts left to God by former kings.' Eddius Stephanus, 48. The author was forced to recognize, however, that in later years, the queen became a respected abbess. It is also interesting to note that Cuthbert had no such problems with lurminburgh, since when he foresaw that Ecgfrith would be killed in battle against the Picts, he immediately journeyed to Carlisle to be with the queen in her hour of need. Bede, Life of Cuthbert, 242.

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refuge first in Mercia and then in Wessex, but was driven out of both sanctuaries by the enmity of the queens, who were relatives of the Northumbrian royal couple.41 The role of these queens stands in pointed contrast to that of the royal nuns who were portrayed as the wise advisers of both kings and churchmen. For example, Bede and Eddius Stephanus both placed the Abbess Hilda on a level with kings and bishops at the Synod of Whitby in 664,42 and two royal abbesses figured prominently in Bishop Wilfrid's long campaign to regain the see of York. Abbess Aebbe of Coldingham interceded with her nephew King Ecgfrith to release Wilfrid from prison,43 and later, Abbess ^Elfflaed of Whitby convinced the clerics assembled at the Synod of the River Nidd to restore Wilfrid's monasteries at Hexham and Ripon.44 These royal abbesses are portrayed not only as the friends and helpers of bishops and monks, but also as advisors to the kings who were their relatives. Unlike their secular sisters, the abbesses always gave good advice.45 In a similar way, the early accounts are silent about the role of noblewomen as charitable donors to the monasteries and the poor. Although we know from other sources that Anglo-Saxon women enjoyed control over significant financial resources,46 the earlier chroniclers did not emphasize their role as sources of charitable contributions. We are left to deduce both the magnitude and the importance of their charity from the fact that women such as Hilda of Whitby, Etheldreda of Ely, and Cuthburg of Wimbourne were able to found their own

41

Eddius Stephanus, 80. '. . . abbots, priests and clerics of every rank gathered at Whitby Abbey in the presence of the most holy Abbess Hilda, the two kings and Bishops Colman and Agilberht. . . .' Eddius Stephanus, 20. It is clear from Bede's account that Hilda was more than just a hostess, for he noted: '. . . Abbess Hilda and her community, together with the venerable Bishop Cedd, supported the Scots.' Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, 183. 43 Eddius Stephanus, 78. 44 Ibid., 128-32. 45 The Anglo-Norman chroniclers also included examples of wicked wives and often blamed their evil influence for their husband's misdeeds. For example, Orderic Vitalis remarked that the 'foolish nagging' of his wife induced Richard of Fresnel to rebel against King Henry I (6: 218). Similarly, he blamed Countess Hawise of Aumale for her husband's revolt against the king and recorded that Henry I built a new castle and named it 'Whore-humbler' out of contempt for her (ibid., 280). He also criticized Juliana of Breteuil's activities in support of her husband's rebellion against her father Henry I (ibid., 212-14). Marjorie Chibnall has suggested that in cases like these, Orderic attempted to divert blame from an admired male figure by holding the man's wife responsible for the action of which he disapproved. The World of Orderic Vitalis (Oxford, 1984), 195-96. These examples suggest that Orderic generally recognized the power of a wife's advice and praised or blamed her according to his opinion of the results. Perhaps these examples were intended to warn women to use their influence only for good. 46 Christine Fell, with Cecily Clark and Elizabeth Williams, Women in Anglo-Saxon England and the Impact of 1066, (Bloomington, IN, 1984), 56-61, 89-100. Marc A. Meyer, 'Women and the Tenth Century English Monastic Reform,' Revue Benedictine 87 (1977): 34-61. Also, idem, 'The Politics of Possession: Women's Estates in Later Anglo-Saxon England,' infra, 111-29. 42

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monasteries.47 The businesslike Normans of the twelfth century, however, seem to have fully recognized the practical value of a wealthy female patron, and noblewomen frequently appear as the financial supporters of churches and monasteries in their works.48 Guibert of Nogent, a student of St. Anselm, specifically singled out such women and praised them for making the monastic way of life possible, writing:

Those who could not wholly surrender their property supported those who had done so by frequent gifts from their own substance, . . . making it their aim to equal the prayers and the pious way of life which they could not follow themselves by imitating these people and by helping with their possessions - as far as they could - to make that way of life possible.49

William the Conqueror's wife Matilda frequently appeared as a founder or benefactor of monasteries, and her epitaph as recorded by Orderic Vitalis suitably memorialized her generosity: 'Comforter of the needy, duty's friend; her wealth enriched the poor. . . [and] left her in need.'50 Orderic recorded a similar oblique reference to such charity on the tombstone of Sibyl of Conversano, wife of Robert Curthose: 'Her foresight, largess, [and] . . . life of chastity would have enriched her country, had she lived.'51 Margaret of Scotland achieved prominence in this role as well. Florence of Worcester wrote: '. . . she endowed churches and monasteries; loved and reverenced the servants and handmaids of God; broke 47

Even here care must be exercised. Close inspection of Bede's account indicates that Hilda of Whitby could not have provided the funds for her foundations in Northumbria, since she had given away all her property and was waiting for a ship to take her to the convent of Chelles in France when Bishop Aidan asked her to return and establish a monastery in Northumbria. Bede also recorded that she received one hide of land for that purpose. Historia ecclesiastica, 253. 48 Sharon Farmer, 'Persuasive Voices,' 521-26. 49 Guibert of Nogent, 'De Vita Sua Libri Tres,' PL, 156: 837-962, 856, translated by John F. Benton as Self and Society in Medieval France, Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching (Toronto, 1984). Guibert himself was French but was strongly influenced by Anselm of Bee. He explained that Anselm was a frequent visitor at the monastery of Saint-Germer de Fly and that, 'He bestowed on me so assiduously the benefits of his learning and with such ardor labored at this, that it seemed as if I alone were the unique and special reason for his frequent visits.'PL, 156: 874. 50 Orderic, 4: 46. This epitaph on her tomb at La Trinite, Caen, highlighted her generosity to that institution. Orderic noted Matilda's gifts to his abbey of Saint-Evroul on two separate occasions (2: 148-50; 3: 240). William of Malmesbury mentioned that Henry I enriched the monastery of Notre-Dame-du-Pre near Rouen with great gifts because it had been begun by his mother. 'Historia Novella,' in William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum, 2: 703. In his life of Herluin of Bee, Gilbert Crispin noted that although Queen Matilda was unable to attend the consecration of the new church in 1077, '. . . nevertheless she was present through the fitting generosity of her donations.' Gilbert Crispin, 'Vita Herluini,' in J. Armitage Robinson, Gilbert Crispin, Abbot of Westminster: A Study of the Abbey under Norman Rule (Cambridge, 1911), 106. 51 Orderic, 6: 38.

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bread for the hungry; dressed the naked; [and] gave shelter, food and clothing to all the pilgrims who came to her door. . . ,' 52 Turgot wrote that Margaret's rooms were always full of vestments, sacred vessels, and other decorations for the churches, so that they seemed to be '. . .a kind of workshop. . . of celestial art.'53 Orderic mentioned many lesser noblewomen in connection with gifts to monastic foundations, especially his own monastery of Saint-Evroul, citing them both as donors in their own right54 and as joint donors with their husbands or other male relatives.55 He often noted that noble wives confirmed the gifts that

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Worcester, 2: 32. Her care of the poor was also noted by William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum, 2: 494. In a similar vein. Turgot wrote: 'She would gladly have given not only her substance, but herself also, if it had been permissible, to a poor person. She was poorer herself than all her poor: for they had not, but desired to have; while she took pains to scatter what she had. When she walked or rode in public, crowds of wretched men, of orphans, of widows, flocked to her as to a kindest mother; and of these none departed from her without consolation.' Ibid., 246. 53 Turgot, 239. 54 Judith, wife of Duke Richard II of Normandy, founder of the monastery of Bernay: Orderic, 2: 8. Helvise, William Pantulf's sister, granted her marriage portion to the church of SaintPierre of Noron (ibid., 3: 156). Ansold of Maule confirmed the gifts, including future ones, of his sisters Ermenburge and Hersende to the church at Maule (ibid., 184-86). Tessa, wife of Bernard the Blind, gave a gift to Maule (ibid., 202). Gift by Mabel, daughter of Earl Roger of Shrewsbury, to Saint-Evroul (ibid., 234). Gift by Adeline, wife of Roger de Beaumont, to Saint-Evroul (ibid., 241). Gifts to the cell of monks at Auffay by Avice, wife of Walter of Auffay (ibid., 250-52). Adelaof Blois and Beatrice of Mortagne as patrons of Mortagne (ibid., 4: 330). 55 Engelnulf of Laigle and his wife Richvereda gave a horse to Saint-Evroul (ibid., 2: 82). Ermenburge, daughter of Peter of Maule, and her son restored a gift to the church at Maule that they had wrongly taken away. She received a gift in return (ibid., 3: 190-92). Gift to Saint-Evroul by Hugh Pain Crassalingua and his wife (ibid., 210). The joint donations are particularly interesting because there seems to be no clear distinction in the minds of these writers between donations made by a married woman in her own right and those made by a woman in conjunction with her husband. For example, when Orderic first mentioned the abbey of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dive, he stated that Countess Lesseline of Eu had persuaded her husband William to build the monastery (ibid., 2: 10-2). Elsewhere in the work, however, he referred to Lesseline herself as the founder of the monastery (ibid., 354). Orderic, William of Malmesbury, Florence of Worcester, and Henry of Huntingdon all praised Earl Leofric of Chester and his wife Godiva for founding monasteries at Coventry and Stow and for their many gifts to other houses (ibid., 216; William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum 2: 330, 520; Worcester, 1: 216; Henry of Huntingdon, 196). Orderic's words highlight the contribution of Godiva, for while he noted that Leofric built the monastery and generously endowed it, Godiva 'lavished all her treasure upon the church: sending for goldsmiths she gave them her whole store of gold and silver to work into covers for gospel books, crosses, images of the saints, and other marvelously wrought ecclesiastical ornaments,' (2: 216). Similarly, Orderic three different times mentioned the cell of monks at Saint-Martin, Sees, established by Roger of Montgomery and his wife Mabel of Belleme. When he first discussed the foundation, he stated that Roger gave the church to Abbot Thierry of Saint-Evroul and that both he and his wife urged the abbot to establish a cell of monks there (2: 46-48). In another passage he described the cell as a joint foundation (ibid., 66). Finally, commenting on Mabel's great love for Abbot Thierry, he noted that Mabel herself had subjected the monks at Sees to the abbot personally rather than to the abbey of Saint-Evroul (ibid., 54-56).

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their husbands made to the monastery at Saint-Evroul.56 As Emily Tabuteau has shown, the purpose of the confirmations and the gifts that sometimes accompanied them was to ensure that people who might have a claim on the property would not seek to have it returned in the future.57 The frequency with which wives and daughters-in-law confirmed gifts to Saint-Evroul testifies to the extent of women's property rights under Anglo-Norman law. It is all the more remarkable that the records under discussion here are not the charters themselves, but rather a secondary account of them by a monastic chronicler seeking both to honor the patrons of his house and to bolster the monastery's claims to its property.58 Evidently Orderic considered the consent of these women crucial both 56

Elizabeth, wife of Ralph of Conches and other women (ibid., 3: 126). Roger of Montgomery's niece (ibid., 140). The wife of Foucher of Chartres (ibid., 154). William Pantulfs wife Lesceline (ibid., 158, 162). Adelisa, wife of the late Ralph of Montpincon, and her sons (ibid., 164—67). Windesmoth, wife of Peter of Maule (ibid., 174). Emmeline, wife of Geoffrey of Marcq (ibid., 188). Isemburga, wife of Walter son of Hildeburge (ibid., 188). Petronilla, wife of Grimoald of Maule (ibid., 200). Mary, wife of John of Saint-Denis (ibid.). Hawise, wife of Humphrey Harenc (ibid., 208). Isabel, wife of Aescelin Goel (ibid.). Adela, wife of Richard of Coutances (ibid., 230). Occasionally the wives of heirs confirmed the gifts of their fathers-in-law: Elizabeth, daughter-in-law of Hugh, son of Odo, (ibid., 174-77); Beliaud, wife of Odo, son of Walo, and daughters-in-law Cornelia and Sicilia (ibid., 202); and the daughters-in-law of Fulk of St. Aubin (ibid., 210). In some cases, the reader suspects that the woman's consent was crucial because the lands given were part of her marriage portion or an inheritance from her family. For example, Aubree, the wife of William of Moulins-la-Marche, consented to a gift that her husband made to Saint-Evroul of land that had belonged to her father (ibid., 132). Similarly, the wives of Germund Rufus and Gerald Coslatus confirmed the gifts of their dowry lands that their husbands made to Saint-Evroul (ibid., 186, 200). Orderic specifically noted that Odeline, wife of Hervey, received a separate gift from the monks of Maule in return for her consent to her husband's gift of money that had come from her dowry (ibid., 190). Finally, when Baudry Rufus became a monk at Maule, he gave the monks a revenue of ten shillings and some salt that he held at Mantes. His wife confirmed his gifts and received a cow from the monks in return (ibid., 191). 57 Emily Zack Tabuteau, Transfers of Property in Eleventh-Century Norman Law (Chapel Hill, NC, 1988), 142-95. 58 Norman charters themselves show the same pattern. For example, in RADN there are several donations by women acting alone: no. 17 and no. 49 record the Duchess Gunnor's gifts to Mont-Saint-Michel; nos. 40, 43, and 79 are gifts of Emma, widow of Eude-Grosse-Bourse to Saint-Ouen; no. 55 and no. 95 concern the gift by a woman named Imma to Saint-Wandrille when she herself became a nun; no. 173 records the gift of 'Soeur Adeleia,' apparently a nun, to the monastery of Montevilliers; no. 226 records a gift by Adele of Flanders to the convent at Montevilliers; no. 197 and no. 224 record William the Conqueror's confirmations of monastic gifts and also mention a separate gift by Queen Matilda at that time; no. 231, the foundation charter for La Trinite at Caen, notes that in addition to Matilda's gifts a nun named Adelaid gave her dowry; no. 39 confirms a gift by a woman named Adele and her mother Lola to Saint-Ouen. Joint gifts by husbands and wives are recorded in nos. 61, 62, 101, 117, 123, 143, 193, 205, and 206. No. 120 records a gift by Guillaume, son of Osbern, and his wife Adeliz to Notre-Dame-de-Lyre. The charter records that Adeliz made a separate gift of all her jewels and land from her dowry. Wives witnessed their husbands' gifts in nos. 83. 84, 110, 119, 162, 163, and 225. No. 118 records the gifts that William and Osbern, the sons of Osbern the seneschal, and their mother Emma made to La Trinite-du-Mont in Rouen. The land is said to

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to the acquisition and the continued security of Saint-Evroul's property. Orderic and the other Anglo-Norman chroniclers clearly valued lay noblewomen as financial patrons of the church and the poor and as corulers and prudent advisors within their families. Perhaps because of an increased regard for marriage, these medieval monks often described the great love between the married couples who were their subjects.59 William of Malmesbury, for example, wrote that Henry I married Edith Matilda, 'despite her small dowry, provided he could possess her whom he so ardently desired.'60 Similarly, on his way back from the First Crusade, Robert Curthose married Sibyl of Conversano, a woman of 'most elegant beauty which defied all attempts to describe it.'61 Several authors paid tribute to the great beauty of Henry I's second wife, Adeliza of Lou vain, and Henry of Huntingdon included a short poem in praise of her beauty.62 Such remarks are so commonplace that the reader occasionally suspects that he has strayed into the world of romance, where all the ladies are beautiful and all the knights gallant.63 But while many of these remarks may have been merely conventional, sincere feelings must have been present, since the chroniclers' accounts also include examples of people grief-stricken at their spouses' deaths and of women willing to risk severe injury and even death for their husbands.64 have belonged to Emma. In no. 119 the three consented to a gift by their vassal Ansfredus to La Trinite-du-Mont. Similarly no. 202 records the gifts of Richard and Roger, sons of Herluin, and their mother Ada to La Trinite-du-Mont. No. 140 records the gifts of Bishop Hugh of Lisieux and his mother Lesseline for the foundation of a monastery in honor of Notre-Dame and Saint-Desir. In no. 221 Hermina, the mother of Urso, witnessed his gifts to La Trinitedu-Mont. Finally, in no. 90, Robert the Magnificent restored property and confirmed gifts to Notre-Dame-de-Montevilliers at the instigation of his aunt Beatrice. 59 Jean Leclercq, Monks on Marriage: A Twelfth Century View (New York, 1982), especially 47-52 for a discussion of married saints. 60 William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum, 619-20. See also Orderic, 5: 300. 'So Henry in his wisdom, appreciating the high birth of the maiden whose perfection of character he had long adored, chose her as his bride in Christ and raised her to the throne beside himself.' 61 William of Malmesbury Gesta regum, 609. 62 Henry of Huntingdon, 243. Orderic, 6: 308. Worcester, 2: 75. 63 Especially in Orderic Vitalis. For example, consider Juliana, the beautiful wife of Jordan of Auffay (3: 258-60) and Fulk of Anjou's love for Bertrade de Montfort (4: 184-86). He described the Emperor Henry V's great love for Maud, but noted that because of his sins, there were no children of the marriage (5: 200); the beauty of Amaury of Evreux's daughter Sibyl (6: 332); Thierry of Alsace's beautiful wife (ibid., 378); King David of Scotland's love for William of Surrey's daughter Adelina (ibid., 524). Marjorie Chibnall has noted that Orderic emphasized physical beauty as a characteristic of the highly-born of all races, especially the English (The World of Orderic Vitalis, 11-12). She has also suggested that when Orderic stated that a proposed marriage arose from affection, he was acknowledging the church's insistence that free consent was necessary for a valid marriage (ibid., 131-32). For the development of the church's doctrine that consent rather than consummation was the most crucial factor in determining the validity of a marriage, see Christopher N.L. Brooke, The Medieval Idea of Marriage (Oxford, 1989), 126-43. 64 William of Malmesbury noted that Robert Curthose was grief-stricken at Sibyl of Conversano's death. Gesta regum, 609. Several accounts state that Margaret of Scotland was

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Evidence of such a devoted marriage seems to have been part of the chroniclers' model of ideal womanhood, and therefore William of Malmesbury was anxious to demonstrate the undying affection between William the Conqueror and his wife Matilda, despite some contrary evidence. He noted that Matilda's '. . . obedience to her husband and fruitfulness in children excited in his mind the tenderest regard for h e r . . . ,'65 He made light of rumors that William had failed to observe perfect chastity and that Matilda had disposed of an unfortunate mistress by having her hamstrung. The chronicler was, however, forced to acknowledge that when Robert Curthose rebelled against his father, 'a slight disagreement arose between . . . [William and Matilda], because of their son . . . , whom his mother was said to have supplied with a military force out of her revenues.'66 But William's regard for Matilda was undiminished, a fact that the author felt was suitably demonstrated by the magnificent burial that William gave Matilda when she died. Malmesbury also noted with approval that William wept for many days and thereafter 'refrained from all sensual pleasure.'67 Thus William of Malmesbury seems to have felt compelled to demonstrate that a loyal and happy marriage had existed between two people whom he expected, as king and queen, to act as examples for the proper conduct of their married subjects. The chroniclers were equally certain that a similar degree of affection ought to exist between a mother and her sons and that she would guide them along the paths of virtue. Noting the good that came from a mother's instruction of her children, one writer even stated that 'if virginity is called good, chastity after children, without which there is no good work, is proved greater. . . ,'68 The hagiographers assumed that a woman was important to her children and

so grief-stricken at the death of her husband and son in battle that she immediately went into the church, confessed her sins, and died. Henry of Huntingdon, 217. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle a. 1093. Turgot, however, said that she had been sick for six months before her death, 252. Similarly, Henry of Huntingdon described Robert of Meulan's grief when another man carried off his wife: '. . . even to his declining years, his mind was disturbed and clouded with grief, and he never, to the day of his death, regained joy and happiness.' 'Epistola de contemptu mundi,' in Henry of Huntingdon, 307. Marital affection was so strong that Orderic Vitalis portrayed two wives as willing to risk severe injury and even death for their husbands. For example, when a certain Bricstan was unjustly accused of thievery, his wife offered to undergo the ordeal of the hot iron to prove his innocence (3: 350-52). Similarly, the pregnant wife of the imprisoned Frederick of Etampes rode to Paris to beg the king to free her husband. Injured by the journey, she died in childbirth shortly thereafter (6: 476). 65 William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum: 453. <*> Ibid. 67 Ibid. 68 'Vita S. Idae, auctore monacho Vastensi,' Acta Sanctorum, ed. J. Bollandus et al. (Antwerp, Brussels, 1643), April 13, p. 141. The author here was Flemish, but the deep friendship between Ida of Boulogne and Anselm of Bee makes it likely that the ideals of the AngloNorman world strongly influenced his work. For Anselm's letters to Ida, see Sancti Anselmi Cantuariensis archiepiscopi opera omnia, ed. Franciscus Salesius Schmitt, 6 vols. (StuttgartBad Canstatt, 1963-68), epp. 82, 114, 131, 167, 208, 235, 244, 247. Cf. Sally Vaughn's forthcoming book Women in Anselm's World.

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often portrayed her as both a loving advisor and the active agent by which the young men were able to succeed to their patrimony. Since the men of this period were often a good deal older than their wives, mothers occupied an intermediate position between the generations that ideally fitted them to be friends and companions to their sons and mediators between their children and their older, more formidable fathers. Furthermore, as the twelfth-century chroniclers often noted, wives frequently outlived their husbands and were left to rule the family patrimony on behalf of their minor sons.69 When Cnut died, Emma of Normandy was to have held Wessex for her son Harthacnut, although she proved unsuccessful.70 Orderic mentioned that Baldwin VII of Flanders ruled along with his mother Clemence,71 and that William of Warenne was succeeded by his sons William and Reginald and their mother Gundreda.72 If it is true, as Marjorie Chibnall's notes to her edition of Orderic Vitalis suggest,73 that Gundreda had actually died two years before, this would suggest an assumption on Orderic's part that mothers always helped their sons to administer their inheritance. Orderic invented speeches for dying noblemen in which they commended their sons and their lands to their wives. For example, on his deathbed Geoffrey of Mortagne instructed his wife Beatrice and his nobles to 'keep the peace and maintain order honorably and protect his lands and castles for his only son Rotrou, who had gone on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.'74 Elsewhere, Orderic praised Agnes, the wife of Walter Giffard, because she 'brought up ... [his son] carefully after his father's death until he attained manhood, and successfully administered his father's honor on his behalf for many years.'75 He also noted that the French princess Constance brought up her son in Taranto after Bohemond's death, 'looking after him as a mother should until he reached the age of puberty.'76 Mothers were responsible both for the education and spiritual formation of their children and for advising them on practical matters of policy.77 For example, 69 David Herlihy, Medieval Households, 129-30. Charlotte A. Newman, The Anglo-Norman Nobility in the Reign of Henry I: The Second Generation (Philadelphia, 1988), 47. 70 Henry of Huntingdon, 189. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a. 1035. It is interesting to note that the Encomium Emmae Reginae, 38, does not mention this fact beyond stating that Emma was at Winchester when Cnut died, grieving for her husband's death. Perhaps the author failed to give Emma a more active role because of her lack of success. Later, however, after the death of Harald Harefoot, the author placed Emma at the center of the action, showing her dispatching messages to her son Harthacnut and helping him make the decision to contest the English throne, ibid., 48-52. 71 Orderic, 6: 162. 72 Ibid., 4: 180. 73 Ibid., 4: 181. 74 Ibid., 6: 394. 75 Ibid., 6: 38. 76 Ibid., 6: 132. 77 Turgot, 240, wrote of Margaret of Scotland's concern for the spiritual welfare of her children: This was . . . [Margaret's] desire, this her exhortation, this her prayer with tears, by day and night, for her children, that they should acknowledge their creator in faith which works by love; acknowledging, should worship him; and worshipping, should love him in everything and above everything; and by loving him should reach the glory of the heavenly kingdom.' In

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in the Vita Anselmi, Eadmer explained that, as Anselm grew to adulthood, he began to turn away from his studies and to abandon himself to youthful amusements. His love for his mother and his memory of her early teaching held him back to some degree, but when she died, '. . . the ship of his heart. . . lost its anchor and drifted almost entirely among the waves of the world.'78 In the realm of politics, William of Malmesbury gave Countess Ida of Boulogne credit for suggesting that her younger son Godfrey take service with the emperor so that he could obtain the duchy of Lorraine.79 Orderic noted that after the death of Hugh IV of Maine, his young son Herbert took his mother's advice and commended himself to Duke William of Normandy.80 Later, Orderic stated that Harold Godwin's mother Gytha advised him against the battle with William the Conqueror at Hastings.81 Orderic portrayed several mothers as being willing to give up their own lives for their sons. When William the Conqueror reproached Matilda for supporting Robert Curthose's rebellion against him, Orderic had the queen reply: By the power of the Most High, if my son Robert were dead and buried seven feet deep in the earth, hid from the eyes of the living, and I could bring him back to life with my own blood, I would shed my life-blood for him and suffer more anguish for his sake than, weak woman that I am, I dare to promise.82

Orderic offered another example in his account of King Stephen's attack on the fortress of Devizes, commanded by the mother of Roger le Poer. The king besieged the castle, captured Roger le Poer, and threatened to hang him unless the rebels capitulated. The captive's mother surrendered, exclaiming: 'I gave him birth, and it can never be right for me to cause his destruction; instead I should offer my life in exchange for his if necessary.'83 Orderic also mentioned two sons that Robert Curthose fathered during his youthful rebellion. The boys' mother raised them alone and, when they were grown, presented them to the duke. But Robert disclaimed paternity, so their mother proved her case by publicly undergoing the ordeal of the red-hot iron.84 Without such a mother, Guibert of Nogent complained that despite his wealth of kinfolk he was 'utterly an orphan with no one at all on whom to depend.'85 His widowed mother was not dead,

a similar vein, Orderic wrote a speech for Ansold of Maule in which the dying man expressed his certainty that his wife Odeline would lead their children 'by constant exhortation to be obedient to their Creator for their spiritual good,' 3: 196. 78 Eadmer, Vita Anselmi, ed. and trans. R.W. Southern (Oxford, 1962), 6. 79 William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum, 393. 80 Orderic, 2: 116. 81 Ibid., 2: 170. 82 Ibid., 3: 102-04. 83 Ibid., 6: 532-34. 84 Ibid., 5: 282.

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as we might suspect, but had merely chosen to enter a monastery while her son was still quite young. Guiberl's poignant remark illustrates the magnitude of the change that had taken place in the model of ideal Christian womanhood between the eighth and the twelfth centuries. Responding to the power of women in Anglo-Norman families, authors like William of Malmesbury and Orderic Vitalis constructed a new model for the conduct of the ideal Christian noblewoman that prescribed active participation in worldly affairs. Far from denigrating them, these monastic authors spoke with admiration about lay women who were wise advisors of their husbands, stalwart guardians of their sons and benefactors of the poor, the churches, and the monasteries. Etheldreda, who had ignored dynastic responsibilities and preserved her virginity until her husband finally agreed to allow her to enter a monastery, was the ideal noblewoman of her age. But by the twelfth century, she was forced to share her place of honor with lay noblewomen like Margaret of Scotland and Adela of Blois, who had not sheltered themselves behind convent walls but had lovingly embraced the Anglo-Norman world with all its problems and responsibilities. University of Houston

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The Role of Kingship in Tenth-Century Normandy; Hagiography of Dudo of Saint-Quentin Victoria B. Jordan

Dudo of Saint-Quentin's chronicle of tenth-century Normandy, De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum, is an unabashed panegyric of the first three Norman dukes, Rollo, William Longsword, and Richard I.1 The series of biographical encomia - one book dedicated to each duke - reveals that Dudo was not content to limit himself to the traditional biographical models inherited from Suetonius and Einhard. His biographies disclose a mixed bag of influences that often bewilder and more often repel critics.2 His false attribution of the Norman lineage to Trojan Antenor, his likening of Rollo to Aeneas and to Constantine, his rhetorically pretentious prosimetrum form and his excessive, albeit topically conventional, apostrophae are a few examples of the elements of his work that cause modern scholars to shudder. Yet not all critics have dismissed Dudo's chronicle as useless. Both R.W. Southern and Eleanor Searle have proposed a new approach to Dudo, one that judges him according to what he set out to do, not according to modern ideas of historical writing.3 Nowhere does Dudo claim to have produced an accurate historia, and he ought not to be evaluated according to the rigors of such standards. Surely Southern is correct when he claims that Dudo succeeded in doing exactly what he set out to do: 'to tell in the noblest style the story of a noble destiny.'4 An important aspect of the story of the tenth-century Normans is their integration into the existing Frankish social structure in which the church and its clergy were major players. The adoption of Christianity by the Normans, therefore, had 1 De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum, auctore Dudone Sancti Quintini decano, ed. Jules Lair (Caen, 1865); hereafter cited as Dudo. 2 Note David Bates' recent remark: 'A series of studies . . . published over the last forty years . . . have consigned Dudo's opinions to an oblivion from which they will surely never return.' Normandy before 1066 (New York, 1982), 11. 3 R.W. Southern, 'Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing, 1, The Classical Tradition from Einhard to Geoffrey of Monmouth,' Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th. ser. 20 (1970): 173-96. Eleanor Searle, Predatory Kinship and the Creation of Norman Power, 840-1066 (Berkeley, 1988), 61-68, and 'Fact and Pattern in Heroic History: Dudo of Saint-Quentin,' Viator 15 (1984): 119-37. 4 Southern,'The Classical Tradition,' 192.

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implications for them that extended beyond the mere acceptance of ecclesiastical doctrine; it necessitated the transformation of their entire social order to fit the prevailing Christian patterns. The Norman dukes had to be able to fit into the tripartite structure of this Christian, Prankish society where the king exercised leadership in conjunction with the bishops.5 It goes without saying that nothing in the pagan Norman heritage would have prepared them for this reconciliation of the functions of the king as both arm-bearing miles and anointed sacerdos whose very legitimacy was derived from God and His servants, the bishops. Much of Dudo's elaborate rhetoric is dedicated to the development of this aspect of the dukes' roles. And, given the Normans' past, nothing short of a miracle could really explain how pagans so quickly - within three generations - adopted this sacerdotal function of kingship. In fact, that is exactly how Dudo describes the process. Adopting the model of the saint's life, Dudo gradually attributes more and more saintly qualities to each successive duke until, finally, Richard I's corpse takes on the attributes of holy relics.6 This process of sanctification is accomplished by molding the dukes' lives to the hagiographical model and is visible early in the biography of Rollo. Rollo, to be sure, was not a saint and Dudo never pretends that he was. But he does claim that Rollo was the first Norman to accept baptism sincerely and this assertion demanded explanation. Clearly Dudo was at a loss to find a logical explanation for the transformation of this pagan into a Christian. To do so, he attributes to Rollo two prophetic visions that foretell the Norman conversion to Christianity. These two visions draw on two precedents for their setting: the visions that are part of the traditional saint's Life and Constantine's equivalent two-part revelation related by Eusebius.7 This implies immediately that although Rollo's visions, like those of a saint, mark him as a privileged Christian, they also address his role as secular leader. Like Constantine Rollo must learn to incorporate the functions of a specifically Christian leader into his role as the first duke of Normandy. Like the pagan Constantine, Rollo must rely on knowledgeable Christians to interpret these visions. The interpretation of his second vision shows the prefiguration of the now double role to be filled by the Norman dukes. For, if the mons represents the 5

See Georges Duby, The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago, 1978), for a comprehensive discussion of the development and flowering of the functions of the bellatores, the oratores, and the laboratores. 6 The bibliography on medieval hagiography is enormous. For a complete discussion of the model of the saint's Life, see Hippolyte Delehaye, The Legends of the Saints (New York, 1962). Thomas Heffernan, Sacred Biography: Saints and their Biographers in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1988) and Regis Boyer, 'An Attempt to Define the Typology of Medieval Hagiography,' in Hagiography and Medieval Literature: A Symposium, ed. Hans BekkerNielsen (Odense, 1981), 27-36, also examine the functions of Saints' Lives in the middle ages and erect general schemas of the various elements both necessary and optional to the literary construct. See also Alison Goddard Elliott, Roads to Paradise: Reading the Lives of the Early Saints (Hanover, N.H., 1987), for a complete bibliography. 7 Raymond Farrar, 'Structure and Function in Representative Old English Saints' Lives,' Neophilologus 57 (1973): 83.

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Ecclesia and thefons prophesies Rollo baptizmatus, the 'birds . . . with red left wings' represent the faithful servants - the warriors - who will support Rollo,8 and the birds' nidi presage the 'walls of the devastated cities destined to be rebuilt' by Rollo.9 The prophecy shows that, unlike a saint, Rollo must concern himself with the distinctly social issues of his territory as well as with his own faith and with the problems of the church. Rollo is well on his way to the incorporation of Christianity into the king's functions. Dudo himself emphasizes this double role in an apostropha addressed to the land of Francia where he links the two functions together. Francia, you are rich in blessed ancestors. Under their descendants' rule, With Christ as their leader, The rejoicing world will flourish; With them, churches everywhere will be rich.10

Rollo, as ruler, will receive his legitimacy from Christ and will both peacefully rule the land and ameliorate the position of the Church. Rollo's deeds after his visions in England reveal that he does, indeed, fulfill his destiny, if only partially completing that of the Norman lineage. For instance, even before his baptism we learn that Rollo transferred relics of a certain Hameltrude to a chapel near Rouen and that he actually was defeated in battle by the mere sight of holy relics. Dudo shows his amazement at this defeat of the powerful, fearless Rollo who, when confronted by the robe of the Virgin and by the relics carried by the bishop, is totally immobilized. 11 Dudo explains this phenomenon by reminding Rollo that he had encountered power of a different sort than that wielded by the hostile Prankish troops. By constructing this episode Dudo clearly intends to demonstrate that Rollo was unquestionably ready to accept Christianity. This is an important step on the path to his conversion. The final step in Rollo's career is, of course, his own baptism and that of his troops. That Dudo considered this but the first step in the process of creating an 8

Dudo, 146: 'volucres . . . laevas alas habentes puniceas.' All translations from the Latin are my own. 9 Ibid., 146: 'vastarum urbium moenia reaedificanda.' 10 Ibid., 144: 'Francia deque tuis genitis fecunda beads, Sub quibus orbis ovans pollebit, principe Christo, Ft quibus ecclesiae fecunabuntur ubique' (lines. 9, 14-15) 11 Ibid., 156: 'Rollo, potensque valensque vigensque asperrimus armis Ne verecunderis si jam figitivus haberis. Non te Francus fugat, te nee Burgundius caedit, Contio multimodae gentisque utriusque phalangis: Sed tunica alma Dei genitricis Virginis, atque Reliquiae simul ac philateria cruxque verenda Quam vehit in manibus meritis praesul reverendus.' (lines. 1-7)

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ordered Christian Norman state is clear in the apostropha addressed to Rollo that precedes the baptism scene. Here Dudo rejoices in the imminent baptism and then lists the duties of the modern rex who must both act as military leader for the people and assume an active role in the fostering of the church: Give laws to the people, and holy judgements to the learned. The people, enjoying peace, will rejoice for all time, Highest protector of the church, benefactor of the needy, Peaceful protector of the kingdom, helper, Defender, leader, manager and adviser.12

Yet Dudo's prophecy in this metrum is only partially fulfilled, for although Rollo takes the first steps toward the establishment of social and ecclesiastical order - fair laws, rebuilding program, agricultural reforms - he never completely understands his relationship to the church's hierarchy. Dudo's portrait of Rollo's son William Longs word shows the evolution in the line of the Norman dukes; William takes a large leap forward in conforming to the model of the saint's Life. First of all, Dudo does not spare any rhetoric in his overture to the biography of William. Not only does he tell us in his preface that William was a martyr, he claims to use sermo humilis in the hope that this Life will be an inspiration to all who hear it: Among the distinguished stories of the most glorious martyrs and the revelations of their powerful acts, most prominent are those of the one who brought victory to the present generations and who granted the benefit of perpetual glory in the heavenly kingdom. Therefore I relate the life and triumph of the most powerful duke, William, not with deceitful words, nor with words girded in high style with the ornament of admirable speech but, truly, with simple style and with speech of the natural sort.13

The resonances of the hagiographical model are unmistakable. The attention that Dudo pays to William's youth also follows the pattern of a saint's Life. Dudo tells us that, as a boy, William was filled with divine grace and devoted his youth to Christ and to all holy activities. Indeed the significant event in William's youth was his desire to become a monk. Dudo's reaction to William's wish is revealed in an apostropha addressed to William himself. Dudo here engages in a bit of 12

Ibid., 170: 'Da leges populo, doctis sancitaque jura. Pace fruens populus gaudebit tempore cuncto, Ecclesiae summus tutor, inopumque juvator, Pacificus regni protector, et auxiliator, Defensorque, gubernator, moderator et auctor.' (lines. 16-17,20-22) 13 Ibid., 179: 'Quoniam quidem, glorississimorum martyrum digerendo luculenta praeconia, eorumque praepollentissima propalando elucidare gesta, illius extant munia, qui illis bravium in praesenti saeculo contulit victoriae, coelestique in regno emolumentum praebuit immarcessibilis gloriae: idcirco praepotentissimi ducis Willelmi vitam actusque atque triumphum, non fuels verborum, neque excellentis orationis ornamento sublimiter praebalteatum, verum simpliciter tenuique naturalis prolationis sermone commentatum breviter praelibando texemus.'

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narrator prescience, for he foretells the birth of William's son Richard and the role that Richard is destined to play in the Norman story. Dudo warns William: Recant your vows; you must be our progenitor; For a splendid leader will be born from your blood, Distinguished for and imbued with heavenly gifts. 14

The goal of Dudo's prophetical apostropha is double. It first makes precise the importance of the leadership role of a king. A king who becomes a monk cannot possibly retain the function of a warrior. Nowhere in Dudo is the separation and yet interdependence of the bellator and the orator functions of a king more evident than in this scene. In addition this poem also emphasizes the role of typological prefiguration in the story of the Normans. The three Christian dukes descend from a direct human line and ascend in a direct spiritual line: Rollo prefigures William who prefigures Richard, the epitome. William, indeed, does not enter a monastery at this early age, but receives the throne from his father and continues to aim at restoration of peace and order in the territory. However, the successful execution of his leadership powers does not eliminate William's desire to become a monk and, many years later, he discloses his plan to Martin, the abbot of the newly-reconstructed abbey of Jumieges. The exchange between the duke and the monk is important for two reasons. First of all, it points out how far William has advanced in his understanding of his relationship to the clergy. Rollo never asked for advice from a monk. William has already incorporated into the kingship a reliance on a body of ecclesiastics. Secondly, the self-consciousness of this conversation that centers around the tripartite organization of the church draws attention to the equivalent social organization.15 Martin's description of the three levels within the church hierarchy mirrors the three social levels: There are three distinct orders in the Christian religion: one executed through the generosity of the laity and two through the works of the clerks and monks.' 16 Each division has its own distinct labor to accomplish. Yet, the kingship seems to be in an ambiguous position as guardian of both state and religious matters. In the end Martin refuses William's request to enter the monastery. He emphasizes William's excellence in the execution of both of his duties as leader, and he insists on the rarity of this accomplishment.17 Both Martin and Dudo are certain that God does not want William to abdicate 14

Ibid., 180: 'Desine vota; necesse tibi nobisque fueris; Semine namque tuo nascetur dux luculentus, Ornandus donis coelestibus insuper haustis/

(lines. 8-10) Duty, The Three Orders, 85. 16 Dudo, 201: 'Christianae religionis summa trimodo constat ordine distincta: munifico laicorum canonicorumque atque monachorum labore exercita.' 17 Ibid., 201: 'Defensor huius patriae, cur talia rimatus es facere? Quis fovebit clerum et populum? Quis contra nos ingruentium paganorum exercitui obstabit? Quis paternis legibus reget strenue populum?' 15

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his power in order to become a monk. William's willingness to obey the advice of the clergy is a significant step in the Christianization of Norman rule. If William's desire to become a monk was never fulfilled, his assassination at the hands of Count Arnulf of Flanders' troops assures the martyrdom that Dudo presaged so often in the preceding narrative. Dudo's description of William's death is one step away from full-fledged sanctification: Thus the worthy Marquis William, a most glorious witness of Christ, is elevated to the happy state of martyrdom. In this way he gains the kingdom of heaven which he had desired for so long and is gloriously crowned in his life with Christ. Indeed the body of the holy man lay dead in the dew of his own blood. Truly his soul was led into heaven by angels and was received amid the superlative group of angels.18

The life of Rollo's grandson, Richard I, is the fulfillment of the emerging hagiographical model established in the lives of his grandfather and father. In the opening metrum in which Dudo's elaborate rhetoric reaches a new height befiting his new subject, there is a clear indication of the development of Norman kingship. Dudo affirms that: The one who relates the mysteries in straightforward manner Would be an expounder of sacred history.19

If Rollo's story is that of a burgeoning Christian and William's that of a martyr, it is certain that Richard's will be that of a saint; his life is a historia sacra. In fact this labored, artificial poem contains many direct indications about Richard's future after-life: When, on Judgment Day, great rewards are offered To the holy martyrs, He will wear the golden crown; As they enter into the highest kingdom, Behold Richard with the palm of victory.20

The development of the sanctification of Richard I begins with his birth. Although there are no unmistakable miraculous events at this time as there often are 18

Ibid., 208: 'Sic pretiosus Willelmus testique Christi gloriosissimus felici martyrio consecratur. Taliterque regnum coelorum, quod diu concupivit, adeptus, vivens in Christo feliciter coronatur. Perfusum quippe sui cruoris rore beati viri corpus jacuit exanime. Verum anima, in coelum ab angelis deducta, inter choros angelorum inaestimabiliter est collacata.' 19 Ibid., 210: 'Interpresque foret historia sacrae Piano digeret qui ordine mystica:' (lines. 13-14) 20 Ibid., 213: 'Quumque martyribus fortia sacris Praemia pandentur judice Christo, Portabit roseam ille coronam. Intrarent regni jure superni, Palma victrici ecce Ricardo.' (lines. 110-12, 117-18)

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in a saint's Life,21 Dudo does elaborate the circumstances of the birth and baptism of the boy. Dudo even dedicates two poems to the depiction of the joy among the people at the news of the birth; Richard's reputation is already spreading. He also presages the peace that Richard will pursue, thereby associating future events with this special birth. Richard's education is an important step in his sanctification and Dudo takes care to note that the boy grows up to be a holy youth. Richard's Christianity and the example of his father gives him a good understanding of the sacerdotal function of his office. This clear development in Norman integration into a Christian sense of social order is demonstrated by the ceremonies that transferred power from William to Richard. In both cases there is a mixture of religious and secular ritual. William's advisers agree to the transfer by swearing both secular vassalage and religious bonding: 'After the relics of the most important saints are brought out, they promise to him their pledge of complete loyalty and military support, in the custom of the Christian oaths.'22 Neither Rollo nor William received his power through a ceremony of implied anointing. The Norman territory now has a mature sense of Christian kingship. Richard's life as a duke is filled with strife and military exploits. Threatened from every direction outside his kingdom, Richard definitely proves that he understands his warrior duties. In addition Dudo tells us on many occasions that Richard administered his kingdom piously, handing down just and equitable laws and always striving for peace and order.23 Richard also fulfilled the task of rebuilding the churches begun by his father and grandfather. His rebuilding of the church at Fecamp is particularly noteworthy, for the sanctified Richard becomes identified with this location. The duke's attention to ecclesiastical duties as well as to his secular obligations advances him one step further than his father William who, although aware of his own spiritual dependence on the clergy, did not achieve his son's profound integration of the matters of church and state. It goes without saying that the total sanctification of Richard could only be accomplished at his death. Dudo, who has been prophesying the outcome of this event since the beginning of Richard's biography, prepares the way carefully at the end. In an apostropha addressed to the city of Rouen, Dudo laments the dearth of poets in that city: Would that you could possess garrulous poets! Would that they could reveal his good deeds in their compositions! 21

Andre Jolles, Formes simples (Paris, 1972), 34-35. Dudo, 223: Pignoribus pretiosorum Sanctorum delatis, sanciunt illi tenorem integerrimae fidelitatis et militationis, more christianae conjurationis. 23 Ibid., 225: 'Hie comes, dux, patriciusque summus, Marchio sanctus, Celebris modestus, Legibus plebem moderabit almis, Torquet astutus laceros reosque Atque justis praemia digna dedet.' (lines 13-17) 22

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Haskins Society Journal Instruct your many boys now in the arts, So that they might know how to compose various poems About the deeds of our great ancestor.24

Richard, like any other saint, deserves a poet who will commemorate his life for the edification of all who hear it. In addition, Dudo displays Richard's solid understanding of and devotion to Christianity in the scene where the duke explains the faith to the pagan troops. This nine-day harangue is followed by a group baptism conducted by Richard himself. Richard's interest in converting the Danes is motivated by his desire for peace, an integral part of the Christian social order whose germs were only glimpsed in the reign of Rollo. The pagan Danes and Normans are not convinced: they are loathe to respond to Richard's wish to privilege peace over war. Clearly they have little understanding of their converted countryman's new responsibility to uphold the tenets of Christianity. The final step in the preparation of Richard's sanctification involves Dudo's direct interpretation of the duke's life. In a long narrator intervention Dudo measures Richard against the requirements of the eight beatitudes. Dudo's apology for this excursus reveals the importance of this step in the final justification of the transformation of the duke into a saint: 'It is correct and just and laudable for me to tell about Richard, the holy and sanctified leader of the land of the Normans, whose deeds I have just briefly recounted; in him resides all the holiness of the evangelical beatitudes.'25 He then lists each beatitude and explains how Richard came to incorporate its attributes into his life. The duke's conscious emulation of Christ and Dudo's testimony to Richard's imitatio Christi act as preparation for the duke's final exaltation. The profoundness of this imitatio allows Richard to advance to the next and final stage of his life, while Dudo's confirmation of Richard's devotion to the beatitudes offers the witnessing necessary to final sanctification.26 Richard's death scene is pure hagiography. In the manner of a confessor saint Richard, 'ablaze with the torch of the beatitudes,'27 feels his approaching death and, accordingly, has a sepulcher made and placed in a humble spot in the monastery at Fecamp. Next, Richard begins to grow weak and makes his way 24

Ibid., 272: 'Utinam poetas possideres garrulos, Quis bona quae studuit elucubrata forent! Instrue nunc pueros artibus innumeros, Successio quidquid peraget magni patris, Carmine multicano elucubrare ut sciant.'

(lines. 9-14) Ibid., 293: 'Merito igitur, justeque atque probabiliter Ricardum Northmannicae regionis ducem beatum sanctumque, recensitis breviter operibus eius, dicimus; cui omnia evangelicarum beatitudinum diva reperiuntur propensius attributa.' 26 Jolles, Formes simples, 29-30. 27 Dudo, 296: Quum autem tantarum beatitudinum, ut compendiose habete stylo elucubratum est, redolens flagaret lampade, iussit sibi excidi sarcophagum silice, et infra ecclesiam Fiscanno nomine deificae Trinitati consecratam. . . .' 25

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to Fecamp to prepare for his own death. The people even begin to lament and to 'beat heaven with their unending lamentation' in anticipation of the final moment.28 Finally, sparing no details, Dudo describes Richard's actual death. If his body is twisted in pain, his soul is lifted to heaven; Richard dies with his eyes elevated to God. On the following night, the most holy limbs were consumed by acute pain and a deadly, penetrating flame invades his weak marrow . . . all his limbs melt, but his mind grasps God and he longs for the eternal life. . . . Truly, with his eyes and suppliant hands elevated heavenward, in silence he poured out his prayers and vows. Barely able to speak, he said: 'Christ, into your hands I commend my soul.' There, in the midst of this prayer, he breathed out his most holy spirit. For his holy soul was snatched out of the weight of his flesh and, freed from earthly burdens, it happily traveled to its creator. The lamentations of his servants resounded to the heavens.29 Richard's final words - which any confessor saint longed to utter - clearly echo those of the dying Christ.30 Accordingly, Richard's burial befits a saint. Not only do masses of people accompanying the funeral procession furiously lament his death - Dudo describes this scene with great pathos; after the actual burial Richard's corpse assumes the qualities of a saint: his body seems alive - 'all his members were as of a living man' 31 - and there is a sweet odor surrounding the corpse - 'from there emanated an odor sweeter than the fragrance of the turpentine tree or of balsam.'32 The reaction of the bishops is standard: they construct a chapel over the tomb to house these relics in an appropriate edifice. Dudo concludes this scene with a poem that lists the saints whose relics reside in the city of Fecamp. Although the city is blessed with three sets of saints' relics, Richard's bones are, of course, especially powerful.33 The final sanctification of Richard I is not mere biographical panegyric. Rather, it seems to me that it represents the culmination of the process of Norman integration into a Christian social order. The destined acceptance by the Normans of Christianity and the attendant implications for the role of the king was presaged by Dudo from the start of his work. In this sense Richard I's sainthood is the fulfillment of typological prefiguration seen in his ancestors Rollo and William Longsword.34 There is no question that Dudo's account is anything but pure 28

Ibid., 297: 'incompescibilique luctu coelum pulsare' Ibid., 297-298: 'Sequente namque nocte carpuntur sanctissima eius facili dolore, invaditque acrius tenues medullas penetrabilis mortiferaque flamma . . . labent cuncta membra; sed mens Deum cernit, cupitque saecula aeterna. . . . Ille vera supplicibus oculis ad coelum cum manibus elevatis, tacitusque votis et precibus suppliciter fusis, vix in vocem prorumpens ait: "In manus tuas, Christe, commendo spriritum meum." Illico inter huiuscemodi votum efflavit sanctissimum spiritum. Sancta namque eius anima erepta carnis sarcina terrenisque pressuris liberata laetaque ad suum auctorem migrata, luctus famulorum in coelo resonabat.' 30 Luke 23: 45^6. 31 Dudo, 298: 'omnia eius membra quasi vivi hominis' 32 Ibid., 298: 'Exinde manavit odor suavior fragrantia terebenthinae et balsami.' 33 Ibid., 299. 29

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fiction but its importance seems clear, for it attempts to account for the growth of understanding among these pagans of both the separation of the warrior and priestly functions, their interrelationship, and their incorporation into the king's position. Richard I is the first example of a Norman leader with a faultless execution of his double role as both warrior and sacerdos. Boston College

34

For a discussion of typology in saints' Lives, see James Earl, Typology and Iconographic style in Early Medieval Hagiography,' Studies in Literary Imagination 8 (1975): 15^46.

5

The Combat Sculptures at Fulk Nerra's 'Battle Abbey' (c. 1005-1012) Bernard S. Bachrach

For well over a century art historians have repeatedly admitted their inability to understand a matrix of sculptures which survive in a rather poor state on the gable of the north transept of the church at Belli Locus built by Fulk Nerra, count of the Angevins (987-1040; see pi. 1, infra, 79).' A recent rehearsal of the status questionis by Marilyn Low Schmitt reiterates the general view which has characterized these sculptures as 'most puzzling,' 'unique,' and 'bizarre.' She observes that the sculpture 'lacks a context of related monuments to clarify the origin and circumstances of its production.'2 However, Schmitt's description of what is to be seen is excellent and worthy of quotation: At the base of the triangle, beginning at the left, a pair of riders, filling two courses of masonary, confronts each other on crouching horses. Against a weathered foliate

1 I dedicate this study to my friend Colonel Jacques Lablancherie, former president of La Societe des Amis du Pays Lochois, and I thank him for providing me with the photographic materials as well as for his permission to publish. For the basic work on these sculptures and their context see Jean Hardion and R. Michel-Dansec, 'Etude archeologique sur 1'eglise de Beaulieu-les-Loches,' Congres archeologique 77 (1910): 91-120; Jean Hardion and L. Bosseboeuf, 'L'abbaye de Beaulieu-les-Loches et quelques monuments de sa dependence,' Memoires de la societe archeologique de Touraine, 2dser. 2(1914): esp. 38^4-0, and 99-108; J. Vallery-Radot, 'L'ancienne eglise abbatiale de Beaulieu-les-Loches,' Congres archeologique 106 (1948): 126-42; Marilyn Low Schmitt, The Carved Gable of Beaulieu-les-Loches,' Gesta 15 (1976): 113-20; Charles Lelong, Touraine Romane, 3d ed. (Zodiaque: La Pierre-quiVivre, 1977), 165-70; John Ottaway, 'Beaulieu-Les-Loches: une eglise princiere de 1'Ouest de la France au alentours de 1'an mil,' (These de doctorat-Poitiers, 1986), esp. 386-91; and Guy-Marie Oury, 'Les sculptures de Beaulieu-les-Loches: essai d'interpretation,' Historical Reflections/Reflexions historiques 10 (1983): 45-58. 2 The Carved Gable,' 113.

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Haskins Society Journal background, the inner figure thrusts a weapon at his opponent, now half destroyed, while beneath the other horse's muzzle a small figure reclines, grasping the adjacent hoof of the inner horse. Toward the center another pair of affronted riders sits upon rearing horses that crouch on hindquarters, their front legs raised.. . . The confinement of this group to one block reduces its scale by half: above, two fighting quadrupeds (lions?) fill the second register. With the right-hand animal confined to its block, the head of the other reaches across the mortar joint to grasp its victim's neck in its jaws. To the right of these superimposed pairs, a fifth and sixth horseman, filling two courses, both face the center on crouching mounts and raise their weapons. . . . Between the two riders foliage envelops what may be the spear point of the second horseman. The third course of stone establishes a new ground line. To the left, a quadruped enclosed by foliage runs (?) toward a tall figure who holds a weapon in his raised hand. The object in his left hand is unclear. . . . Further to the right, a figure lies on bended knees and elbows, its hands extended to the obliterated outermost relief. A leafy growth emerges from behind this last figure. A single block of stone forms the center of the fourth and fifth courses, establishing with the block below, a central axis within the composition. In it, two great birds, their bodies filling the two irregular adjacent registers, peck at a figure which they hold between them. At the apex of the triangle, a badly eroded semi-frontal bird perches with wings outspread.3

Art historians doubt that the bizarre congeries of scenes and individual figures enclosed within the triangle of the gable were intended as a cogent unity, whose meaning remains obscure to the modern observer. Some of the component parts, such as the birds and their victim, are clearly related to each other, but the ensemble seems to be an ad hoc collection brought together in order to fill an empty space. A modicum of support is lent to this view by the fact that some of the figures and designs do not match up across horizontal registers while others fail to fit together across vertical mortar joints which separate the stones. The very clear and, indeed, neat separation between the bottom two registers and the three above them can even be discerned by the non-specialist. This would seem to divide the entire triangle into two major parts.4 In addition to the plaque-type stones in the triangle there are other plaques of a similar style decorating the outer walls of Fulk's church at Belli Locus. Some of these are placed individually while others are arranged in small groups.5 Indeed, Romanesque churches throughout the West of France are well known to be the home of such plaques and at least some of these, if not many, are of late antique origins. Finally, it is to be affirmed that each plaque and probably even some groups of plaques had a particular meaning, if only to the sculptor or the patron, at some time in their histories.6 3

Ibid., 113-14. Cf. Lelong, Touraine Romane, 169, but see Schmitt, 'Carved Gable,' 119, n. 6. 5 The ensemble of sculptures are most fully collected by Hardion and Bosseboeuf, L'abbaye, esp. 103, 105; and especially Schmitt, 'Carved Gable,' figs. 1-4, 6, 7b, 8b. 6 A preliminary survey of these types of plaques is provided by Marilyn Low Schmitt, The Abbey Church of Selles-sur-Cher (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1972), 193-234. The effort by Schmitt, 'Carved Gable,' 117-19, to relate the sculptures at Fulk's church to those at Sellessur-Cher is rejected explicitly by Ottaway, 'Beaulieu-les-Loches,' 86-88, and implicitly by Lelong, Touraine Romane, 169. 4

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In the present context it is of importance that the type of sculptures from the Romanesque period discussed above usually confine a single scene to each stone or plaque. With this in mind, Professor Schmitt has speculated that the single stone where a 'pair of affronted riders sits upon rearing horses' (pi. 2, infra, 80), is the centerpiece of what may have been a part of a monument conceived to be placed in some other context and later fitted into the gable. The two quadrupeds which Schmitt tentatively identifies as lions placed in the second register above the affronted mounted figures and combined with the four remaining horsemen engaged in mounted combat, each of the latter being two registers in height, she suggests were an ensemble perhaps intended as a frieze of some type.7 On the basis of Schmitt's insightful speculations, which have moved our understanding of these sculptures forward in a very significant manner, it seems likely that the bottom two courses of the gable-triangle originally were conceived and carved for a purpose and placement other than the one in which they are now found. These two courses originally were intended probably as a frieze which may perhaps have centered upon the pair of affronted horsemen one course high, topped by lion-like quadrupeds, also one course in height, and flanked by four horsemen engaged in mounted combat and two courses high.8 Neither Professor Schmitt, nor anyone else, has to my knowledge been able to decipher the meaning of the scenes on the putative frieze described above or for that matter any other sculpture within the gable triangle.9 In this study an effort will be made to show that the frieze was originally conceived by Fulk Nerra,

Although Schmitt demonstrates a good general knowledge of the history of Selles based upon the latest scholarship, she missed an only recently discovered link between Fulk Nerra and the monastery. In c. 1001, Fulk sent a hostis consisting of two phalanges, one of equites and the other of pedites, to gain control of the monastery. The success of Fulk's effort is marked by the fact that Count Theobald II found it necessary to attack Selles, now presumably in Angevin hands, before his death in 1004. For the relevant source see Thomas Head, 'Letaldus of Micy and the Hagiographic Traditions of Selles-sur-Cher,' Analecta Bollandiana 107 (1989): 393-414. The 'Vita et Miracula S. Eusicii,' chap. 6, found in Novae Bibliothecae Manuscriptorum . . ., 2, ed. Philippe Labbe (Paris, 1683), 465, provides this military data which is discussed by Bernard S. Bachrach, 'Angevin Campaign Forces in the Reign of Fulk Nerra, Count of the Angevins (987-1040),' Francia 16 (1989): 75. For Letaldus's anti-Angevin bias which results in his underestimating Fulk's gains at Selles, see Bernard S. Bachrach, 'Fulk Nerra's Exploitation of the 'Facilitates Monachorum, ca. 1000,' in Law Custom, and the Social Fabric in Medieval Europe: Essays dedicated in Honor ofBryce Lyon, eds. Bernard S. Bachrach and David M. Nicholas (Kalamazoo, 1990), 29^9. For the attack by Theobald on Selles see Gallia Christiana, 2, 2d. ed. (Paris, 1876): col. 183. The dating error was likely due to a confusion of Mil or Mill or even MIIII in an old and difficult to read manuscript. Cf. Head, 'Letaldus of Micy,' 410, n. 47. The result of Theobald's effort is unknown, and Fulk may have controlled Selles at the time Belli Locus was built. 7 'Carved Gable,' 118. Ottaway, 'Beaulieu-Les-Loches,' 86-88, would seem to have accepted the idea of a frieze. 8 See appendix 2, infra, 74-78. 9 For example, Lelong, Touraine Romane, 169, admits: 'Ensemble complexe done et sans correspondant connu.' He then suggests three ostensibly separate groupings, 'd'une thematique banale a 1'epoque romane. . . .'

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probably with the aid of his entourage, to illustrate the circumstances surrounding the foundation of the monastery of Belli Locus, i.e., Place of Battle. On 27 June 992 Fulk Nerra, count of the Angevins (987-1040), won a decisive victory over Count Conan of Rennes at the battle of Conquereuil in Brittany, 56 kilometers almost due west of the Angevin frontier stronghold at Cande.10 Following this battle, Fulk did penance 'for the great slaughter of Christians which occurred on the plain at Conquereuil.'!! During the late autumn or early winter of 1003, when the political situation in Anjou was firmly under comital control, Fulk made his first pilgrimage to the Holy Land, because, as he later put in a letter: ' [I] was terrified by the fear of Gehenna [and] went to the sepulchre of the Savior in Jerusalem.'12 In the wake of his return from the Holy Land, Fulk recognized that he was filled with 'good feelings' and concluded that it would be a fine idea to build a new monastery from the foundation up.13 This decision marked a radical departure from Fulk's previous policy inherited from his father, Geoffrey Greymantle, of limiting comital efforts to restoring and rebuilding old monasteries and churches.14 Fulk chose as the site for the new monastic complex a broad plain about a mile from Loches, a castrum in the southeastern part of the Touraine which had been in the hands of the Angevin comital family since the reign of Fulk the Red (d. c. 942).15 This land Fulk Nerra held in allodial tenure;16 it was called Belli Locus, i.e., the place of battle.17 Belli Locus was a field where traditionally the trial by combat or duelum was carried out for the judicial district, administered by the

10 For the basic information on this battle, see Louis Halphen, Le comte d' Anjou au Xle siecle (Paris, 1906), 6, 7, 21-25. 11 Cartulaire noir de la cathedrale d'Angers, ed. Charles Urseau (Angers, 1908), no. 27; and for the date see Olivier Guillot, Le comte d' Anjou et son entourage au Xle siecle (Paris, 1972), 2, no. 10. 12 For the date of this pilgrimage, see Bernard S. Bachrach, The Pilgrimages of Fulk Nerra, Count of the Angevins, 987-1040,' in Religion, Culture, and Society in the Early Middle Ages: Studies in Honor of Richard E. Sullivan, eds. T.F.X. Noble and John J. Contreni (Kalamazoo, 1987), 205-6. Fulk's letter is reconstructed by Bernard S. Bachrach, 'Pope Sergius IV and the Foundation of the Monastery at Beaulieu-Les-Loches,' Revue Benedictine 95 (1985): 245. 13 Ibid., for a reconstruction of this letter. 14 Abbo of Fleury, ep., no. 1, in PL, 139, cols. 419-21, for Fulk's prior position. The importance of Belli Locus as a new foundation is also discussed by Pope John XVIII in a bull he issued in Fulk's favor. (Pope John XVIII, 'Privilegium,' in PL, 139, col. 1491.) For the policy of Fulk Nerra's father, see Bernard S. Bachrach, 'Geoffrey Greymantle, Count of the Angevins, 960-987: A Study in French Politics,' Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 2nd ser. 7 (1985): 3-67. 15 Karl-Ferdinand Werner, 'Untersuchungen zur Friihzeit des franzb'sischen Fiirstentums (9.-10. Jahrhundert),' Die Welt als Geschichte 18 (1958): 269-70. 16 Pope Sergius IV, 'Priveligium,' in PL, 139, col. 1526, and Fulk Nerra's letter to Archbishop Hugh of Tours. For the reconstruction of the latter and the diplomatics of the former, see Bachrach, 'Pope Sergius IV,' 245 and 258 respectively. 17 See appendix 1, infra, 72-74.

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Angevin praepositus based in the castrum at Loches.18 Whether this was also the place where the local public court was held in the open air is problematic. However, it is clear that criminals convicted of capital crimes, through whatever judicial process may have obtained, were traditionally executed at Belli Locus. The texts make specific reference to a particular tree as a part of the landscape which was designated as the 'hanging elm.'19 In pre-Crusade Europe the sites where important battles were fought were considered favorably as places where churches and monasteries might be built.20 The thinking which undergirded such a view was that a judicium Dei had been rendered in the battle and that the victor had won with God's help.21 The foundation of a new church or monastery was a means of giving thanks to God for the victory. The most famous of these monasteries, of course, is Battle Abbey built by William the Conqueror, Fulk Nerra's younger contemporary, to celebrate his decisive victory over Harold Godwinson in 1066.22 Fulk Nerra obviously could not give thanks to God for his victory at Conquereuil by building a monastery on the site where the battle had been fought because, as we saw above, it was well within enemy territory. Thus the Angevin count would seem to have taken the next best course available to him and sought as a site for his new monastery, another Belli locus, where it was well known that the judicium Dei was rendered in favor of those who spilled blood, even Christian blood, in a just cause. In this context it is of particular importance that contemporaries of the battle of Conquereuil, including Conan of Rennes and Fulk Nerra, saw this encounter as a judicial duel or trial by combat between two armies as contrasted to the more common duelum between two individual champions. Indeed the battle was agreed upon with regard to both place and time by Fulk's and Conan's representatives, who apparently also established a set of rules which established

18

Halphen, Le comte, 351-52, no. 5, provides a critical edition of this act. See also Gallia Christiana, 14, 2d ed. (Paris, 1856): cols. 64-66, which is considered a forgery by Guillot, Le comte, 2: 275; but is rehabilitated by Bachrach, 'Pope Sergius IV,' 252-53, n. 53. 19 Halphen, Le comte, 351-52, which has reached a wide audience through Richard Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages (New Haven, 1953), 86-87. See also Gallia Christiana, 14, col. 65. 20 As part of an ongoing project in this area, the earliest I have identified is the monastery built by the Lombard king Cunincpert on the field of his victory at Coronate and dedicated to St. George. See Paul the Deacon, 'Historia Langobardorum,' eds. L. Bethmann and G. Wait/, in Scriptores Rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum sacs. VI-IX (MGH), 1 (Hanover, 1878), Bk. 6, chap. 17, 178. Concerning Battle Abbey built by William see The Chronicle of Battle Abbey, ed. and trans. Eleanor Searle (Oxford, 1980), 15-23. In this context the monastery at Pontlevoy requires further study. See infra, appendix 2. 21 Collin Morris, 'Judicium Dei: The Social and Political Significance of the Ordeal in the Eleventh Century,' in Church, Society and Politics, ed. Derek Baker, Studies in Church History 12 (1975): 109-10, briefly remarks on this institution which is in need of a major study. 22 See supra, n. 20 regarding William the Conqueror.

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the Breton count as the party on the defense and the Angevin count as the party on the offense. In light of this, there was some contemporary discussion as to whether Conan had violated the rules to which the parties had previously agreed when he had pits and ditches dug in the field across which the Angevins were expected to charge. In short the battle of Conquereuil, at least in its genesis, was in no sense a traditional military engagement resulting from the tactical maneuvering of the two armies.23 That Fulk Nerra should have commissioned a sculptured frieze depicting the memorable Angevin victory at Conquereuil for the purpose of adorning his church at Belli Locus, which he built at least in part to thank God for his military success, hardly seems to be an hypothesis worthy of extended argument. In a similar context Bishop Odo, William the Conqueror's half-brother, commissioned the celebrated Bayeux Tapestry, an embroidered frieze, in order to adorn his cathedral church and to commemorate his role in the conquest of England.24 Indeed the oft-discussed tie between the Bayeux Tapestry and Trajan's Column, among other possible imperial models for the commemoration of military victories,25 leaves us to wonder whether Fulk Nerra, who had visited Rome on at least two occasions before the church at Belli Locus was consecrated by a papal legate,26 may have been influenced by one or another monument of the ancient past by having ordered to be sculpted what would appear to have been his own commemorative battle frieze. Fulk Nerra's well-documented affinity for things Roman is of some importance here. He is known to have used the ideas and teachings of Flavius Renatus Vegetius, whose De re militari written c. 450, was the auctoritas for Angevin military tactics and strategy. Fulk also adopted and adapted imperial forms and ideas such as the victory ceremony and triumph. The Angevin count's apparent adoption of antique funerary style to the decoration of his sarcophagus surely permits the inference that he would not have been averse to imitating imperial military sculpture.27 23

Richer, Histoire de France, ed. and trans. Robert Latouche (Paris, 1964), 2, Bk. 4, chap. 84, 284; Rodulfus Glaber, The Five Books of the Histories, ed. and trans. John France (Oxford, 1989), Bk. 2, chap. 3; and La Chronique de Nantes, ed. Rene Merlet (Paris, 1896), chap. 44. 24 Cf. David J. Bernstein, The Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry (Chicago, 1986), 104-7. This important book should be read in conjunction with Bernard S. Bachrach, 'Some Observations On the Bayeux Tapestry,' Cithara 21 (1987): 5-28, and Bachrach's review of Bernstein's book in Speculum 65 (1990): 123-24. A useful bibliography of the Bayeux Tapestry has been published by Judith Brown, The Bayeux Tapestry (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1988). 25 The most thorough examination of this topic is provided by O.K. Werckmeister, The Political Ideology of the Bayeux Tapestry,' Studi Medievali, 3rd ser. 27 (1976): 536-606; but the brief summary of Bernstein, The Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry, 96-103, is very valuable. Bernstein successfully evokes the classical or neo-classical mentalite behind a group of late tenth and eleventh century victory monuments and also the mentalite of the literary monuments as well. 26 For Fulk Nerra's journeys to Rome, see Bachrach, 'Pope Sergius IV,' 247-54. 27 Bernard S. Bachrach, The Practical Use of Vegetius' De Re Militari During the Early

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A careful examination of the horsemen or more exactly of their equipment as depicted on the frieze (pi. 2) provides two exempla which highlight late antique usage and may suggest copying from classical models of some kind. Where the shape of the riders' shields can be discerned on the frieze, it is clear that they are rounded or oval. This is the type of shield which frequently is found on Roman monuments of various types.28 More importantly, they are very different from the kite-shaped shields commonly used by mounted fighting men in the eleventh century and even earlier. The kite-shaped shield, of course, is most clearly represented on the Bayeux Tapestry which, as noted above, commemorated the victory of Fulk's younger contemporary William the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings.29 Our knowledge of the history of stirrups also suggests the possibility that a late antique model or perhaps even a neo-Roman mentalite lay behind the sculptures of the horsemen at Belli Locus. The stirrup was introduced into western Europe by c. 700 A.D., but was not regarded as having military importance until the later ninth or early tenth century. By the eleventh century its use was widespread and it was normally depicted on monuments which displayed horsemen in combat.30 The absence of stirrups from the equestrian sculptures on Fulk Nerra's frieze (pi. 2) might well indicate the Angevin count's archaizing efforts. In support of this hypothesis it should be noted that the horsemen depicted on Fulk's frieze are shown to have elaborate harnesses (pi. 2).31 Such a focus on the means used to control the horse is thoroughly consistent with the technology in which the bit and the means of controlling it through the arrangement of the harness are crucial to the rider's success in managing his mount. Before stirrups Middle Ages,' The Historian 47 (1985): 239-55; idem, The Tomb of Fulk Nerra, Count of the Angevins (987-1040),' Cithara 29 (1989): 3-29; and idem, 'Neo-Roman vs. Feudal: The Heuristic Value of a Construct for the Reign of Fulk Nerra, Count of the Angevins (987-1040),' Cithara 30 (1990): 12-13. 28 A useful collection of illustrations is provided by H. Russell Robinson, The Armour of Imperial Rome (New York, 1975), pis. 238, 298, 301, 305, 460, 472, 475, and figs. 123 and 191. The latter is from the Notitia dignitatum which was kept current in the Western half of the Roman Empire at least until c. 425 A.D. and likely later. 29 The information and illustrations gathered by Ian G. Pierce, 'The Knight, his Arms and Armour in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,' in The Ideals and Practice of Medieval Knighthood, eds. C. Harper-Bill and Ruth Harvey (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1988), 161; and 'Arms, Armour and Warfare in the Eleventh Century,' in A-NS 11 (1988): 243^4. For a more general background, see Bernard S. Bachrach, 'Caballus et Caballarius in Medieval Warfare,' in The Study of Chivalry, eds. Howell Chickering and Thomas H. Seiler (Kalamazoo, 1988), 173-211. Also of interest are Linda Seidel, 'Early Medieval Images of the Horseman Reviewed,' ibid., 373^00; and Jennie Kiff, 'Images of War: Illustrations of Warfare in Early Eleventh-Century England,' A-NS 1 (1985): 177-94. 30 The basic work here is Bernard S. Bachrach, 'Animals and Warfare in Early Medieval Europe,' Settimane di studio del centra italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo 31.1 (1985): 707-64, and esp. 737-48, with plates 1-8. 31 Both Schmitt, 'Carved Gable,' 119, n. 3, and Ottaway, 'Beaulieu-Les-Loches,' 388, call attention to the elaborate harness arrangement. The latter sees it as a 'remarquable attention aux details.'

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became a basic part of the equipment used for controlling the horse, elaborate bit mechanisms were developed. Such devices and their concomitant rein arrangements were depicted in a conspicuous manner on antique monuments.32 Many exempla were surely available to Fulk and his contemporaries as the Angevin count traveled to Rome, the Byzantine empire, and the Holy Land.33 Prima facie, it seems reasonable to suggest that the scene depicting mounted combat at Belli Locus may have been executed so that contemporary viewers, at least, could identify the frieze with the Angevin victory at Conquereuil. For example, the design of the guard on the sword wielded by the mounted figure in two registers, just to the right of the two half-scale affronted figures (pi. 3), is of the rather rare 'upturned' style. This style is also depicted on the sculpture of Fulk Nerra which adorned his tomb and also was at Belli Locust The similarity in style of a sword guard is certainly insufficient evidence to declare that the mounted figure on the frieze, discussed above, was intended to represent Fulk Nerra. However, in this context it is worth noting that the two men who face in the same direction as the possible Fulk-figure wield spears. This may perhaps be taken as a sign, in light of the iconography of the period, that the man with the sword, thus differentiated from his men, was intended to represent the commander.35 A second point worthy of notice is that the three figures facing in the same direction all ride horses which appear to be unable to maintain an erect position but give the impression of foundering. This is indicated by the bowed heads of the mounts. By contrast, the single mounted figure facing the three horsemen, discussed above, appears to be standing straight on firm ground. This is shown by the erect position of the horse's head.36 In this context it is vital to recall that Conan of Rennes had arranged for pits and ditches to be dug throughout the battle field at Conquereuil. Richer, a contemporary who favored Conan's cause, wrote of the Angevins: 'they charged into the ditches and were sunk down in them.'37 It may be suggested that this episode was particularly worthy of depiction from the Angevin point of view because Fulk and his men overcame the traps dug by the Bretons. It was these very traps that Conan had dug which led to charges that the Breton count had violated the rules of the trial by combat with the Angevins that had been arranged previously. In short, this episode encapsulated the trial 32 For the background see J.K. Anderson, Ancient Greek Horsemanship (Berkeley, 1961), 50-78. 33 Concerning the extent of Fulk's travels see Bachrach, 'Fulk's Tomb,' 15. 34 Ibid., 11, and fig. 1; see also pi. 3,. 35 Cf. The Bayeux Tapestry, ed. P.M. Stenton, et. al. 2d ed. (London, 1965), pis. 54-73, where William the Conqueror and his half-brother Odo of Bayeux carry maces while the other mounted troops carry either spears or swords. 36 The horses' bent legs enhance the impression of foundering. However, it is likely that this distortion was forced upon the sculptor by the dual demand of maintaining the riders and upper bodies of the horses in large scale while fitting the ensemble into a space that was only one meter in height. 37 Richer, Hist., Bk. 4, chap. 85.

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by combat aspect of the battle which tied Conquereuil to Belli Locus where the judicium Dei was traditionally rendered. If it is correct to see the four full-scale horsemen as three Angevins, led by Fulk Nerra with the sword and foundering in the ditches, being opposed by one Breton standing tall, then it may perhaps be suggested that this was but one episode on what initially was a much longer frieze depicting the battle of Conquereuil. This suggestion would seem warranted by the single fact that it would have been unlikely for Fulk to have permitted a monument to his victory, won with God's help, to be designed which showed the Angevins outnumbering their enemy and being on the verge of defeat. If the main thrust of Fulk's frieze at Belli Locus was to depict the Angevin victory at Conquereuil or at the very least to highlight one crucial episode of that battle, what is to be made of half-scale elements, such as the two affronted horsemen in the first register and the lion-like quadrupeds in the second course? Concerning the former, I can only offer a speculation and suggest that these horsemen were intended to represent a traditional trial by combat which involved two contenders, principals and/or their champions, in a duel or Zweikampf, as one says more explicitly in German.38 Thus the half-scale affronted horsemen pick up the second theme of Belli Locus, i.e., that place where, as seen above, the judicium Dei was rendered in a trial by combat. Unfortunately the erosion of the stone sculpture has gone so far that we cannot discern any of the weapons wielded by the two affronted horsemen but their positioning certainly suggests that they were engaged in single combat. I can think of no more plausible reasons for such an affronted disposition of the two figures.39 The two quadrupeds, identified by Schmitt as lions, would seem to be even less remarkable in context than the half-scale affronted horsemen positioned below them. That a monument, in which a noble military victory won with God's help is depicted, should have a complement of lions is rather banal in light of this animal's biblical reputation for strength (2 Sam. 1: 23) and courage (2 Sam. 17:10). The scattering of lions throughout the Bayeux Tapestry strongly suggests that this animal was firmly associated with victory during the eleventh century.40 In conclusion, light can be cast on the enigmatic sculptures under discussion: between 1005 and 1012 Fulk Nerra built an abbey at Belli Locus, adjacent to the 38 Concerning the trial by combat, see Robert Bartlett, Trial by Fire and Water: The Medieval Judicial Ordeal (Oxford, 1986), 103-26; and more fully Hermann Nottarp, Gottesurteilsludien (Munich, 1956), passim. It seems clear that trial by combat should be treated differently from the ordeals by fire and water. See for example, V.G. Kiernan, The Duel in European History (Oxford, 1988). 39 Ottaway, 'Beaulieu-Les-Loches,' 390-1, speculates that all the fighting men may represent duels judiciacres, but provides no evidence other than a reference to the foundation charter of Belli Locus. It is possible that the half-scale mounted figure on the left can be seen to carry a long pole weapon of some type. Schmitt, 'Carved Gable,' 113, suggests a 'vaguely heraldic composition,' but provides no evidence. 40 Cf. Bernstein, The Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry, 126-28.

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field where thejudicium Dei was executed for the district of Loches, in order to commemorate the Angevin victory at the battle of Conquereuil in 992; to call attention to God's favorable judgement Fulk arranged to have a monumental relief sculpted in an antique style. Only a fragment of the full sculpture probably survives and this is to be found displaced in the gable of the north transcept where it was probably relocated with other debris during the restorations carried out during the fifteenth century. In sponsoring such a victory monument Fulk unified the antique tradition, as symbolized by Trajan's column and the Christian tradition of a battle abbey as employed by the Lombard ruler Cunincpert. William the Conqueror's Battle Abbey and Odo of Bayeux's Tapestry may perhaps be seen as continuations of these traditions. University of Minnesota

Appendix 1 Belli Locus: A Place-Name Problem For as long as scholars have been writing about Fulk Nerra's monastery near Loches it has been called Beaulieu, i.e., Beautiful Place, and not Place of Battle. The purpose of this brief excursus is to show that originally the Latin name for the site of the monastery was Belli locus, i.e., Place of Battle, and not Bellus Locus, the traditional way 'beautiful place' was expressed in Latin during the middle ages in France and in England.1 To identify the original Latin name for the site it is most useful to find the nominative form. The inflected forms provide too much opportunity for duplicating endings in connecting the words while copying. Thus it is exceptionally important that a charter issued by Hugh, the vicarius of La Haye, a stronghold belonging to Fulk Nerra only 30 kilometers south-southwest of Loches, when he became a monk, refers to the monastery where he was professed as 'Bellilocus' This act in which Hugh presents the traditional gift by a new monk to his monastery appears to have been written not long after the consecration of Belli Locus in May of 1012. Indeed, Hugh may have been one of the first monks to enter this new foundation.2 At about the same time that Hugh entered Belli Locus, or actually just after, Fulk Nerra issued a charter for the monastery detailing a substantial number of grants. In this charter Fulk also employs the usage 'Bellilocus^ Throughout the

1 See Kate Norgate, England Under the Angevin Kings (London, 1887), 1: 154, for the early literature. 2 Dictionnaire geographique, historique . . . d'Indre-et-Loire et de . . . Touraine, ed. Jacques Xavier Carre de Busserolle, 4th ed. (Mayenne, 1988), 3, no. VI (pp. 319-20). See infra n. 4. 3 See supra n. 18.

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remainder of the eleventh century and well beyond the middle of the twelfth century no local acta nor any papal documents dealing with Belli Locus employs a Latin usage which might permit the inference that 'Beaulieu' had as yet appeared as an alternative to 'Place of Battle.'4 In sharp contrast with local custom in the region of Loches which adhered to the original Latin name, Belli Locus, the earliest evidence for the usage 'Bellus Locus' is to be found at the Angevin court during the last decade of the eleventh century, but not later than early 1096. Thus the corruption 'Bellus Locus' appears more than eighty years after we first encounter the original Belli Locus. In addition, it may be of some importance that this corruption appears in a literary text and not in a document from the Angevin court.5 Why such a perversion of the original Belli Locus should have taken place at the Angevin capital is not immediately evident. Angers is more than a hundred kilometers, as the crow flies, from Loches. However, such a distance, a week's travel under normal conditions, is hardly a compelling reason for ignorance and certainly not a basis for mischievousness. Perhaps more important in the present context is the fact that the Angevin counts who succeeded Fulk Nerra paid only very slight attention to the monastery where their ancestor had been buried and to which he had been so generous. Following Fulk's burial, Geoffrey Martel, at the urging of his mother, the late count's widow, confirmed his father's acta for the monastery and made a generous contribution of his own.6 This is the only act issued by an Angevin in favor of Belli Locus prior to the death of Geoffrey Plantagenet in 1151, and there is no reason to believe that any of Geoffrey Martel's successors visited the monastery.7 4

For the papal acta regarding John XVIII, see Olivier Guillot, 'La consecration de 1'abbaye de Beaulieu-les-Loches,' Actes du colloque medieval de Loches in Memoir es de la Societe archeologique de Touraine, ser. 4 9 (1975): 23-32, and for the two acta of Pope Sergius IV, Bachrach, 'Pope Sergius IV,' 24-265. These studies rehabilitate acta which were declared worthless by Halphen, Le comic, 224-31. Additional papal acta are of Urban II, Alexander III, and Pascal II, which are found in Papsturkunden in Frankreich, ed. Johannes Ramackers (Gottingen, 1956), 5, nos. 24, 121, and PL, 163 (Paris, 1893), cols. 435-6, respectively. For charters, see Busserolle, Dictionnaire geographique, nos. 7, 11, 12; Halphen, Le comte, no. 5 (pp. 351-52); Thesaurus Novus Anecdotorum, eds. E. Martene and U. Durand (Paris, 1717), l,cols. 151-53. N.b.: During the second half of the eleventh century local usage in Latin in what would appear to be the adjectival form is Bellilocensis. Thus the accusative form Bellilocensem seen in the documents cited above may tend to support the continued understanding of the name as 'Place of Battle.' 5 Fulk le Rechin, 'Fragmentum Historiae Andegavensis,' in Chroniques des comte s d'Anjou et des seigneurs d'Amboise, eds. Louis Halphen and Rene Poupardin (Paris, 1913), 234. 6 For Geoffrey Martel's initial act, see Martene and Durand, Thesaurus Novus Anecdotorum, l.cols. 151-53. 7 An act by Abbot Stephen of Belli Locus is authorized by Geoffrey Martel, and Guillot, Le comte, 2, no. 201, can date this no closer than the full reign of Count Geoffrey. However, a careful examination of the witnesses and participants suggests that this act was also given early in the 1040s. N.b.: it cannot be established that Count Geoffrey was at Belli Locus to give his authorization. Finally, Guillot. loe. cit., no. 362, argues that Fulk le Rechin authorized

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Although nominally William the Conqueror's 'Battle Abbey' has survived, holy places originally connected closely with such an excess of bloodletting often lost that association in post-Crusade Europe. For example, at Pontlevoy in the Touraine, a locality in the mouvance of the Angevins, a monastery was built sometime after 1016 but before 1040. On 6 July 1016, Fulk Nerra won a very bloody battle at Pontlevoy in which thousands of Christians were killed. No information concerning the origins of the monastery survives other than its dedication to Notre-Dame and the interest of the Angevin counts as late as 1096 in supporting masses for the souls of those who died in the battle eighty years earlier.8 In another interesting case, also within the mouvance of the Angevin counts, we see the diminution of St. Martin's association with battle. In the local traditions of the Touraine, St. Martin was given credit for winning a great victory over the Northmen sometime before the middle of the ninth century.9 The place of this victory came to be called 'burgum Sancti Martini Belli.'10 In 1044, about two hundred years later, Geoffrey Mattel defeated the count of Blois in the same place.11 Before the middle of the twelfth century popular usage had begun to disassociate Geoffrey's victory from that of St. Martin. The site of the Angevin success came to be called Nouy from the general locality in which the above mentioned burg was situated and, indeed, St. Martin was cleansed of the association of bloodletting.12 Kate Norgate put it very well more than a century ago when she observed: 'While the English "Place of Battle" at Senlac has long forgotten its dedication to St. Martin, its namesake in Touraine has forgotten both its battles and become "St. Martin-le-Beau.'"13

Appendix 2 Some Observations on Chronology Specialists in the history of art and in the history of architecture have taken their turn in trying to date the sculptures that are now found fixed within the triangle an act that likely concerned Belli Locus sometime between 1069 and 1090, but no mention of the monastery is made and there is no reason to believe that the count was there. For the acta of the Angevin counts see Guillot, loc. cit. passim, and Josephe Chartrou, L'Anjou de 1009 a 1151 (Paris, 1928), 252-315. 8 For the background on Pontlevoy, see Halphen, Le comte, 31, 34—36, 47, 163, 326. Regarding this act see Guillot, Le comte, 2, no. 393. 9 Norgate, England Under the Angevin Kings, 1: 186-87. 10 'Chronica de Gestis Consulum Andegavorum,' 56; and Gesta Ambaziensium Dominorum, 84, both edited by Halphen and Poupardin, in Chroniques des comtes (supra n. 5). 11 Halphen, Le comte, 47^48. 12 'Chronica de Gestis Consulum,' 56: 'ante burgum Sancti Martini Belli ad pugnam conveniunt in loco qui publice Noit vocatur.' 13 Norgate, England Under the Angevin Kings, 1: 186-87.

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gable at Belli Locus. Initially it was thought that the sculptures were created for the north transept and therefore could not predate its construction or at the least they could not predate the conception and design of the gable. The problem thus that had to be solved was when the north transept was built. On this matter a consensus was developed that it was constructed before the end of the eleventh century. However, there was no consensus concerning how early it was built. The consecration of the church in 1012 remains the most likely terminus post quern.1 In light of the above, scholars have speculated on a variety of dates for the sculpture. Some have argued for the early eleventh century, while others have suggested the mid-twelfth century. The former generally point to the primitive nature of the sculptures. The latter, by contrast, tend to argue for the sculptures' sophistication and advanced nature. One scholar went so far as to conjure up a midtwelfth century historical program for the sculpture but this has been uniformly rejected. Now there is a consensus of sorts that the north transept was built before the end of the eleventh century and that the sculptures were carved before that date as well.2 Schmitt's view, apparently accepted by Ottaway, that the first and second registers of the ensemble are a frieze, has the potential to undermine, at least in part, the manner in which scholars have looked at the entire dating question. In this context it is of vital importance that in 1412, during the latter part of the Hundred Years' War, English soldiers sacked the monastic complex at Belli Locus, and much of it was destroyed by fire. Throughout the fifteenth century considerable effort and resources were expended to rebuild the monastery and the church. Major alterations were made in the architectural design which saw some parts of the monastery and of the church destroyed.3 Thus the sculptures now to be seen in the gable of the north transept, or at least some of them, may have been rescued from ruined parts of the monastic complex and placed in their present home during the restoration campaigns of the fifteenth century. A laboratory study of the various types of mortar used in construction at Belli Locus is surely a desideratum in this context. At present there is certainly no reason to assume that the ensemble of sculptures in the gable, which are widely admitted to have no internal logic through all the courses, was brought together before the rebuilding and restoration efforts of the fifteenth century.4 1 The chronology is most recently reviewed by Ottaway, 'Beaulieu-Les-Loches,' 390-91; but see also Lelong, Touraine Romane, 169-70. 2 Hardion and Bosseboeuf, 'L'Abbaye de Beaulieu-Les-Loches,' 106-8, for the mid-twelfth century, and Ottaway, 'Beaulieu-Les-Loches,' 390, for the rejection. 3 For the historical background and rebuilding of Belli Locus, see Hardion and Michel-Dansac, 'Etude archeologique,' 91-120, and Vallery-Radot, 'L'Ancienne eglise abbatiale,' 126-42. 4 The admission by Lelong, Touraine Romane, 169, 'Ensemble complex done et sans correspondant connu. Aucune explication satisfaisante n'en a ete fournie . . .' is most easily explained by the inference that the ensemble has no fundamental cogency. Schmitt, 'Carved Gable,' 119, goes so far as to speculate that the gable was filled ostensibly with 'castoff reliefs.' Once such a regime is broached, the date of filling the empty spaces must be determined by other than stylistic considerations.

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The date at which the frieze itself may have been conceived and where it initially was placed are very difficult problems. Thus the following observations are intended more to stimulate further archaeological research than to provide solutions. Concerning the former, it seems likely that the idea for having some type of monumental sculpture executed to commemorate the victory at Conquereuil developed no later than the period of Fulk's first pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which began late in the autumn of 1003 and ended with the Angevin count's return in December of 1004.5 During the year or so of this journey, Fulk had ample opportunity to learn about and to see some of the many victory and putative victory monuments which still survived in the lands of the east Roman Empire and from southern Gaul and from the Middle East.6 The Angevin count's decision in 1005 to build a monastery at Belli Locus surely permits the inference that the two ideas of commemorating the victory at Conquereuil with monumental sculpture and thanking God for the triumph were already joined. In the decade after c. 1010, Fulk's interests and activities followed a pattern which would seem to have left little room for a focus on the commemoration of the victory at Conquereuil. In 1010 Fulk returned from his second pilgrimage to the Holy Land where he was reputed to have suffered rough treatment at the hands of the Caliph's functionaries. Nevertheless, he is credited with securing a piece of stone from the Holy Sepulchre. In 1011 or early 1012 this 'relic' was presented to the monks of Belli Locus by Fulk in a ceremony called 'an adventus of the saints' reminiscent of late antique practice. Thereafter the theme of the Holy Sepulchre was to play a role at Belli Locus which would eclipse all other sacred associations.7 5

For these dates see Bachrach, 'The Pilgrimages of Fulk Nerra,' 205-6. The myriad of ways in which medieval artists, broadly defined, and their patrons manipulated the artifacts and ideas of antiquity defy simple characterization. With regard to triumphal monuments or what may have been perceived as triumphal monuments, see the magisterial study by Linda Seidel, Songs of Glory: The Romanesque Facades of Aquitaine (Chicago, 1981), passim, but esp. 22-34. I am rather partial to the formulation by Richard Krautheimer, Studies in Early Christian, Medieval, and Renaissance Art (New York, 1969), 128, who observes: 'The architect of a medieval copy did not intend to imitate the prototype as it looked in reality; he intended to reproduce it typice andfiguaraliter, as a memento of a venerated site and simultaneously as a symbol. . . .' Monuments of significance were as close as Saintes which Fulk Nerra brought under his personal control in c. 999 (Bernard S. Bachrach, 'A Study in Feudal Politics: Relations between Fulk Nerra and William the Great, 995-1030,' Viator 7 [1916]: 115-16). 7 For the date of the second pilgrimage, see Bachrach, 'The Pilgrimages of Fulk Nerra,' 206-8; Fulk's rough treatment at Jerusalem during this period, when the Caliph Al Hakim II was persecuting Christians, is treated in 'Chronica de Gestis Consulum Andegavorum,' 50-1, with an account of how the stone relic was obtained which is undoubtedly legendary. 'Historia Sancti Florentii Salmurensis,' in Chroniques des Eglises d'Anjou, eds. Paul Marchegay and Emile Mabille, (Paris, 1869), 273-74, provides an account of the gift of this relic to Belli Locus. The entire matrix of episodes is synthesized in the thirteenth-century 'Chronicon Turonense Magnum,' in Recueil des Chroniques de Touraine, ed. Andre Salmon (Tours, 1854), 118, based upon the above mentioned sources and other accounts which are likely earlier but are no longer extant. For the adventus ceremony, see Bachrach, 'Neo-Roman vs. Feudal,' 9-10.

6

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In c. 1012 Fulk's efforts in the sphere of building religious houses turned to the restoration of the church of Saint-Martin in Angers.8 In 1016, Fulk won a great military victory at Pontlevoy and probably built an abbey there to commemorate his triumph and to thank God.9 In 1020 another new abbey, Saint-Nicholas at Angers, which had been under construction for several years, was dedicated.10 In short, the building and decoration of Belli Locus, with a primary focus on commemorating the battle of Conquereuil and thanking God for the victory, would appear to have held Fulk's attention with regard to his non-military building program from c. 1005 to c. 1012 at the latest. It is to this period that we likely should date the frieze. The original placement of the frieze obviously depended upon whether the scene which has survived on the gable represents the entire original monument or only a part of it. The scene, or the part of a scene that does survive and likely depicts the episode in the battle in which the Angevin horsemen founder in Conan's traps, measures approximately seven meters in length and is about one meter in height. Thus, an original monument which depicted only the four major elements of the battle: i.e. 1. the arrangements for ajudicium Dei by mass combat; 2. the Angevin charge and foundering in Conan's 'illegal' traps; 3. the successful Angevin counterattack; and 4. the triumph over Conan with the likely amputation of his right arm and later execution," would require a wall of about forty meters. Such a space could easily have been found on either wall of the church in the now empty space between the two banks of windows. 12 Are these speculations concerning Fulk Nerra as an apparent innovator in the area of monumental sculpture credible? In this context it is important to emphasize that the Angevin count was both an innovator and deeply committed to the creative use of what he saw as the antique past in a broad spectrum of endeavors.13 For example, he was the first ruler in the West of France to engage his resources in a massive building program of newly designed stone fortifications. However, he organized these strongholds in tactical and strategic patterns according to ideas of the late Roman military expert Vegetius. 14 Also in the area of building and more explicitly decoration, Fulk had his tomb at Belli Locus adorned with a semi-round life-sized statue. This is the earliest surviving

8

The basic work remains George Forsyth, The Church of St. Martin at Angers (Princeton, 1953); but see now the observations of Jacques Mallet, L'art roman de I'ancien Anjou (Paris, 1984), 22-29, and the review article on the latter by Bernard S. Bachrach in Speculum 64 (1989): 740-3, where a connection is made between the very high roof blown down at Belli Locus in 1012 and Fulk's decision to lower the roof at Saint-Martin of Angers (p. 743). 9 See appendix 1, n. 8. A great deal more study of Pontlevoy is needed but it will have to come through archaeological excavation because the documentary survivals are so poor. 10 Halphen, Le comte, 86-87. 11 See Bachrach, 'Neo-Roman vs. Feudal,' n. 47. 12 See the excellent photograph in Hardion and Michel-Dansac, 'Etude archeologique,' 95. 13 In general, Bachrach, 'Neo-Roman vs. Feudal,' 7-14. 14 Bernard S. Bachrach, The Angevin Strategy of Castle Building in the Reign of Fulk Nerra, 987-1040,' American Historical Review 88 (1983): 533-60.

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example of such a tomb in the medieval West. Fulk's contemporary, Abbot Isarn of Saint-Victor, had a more primitive effort carved a few years later.15 Finally, the very church at Belli Locus under discussion here was an immense structure whose monumental proportions were not at all in keeping with the local architecture of the period.16

15 16

Bachrach, 'Fulk's Tomb,' 3-29. Vallery-Radot, 'L'Ancienne eglise Abbatiale,' 127-42.

Plate 1 The gable at Belli Locus

Plate 2 Fragment of the Battle Relief at Belli Locus

Plate 3 FulkNerra(P)

6 A Reform of Investiture before the Investiture Struggle in Anjou, Normandy, and England Olivier Guillot

This essay provides me with the opportunity to consider a problem I raised some twenty years ago in my these d'Etat on the count of Anjou in the eleventh century: the pre-reform of investiture in Anjou and its later implementation in England. When I wrote my thesis, there were some interesting facts I began to observe from this perspective. I saw the reform of investiture progressing from Chartres and Marmoutier at the beginning of the eleventh century, then passing to Anjou and Normandy, and after the year 1066 to England.1 But, in my thesis, I was obliged to be purely conjectural about the origin of this current of reform2 and upon its final results.1 Now, because of new works, especially of American medievalists and of my own students, I think I can be a little more positive.4 This current of reform will be described here in three successive stages. First, the reform movement began in the first decades of the eleventh century with the thought of Fulbert, bishop of Chartres (d. 1028). In the West there was a general custom that was adhered to when an individual acceded to a major benefice after an election (or the semblance of one). The ruler in whose territory the church 1

Olivier Guillot, Le comte d'Anjou et son entourage au Xle siecle, 2 vols. (Paris, 1972), 1: 181-193 (hereafter cited as C.A.). 2 Ibid., 183-85. 3 Ibid., 188-93. 4 The works of certain American medievalists need mention in particular: Bernard S. Bachrach, 'The Angevin Strategy of Castle Building in the Reign of Foulque Nerra, 987-1040,' American Historical Review, 88 (1983): 533-560; idem, 'Enforcement of the Forma Fidelitatis: The Techniques used by Fulk Nerra, Count of the Angevins (987-1040),' Speculum, 59 (1984): 786-819; C. Warren Hollister, 'St. Anselm on Lay Investiture,' A-NS, 10 (1988): 145-58; Sally N. Vaughn, Anselm of Bee and Robert ofMeulan: The Innocence of the Dove and the Wisdom of the Serpent, (Berkeley, 1987); Robert Benson, The Bishop-Elect: A Study in Medieval Ecclesiastical Office, (Princeton, 1968). The works by my two students are: Cecile de Lannoy (today comtesse d'Humieres), 'Recherches sur la pensee spirituelle de Fulbert,' (Memoire de maitrise, Universite de Paris IV, 1982); and Cecile Pailloux, Les elections abbatiales en I'abbayc' Saint Aubin d'Angers au Xle siecle (Memoire de Maitrise, Universite Catholique de 1'Ouest in Angers, 1989).

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in question lay would invest the cleric with all his rights and powers, whether temporal or spiritual; only then would the episcopal consecration and benediction take place. However, as will be shown below, Fulbert of Chartres was convinced that such princely investiture should be regarded as concerning only temporalia; and later, Fulbert's influence was directly perpetuated by Albert, dean of the cathedral chapter of Chartres during Fulbert's episcopate. Albert became abbot of Marmoutier after Fulbert's death in 1028. It is he who provides the first attested example of reform in a ruler's practice of investiture: in the territories of the house of Blois in 1037, Albert limited such investiture to just the temporalia. The second stage of the reform movement came about when Geoffrey Martel, count of Anjou, partially implemented it in the years 1055-56, and more fully when Duke William of Normandy implemented it (although our evidence for this dates only from 1059). These changes probably emanate from the very end of the papacy of Leo IX (1049-54) and were influenced by the council held at Lisieux by the legate Ermenfroi and by another held at Tours by the legate Hildebrand. The third stage of this reform trend lasted from 1060 to the beginning of the twelfth century and traveled from Anjou to Normandy thence to England. First, the counts of Anjou were weakened by acts of the papacy in proportion to their refusal to retain the reforms. Then William and his successors, having fully accepted the reform and, after the Conquest, immediately having extended it to England, attracted papal favor that endured up to the death of Gregory VII. After Urban II's radical return to a previous state of the reform question, they arrived in 1107 at a durable reestablishment of the reform; this involved a simple change in the rite of investiture during the papacy of Pascal II (1099-1118). Fulbert of Chartres and Albert's Beginnings as a Reformer As early as the conversion of Constantine to Christianity there were those, echoing St. Paul's thought,5 who distinguished between the spiritual and the temporal in a society that was thenceforth publicly Christian. The spiritual pertained, properly speaking, only to the sacred ministers of the church, and was described as interim. The temporal was entrusted by God to the rulers and was called exterius.6 This dualism was brushed aside by the introduction of royal anointing under the first Carolingian monarchs.7 5

The origin of such a distinction is surely to be found in 2 Corinthians 4 (here cited from the Vulgate). The Apostle, first (v.16) defines: '. . . is qui foris est, noster homo corrumpatur. . .' and '. . . is qui intus est, renovatur de die in diem'; and, second (v.18), in a larger manner: 'Quae enim videntur, temporalia sunt; quae autem non videntur, aeterna sunt.' 6 Eusebius, bishop of Cesarea, in his 'Life of Constantine' Vita Constantini, IV, 24, Patrologia Graeco-Latina, 20, ed. J.-P. Migne (Paris, 1857), col. 1171 makes the distinction just at the end of the emperor's life, perhaps originally with another meaning; J. Gaudemet L'Eglise dans I'Empire Romain in Histoire du droit et des institutions de I'Eglise en Occident, ed. G. Le Bras (Paris, 1958), 3: 497-98, with the cited bibliography. 7 In a letter sent by Pope Stephen II to the new rex Francorum Pippin in 757, three years

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Furthermore, tenth-century France developed a structure that dispersed royal prerogatives,8 which was an incentive to the local rulers of that world, whether great or small, to assume a dominant role over the churches, and to invest in both domains.9 Yet I cannot claim that at the beginning of the eleventh century, when dispersal of power was widespread, Fulbert of Chartres was the only person to revive this dualist tradition. Many ecclesiastics were simoniacs who tried to argue for this dualism in order to restrict the definition of simony to the traffic in spiritual powers and acts.10 But there was also a current, pure of any simoniacal temptation, illustrated not only by Fulbert but by others. From France alone, I can cite several examples of this trend: Abbo of Fleury ! l and Bruno of Toul (the future Leo IX),12 and one earlier.13 If two of Fulbert's letters are read accurately, we can see that this dualist reaction made Fulbert a man ahead of his time.14 The first letter, which dates after the pope's anointing of Pippin in the abbey of St. Denis, Stephen gave a broad definition of Pippin's powers, including clearly spiritual ones, Epistolae Merowingici et Karolini Aevi 1 Codex Carolinus (MGH), ed. Wilhelm Grunlach (Hanover, 1892), 504-6: '. . . Quid enim aliud quam novum te dixerim Moysen et praefulgidum asseram David regem? . . . postulamus . . . bonitatem tuam ut inspiratus a Deo et ejus principe apostolorum beato Petro ita disponere jubeas de parte Grecorum ut fides sancta catholica . . . per te integra permaneat.' Later, during the reign of Charlemagne, one of Alcuin's letters written in the year 800 indicates expressly that the prince can pretend to a power which concerns both interim and exterius domains of the Church, Epistolae Merowingici et Karolini Aevi 4 Epistolae Karolini Aevi, 2: Epistolae Alcuini, ed. Ernst Diimmler, (Hanover, 1895), 281, n. 171. Alcuin wrote to Charlemagne: '. . . Hoc mirabile et speciale in te pietatis Dei donum praedicamus, quod tanta devotione ecclesias Christi a perfidorum doctrinis intrinsecus purgare tuerique niteris, quanta forinsecus a vastatione paganorum defendere vel propagare conaris. His duobus gladiis (vestram) venerandam excellentiam dextra laevaque divina armavit potestas, in quibus victor laudabilis et triumphator gloriosus existis.' 8 For the political structure of France in the tenth century, see: Olivier Guillot, 'Formes, tbndements et limites de 1'organisation politique en France au Xe siecle,' Settimana di Studio, 38 // secolo di ferro: mito e realtd del secolo X, Centra Italiano di Studi sull'alto Medioevo (Spoleto, 1991), 1: 57-124. For the lay power upon the churches in eleventh-century France, see J.-Fr. Lemarignier. Histoire des institutions frangaises au Moyen Age, eds. F. Lot and R. Fawtier, 3: Les institutions ecclesiastiques, (Paris, 1962), 62-77 (hereafter cited as Les institutions ecclesiastiques). 9 See, for example, for Anjou, the case of the abbot of St. Aubin in C.A., 1: 154-56. 10 Benson, The Bishop-Elect, 209-10. 1! J.-Fr. Lemarignier, 'Le monachisme et 1'encadrement religieux des campagnes du royaume de France situees au nord de la Loire de la fin du Xe a la fin du Xle siecle,' in Le istituzioni ecclesiastiche della 'societas Christiana' dei secoli XI-XII. Diocesi, pievi e parrocchie, Atti della sesta Settimana internazionale di studio 1-710911974, Publicazioni dell'Universita Cattolica del s. Cuore, Miscellanea del Centra di studi medioevali (Milano, 1975), 8: 365. 12 Dom N.-N. Huyghebaert, 'Saint Leon IX et la lutte centre la simonie dans le diocese de Verdun,' Studi Gregoriani 1 (1947): 431. 13 The distinction appeared in January 929 in a charter delivered by Berno, bishop of Macon, to Cluny, Recueil des chartes de I'abbaye de Cluny, 1, ed. Alexandre Bruel (Paris, 1876), no. 373, p. 350, in the preamble. 14 De Lannoy, 'Recherches sur la pensee spirituelle de Fulbert,' 18-19. The only recent

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from 1004, displays Fulbert's thinking before his episcopate.15 It is addressed to Abbo of Fleury. Fulbert told Abbo of the misfortunes of the monks of Saint-Pere at Chartres. Count Thibaud used force to elevate his candidate to the abbacy, despite the monks' explicit condemnation of this. The monks left the abbey and took refuge in the cathedral church. Deacon Fulbert allowed a ray of hope to shine through the lamentation that he directed to Abbo: the church of the Gauls might be saved by monasticism. He wrote: o desolata Galliarum ecclesia. . . Ubi amplius afflicta Christiani anima respirabit? Hoc nempe solum vel maxime nos confortare videbatur quod, si contigeret ruinas maenium tuorum resarciri non posse, liceret saltern ad firmum adhuc capitolium monasticae vitae confugere.16

One might not be able to restore the church's exterior walls, its temporal rights, which lay in ruins, but one might comfort oneself with the thought that monasticism, at least, could offer a refuge in the stronghold of monastic life, the latter's interior vitality, which was indestructible.17 The second of Fulbert's letters dates from the very end of his pontificate and directly concerns the matter of investiture.18 The bishop wrote to Robert, archbishop of Rouen, just after the death of the latter's nephew Duke Richard III.19 Robert I, the new duke, had expelled his uncle the archbishop from his see. Fulbert wrote to the exiled prelate: tibi, pater, haec vel magna consolacio est, quia si abstulit exteriora, interiora non potuit. Habes enim ex Dei gratia caritatem qua ipsum errantem revoces, frenum canonicae districtionis quo detrectantem coherceas, virgam qua ferias. His utere competenter, donee absolucionem promeritus dicere tibi gaudeat:' Virga tua et baculus tuus, ipsa me consolata sunt.'20

Thus he made precise and juridical suggestions about what the archbishop of Rouen could do toward his duke. The latter could take the exteriora away from the archbishop but not the interiora which the prelate held simply by the grace of God. By virtue of the spiritual magistracy of his interiora, Robert could and should use ecclesiastical weapons to lead the duke to salvation. Thus, in his old

general biography of Fulbert is The Letters and Poems ofFulbert of Chartres, ed. Frederick Behrends (Oxford, 1976), xiii-xc. A major study of the bishop is still needed. 15 Letters ofFulbert, no. 1, pp. 2-9 (dated 2 February-11 July 1004). 16 Ibid., 8. 17 I agree with Behrends' translation in the cited passage of 'ruinas maenium tuorum' (ibid., 9): 'Your outer walls were ruined.' 18 Ibid., no. 126, pp. 226-29, dated, 'after 5/6 August 1027.' 19 Ibid., nos. 126 and 227, p. 226 and n. 20 Ibid., pp. 226, 228. See: Ps. 22:4.

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age, Fulbert denied formally that a ruler like the duke could convey to a prelate anything other than the exteriora, the temporal rights, when he invested him. 21 Fulbert died on 10 April 1028.22 Difficulties in the succession to the bishopric of Chartres are illuminated by various letters sent by the canons of the cathedral chapter, which have been transcribed in the collection of Fulbert's own letters.23 The canons' letters record that the chapter was supported by Eudes, count of Blois and of Chartres, and that it elected to the bishopric the dean of the chapter, Albert. King Robert, upon whom the episcopal see of Chartres depended, placed obstacles in Albert's way and instead managed the accession of another to the bishopric. The canons protested against this.24 Because their letters are preserved amongst those of Fulbert, we can see that they remained faithful to the ideals of their late bishop.25 Albert eventually managed to become abbot of Marmoutier.26 He obviously did so with the support of Eudes, count of Blois, patronus of the great abbey.27 Several years later, just after Count Eudes's death on 15 November 1037, a charter of Albert revealed the accession procedure at the abbey of Montier-la-Celle in the diocese of Troyes.28 The fact that this charter was transcribed among the letters of Fulbert in the decades following his death leads us to believe that Albert also remained faithful to Fulbert's wish in this matter.29 The act begins like a charter of monastic election, written in the name of the monks of Montier-la-Celle.30 Then the text abruptly shifts to the objective style of a notice that illustrates the role that Abbot Albert of Marmoutier assumed throughout the procedure. First, the election itself: Facta est autem electio ista consilio atque auctoritate domni abbatis Majoris 31 Monasterii post excessum gloriosi principis Odonis, a quo hujus rei curam susceperat. This passage indicates that the Abbot Albert's official intervention in the course of the election was prescribed for him by the princeps who had just died, Count

21

Fulbert's interpretation of the rite of investiture still accepted the manner in which it was practiced in his time without requiring any changes. He only recognized ducal investiture as a purely lay signification. 22 Letters of Fulbert, xxi. 23 Ibid., nos. 128-30 and pp. xlvi-li. 24 Ibid., nos. 128-29. 25 Ibid., xlvi-li. 26 Ibid., xlvi-li. 27 C.A., 2: 52-3, note under the act no. C. 55, and also 1: 175. 28 Letters of Fulbert, Appendix B, no. 1, pp. 273-74, dated: 'c. late 1037-8.' 29 Ibid., xlvi-vii. 30 Ibid., 273-74, from the beginning of the act to p. 274: inveniamur extranet. 3 ' Ibid., 274.

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Eudes de Blois. This reinforces the impression produced by the letters which the canons of Chartres had written concerning the succession after Fulbert's death, that Count Eudes desired the reform implemented by Albert. Abbot Albert then presented the abbot-elect first to the widowed countess and her son and then to the bishop of Troyes: Qui, hoc in conventu monachorum ritu celebri peracto, optulit etiam fratrem praedictum nobilissimae H(ermengardi) comitissae, sub cujus ditione locus ipse consistit et Stephano comiti ejus filio, a quibus donum rerum temporalium ad idem pertinentium coenobium suscepit. Dehinc vero statuit eum venerabili Mainardo Trecassinorum presuli, cujus ecclesiastica auctoritate electionem hujusmodi corroborari opportuit, atque ab ipso animarum curam suscipi necnon abbatis benedictionem secundum institutionem Patrum celebrari. Quod ipse benignissime annuit et complevit.32

These extracts are of great importance since they represent the first documented case of a reform of investiture, and that under circumstances that are quite remarkable. In the first place, there is the behavior of the political authorities realizing the reforming goal with which theprinceps is supposed to have charged Abbot Albert of Marmoutier. The widowed countess and her son adopted the restriction to just temporalia when she invested the abbot-elect - a voluntary renunciation that was made in the spirit of her late husband, a princeps who knew how to link closely his territorial political ambitions and his duty as protector and reformer of the church.33 In doing so Count Eudes II had found supporters in cathedral chapters at Chartres, then at Sens, at Troyes, and finally at Le Mans.34 The consequence of this reform would have been to cause the king to lose effective control over these bishoprics (actually he resisted by various means that are of no relevance in the present context).35 There was, however, an exceptionally favorable attitude towards pre-reform on the part of the secular power. In the second place, Abbot Albert of Marmoutier alone defined the whole accession procedure to an abbacy established within the diocese of Troyes, Montier-la-Celle, both for the election and for the two investitures. Albert was very precise as to the specific import of each of the two investitures (with the res temporales and with the cura animarum), and he here faithfully transmitted Fulbert's thinking.36 He said nothing of the ritual used for the secular investiture.37 As far as the bishop's role was concerned, he sketched it as three

32 33 34

35 36 37

Ibid. 'France au Xe siecle,' 73. C.A., 1: 48, n. 234; 54-5, n. 251. Ibid. In restricting the meaning of the lay investiture to the res temporales (see supra, 84). See supra, the first phrase of the extracts cited in the main text.

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successive events: confirmation of the election; entrusting to the abbot elect the care of souls; and consecration of the candidate to the abbacy.38 Here too, Albert said nothing about the rite employed for spiritual investiture. The Introduction of the Reform in Anjou and Normandy The ways in which Abbot Albert, the shaper of the investiture reform, was able to exert influence beyond the territories of the house of Blois upon two rulers who long opposed such ecclesiastical reform in their territories - Geoffrey Martel, count of Anjou,39 and William, duke of Normandy,40 will first be delineated. Then we shall see how sources reflect the first applications of the reform in the two princes' states, Anjou and Normandy. It would be impossible to describe here, even summarily, everything to which the houses of Anjou and Normandy consented concerning ecclesiastical reform before the 1050s.41 I shall simply note the extent to which, in the mid-eleventh century, the heads of those two houses did not yet fully recognize certain major components of ecclesiastical liberty. In Normandy William had hitherto vigorously interfered in ecclesiastical affairs. Two examples of his interference are worth noting. The first and most visible occurence involved the deposition of Mauger, archbishop of Rouen, a member of the ducal family (son of Duke Richard II, William's uncle), who had been installed in the metropolitan see during William's minority.42 He led a life that was unworthy of a bishop and fathered a son in the midst of his debauchery. The papacy had never given him the pallium and had vainly summoned him to many councils outside Normandy.43 The second example is the fact that traditionally the duke possessed the right to grant full investiture to the spiritualia as well as the temporarlia in every church in the duchy.44 So although descendants 38

See supra, the two last phrases of the extracts cited in the main text. For the outlines of the politics of this prince, see C.A., 1: 56-101. 40 See the remarkable book by David C. Douglas, William the Conqueror (London, 1964), one of many books on this subject. 41 For Anjou, see, mainly, C.A., 1: 195-249, for the problems of the bishopric of Angers and 129-56 and 153-81, for those concerning abbeys. For Normandy the best analysis can be found, it seems, from the scattered indications given by J.-Fr. Lemarignier in Les institutions ecclesiastiques, esp. 7-37. 42 David C. Douglas, 'Les eveques de Normandie (1035-1066),' Annales de Normandie 3 (Caen, 1958): 87ff. 43 Poitiers, 130-32. 44 The proof of this can be found in a charter delivered by Richard II to Mont-SaintMichel in 1009, RADN, no. 12, 85-6. This charter deals with the accession of a new abbot, who is to be surrogated to the former old one; the only investiture mentioned is that of Richard: '. . . pastoralis et enim curam sollicitudinis quam idem memorabilis senex proficere nequit viribus propriis, subrogati sibi laudabiliter exposcit complere adjutorio fratris. Unde nos, per consultum episcoporum ac nostrorum nobilium virorum maximeque prememoratorum monachorum rogatu, necnon insuper prevalente jamdicti senis memorabili petitione, preponimus praedicto coenobio venerabilem virum Hildebertum. . . .' 39

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of Rollo, above all Richard II at the beginning of the eleventh century, may have made remarkable overtures towards monastic reform,45 the fact remains, that Norman Christianity was still in the rough hands of the duke in the middle of the eleventh century and that Normans had not yet accepted regular and direct obedience to the papacy. This explains why no papal legate had set foot on Norman soil since the conversion after 911.46

In Anjou around 1050, despite all that Geoffrey Greymantle, Fulk Nerra, and Geoffrey Martel had contributed toward monastic reform,47 the behavior of the latter, in the eyes of Leo IX, gravely damaged the liberties of the churches. Geoffrey Martel had done so in two ways. First, since 1048, the count's policies were violently hostile to Gervais, bishop of Le Mans. The latter had managed to accede to this royal bishopric despite his association with Count Eudes II of Blois. After King Henry I had ceded to Geoffrey Martel his rights to the bishopric during the count's lifetime, Gervais showed himself to be an ally of Thibaud, count of Blois, his new princeps, therefore the count of Anjou waged an unrelenting war against him.48 This was a source of the papacy's first major complaint conerning the count.49 Second, in Anjou, as general custom prescribed in all of the count's churches, the count alone accorded investiture - spiritual as well as temporal.50 It is in light of this dual perspective that two important councils took place. The first was held at Tours and was presided over by the papal legate Hildebrand at the end of Leo IX's pontificate. The other was held at Lisieux and was presided over by the legate Ermenfroi, bishop of Sion; it took place nearly at the same time, at the end of Leo IX's pontificate.51 These two councils forged an alliance between the papacy and the Angevin and Norman comital houses. The best known result for Geoffrey Martel was the papal permission to transfer Gervais from the bishopric of Le Mans to the archbishopric of Reims, which event took place in October 1055.52 William of Normandy accepted the deposition of Archbishop Mauger at the council of Lisieux itself; Mauger was to be succeeded by Maurilius sometime in 1054.53 It is probable that Lanfranc was the advocate of Albert's reforms to

45

J.-Fr. Lemarignier, Etude sur les privileges d'exemption et de juridiction ecclesiastique des abbayes normandes, Archives de la France monastique, 44 (Paris, 1937), 27-39, for the clearest case: Fecamp. 46 Th. Schieffer, Die papstlichen Legaten in Frankreich vom Vertrage von Meersen (870) bis zu Schisma von 1130, Historische Studien, 263 (Berlin, 1935), 54. 47 C.A., 1: 139-56, 167-71, 175-80,247-57. 48 Ibid., 1: 139-56, 167-71, 175-80, 247-51. 49 Especially at the council of Reims (1049), ibid., 252. 50 Ibid., 150-56, for the case of the abbey of Saint Aubin where the acta are rather abundant and precise. 51 Ibid., 185-88 and esp. 186 n. 232; 187 n.; 188 n. 52 Ibid., 91-2. 53 Ibid., 187n.

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both legates and the councils.54 Shortly after the two councils, an investiture reform that reflected Albert's ideas took place in both Anjou and Normandy. The timing makes it very probable, therefore, that at each of the councils the reform had been submitted to both legates and to Geoffrey Martel and William for their approval. Within the present context, these two councils had decisive importance. Albert's reforms next appeared in Anjou at two different points and under very different conditions at the end of October 1055 and in January 1056. In the abbey of Saint-Florent-de-Saumur on 30 October 1055, according to a charter written in their name,55 the monks, after electing their next abbot, presented him for a double investiture - first to the count, then to the bishop: quern etiam domino nostro Gausfrido praeclarissimo comiti cujus juris nostrum est monasterium una cum domino Alberto sancti Martini Majoris Monasterii abbate cujus professus est ceterisque fratribus qui de eodem monasterio aderant gratanter obtulimus ut quod electio nostra decreverat, illius confirmaret auctoritas. Deinde presentavimus eum . . . Eusebio Andecavensis urbis episcopo ut cui comes exterius tradiderat auctoritate sua dominium, episcopus debita benedictione consecrans ex more ecclesiastico curam committeret animarum. 56

Saint-Florent was, of all Angevin abbeys, the community that had been longest under the influence of Marmoutier. In 1022, at a time when Saumur and the abbey were still held of the count of Blois, a monk of Marmoutier succeeded to the abbacy.57 The next abbot, in 1055, also was a professed monk of Marmoutier. Abbot Albert could thus find at Saint-Florent those favorable to his reform, and he brought Count Geoffrey Martel to consent to its implementation there for the first time. New elements, differing from Albert's act of 1037, exist in this 1055 charter: the temporal investiture given by the count concerns the dominium exterius (the adjective here was borrowed by Albert from Fulbert), while the investiture of the cura animarum given by the bishop was accomplished by the rite of benediction itself.58 Two months later, on 14 January 1056, Abbot Albert attempted to introduce the same reform in the abbey of Saint-Aubin in connection with the accession of Thierry as abbot. By chance, two sources of information exist about this event: the official one, which was written under the direction of Abbot Albert, is the act of succession itself; the other, written in the monastery independently of Albert, indirectly illuminates the conditions of this succession. The official act of accession was clearly composed at Albert's instigation.59 It is based upon the model provided by the charter of Montier-la-Celle toward 54

Ibid., 186,n. 232; 187-88 n. C.A., 2, Catalogue d'actes, no. C. 157, p. 113; Arch, de Maine et Loire, H. 1910. 56 Ibid. 57 C.A., 1: 176. 58 In the text of Albert's charter in Fulbert's letter collection cited supra, 86, see the clear opposition between res temporales and animarum cura. 59 C.A., 2, Cat. d'actes, no. C. 158, p. 114; Cartulaire de I'abbaye de Saint Aubin, ed. Bertrand de Broussillon, (Angers, 1896), 1, no. 28; hereafter cited as Cart. S. Aubin.

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the end of 1037.60 One difference, however, is essential - the document's final formula repeats verbatim the wording of the charter of October 1055 just examined: ut cui comes exterius tradiderat auctoritate sua dominium, episcopus debita benedictione consecrans ex more ecclesiastico curam committeret animarum.61 So once again, as in 1055, there are visible two aspects of the reform new since 1037: the image of the dominium exterius used to define the effect of the count's investiture; and the idea that the bishop makes the investiture of the care of souls simply by means of the ritual of benediction. The other document, although composed later, also pertains to the very day that Thierry acceded to the abbacy of Saint-Aubin.62 The abbot-elect, before accepting the count's investiture, insisted that the count must no longer require the monks to perform castle-guard in the various castles situated 'on the marches of his territory.'63 There are two extant versions of this notice. The longer and more solemn one was transcribed in the cartulary of Saint-Aubin, but the entire first part of the notice has been mutilated.64 The shorter version survives in its entirety.65 Written in the abbey some time after the event, it presents the monks' definition of investiture. It not only shows that the monks of Saint-Aubin resisted Abbot Albert's reform, but also describes the ritual of investiture: In introeundo abbatem Theodericum in abbatiam sancti Albini antequam reciperet in capitulo solennem donationem pastoralis baculi ad monachilis gregis errantia peccora pie ut postea fecit cohercendo cogenda, interrogavit [Theodericus] fratres si illic haberet comes ullas violentas consuetudines periculum animarum continentes. Illis respondentibus custodiam . . . castrorum in marginibus terrae suae . . . factam [esse], renuit ideo abbatiam dicens se non ad castra principum sed ad Dei domum venisse custodiendam. . . . Quod cum vidit Gaufredus, qui ad hoc venire fecerat ilium ut curam [read: curae] praeficeret animarum, recognoscens per se et per circumstantium dicta hoc non esse officium monachorum . . . consuetudines . . . perdonare . . . promisit. . . ,66

60

See supra, 85-86. Ibid. 62 C.A., 2, Cat. d'actes, no. C. 159, pp. 114-15, in two versions: version A (C.A. 1: 469-70); version A1 (Cart. S. Aubin, no. 6). 63 See supra, n. 62 version A: '. . . custodiam scilicet castrorum in marginibus terrae suae Fulconem comitem eis imposuisse prius, deprecatione Gaufridi postea filii sui tune comitis ibique presentis assidua etiam violenta deprecatione violentiam potius quam consuetudinem factam. . . .' 64 See supra, n. 62, version A1. 65 See supra, n. 62, version A. 66 C.A., 1:469-70. 61

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Thus the count invested the abbot-elect with the pastoral staff. Moreover, in the minds of the monks who participated, the investiture given by the count was understood by both him and the monks as including the cura animarum, the spiritualia, obviously in opposition to Albert's reformist desires.67 At this time, the reform was still ambiguous. Previously, when a prelateelect received the pastoral staff from the count, the act implied full investiture with both spiritualia and temporalia; only then did the prelate-elect receive the consecratio-benedictio from the bishop. After Albert's reforms, there was no change in the ritual of investiture. However, the count's investiture was understood to be limited to the dominium exterius, so that only by means of the consecratio-benedictio given by the bishop was the prelate-elect regarded as being invested with the cura animarum. The monks of Saint-Aubin refused this change. We may now turn our eyes toward Normandy. About 1114-24, Orderic Vitalis composed the third book of his Ecclesiastical History.68 When he came to the abbey of Saint-Evroult, he quarried the abbey's archives for extracts, especially material that dealt with the accessions to the abbacy, and used them to enrich his work.69 The old regime was still apparent at the accession of the first abbot in 1050: [The abbot-elect is presented to the duke:] At ille veneratione congrua eum suscepit, datoque baculo pastorali sicut moris est Uticensi aecclesiae praefecit. Deinde Luxoviensis episcopus Hugo . . . eum . . . venerabiliter consecravit.70 Upon the accession of his successor Robert de Grandmesnil in 1059, on the other hand, they clearly practiced the very ' Albertian' reform that had been introduced in Anjou in 1055-56: [The monks of Saint-Evroult conduct the abbot-elect to Evreux to be presented to the duke:] Dux autem eorum petitioni adquievit et praefato viro qui electus erat per cambutam Ivonis episcopi Sagiensis exteriorem abbatiae potestatem tradidit, Willelmus vero Ebroicensis episcopus interiorem animarum curam per pontificalem benedictionem XI kal. julii spiritualiter commendavit.71 Beyond superficial differences, there exists a basic identity between this Norman description and those of Angevin investitures. In Normandy the duke used the

67

See the passage: '. . . ut curae praeficeret animarum.' Orderic, 2: xv. I would like to express my highest admiration for the work of this great medievalist. 69 J. Yver, 'Autourde 1'absence d'avouerie en Normandie. Appendice 1: Note surles elections abbatiales a Saint Evroult,' Bulletin de la Societe des Antiquaires de Normandie 57 (Caen, 1963/64): 274; C.A., 1: 184 and n. 227. 70 Orderic, 2: 16-18. 71 Ibid., 74.

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crosier of a bishop who was present to invest the abbot-elect - only with the temporalia. The spiritual value of the bishop's investiture of the abbot-elect was twice underlined - by words, first, interior cura animarum (distinguished from exterior abbatiae potestas), and second, by the adverb spiritualiter. But the basic identity, besides the gift of the baculum made by the ruler with mere temporal meaning, consists in the fact that then and afterwards in Anjou,72 and then, but not afterwards in Normandy,73 the investiture of the cura animarum was understood to be implicitly accomplished by the mere ritual of the benediction given by the bishop. By this point Abbot Albert's reform had probably been introduced into Anjou and Normandy in the years following the councils of Tours and Lisieux. At this stage of its evolution, the reform did not change anything of the ancient ritual, the gift of the baculum made by the ruler, then the benedictio-consecratio given by the bishop; but it changed the meaning of the two elements, restricting the former to the investiture of the temporalia, the exteriora, and extending the purview of the latter to include the importance of the gift from the bishop of the spiritualia, of interiora. These important distinctions followed the opinion of Fulbert.74 For the count of Anjou and the duke of Normandy this reform was somewhat easy to accept, since the change resided chiefly in the minds of the clerics and did not affect the appearance of the investiture.

The Reform's Destiny in Anjou and in Anglo-Norman Lands The reforms of Fulbert and Albert were so discretely carried out that explicit references to them are rare. Nevertheless, there are definite cases of accession that do demonstrate that the reform was applied. Cases which attest to the application or active rejection of the reform can be isolated in Anjou in the decades following 1055. An example of the application of the reform was at the nuns' convent of Notre-Dame-de-la-Charite at Angers, upon the accession of a new abbess on 23 June 1073.75 The election was reported

72 The application of the reform is attested in 1073 in the abbey of Le Ronceray of Angers. The refusal of it seems to have been limited to the abbey of Saint-Aubin. See infra, 92-94. 73 In the abbey of Saint-Evroult, where the first application of Albert's reform occurred, the spiritual investiture seems to have been identified with the very rite of consecration benediction given by the bishop in 1059, for the first case. The next clear case of accession in the abbey, which is dated 1066, seems already to imply several interventions by the bishop: see omnia complevit, at the end of the extract cited infra, 96. It seems likely that the similarity between the rites observed in Anjou and Normandy at the time of the first application of the reform cannot be attributed to the influence of Lanfranc, but rather to Albert himself. 74 See supra, 84. 75 C.A., 2, Cat. d'actes, no. C. 306, pp. 194-95; Cartulaire du Ronceray, Archives d'Anjou, 3, ed. P. Marchegay (Angers, 1856), no. 16.

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by the nuns and the two subsequent investitures described: the one accorded by Count Fulk le Rechin, concerning the res temporales; and the other, given by the bishop of Angers, concerning the cura animarum, which stemmed from the benediction. Then, despite the death of Abbot Albert of Marmoutier on 20 May 1064,76 a short, but familiar, passage reappears verbatim in the nuns' charter: ut cui comes exterius tradiderat auctoritate dominium, episcopus quoque debita benedictione consecrans ex more ecclesiastico curam committeret animarum.77

This concise distinction of the two investitures indicates that in most of the Angevin monasteries, the count's right of investiture probably continued to be defined in accordance with Abbot Albert's reform throughout the last decades of the eleventh century.78 An example of the active rejection of this reform is the unusual case of the abbey of Saint-Aubin. The first part of the monastery's cartulary was composed around 1087-95.79 The monks there apparently still deemed the subject of the accession of the abbots politically important, and this is probably the reason the monks transcribed in their cartulary all the abbots' acts of accession since the re-establishment of their proper monastic abbot around 966.80 When Thierry acceded on 14 January 1056, Albert's reform was recorded in the official act, but it was absent in the document that enables us to interpret the count's later opinion and that of the monks of Saint-Aubin. At the accessions of Otbrand in 1060 and of Girard in 1082,81 a similar formula was included, as before 1056, that implies a single investiture accorded by the count: 'nobis

76

C.A., 2: 163, note under the no. C. 248. Text cited supra, n. 75. 78 There are two indications that this reform was accepted in most of the Angevin monasteries. First, there are few acts of abbots' accession from this time in the Angevin ecclesiastical archives, probably - it seems to me - because the application of Albert's reform suppressed any problems, any tension between lay and spiritual powers. The case of Le Ronceray in 1073 can be explained by the fact that after the time of Count Geoffrey the Bearded, who had been especially kind to the nuns (see, for example, C.A., 2, Cat. d'actes, no. C. 291, p. 187), and the imprisonment of him by his brother and successor Fulk 'Richinus,' the nuns might have expected the violences of the latter, so they might have taken care to keep the proof of the accession of their new abbess quiet. Second, in February 1096 (as will be shown infra, 94) Pope Urban II visited Angers and dedicated the altar in the abbey of Saint-Nicholas without opposition, after having previously been rebuffed by the monks of Saint-Aubin and prevented from dedicating their new altar. If the opposition of the monks of Saint-Aubin can be explained by their rejection of Albert's reform, as will be shown, the welcome offered by the monks of Saint-Nicholas to the Pope can be explained by their good will in applying this reform. 79 C.A., 1:441-43. 80 Ibid., 151-60,438,449. 81 C.A., 2, Cat. d'actes: 1.) -1060, 21 March, no. C. 185, p. 131; Cart. S. Aubin, no. 30; 2.) -1082, 8 May, no. C. 335, p. 29; Cart. S. Aubin, no. 31. 77

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patrem constitui et abbatem consecrari concorditer imploramus.'82 The first of these accessions, dated 13 March 1060, took place during the lifetime of Geoffrey Martel.83 In this abbey which was intimately associated with the count's honor,84 Geoffrey Martel clearly ended by officially repudiating Abbot Albert's reform very probably with the approval of a large part of the Saint-Aubin monks. Count Fulk le Rechin in 1082 maintained this policy at Saint-Aubin.85 This local rejection of any investiture reform caused a scandal when Urban II went to Angers in February 1096. According to the 'Annals of Renaud': Anno MXCV papa Romanus nomine Urbanus, post concilium apud Clarum Montem civitatem ab eo cum innumerabilibus personis episcoporum et abbatum celebratum, apud Andecavam urbem descendit et ecclesiam sancti Nicholai consecravit. Monachi enim sancti Albini ut sua ecclesia consecraretur noluerunt, pro qua re maxime papa venerat, adductus a Milone, antea bead Albini monacho, tune temporis legato suo.86 This refusal of the monks of Saint-Aubin to accept the signal honor that Urban II was ready to bestow upon their church has recently been spectacularly and significantly described.87 Their refusal must be regarded as a rear-guard battle over the very question of investiture given by the count. The proof of this was the bull that Girard, Saint-Aubin's abbot, who was apparently infuriated by the affair, obtained at Saintes from the pope about two months later on 14 April.88 It reads: [The Pope addresses the abbot:] . . . Quia igitur dilectio tua, ad Sedis Apostolice portum confugiens, ejus tuitionem devotione debita pertinentibus sub tutelam Apostolice Sedis excipimus.. . . Obeunte te, nunc ejus loci abbate, vel tuorum quolibet successorum, nullus ibi qualibet subreptionis astutia seu violentia preponatur, nisi quern fratres communi consensu vel fratrum pars sanioris consilii secundum Dei timorem et beati Benedicti regulam elegerint. Electus autem, secundum antiquam monasterii vestri consuetudinem, ab Andecavensi episcopo consecretur. . . .89 Apparently reform suddenly was introduced into the abbey that one could call 'Gregorian.' From now on, the abbey of Saint-Aubin was placed under the protection of the Apostolic See. The bull liberated the accession to the abbacy from any 82 The formula is the same in the two acts (see supra, n. 81). The charter of 1036 (accession of the abbot Galterius, C.A., 2, Cat. d'actes, no. C. 54, p. 52; Cart. S. Aubin, no. 27), contains the wording: '. . . nobis patrem constitui et abbatem consecrari concorditer imploramus. . . .' 83 The count died on 14 November 1060 (L. Halphen, Le comte d'Anjou au Xle siecle [Paris, 1906], 12, n. 1). See the first act cited supra n. 78. 84 C.A., 1: 129-62. 85 See supra, n. 81,2). 86 'Annales dites de Renaud,' in Recueil d'annales angevines et vendomoises, ed. L. Halphen (Paris, 1903), 89. For the error about the year (1095 instead of 1096), see ibid., 6, n. 3. 87 Pailloux, Les elections abbatiales, 69-83, esp. 70-2. This is a remarkable work. 88 Archives departementales de Maine et Loire, H. 1; Regesta Pontificum Romanorum . . . ad annum . . . 1198, ed. Philippus Jaffe, 2d ed., 2 vols. (Berlin, 1885-88), 1: no. 5641; Cart. S. Aubin, 2, no. 413. 89 Ibid.

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interference, for it affirmed that the election of the abbot by the monks should be a free one; the only procedure mentioned after the election was the consecration of the abbot-elect by the bishop of Angers. This must be understood as implying a prohibition against any investiture given by the count and as excluding from the abbey all recourse to Abbot Albert's reform. It was probably after this event, therefore, that a striking reversal appeared in this older part of the cartulary of Saint-Aubin. In the chapter entitled 'Elections of the Abbots,' someone erased all the clear signs of any sort of interference by the count in accessions to the abbacy, and later acts of accession were never again copied into this chapter.90 Thus, Geoffrey Mattel's and then Fulk le Rechin's stubborness over Abbot Albert's reform at the abbey of Saint-Aubin ended dramatically: the count lost the very abbey to which he was most attached. For Normandy (and for England) there is much less evidence than there is for Anjou in charters, notices, and bulls that had legal value and were close to the events themselves.91 Rather, similar events are revealed only in narrative sources, historiae, or vitae. Writing after the events, the authors of these works incorporated into their recitals some juridical elements taken from documents which have now disappeared. In so doing, they have provided us with precious information (as we have seen for 1050 and 1059, thanks to Orderic Vitalis). Nonetheless, the borrowings from documents were often cryptic and sometimes expressed by the author in terms of the customs and politics of his time. When and where in Normandy, and in England after the Conquest, do we have evidence that accessions to major benefices were regulated and interpreted in conformity with Abbot Albert's reform? According to my probably insufficient research, only two narratives give such evidence. They are: for the abbey of SaintEvroult, the Historia ecclesiastica of Orderic Vitalis; and for the abbey of Bee, the De libertate Beccensis monasterii. Orderic Vitalis noted the accessions of three abbots at Saint-Evroult after the accession of Robert de Grandmesnil in 1059: that of Osbern in 1061, that of Mainier in 1066, and that of Roger in 1091. In the third book, after describing Robert de Grandmesnil's flight into exile in 1061,92 Orderic Vitalis wrote that Duke William followed the advice of Lanfranc, prior of Bee, regarding the abbatial succession. The duke required that a certain Osborn, a prior who belonged to the abbey of the Sainte-Trinite-du-Mont at Rouen, come to Saint-Evroult.93 To him the duke: nil tale suspicanti per cambutam Maurilii archiepiscopi in sinodo Rotomagensi curam Uticensis abbatiae commendavit. Deinde Hugo episcopus [of Lisieux] jussu ducis 90

All the erasures made in this chapter of the cartulary must be understood as the direct application of the reform of the bull and date probably from the months which followed the delivery of the bull at Saintes in April 1096: C.A., 1: 445-52; Pailloux (see supra, n. 4). 91 I must emphasize that although I did not find any evidence among the Norman and English juridical sources, I cannot be sure that a deeper inquiry would have given the same result. 92 Orderic, 2: 90. 93 Ibid.

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This emphasized that Osbern's promotion was the result of the duke's enlightened wish and that neither the party in question, nor the monks of Saint-Evroult had a word to say about the matter. After the election by the duke, there were two steps in the promotion: first, the ducal investiture with the crosier, which concerned the cura of the abbatia, which might refer to the temporalia alone; second, the consecration to the abbacy by the ordinary, which in light of Abbot Albert's reform would imply the investiture with the cura animarum. Nevertheless, although the terms used here by Orderic are compatible with Abbot Albert's reform, they are too vague to prove that the reform was applied. For later in 1066 after Osbern's death,95 Orderic provides explicit evidence of reform concerning the successor, Mainier. Once again, the duke alone elected the new abbot:

eique [that is, to Mainier] per pastoralem baculum exteriorem curam tradidit, et praedicto antistiti [that is, Hugh, bishop of Lisieux] ut ea quae sibi de spirituali cura competebat suppleret praecepit. Ille vero libenter omnia complevit.96

This passage spells out perfectly the two investitures and the different functions of each. Orderic wrote nothing about the accession of the next abbot Serlo at SaintEvroult,97 but in book VIII of his Historia,9^ he addressed himself to the accession of Serlo's successor Roger. Serlo had been advanced to the bishopric of Sees.99 By that time, Duke Robert Curthose had joined his brother King William Rufus in England. Therefore the abbot-elect went to Windsor to join theprincipes regni. There, Roger gave the duke his act of election which had been drawn up in the name of the monks as well as by the auctoritas of Bishop Serlo and of three abbots.100 Orderic wrote: At ille [that is, the duke] gratanter assensum dedit et praefato Rogerio per baculum pastoralem ut eo tempore moris erat cenobii curam in exterioribus rebus commisit, apicibusque suis Luxoviensi episcopo ut eum in omnibus canonice proveheret mandavit.101

94

Ibid., 92. 95 27 May 1066, ibid., 134. 96 Ibid., 144-46. 97 He only mentioned him as the successor of Abbot Mainier, ibid., 116. 98 Orderic, vol. 4. Book VIII was written around 1133-35, ibid., xix. 99 Ibid., 252. 100 Ibid., 254. 101 Ibid.

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Although this investiture scene concerned a Norman abbey, it took place in the English royal court. The duke's investiture with the crosier clearly concerned only the temporalia. This passage demonstrates further that when the king of England likewise conferred investiture to a major benefice by means of the crosier, he very probably understood that, in doing so, he was delivering only the temporalia. The evidence furnished by Orderic concerns only the abbey of Saint-Evroult. Fortunately, another narrative source, the Noticia de libertate Beccensis monasterii, furnishes further proof.102 This work relates to the abbey of Bee, probably the most prestigious monastery in Normandy in the same era.103 The elucidation must here be a little different because of the extraordinary influence exercised by St. Anselm.104 One of the first episodes of the De libertate deals with Anselm's accession to the abbacy (he was previously the prior of Bee).105 This episode was somewhat like the 1061 incidences at Saint-Evroult examined above,106 and though the narrative does use the term abbatiam tradidit, it does not explicitly explain the specific meaning of the investiture with the crosier that William accorded to Anselm. The narrative also does not clearly state what Anselm then received from the bishop at the time of his installation. It does specify, however, that at this point Anselm still considered himself a simple prior of the abbey and that he continued to do so until upon William's order he received the episcopal benediction as abbot.107 A second episode in the De libertate lends further credence to the spread of Albert's reform. Four years after Lanfranc's death in 1089, Anselm became archbishop of Canterbury; thus, it was necessary to designate his successor at Bee. Upon Anselm's recommendation, the monks elected William of Beaumont; they then accompanied him to Robert Curthose's ducal court.108 The narrative described the investiture that took place: Tune statim tradidit [dux] abbatiam illi qui electus fuerat donatione baculi pastoralis. Deinde jussit cancellario ut cum monachis pergeret ad archiepiscopum Rotomagensem. . . . Quod archiepiscopus libenter perfecit, tradens ei curam animarum, deinde jussit abbati Rogero [of Lessay] ut vice sua in statu abbatis poneret,

102

Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, 14, ed. Jean-Barthelemy Haureau (Paris, 1872), 270-72. 103 Sally N. Vaughn, The Abbey of Bee and the Anglo-Norman State (London, 1981). 104 R.W. Southern, St. Anselm and his Biographer: A Study of Monastic Life and Thought, 1059-C.1130 (Cambridge, 1963); Vaughn, Anselm of Bee; Hollister, 'St. Anselm,' 145-58. 105 £)e libertate, 271: 'Princeps Willelmus cum honore et gaudio suscepit eum, abbatiamque ei tradidit donatione baculi pastoralis, sicut mos erat illius regionis. . . .' Then William ordered a bishop to enthrone Anselm at Bee (ibid., 272), and, some time after, he ordered finally Gilbert, bishop of Evreux, to give him the benediction. All this took place in 1078-79. 106 See supra, 95. 107 See supra, n. 105. 108 De libertate, 273.

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Haskins Society Journal quod abbas Rogerus adimplevit. . . . Sed cum ad Primam abbas Willelmus venisset in chorum, noluit intrare in statum suum . . . nee ad missam in cathedra sedere, nee baculum portare, nee proprium sigillum habere usque ad benedictionem. . . ,109

Under the aegis of the eminent Anselm, the duke's investiture with the crosier was regarded at Bee as dealing only with the temporalia (that is, the abbatia).110 We see this because the abbot-elect subsequently received the cum animarum from the archbishop. In this sense, the ducal investiture with the pastoral staff continued to be interpreted at Bee in 1089 in accordance with Abbot Albert's reform.111 Orderic Vitalis and the author of the De libertate demonstrate with reasonable certainty that in Normandy, after 1059, and probably even in England, after 1066, Abbot Albert's reform limited ducal or royal investiture with the crosier to the temporalia alone. In this light, some aspects of the religious history of William the Conqueror's reign may be re-examined. For example, when Orderic Vitalis related that William, after the victory at Hastings, constructed a monastery on the very battlefield dedicated to the Holy Trinity, he noted: Ibi Goisbertum Majoris Monasterii religiosum monachum abbatem constituit quo monitore monasticus ordo et regularis disciplina commode viguit.112 Orderic's explanation was that William founded the monastery simply to honor St. Martin and the great abbey of Marmoutier.113 It seems to me, however, that by his highly symbolic gesture William rendered implicit homage to the memory of Abbot Albert, whose reform of investiture (since by this time William had accepted it - probably through the councils of Lisieux and Tours and the favor of the legates Ermenfroi and Hildebrand), had brought William privileged relations with the papacy. By adopting this 'soft' reform of the investiture, William gained

109

Ibid. At this time, the author of the De libertate undoubtedly understood the word abbatia in a purely temporal sense; retrospectively, this is a reason to consider that in the former case he had described (toward 1078-79, Anselm's accession as abbot), lay investiture was indicated by abbatiam tradidit, and this investiture had, too, already, a purely temporal sense (see the extract cited supra n. 105). 1 '! But we must observe that, on the other hand, all that concerned the spiritual investiture was yet ritually distinguished from the benediction, and, therefore, differed from Albert's reform. Signs of this evolution were already apparent in 1066; see supra, n. 73. 112 Orderic, 2: 190-92. 113 Ibid., 192: 'Majus enim Monasterium a sanctissimo Martino Turonorum archiepiscopo ceptum est, ibique bonorum hominum religio crevit inspirante Deo et multiplicata est. Nostris temporibus Albertus et Bartholomeus, Bernardus et Hilgotus ac Guillelmus Nanticensis abbates huic monasterio praefuerunt, qui sanctitate et probitate multis profuerunt, et longe lateque famosi vicinis et externis utiliter micuerunt.' 110

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the favor of the papacy, and this papal attitude survived until the death of that original witness, that very Hildebrand who had become Pope Gregory VII. So William appeared to the papacy as an exemplary ruler, and we can better understand why in 1066 Alexander II bestowed upon William his vexillum velut suffragium sancti Petri to lead the army of the Conquest;114 why, at the abbey of Saint-Etienne in Caen in 1070, the legate Ermenfroi contributed to Lanfranc's decision to leave his monastery in order to occupy the see of Canterbury;115 and why, throughout his pontificate, excepting some minor incidents, the formidable Gregory VII manifested remarkable gentleness toward William.116 Gregory VIFs death in 1085, which was followed by the demise of William himself in 1087 and of Lanfranc in 1089,117 did not produce in the Anglo-Norman world any immediate breakdown of that tradition of lay investiture which had resulted from Abbot Albert's reform. Urban II, though, did not share Gregory VIFs inclination for moderation toward the Anglo-Norman rulers, particularly as a result of multiple examples of violence against his churches at the beginning of William Rufus's reign.118 Finally, in the presence of Archbishop Anselm at the council of Rome in the spring of 1099, Urban II, in the words of Eadmer's Vita Anselmi, absolutely prohibited any investiture bestowed by a layman: excommunicationis sententiam tarn in laicos qui investituras ecclesiarum dant, quam in eos qui de manibus eorum illas suscipiunt, cum toto concilio papa intorsit. Eadem quoque sententia damnavit et eos qui in officium sic adepti honoris aliquem sacrant.119

We know the degree to which, with courage and in an unadulterated spirit of obedience to the pope, Archbishop Anselm fought to implement the application of this prohibition in the following years.120 We also know how, several years after his accession to the throne, Henry I, implicitly endorsed by Pascal II, found the means to revive the reforming spirit that William had shown half a century earlier. With Archbishop Anselm's accord and in his presence at the palace in London in 1107, Henry I solemnly instituted a new investiture reform, according to Eadmer's Historia Novorum:

114

Histoire de Guillaume le Conquerant, 154. The Letters of Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, eds. and trans. H. Clover and M. Gibson (Oxford, 1979), no. 1, p. 30, 'Lanfranc to Pope Alexander II'; see ibid., p. 31 n. 1. 116 See J.-Fr. Lemarignier, Institutions ecdesiastiques, 88-9. One can cite, for example, the exceptionally favourable address of a letter sent by the Pope to William at the end of 1076 in The 'Epistolae Vagantes' of Pope Gregory VII, ed. and trans. H.E.J. Cowdrey (Oxford, 1972), no. 16, p. 44: 'Gregorius episcopus servus servorum Dei excellentissimo fillio W. glorioso regi Anglorum, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem.' 117 28 May 1089 (see M.T. Gibson, Lanfranc of Bee [Oxford, 1978], 227-29). 118 Hollister,'St. Anselm,' 149. 119 Eadmer, The Life of St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. and trans. R.W. Southern, Medieval Texts (London and New York, 1962), 115. 120 Hollister, 'St. Anselm,' 150. 115

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Annuit rex et statuit ut ab eo tempore in reliquum nunquam per dationem baculi pastoralis vel anuli quisquam episcopatu aut abbatia per regem vel quamlibet laicam manum in Anglia investiretur, concedente quoque Anselmo ut nullus in praelationem electus pro hominio quo regi faceret consecratione suscepti honoris privaretur.121

In this way, fifteen years before the Concordat of Worms, Henry I found for England a durable solution that was on the whole advantageous to the ruler. In comparison to Abbot Albert's reform, the designation and the form of the ruler's intervention in accession to major benefices had changed; in reality, the goal and the place of that intervention remained the same. It was a bizarre ritual for the king to bestow the pastoral crosier, the symbol of leadership of a bishop, if his gift was interpreted as conferring upon the prelate-elect only the temporalia of his church. The new rite implied homage sworn to the king by the prelate-elect. This homage gave the king the opportunity to confer upon the prelate-elect his church's temporalia', it took place before the prelate-elect received from the bishop the benediction-consecration and the spiritualia. The new rite permitted the king to exercise an effective influence upon accessions to major benefices. This did not differ markedly from the provision of the Concordat of Worms, where it was admitted that in Germany the emperor might give investiture by scepter before the bishop-elect had received the episcopal consecration and the spiritualia.122 In the case of the German prelates, the English compromise might have been of influence. Elsewhere, in northern Italy and in imperial Burgundy, the rights of the ruler were not so well recognized. Here consecration and spiritual investiture were placed before the gift of the regalia.123 Placing my conclusions in an English perspective, Abbot Albert's reform very likely contributed to arousing the papacy's favorable attitude toward, and full support of, Duke William at the time of the Conquest, on account of William's full acceptance of this reform. King William and his successors in England and Normandy maintained the observance of the reform and thus the favor of the papacy. After Urban II's condemnation of any lay investiture, the moderate precedent of Abbot Albert's reform seems to have helped to find more quickly a way of conciliation, re-establishing the effects of this reform in more rational terms. In a certain sense, the expedition that I have undertaken reaches across the decades to unite the personalities of Fulbert and of Anselm. Both were permeated by their unshakeable faith in God and at the same time by their very realistic and concrete concern that everyone should exercise his own right.124 Sorbonne, Universitv of Paris IV

121

Eadmer's Historia Novorum in Anglia, ed., M. Rule (London, 1884), 186. About the text, see Hollister, 'St. Anselm,' 156. 122 Benson, Bishop-Elect, 228-34. 123 Ibid., 231. 124 I express my gratitude to Profs. Richard Jackson and Robert B. Patterson who have done so much to help me in the rewriting of this lecture in English.

7

The Angevin Civil War and the Norman Conquest of 1066 W. Scott Jessee

Duke William of Normandy's activities in 1066 are usually viewed from the standpoint of the direct interaction between England and Normandy. Yet, as David Bates has suggested in his recent work on the Conqueror, he was simply one of several successful war leaders in France and can best be understood within the context of events on the continent.! From this perspective the most intriguing aspect of 1066 is that as William prepared his invasion of England the Angevins, his most formidable opponents, were busy fighting a civil war. Without examining events within Anjou both before and after the invasion of 1066 an important aspect of the Norman's success is simply incomprehensible. Norman/Angevin hostility was both intense and chronic from the early years of William's reign until the Angevin conquest of Normandy in 1144. The root of this hostility was the county of Maine, immediately to Normandy's south. By 1048 Count Geoffrey Martel of Anjou had firmly established Angevin domination over Maine.2 His hold on the southern end of the county was secured by a strong defensive network comprising the castles of Craon, Chateau-Gontier and Sable, the latter less than 45 kilometers from Le Mans itself. Craon and Sable were held by Robert the Burgundian and Chateau-Gontier by Rainald, two of the most powerful of the Angevin lords. In addition the Manceaux lord Geoffrey of Mayenne, whose castle directly threatened the Norman border, was also afidelis of the Angevin count.3 As long as Angevins controlled Maine they posed a formidable threat to Normandy. William's efforts to counter this led to nearly a decade of fighting that involved two serious invasions of Normandy by the Angevin count and the king of France. After the failure of the second invasion in 1057 a treaty was finally concluded

1

David Bates, William the Conqueror (London, 1989), 8-9. Actus Pontificum Cenomannis in urbe degentium, ed. G. Buson and A. Ledru (Le Mans, 1902), 365; Louis Halphen, Le comte d'Anjou (Paris, 1906), 71; Robert Latouche, Histoire de comte du Maine (Paris, 1910), 28. 3 Bernard S. Bachrach, 'The Angevin Strategy of Castle Building,' American Historical Review 88 (1983): 554-55. 2

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that was essentially a draw. While shaken, the Angevins still controlled Maine.4 William must have had every expectation that Martel would renew the conflict at a later date. The situation changed dramatically, with Mattel's death on 14 November 1060.5 William took the opportunity to press his claims on Maine. When Count Herbert II of Maine died on 9 March 1062 the duke declared his son Robert Curthose the rightful heir, on the basis of an alleged agreement made with Count Herbert after William's victory in 1057.6 The Manceaux, led by Geoffrey of Mayenne, were determined to resist. After a prolonged struggle, Le Mans submitted to William and his forces.7 By the end of 1063 the Norman conquest of Maine was complete. Only the southern portion of Maine, dominated by Robert the Burgundian's stronghold at Sable, remained loyal to the Angevin count.8 During the fighting the Angevins had remained strangely passive. Maine, the locus of hostility throughout the 1050s, was again to be fought over from 1072 until nearly the end of the century.9 Yet throughout the 1060s the Angevins made no serious attempt to interfere in Maine. What had happened to change Angevin policy in Maine so decisively? The easiest answer is that Mattel's successor, his nephew Geoffrey the Bearded, was simply not competent. The Anglo-Norman historian William of Malmesbury later claimed that Martel was not able to pass on his worldly industry to his successor who, 'being a youth of simple manners and more accustomed to pray in church than to handle arms excited the contempt of the people of that region.'10 As a more modern authority has put it, Geoffrey was 'manifestly incompetent 4

Olivier Guillot, Le comte d'Anjou et son entourage au XIe siecle, 2 vols. (Paris, 1972), 1: 86, presents the case for Angevin control over Maine. 5 Fulk Rechin, 'Fragmentum historiae Andegavensis,' in Chroniques de comtes d'Anjou, eds. Louis Halphen and Rene Poupardin (Paris, 1913), 379. Fulk was an eye witness as well as a key participant of his uncle's death and the ensuing events. His account, while biased, is invaluable. For Fulk's authorship, see Jim Bradbury, 'Fulk le Rechin and the Origin of the Plantagenets,' in Studies in Medieval History Presented to R. Allen Brown, eds. Christopher Harper-Bill et al. (Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, 1989), 28-29. 6 Supposedly Herbert had promised that if he died without an heir Maine would pass to William's son. Poitiers, 88, is the only source of this agreement. See also Orderic, 2: 117 and 305. Bates underlines the improbability of such an agreement: William the Conqueror, 39^0. See also Guillot, Comte d'Anjou, 1: 87. 7 Latouche, Maine, 34; Halphen, Anjou, 179. 8 For Robert and Sable, see W. Scott lessee, 'Robert the Burgundian, an Eleventh Century Angevin Noble,' 3 vols. (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1989). Robert never appeared before Duke William, and only one act, from 1068, mentions him as acting in conjunction with William and his son Robert Curthose: Cartulaire des abbayes de Saint-Pierre de la Couture et de Saint-Pierre de Solesmes, ed. Benedictines of Solesmes (Le Mans, 1881), nos. 15, 22-23. For a discussion of this act as it pertains to William, see David C. Douglas, William the Conqueror: The Norman Impact Upon England (Berkeley, 1967), 217-18, n. 7. 9 In 1072 an Angevin force took Le Mans from Geoffrey of Mayenne, once again in revolt against William. By the next year a strong Norman army had expelled the Angevins from the city. Actus pontificum, 380-81. 10 De gestis re gum, 2: 293.

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and probably mentally ill.' 11 This alone is usually seen as sufficient explanation for the collapse of Angevin power. Yet Geoffrey faced problems that would have daunted even his famous uncle. Greatest of these was that Martel had no direct heir. Although Martel named his nephew Geoffrey as count of Anjou and Touraine, this Geoffrey's younger brother, Fulk Rechin, received the Saintonge and the castle of Vihiers as an appanage to hold from his brother.12 Martel thus divided his inheritance in a way that virtually guaranteed tensions between the two brothers.13 When the count of Poitou seized the Saintonge in 1062 Geoffrey the Bearded made no effort to come to the aid of his brother or to compensate him for his loss.14 The resulting rift between the two was never fully repaired. By 1063 Fulk was permanently estranged from his brother and had begun to gather supporters.15 It was easy for Fulk to find members of the military aristocracy who were sympathetic to his cause. Many of the highest members of the aristocracy, the domini who held castles, owed their status to the direct intervention of Count Geoffrey Martel. Their loyalty had been to him personally as the man who had ensured their control of the all-important castles. Robert the Burgundian and Rainald of Chateau-Gontier were typical of these domini. Martel continued to be much respected by such men. Robert the Burgundian, for example, was to make donations to the church for his patron's soul over twenty-two years after the count's death.16 Another of Martel's milites spoke movingly of the pain which struck him when Martel died.17 It is clear that few, if any, of the domini felt such great affection for and loyalty to Geoffrey the Bearded. For Geoffrey to command respect he needed military victories to protect the lords' existing holdings and to provide the means for future rewards. Victories, however, eluded Geoffrey after his one bright triumph over the Poitevins at Chef-Boutonne in March 1061.18 The next year he lost the Saintonge 11

Bernard S. Bachrach, 'Henry II and the Angevin Tradition of Family Hostility,' Albion 16 (1984): 125 and nn. Geoffrey certainly was mad when released from imprisonment at the end of his life. See Cartulaire de Saint-Laud dAngers, ed. M. Planchenault (Angers, 1903), no. 16. 12 Halphen, Anjou, 134-35; Guillot, Comte d'Anjou, 1: 102-3. Geoffrey and Fulk were the sons of Geoffrey Martel's sister Ermengard and Geoffrey, count of Gatinais. 13 Guillot, Comte d'Anjou, 1: 103, sees Martel's arrangements as a 'modest' sign of a special regard for Fulk. 14 'Chronique de Saint-Maixent,' in Chroniques des eglises d'Anjou, eds. Paul Marchegay and Emile Mabille (Paris, 1869), 403. 15 In 1063 Geoffrey and Fulk faced each other in a lawsuit and thereafter Fulk disappeared from Geoffrey's acts. Guillot, Comte d'Anjou, 1: 105; Halphen, Anjou, 137. 16 Cartulaire de I'abbaye de Saint-Aubin d' Angers, ed. Bertrand de Broussillon, 4 vols. (Paris, 1903), 2: no. 79 (A), 353, dated 8 May 1082-1096. Robert made other gifts for Martel's soul, Cartulaires manceaux de Marmoutier, ed. E. Laurain, 2 vols. (Laval, 1945), 2: 59-66, nos. 2 and 3; Bertrand de Broussillon, Maison de Craon, 2 vols. (Paris, 1893), 1: 49, no. 80. 17 Rerum situ dignissimarum a prima fundatione monasterii S. Nicolai Andegavensis . . . epitome, ed. Laurent Le Pelletier (Angers, 1635), 19. See also Guillot, Comte d'Anjou, 2: 149, no. C. 221 and Halphen, Anjou, no. 158, 290. 18 'Gesta consulum Andegavorum,' in Chroniques des comtes d'Anjou, eds. Louis Halphen

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to the Poitevins; the year after, Maine fell to the Normans. The latter defeat particularly exposed the lords of the Maine/Anjou frontier to danger. Sometime before 26 February 1064 Rainald of Chateau-Gontier was captured by Bretons, followers of Conan II count of Rennes who claimed both Craon and ChateauGontier as part of Brittany. Rainald was forced to seek a loan from the great abbey of Marmoutler in Tours to cover the ransom.19 This minor victory of the Bretons had disturbing implications for the Angevin lords. It was a military defeat involving the dominus of a key fortress in the Angevin defensive line.20 Most importantly, Count Geoffrey seems to have done nothing to aid Rainald beyond guaranteeing repayment of the loan to Marmoutier. It is unlikely that Rainald or the other domini took much comfort from this.21 The arrangement for the ransom is interesting for another reason. Marmoutier was the largest and most influential monastery in the Angevin realm. Now the abbey was deliberately forging closer ties with both Rainald of Chateau-Gontier and Robert the Burgundian. Before this incident Rainald had been hostile to Marmoutier's interest; now he was an ally. Sometime before 1063 his colleague Robert had travelled to Tours to receive the societas of Marmoutier in return for an exemption from tolls on the abbey's goods passing through Craon and Sable.22 Subsequently Robert transferred the churches of Sable from the see of Le Mans, now dominated by the Normans, to Marmoutier in Tours. He did this at the express advice of Archbishop Barthelemy of Tours.23 This was the beginning of a long and close association between the lord of Sable and Craon on the one hand and the archbishop of Tours and the monks of Marmoutier on the other. This association of the church in the Touraine with the lords of the northwestern frontier had serious consequences for Geoffrey. The monastic establishment represented one more source of failure for the count. Under Geoffrey's predecessors the church had provided a major prop for comital authority. Martel, for example, controlled the key monasteries in his realm and could name his own select men to important ecclesiastical offices.24 Geoffrey

and Rene Poupardin (Paris, 1913), 130, and 'Chronique de Saint-Maixent,' in Chroniques des eglises d'Anjou (Paris, 1869), 402. See also Alfred Richard, Histoire des comics de Poitou, 2vols. (Paris, 1903), 1: 284. 19 Cartulaire blesois de Marmoutier, ed. Charles Metais (Chartres and Blois, 1891), no. 42. 20 Bachrach, 'Angevin Castle Building,' 554, for Chateau-Gontier's role in this line. 21 The fine was the same amount as the ransom, ten pounds. Cartulaire blesois, no. 42. 22 Robert did this at the exhortation of Wanilo, a monk of Marmoutier. Cartulaires manceaux de Marmoutier, 1: no. 1, 1-3. 23 Ibid., 2: nos. 2 and 3, 59-66. Robert gives his own version of the history of Sable and its churches in ibid., no. 5, 69-76. The gift of property accompanying the churches was quite extensive. 24 The details and development of Angevin comital control over both monasteries and bishoprics is studied in Guillot, Comte d'Anjou, 1, chap. 2, 'Le monachisme' and chap. 3, 'L'eveche d'Angers.'

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the Bearded's misfortune was his inability to recognize that the situation had changed radically. Starting in 1055 Marmoutier had introduced a new conception of investiture in which the count could invest the abbot only with temporal rights.25 As what Olivier Guillot calls the 'Pre-Gregorian Reform' spread, the count could no longer rely on the support of the abbots; his ability to use the monasteries to sustain comital authority was seriously impaired.26 It is significant that when Geoffrey attempted to raise a force to meet the Normans in Maine in 1063, Marmoutier challenged his right to call up the abbey's men.27 Geoffrey, lacking his uncle's finesse in dealing with the new situation, now committed a series of blunders that were to alienate the archbishop of Tours, the abbot of Marmoutier, the bishop of Angers, and eventually the pope.28 When Abbot Alberic of Marmoutier died on 20 May 1064, Geoffrey ignored all precedents of Marmoutier's independence and insisted that the new abbot receive investiture from the count's own hands. When the monks refused Geoffrey threatened to destroy the monastery and actually seized the monks' property.29 When the monks called for the intervention of the highly respected Abbot Hugh of Cluny Geoffrey completely lost control, abusing the good abbot so angrily that even his closest supporters must have been shocked.30 Marmoutier now moved closer towards Geoffrey's enemies: their new alliance with Robert, lord of Sable, may be seen in this light. Geoffrey made the problem even worse by attempting to dictate to the archbishop of Tours his choice of bishop of Le Mans. It is here that Duke William's hand is most visible in Angevin events. When the pro-Angevin Bishop Vulgrin died 10 May 1065, William took the opportunity to install his own partisan, Arnold.31 Desperately seeking to prevent this, Geoffrey violently threatened Archbishop Barthelemy of Tours lest he confirm Arnold as bishop. Infuriated, Barthelemy wrote to Pope Alexander II that Geoffrey 'has sacked all my goods and those of my church, tearing down my dwelling and those of

25

Ibid., 1: 162. See Olivier Guillot, 'A Reform of Investiture before the Investiture Struggle in Anjou, Normandy, and England,' supra, 81-100. 27 Bibliotheque Nationale, Dom Housseau, 112, no. 667. The expedition was prepared, but there is no mention of it actually getting under way. There is also a problem with the date. Because Marmoutier habitually used the Paschal year, 14 March 1063 could well mean 14 March 1064, new style. Guillot, Comte d'Anjou, 2: 162, no. C. 246, 14 March 1063. If so, it would clearly be a case of too little too late. 28 Guillot, Comte d'Anjou, 1: 191-92. 29 'Gesta consulum Andegavorum,' 134—136. 30 'Vita Sancti Hugonis,' PL, 159: 881. See Guillot, Comte d'Anjou, 1: 106 for the implications of this intemperance. 31 Actus pontificum, 374-75. 26

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my canons.'32 In retaliation Barthelemy excommunicated Geoffrey. The pope eventually responded in late 1066 by sending his legate Stephen to Anjou to settle matters. Even the bishop of Angers rejoiced that Stephen was sent expressly to curb 'that angel of Satan,' as he called Geoffrey.33 This was the point of no return for Geoffrey. All the dissident elements had fallen into place. The powerful ecclesiastical establishment of Tours was alienated, Fulk Rechin was in open revolt, and the military aristocracy was disenchanted with Geoffrey's inability to lead them to victories. While the details are unknown, it is clear that most of 1066 was spent in constant skirmishes with both sides angling for position, too involved to be distracted by William's activities in Normandy.34 The final spark came late in 1066 shortly after William launched his invasion fleet. Conan II of Rennes had long coveted the region around Craon. He now seized the opportunity arising from Angevin discord to attack. The attack failed and Conan died while besieging Chateau-Gontier, supposedly poisoned by William.35 This was a major incursion designed to detach the entire Craonaise from the Angevin heartland. It very nearly succeeded. Once again Geoffrey the Bearded was of no help. While William's complicity in Conan's death is almost certainly untrue,36 two men associated with William may have played a role in the invasion. One was Robert de Vitre who was married to the daughter of the original lord of Craon.37 This gave him a legitimate claim to Craon. He was also an important and influential member of Conan's entourage.38 In 1066 he is reported by Wace to have been with Duke William's forces at the battle of Hastings.39 If this was so, then he could have served as an intermediary between Conan and William. The second man is even more problematical. In 1065 Conan travelled to Tours

32

Halphen, Anjou, 141 and Guillot, Comte d'Anjou, 1: 106-7. Halphen, Anjou, 142, citing a letter of Bishop Eusebius of Angers. 34 Both the 'Gesta consulum Andegavorum,' 63, and Fulk Rechin's 'Fragmentum,' 379, indicate that fighting between the two factions was chronic during much of Geoffrey's reign. Fulk specifically says that the struggle was 'a tribulation which [my brother and I] dragged out for eight years, often making war and occasionally having truces.' 35 Jumieges, 193-94, is our only historical source for the invasion. Later legends of the region would claim that the failure was due to a counter-attack led by Robert the Burgundian whose fortresses of Sable and Craon flanked Chateau-Gontier. All these accounts are analyzed in lessee, 'Robert the Burgundian,' 1: 112-122. 36 Douglas, William the Conqueror, 409-10. 37 Cartulaire de I'abbaye cardinale de la Trinite de Vendome, 1, ed. Charles Metais (Vendome, 1892), no. 217. 38 Arthur le Moyne de la Borderie, Histoire de Bretagne, 3 vols. (Paris, 1897), 3: 15 n. 4. See also Dom Morice, Histoire ecclesiastique et civile de Bretagne, 1 (Guingamp, 1835), 395; Pierre Le Baud, Histoire de Bretagne avec les Chroniques des maison de Vitre et de Laval (Paris, 1638), 9-10. 39 Wace, The Conquest of England from Wace's Poem of the Roman de Rou, trans. Alexander Malet (London, 1860), 196-97 and 210-11. 33

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to make a donation to Marmoutier, which was already hostile to Geoffrey the Bearded. The leading member of his entourage was none other than Geoffrey of Mayenne.40 It is impossible to say what Geoffrey of Mayenne's role was since he generally pursued his own interests against both the Norman duke and the Angevin count. Keep in mind, however, that in 1065 and 1066 William's hold on northern Maine was complete. He had captured Geoffrey in 1055 and compelled him to do homage for Mayenne.41 Any ideas Geoffrey may have had of escaping this vassalage were dispelled in 1063 when William sacked his castle at Mayenne.42 It is likely that Geoffrey was, for the moment, willing to cooperate with his overpowering lord William. Whether or not he was able to exert any influence over Conan or merely kept himself informed of developments, the Breton invasion paid off handsomely for William. Two key lords, Robert the Burgundian and Rainald of ChateauGontier, had now had enough of Count Geoffrey's ineffectual leadership. On 25 February 1067 Fulk Rechin took the castle of Saumur and made it his headquarters.43 For the moment Rainald loyally remained with the count within the walls of Angers. Robert, however, joined the rebels at Saumur by 11 March and became the highest ranking lay member of Fulk's entourage. As one of the most powerful of Angevin lords, his presence seems to have tipped the scales in Fulk's favor. While waiting at Saumur the rebels were joined by Pope Alexander's legate. Cardinal Stephen delivered the divine judgement, in effect, that Geoffrey was unfit to rule. He indicated this judgement by signing a written act on 11 March in which Fulk is styled comes. By implication Geoffrey was no longer to be considered the legitimate count of Anjou.44 Stephen was backed by an impressive array of ecclesiastical dignitaries, including Archbishop Barthelemy of Tours, Bishop Warech of Nantes, Bishop Menigisus of Vannes, and five abbots. Monks from Marmoutier served as Stephen's secretariat.45

40

He is first among his baronibus meis. Morice, Histoire de Bretagne, preuves, 1: 408-09. A. Angot, Genealogies feodales mayennaises (Laval, 1942), 504, provides the date and discusses Geoffrey of Mayenne. 41 'Thus the vassalage of another of the great border families was passing to Normandy.' Douglas, William the Conqueror, 71. 42 Poitiers, 91-93; Jumieges, 130, 184. 43 'Chronique de Saint-Maixent,' 403. 44 Guillot, Comte d'Anjou, 1: 108-9, highlights the 'sanction etonnamment vigourese' of the cardinal against Geoffrey. Halphen, Anjou, 145, doubts that Stephen actually deposed Geoffrey at this time. It is difficult, however, to believe that Stephen could have assumed that there could be two legitimate counts for one realm. A later papal legate stated that Stephen excommunicated Geoffrey and gave the principatus of Anjou to Fulk, Cartulaire de Saint-Laud d'Angers, no. 16, analyzed by Guillot, Comte d'Anjou, 1: 109, n. 483 and 2: 356, 'erratum.' 45 Archives Maine et Loire, H. 1840, no. 3. The monk who dictated the act in Latin was Wanilo, the same monk who had convinced Robert the Burgundian to make the donation to Marmoutier mentioned in supra n. 22.

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This action by the papal legate meant the end for Geoffrey. On 4 April 1067 Rainald of Chateau-Gontier and other members of Geoffrey's entourage in Angers betrayed their count by handing him over to his brother.46 Although Fulk had to release Geoffrey by August, the peace they made lasted less than a year.47 Fighting broke out again in April 1068. Inept to the end, Geoffrey was defeated and he disappeared into a dungeon at Chinon, not to reappear for over 28 years. It was Pope Alexander's legate in 1067, however, who had been the crucial factor in the civil war. It is here that William's possible influence becomes most intriguing. Alexander intervened on behalf of Marmoutier and Archbishop Barthelemy, both firmly opposed to Geoffrey. The leading rebel, Robert the Burgundian, had allied himself closely to the same abbey at the advice of the same archbishop. Marmoutier had also hosted Count Conan and his entourage the year before his attack on Anjou. By 1066 Duke William also had close ties with Marmoutier. Between 1063 and 1066 he made a judgement favorable to the monks in a long dispute with the abbey of Saint-Pierre-de-la-Couture of Le Mans.49 Even more interestingly, the abbot of Marmoutier sent one of his monks to Rouen to seek a confirmation of gifts made to the abbey by William who, the charter tells us, 'was then preparing to cross the sea and make war against the English.'50 William was able to keep well-informed on the attitude and plans of Marmoutier towards Count Geoffrey. The Conqueror must have felt some sense of obligation to the abbey, for when he founded Battle Abbey, he filled it with monks from Marmoutier.51 In the first six months of 1066, William sent legates to Rome to gain papal support for his planned invasion of England. His mission was so successful that William could pose as 'the armed agent of ecclesiastical reform,' as Douglas put it.52 Can anyone doubt that while in Rome his agents did their best to support the mission of Archbishop Barthelemy of Tours and the monks of Marmoutier against the 'new Nero,' Geoffrey the Bearded?53 A few months later the same pope dispatched Cardinal Stephen to put an end to Geoffrey's reign. 46

'Annales de Vendome,' and 'Annales dites de Renaud,' both in Recueil d'annales angevines et vendomoises, ed. Louis Halphen (Paris, 1903), 64 and 87. At least for awhile Geoffrey was held prisoner at Sable. Cartulaire de I'abbaye du Ronceray d'Angers, ed. Paul Marchegay (Paris, 1900), no. 176 and Halphen, Anjou, 146, n. 2. 47 The peace they made was marked by an act orchestrated by Robert the Burgundian at the siege of Chaumont on 7 August 1067. The act involved the confirmation by King Philip, Count Geoffrey, and Fulk Rechin of Robert's donation of the churches of Sable to Marmoutier. Intriguingly enough, shortly before this act Robert had his son Rainald confirm the gift at Craon in the presence of Robert of Vitre. Cartulaires manceaux de Marmoutier, 2: nos. 2 and 3, 59-66. 48 Fulk Rechin, 'Fragmentum,' 379. 49 Douglas, William the Conqueror, 151, citing RADN, no. 159. 50 Douglas, William the Conqueror, 185, citing RADN, no. 288. 51 Douglas, William the Conqueror, 328. 52 Ibid., 187. 53 Archbishop's Barthelemy's term for Geoffrey in his letter to the pope. Halphen, Anjou, 142.

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William the Conqueror clearly played the diplomatic game with skill. He had put continual pressure on a weak regime, had appointed his own nominee as bishop of Le Mans, had developed close ties with the abbey hostile to the Angevin count, may have had supporters involved in the Breton invasion of Anjou, and certainly had the favor of the same pope who supported Fulk Rechin. Whether or not he directly influenced events in Anjou, William had the means to know exactly what was going on. When his fleet set sail for England on the evening of 27 September 1066, his great adversary Anjou troubled him not at all. Appalachian State University

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8 Women's Estates in Later Anglo-Saxon England: The Politics of Possession Marc A. Meyer

Late Anglo-Saxon society was not stagnant nor free from political turmoil. Regardless of the continuity of basic administrative and sociopolitical development prior to the Norman Conquest, the eleventh-century Anglo-Saxons witnessed significant changes in political leadership and alterations in the structure of political power and authority.1 Indeed, a dramatic shift can be detected in the balance of power between nobility and monarchy, and even the relative stability of the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042-66) can now be seen as more of an illusion than a reality. The creation of large estates by powerful people who owed everything to their innate abilities and the royal recognition of them is symptomatic of the insecurities and fluctuations of the period.2 The great earls of the eleventh century, most of whom like Godwine and Leofric obtained their positions under King Cnut (1016-35) and his sons, did everything in their power to maintain and solidify their newly acquired authority and influence. Owing to the very uncertainty of the times, a few select women maintained sizable estates to help consolidate their kinsmen's political positions. These few women - especially those of the eorlisc family of Godwine of Wessex - controlled estates much

1

Plummer, ASC, can be read with profit with regards to the chaos of the eleventh century. See also Eric John, The End of Anglo-Saxon England,' in The Anglo-Saxons, ed. James Campbell (Ithaca, NY, 1982), 192-239; Robin Fleming, 'Domesday Estates of the King and the Godwines: A Study in Late Saxon Politics,' Speculum 58 (1983): 987-1007; and Pauline Stafford, Unification and Conquest: A Political and Social History of England in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (London, 1989), 69-100. On aspects of continuity, see H.R. Loyn, The Governance of Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1984). I would like to thank Professors C. Warren Hollister and Robert B. Patterson for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this essay. My appreciation is also due to Berry College for its financial assistance and support. 2 Beginning in the seventh century, land had not only economic worth, but military and symbolic value as well, for which see Janet L. Nelson, '"A King across the Sea": Alfred in Continental perspective,' Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser. 36 (1986): 45-68.

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larger than would have been customary even for women of their status. As for the Godwines who seem to have used this stratagem, the recollection of the events of 1051-52 and their overwhelming political ambitions perhaps suggested such an approach, and they plotted a deliberate course of action by using their womenfolk to bolster and consolidate family prestige and power. That the effort to endow some women with massive estates was only a sideshow in the deadly game of Anglo-Saxon politics does not detract from its significance. In fact a study of the patterns of landholding of great female landlords reveals important aspects of the historical experience of women in Anglo-Saxon England. Before proceeding to an examination of the lands held by the most prominent eorlisc women, it would be well to generalize about the state of women's landholding immediately preceding the Conquest of 1066 to gain a basis of comparison. It must be acknowledged in this regard that although the political environment of eleventh-century England affected the position of a few noblewomen, such changes did not cause a concomitant rise in the position of all Anglo-Saxon women.3 The control of large estates by some women was an isolated phenomenon. Indeed, the picture of women's landholding in Domesday Book is not greatly at variance with the evidence derived from the charters, which generally validates the notion of the continuity of the hierarchical nature of early English society.4 Of the royal charters found in P.H. Sawyer's Annotated List of Anglo-Saxon Charters, roughly 7 per cent were issued to secular and religious women.5 Power and influence within the Anglo-Saxon polity was anchored in royal patronage, family status, and the possession of land, and the landboc enhanced the public and private authority of the grantee. Still, few women received charters. Owing to various difficulties of interpretation and analysis the picture of women's landed wealth as revealed in Domesday Book at the time of King

3

On the status and position of Anglo-Saxon women, see D.M. Stenton, The English Woman in History (New York, 1957); Christine Fell, Women in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1984); and Stafford, Unification and Conquest, 162-79. For a view that is not disposed toward considering a decline in women's status throughout the Anglo-Saxon period, see my 'Land Charters and the Position of Women in Anglo-Saxon England,' in The Women of England, ed. Barbara Kanner (Hamden, CT, 1982): 53-84, and 'Early Anglo-Saxon Penitentials and the Position of Women,' ante 2 (1990): 47-61. 4 See Eric John, 'The Return of the Vikings,' in The Anglo-Saxons, 208. John's comment is, indeed, born out by an analysis of Domesday Book, in which about 2 per cent of the land assessment of England was held by women in 1086. This is a noticeable difference from the 5 per cent recorded for women T.R.E., but not sufficient reason to agree with D.M. Stenton (The English Woman, 29). Since King William (1066-87) had to accommodate his followers after the Conquest, the predominance of male landholders is not surprising. For valuable comments and an interesting analysis relevant to my theme, see Eleanor Searle, 'Women and the Legitimisation of Succession at the Norman Conquest,' in A-NS 3 (1980): 159-170, as well as supra, n. 3. 5 Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography, ed. Peter H. Sawyer (London, 1968); hereafter cited as Sawyer along with the appropriate document number in his text.

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Edward (T.R.E.) can only be painted with broad brush strokes.6 Yet a survey of manors held by women reveals that about 350 individuals held landed estates T.R.E.7 Some 3,500 hides were held by women throughout England in 1066,8 which amounts to about 5 per cent of the total hidage recorded in Domesday Book.9 The estates were valued at a little more than £4,750 T.R.E.10 Beyond names and the size of particular estates, little - if anything - is known about the majority of women recorded in Domesday Book. But the distribution of landed wealth among the various classes of female landholders, as shown in the 'Distribution of Wealth among Female Landholders, T.R.E.,' is suggestive. (See table 2, infra, 115.) These categories of female landholders (Classes I through VII) have been defined primarily according to socioeconomic strata that come to light from a reading of contemporary Anglo-Saxon texts.11 Although the construction of distinct categories is somewhat artificial, the results are 6

Domesday Book, ed. Abraham Farley and Henry Ellis, 3 vols. (London, 1783-1816); hereafter cited as DB. For particular problems and difficulties associated with the analysis of this source regarding the estates of female landholders, see the appendix, infra, 126-29. 7 This figure for the number of female landholders T.R.E. in Domesday Book has been reduced from approximately 450 individuals possessing land throughout the English shires because many women, whose identities can be established, held land in more than one shire. For example, Queen Eadgyth held property in 20 shires, while other women whose landed wealth was not as widely dispersed held in as many as ten counties. 8 Out of this, about 140 hides, or approximately 4 per cent of the hide assessment revealed in the table, were held jointly by men and women whose relationships to each other in separate entries can be definitely established. (For example, see DB, 1, fols. 142, 162b, 177b, 206, 207b, 331, and 492; 2, fols. 40b-41, 2()lb, 300, 413, and 499b.) With few exceptions, joint tenancies involved people of the lower classes, many of whose estates were assessed at less than one virgate. I have divided joint estates equally among the number of tenants listed in the DB entry. This causes some slight distortion of the figures, but not enough to alter the general patterns of women's land holding T.R.E. 9 This figure drops to roughly 3 per cent if the lands of Queen Eadgyth and Godgifu, the deceased sister of Edward the Confessor, are subtracted from the total assessment of women's manors. 10 This figure and those detailed above do not include the corporate holdings and wealth of the nunneries, whose estates account for approximately 1.5 per cent of the hidage recorded in DB T.R.E. The nunneries together held about 1060 hides scattered throughout 14 shires in 1066. When one examines the charter evidence along with that of DB, it becomes apparent that the nuns held much more prior to that time. See my 'Patronage of the West Saxon Royal Nunneries in Late Anglo-Saxon England,' Revue Benedictine 91 (1981): 332-58. 11 For general discussions concerning the various classes of Anglo-Saxon society, see P.M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1971), 463-93; Dorothy Whitelock, The Beginnings of English Society (London, 1974), 83-114; and H.P.R. Finberg, The Formation of England, 550-1042 (St. Albans, 1976), 214-32. Additionally, the vernacular law codes have a great deal of information about the size of tenements of different classes of folk. And see, in particular, the 'Rectitudines Singularum Personarum,' in EHD, 813-16. The construction of Classes I through III, however, is based not only on a variety of Anglo-Saxon texts, but also on charting the frequency of the size of individual estates held by women. A frequency graph, grounded on the amount of land to the nearest bovate, was compiled after the identification of individual female landholders had been made, on which see the appendix, infra, 126-29.

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Table 1 Table of Women's Rural Estates T.R.E. Shire

Number of Women*

Number of Estates**

Bd Br Bk C Ch Co Db D Do E Gl Ha He Ht Hu K Lei Li MX Nf Nth Nt O R Sa So St Sf Sr Sx Wa W Wo Y

8 15 11 11 5 6 6 27 13 33 10 9 6 20 4 11 4 17 3 27 9 2 3 2 7 26 4 75 10 12 10 15 8 16

9 26 26 44 10 7 6 69 19 58 13 25 42 34 4 20 10 42 3 42 27 20 6 15 22 43 14 86 13 47 18 25 12 51

Unit of Assessment^ Hides Ploughs 30 220 220 135 10 5 15 110 160 130 80 135 155 95 10 40 50 125 15 55 105 20 45 50 55 250 15 110 120 345 75 295 55 180

40 175 225 230 15 30 15 850 145 250+ 135+ 125 450+ 170 30 45+ 75+ 140 20 115+ 210 80 50 135 135 455 50 190+ 95 360 120+ 300 75+ 90

Value in Pounds^ 30 210 190 270 2 4 10 400 210 220 130 175 210 175 15 150 20 225 35 95 75 75 35 155 35 505 15 160 115 300 65 370 45 35

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Note: * The total number of female landholders recorded by Domesday Book scribes must be reduced to 350 because a number of them held land in more than one shire. ** Includes the number of estates, manors, and berewicks in which demesne farming was carried on. Sokelands have not been included. This figure does, however, include lands held by joint tenancy, for which see n.8. t Hides refer to hides, carucates, and sulungs. Ploughs stand for either ploughlands or ploughteams (t). Figures have been rounded off and are given in multiples of 5. $ Unless the value is below £5, figures have been rounded off to multiples of £5.

Table 2 Distribution of Wealth among Female Landholders, T.R.E.

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nevertheless informative. The upper echelon of female tenants is represented by Class I, those women who possessed 100 hides of land or more, while Class II depicts those women holding more than 20, but less than 100 hides.12 Women retaining between ten and 20 hides are represented by Class III and those in Class IV held at least five, but fewer than ten hides. Class V, numerically the largest category and constituting 40.5 per cent of all female landholders, is made up of women who possessed one, but less than five hides. About 14.5 per cent of the women recorded as possessing land in Domesday Book are represented by Class VI, individuals holding between one and one-half hide. Finally, the women of Class VII held less than one-half hide of land.13 Such figures disclose the hierarchical structure of late Anglo-Saxon England and indicate that Domesday Book is not simply a superimposed Anglo-Norman reality as epitomized in its 'feudal' arrangement. Even if these statistics are only approximations, the unequal distribution of wealth among this category of landholder is revealing.14 It is remarkable that so few women controlled the bulk of these estates. Queen Eadgyth,15 Godwine's wife Gytha, and Earl Harold's 'concubine' Eadgifu pulchra alone held about half of all land belonging to women. When the massive estates of the two most prominent royal women are excluded - those of Queen Eadgyth and Godgifu, the sister of Edward the Confessor,16 still only six people held half of the remaining estates possessed by women. In addition to Gytha and 12

Extant sources do not necessarily permit the kind of distinction I have drawn between Classes I and II. Still, Class I represents six women and Class II twice that number. The two classes combine to make up roughly 5 per cent of female landholders recorded in DB. The size of estates of these women, who were by and large connected to the great eorlisc families and the royal house, are much larger than even those of Class III. 13 Contemporary evidence indicates Class VII constitutes more than one socioeconomic group, for which see 'Rectitudine Singularum Personarum.' 14 Those female landholders who possessed an estate or estates totalling five hides or more controlled about 91 per cent of the land recorded as being held by all women T.R.E. This is perhaps an indication of the 'feudal' nature of DB. Yet that female landholders held only about five per cent of the DB estates T.R.E. is commensurate with other evidence suggesting that women among the lower social orders did not control or possess much more. Women among the peasantry living in some East Anglian hundreds held about 9.5 per cent of the estates located there. (See the appendix, infra, 128 and also infra, n. 69.) 15 The subject of the queen's demesne is too large to be treated here, although the statistical data for women's estates as recorded in DB has taken into account what Queen Eadgyth held T.R.E. Debate over just how much land the queen held continues, for which see Robert H. Davies, 'The Land and Rights of Harold, Son of Godwine, and their Distribution by William I,' (M.A. thesis, University College, Cardiff, 1967); Fleming, 'Domesday Estates,' 991, and my The Queen's Demesne in Anglo-Saxon England,' in The Culture of Christendom: Essays in Medieval History in Commemoration of Denis L. T. Bethell, ed. Marc A. Meyer. 16 Godgifu is recorded as holding slightly more than 160 hides valued at approximately £195 in 1066 (DB, 1, fols. 17b, 18b, 19, 19b, 20, 25, 34, 36b, 75b, 76, 130, 151b, 152b, 166b, 170, 280b, 293). Most of her estates were exempt from geld, and many were concentrated in Sussex, a shire in which the king and his predecessors maintained sizable demesne lands. Yet the circumstances surrounding Godgifu's large estate are complicated by the fact that she died in 1047. Godgifu's estates continued to be held under her name because she is recorded as a major landholder T.R.E. Owing to the lack of corroborative evidence, three

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Eadgifu pulchra, Godgifu, wife of Earl Leofric of Mercia, Wulfgifu of Beslow,17 Wulfwynn of Creslow,18 and Gytha, the wife of Earl Ralph,19 maintained estates that are impressive by any standard. It is even more extraordinary that the holdings of those women whose marital status or lineage can be traced to the great eorlisc families of the early and mid-eleventh century account for about 80 per cent of the hide assessment and 85 per cent of the value of estates held by women.20 Furthermore, when the estates of eorlisc women are compared with what their own menfolk controlled and are subsequently likened to the holdings of other noblewomen relative to their families' holdings, the endowment of some eorlisc women assumes the appearance of a deliberate act. This is apparent regarding the lands of the Godwine women and most evident for Gytha and Eadgifu pulchra: about 15 per cent of the land held by the Godwine family T.R.E. was in the hands of their kinswomen. Conversely, about 3 per cent of lay land was held by all other women. As wealthy as some women associated with king's ministers might have been, their estates still pale before some of those associated with Earls Godwine and Harold. Eadgyth, the sister of Odda of Deerhurst,21 seems typical in this regard. This woman held 14 hides in three manors located in Herefordshire, a shire that

distinct possibilities exist regarding the successor to her lands after her death. King Edward himself may have maintained control and subsequently held the estates as a part of the royal demesne; her estates may have descended to her sons without notice in DB; or, Godgifu's husband Eustace may have gained control of them. He certainly was favored by the Confessor even after Edward's sister's death, because one of the things that touched off the crisis of 1051-52 was the king's attempt to secure cross-Channel communications with Normandy, a plan that probably included giving Dover to the new count of Boulougne. 17 This woman, who perhaps came from Shropshire, held slightly more than 120 hides of land in 28 villages throughout seven shires in the heartland of the old kingdom of Wessex (DB, 1, fols. 24b, 27b, 38, 43, 45, 51b, 67, 70b, 74b, 91b, 123, 123b, 124, 124b, 134, 210). Her relationship with the king is not clear, but that some kind of association existed is demonstrated by the fact that she held a number of alodial manors of the Confessor prior to his death in January 1066. (See DB, 1, fols. 47b, 50, 62b-63, 63, and 69.) 18 Identified as coming from Creslow (DB, 1, fol. 150b), Wulfwynn held two of her estates as the 'man' of King Edward with the right to give and sell to whomsoever she might choose (see DB, 1, fols. 129b and 150b). Her demesne holdings consisted of about 110 hides with an assessed value of roughly £150, scattered throughout seven shires in southern England (DB, 1, fols. 63b, 69b, 80b, 129b, 130b, 139, 150b, 152, and 437). Considering the size and value of her estate, it is highly likely that she was connected to the royal house or perhaps the eorlisc family of the Godwines. 19 This woman, the daughter of the infamous Osgot Clapa, married Tofig the Proud (d. ? 1047), and perhaps as early as 1049 she entered into a second marriage with Ralph of Mantes, a nephew of King Edward who hailed from the French Vexin. Her fortunate marriages seem to have saved at least a part of her family's estate, Gytha's father having been outlawed by the king in 1046. The lands she held T.R.E. comprised about 80 hides valued at roughly £110 (DB, 1, fols. 148, 212b, 225, 226, 287, 291b, 362, and 369). When Earl Ralph died in 1057, Gytha was left to live on her East Midlands estates. 20 These percentages were calculated without considering the lands of the queen and her sister-in-law Godgifu. 21 A loyal kinsman of King Edward, he was appointed earl over some of Godwine's shires in

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appears to have been the locus of her family's landed wealth.22 Odda was a close associate of King Edward, but connections with the queen were important as well. Among a few other women who were affiliated with wealthy and influential thegns is Eadgifu, the wife of Wulfweard the White, himself a major landholder in pre-Conquest England owing to his position as chamberlain in the households of Queens Emma-^Elfgifu and Eadgyth.23 Eadgifu is recorded in Domesday Book holding eight estates in Buckinghamshire, Dorset, and Somerset, which were assessed at some 45 hides worth about £43 T.R.E.24 As an intimate of Queen Eadgyth who served as her patroness, Eadgifu held three estates from the queen herself. Furthermore, Eadgifu had a daughter who married a certain jElfsige after the Conquest. On the occasion of their betrothal, Queen Eadgyth gave a few estates to the groom.25 Although many women controlled sizable estates and even held men in commendation in 1066, most of them obtained lands through marriage endowment and the customary laws of the descent of real property to widows.26 At the time of the Conquest, the landed estate of ^Ethelgyth,27 wife of Thurstan, was one of the largest held by a woman. Through inheritance and marriage gifts ^Ethelgyth maintained an estate of some 60 hides, valued at around £120. Thurstan's will records that he gave to his new bride £ithelgym many estates in Norfolk as a marriage payment 'to mund and to maldage] and she still maintained interests in eleven manors there T.R.E.28 ^Ethelgyth also held six manors in Essex,

1051 and even campaigned vigorously against the Godwines the following year. Upon their reinstatement Odda's power and authority was certainly curtailed, for he does not appear as a witness to any land transactions after December 1053 (Sawyer, no. 1409). Odda ended his life in retirement at the small community he founded at Deerhurst, but the fate of Eadgyth is not known. See Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. and trans. AJ. Robertson, 2nd rev. ed. (Cambridge, 1956), 456-58. 22 DB, 1, fols. 183, 183b, and 186. 23 See Anglo-Saxon Charters, 462. 24 DB, 1, fols. 83, 113, 143, 145, 146b, and 147. A remnant of family land that descended to her can be located at Wootton Underwood, Buckinghamshire since this woman was probably related to a certain Leofwine or his wife Leofflaed (DB, 1, fol. 147, and see Sawyer, no. 858). 25 DB, 1, fol. 153. 26 See my 'Land Charters,' 62, and Stafford, Unification and Conquest, 165-66. 27 Something may be said of ^Ethelgyth's family connections because her estate at Shimpling, Suffolk was bequeathed in the 1030s by Thurketel of Palgrave to his wife Leofwynn (Sawyer, no. 1527). jEthelgyth was seemingly related to Thurketel or his wife, for a certain Ulfketel, Thurstan's partner in some land transactions (the relationship is described as felageschipe), should be identified as the man who appears as a beneficiary in Thurketel of Palgrave's will. This reinforces the contention that ^ithelgyth and Thurketel or his wife were related. On Thurstan's family connnections, see J. L. Fisher, 'Thurstan, Son of Wine,' Essex Archaeology and History: Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society 22 (1940): 98-104. 28 Sawyer, no. 1531. Mhelgyth's Norfolk estates (for which see DB, 2, fols. 230b, 232b, 250b, 251, 252, and 263) were clustered in Clackclose Hundred where she also held about 165 men from 13 villages under her commendation and soke - a testament to her influential position in this area.

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which again seem to have descended to her through her husband's family.29 The traditional means by which ^Ethelgyth came into possession of her estates is illustrated as well by her two manors in Suffolk, which were located near each other in separate hundreds. She received Kedington as part of her marriage portion when she was betrothed to Thurstan,30 but she most probably brought Shimpling with her when she married her husband and may even have held it by royal charter.31 Some 36 women represented by the above-mentioned Classes I through III, among whom we may consider Eadgyth, Eadgifu, and vEthelgyth, held the lion's share of the property controlled by women as a type of landholder. Yet within this distinct category of pre-Conquest tenant, the more prominent women of the great eorlisc families still take pride of place when the geographic distribution, assessment and value, and political importance of their many estates are considered. This is not to suggest, however, that all close female relatives of the great earls were generously endowed with land. The sickly Gunhildr who was a nun at Amesbury,32 Eadgifu,33 and ^Elfgifu,34 all of whom were daughters of Earl Godwine, held estates somewhat larger than most female landholders;

29

According to the Book of Ely (Liber Eliensis, ed. E.O. Blake, Royal Historical Society 92 [London, 1962], 158), Pentlow and Ashdon belonged at one time to a certain Lustwine, and they show up in Thurstan's possession in the 1040s at which time he bequeathed a small estate at Weston near Pentlow to Ely, but reserved for his wife, who held it T.R.E., a lifeinterest in the estate (DB, 2, fols. 69b-70). Thurstan also gave Ashdon with its village church to jEthelgyth who held that estate (DB, 2, fols. 69-69b). She was also granted a life-interest in Wimbish, which she held for eight hides T.R.E. (DB, 2, fol. 71) and which was to have descended to Christ Church, Canterbury after her death. One other Essex estate deserves notice. Chipping Ongar was assessed at one hide, with five ploughteams on the estate, T.R.E.; but since in his will Thurstan distributed only a small wood there, j£thelgyth had kept the remainder of the property in that village (DB, 2, fols. 29b-30). 30 See Sawyer, no. 1531 and DB, 2, fol. 413b. According to the Liber Elienis (p. 158) this estate was once held by Lustwine. For ^Ethelgyth's Domesday estate, see DB, 2, fol. 415b. 31 See supra, n. 27, and my 'Land Charters,' 70, for the frequency of noblewomen receiving royal charters for bookland from the king. 32 She received a few estates in Sussex and Somerset, presumably from her father when she entered the abbey, holding nearly 30 hides of land valued at about £30 (DB, 1, fols. 28b, 87, 88, and 103). Not only did Godwine provide for Gunhildr out of his own lands, but he also gave her possession of a large estate at Hardington Mandeville, Somerset, that was part of the lands associated with the earldom (DB, 1. fol. 87). 33 'Eadgiuu fili Godwini comitis" is recorded in the Liber Vitae of Hyde Abbey (Liber Vitae: The Register and Martyrology of New Minster and Hyde Abbey, ed. Walter de Gray Birch, Hampshire Record Society 5 [London and Winchester, 1892], 71). She held seven estates in two shires for about 40 hides, valued at some £60 (DB, 1, fols. 23, 23b, 26, 27b, and 39b). Most of them were in the family's homeland in Sussex; but one estate was located on the Isle of Wight and held directly from her father (DB, 1, fol. 39b). 34 Her estate was geographically more diverse and approximately double the size of those of her two sisters. She held land in five southern shires. Her manors were assessed at about 65 hides and valued at roughly £60 (DB, 1, fols. 57, 63, 65, 80, and 144b).

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but this is more a reflection of family status and not necessarily a conscious move by their father to enhance his political position. The estates of Godwine's daughters are comparable in some ways to that of Ealdgyth, daughter of Earl ^Ifgar of Mercia, wife of Gruffydd of Wales (d. 1062). She held an estimated 21 hides with an assessed value of about £15 T.R.E.35 Ealdgyth maintained an estate suitable to her station as a daughter of the eorlisc house of Mercia. According to Orderic, a widowed Ealdgyth married Harold Godwinson.36 One would expect that this woman would have been endowed with a more conspicuous estate owing to her two supposed marriages, particularly her second to Harold Godwinson. But at best Ealdgyth and Harold may only have been betrothed, and the great earl had once before entered into a marriage agreement and failed to live up to it!37 As for other Mercian women, Ealdgyth's mother jElfgifu held a much larger estate of about 65 hides,38 and her grandmother Godgifu, the wife of Earl Leofric (d. 1057),39 held a very respectable 80 hides with an assessed value of about £120.40

35

Earl jElfgar's daughter, identified in DB (1, fol. 238b) as 'Aldgif uxor Grifin' held in no fewer than five shires in northwestern England (DB, 1, fols. 176b, 238b, 241, 255, 256b, 259, 275, and 306b). It is, however, possible that a certain 'Eldid' holding an estate in Driffield, Yorkshire (DB, 1, fol. 373) is our Ealdgyth; but there is little to suggest that such an indentification is valid. It should be recalled as well that Orderic, 2: 139, mistakenly refers to this woman as 'Edgiua,' and Chibnall compounds the problem by transcribing this into 'Edith' instead of 'Eadgifu.' See infra, the appendix, 127 and n. 64. 36 Most historians, including E.A. Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest, 3 (Oxford, 1869), appendix K, 638-^0, have followed Orderic (for which see supra, n. 35) concerning Harold's 'marriage' to Ealdgyth. Yet, as Chibnall and others have pointed out, this twelfthcentury Norman monk was confused about Mercian affairs during the latter years of the Confessor's reign. It seems more likely in the absence of contemporary references to a marriage that Ealdgyth was instead betrothed to the great earl as part of negotiations conducted between Harold and Ealdgyth's brothers during the crisis of mid-1065, at which time Morcar replaced Tostig as earl of Northumbria. Harold himself obtained substantial lands in the Mercian earldom during the last years of the Confessor's reign, and a marriage alliance would have been advantageous at a time when he was solidifying his plans to assume the throne. But although evidence may suffer from political bias, that DB does not record an estate for Ealdgyth even approaching that worthy of a queen - however brief her reign might have been - certainly casts further doubt on the authenticity of Orderic's remarks. 37 See Searle, 'Women and the Legitimisation of Succession,' nn. 9 and 10. 38 jElfgar's wife ^Elfgifu held estates, burghal property, and various juridical rights in nine Mercian and East Anglian shires (DB, 1, fols. 134b, 157b, 222, 231, 273b, 280b; 2, fols. 106b, 160b, 161, 161b, 162, 167, 286b, 287, and 373b-74). Her largest manor was located at Donington in northern Leicestershire and was assessed at 22'^ carucates T.R.E. (DB, 1, fol. 231). 39 Leofric (d. 1057) was the son of Ealdorman Leofwine and succeeded his father as earl of the Hwicce sometime between 1024 and 1032. After his father's death in c. 1035, he became earl of Mercia. The exact date of Godgifu's marriage to Leofric is unknown, but it could not have occurred long after his installation as earl of the Hwicce. Since their son yClfgar became earl of East Anglia in 1053, it would seem wise to place the marriage and Leofric's tenure to the earldom of the Hwicce as early as possible. 40 Her demesne lands, sokelands, and other properties were spread throughout eight northern

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Godgifu maintained most of her demesne lands in Worcestershire and Warwickshire, yet also held the important estate of Newark, Nottinghamshire, known as the 'key to the north' because of its value as a market town located on an old Roman road.41 She presumably obtained the estate shortly before or after the death of her husband in 1057 to solidify her family's position in Mercia. Toward the end of this tumultuous decade,42 the power and influence of the house of Leofric declined after the Godwinist party at court overcame the difficulties of their abortive rebellion of 1051-52. Harold Godwinson succeeded to the West Saxon earldom in 1053 and had to let Leofric's son obtain the East Anglian earldom. But /Elfgar was forced to accept Harold's younger brother Gyrth as a subordinate earl in those shires. Leofric's and Alfgar's position was further compromised in 1055 when Siward of Northumbria died and Tostig Godwinson obtained that earldom. Although /Elfgar himself was temporarily outlawed for stirring up trouble over this and other matters, he eventually succeeded his father in Mercia. Perhaps taking a page from the God wines' political handbook, the earl secured Newark for Godgifu. Nevertheless, by the time of his own death in 1062, the eorlisc family of Mercia was nearly surrounded by the Godwine clan and their ecclesiastical and lay supporters.43 That Godgifu obtained the important and valuable estate at Newark was the exception and not the rule among Leofric's family. Indeed, by 1066, Edwin and Morcar took possession of many estates formerly held by their mother and grandmother.44

and western shires (DB, 1, fols. 177b. 23 Ib, 239b, 244, 247b, 248, 248b, 249b, 250, 254, 256, 257, 257b, 258, 269b, 273, 280b, and 282b). 41 Newark and its berewicks at Balderton, where Godgifu held sokelands and demesne land, and Farndon were assessed at slightly more than seven hides and valued at £50 (DB, 1, fol. 283b). To this manor belonged the king's custom as the chief manor of the wapentake (DB, 1, fol. 280b). The soke of Newark also included 56 burgesses living in surrounding towns (DB, 1, fol. 283b), an obvious indication of the importance of this location in the landscape of northern Mercia and of extensive soke rights over some 16 villages, which supported 170 sokemen with about 10 hides. 42 For the confused state of political affairs in the last years of the Confessor's reign, see Eric John, 'Edward the Confessor and the Norman Conquest,' EHR 171 (1979): 241-67. 43 The Mercian position improved for a time when /Elfgar's son Eadwin obtained the Mercian earldom, and when in 1065, the Northumbrians having rebelled against Tostig, ^Elfgar's youngest son Morcar became their earl with Harold Godwinson's acquiescence. See Stafford, Unification and Conquest, 176. 44 For example, a charter of Burton Abbey records that Earl Morcar had given the abbot an estate at Coton-in-the-Elms, Derbyshire (Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1, ed. H.W.C. Davis [London, 1913], no. 223, and see Sawyer, no. 484). After the Conquest, the estate fell into King William's hands. The manor was restored to its rightful possessor only when the king made an appearance at Burton a few years later. But his grant was made de novo without any reference to Morcar's gift - a significant omission not without political implications for the 1070s - and the land was to be held 'as the mother of Earl Morcar best held it.' ^Ifgifu, the wife of Earl ^ilfgar and the mother of Earls Morcar and Edwin, is listed in DB as having exercised sake and soke elsewhere in Derbyshire before the Conquest (DB, 1, fol. 280b), but not as having possessed an estate as demesne. Since ^Elfgar held two carucates at Coton-

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Like her contemporary Godgifu, Gytha, the wife of Earl Godwine,45 held estates within the boundaries of the earldoms controlled by her family. How much land she held prior to her husband's death in 1053 is a matter of speculation,46 but by 1066 she held well over 400 hides of land,47 a massive estate that was second among female landholders only to her daughter, Queen Eadgyth. Besides Gytha's dower lands and other estates she received from Earl Godwine, manors such as Harting and Trotton in Sussex were held directly from the king T.R.E.48 The great value of these estates indicates that they were part of that stock of land used to endow the earls of Wessex, but which was often treated as hereditary property in mid-eleventh century England. Although Gytha perhaps obtained them before the death of the old man, it is more likely that she received the estates after 1053.49 It was assuredly after Godwine's death that Gytha received King's Brompton, Somerset50 and several valuable estates in Devon, a shire in which she held five 'hundred-manors' that served as locations for the hundred court and collection points for fines and geld.51 Nothing in the Anglo-Saxon law

in-the-Elms according to DB (1, fol. 273), it is reasonable to assume that jElfgifu received the estate on his death in 1062. Yet, the Winchester scribes fail to record the fact. See also, Stafford, Unification and Conquest, 176. 45 Godwine's father Wulfnoth, a prominent West Saxon thegn, probably took service with Thorkell the Tall in about 1010. (See Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, MSS. E and F, a. 1009.) If his son had the same political inclinations and lack of scruples, this would account in part for his meteoric rise in the service of Cnut, who bestowed the earldom of Wessex on the young man in the 1020s. Yet Godwine's marriage to Gytha was of considerable political advantage to him since she was the sister of Danish earls Eilifr and Ulf, who was married to King Cnut's sister. 46 DB does provide some evidence of Gytha's estate prior to the death of her husband, whereby she held 'of the earl' Chaddleworth, Berkshire; Woodchester, Gloucestershire; Over Wallop, Hampshire; Wroxall, Isle of Wight, and Mundham, Sussex (DB, 1, fols. 24, 38b, 39b, 59b, and 164). These estates may have been given to her as early as her betrothal in the 1020s, but it is more likely that she received them at a later date when Godwine's political fortunes had risen higher. That Gytha held some estates prior to her husband's exile is apparent from an entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (MS. C, a. 1052) which records that upon Godwine's restoration she received back her lands as 'fully and completely as [she] had ever possessed [them].' Gytha's daughter Queen Eadgyth also was dispossessed of her property during the chaos of 1051-52. When Godwine and his wife and sons went into exile, King Edward packed off the queen to the nunnery at Wherwell and committed her to the care of his sister who was the abbess at the time. (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, MSS. D and E, a. 1051). 47 Gytha held 32 estates in 10 shires throughout the south of England as well as burghal property in Chichester and Winchester (DB, 1, fols. 23, 24, 27, 28b, 34, 38b, 39b, 59b, 65, 75b, 78b, 87, 93, 93b-94, 94, 96, 96b, 97-97b, 97b, 98, 103, and see the 'Exeter Domesday,' fols. 194b-195). 48 DB, 1, fol. 23. 49 A similar circumstance involving Gytha's pre-Conquest manors of Bleadon and Crowcombe in Somerset is illustrated by a passage from the Winchester Annals (Annales Monastici, 2, ed. Henry Richards Luard [London, 1865], 26). 50 Gytha herself received the third-penny of Milverton at King's Brompton (DB, 1, fol. 103). 51 These estates were South Tawton, Hartland, Tiverton, Werrington, and Witheridge (DB,

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of customary inheritance of real property can support the conclusion that she received her massive estate because she negotiated a good marriage contract, was a dutiful wife, or that she bore such fine Christian children. That Gytha held some valuable and politically important manors in most West Saxon shires suggests other motives should be attributed to her kinsmen and the king for permitting her to control such a large estate. Earl Harold's strongest supporter in Wessex was Gytha, whose massive holdings gave her the authority and influence to help forestall a repeat of past events. The thegns of England together wielded considerable political clout: Godwine's abortive rebellion, exile, and final reinstatement by King Edward in 1052 testifies to this fact. With his mother so firmly entrenched in the southwest and other loyal family members spread throughout England to control the lesser nobles of the kingdom, Earl Harold might think of not simply being the power behind the throne, but of taking the crown for himself. Harold's own estates were spread throughout England; yet as energetic as he undoubtedly was, loyal supporters were vital to whatever he was planning. He had not held the East Anglian earldom since 1053; Norfolk and Suffolk eventually went to Gyrth, and Essex with a few other eastern shires descended to Leofwine. Loyal brothers they were. Yet, the difficulties that had arisen earlier because of the roguish behavior of his brother Swegn (d. 1053) and Harold's own problems with Tostig in Northumbria, suggested to the future king of England that relying on his male kindred (not to mention his sister the queen) could be a mistake. Not only Gytha but also Eadgifu pulchra became invaluable allies. Throughout the Confessor's reign, Eadgifu was one of Harold's most loyal and powerful supporters and a woman not to be treated in a cavalier manner. Unfortunately not much is known about this mysterious woman,52 but she was

1, fols. 93, 93b-94, 96, and 98). Gytha's manor at South Tawton, for example, was assessed at three hides and one virgate, yet supported 50 ploughlands and was valued at £48 (DB, 1, fol. 93). This is an obvious case of beneficial hidation; and when other manors are detailed it is clear that Gytha's landed estate is actually more impressive than the DB statistics would indicate. Furthermore, many of Gytha's manors, such as Tiverton and Aldbourne, Wiltshire, were associated with the West Saxon royal demesne or the lands of the old ealdormen of Wessex. (See, for example, Sawyer, nos. 1485 and 1507, the latter being the will of King Alfred.) 52 Harold can be linked to Eadgifu as early as his tenure as earl of East Anglia during the late 1040s. She is also known as dives, fair a and bella. (See The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book, ed. Olof von Feilitzen [Uppsala, 1937], esp. 229, n. 5.) Although this woman is not that Alueua uxor Haraldi who held Tyringham in Buckinghamshire (DB, 1, fol. 149), she may be a certain 'Eadgyth Swanneshals' mentioned by some later chroniclers and/or that Eadgyth whose donation of Thurgarton, Norfolk, to St. Benet's of Holm was confirmed by King Edward sometime between 1044 and 1047 (Sawyer, no. 1055). Freeman, in Norman Conquest, 3, appendix RR, 791, rightly suggests that the names 'Eadgifu' and 'Eadgyth' are hopelessly confounded by later writers. Yet he goes on to suggest that his 'Eadgyth was clearly a Norfolk woman,' citing as evidence the aforementioned donation to St. Benet's. Since Eadgifu pulchra did not hold in Norfolk according to DB, the conclusion

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seemingly influential and wealthy in her own right apart from her status as the great earl's concubine,53 or more properly his 'Danish' wife. The history of Eadgifu's lands is difficult to reconstruct, but by 1066, she held slightly less than 300 hides of land throughout seven shires (not including some burghal property in Canterbury) with an assessed value of around £400. Her holdings are characterized by extensive aggregate soke and personal commendation extending over many people in nearly 75 village communities as well as by intensive demesne exploitation.54 Domesday Book is suggestive of the fact that many of her estates came by way of her own position and status. Leaving other considerations aside, the geographic distribution of her manors and sokelands in the East Riding of Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire indicates that all were not necessarily obtained through Harold's patronage.55 Eadgifu's Cambridgeshire estates were located in the southern part of that shire and some of them were undoubtedly obtained for her by Harold. Her demesne holdings were assessed at roughly 133 hides and valued at about £225. (She, in fact, succeeded to several manors once held by Thurstan, the husband of ^Ethelgyth.) Her rights of soke and commendation ranged over 35 villages in this shire.56 It is highly probable that Earl Harold helped to secure for Eadgifu many important estates in Cambridgeshire as well as in East Anglia and Wessex. With no ostensible ties with Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire, Eadgifu held a number of estates in these shires in which Harold was a prominent landholder.57 Her properties in East Anglia and Essex also point to a close affiliation with

that Eadgifu pulchra and Eadgyth Swanneshals are one and the same person awaits further evidence. Regardless, in the course of a long relationship, Eadgifu pulchra bore Harold six children, including Godwine, Edmund, Magnus, Ulf, Gytha - who married Waldemar, king of Novgorod - and Gunhildr, who was a nun of Wilton. See Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a. 1068 and 1087. 53 See, for example, DB 1, fol. 137, along with Searle's interesting discussion concerning Eadgifu's daughter Gunhildr in 'Women and the Legitimisation of Succession,' 166-69, and Fell, Women in Anglo-Saxon England, 97. On concubinage in general, see Margaret Clunies Ross, 'Concubinage in Anglo-Saxon England,' Past and Present 108 (1985): 3-34. 54 For Eadgifu's estates in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, see infra n. 55; in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, infra, n. 57; and in Essex, infra, n. 58. For her other DB estates, see vol. 1, fols. 2, 148b, 189b, 193, 193b-194, 194, 194b-195, 195b, 196b, 198, 198, 199, 199b, 200, 200b, 201, 201b; and vol. 2, fols. 284b, 285, 286, 295, 295b, 296, 300, 303b, and 410. 55 For Eadgifu's Lincolnshire holdings, see DB, 1, fols. 353 and 363. Of her three manors there, Denton (DB, 1, fol. 353) was possibly obtained for her through Harold. Eadgifu's estates in Yarborough and Bradley wapentakes exhibit a geographic continuity with her East Riding ones and perhaps formed part of a family inheritance. For Eadgifu's Yorkshire estates in Hessle wapentake and to which Ralph de Mortimer succeeded after the Conquest, see DB, 1, fols. 306b, 325, 325/325b, 325b, and 373. Incidently, Eadgifu pulchra s estates in Lincolnshire must be distinguished from those of Eadgifu, the widow of Tope, whose lands were valued at about £14 T.R.E. (DB, 1, fols. 362 and 362b). 56 See supra, n. 54. 57 DB, 1, fols. 134, 137, 140b, 14 Ib, 144, 146b, and 152.

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Harold's lands. Eadgifu's estate at Great Sampford, Essex was given to her by him during his tenure as earl.58 In Bergholt, Suffolk, for example, 'King' Harold held 13 hides at the time of his death. Eadgifu held nothing in Bergholt itself, but he administered the soke of 15 manors from there.59 That personal commendation and socage was tied to the land and that it was not simply a loose bond between people indicates the significant position Eadgifu pulchra held. Also located in Suffolk was Norton, which was held by 'a certain free woman Eadgifu' from the abbot of Bury St. Edmund's.60 That this 'Eadgifu' and Eadgifu pulchra are one and the same woman is likely because Ashbocking and a few other sokelands under her control rendered £4 to the farm at Norton.61 Like Gytha, Eadgifu was a staunch supporter of Harold's schemes during the last years of the Confessor's life. It appears then that Earl Harold desired to consolidate his power and influence in much the same way and perhaps for many of the same reasons as the kings had done throughout the tenth and early eleventh centuries. Harold accomplished this in part by endowing a few kinswomen notably Eadgifu and his mother - with landed estates more extensive than what one would determine as customary and necessary. The accumulation of large estates by a few women of the great eorlisc families enhanced the public authority and private power and influence of such women. Yet, as a summary analysis of Domesday Book demonstrates, the economic and social status of women generally remained unaffected by various trends and developments characteristic of eleventh-century England. Those few women associated with the more ambitious house of Godwine, whose collective memory of the events of 1051-52 was still very much alive in the 1060s, benefited the most from the accumulation of massive estates. The earls were thus placed in a better position to face the strife, dissention, and uncertainty of the period. Although the more prominent thegns of the realm still influenced the course of events and the king still exercised considerable power and influence, the balance of political power had been tipped in favor of the earls through their powers of patronage and their political acumen. Harold, the most able son of Godwine, in particular succeeded in seizing real political power. He allowed his kinswomen and Eadgifu pulchra to maintain and control estates much larger than would traditionally have accrued to such women through their marriage agreements and

58

A good indication of this is that King William was her successor there (DB, 2, fol. 7b). In her other manors and sokelands in Essex Count Alan held in Eadgifu's place after the Conquest (ibid., fols. 35 and 35b). For her other post-Conquest successors, see J.R. Boyle, 'Who was Eddeva?', Transactions of the East Riding Antiquarian Society 4 (1896): 11-22. 59 The soke included land at Bournethall, Wherstead, Holbrook, Bently, Pannington, Kalewelton, Canapetuna, Bayton, Brantham, Wenham, Dodnash in Bentley, Brantham Parva, Woolverston, Gusford in Belstead, and Harkstead. See DB, 2, fols. 295, 295b, and 303b. 60 Ibid., fol. 286. 61 Ibid., fol. 285.

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the customary laws of women's inheritance of real property. Yet this political ploy obviously had less than the desired effect. England had a new king by the end of 1066. In the following year Gytha and many other Anglo-Saxon wives (presumably widows) escaped from Exeter to the Island of Flatholme and then sought refuge at St. Omer.62 Many noblewomen undoubtedly thought it politic to leave William the Conqueror's England, while others remained and tried to make good claim to their 'widow's portion.' Berry College Appendix An Analysis of Women's Domesday Book Estates, T.R.E. Table 1 ('Women's Rural Estates T.R.E.,' supra, 114) is based on an analysis of both 'Exchequer' (1) and 'Little' (2) Domesday Book. Various satellite surveys have been used as well. For the purpose of this essay relative to comparative statistics derived from the research tabulated here, I have used The Domesday Geography of England, ed. H.C. Darby, 6 vols. (Cambridge, 1952-). This indispensable work is heavily statistical in design and is organised according to the shire circuits of Domesday Book.63 Although the problems associated with the interpretation of Domesday Book require a more elaborate treatment than is provided here, a few remarks regarding

62

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, MS. D, a. 1067. I have used this series for shire statistics such as total hide assessment and numbers of ploughlands and ploughteams. Other valuable works include Adolphus Ballard, The Domesday Inquest (London, 1906; rev. ed., 1923); Henry A. Ellis, A General Introduction to Domesday Book, 2 vols. (London, 1816); R. Welldon Finn, An Introduction to Domesday Book (London, 1963) and his The Domesday Book: A Guide (London, 1973); and The Domesday Book, ed. Thomas Hinde, (New York, 1985). Relative to the interpretation of Domesday materials, in addition to the two classical treatments of such as found in J.H. Round, Feudal England (London, 1895) and F.W. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond (Cambridge, 1897), see the more recent and interesting scholarship presented in Domesday Studies, ed. J.C. Holt (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1987). For a comprehensive bibliography of DB studies, see David Bates, A Bibliography of Domesday Book (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1985). Regarding access to the DB text itself, in addition to the Farley and Ellis edition (supra, n. 6), which has been photographically reproduced with a translation (which must be used with caution) by the Phillimore Press under the general editorship of John Morris, the most accessible translations with valuable commentary are found in relevant volumes of the VCH. A general introduction to this series, which began publication at the turn of the century, can be found in Ralph Bernard Pugh, The Victoria History of the Counties of England: General Introduction, The Institute of Historical Research (Oxford, 1970). This volume includes not only a general introduction, but also author and title indexes and a listing of contents of each volume. Perhaps the state of the art in DB reproduction, with valuable accompanying materials, is the five-part Alecto Historical Editions production, under the general editorship of Robert Erskine. 63

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the difficulties of analysis and how the information in the table was obtained is appropriate. Identifying a tenant as female is one such problem. Since masculine and feminine nouns often coalesce in Domesday Latin,64 determining gender often depends on chance references made by a scribe.65 Furthermore, the limited variety of Anglo-Saxon female names, particularly among the nobility and royal family, compounds the problem of individual identification. Fortunately, Domesday Book is fairly consistent in recording the same Latin form for an Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian name within single shires. Ultimately the process of identifying individual women,66 and determining the configurations of their estates is based upon: 1. Orthographic and linguistic evidence from Domesday Book entries; 2. Brief descriptions of individual women in the main texts, with additional information from satellite surveys when it is available; 3. The relationship between pre-Conquest tenants-in-chief and sub-tenants specified in separate Domesday entries;

64

Scribes usually were careful to preserve Old English suffixes of proper names, although they do appear in Latinized form. The more common Old English suffixes are easily identifiable: -flced becomes - flet or -fled; -wynn is usually rendered -wen as distinct from the Old English masculine form -wine which appears as -win in Domesday Book; and, -gifu is variously recorded as -gieue. -geuet, -geue, -iue, -efa, -eiua, and -euia, but not as -ded, -did, -iua, -dit or -diet. This suffix is, however, sometimes dropped altogether. (For 'Goda,' see infra, n. 65.) The sundry Latin forms of -gifu, as with feminine suffixes such as -swith, -run, and -warn, do not present a problem in determining gender because these do not - or cannot - assume masculine forms in DB. Such feminine suffixes provide the same degree of certainty as names that are exclusively feminine. Some Latinized feminine names do, however, present major difficulties. The Old English masculine '^Elfgeat' and the feminine 'jElfgyth' both appear as 'Aluiet,' 'Aluied,' 'Alued,' or 'Aluuid.' 'jCthelgeat' and '^thelgyth,' since they contain the same suffices, are similarly ambiguous when transcribed into Latin as are 'Wulfgeat' and 'Wulfgyth' and 'Ealdgeat' and 'Ealdgyth.' 65 See, for example, DB, 1, fols. 193, 193b, and 198 for entries for a certain 'Goda.' This name can be either masculine or feminine. Out of the some 100 instances in DB in which 'Goda' appears as the pre-Conquest tenant of an estate, 32 can be identified as male while 55 are female, most of which refer to Godgifu, the sister of Edward the Confessor (for which see, supra, n. 16). The remaining instances are ambiguous as to gender owing to the lack of corroborative evidence. There are a few works that do, however, provide some technical assistance in the process of identification. See in particular, Die altenglischen Frauennamen, ed. Maria Boehler, in Germanische Studien 98 (Berlin, 1930; repr. ed., Nendeln/Liechtenstein, 1967); von Feilitzen, Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book', Helen Kokeritz, 'Notes on the Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book,' Namm och bygd 26 (1938): 25-41; Henry Bosely Woolf, The Naming of Women in Old English Times,' Modern Philology 36 (1938): 113-20; Cecily Clark, 'Women's Names in Post-Conquest England: Observations and Speculations,' Speculum 53 (1978): 223-51; and, J. McN. Dodgson, 'Domesday Book: Place-Names and Personal Names,' in Domesday Studies, 121-38. 66 Von Feilitzen, Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book, does not systematically segregate individuals of the same name.

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4. A woman's post-Conquest successor; 5. Geographic location and size of individual manors; and 6. The history of an estate during the Anglo-Saxon and occasionally the Anglo-Norman period.

The record of tenants-in-chief in Domesday Book is also occasionally inaccurate for the year in which King Edward died. Mistakes and omissions in the 'Exchequer' Domesday are not always unintentional either. The Winchester scribes, anxious to reduce to manageable form the massive returns from shire and hundred circuits, excluded much material from the final draft of the Great Survey. What inaccuracies and inconsistencies can be found are not very widespread. Yet one of the most conspicuous is the record of a tenant as holding land T.R.E. who actually predeceased King Edward.67 Omissions in the 'Exchequer' Domesday are not always unintentional. Winchester scribes made little or no effort to distinguish between men and women among servile and manorial populations.68 Regarding the manorial peasantry, the absence of such detail causes a distortion in the amount of land held by this category of female landholder; but this does not affect to a significant extent the general statistical information relevant to the Anglo-Saxon nobility and their holdings. For example, in the Feudal Book of Abbot Baldwin of Bury St. Edmunds,69 admittedly a late eleventh-century source, out of approximately 5,000 acres recorded as held by free peasants in a number of hundreds in Suffolk, 470 acres were held by women, which account for roughly 9.5 per cent of the land.70 This is somewhat incommensurate with the finds from 'Little' Domesday Book, wherein women held only about 4 per cent of all land and 4.7 per cent of lay land.71 This discrepancy is not altogether discouraging, however, when it is considered that women holding over five hides controlled about 69 per cent of all land held by women in the three shires of 'Little' Domesday. This tallies

67

This problem is particularly acute with regards to Godgifu, the sister of King Edward, who died c. 1047, but is listed as holding many estates T.R.E. 68 According to Ellis, in Introduction to Domesday Book (2: 511), slightly more than 25,500 servi are entered in the Great Survey, and only 467 of these are described as ancillae - an obviously low figure. 69 Feudal Documents from the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, ed. David C. Douglas (London, 1932), 25^4. Abbot Baldwin's survey deserves comparison to the twelfth-century Shaftesbury Abbey surveys, found in London, British Library, MS. Harley 61. 70 I have not included in the computation of this percentage the 23 acres held jointly by women and men on the 30 estates referred to in the survey. Yet this would raise the total a mere 0.5 percent. 71 Women with one hide or less, or Classes VI and VII, are the easiest to compare to the women on the Bury estates. In DB, they controlled less than 0.5 per cent of the total hide assessment for East Anglia and Essex. This figure would in fact be reduced significantly for women holding less than one virgate or two bovates in those shires.

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with the overall figures of both volumes of the text, and it becomes apparent that Domesday Book does accurately describe the estates or parcels of land held by both men and women - at least among the upper classes. Regardless of the technology employed when dealing with Domesday Book, it remains an uncooperative source. In all fairness to the Normans, however, the Anglo-Saxon charters, wills, and writs can be equally as uncompromising and unkind. Yet no other kingdom in Western Europe produced anything comparable to Domesday Book in sophistication, complexity and comprehensiveness.

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9 The Boethian Anselm Suzanne J. Nelis

The major task of this essay is to give an analysis of the first part of St. Anselm's famous ontological argument according to the propositional forms found in specifically Boethian logic. The analysis will be followed by a few suggestions as to why it is to be preferred to other interpretations. A much expanded and more adequate version of this analysis lies at the heart of my dissertation, which seeks to provide an interpretation of Anselm's early work through the context of that new curriculum in logic which came into use in the course of the eleventh century.] In a previous essay I have suggested that the early arrival at Bee of this new, Boethian dialectic - including his monograph on the hypothetical syllogism may have spelled the difference between what Lanfranc taught and what Anselm learned, as well as account in part for their differing approach to theological argumentation.2 It is the aim of this essay to show how a particular propositional form, whose only original provenance can be the Boethian monograph on the hypothetical syllogism, both forms from within and generates that part of the ontological argument found in Proslogion 2. Because of limited space, I cannot deal here with how Proslogion 2 relates to chapters 3 and 4, nor indeed how the so-called ontological argument relates to the rest of the Proslogion. This new approach to the ontological argument through the Boethian logic proceeds by way of discerning the presence of certain hypothetical forms within the content of chapter 2. Anselm is in fact working with syllogisms, but he is careful to disguise the fact in order not to make an unseemly display of his expertise in dialectic. Anselm succeeded so well that when R.W. Southern, in 1948 and again in 1963, wrote that Anselm used a logic of equipollent propositions instead of syllogistic logic, most subsequent scholars simply acquiesced in this judgement.3

1

'St. Anselm and Boethian Dialectic,' (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1992), chap. 3. 'What Lanfranc Taught, What Anselm Learned,' ante 2: 75-82. 3 R.W. Southern, 'Lanfranc of Bee and Berengar of Tours' in Studies in Medieval History Presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke, eds. R.W. Hunt, W.A. Pantin, and R.W. Southern 2

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Modern attempts to give a logical analysis of the argument do so from the point of view of twentieth century logic. This is because the analysts are trying to assess its validity. The preference of Hartshorne and Malcolm for that part of the argument in Proslogion 3 is based I believe on the modern look of the modal logic involved.4 The interesting analysis of Proslogion 2 by Gombocz is based on the new Polish logic of existential predicates.5 No one to my knowledge has done the sensible thing, however, which is to look at the argument from the point of view of early medieval inference schemes;6 and I find this fact entirely consistent with a complete lack of agreement when it comes to specifying exactly what the argument is, either formally or informally. That is to say, nobody has been able even to reproduce the argument, to anyone else's satisfaction. My contention is that if one looks at the specifically Boethian Anselm, one will be able properly to recapitulate the argument in Proslogion 2 and then to make a correct judgement on its validity. First, a word on terms used in this essay. When I say 'argument form' I mean my concentration of Anselm's words into a formal argument. The term 'logical form' will then refer to the translation of the argument form, which was in words, into standard logical notation, with 'p', 'q', and V indicating prepositional variables. The expression 'prepositional form' will indicate either the words or the logical notation of a single proposition. Finally 'inference scheme' means the formal progression of an argument form (or logical form) from premises to conclusion. In hypothetical logic the inference scheme involves the relation of propositions to each other in a valid sequence;

(London, 1948), 42. Southern's example of the use of equipollent propositions is taken from Anselm's dialogue De veritate. He notes that aequipollentespropositions is a term not found in Boethius. See also R.W. Southern, St. Anselm and His Biographer (London, 1963), 23ff. That Anselm's logic extends well beyond the equipollent propositions used by Lanfranc is, of course, brought out by D.P. Henry. See infra, nn. 5 and 6. 4 See Charles Hartshorne, 'The Irreducibly Moral Structures of the Argument' reprinted from Charles Hartshorne, The Logic of Perfection, (La Salle, 1962), 49-57, in The Many-Faced Argument, eds. John Hick and Arthur C. McGill (New York, 1967), 334-40. For a critique of Hartshorne's formalization of Proslogion 3's modal logic, see John Hick, 'Ontological Argument for the Existence of God' in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy 5, ed. Paul Edwards (New York, 1967), 538-42. 5 See Wolfgang L. Gombocz, Uber El: Zur Semantik des Existenzprddikates und des ontologishen Argumentes fur Gottes Existenz von Anselm von Canterbury (Wien, 1974). See also Desmond P. Henry, The Logic of St. Anselm (Oxford, 1967), 247-49, for a brief application of Lesniewski's logic to the problem of identity in Anselm's Epistle on the Incarnation. 6 See Henry, Logic, v, where he makes it clear that he wants to include 'Boethian starting points' and finds 'a thorough acquaintance with the doctrines of Boethius' necessary for understanding Anselm's logic. Though Henry cites a whole set of inferential forms used by Anselm (pp. 240-46), he does not use them in his earlier article 'The Proslogion Proofs' (Philosophical Quarterly 5 [1955]: 147-51). Nor does Henry rule on whether Anselm knew the Boethian monograph on the hypothetical syllogism. See Logic, 242ff. On use of Boethian prepositional forms by Anselm, see also infra, n. 20.

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it is therefore unlike term or categorical logic which involves the propriety of connections between terms.7 The proper discernment of the argument form in chapter 2 is the key to understanding the ontological argument. Without going through all the steps by which this form became apparent to me, I will simply reproduce my version of the argument form, then show it in logical notation, and finally analyze it according to what was available to Anselm through the Boethian logic. I believe that excluding the material about the painting in the mind and the painting in actuality (which I, like Anselm himself, consider merely an illustration), the content of Proslogion 2 may be arranged according to the following argument form: 1. Either that than which a greater cannot be thought exists in the mind only, or it exists both in the mind and in reality. 2. If that than which a greater cannot be thought exists in the mind only, then it does not exist both in mind and in reality; and if that than which a greater cannot be thought does not exist both in mind and in reality, then that than which a greater cannot be thought is that than which a greater can be thought. 3. But this is impossible. 4. Thus it is not the case that that than which a greater cannot be thought exists in the mind only. 5. Therefore, that than which a greater cannot be thought exists both in mind and reality. The key for the variables is: p That than which . . . exists in the mind only q That than which . . . exists both in mind and in reality

7

Though twentieth-century prepositional logic both incorporated and surpassed the Aristotelian syllogistic, a logic of terms, the radical difference between the two is still not well understood. An informative footnote on 'The irreducibility of the proposition to its parts (concepts)' is found in Rulon Wells, 'Distinctively Human Semiotic' in Essays in Semiotics, ed. Julia Kristeva (Paris, 1971), 101-2. Whether Boethius preferred hypothetical to term logic is a point at issue between Berka and Colish. See Karel Berka, 'Die Semantik des Boethius,' Helikon 8 (1968): 456: 'Er schatzt die hypothetischen Aussagen und Schliisse hoher als die kategorischen, da sie einen weiteren Wirkungsbereich haben.' Colish believes that Boethius preferred term logic. Whatever the ruling on this point, Colish is quite correct in showing Boethius's relentless attempts to turn hypothetical into term logic. See Marcia L. Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, 2 (Leiden, 1985), 276-79. Over all, I find that her major concern, to distinguish and relate Stoic to Aristotelian influences, is disruptive to her construing of Boethian logic. The fact to keep in mind here is that the confusion between term and propositional logic is enhanced by Boethius's treatment and will have fatal consequences for the validity of the argument in Proslogion 2.

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r [a and not-a] a That than which a greater cannot be thought It is important to note that prepositional variable 'r' in this notation consists of, or is equivalent to, the simultaneous affirmation and denial of the term variable 'a'; that is, 'r' signifies That than which a greater cannot be thought is that than which a greater can be thought'. As we shall see, this equivalence constitutes the sticking point for the validity of the argument. Having given the argument form in words, and identified what the prepositional variables stand for, the logical form of chapter 2's argument is rendered thus: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

pvq pz)~q»~qz)r ~r ~p q

This logical form consists of an 'outer' form, which is steps 1, 4, and 5, and an 'inner' form consisting of steps 2, 3, and 4. The outer form is that identified everywhere in early medieval logic, and not just in Boethius, as the fifth Stoic indemonstrable.8 It consists of an inference scheme which is valid only if it is assumed that if one of the two disjuncts or alternatives is true, the other must be false, and vice-versa. The form is therefore called an exclusive disjunction. In the logical form presented above, when the disjunct 'p' is denied in step 4, then 'q' must be affirmed when the alternatives are mutually exclusive. In words, if it can be proved that that than which a greater cannot be thought does not exist in the mind only, then it must exist both in mind and reality. This decision is based on how the premises are set up and on the inference scheme attached to the exclusive disjunction articulated in step 1.

8

For the provenance and variations in form of the fifth Stoic indemonstrable, see Pierre Hadot, Marius Victorinus (Paris, 1971), 144—56. Hadot's tables indicate that while in the Stoics, Cicero (and therefore in the Boethian commentary on Cicero's Topics) and Capella, the inference scheme for this exclusive disjunction denies the first disjunct in order to conclude to the second; in Victorinus's lost treatise De syllogismis hypotheticis, which is followed by Cassiodorus, it is the second disjunct which is negated in order to conclude to the first. Anselm follows Boethius, Cicero, and Capella. The discrepancy seems to arise from the fact that in the earliest sources, the example (in words) does not fit the schema; it is however the schema: Either the first or the second Not the first Therefore the second which negates the first disjunct. See Benson Mates, Stoic Logic (Berkeley, 1973), 73.

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The 'outer' form of the argument is thus represented in an inference scheme of its own: 'pvq, ~p, therefore q'. Steps 2 and 3 likewise comprise an inference scheme whose conclusion is step 4: 'It is not the case that that than which a greater cannot be thought exists in the mind only'. In fact, what is represented as '~p' in the argument form appears in Anselm's own words: And surely that than which a greater cannot be thought cannot exist in the mind alone. ['Et certe id quo maius cogitari nequit, non potest esse in solo intellectu.']9

Step 4 thus does double duty. On the one hand it represents the conclusion of the 'inner' argument form, and on the other hand it represents the denial of one of the disjuncts of the 'outer' form, such that a valid conclusion to the other [exclusive] disjunct may be drawn in step 5. The interior inference scheme consisting of steps 2-4 is based on the complex prepositional form represented in step 2: 'pz>~q»~qz)r'. Unlike the form of the fifth Stoic indemonstrable, step 2's prepositional form originates only among the endless elaboration of such forms and their attendant inference schemes in the Boethian monograph 'On the Hypothetical Syllogism.' This fact alone helps provide the internal evidence needed to postulate the availability at Bee of a partial curriculum in Boethian dialectic - that curriculum found in item no. 157 of the larger of the two twelfth-century library lists from Bee recorded in the Becker catalogue. It also strengthens the position from the former essay referred to above that the reference to 'dialectice ///' in that list is to the Boethian monograph on the hypothetical syllogism.10 Unfortunately, the evidence is not quite conclusive, since there is one other place besides the Boethian monograph that Anselm could have come across this complex prepositional form: Abbo of Fleury's Enodatio or explanation of categorical and hypothetical syllogism. l! Be that as it may, steps 2-4 comprising the 'inner' argument form represents a modus toll ens inference scheme in which the denial of the terminal consequent 'r' leads to the valid conclusion '~p',

9

The passage is from Charlesworth's translation, but reproduced without his annoying and unhelpful dashes ('that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought'). St. Anselm's Proslogion, trans, with intro. and comm. by M.J. Charlesworth (Notre Dame, 1979), 117. It is important to note that while this sentence constitutes the second premise of the fifth Stoic indemonstrable, 'It is not the case that that than which . . . exists in the mind only,' the conclusion to this inference scheme also occurs virtually in Anselm's own words; it is the concluding sentence of Proslogion 2: Therefore, there is absolutely no doubt that something than which a greater cannot be thought exists both in mind and reality. (Ibid., 117.) From this conclusion, stated as such by Anselm himself, and from the second premise given above, one can confidently infer the implicit, but real, opening premise as the statement of the exclusive disjunction. 10 Supra, n. 2. 11 A. Van de Vyver, Abbonis Floriacensis opera inedita i, Syllogismorum categoricorum et hyptheticorum Enodatio (Brugge, 1966); hereafter cited as, Enodatio.

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which is the negation of the initial antecedent. Again, in symbols the inner logical form is: 2. pz>~q»~qz>r 3. ~r 4. ~p The complex propositional form (step 2) which informs the ontological argument in Proslogion 2 appears identically in our two modern sources for the Boethian monograph - Migne's Patrologia Latina (vol. 64, col. 856A [line 1]), and Obertello's edition of this monograph Boezio: De hypotheticis syllogismis (Brescia, 1969, 302 [IX, 1, line 18]). In each case, the Boethian propositional form is:

Si est a non est b, et si non est b, est c12 The modus tollens inference scheme, using this propositional form as initial premise, is also available from these two sources.13 In his version of the same material, Abbo of Fleury combines the propositional form for our step 2 with both modus ponens and modus tollens inference schemes, while at the same time inserting word translations among the variables.14 This arrangement can be found in Van de Vyver's edition of Abbo's work (HI, p. 72 op. cit. of infra, n. 11). In short, the inference scheme and the complex propositional form on which it is based is a viable piece of medieval dialectic, no matter how awkward the argument using it sounds to us today. The final piece of evidence concerning the viability and use of this complex propositional form may be found in an argument Boethius himself devises in one of his theological tractates for proving that goods are good in themselves. The argument form in the Boethian work (see infra, n. 15) is the spitting image of the argument in Proslogion 2, down to the fact that its 'outer' form is also that of the fifth Stoic indemonstrable, while its 'inner' form is, as in Anselm,

12

PL, 64, hereafter cited as PL 64, followed by column number and ABCD location. Boezio: De hypotheticis syllogismis, ed. with trans., notes and comm. by Luca Obertello (Brescia, 1969), 302. 13 The MT (modus tollens) inference schemes applied to the eight 'modes' of our compound proposition begin at PL 64, 858B. Boethius adds examples in words primarily to demonstrate the invalid conclusions for MP (modus ponens) and MT when the antecedent is denied, or the consequent affirmed, respectively. Examples for MP begin at 856D. When the MT scheme appears for the third 'mode' ('si est a non est b, et si non est b necesse est esse c'), the example attached in the Migne edition (858C) does not fit the case. The Obertello edition therefore (p. 314) simply deletes the example. 14 'Si homo est A, non est insensible B et si non est B, animatum est C. Atqui est A. Est igitur C. vel ita: Atqui non est C. Non est igitur A.'

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a modus tollens inference attached to an almost identical prepositional form.15 My point in alluding to the similarity of these arguments is not that Anselm knew the Boethian theological tractate, though he might have. It is rather that the prepositional and argument forms themselves were painstakingly committed to memory by those who cared to do so; they subsequently reappeared as the logical structure of these men's discourse, no matter what the subject. Since no agreement has ever been reached about the content, nature or form of the ontological argument, I dare not hope that this particular analysis will prove decisive. Indeed, in my dissertation I offer a second analysis, one which takes into account the painting illustration, based on another type of Boethian dialectic.16 On the other hand, I can at least offer some reasons why it might make sense to interpret the argument in the way just described. First of all, it just makes sense to try to understand Anselm's argumentation through the dialectical forms of his day. Secondly, the reconstruction offered above is appropriately economical, unlike most other recapitulations of the argument in chapter 2.17 It is the complex form of step 2's compound proposition, together with step 4's double duty as conclusion of one form and second premise of the other form, which allows for a brevity concomitant with Anselm's own expression. Thirdly, the substitution in step 2 of a contradiction in terms for the prepositional variable Y is entirely understandable in the context of what Boethius was doing in the logic of his monograph, for he consistently tried to transform hypothetical logic into categorical or term logic.18 At the same time, this

15 The Boethian argument in Qitornodo substantiae for the fact that goods are substantially good (good in themselves) takes place immediately after his list of nine axioms. See Boethius: The Theological Tractates, trans. H.F. Stewart and E.K. Rand (New York, 1926), 43, 11. 56-68. The argument can be reproduced according to this form: 1. Either goods are good by participation, or they are good in themselves. 2. Goods tend to the good. (Axiom) 3. If goods are good by participation, they are not good in themselves; and if they are not good in themselves, they do not tend to the good. 4. But this is impossible, (contradicts axiom) 5. Thus goods are not good by participation. 6. Therefore, goods are good in themselves. The only differences between this and the Anselmian argument form are: a) Boethius has added an axiom as a premise; and b) the terminal consequent in step 3 is negative: it is '~r' rather than 'r'. 16 'St. Anselm and Boethian Dialectic,' chap. 3. 17 Gombocz' formal rendition of Proslogion 2 has 11 steps, not including three 'Voraussetzungen.' See Gombocz, op. cit., 75-76. Campbell's formalization has 25 steps. See Richard Campbell, From Belief to Understanding (Canberra, 1976), 168. La Croix takes chapters 2 and 3 together and creates an extended formal argument, which he claims as valid, with 27 steps. See Richard R La Croix, Proslogion II and III: A Third Interpretation of Anselm's Argument (Leiden, 1972). 99-103. 18 See n. 6 supra, and Colish, 278; also PL 64, 839B, where conditional statements are cast into first, second, and third 'figures' from term logic (the Aristotelian categorical syllogisms).

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substitution of the simultaneous affirmation and denial of the predicate term, That than which a greater cannot be thought', constitutes an illegal move, and helps isolate the point at which the argument goes wrong. Fourthly, it becomes clear from the argument form that Anselm's most famous proposition, 'God is that than which nothing greater can be thought', does not function anywhere in the argument as one of its premises. This means that any recapitulation of the argument with this proposition as a premise is erroneous from this present point of view. My dissertation has a section on what this proposition is in Anselm if not a premise to the argument.19 Fifthly, and going beyond the confines of the argument, interpreting Anselm from the point of view of the Boethian logic helps answer other questions about Anselm as well, such as why he still strikes us as such a unique voice. It is the way he uses the hypothetical, instead of the categorical, logic which makes him unique.20 For one thing, dealing in the relation of propositions instead of the relation of terms tends to bypass questions about the ontological status of universals, for the universals are terms, and terms are featured in term logic. Immediately after Anselm the realist/nominalist debate went into high gear, and immediately before Anselm there was the Berengar controversy which, though apparently centered in grammatical considerations, was still dominated by the substance/subject correlation found in Aristotelian categorical or term logic. In between came Anselm, willing and able to construct a dialectic of doctrines according to the rules of hypothetical logic, the logic of propositions. Finally, through this analysis of Proslogion 2, we are able to get a better sense of the relation in Anselm between faith and reason; for the Anselmian ratio is not

For example, the compound hypothetical proposition 'si est a est b, et si est b est c' is treated as a first figure syllogism for 'b' can be represented as a middle or common term in the following: a=)b bIDc It is the forced conflation or reduction of hypothetical to term logic, as in the above example, which allows Anselm to substitute an internal contradiction of terms (a* ~a) for a proposition signified by the terminal consequent's prepositional variable 'r.' But if propositions are irreducible to their parts or concepts, then what is signified by a propositional variable 'r' cannot be reduced to a contradiction in terms. 19 'St. Anselm and Boethian Dialectic,' chap. 4. 20 G.R. Evans gives the best analysis of what separates Anselm from his younger contemporaries and from the generation which follows him. But she picks up only the fact that Anselm's freedom of expression has to do with not getting sidetracked by questioning the status of his tools - i.e., the arts, and the realist assumptions for universal terms. As for his knowledge of the Boethian monograph on the hypothetical syllogism, she is somewhat self-contradictory. On the one hand: It is far from clear from Anselm's work whether or not he had a working knowledge of the tables of alternative patterns for affirmative and disjunctive propositions. On the other hand, she cites two compound forms from the Boethian monograph as occurring in the Cur Deus homo. See Gillian R. Evans, Anselm and a New Generation (Oxford, 1980), 76, and 176f.

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in essence metaphysical at all. I believe in fact that St. Anselm had no interest in metaphysical questions per se. Instead, the Anselmian ratio is intimately bound up with arguments, the arguments which produce both necessary and fitting reasons for the things he was bound to believe, as baptized Christian and as professed monk. Ratio is internal to his theological expression and structures it through the Boethian dialectical forms. Proslogion 2 is therefore simply one instance among many displaying the Anselmian ratio at work. Yale University

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10

The Role of Law in the Succession to Normandy and England, 1087 Emily Zack Tabuteau

When William the Conqueror died in 1087, he left the duchy of Normandy to his eldest son, Robert Curthose, the kingdom of England to his second son, William Rufus, and a large sum of money to his youngest son, Henry. Relations between the Conqueror and his eldest son had been difficult for ten years or more before the Conqueror died. Robert had rebelled in late 1077 or early 1078. Although father and son were reconciled in 1079, Curthose rebelled again in 1083; and this breach was not healed. William's fatal injury was incurred at Mantes in the course of a campaign against his son's supporters; and at the time of the Conqueror's death, about three weeks later, Robert was still consorting with William's enemies outside the duchy. The two younger sons got on much better with their father. Both were present at the deathbed, although, because the Conqueror sent Rufus off to England to take control of the kingdom, only Henry was present at the very last. The divided succession of 1087 was followed by a period of struggle among the brothers in which Curthose tried several times to take England, first from William II and later from Henry I, while each of his brothers in turn tried to take Normandy from him. The struggle ended only with Henry's victory over Curthose at Tinchebray in 1106, nineteen years after the Conqueror's death.1 The division of 1087, most especially the fact that Robert Curthose did not succeed to the kingdom of England, has understandably been the subject of much comment. Until relatively recently the consensus was that William's resentment of Curthose's disobedience led him to deprive Curthose of whatever he was not legally entitled to inherit. Then, in an elegantly argued and influential

1

For convenient narratives of these events, see: Charles Wendell David, Robert Curthose (Cambridge, MA, 1920), passim; William John Corbett, 'England, 1087-1154,' in Cambridge Medieval History, 5 (Cambridge, 1929), 521-31; Douglas, Conqueror, 357-62; John Le Patourel, The Norman Empire (Oxford, 1976), 184-87; Frank Barlow, William Rufus (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1983), passim.

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article which appeared in 1971, John Le Patourel discussed the succession of 1087 and concluded that the division was a matter of momentary expedience: William's actions during his lifetime indicate that at first he intended to leave all his possessions to Curthose and that later, having lost patience with Curthose's disobedience, he intended to leave the whole to Rufus. 2 'It was only under the pressure of those gathered around his deathbed, and in articulo mortis, that he consented to a partition which was in fact a compromise.'3 ' . . . William's partition of 1087 was uncharacteristic, and . . . had been forced upon him by circumstances which he must have bitterly resented and regretted.'4 This argument was repeated with only minor modifications in Le Patourel's book, The Norman Empire, published in 1976, where it forms part of the structure of his thesis that the 'lands and lordships' of William the Conqueror and his sons deserve the appellation 'empire.'5 Recently, David Bates has subjected Le Patourel's book to a thorough critique in which he asserts, correctly in my view, that 'The Norman Empire was in many ways no more than a piece of special pleading for the idea that we should regard Normandy and England as an integrated unit. . . .'6 My purpose here is to contribute to the debate by considering - and attempting to refute - one particular element of Le Patourel's thesis on the succession: his denial that the division of 1087 was governed by legal considerations.7 The point matters a great deal to Le Patourel because, in his attempt to justify the concept of a 'Norman Empire,' he consistently emphasizes 'the Norman Kings' efforts to transmit their lands and lordships as an undivided inheritance.'8 This thesis depends heavily on the succession to William the Conqueror, for of the Norman kings only William the Conqueror is even potentially relevant: William II had no children and had made no provision for the succession by the time of his premature, probably accidental death; and Henry I intended to pass his 'lands and lordships' first to

2

John Le Patourel, The Norman Succession, 996-1135,' EHR 86 (1971): 225-34. Ibid., 234. 4 Ibid., 249. Aside from the 'pressure' of the magnates around William, Le Patourel does not specifically define the circumstances constraining William to act uncharacteristically. 5 Le Patourel, Norman Empire, 181-97. The phrase 'lands and lordships' occurs throughout the book. The argument concerning the succession of 1087 is also briefly recapitulated, with a somewhat different emphasis, in John Le Patourel, The Norman Conquest, 1066, 1106, 1154?' inA-NS 1 (1979): 104-6. 6 David Bates, 'Normandy and England after 1066,' EHR 104 (1989): 851-80, at 852. This present piece is the forthcoming paper referred to ibid., 872, n. 1.1 would, however, disagree with the statement, ibid., 872: 'William's general attitude appears to have been the traditional one that the succession was entirely his to dispose of as he saw fit . . . .' I shall argue here that that was true only with regard to England; William was not able to control the succession to Normandy. 7 Le Patourel, 'Norman Succession,' 228-30, 234. In The Norman Empire, he is less categorical (infra, n. 69), though the denial of the relevance of 'law or custom' at the end of n. 1 on p. 183 is worthy of note. 8 Idem, Norman Empire, 114. 3

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his only legitimate son and later to his only legitimate daughter. Unfortunately for Le Patourel, however, William I did not 'transmit [his] lands and lordships as an undivided inheritance.' Quite the reverse. Therefore, Le Patourel must argue both that what William actually did was done under great pressure at a moment of weakness and ran counter to his previous settled policy and that there was, in fact, no legal basis to what he did. If, instead, William was acting deliberately and in a legally permissible fashion, then eleventh-century AngloNormans must have had a looser conception of unity of the Anglo-Norman realm than Le Patourel argues existed. I shall assert exactly that: that William's action was the result, not of a combination of baronial politics with a moment of weakness on the part of a dying man, but of an interplay between political considerations and customary legal constraints whose outcome was determined - or at least foreseeable - before William sustained his injury. Even in situations as unusual as the one in which William found himself after the Conquest, human beings are rarely, perhaps never, able to act in the absence of any and all legal norms. Unwritten custom, if not statute law, will require certain acts and forbid others. In some circumstances it will permit a variety of behaviors. By the later eleventh century England had a centuries-old tradition of law, written and unwritten, but in the field of successions mostly unwritten. Norman custom of the same date was developing rapidly, if not fully 'crystallized,' though it was entirely unwritten.9 In the specific circumstances of 1087, the operation of customary rules seems likely a priori. Even if Le Patourel's conclusions are correct - if William intended an undivided succession but was forced by circumstances to agree to a division as a compromise - the question obviously arises of what precise circumstances could force so powerful a king and duke to abandon his intentions. His barons may have argued against the complete disinheritance of Curthose on purely political grounds, but it seems unlikely that they would have done so if any legal argument had been available. If, on the other hand, William had long intended to divide his domains, it is still worth considering whether he had complete freedom to do as he liked with his possessions or was, instead, permitted by customary rules to act only in certain

9

Le Patourel's argument is based in part on a denial that Norman custom was yet fully crystallized in 1087: 'Norman Succession,' 229-30; Norman Empire, 264. There is, however, a good deal of evidence that it was a conscious system of law by that date; see my Transfers of Property in Eleventh-Century Norman Law (Chapel Hill, 1988), chap. 12. Moreover, Le Patourel's objection to asserting the role of law in 1087 seems based in part on an assumption that a developing legal system is not yet law; but in fact no body of law is ever static, so that the mere fact that the law was changing hardly disproves the existence of law. Le Patourel's objection to the applicability of English law is based on the assertion that 'the final extent and even the nature of the kingdom of England was still an open question in 1066 . . .': 'Norman Succession,' 228. The argument seems weak to me: neither the borders nor the political organization of a state need have attained their ultimate shape for a body of law to exist. James C. Holt has found a rule of English law which might have governed William's actions in 1087: see infra, n. 63.

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ways. Not one question but two are involved: first, did William only belatedly and reluctantly concede that Robert Curthose should succeed him in Normandy, or did he never question his eldest son's right to the duchy? second, why did he think that he could deprive his eldest son of England by dividing his inheritance between his sons?10 I shall argue that the answers to both questions depend on customary rules of succession which were current in Normandy and England by the time of William's death. The first consideration must be the explicit, contemporary evidence of William's intentions in 1087.11 Of this there is remarkably little. In his history of the kings of England William of Malmesbury briefly but categorically states that the Conqueror was reluctant to grant even Normandy to Curthose: on his father's death Robert 'failed to obtain England and barely retained the county of Normandy'; again, the dying Conqueror 'unwillingly and under pressure gave Normandy to Robert.'12 As Malmesbury finished his work about 1125 he is, as Le Patourel recognized, a 'late authority.'13 So is Orderic Vitalis, whose testimony is quite opposed to Malmesbury's. Orderic wrote in the 1130s, but he was a twelve-year old oblate at Saint-Evroul at the time of the event. His version of William's deathbed speech includes the following passage about the succession: I conceded the duchy of Normandy to my son Robert before I fought against Harold . . . ; because he is my first-born son and has received the homage of almost all the barons of the country, the honor then conceded cannot be taken away from him . . . . I name no man as my heir to the kingdom of England; instead I commend it to the eternal Creator. . . . For I did not come to possess such a dignity by hereditary right, but wrested the kingdom from the perjured king Harold . . . . I dare not transmit the government of this kingdom, won with so many sins, to any man, but entrust it to God alone, for fear that after my death my evil deeds should become the cause of even worse things. I hope that my son William, who has always been loyal to me from his earliest years and has gladly obeyed me in every way he could, may . . . bring lustre to the kingdom if such is the divine will.14 10 The evidence that, as Le Patourel asserts, the Conqueror at one time intended to leave England as well as Normandy to Curthose is slight: see J.C. Holt, 'Politics and Property in Early Medieval England,' Past and Present, no. 57 (November 1972): 46-47; cf. Le Patourel, Norman Empire, 182 and 183, n. 1. Holt seems to me to have the better of this debate: as Bates, 'Normandy and England,' 871, says, the evidence for Le Patourel's position 'is weak to the point of not existing at all.' I do not intend to discuss the issue here. 11 One argument may be dismissed briefly. Le Patourel makes much of the point that William's sons each strove to reunite what their father had divided: 'Norman Succession,' 242-A4; Norman Empire, 184-87. This, however, seems no more relevant to the question of their father's intentions than the fact that many sons contested their fathers' gifts to monasteries is relevant to those fathers' intentions. 12 De gestis regum, 2: 332: 'Anglia post mortem ejus caruit, comitatu Normanniae vix retento'; ibid., 337: 'Normanniam invitus et coactus Roberto, Angliam Willelmo, possessiones maternas Henrico delegavit.' On the alleged grant to Henry of his mother's lands, see Le Patourel, Norman Empire, 345 and n. 2, and the references there. 13 'Norman Succession,' 233. 14 Orderic, 4: 92-94; translation adapted from ibid., 93-95. For the date, see ibid., xix.

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Nevertheless, Orderic then makes the dying king say to his son Henry, 'Robert will have Normandy, and William, England. But you in your own time will have all the dominions which I have acquired. . . .'15 He also reports that William sent Rufus to England with a letter addressed to Archbishop Lanfranc designating his successor.16 Leaving England to God, therefore, apparently meant leaving it to Rufus. Orderic, who was of course English by birth although he passed his life from the age of ten as a monk of Saint-Evroul, regarded the Normans' conquest of England as theft.17 His version of William's speech seems yet another expression of this theme: there is no sign elsewhere that the Conqueror merely licensed Rufus to seize the island if he could. The other detailed account of William's death is an anonymous description found in some manuscripts of William of Jumieges' history of the Norman dukes, which is known to modern historians as De obitu Willelmi. According to this work, William allowed his son William to have the crown, the sword and the scepter . . . . Meanwhile, both the venerable Archbishop William [of Rouen] and the others who were present were afraid that he might show himself implacable towards his firstborn son Robert. . . . Nevertheless, . . . they gently sounded him out through Archbishop William. . . . At first he displayed a certain bitterness of mind. But after thinking for a brief while and having somewhat collected himself, he was seen to enumerate how much and with how many injuries he had been afflicted by him [i.e., by Robert Curthose], saying, 'Since he does not wish or disdains to come, I shall do what is mine to do: with you and God as witnesses, I forgive him all his sins against me and I concede him all the duchy of Normandy (which, with God and the chief magnates of the palace as witnesses, had already been given to him).' 18

Orderic, 3: 112, adds, without reference to any hesitation on William's part, that the Conqueror 'moriens Albericum comitem ut ducatum Neustriae reciperet in Galliam ad eum [i.e., Curthose] direxit.' 15 Ibid., 4: 96; translation by Chibnall, ibid., 97. 16 Ibid., 96, 110; 5: 202, where Orderic specifies that the letter was 'de coronando prole.' 17 See his laudatory remarks about those who refused to accept land or office there: ibid., 2: 270-72, 278 (the monk Guitmund, later bishop of Aversa); 3: 254-56 (Gulbert d'Auffay). 18 De obitu Willelmi, in Jumieges, 146^17: '. . . et Willelmo quidem, suo filio, coronam, ensem, sceptrum . . . habendum permisit. Inter haec tam venerabilis antistes Willelmus quam ceteri qui aderant verebantur ne forte suo filio primogenito Roberto implacabilis esse vellet . . . tamen . . . per archiepiscopum Willelmum . . . animum illius leniter pulsant. Qui primum quidem amaritudinem sui monstravit animi. At vero parumper deliberans, et viribus quantuliscumque colleen's, enumerare videbatur quot et quantis ab eo inflictus sit incom[m]odis, dicens: "Quia ipse, inquit, venire satis non vult aut dedignatur facturus ego quod meum est, ago: vobis testibus et Deo, omnia quae in me peccavit, illi remisso, et omnem ducatum Normanniae sibi concedo (quern, Deo teste et proceribus palatii, illi jamdudum ante largitus fuerat).'" For a more recent edition of the De obitu, see infra, n. 25. For another translation, see EHD, 2d ed. (London and New York, 1981), 303^1 For the manuscripts in which the De obitu appears, see, most conveniently, Elisabeth M.C. van Houts, The Gesta Normannorum ducum: A History without an End,' in A-NS 3 (1981): 109, 116-17; her abbreviation for the work is DOW.

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Obviously, the De obitu Willelmi tells a story much more like William of Malmesbury's than Orderic's is, for the monk of Saint-Evroul never hints that the division of Normandy from England was anything but William's settled intention. Le Patourel therefore relies largely on the anonymous work in arguing that, until those present at his deathbed convinced him to act differently, William intended to disinherit Curthose entirely. Yet the De obitu is a weak reed, for its relevance and authority can be challenged on several grounds: it by no means categorically states that William intended to leave all to Rufus; its date and reliability are dubious; and there is a good deal of indirect evidence that neither William nor anyone else thought that there was any choice in the matter of Normandy. The author of the De obitu makes two statements which might suggest that the Conqueror not only had a choice but intended to use it to deprive his eldest son of any share of territory. First, William gave Rufus not only the crown and the scepter but also the sword, and at least from the mid-twelfth century on 'the sword' was the symbol of the duchy as 'the crown' was of the kingdom.19 Second, something - possibly this gift,20 possibly the apparent designation of Rufus as the next king of England - led those present at the deathbed to desire an explicit statement from William that Curthose was to succeed to the duchy. Neither of these indications will hold up. The sword was an integral part of the English coronation ceremony from Anglo-Saxon times, and its use in Normandy from the twelfth century on appears to be derived from the English ceremony.21 Hence there is no reason to think that by giving the sword to Rufus William intended to indicate that Rufus should succeed to the duchy as well as to the kingdom. Moreover, there is some reason to think that the information in the De obitu concerning the regalia is erroneous.22 Neither the momentary anxiety 19

Le Patourel, 'Norman Succession,' 232, and the references there. As Le Patourel suggests, ibid. 21 Percy Ernst Schramm, A History of the English Coronation, trans. Leopold G. Wickham Legg (Oxford, 1937), 21, 46-47, 63. Le Patourel, Norman Empire, 236-38, finds no evidence before the time of the Angevins for a ceremony whereby a new duke was invested with Normandy. 22 An alternative version exists of what happened to William the Conqueror's regalia. Lucien Musset has published a notice, datable to between 1096 and 1098, according to which William on his deathbed gave Saint-Etienne de Caen 'coronam qua in celebrioribus festivitatibus inter sacra missarum sollenpnia [sic], coronabatur, cum sceptro et virga preciosi lapidis, calice aureisque candelabris et ceteris ad coronam pertinentibus regalium insignium ornamentis . . .': Les actes de Guillaume le Conquerant et de la reine Mathilde pour les abbayes caennaises, Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires de Normandie 37 (Caen, 1967), no. 24, pp. 133-34. According to the same notice, William Rufus - apparently at the time of the redaction of the notice - redeemed all these objects by a grant of many manors in England. The charter makes no mentions of the sword. On the doubt which the charters casts on the authoritativeness of the De obitu, see L.J. Engels, 'De obitu Willelmi ducis Normannorum regisque Anglorum: Textes, modeles, valeur et origine,' in Melanges Christine Mohrmann: nouveau recueil offert par ses anciens eleves (Utrecht and Anvers, 1973), 255. Barlow, William Rufus, 50, n. 200, and Herbert Edward John Cowdrey, 'Death-bed Testaments,' Fdlschungen im Mittelalter: Internationaler Kongress der Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Munchen, 16-19. September 20

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of those present at William's deathbed nor William's animadversions upon the perfidy of his eldest son need imply that William had to be persuaded at the last moment to change his mind and allow Curthose to succeed. That he would not wish to be succeeded by a disloyal son is understandable: he allegedly prophesied that Curthose would be an incompetent duke.23 Reluctance, however, is not refusal; and of refusal there is no sign. Thus, the text of the De obitu does not prove that William the Conqueror contemplated wholly disinheriting Curthose. Even if it did make the allegation explicitly, its reliability is questionable. The work has long been taken to have been written shortly after 1087 by a monk of Saint-Etienne de Caen, the abbey, founded by the Conqueror, where he was buried. If this were so the De obitu would be by far the most nearly contemporary account of the Conqueror's last days, written by a person with every likelihood of knowing the facts. As such and it was as such that Le Patourel took it in 197124 - it would command great respect. Unfortunately, that is not what it is and not what it deserves. In 1973 L.J. Engels, building on earlier scholars' observations, demonstrated that the De obitu is little more than a pastiche of parts of two ninth-century biographies, Einhard's life of Charlemagne and the Astronomer's life of Louis the Pious.25 He concludes that the work is a school exercise which dates from the first decades of the twelfth century and was written in England,26 a conclusion which other scholars have accepted with, at best, relatively minor modifications.27 1986, IV: Diplomatische Falschimgen (II), Schriften der Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Band 33, IV (Hanover, 1988), 721, suggest that the two accounts can be reconciled by supposing that the regalia were given to Saint-Etienne de Caen in 1087 and borrowed by William the Conqueror's sons for crown-wearings in Normandy. See also Le Patourel, Norman Empire, 241 and n. 3. Queen Matilda's similar gift to La Trinite de Caen, which included her crown and her scepter, was apparently never redeemed: Musset, Actes de Guillaume, no. 16, pp. 112-13 (1083). 23 Orderic, 4: 92; also De obitu, 147. It is not necessary to regard this prophecy as the product of hindsight on the part of these authors: William's dissatisfaction might well have led him to make an accurate forecast. 24 Le Patourel, 'Norman Succession,' 231-32. 25 Engels, 'De obitu,' 212-22; in ibid., 223-30, the De obitu is printed parallel to its sources. The source for the passage quoted supra, 145 and n. 18, is the Astronomer, from whom the De obitu takes it virtually word for word except for the words 'et omnem ducatum Normannie sibi concedo' (the subsequent words in the quotation are transposed with some changes from a slightly earlier point in the Astronomer's account; see Engels, 'De obitu,' 226, n. 55, and 235). For earlier observations, see ibid., 209-12; R.C. van Caenegem, review of David C. Douglas, William the Conqueror, in Studi Medievali, 3d ser. 6 (1965): 307-8; EHD, 2: 303. 26 Engels, 'De obitu,' 233-35. 27 Like Engels, R.H.C. Davis, 'William of Jumieges, Robert Curthose and the Norman Succession,' EHR 95 (1980): 598 and n. 5, and van Houts, 'Gesta,' 108-9, date the manuscripts of William of Jumieges in which the De obitu appears to after 1092, probably to 'the first decades of the twelfth century' (van Houts, 109). If, in the De obitu, the sword is intended to symbolize Normandy (supra, 146 and nn. 19-21), that merely reinforces the likelihood of a twelfth-century date. In Gesta Normannorum Ducum: een studie over de handschriften, de tekst, het geschiedwerk en het genre (Groningen, 1982), 307, van Houts concludes that the work was written between 1096 and 1100 by someone in the entourage of William Rufus.

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This is not an insuperable obstacle to accepting the De obitu's substantial accuracy for, as Le Patourel remarked in 1976, 'it is a nice point to decide how much credence should be given to a text which, though it uses the words and phrases of another and lifts whole passages verbatim, yet makes the changes and omissions necessary for its own purpose.'28 Nonetheless, Engels concludes that the two biographies which are the De obitu's sources 'in large measure determined not only the presentation . . . but also the choice of facts to be presented. . . . If the work is worthy of interest, it is scarcely worthy of trust.'29 Given the other problems connected with the work, there seems to be no reason to struggle to maintain belief in its reliability. Indeed if the account in the De obitu implies that William could have prevented Curthose from succeeding him in Normandy, it thereby becomes even less worthy of credence, for such an allegation conflicts with a substantial body of evidence that - long before William's death - his eldest son had been recognized as his eventual successor in the duchy. Three times in his history of the Norman dukes, which ends in the early 1070s, William of Jumieges refers to Curthose as duke of Normandy during his father's lifetime. R.H.C. Davis has pointed out that these passages must all be part of the first recension of the book, itself a product of the early 1070s.30 In a survey of all the early narrative accounts of William's rule over Normandy, he finds: allegations that Robert was granted the duchy in 1066 or before [in two places in Orderic and in Florence of Worcester]; . . . that he was granted the duchy in 1067 [in William of Jumieges]; that the grant was made with the consent of King Philip of France [in the D version of ASC and in Florence]; . . . and that he [i.e., Robert] was designated William's heir when 31the king 'lay sick at Bonneville' and again in 1079 [from a third place in Orderic]. Davis also notes that Robert Curthose is given the title of 'count' in twenty-two charters written between 1066 and 1087.32 This is significant because 'count,' 28

Le Patourel, Norman Empire, 183, n. 1. See also: idem, 'Norman Conquest,' 104; Davis, 'William of Jumieges,' 600 (though Davis seems to have missed the fact that the words which he quotes, ibid., at n. 3, are from the Astronomer). Cowdrey, 'Death-bed Testaments,' 720-21, concludes (p. 721), 'For the most part. . . , the author borrowed from the Astronomer such material as was appropriate to William 29 Engels, 'De obitu,' 247. These sentences are the most emphatically condemnatory of the De obitu of any in Engels' article; more usually he is inclined to acquit the work of inaccuracy. 30 Davis, 'William of Jumieges,' 597-98. 31 Ibid., 601. The references are: Orderic, 3: 98, 112; 4: 92; Worcester, 2: 12; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, D version, a. 1079, in Plummer, ASC, 1: 213-14. In the same passage, Davis explains the failure of William of Poitiers to discuss Robert's title on the grounds that, '[i]f, as is commonly supposed, he was writing c. 1077, his silence might be due to the fact that Robert's rebellion was already in progress . . . .' He goes on to note William of Poitiers' 'striking' neglect of Curthose. 32 Davis, 'William of Jumieges,' 601.

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the original title of the line of rulers whom we call dukes of Normandy, was still, in the second half of the eleventh century, used more often than was 'duke' to name the position which these men held.33 It is therefore possible that, even though no extant charter calls Robert 'duke' while his father was alive, the title 'count' was no mere courtesy but indicated that Robert held an official position. Robert was officially count of Maine, the area directly to the south of Normandy, though his father actually ruled the area.34 Some of the references to Robert as 'count' before 1087 may be to his title as count of Maine. Two certainly are, and one pre-Conquest charter also calls him 'count of Maine.'35 Robert's father sometimes calls himself 'duke' of Maine as well as of Normandy, however.36 On the other hand, four of the twenty-two post-Conquest charters explicitly call Robert 'count' of Normandy; and the dates of these, as Davis points out, 'are consistent with a grant of the duchy in 1067 or before and a renewed grant made in the reconciliation which ended the revolt of 1077-79.'37 In addition, two charters of 1096 call that year the nineteenth of Robert's principatus, 'which,' says Davis, 'certainly suggests that Robert considered his principatus to have begun during his revolt of 1077-79.'38 Davis concludes that it is likely that William not only 'designated Robert as heir to the duchy' before the Conquest but also went through 'a further ceremony "making" him duke in 1067,' after which Curthose governed Normandy during his father's four-year absence (1067-71), 'unaware that his father was treating him merely as a temporary regent.' His disappointment after 1071 at being demoted to the situation of a mere heir, powerless until his father's death, thus provoked his revolts of the late 1070s and the 1080s.39 If William did make Robert duke, there was a precedent: Duke Richard II evidently made his eldest son, Richard III, co-duke about 1025.40 Yet Davis's conclusion may go too far: if Robert actually ruled for four years it is remarkable that not one explicit reference to the fact remains. There are, after all, several — albeit somewhat conflicting — 33

RADN, 49-50, 57; David Bates, Normandy before 1066 (London and New York, 1982), 148-50, and the references there in n. 6. 34 David, Robert Curthose, 9-10. 35 David, Robert Curthose, 10 and n. 34. One of the pre-1066 charters cited by David is RADN, no. 224, p. 429 (Notre-Dame de Cherbourg, 1063 X 1066). He cites a second such charter, taking it from Calendar of Documents Preserved in France Illustrative of the History of Great Britain and Ireland, ed. John Horace Round (London, 1899), no. 957, p. 341, which is supposed to come from Coutances Cathedral. In fact, however, Round's no. 957 is Fauroux's no. 224, for Cherbourg. There is, therefore, only one pre-1066 charter in which Curthose is called count of Maine. For Curthose as count of Maine, see infra, 157, and n. 70. 36 RADN, no. 229, p. 439: 'dux Normanorum et Cenomannorum' (1066). The body of the charter refers to Curthose as the duke's son. An unidentified Robert signs this charter in third place after Duke William and Duchess Matilda; it is probably Curthose. 37 Davis, 'William of Jumieges,' 602. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid., 604-5. 40 Jumieges, 96-97; RADN, 57-58, and nos. 34 (p. 131), 36 (p. 141), 55 (p. 176); David C. Douglas, 'The Earliest Norman Counts,' EHR 61 (1946): 145-46.

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references to the regents of Normandy during the conquest campaign of 1066 itself.41 Nonetheless, it seems clear that Robert had, at the least, been designated heir to Normandy. Davis notes a charter dated 22 June 1063 which is confirmed by 'Count William . . . and Matilda his wife and Robert their son, whom they had chosen for the governance of the realm after their death.'42 It is possible that this was the designation while William 'lay sick at Bonneville' to which Orderic refers, for a much reworked charter, the original redaction of which must date to between 1063 and 1066, refers to a serious illness from which William had just suffered: at Cherbourg he was so ill that 'his life was almost wholly despaired of and he was laid on the ground as though about to die.'43 Such a crisis might well have led the duke and duchess to provide for the future by formally designating Robert. Cherbourg and Bonneville are not close - half the duchy separates them - but a presumably great public ceremony of formal designation of the duke's heir would doubtless take much planning and might await the duke's partial recovery. Apart from Richard III, who died very shortly after his father, every previous duke had designated his eldest son as his successor.44 The Conqueror's father, Robert I, had publicly designated William before going off in 1035 on the pilgrimage on which he died; William was only seven or eight at the time.45 The similarly unpredictable, indeed perhaps even more obviously dangerous, circumstances of 1066 may explain a charter of that year which records that the abbot of Marmoutier sent one of his monks to 'William, count of the Normans, when, being about to cross the sea against the English, he was preparing for war.' The monk was to ask that all Marmoutier's possessions in Normandy be confirmed 'by the authorization of Robert his son, . . . because he was old enough to be fit to give a valid authorization.'46 There is, however, no evidence of an actual designation in 1066. 41

Douglas, Conqueror, 185-86, and the references there. Davis, 'William of Jumieges,' 604 at n. 3, translating RADN, no. 158, p. 344: 'quern elegerant ad gubernandum regnum post suum obitum.' The reference to Normandy as a regnum does not impugn the authenticity or date of the charter, for quite a few pre-Conquest charters refer to Normandy as a regnum: Tabuteau, Transfers, 190 and n. 128. 43 RADN, no. 224, p. 430: 'pene omnino de vita desperatus et ad terram depositus ut jam moriturus'; see also ibid., 432. 44 Le Patourel, 'Norman Succession,' 234-36; Davis, 'William of Jumieges,' 605-6; Bates, Normandy, 150; Andrew W. Lewis, Royal Succession in Capetian France (Cambridge, MA, 1981), 29 and nn. 99-101. 45 Jumieges, 111-12. 46 RADN, no. 228, pp. 437-38: 'Normannorum comitem Guillelmum cum adversus Anglorum gentem mare transiturus pararetur ad bellum . . . , auctoramento Robert! filii sui . . . , quia scilicet majoris jam ille etatis ad prebendum spontaneum auctoramentum idoneus esset.' One of the witnesses to the charter is a Count Robert who might be Curthose but also might be the count of Eu or the count of Mortain. Another witness is 'Ilgerio pedagogo ipsius Roberti filii comitis.' As Davis, 'William of Jumieges,' 604, points out, the presence of Robert's tutor hardly suggests that Robert was regarded as fully adult. 42

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It is possible, that Robert had been designated almost as soon as he was born, for two original charters from the abbey of Saint-Wandrille call Robert 'the young count' and 'the junior count,' respectively, and each is dated 1051, when Robert can have been at most one year old.47 The charters were, like all pre-Conquest Norman charters, drawn up by the recipient church, and Robert's apparent comital status may be due to over-enthusiasm on the part of a scribe.48 These two documents are not sufficient in themselves to indicate conclusively that Robert was formally designated his father's heir virtually at birth; but at the least they suggest that, even so early, the assumption was made that Robert, if he outlived his father, would succeed him. Marie Fauroux has suggested, plausibly that William's own troubles when he succeeded his father may have led him to wish to make his son's status as heir known as soon as possible.49 Later than 1051, Robert appears over two dozen times in eighteen or nineteen pre-Conquest charters. Usually he is called merely his father's son, and once only his name occurs.50 Aside from the charter in which he is called 'count of Maine,' he is called simply 'count' in a charter from Montivilliers from 1065 or 1066 and perhaps also in one from Marmoutier from 1055.51 The two of his brothers who had been born by the time of the Conquest appear much less often and are always identified by relationship: Richard, who died before 1087, is once called Robert's brother, six times the duke's son; William is six times the duke's son.52 47

RADN, nos. 124 (p. 294) and 126 (p. 297). I am indebted to Professor Elizabeth A.R. Brown, who first pointed out the significance of these charters to me. The earliest possible date for the marriage of Duke William to Matilda of Flanders is 1049. 48 The two charters concern closely related transactions, are in places identical in wording, and have very similar witness lists. They were probably drawn up at the same time by the same scribe. 49 RADN, 294. 50 Supra, 149 and n. 36; 150 and n. 42 (he is also 'comes filius' in the signature list of the charter); ibid, and n. 46; RADN, nos. 139 (p. 316), 204 (p. 391, twice), 204 bis (p. 392, twice), 205 (p. 394), 212 (p. 401), 215 (p. 409), 218A (p. 415), 218B (p. 415), 219 (p. 417, twice), 227 (p. 436), 230 (p. 411, twice), 231 (p. 446), 232 (p. 448). 51 Respectively, RADN, nos. 226 (p. 435) and 137 (p. 314). In the latter, his full description is 'Roberti comitis, regis Anglorum filii.' The original of this charter is not extant, but it is obvious that, at the least, 'son of the king of the English' must be an afterthought of some sort. Fauroux asserts, p. 313, that Robert's subscription was added after the fact, like that of Bishop Robert (of Chartres, 1065-68, or of Sees, 1072-81), for there was no bishop named Robert who could have signed in 1055. It is, however, possible that 'regis Anglorum filii' was interpolated to identify a person who actually signed in 1055, to distinguish him from other contemporary counts named Robert, such as his uncle Robert of Mortain or his distant cousin Robert of Eu. It may, of course, actually have been one of these Roberts who signed the charter. 52 Richard: RADN, nos. 218A (p. 415, where he is given the toponymic 'd'Avranches'), 218B (p. 415), 219 (p. 417, twice), 224 (p. 429, as Robert's brother), 227 (p. 436), 231 (p. 446). William: ibid., nos. 141 (p. 321, twice), 215 (p. 409), 227 (p. 436), 231 (p. 446), 232 (p. 448). Lewis, Royal Succession, 29, takes Richard's toponymic in RADN, no. 218A, to mean that Duke William had assigned the county of Avranches to his second son as an appanage.

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Even if the evidence is not sufficient to indicate exactly when or how many times Robert Curthose had been publicly presented as 'count' of the Normans or as his father's heir, it still suggests strongly that Robert's position as his father's heir in Normandy and Maine was officially recognized and widely known for most, if not all, of his life. Designation of the eldest son as the successor during his father's lifetime was not merely the custom of the ducal house from its inception; it was also the practice of the Capetian kings and of many other princely dynasties of northern France.53 Both Orderic and the De obitu cite Curthose's position as eldest son, his prior designation as heir, and public recognition of the designation by the magnates of Normandy as the reasons why Normandy went to Curthose. By comparison with the weight of the evidence that Curthose was the recognized heir to Normandy, two brief remarks by William of Malmesbury and one possible hint by a twelfth-century English schoolboy (or whoever the author of the De obitu may have been) that something different might have happened fade into insignificance. In 1087, it would seem, Robert Curthose's right to his father's continental possessions was incontrovertible. It is not impossible that, beyond these dynastic considerations, a specific rule of private law operated to require that William leave Normandy to Curthose. John Beckerman has argued that, by designating Curthose his successor in Normandy and having the magnates of the duchy do homage to him as their future duke, William had in effect made a post-obit gift of Normandy to Curthose; and such a gift could not be cancelled by any subsequent disposition, not even a gift in articulo mortis.54 This contention is difficult to verify. All the post-obit gifts recorded in charters from eleventh-century Normandy are gifts to churches, and in no instance is there explicit evidence to indicate whether such a gift could be altered by a subsequent disposition.55 None of the historians who wrote about William's wife, Duchess Matilda, in contrast to their sons, appears more often by her title than by her relationship: except in RADN, nos. 224 and 231, which call her comitissa a total of ten times, in the bodies of charters she is always the duke's wife (26 times); in signature lists, however, she is comitissa 25 times and the duke's wife only six. This may be significant, for the duchess functioned as a public official in eleventh-century Normandy, as I hope to demonstrate elsewhere. 53 Le Patourel, 'Norman Succession,' 236-40; Andrew W. Lewis, 'Anticipatory Association of the Heir in Early Capetian France,' America Historical Review. 83 (1978): 906-27; idem, Royal Succession, 20-32, 37-47, 50-54. 54 John Beckerman, 'Succession in Normandy, 1087, and in England, 1066: The Role of Testamentary Custom,' Speculum 47 (1972): 258-60. For another critique of this argument, see Ann Williams, 'Some Notes and Considerations on Problems connected with the English Royal Succession, 860-1066,' in A-NS 1 (1979): 165-66 and n. 128. 55 The contention of Williams ('Some Notes and Considerations,' 165-66) and Cowdrey ('Death-bed Testaments,' 720) that in Normandy verba novissima could not cancel a postobit gift is, therefore, overly categorical. On post-obit gifts in eleventh-century Normandy, see Tabuteau, Transfers, 24-27. Post-obit gifts were occasionally converted by donors into immediate transfers, but that sort of conversion is not relevant here. Auguste Le Prevost,

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eleventh-century Normandy explicitly refers to the designation of a son as his father's successor by any lesser Norman lord than the duke.56 Their silence does not necessarily mean that post-obit gifts were not used by fathers as a means of passing on their property: the historians are interested mostly in the doings of the dukes. In practice, the absence of other evidence means that only one available case is analogous to the situation in 1087, namely the English succession of 1066. Beckerman interprets the events of that year as embodying a conflict between a post-obit gift by Edward the Confessor to William of Normandy and a gift in articulo mortis by Edward to Harold.57 So does Raymonde Foreville, who argues that this interpretation of the events of 1066 is presented by William of Poitiers in the biography of William the Conqueror which he wrote in the mid1070s.58 The argument is, however, only partially expressed there. Immediately before the battle of Hastings, the biographer says, Harold and William exchanged messages, each presenting the case for his right to England. Harold's message to William stated that he recognizes that King Edward first decided that you should be the heir to the kingdom of England, and that he [i.e., Harold] confirmed the agreement about this succession to you in Normandy. But he knows that the kingdom is his by right, [for it was] conceded to him by the deathbed gift of the same king his lord. For from the time when the blessed Augustine came to this country, it has been the common custom of this people that a donation made by anyone in his last moments should be held valid.59 Memoires et notes pour servir a la histoire du departement de I'Eure, 3 vols. (Evreux, 1862-69), 1: 536-37, publishes a late eleventh-century charter recording a compromise between Roger de Croismare and the abbey of Saint-Pierre de Preaux. Their conflicting claims arose because a man named Gilbert, 'carens herede,' made an apparently post-obit gift of his lands to the abbey, but later had a daughter whom Roger married. By the compromise Roger became the abbey's tenant for some of Gilbert's lands, but the charter says nothing to indicate that Gilbert had revoked his gift to the abbey in Roger's favor. If this charter is relevant to the point at issue here, it is ambiguous: both the abbey's and Roger's claims to the land seem to have had validity; hence, the compromise. 56 Orderic, 3: 184, describes such a ceremony by Ansold de Maule at Saint-Evroul in 1106, but Ansold was not from Normandy. 57 Beckerman, 'Succession,' 259-60. 58 Raymonde Foreville, 'Aux origines de la renaissance juridique: concepts juridiques et influences romanisantes chez Guillaume de Poitiers, biographe du Conquerant,' Le Moyen Age 58 (1952): 61-70; see also her 'Hastings et la couronne d'Angleterre,' Etudes Normandes, nos. 59-60 (1966), 39-41. Foreville thinks that William of Poitiers wrote in 1073-74; see Poitiers, xvii-xx. R.H.C. Davis, however, argues for c. 1077 in 'William of Poitiers and his History of William the Conqueror,' in The Writing of History in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to Richard William Southern, ed. Davis and J.M. Wallace-Hadrill (Oxford, 1981), 74. 59 Poitiers, 172-74: 'Meminit quidem quod rex Edwardus te Anglici regni haeredem fore pridem decreverit, et quod ipse in Normannia de hac successione securitatem tibi firmaverit. Novit autem jure suum esse regnum idem, ejusdem regis domini sui dono in extremis illius sibi concessum. Etenim ab eo tempore quo beatus Augustinus in hac venit regionem, communem gentis hujus fuisse consuetudinem, donationem quam in ultimo fine suo quis fecerit, earn ratam haberi.'

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In reply, however, the Norman duke says nothing about the validity of a postobit gift. Indeed, he says nothing at all in direct answer to this claim of Harold's: apart from a brief reference to Harold's admission that there was a time when William had been the designated heir, his case is built on Harold's perjury.60 The argument is that the flaw lay not in Edward's bequest but in Harold's acceptance of it. The assertion that post-obit gifts were indefeasible does not seem to have sprung readily to the biographer's mind as the perfect answer to Harold. There are, nonetheless, a few indications that William of Poitiers was thinking in such terms, especially his apostrophe to the dead Harold: 'Your end proves how justly you were raised up by Edward's deathbed gift!'61 Even here the injustice might well be Harold's acceptance of Edward's bequest despite his oath to support William, rather than the bequest itself.62 The logic of the argument of Foreville and Beckerman is that, if the issue between William and Harold appeared to the Normans of 1066 (or was interpreted between then and 1087) as a conflict between a post-obit gift and a gift in articulo mortis, their case would have been built on the finality of post-obit gifts and therefore, for consistency's sake, the same principle would have had to be maintained in 1087, to the benefit of Robert Curthose. The chief problem with this argument is that the only evidence for William the Conqueror's alleged reliance on such a position, William of Poitiers' account of the Conquest, is ambiguous.

60

Ibid., 174-76. See also: ibid., 146, 180-82, 206. Ann Williams, 'Some Notes and Considerations,' 166, says, 'William is not made to deny Harold's claim; he argues rather that he has the better right, not that Harold has none.' On this subject, see also Eric John, 'Edward the Confessor and the Norman Succession,' EHR 94 (1979): 262-64. John concludes that 'William's reply to Harold, as set out by the archdeacon [i.e., William of Poitiers] . . . is ... appealing to an already existing scepticism about last-minute donations made in the comparative privacy of the death-chamber' (p. 264). Even this seems to me to go beyond what the text actually contains. According to Poitiers, 174-76, in his reply to Harold's challenge Duke William also cited the consent of the optimates of England to Edward's designation of him, as the author of the De obitu cites the consent of the magnates of Normandy to William's designation of Robert Curthose as duke. That Edward did indeed make a deathbed bequest of England to Harold is virtually universally accepted. Tryggvi J. Oleson, The Witenagemot in the Reign of Edward the Confessor (London, 1955), 85, nn. 2-3, expresses considerable doubt; and idem, 'Edward the Confessor's Promise of the Throne to Duke William of Normandy,' EHR 72 (1957): 227, n. 2, is even stronger; but Oleson ignores the Norman sources, all of which accept the story. The issue is, regrettably, not discussed by Michael M. Sheehan, The Will in Medieval England (Toronto, 1963). 61 Poitiers, 206-8: 'arguunt extrema tua quam recte sublimatus fueris Edwardi dono in ipsius fine.' See also ibid., 30, where Edward 'eum [i.e., William] rata donatione haeredem statuere decrevit,' and 158, where William says, '. . . ne rapinam amittat ille [i.e., Harold] propugnabit; nos quae dono accepimus . . . requiremus.' 62 See also John, 'Edward the Confessor,' 266, n. 1.

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The first question raised at the beginning of this essay - whether the Conqueror ever intended to deprive Robert Curthose of Normandy - can now be answered: he did not. Or, at least, if the thought crossed his mind in some fit of fury at his eldest son's rebellious behavior, he never acted upon it. More than that, he probably had no choice but to allow the duchy to pass to Curthose.63 Custom demanded it. A rule of private law about the validity of post-obit gifts may have played a part. Expectations about the rights of eldest sons almost certainly did.64 A rule peculiar to succession to the duchy and similar states would have operated in this instance as in many others: a son designated his father's heir during his father's lifetime could expect to succeed on his father's death. As William the Conqueror had succeeded his father, although he was a mere child of seven or eight and illegitimate to boot, so Curthose succeeded him fifty-two years later. Disloyal to and disliked by his father he may have been, but he had been designated, and that - twelfth-century embellishments of the story to the contrary notwithstanding - was that.

The answer to the second question raised at the commencement of this enquiry - why William was able to name Rufus his successor in England - demands the invocation of a different legal rule, one about patrimony and conquest. The

63

According to Holt, 'Politics and Property,' 17, William could have left Normandy to Rufus but chose at the last moment not to do so: The "Leges Henrici Primi" allowed that a father, if abandoned by his son in mortal need, illness or poverty, might adopt any who aided him, relative or stranger, as his heir, but the matter was not automatic, for the competing claims of the immediate heir and the newcomer had to be settled by the judgement of wise men. In 1087, as the Conqueror lay on his deathbed . . . , the wise men advised in favour of Robert.' The citation is to Leges Henrici Primi, ed. L.J. Downer (Oxford, 1972), 88.15, 274-76. See also Holt, 'Politics and Property,' 46. The Leges Henrici Primi, however, is a later source (c. 1113 X 1118: ed. Downer, 34-37) and is English rather than Norman in origin. Its value as an authority on the actual legal practice even of the early twelfth century in England is subject to question. Moreover, the situation which it envisions in the relevant clause does not completely correspond to the circumstances of 1087, and the accounts of William's disposition of his domains do not present William as requesting the advice of the wise men gathered around his deathbed. Nor, in fact, is it likely that William's disposition was a last minute change of mind, as this article attempts to show. There is, finally, no corroborative evidence that the rule alleged existed in Normandy in the eleventh century. Several Norman charters of the eleventh century refer to persons who had been made the heirs of others, but when these were not sons the testator had no living children. For heredes facti other than sons, see: RADN, no. 229, p. 440 (Avranches cathedral, 1066); Archives departementales de 1'Orne, 'Livre blanc' of Saint-Martin de Sees, fol. Iv and fol. 4r (before 1070); ibid, fol. 87v (1111); Orderic, 4: 184; 216 (where one man is made heir to two different persons). 64 The division between the two eldest sons of Roger de Montgomery - for which see infra, 157-58 and n. 73 - seems especially significant, for Robert de Belleme had inherited his mother's great lordship of Belleme on her death, which probably occurred in 1077, and Roger de Montgomery made considerable efforts to secure lands for the four youngest boys. That, despite these facts, Robert inherited all his father's Norman lands strongly implies that Roger had no choice in the matter.

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most relevant contemporary expression of the rule occurs in a charter concerning land just outside the border of Normandy: at some time between 1079 and 1101, Gunpher de Villeray renounced a claim which he had raised against a grant by his father to the abbey of Saint-Pere de Chartres, 'saying that what his father had bought with his own money it was possible for him to give to anyone, even if his sons were opposed.'65 In other words, a son had a claim to his father's patrimony (propres in French), the land which the father himself had inherited; but the father's conquests (acquets in French), the land which the father had first brought into the family, were the father's to do with as he pleased. The distinction between patrimony and conquest clearly existed in both Normandy and England in the twelfth century, and many scholars have seen in this rule the explanation of the division of England from Normandy in 1087.66 Le Patourel, however, denies both its applicability to the succession of 1087 and the existence of 'specific evidence' for it in the Norman realm at that date.67 Contemporary divided successions to the possessions of Anglo-Norman barons other than the king-duke - in which the eldest sons received the Norman lands, their fathers' patrimony, and the second sons the English lands, their fathers' conquests - do not prove the existence of any rule, he argues, for inheritances were on occasion not so divided.68 It is quite true that the rule which I have cited

65

Cartulaire de iabbaye de Saint-Pere de Chartres, ed. Benjamin Guerard, 2 vols. (Paris, 1840), 2:497: 'dicens quia, quod pater suus propria pecunia emerat, liceret ei, etiam nolentibus filiis, cuilibet dare posse.' Gunpher de Villeray was a follower of Robert de Belleme, the greatest lord of southern Normandy: Charles de I'abbaye de Jumieges, ed. Jules-Joseph Vernier, 2 vols. (Paris and Rouen, 1916), 1: no. 34, pp. 11-13 (1086); Cartulaire de Marmoutier pour le Perche, ed. Abbe [Philibert] Barret (Mortagne, 1894), no. 13, p. 25 (1092); Arch. Orne, 'Livre blanc' of Saint-Martin de Sees, fols. 68r-68v (1097). Villeray, however, is in the Perche, near Remalard. 66 For the rule in Normandy and England in the twelfth century, see: Leges Henrici Primi, ed. Downer, 70:21,224-25 (though the translation is clearer on this point than the Latin); Glanvill, Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Anglie, ed. G.D.G. Hall (London, 1965), 7.1: 70-71; Maurice Rabasse, Du regime des fiefs en Normandie au moyen-age (Paris, 1905), 290-3; Holt, 'Politics and Property,' passim, especially 12-18; for England in the twelfth century, see also Edmund King, Peterborough Abbey, 1086-1310: A Study in the Land Market (Cambridge, 1973), 170; David Crouch, The Beaumont Twins: The Roots and Branches of Power in the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1986), 9. Some of the scholars who apply the rule to the succession of 1087 are: Robert Genestal, 'La formation du droit d'ainesse dans la coutume de Normandie,' Normannia 1 (1928): 168, 172-73; Douglas, Conqueror, 361; Frank Barlow, William 1 and the Norman Conquest (London, 1965), 115 (but in William Rufus he follows Le Patourel; see pp. 40-50, especially p. 40, n. 170 and pp. 41^2). Among scholars who assert the existence of the rule in the eleventh century without applying it specifically to the succession of 1087 are: Lewis C. Loyd, The Origin of the Family of Aubigny of Cainhoe,' Publications of the Bedfordshire Historical Record Society 19 (1937): 153; Early Yorkshire Charters, 6, eds. William Fairer and Charles T. Clay (Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, Extra Ser. 3 [1939]), vi; ibid., 9 (Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, Extra Ser. 7 [1952]), 41-43, with some modification. 67 Le Patourel, 'Norman Succession,' 227, 234. 68 Ibid., 227.

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was not applied in every case: it did not need to be. The rule did not prevent a father from leaving all his possessions to his eldest son - it merely permitted him to dispose otherwise of his conquests if he wished to do so.69 Hence, most conveniently for my argument, exceptions to this rule do not prove that the rule did not exist.70 Because a rule making conquest more freely alienable than patrimony need be only permissive to be relevant to the succession of 1087, it will not do to reject out of hand the relevance of other divided successions of about that date. In the absence of a categorical statement of the rule, how else except by citing such examples could one prove that the rule was known, perhaps even customarily applied, early enough to affect the Conqueror's thinking about the succession to his domains? Many scholars have cited one or a few instances in which the rule was applied in the first relevant generation after the conquest; but, so far as I am aware, no one has attempted to collect all the known examples. In my search I have been able to turn up enough examples to make it likely that, by the late eleventh century, Normans generally recognized that conquests, unlike patrimony, were freely disposable. The instances are simply too numerous to be dismissed. The earliest of these divisions occurred in 1071 when, after the death of William fitz Osbern in battle in Flanders, 'King William divided his inheritance amongst his sons: William the elder received Breteuil and Pace and the remainder of the paternal inheritance in Normandy. . . . But Roger the younger brother. . . received the county of Hereford and all his father's estates in England. . . .'71 When Hugh de Montfort-sur-Risle became a monk at Bee about 1088 his elder son, Robert, secured his Norman lands, and the younger son, Hugh II, secured the English lands.72 The estates of Roger de Montgomery, who died in 1094, 69

See also Holt, 'Politics and Property,' 13. In Norman Empire, 183, n. 1. and 191-92, Le Patourel admits that, in the divisions discussed below, the families concerned were 'apparently making what came to be the customary distinction between propres and acquets' (p. 191), but he denies that such divisions were then obligatory. Note, however, that for the rule to have influenced the Conqueror's dispositions in 1087 it need not have constituted a requirement; a merely permissive rule would suffice. That division became obligatory in Normandy over a century later (ibid., 191, n. 4) says nothing to the situation in the late eleventh century. See also Le Patourel, Normandy and England, 1066-1144 (Reading, 1970), 7-8 and n. 10. 70 Le Patourel, 'Norman Succession,' 227, also argues that William's own dispositions do not conform to any such rule, 'for Maine was as much of an acquet as England was,' yet Maine went to Curthose just as Normandy did. This argument, however, is weak, for William had acquired Maine through Curthose. He could not very well dispose of it to anyone but Curthose. On the role of Curthose in the acquisition of Maine, see David, Robert Curthose, 7-11. For another rejection of Le Patourel's argument on this point, see Holt, 'Politics and Property,' 48. It is also worth noting that, as the rule was merely permissive and as Maine and England were separate conquests, what happened to Maine is not relevant to what happened to England. If William had any concern for the peace of Normandy after his death, it would have been wise in any case not to give Maine to Rufus - or to Henry. 71 Orderic, 2: 282-84; trans. Chibnall, ibid., 283-85. 72 The Domesday Monachorum of Christ Church Canterbury, ed. David C. Douglas (London, 1944), 68-70.

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were divided between his eldest son, Robert de Belleme, who received the Norman lands, and his second son, Hugh, who received the English lands; four younger sons received no endowments.73 When Hugh de Grandmesnil died in 1093 or 1098 his eldest son, Robert, received his Norman lands and his next eldest available son, Ivo, received the English lands; a still younger son was not endowed.74 Gilbert de Gand, who died about 1094, was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Hugh, in Normandy and by his younger son, Walter, in England.75 At some time between 1086 and 1106 Henry de Ferrieres was succeeded in Normandy by William, his eldest son, and in England by his second son, Engenulf. The third son, Robert, inherited the English lands in the mid-twelfth century, when Engenulf died without heirs.76 Other families followed the same pattern except that the order of birth of the sons is not certain. At some time between 1066 and 1084 William d'Aubigny was succeeded by his son Roger in Normandy and his son Nigel in England.77 In 1087 or early 1088 Richard fitz Gilbert, lord of Bienfaite and Orbec in Normandy and of Clare and Tonbridge in England, was succeeded by his son Roger in the

73

Orderic, 3: 148-50; 4: 302; J.F.A. Mason, 'Roger de Montgomery and his Sons (1067-1102),' Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser. 13 (1963): 13-17. On two of the non-inheriting sons, see Victoria Chandler, The Last of the Montgomerys: Roger the Poitevin and Arnulf,' Historical Research 62 (1989): 1-14. The youngest of Roger de Montgomery's sons, Evrard, was born of his second wife, Adelaide du Puiset. 74 Orderic, 4: 338; Levi Fox, 'The Honor and Earldom of Leicester: Origin and Descent, 1066-1399,' EHR 54 (1939): 386; David C. Douglas, The Norman Achievement (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969), 232, table 7. The second son, William, had gone to southern Italy when young and made his career there. The third son died in 1087. Ivo was the fourth son. The fifth son was named Alvered. 75 Orderic, ed. Auguste Le Prevost, 5 vols. (Paris, 1838-55), 3: 360, n. 4; Alfred S. Ellis, 'Biographical Notes on the Yorkshire Tenants Named in Domesday Book,' Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal 4 (1877): 232; Early Yorkshire Charters, 2, ed. William Fairer (Edinburgh, 1915), 432-33; G.E. Qokayne], The Complete Peerage of England . . . , eds. Vicary Gibbs, et al., 13 vols. (London, 1910-59), 7: 672 and note b. The firstborn son, also called Gilbert, predeceased his father; the fourth son, Robert, was a cleric. The Norman inheritance of Hugh was at Montfort-sur-Risle and came from his and his siblings' mother Alice, daughter of Hugh II de Montfort. When all the descendants of Hugh II except for the Gand family died out, it was Hugh rather than his brother Walter who succeeded to all the lands of the Montfort family, in England as well as in Normandy: Douglas, Domesday Monachorum, 70; Le Prevost, Eure, 2: 416; Round, Calendar, no. 358, pp. 120-21. Gilbert himself seems to have had no lands on the continent. He was a younger son of Ralph of Ghent, lord of Aalst: E. Warlop, The Flemish Nobility before 1300, 2 vols. in 4 (Kortrijk, 1976), l.ii: 587-88, 591 (no. 6); J. Gantrel, 'Memoire sur la part que les Flamands et les autres Beiges ont prise a la conquete de 1'Angleterre par les Normands,' Nouvelles archives historiques, philosophiques et litteraires 2 (1840): 335-36. 76 Lewis C. Loyd, The Family of Ferrers of Ferrieres-St.-Hilaire,' The Rutland Magazine 1 (1903^): 177 (and the references there) and the chart-pedigree on 178. The account given by David C. Douglas, The Norman Fate (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1976), 24, conflates Engenulf and Robert. 77 Loyd, 'Aubigny of Cainhoe,' 101-4, and chart-pedigree no. 3, following 109.

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former two domains and his son Gilbert in the latter two; two younger sons had to find fiefs by their own exertions.78 Richard's brother Baldwin fitz Gilbert, lord of Meules and Le Sap in Normandy and of many estates in the west of England, was succeeded, before the end of 1090, by his sons Robert in Normandy and William in England; a third son received nothing.79 At some time between 1086 and 1105 Richard de Courcy was succeeded by his son Robert in Normandy and his son William in England.80 When William Pantulf died in 1112 his son Philip inherited in Normandy and his son Robert in England; two sons did not share in the division.81 There are even two such divisions between daughters, although in these instances it is unknown not only which woman was the elder, but also whether the daughters who shared their fathers' inheritances were the only ones living. Between 1086 and 1095 William, viscount of Arques, was succeeded by his daughter Matilda in Normandy and his daughter Emma in England.82 At some time between 1094 and 1130 Robert de Rumilly's daughter Lucy inherited his Norman lands while his daughter Cecily inherited his English lands.83 It has often been pointed out that in the first generation after the Conquest, about 1094, the division of property in the Beaumont family did not correspond to the distinction between propres and acquets. The rule, however, was followed in

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Robert of Torigny, interpolations to William of Jumieges, ed. Marx, 326; John Horace Round, 'Clare,' in DNB, 10: 375; idem, 'The Family of Clare,' Archaeological Journal 56 (1899): 224-26; Douglas, Domesday Monachorum, 39^H; Le Patourel, Norman Empire, 108, n. 4. See also Complete Peerage, 3: 242-43 and 243, note a; but this is confused about the earlier generations of the family. 79 William Dugdale, The Baronage of England, 2 vols. (London, 1675-76), 1: 254; Complete Peerage, 4: 308—9 (which is again confused about the earlier generations of the family); Round, 'Family of Clare,' 224-25. On both branches of the family, see also Jennifer C. Ward, 'Royal Service and Reward: The Clare Family and the Crown, 1066-1154,' in A-NS 11 (1989): 265 and chart-pedigree on 262. 80 Henry C. Maxwell-Lyte, 'Curci,' Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society 66 (1921): 98-101; William Fairer, Honors and Knights' Fees, 3 vols. (London, 1923-25), 1: 103-4; Le Patourel, Normandy and England, 33-34. 81 Orderic, 3: 164; 4: 72. In the article on William Pantulf in DNB, 43: 187, Mary Bateson calls Philip William's 'eldest son' and Robert the 'second son' but cites no source. These descriptions are followed by I.J. Sanders, English Baronies (Oxford, 1960), 94 and n. 7. Orderic does not in fact state that Philip was the eldest, although each of the three times when he lists William's sons (the third is in 3: 162) Philip heads the list. The other sons were Ivo and Arnulf. Janel Meisel, Barons of the Welsh Frontier: The Corbet, Pantulf and Fitz Warin Families, 1066-1272 (Nebraska, 1980), is concerned with these families in England alone and adds nothing to what Orderic says about the succession to William Pantulf. 82 Thomas Stapleton, 'Observations upon the Succession to the Barony of William of Arques . . . ,' Archaeologia 31 (1846): 217-18; Complete Peerage, 10, Appendix F, 48, 52-53; Lewis C. Loyd, The Origins of Some Anglo-Norman Families, Harleian Society 103 (Leeds, 1951): 6 and n. 3. 83 Early Yorkshire Charters, 7, eds. William Fairer and Charles T. Clay (Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, Extra Ser. 5 [1947]), v, 1-5, 32, 34-35, 50. Lucy, however, received one English manor as well.

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the second generation in both branches of the family. After Robert de Beaumont, count of Meulan and earl of Leicester, died in 1118, Waleran, the elder of his twin sons, received the county of Meulan and his father's Norman estates, all indubitably patrimony. England was more complicated. According to the latest historian of the family, Robert, the younger twin, not only became earl of Leicester and inherited all but one of the English estates which his father had first acquired, but also received all but one of the few which were patrimony; his elder brother was granted the remaining two, one patrimony, one conquest, as well as some houses in the city of Winchester. A third son did not share in the division.84 When Henry de Beaumont, younger brother of Robert count of Meulan and himself earl of Warwick and lord of Neubourg, died in 1119 or possibly earlier, his lands were divided between his sons Roger, the eldest, who in this instance received the English lands, and Robert, the next available of his five sons, who received the Norman lands.85 In the division of Richard de Reviers' estates in 1107 it was also the eldest son who received the English possessions; Richard's second son received the bulk of the Norman lands, but his third son also received some endowment.86 These two instances might be taken as contraventions of the rule concerning patrimony and conquest. It is, however, also possible that they were the result of

84 Crouch, Beaumont Twins, 8-10. Crouch points out that the division was arranged in 1107 before the birth of the third son, but was probably not carried out until 1120, two years after Robert de Beaumont's death; 1120 was the year when the Beaumont twins attained the age of sixteen and their minority came to an end (ibid., 8). He thinks, ibid., 9, that for England '[t]here are too many exceptions to the principle . . . to believe that any rule guided Count Robert's division of his estates there.' At the least, however, the division represents a basic rule of Norman estates to the eldest son and English estates to the second, as is reflected in the account of Orderic, 6: 328-30. Moreover, other accounts of this division have seen in it greater adherence to the patrimony-conquest rule. For these, see: Complete Peerage, 7: 526 and note c; ibid., appendix I, 737; G.H. White, The Career of Waleran, Count of Meulan and Earl of Worcester (1104-1166),' Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th ser. 17 (1934): 20-22; Emile Houth, 'Galeran II, comte de Meulan,' Bulletin philologique et historique (jusqu'd 1610) du Comite des travaux historiques et scientifiques, Annee 1960, pt. 2 (Paris, Ministere de 1'Education nationale, 1961): 628-29. The third son, Hugh, later became earl of Bedford: Holt, 'Politics and Property,' 50; Crouch, Beaumont Twins, 41 and the references in n. 61. 85 Robert of Torigny, interpolations to William of Jumieges, ed. Marx, 333: Complete Peerage, 12, pt. 2: 357-61 and 360, note g, and appendix A, 4-5; G.H. White, 'Robert du Neubourg and Waleran Count of Meulan,' Notes and Queries, 12th ser. 12, no. 249 (20 January 1923): 43; idem, 'The Brothers and Sons of Robert du Neubourg,' ibid., no. 257 (17 March 1923): 207; Holt, 'Politics and Property,' 50-51. There is no doubt that Roger was the eldest son, but the order of birth of the others is not certain. Robert may have been younger than Rotrou; but Rotrou was a cleric, eventually becoming archbishop of Rouen. The two remaining sons, Geoffrey and Henry, were almost certainly younger than either Robert or Rotrou. On the order of birth, see White, 'Brothers and Sons,' 207. On both branches of this family, see also Holt, 'Politics and Property,' 49-51, and the references there. 86 John Horace Round, 'Redvers,' in DNB, 47: 385; Complete Peerage, 4: 309-12 and 311, noteb.

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agreements between the fathers and their eldest sons which were made possible by the very rule which the agreements appear to break. In a situation in which the English lands were more extensive than the Norman ones, the patrimonyconquest rule might allow a father to strike a bargain with his eldest son to the effect that the father would leave the English lands to the eldest, provided the eldest did not contest his father's bestowal of the Norman lands on the second son. Faced with such a proposal, the eldest son would have to choose between the ancestral estate and the larger estate.87 He might well choose the larger - and both in the Neubourg-Warwick branch of the Beaumonts and in the Reviers family the English lands were considerably more extensive than the Norman ones. There were, therefore, at least seven instances in which cross-Channel inheritances were divided between an eldest son, who received his father's Norman estates, and a second son, who received his father's English estates; another seven cases in which two sons or two daughters whose order of birth is not known or not certain divided the lands of their father similarly; and two instances in which the division was applied to sons in the reverse order of birth. In virtually all these instances - Reviers appears to be the only exception - only the two eldest sons shared in a division, even if three or more sons were alive when their father died. Additional instances are more or less problematic. When William I de Warenne died in 1088 his English lands went to his elder son, William II, and his Flemish lands, which came from his wife, went to the younger son, Rainald. This seems to be a third example of a division in reverse, and the Warenne lands in England were much more extensive than the lands elsewhere; but it is complicated in two separate ways. First, all of William I's lands, those in Normandy as well as those in England, seem to have been conquest. Second, what happened to his Norman lands in 1088 is not certain; they eventually came into the possession of William II, but this may have been because Rainald died without heirs.88 The family of Stuteville separated in the early twelfth century into Norman and English branches, a separation which may have resulted from a division between the two eldest sons of Robert II at some time after about 1110; but the case is complicated because both Robert II and his father Robert I were captured during the Tinchebray campaign of 1106 and their lands were confiscated.89 A charter for Mont-Saint-Michel, which can be dated between

87

See also, Holt, 'Politics and Property,' 16. Complete Peerage, 12, pt. 2: 493-95 and 495, note b; Early Yorkshire Charters, 8, eds. William Fairer and Charles T. Clay (Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, Extra Ser. 6 [1949]), 2-9, 44, and chart-pedigree opposite p. 1; Loyd, 'Aubigny of Cainhoe,' 103; idem, The Origin of the Family of Warenne,' Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 31 (1934): 106-11; Le Patourel, Norman Empire, 191, n. 2. 89 Fairer and Clay, Early Yorkshire Charters, 9: 1-2, 41-^-3, 70, and chart-pedigree opposite p. 1. 88

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1087 and 1091, implies that Robert, count of Mortain, contemplated a division along the lines permitted by the rule. In fact, however, all of Robert's possessions descended to his elder son, William, and it seems likely that the younger son, Robert, predeceased their father.90 Alan fitz Flaald, a Breton who was endowed with sizable estates in England by Henry I, was succeeded (probably after 1114) in his Breton lands, in his office as steward of Dol, and perhaps in one English estate, by his son Jordan; but the bulk of his English estates went to his son William.91 Other examples are yet more conjectural. There may have been a division in 1088 between the two eldest sons of Robert de Tosny, with Berengar, the eldest, receiving the Norman lands and William, the second son, succeeding his father at Belvoir castle; there was at least one younger son.92 Alfred S. Ellis conjectures that Gilbert Tison may have been the younger son of Ralph Taisson II, who died at Hastings, and that the lands which Gilbert held in chief at the time of Domesday Book may represent the reward which his father would have garnered had he survived the battle, while the ancestral possessions in Normandy passed to Ralph's elder son, Ralph III.93 Other historians, however, reject the filiation of Gilbert Tison which Ellis proposes,94 and the evidence that Ralph II died at Hastings is late and unconvincing.95 There may also have been divisions

90

Bibliotheque municipale d'Avranches, MS. 210, fol. 34. There is a copy of this document in Bibliotheque nationale, fonds franc,ais nouvelle acquisition, MS. 21812, fol. 382r, and an English summary in Round, Calendar, no. 716, 256-57. By this charter Count Robert granted the abbey land in England with the consent of Robert, his son by his second wife, Almodis, 'and William his other son has promised (concessit) to grant it if Almodis should leave no heir and the land should thus return (reveniret) to him (William)': trans. Round, 257. This sounds as though Count Robert intended William, his only son by his first wife, to succeed him in Normandy and Robert the younger or, if he should die, another son by Almodis to succeed him in England: William's consent is necessary only in default of heirs by Almodis. Douglas, Domesday Monachorum, 35, says that the charter shows that all Robert's children were produced by his first marriage, but the charter quite explicitly describes Robert as 'ille quern de Almodi comitissa habuit.' There seems to be no mention of the younger Robert other than in the charter of 1087 X 1091. Count Robert died in 1090 or 1091. Mary Bateson, 'Mortain,' in DNB, 39: 117, suggests that Robert count of Mortain may also have had a son named Nigel. The source which she cites is Magni rotuli scaccarii Normanniae sub regibus Angliae, ed. Thomas Stapleton, 2 vols. (London, 1840, 1844), 1: xlvii, which, however, refers merely to a Nigel, bailiff of Mortain. Stapleton, 1: Ixv, calls this Nigel 'son of Robert'; but, as this man flourished in the late twelfth century (ibid.), he can hardly have been a son of Count Robert. 91 John Horace Round, Studies in Peerage and Family History (Westminster, 1901), 115-31, esp. 125-26, 129. 92 John Horace Round, in The Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Rutland, G.C.B., Preserved at Belvoir Castle, Historical Manuscripts Commission, 4 vols. (London, 1888-1905), 4: 106-7; Fairer, Early Yorkshire Charters, 1 (Edinburgh, 1914), 461. 93 Ellis, 'Biographical Notes,' 234 (which seems twice to say 'Geoffrey' when it means 'Gilbert'). 94 William Fairer, in VCH Yorkshire, ed. William Page, 3 vols. (London, 1907-1913), 2: 175; Early Yorkshire Charters, 12, eds. William Fairer and Charles T. Clay (Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, Extra Ser. 10 [1965]), 2, 5. 95 The best study of the family concludes merely that he died between 1066 and 1079: Lucien

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in the families of Abetot,96 Bacon,97 Burdet,98 Harcourt,99 Marshal,100 Paynel, 101 Musset, 'Actes inedits du Xle siecle. V. Autour des origines de Saint-Etienne de Fontenay,' Bulletin de la Societe des Antiquaires de Normandie 56 (1961-62): 14. 96 Loyd, Anglo-Norman Families, 1-2. If this is an instance, it is one in which the English lands were much more extensive than the Norman lands. 97 Ibid., 10-11. 98 Crouch, Beaumont Twins, 127. The division would have occurred before the compilation of Domesday Book. 99 Douglas, Conqueror, 361, n. 2, cites Harcourt as one of four obvious examples of divided successions (the other three being Fitz Osbern, Montgomery and Montfort-sur-Risle), but he gives no evidence; in Norman Fate, 23, he discusses the family in the early twelfth century but says nothing about a division. Neither of the major treatises on the family provides evidence of a division in the generation after the Conquest: Gilles Andre de la Roque, Histoire genealogique de la maison de Harcourt, 4 vols. (Rouen, 1662); Jacques Louis Lenoir, Preuves genealogiques et historiques de la maison de Harcourt (Paris, 1907). I have been unable to find explicit reference to a division in eleventh- or twelfth-century charters or other sources. However, Crouch, Beaumont Twins, 120-27, esp. 124-25 (with the genealogy on 220-21), works out the family tree so that, at his death in 1118, Robert son of Anketil gives all his Norman patrimony to his eldest son and divides his English conquests among two or three of his younger sons. 100 Complete Peerage, 11, appendix E, 123-24. 101 Ellis, 'Biographical Notes,' 219-20, proposes that William Paynel, a Norman lord of some importance in the late eleventh century, and Ralph Paynel, who held a considerable number of estates in Domesday Book, were brothers and that either their father or one of them was the 'Paynel de Moutiers-Hubert' who, Wace says, was at the battle of Hastings. If it was the father, then William and Ralph would provide a pre-1087 example of a division according to the patrimony-conquest rule, [n view of the dates of death of William (in the same year as the Conqueror according to Orderic, 4: 112) and Ralph (between 1115 and 1124: Early Yorkshire Charters, 6: 4), it seems relatively unlikely that they were brothers. Therefore, the reconstruction proposed by Fairer and Clay in ibid., 1-3, seems better: that William was the father of Ralph and also of the Hugh Paynel who gave Norman land to Saint-Etienne de Caen between 1089 and 1091, that Hugh was the elder son, and that William's lands were divided between his sons according to the rule about patrimony and conquest. There are problems with this solution, too, however. First, unless Orderic made a mistake of at least several years in the date of William Paynel's death, one must posit that William retired to Normandy and resigned his English estates into Ralph's hands before Domesday Book was compiled, long enough before so that no sign of the transfer has found its way into that survey. William might, of course, have become a monk some years before he died; but Orderic, who often notes such actions on the part of Norman magnates, does not say that he had. Second, it is difficult to reconcile the known information about William's wife with the known information about Hugh's mother. William's wife was the heiress to property held of the abbey of Mont-SaintMichel: Charles Homer Haskins, Norman Institutions (Cambridge, MA, 1918), 21-22 (for a translation, see Tabuteau, Transfers, 56-57). Hugh's charter for Saint-Etienne de Caen (of which there are copies in Bibliotheque nationale, MS. lat. 17135, 23-24, and in Bibliotheque de 1'Universite de Caen, cote 21420, no. 153, pp. 51-53, and excerpts in Bibliotheque municipale de Caen, MS. 300, fol. 79r, all of which must be collated to provide a reliable text) says that his mother Lesceline, then still alive, had a maritagium. Maritagium, as used in eleventh-century Normandy, always means 'dowry,' never 'inheritance'; hence, it can be inferred that Lesceline had at least one brother, who inherited the bulk of their father's lands, and therefore, that she was not the same woman as the wife who brought William Paynel a fief held of Mont-Saint-Michel. William may, of course, have been married twice. If so, however, Ralph must have been the son of his first wife: the charter from Mont-Saint-Michel

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and Talbot.102 The family of Tourville, tenants of the earldom of Leicester, appear to provide an all-English example.103 Another way of approaching the same problem is to take the fourteen men whom William of Poitiers and Orderic Vitalis between them list as the most important laymen in Normandy at the time of the conquest of England and see what happened to their estates on their deaths.104 Several are irrelevant: Richard, count of Evreux, died in 1067 and his only son, William, who was endowed in England, died childless.105 Hugh the Butler, though curiously elusive for so allegedly important a man, apparently had no legitimate offspring.106 Ralph de Tosny (or Conches) and Roger de Montbray (another strangely invisible member of this group) seem each to have had only one surviving son.107 Hugo Vicecomes, listed only by William of Poitiers, is usually identified as Hugh, Viscount of Avranches and earl of Chester; if so, he is another man on the list who had only one legitimate son.108 Elisabeth van Houts has recently argued,

dates from between 1070 and 1081; while it gives no explicit indication that William's wife was alive, it certainly sounds as though it postdates the marriage by very little; and even if it is from 1070 and William married Lesceline later in that very year, Ralph, if Lesceline's son, could have been at most fifteen when he figures as a significant tenant-in-chief in Domesday Book. In other words if Ralph and Hugh were sons of William Paynel, which neither is ever explicitly said to be, they must have been half-brothers; and Ralph, though he was endowed in England, must have been the elder of the two. All in all the exact relationships in the Paynel family before the mid-twelfth century are unclear, and the family cannot be counted as a certain example of the operation of the patrimony-conquest rule in the generation after the Conquest. 102 Douglas, Domesday Monachorum, 49-50 and 50, n. 2. 103 Crouch, Beaumont Twins, 117, 119, with the genealogy on 218-19. 104 Orderic, 2: 140, lists all but Viscount Hugh; Poitiers, 148, lists Hugh and six of those listed by Orderic. For a convenient setting out of the two lists in parallel, see C. Warren Hollister, 'The Greater Domesday Tenants-in-Chief,' in Domesday Studies, ed. J.C. Holt (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1987), 248. Ibid., n. 1, suggests why Orderic may have omitted Viscount Hugh if he is Hugh of Avranches, but see infra, at and in n. 109, for the likelihood that Hugh de Montfort is meant instead. 105 Douglas, Conqueror, 422, table 5; William's heir was his sister's son Amaury. 106 Hugh pincerna seems to be the same man as Hugh d'lvry, whose heir was his apparent nephew Roger d'lvry: G.H. White, 'The Household of the Norman Kings,' Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th ser. 30 (1948): 141^42, and the references there; Loyd, Anglo-Norman Families, 52; Douglas, Domesday Monarchorum, 56 and n. 3. 107 For Ralph, see: Orderic, 3: 126-28; 6: 54; Complete Peerage, 12, pt. 1: 759-61 and 760, n. e.; Lucien Musset, 'Aux origines d'une classe dirigeante: les Tosny, grands barons normands du Xe au XHIe siecle,' Francia 5 (1977): 56-62 (including chart-pedigree on p. 57). Although Orderic lists Roger de Montbray as one of the most important men in Normandy in 1066, he mentions him only one other time, and then only as his son Robert's father: Orderic, 4: 428. He was the brother of the genuinely important Geoffrey de Montbray, bishop of Coutances. For what is known of Roger, see Hollister, 'Greater Domesday Tenants-in-chief,' 229. Robert is the only son of whom I have been able to find mention. 108 Orderic, 5: 314; Complete Peerage, 3: 165. Ellis, 'Biographical Notes,' 127, n. 19, says that Hugh 'is generally accorded 3 other legitimate sons' (emphasis his), named Robert (a monk), Other or Othowell, and Philip, and that Other died only in 1120. He cites no source of this information, however; and these sons are generally considered to have been illegitimate.

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and argued convincingly, that the man in question is, instead, Hugh de Montfortsur-Risle; and Hugh de Montfort's lands were, of course, divided between his sons according to the patrimony-conquest rule.109 Of the remaining nine who could have followed the rule, only one certainly did not: Roger de Beaumont's inheritance was divided between his two sons but not along the lines of patrimony and conquest.110 Robert count of Eu may be another example which does not follow the rule, or he may have had only one surviving son.1l l In contrast, three estates - those of William fitz Osbern, Hugh de Grandmesnil, and Roger de Montgomery - were certainly divided according to the rule; two more, those of Richard fitz Gilbert and Baldwin fitz Gilbert, were, except that the order of birth of their sons is not known; another estate, William de Warenne's, may have been, while that of Robert count of Mortain seems to have been intended to be so divided until his younger son died.112 In terms of certainties, therefore, of the eight to ten of these men who could have followed the rule three or four did (depending on who Viscount Hugh really was) and one did not; if possibilities are added, eight did or intended to do so, and at most two did not. In sum, there are so many examples of cross-Channel estates which were divided between siblings along the same lines as William the Conqueror followed in 1087 that they constitute a good prima facie case that the rule whereby conquest was more freely disposable than patrimony was thoroughly familiar

On Robert and Other, see Charlotte A. Newman, The Anglo-Norman Nobility in the Reign of Henry I (Philadelphia, 1988), 58. 109 Elisabeth M.C. van Houts, The Ship List of William the Conqueror,' in A-NS 10 (1988): 161, n. 14, with 167, n. 40. For the succession to Hugh de Montfort, see supra, 157 and n. 72. 110 Holt, 'Politics and Property,' 49-50, and the references there. 1 '' Cartulaire de I'abbaye de Saint-Michel du Treport, ed. P. Laffleur de Kermaingant (Paris, 1880), no. 3, pp. 8-20, twice lists the sons of Count Robert of Eu in the order Ralph, William, Robert (pp. 9, 15); elsewhere, however, the same charter seven times names only William when it records the consent of Count Robert's sons, in the form 'ac filiorum ejus Willelmi videlicet et ceterorum' or the like (pp. 11-14). It was William who succeeded his father as count of Eu between 1089 and 1093. The charter which mentions Count Robert's other sons is dated 1059, but the text which survives is an obviously interpolated version containing many later gifts. The references to Ralph and Robert come from the introduction and the witness clause of the charter in its initial form. It therefore seems likely that Ralph was older than William but died shortly after 1059 and that Count Robert and his wife had at least one more son after 1059 (for William clearly has more than one brother in the references where he alone is named). Complete Peerage, 5 (1926 ed.), 153, refers to William as Robert's '2nd but 1st surviving s[on] and h[eir].' As there is no reference to the son Robert or his putative younger brother(s) outside the charter for Le Treport, it is quite possible that these children, like Ralph, died relatively young. If one or more of them survived, however, Count Robert's lands were not divided among his sons. On the family, see also Edmond Chester Waters, 'The Counts of Eu,' Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal 9 (1886): 257-302, especially 268-71. 112 Fitz Osbern: supra, 157 and n. 71. Grandmesnil: supra, 158 and n. 74. Montgomery: supra, 158 and n. 73. Fitz Gilbert (Bienfaite): supra, 158-59 and n. 78. Fitz Gilbert (Meules): supra, 159 and n. 79. Warenne: supra, 161 and n. 88. Mortain: supra 161-62 and n. 90.

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to the Normans of the late eleventh century. Most of the known instances, however, are certainly or very probably later than 1087 or are too uncertain to be used as evidence for the date of evolution of the rule. It is possible that the examples cited demonstrate the creation of this rule of law rather than merely its embodiment in spectacular circumstances, that, in other words, the instances which postdate 1087 simply followed the example given by William the Conqueror, that William's division of his possessions between his sons set a precedent rather than following an acknowledged rule.113 In the period between 1087 and 1106, into which about half of the examples cited above certainly fall, fathers would have had considerable practical incentive to divide their English from their Norman possessions: with the two domains under different and antagonistic rulers, loyalty became a troublesome problem to those with both Norman and English possessions.114 The political situation, reinforcing parental desire to provide for as many sons as possible, might therefore be enough to explain many of the divisions of English from Norman estates in the first generation after the Conquest. The succession in the Aubigny family occurred in 1084 at the latest and Richard fitz Gilbert's death may also have occurred before the Conqueror's; but in neither instance is the order of birth of the sons known. If there was a division in the Burdet family it would have been before 1086; but the putative division must be inferred from later evidence. In the earliest example of a division, however, the fitz Osbern inheritance, the rule regarding patrimony and conquest was followed to the letter; and this division occurred a mere five years after the Conquest, before there was any political reason to suspect that Normandy and England might be separated when William the Conqueror died.115 Yet even this division is not conclusive evidence that such divisions expressed a rule existing before 1087 and independent of the will of the Conqueror. According to Orderic it was the Conqueror himself who, after fitz Osbern's death at Cassel, established the division whereby the elder son inherited the Norman estates and the younger

113 J.C. Holt, 'Feudal Society and the Family in Early Medieval England. II. Notions of Patrimony,' Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser. 33 (1983): 213, suggests, 'The rule, like the acquisitions themselves, was probably a product of the Conquest'; he does not discuss William's personal role. 114 See the references supra, n. 1. For forceful expressions of the problem, see: the speech of Odo of Bayeux in Orderic, 4: 122; the dilemma of William, count of Evreux, ibid., 6: 59. Orderic's account could have been based on hindsight, however, and may even have been written with a current purpose in mind, for he wrote Book VIII of his History, in which Odo's speech occurs, 'between 1133 and 1135, possibly with additions a year or two later' (ibid., 4: xix), and Book XI, in which William of Evreux's difficulty is described, was written primarily in 1136 and 1137 with retouchings as late as 1141 (ibid., 6: xviii). In other words, Orderic may have had in mind the problems occasioned by the dispute over the succession between Stephen and Matilda and the consequent possibility of a separation of Normandy from England. The separation came to pass in 1141 and is the event with which Orderic ends his History. 115 The first open quarrel between Curthose and his father broke out only in late 1077 or 1078.

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son the English lands.116 Nonetheless, the king may have acted simply because William fitz Osbern's sudden death in battle meant that he had not had time to make provision for the succession to his estates. The rule that conquests were more freely disposable than patrimony may thus have existed in Norman law independent of the precedent set in 1087. Its contemporaneous existence beyond the Anglo-Norman borders, as witness the charter from Saint-Pere de Chartres quoted at the beginning of this section, suggests so. Evidence that the rule existed and was applied when the conquest as well as the patrimony lay within Normandy would, of course, strengthen the possibility that in 1087 William the Conqueror was following a rule rather than creating a precedent. No categorical statement comparable to that in the charter of Saint-Pere de Chartres is found in eleventh-century Normandy; but there is some evidence, which, so far as I know, has not previously been examined in this context. Although somewhat indirect, it seems cumulatively substantial. In charters of the last decades of the century, the verb conquirere ('conquer') could be used for the peaceable acquisitions of an individual. 117 One charter makes a distinction which must depend on the alienator's mode of acquisition: part of what he alienates is patrimony, part conquest.118 Again, a few descriptions of sales to lay persons - one of them from at least forty years before the conquest of England - say that the purchase was made with the buyer's own money, as Gunpher de Villeray's father is said to have made his purchase in the charter from Saint-Pere.119 As there is no similar statement in the much more numerous records of purchases by churches, this phrase may have been included in order to emphasize that the lay purchaser could dispose as he liked of what was thus acquired. Indeed, one of these charters states that a donor named Robert was able to give property 'in which his brother Geoffrey had no part, because the same Robert had bought that land with his own income. . . .'12° The implication is

116

Supra, 157 and n. 71. Tabuteau, Transfers, 101 and n. 41. 118 Arch. Orne, 'Livre blanc' of Saint-Martin de Sees, fol. 36v: 'Morandus de Ocheveno vendidit nobis . . . totam medietatem decimationis pertinentis ad ecclesiam Sancti Hylarii de Samarlei. Suam autem partem presbiterii . . . dono concessit. . . . Et notandum quod ipsius vendite vel date medietatis medietatem a patre suo hereditabiliter habebat. Aliam autem partem a Tebaldo Tragino concessu Seifridi de Scuris de cuius feodo tota ecclesia erat eternaliter habendum emerat' (between 1073 and 1089). See also a similar distinction made by Orderic, 3: 142, concerning gifts made by Roger de Montgomery. Orderic, however, wrote this passage in the late 1120s: ibid., xiv. 119 Tabuteau, Transfers, 34 and n. 203. Such purchases appear in extant documents, of course, only because the possessions purchased were later given to churches. 120 Lucien Musset, 'Peuplement en bourgage et bourgs ruraux du Xle au XHIe siecle,' Cahiers de civilisation medievale 9 (1966): no. 1, p. 205: 'in quo suus frater Gaufredus nullam partem habebat, quia ipse Robertus emit terram illam de suo proprio censu . . .' (second half of the eleventh century); on this charter see also Tabuteau, Transfers, 111, and Fairer and Clay, Early Yorkshire Charters, 7: 34-35. 117

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that Geoffrey had no rights over what Robert had bought, which was therefore freely disposable. Bates has suggested that when the magnate Giroie died in 1033 his patrimony went to his eldest son while his conquests were divided among his other three sons, the largest share going to the first of them.121 Finally, a complex agreement between a man named Adelard and the abbey of Saint-Martin de Sees gives reason to believe that the lands which were included in the portion which Adelard bequeathed the abbey consisted of, and only of, all the land which he himself had acquired, as distinguished from those lands which he had inherited, which were to pass to his son.122 If so, Adelard would join Giroie as the only eleventh-century Normans who could be shown to have disposed as they pleased of their conquests while their patrimony descended to their eldest or only sons - where the conquests themselves consisted of land in Normandy. The few other references to decedents' portions which included land are too brief to permit similar conclusions.123 Nonetheless, the mere fact that an occasional donor mentioned that the portion which he designated to go to a church on his death included land may be significant. Most such portions consisted only of movables, of which eleventh-century Norman individuals apparently had an unchallenged right to dispose.124 Logically they should have had equally complete control over land acquired through their movables, that is, of purchases. This argument is not to be found in any extant document from eleventh-century Normandy; but the donors who included land in their portions may have been relying on it, and others may have been alluding to it when they noted that lands which they now gave away had been purchased with their own money. Evidence of this sort is not as 'specific' - to use Le Patourel's term - as a clear statement of a rule would be. It does, however, suggest that the existence of the rule cannot be rejected out of hand. Conquest was certainly distinguishable from patrimony. Various contemporaries of William the Conqueror may have acted on the principle when disposing of their possessions: Adelard; others who included land in their decedent's portions; lay purchasers who later gave to some church the property which they had purchased; and Anglo-Norman barons who were succeeded by one son in Normandy and another in England. In short the divided succession to Normandy and England in 1087 was not an aberration, a

121

Bates, Normandy, 118. Tabuteau, Transfers, 91 and n. 392 (where the act is published). Adelard gave the abbey the tithes only of the land which he had just received from them, which tithes he may well have acquired only when he acquired the land, and of the lands which he might 'buy or acquire' in the future, but not of the lands he possessed at the moment when he entered into the agreement with the abbey. This suggests that the lands which were to be included in his deathbed portion were all the lands which he himself had acquired, including the land acquired by the agreement, as opposed to those lands which he had inherited. 123 Tabuteau, Transfers, 90. 124 Ibid., 88-90. 122

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momentary lapse on the part of a statesmen caught in a web of circumstances. What William the Conqueror could do and what he did do were conditioned by legal considerations: he may have been compelled by one customary practice to allow Normandy to pass to his eldest son, but he was enabled by another to give England to his second son and preferred successor. Michigan State University Note An article by Barbara English, 'William the Conqueror and the Anglo-Norman Succession,' Historical Research 64: 155 (Oct., 1991): 221-36, appeared too late to be considered here. This very interesting piece goes over many of the questions I have raised and concludes that, while William certainly left Normandy to Robert, 'he may have left the succession to his crown undecided ' (p. 222).

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Bristol: An Angevin Baronial Capital under Royal Siege Robert B. Patterson

In 1138 King Stephen vainly besieged Bristol, the chief stronghold of Robert, earl of Gloucester, in an attempt to disseize the earl for having joined the cause of the Empress Matilda and the Angevin party. This was the first time the crown had attempted to recover this former terra regis since the manor had been given by King William Rufus to Earl Robert's predecessor and father-inlaw, Robert Fitz Hamon, c. 1093.' What King Stephen failed to achieve, his victorious rival Henry Fitz Empress and his son John accomplished. In 1189 Lackland won the borough by marriage to Earl Robert's granddaughter Isabel; when John became king ten years later, he retained the borough and acquired the castle which had been in manu regis since his father's reign.2 By so doing John completed a series of steps to reassert royal control over Bristol which I call the Angevin siege of Bristol. This was not a military campaign but rather a series of ultimately successful Angevin governmental and political initiatives. As James Tait pointed out, it was unusual for the crown to grant a royal borough to a subject, to 'mediatize' burghal terra regis into a seignorial borough;3 hence an examination of Angevin policy to recover Bristol provides an important insight into the interplay between Angevin government, an urban baronial manor, and its lords. The town Fitz Hamon won from William Rufus and which King Henry I allowed his son Robert of Gloucester to retain received a memorable contemporary description from the anonymous author of the Gesta Stephani. To this

1

Gesta Stephani, ed. K.R. Potter (Edinburgh, 1955), 43-44; David Walker, Bristol In The Early Middle Ages, Bristol Branch of the Historical Association (Bristol, 1971), 9-11; C. Warren Hollister, 'Magnates and "Curiales" in Early Norman England,' Viator 8 (1977): 68, 70, 72n; R.H.C. Davis, King Stephen, 3rd. ed. (London, 1990), 35-36. 2 Earldom of Gloucester Charters: The Charters and Scribes of the Earls and Countesses of Gloucester to A.D. 1217, ed. Robert B. Patterson (Oxford, 1973), 5-7 (hereafter cited as EGC); see infra, 179-80 and nn. 3 James Tait, The Medieval English Borough (Manchester 1936; repr. ed., 1968), 350.

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observer Bristol ranked as almost the wealthiest town in England from the trade which was drawn to its famous port. He commented on the borough's virtually impregnable military position, located on a peninsula surrounded by the confluence of two rivers (the Frome and Avon) and guarded at the one direct land approach by a great castle situated on an enormous mound.4 Bristol's burgesses, although subsumed within a manorial framework and subject to a feudal lord, seem to have enjoyed at least quasi-hundredal standing, for at the time of the Domesday Survey they spoke for themselves.5 The first baronial lord of Bristol probably did little to exploit the town as an administrative center other than to garrison the motte and bailey castle Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances, seems to have controlled earlier as constable for William the Conqueror and William Rufus.6 Fitz Hamon may have intended to make Tewkesbury to the north in Gloucestershire his caput. An indication of this is his foundation of St. Mary's Abbey there in 1102.7 It was Earl Robert of Gloucester who transformed Bristol into the baronial capital the Angevins coveted. Gloucester's major step was a complete structural transformation of Bristol's castle apparently between c. 1137 and his death in 1147. This chronology strongly suggests the influence of the earl's role in the 'Anarchy' on this construction. Archaeological evidence of this vanished structure analyzed by M.W. Ponsford shows that Earl Robert replaced the motte and bailey with a great rectangular keep some 90' by 75' at its base, comparable to Canterbury Castle, according to R. Allen Brown. It is possible that the earl may have been influenced by Canterbury's dimensions, for during at least the latter part of Henry I's reign he had both Canterbury and Dover Castles under his command. According to Ponsford, Earl Robert also probably built a hall in the bailey, at least part of the western curtain wall, and a gate.8 By the thirteenth century, the structure Gloucester began could be called 'the flower of all the keeps of England.'9

4 5

Gesta Stephani, 37-38.

Great Domesday, ed. R.W.H. Erskine (London, 1986), Case 1, fol. 163; Walker, Bristol, 14-15, 23 (for mention of the royal reeve); see also Patterson, EGC, no. 10. 6 Walker, Bristol, 8; Historic Towns: Bristol, eds. M.D. Lobel and E.M. Carus-Wilson (London, 1975), 3-4; M.W. Ponsford, 'Bristol Castle: Archaeology and The History of A Royal Fortress,' 2 vols. (M.Litt. thesis, University of Bristol, 1979) 1:27-28; see also Accounts of the Constables of Bristol Castle in the Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries, ed. Margaret Sharp, Bristol Record Society Publication 34 (1982), xvii-xxii. 7 Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales, eds. David Knowles and R. Neville Hadcock (London, 1953), 63 and n.; M.M.C. Calthrop, 'Priory of Cranborne,' in VCH Dorset, 2, ed. William Page (London, 1908), 70; Patterson, EGC, no. 5In.; see also Rose Graham, Tewkesbury Abbey,' in VCH Gloucester, 2, ed. William Page (London, 1907), 62. 8 The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, ed. William Stubbs, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1879-80), 1: 94; Ponsford, 1: 31, 34; 2: 83-85, 88, 99; R. Allen Brown, English Castles (London, 1954), 70. 9 The chronicle of Robert of Gloucester (Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, ed. W.A. Wright, 2 vols. [London, 1887], 2: 636), quoted in Lobel and Carus-Wilson, 4.

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Among baronial developers the ideal caput consisted of borough, castle, and monastery. John Le Patourel has described the symbiotic relation of the three.10 According to a tradition preserved by the monks of Tewkesbury Abbey, Earl Robert founded an Eigenkloster at Bristol and arranged for the construction of its chapel of St. Mary by tithing the stone being used for the castle.] J Robert located his new house across the River Frome in the northern suburb new borough. For a patron saint he chose St. James, whose cult had been promoted by the empress, Gloucester's half-sister; he made the house a priory of Tewkesbury.12 Place-dates of the charters issued by Robert and his successor and son William (1147-83) show that the Norman earls actually used Bristol as their favored administrative capital for meetings of their honorial courts. Earl William even used Bristol for matters pertaining to his Welsh honor of Glamorgan.13 By the second half of the twelfth century, the earl's chief fiscal bureau for the honor of Gloucester was located at Bristol. The office even sported the pretentious name of scaccarium.14 The early baronial landlords of Bristol also enhanced participation in curial functions by its honorial tenants by subinfeudating barons like the Umfravilles and the St. Quintins and a familiaris like William, son of Gregory de Turri, with land in Bristol.15 Furthermore, the socio-economic importance of members of prominent burgess families such as the patrician Robert Fitz Harding and Jordan La Werre led to their inclusion among the familiiares of honorial courts.16 Just how valuable Bristol was to its baronial landlords emerges from Exchequer accounts from the second half of the twelfth century. As Sidney Painter noted, the earl's honor of Gloucester enjoyed the second highest income on record between 1160 and 1220, some £700 per year. In a given year Bristol generated between 19 per cent and 26 per cent of this income.17 Analysis of charter and Pipe Roll evidence for period reveals that comital revenues came from landgable rents, a variety of tolls, stall fees, and proceeds from the comital 10

John Le Patourel, The Norman Empire (Oxford, 1976), 317-18. Patterson, EGC, nos. 199-200. 12 Ibid.; Karl Leyser, 'Frederick Barbarossa, Henry II and the Hand of St. James',' EHR 90 (1975): 491-99; Reading Abbey Cartularies, ed. B.R. Kemp, Camden Society, 4th ser. 31 (1986), no. 5 & n.; Rose Graham, 'Priory of St. James, Bristol,' in VCH Gloucester, 2, 74. 13 Patterson, EGC, 9, for references to charters issued at Bristol and nos. 119, 124, 182 for Glamorgan; after Earl William's loss of Bristol castle to Henry II, Bristol was used less as a caput and Cardiff more so: ibid., 28-29 and n. 14 Ibid., no. 188 and n. 15 Berkeley Castle Muniments, 'St. Augustine's Cartulary,' fols. 33b-34, 202-203; B.C.M., Select Charter, no. 49; Descriptive Catalogue of the Charters and Muniments in the Possession of the Rt. Hon. Lord FitzHarding at Berkeley Castle, ed. I.H. Jeayes (Bristol, 1892), no. 49. 16 Patterson, EGC, nos. 48, 119, 168, 280; for Jordan La Werre, see ibid., nos. 7, 36-37, 135, 182; see also Robert B. Patterson, 'Robert Fitz Harding of Bristol: Profile of an Early Angevin Burgess-Baron Patrician and his Family's Urban Involvement,' ante 1 (1989): passim and 116 and n. 17 Sidney Painter, Studies in the History of the English Feudal Barony (Baltimore, 1943), 166, 171. 11

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brewery, bakery and mills.18 In other words the earls were both the great direct and indirect beneficiaries of Bristol's commercial activity which generated tolls and attracted rent paying burgesses. Henry II came to know Bristol as a boy. During Stephen's reign, in 1142-43, he lived there for a time under the guardianship of his uncle, Earl Robert of Gloucester. Henry later recalled the religious training he had received from the canons of St. Augustine's Abbey, the foundation of Bristol's most prominent burgess, Robert Fitz Harding.19 Henry returned to Bristol several times before his accession.20 He also developed a personal tie with Fitz Harding: the burgess gave the duke financial help against King Stephen and Henry elevated Robert to the rank of tenant-in-chief and confirmed his heir Maurice in this rank.21 Soon after his accession in 1154 Henry II began proclaiming his lordship of Bristol's burgesses in a series of charters of liberties he granted them. The king's strongest claim occurs in an 1155 charter granting burgesses, referred to as his, freedom from toll, passage, and custom throughout his lands. In addition the new king granted that the burgesses were to enjoy their liberties and customs 'sicut mei liberi et fideles homines.'22 Such phraseology, when compared to terms Henry used for the burgesses of other towns to whom he granted charters of liberty, is unusually proprietary. Perhaps to stress his lordship still more, Henry omitted any reference to the burgesses' immediate lord, Earl William of Gloucester, in granting them their liberties.23 Between 1164 and 1170 Henry granted a second charter to burgesses living in suburban property identified 18

P.R. 30 Henry II, 109-110; P.R. 31 Henry II, 154; see also, 145^6, 15.5, 163; P.R. 32 Henry II, 201; Patterson, EGC, nos. 28, 33, 35-37, 81, 88-91, 116-17, 180, 283. 19 Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066-1154, 3: Regesta Regis Stephani ac Mathildis Imperatricis ac Gaufridi et Henrici Ducum Normannorum, 1135-1154, eds. H.A. Cronne and R.H.C. Davis (Oxford, 1968), xlvi, no. 126; hereafter cited as Regesta 3; Bristol Record Office, DC/E, noted in Diocese of Bristol: A Catalogue of the Records of the Bishops and Archdeacons and of the Dean and Chapter, ed. Isabel M. Kirby (Bristol Corporation, 1970), 111; Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, 1: 125; Patterson, 'Robert Fitz Harding of Bristol,' 109-22, esp. 114. 20 Regesta 3, xlvi-xlviii, for Henry's itinerary. 21 Patterson, 'Robert Fitz Harding,' 109, 111-14; see also infra, 176 and n. 31. 22 Bristol Charters, 1155-1373, ed. N. Dermott Harding, Bristol Record Society Publication 1 (1930), 2. 23 Although it was not uncommon for Henry II to refer to 'my burgesses' and 'my citizens' in other burghal charters of liberties, I have found no other examples of the terms liberi et fideles homines which he applied to Bristol's burgesses; for charters of liberties Henry granted to Acle, Beverley, Bridgenorth, Cambridge, Canterbury, Coventry, Derby, Devizes, Gloucester, Hastings, Lincoln, London, Lydd and Dunge, Marsh, Maldon, Newport, Nottingham, Oxford, Preston, Sandwich and Sarre, Scarborough, Truro, Wallingford, and Winchester (2), see Calendar of Charter Rolls, Public Record Office, 6 vols. (London, 1903-27), 1: 417; 2: 68, 88, 305, 351-52, 472; 3: 66-67, 215-16, 220-21, 438; 4: 98-99, 429; 5: 217; Cartae Antique Rolls 11-20, ed. J. Conway Davies, Pipe Roll Society, n.s. 33 (1960), no. 518; Select Charters and other Illustrations Of English Constitutional History From the Earliest Times to the Reign Of Edward the First, ed. William Stubbs (Oxford, 1920), 165-68; EHD, nos. 271, 288, 290-91, 294; Henry did refer to 'my barons' of Hastings (ibid., no. 291).

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only as 'in the marsh by Bristol Bridge.' Prof. H.A. Cronne has identified this area with the Bedminster fee Robert Fitz Harding held of the earl of Gloucester south of the Avon.24 Again the burgesses were identified as Henry's men and as such were accorded liberties in Bristol and Gloucestershire (or possibly in the lands of the earl of Gloucester).25 In a third charter Henry issued in 1171 the men of Bristol, also identified as the king's, received the right to colonize Dublin.26 Besides using these charters to advance his lordship among the Bristol burgesses Henry II may have meant to reward them for their loyalty in the recent war against King Stephen.27 The 1155 charter also may have been the earlier of several royal gestures to gain the support of the burgesses for a campaign to conquer Ireland. Such a plan was under consideration by Henry about this time.28 The 1171 charter seems to have been clearly aimed at involving the men of Bristol in such a venture. The grant was made at Dublin during the king's military expedition which was intended to thwart the development of politically independent Anglo-Norman colonial lordships in Ireland, especially Leinster

24

Bristol Charters, 1378-1499. ed. H.A. Cronne, Bristol Record Society Publication 11 (1946), 33-34. 25 Ibid., 4; the abbreviated form comif with Gloucestrie prevents our knowing whether Henry intended the shire or the earl; the shire is the more probable. 26 Ibid., 6. 27 See Cronne, Bristol Charters. 27. 28 Supra, n. 21; the attestations of Thomas Becket as chancellor and of Roger, earl of Hereford, limit the charter to 1155; Henry's plan to invade Ireland to obtain an appanage for his brother William was discussed at a council Henry held at Winchester on 29 September: 'Chronica Roberti de Torigneio Abbatis Monasterii Sancti Michaelis in Periculo Maris,' in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard, ed. Richard Howlett, 4 vols. (London, 1884-90), 1: 186; Frank Barlow, The Feudal Kingdom of England, 4th ed. (London, 1988), 284; A.J. Otway-Ruthven, A History of Medieval Ireland, 2nd ed. (London, 1980), 47; W.L. Warren, Henry II (London, 1973), 194-95, argues against the accuracy of Robert of Torigny's account by contrasting Henry's refusal to allow his brother Geoffrey to hold an appanage in the heartland of the Angevin realm; but the continental lands and Ireland were strategically very different; furthermore, a charter of John, count of Eu, dated 'at Winchester in the year in which the conquest of Ireland was discussed,' datable to 1155, corroborates the account of an invasion plan having been discussed at the 1155 Winchester meeting: Marie Therese Flanagan, Irish Society, Anglo-Norman Settlers, Angevin Kingship (Oxford, 1989), appendix 1: 305 (British Library, Harley Charter 83.C.25); I am indebted to Prof. Thomas K. Keefe for this reference; see also C. Warren Hollister and Thomas K. Keefe, The Making of the Angevin Empire,' Journal of British Studies 12 (1973): 1-25, reprinted in C. Warren Hollister, Magnates and Institutions in the Anglo-Norman World (London and Ronceverte, 1986), 247-71; although Flanagan (Irish Society, 29-30 and n.) provides reasons for believing Robert of Torigny's account of the Winchester Council, including Henry II's plan to grant Ireland to his brother, she believes that English ecclesiastical circles, especially from the see of Canterbury, favored the conquest of Ireland rather than Henry II; however, she admits that Henry may have been 'momentarily tempted' to undertake the venture (ibid., chap. 1, esp. 52-53).

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and Dublin under Richard Fitz Gilbert ('Strongbow').29 In the settlement which Henry imposed upon Strongbow Dublin was to be part of a royal demesne, and Bristol's burgesses, predictably loyal allies with long-standing commercial ties with Dublin, were obvious choices to encourage as colonists.30 As recently as 1166 Bristol had been involved to some degree in a plan, promoted by the exiled king of Leinster, for Anglo-Norman military intervention which ultimately was to lead to Henry IFs 1171 expedition. The Irish king, Dermot MacMurrough, started his quest to seek Henry II's military assistance to regain his lost land by visiting Robert Fitz Harding at Bristol and later, after gaining the king's permission to recruit in his domains, returned to enjoy Fitz Harding's hospitality again. According to the Song of Dermot, the prominent burgess acted as host to Dermot on his second visit to Bristol at Henry II's express command.31 It is not unlikely that at least Henry II's 1155 Bristol charter was in part a response to overtures from the burgesses themselves. Prof. H.A. Cronne suggested that if the burgesses already possessed the liberties of the 1155 charter before 1135 their enjoyment of them would have been curtailed during the 'Anarchy' of Stephen's reign; hence it would have been natural for them to seek a restatement of their liberties from the victorious Henry. If the men of Bristol did not enjoy the liberties of the 1155 charter before Henry II's accession, it is likely that the burgesses would have sought Henry's patronage on that occasion.32 It also could be expected that the burgesses would have exploited the king's reliance upon their port facilities, at the time of his Irish expedition, 29

Harding, Bristol Charters, 6; Cronne, Bristol Charters, 28-30; the grant was made at the court Henry II held at Dublin from 11 November 1171 until the end of February 1172: R.W. Eyton, Court, Household, and Itinerary of King Henry II (London, 1878; repr. ed., Hildesheim and New York, 1974), 164-65; for the background and details of Henry II's Irish campaign, see Godard Henry Orpen, Ireland under the Normans, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1911-20), 1, chaps. 3, 5-8; Warren, 192-201, esp. 199-201; Otway-Ruthven, 42-50; Flanagan, Irish Society, chaps. 2-4, esp. 119-22, 135-36. 30 Expugnatio Hibernica: The Conquest of Ireland, eds. A.B. Scott and F.X. Martin (Dublin, 1978), 88; P.R. 18 Henry II, 71-72; Lobel and Carus-Wilson, 2, 6; Cronne, Bristol Charters, 28-30; Orpen, 1: 258-59, 269-70; Otway-Ruthven, 48-49; Flanagan, Irish Society, 117, 119-21; some Bristol colonization of Dublin may already have occurred by 1171: Cronne, Bristol Charters, 28 and n.; several Bristol settlers benefited from Henry II's grants at Dublin; one is John, a nephew of Robert Fitz Harding; another, an Aelelmus, brother of Hamundo of Bristol (a.k.a. Aldelin the Rich), whom Henry II enfeoffed with land and houses outside the eastern gate of Dublin (Orpen, 272 and n., 273). 31 The Song of Dermot and of the Earl, ed. Godard Henry Orpen (Oxford, 1892), lines 228-37: according to the Song, Dermot stayed at Robert Fitz Harding's house located near St. Augustine's [Abbey]; Henry II allegedly commanded Fitz Harding by letter to provide whatever Dermot and his men might need, ibid., lines 296-311; Expugnatio Hibernica, 26 and n., 28; this may have involved arranging the marriage treaty between Dermot and Strongbow which led to Strongbow's succession to Leinster in 1171; according to the Expugnatio, Dermot was at Bristol when he offered his daughter in marriage to Strongbow: ibid., 54; see also ibid., 288-89, nn. 13-14; Flanagan suggests that Fitz Harding may have provided Dermot with the initial contact with Strongbow (Irish Society, 116 and n., 117); see also supra, n. 29. 32 Cronne, Bristol Charters, 57.

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to gain royal recognition in 1171 of a colonial sphere of interest in an area of long-standing trade involvement.33 At the same time Henry promoted the image of his lordship among the burgesses, his government sought to subject the burgesses to the jurisdiction of his sheriffs. Bristol was a hundred with a functioning court in the twelfth century, but jurisdiction over it since the days of Earl Robert and possibly earlier had belonged to its baronial landlord.34 Scattered references to debts owed collectively by the men of Bristol in the Pipe Rolls from Henry II's reign show that the king recognized the corporate status of the burgesses.35 The absence of any mention of a royal justice hearing pleas from Bristol or of amercements from the borough owed the crown in the Exchequer roll of 1129-30 indicates the absence of royal jurisdiction in Bristol in the early years of the borough's status as a Gloucester demesne manor.36 Baronial Bristol may have been in effect a private liberty. However, beginning in the Exchequer year 1164-65, royal clerks relentlessly recorded debts sheriffs of Somerset owed from amercements incurred by the burgesses. A regular entry in the Pipe Rolls for these years reads, 'the burgesses of Bristol owe 500 marks for a plea (pro placito).''31 As early as 1164-65, burgesses living outside of the borough across the Avon bridge were amerced three gold marks for pleas.38 The fate of the debts attributed by the royal government to the two types of burgesses, those living within the borough and those outside across the Avon, indicate the kind of success Henry's legal campaign enjoyed at first. The sheriff of Somerset was able to collect the sum owed by the extra-mural residents in the very next year after the debt was recorded.39 For the time being at least there is no question that these men were subject to the Somerset county legal apparatus. On the other hand, only after two years did the intra-mural burgesses pay £85 on their debt of 500 marks, reducing the amount owed to £248 6s 8d., but after that they ignored the sheriff of Somerset and paid nothing. Finally in 1176, Henry II's government gave up and pardoned the balance.40 The royal 33

Ibid., 28-29; Lobel and Carus Wilson, Bristol, 3, 6-7. Patterson, EGC, nos. 10, 151; The Cartulary of Cirencester Abbey, Gloucestershire, eds. C.D. Ross and Mary Devine, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1964-77), 2: no. 629; Historia et Cartularium Monasterii S. Petri Gloucestriae, ed. W.H. Hart, 3 vols. (London, 1863-67), 1: nos. 45^6; see also Patterson, 'Robert Fitz Harding,' 121, n. 76. 35 For example, P.R. U Henry II, 64-65; P.R. 23 Henry II, 45; P.R. 34 Henry II, 15. 36 P.R. 31 Henry 1: Magnum Rotulum Scaccarii vel Magnum Rotulum Pipae de Anno Tricesimo-Primo Regni Henrici Primi, ed. Joseph Hunter (London, 1833). 37 P.R. II Henry II, 65; P.R. 12 Henry II, 97; P.R. 13 Henry II, 150; P.R. 14 Henry II, 141; P.R. 15 Henry II, 2; P.R. 16 Henry II, 113; P.R. 17 Henry II, 13; P.R. 18 Henry II, 73; P.R. 19 Henry II, 191; P.R. 20 Henry II, 16; Cronne considered the above reference in P.R. 11 Henry II to refer to a specific plea (Bristol Charters, 35). 38 P.R. 11 Henry II, 64. 39 P.R. 12 Henry II, 97. 40 P.R. 13 Henry II, 150; P.R. 14 Henry II, 141; P.R. 15 Henry II, 2; P.R. 16 Henry II, 113; P.R. 17 Henry 11, 13; P.R. 18 Henry II, 73; P.R. 19 Henry II, 191; P.R. 20 Henry II, 16; P.R. 21 Henrv II, 22; P.R. 22 Henrv II, 154; see Cronne, Bristol Charters, 34-35. 34

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failure to collect this debt was, as the Pipe Roll of 1173-74 states, because the sheriff of Somerset was unable to administer justice to the burgesses.41 However, Henry II did not give up. Between the Exchequer year 1175-76 and the death of Bristol's lord, Earl William of Gloucester, in 1183, Henry succeeded in making the point that Bristol's burgesses were subject to royal jurisdiction. Henry went about it diplomatically. A royal pardon for an amercement might be obtained;42 or the burgesses might be prevailed upon to fine for a respite from pleading; and the king relied upon the sheriff of Gloucestershire as his judicial officer rather than the sheriff of Somerset.43 After 1183, it is clear that the burgesses recognized that pleading in their own court was a royal concession.44 Even the concession the burgesses gained did not eliminate the presence of a royal official as an officer of their court. Charter evidence shows that the constable of Bristol Castle presided over the hundred court.45 And after 1175, if not before, the castle was in Henry's hands, yet another of his strategies. Between 1184 and the end of Henry IFs reign, during which Henry let Bristol at farm, the burgesses had to contend with the potential legal interference of royal custodes or their representatives who were responsible for the castle.46 In one way or another Henry II succeeded in exercising legal jurisdiction over Bristol's burgesses. Exactly when and how Henry gained control of Bristol Castle is unknown. It is amazing, with the attention chroniclers gave to seizures of other baronial castles from such as William of Aumale and Roger of Hereford, both earls, that they had so little to say about Henry II's seizure of Earl William of Gloucester's most important castle. The most informative text, the Gesta Henrici Secundi, states that in 1175 Earl William was impleaded by the king for having seized the castle during the Barons' War of 1173-74 and for keeping it for the duration; to please Henry, William surrendered the castle.47 The Pipe Roll of 1174-75 shows that William de Londres was allowed £13 6s. 8d. to maintain and repair the castle as Henry's constable.48 Since there is no earlier mention in the Pipe

41

P.R. 20 Henry II, 16. P.R. 23 Henry II, 45. 43 P.R. 22 Henry II, 162; P.R. 23 Henry II, 23; P.R. 24 Henry II, 58; P.R. 29 Henry II, 95-96. 44 P.R. 30 Henry II, 62; P.R. 31 Henry II, 146; P.R. 32 Henry II, 120; P.R. 33 Henry II, 136, 139; P.R. 34 Henry II, 109. 45 See supra, n. 34; although P.R.O., E.210/D.2150 dates from 1198-1213, it makes the point explicitly: see Patterson, 'Robert Fitz Harding,' 121-22 and n. 46 P.R. 30 Henry II, 109-11; PJ131 Henry II, 155; P.R. 32 Henry II, 200; P.R. 33 Henry II, 15; P.R. 34 Henry II, 14-15; Sharp, Accounts of the Constables of Bristol, 77-78; Morley De Wolf Hemmeon, Burgage Tenure In Medieval England (Cambridge, Mass., 1914), 155, minimizes the influence of custodes. 47 Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, ed. William Stubbs, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1867), 1: 92; however, Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houedene, ed. William Stubbs, 4 vols. (London, 1868-71), 2: 78, claims that the king never held the castle before the time of its surrender. 48 P.R. 21 Henry II, 159. 42

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Rolls of royal expenses for the maintenance of the castle, it is reasonable that King Henry's seizure occurred c. 1173-74. The king's installation of William de Londres as Bristol's constable was as diplomatic as his maneuvering about legal jurisdiction over the burgesses, for William was an important honorial tenant of Earl William of Gloucester.49 Henry's seizure of Bristol castle must have outraged the earl. It was the key to his most valuable possession and the guardian of his capital. Furthermore, Henry had specifically promised William to recognize his tenure of his father's possessions, and Bristol was undeniably one of them.50 Although William outwardly remained loyal to Henry during the 1173-74 civil war, rumor held that he was sympathetic to the opposition.51 In the next baronial challenge to Henry in 1182, the king took no chances and arrested William.52 It is impossible to predict how royal influence over Bristol would have fared had Henry II's gains had not advanced beyond his status of c. 1175. But in the next year, the king implemented another strategy which was calculated to make both castle and borough a royal appanage. By 1175 Earl William had been married for about 25 years.53 He had been without a male heir since the death of his son Robert in 1166 and was unlikely to have another.54 The dynastic fortunes of William's house would probably depend on the kind of marriage which might be arranged for Isabel, his only unmarried daughter. Henry prevailed upon his first cousin William to agree to a conventio by which Isabel, under certain conditions, would be married to the king's son John, who would become William's heir.55 Political events actually gave King Henry a better relationship with Bristol than the terms the marriage conventio provided. In 1182, believing that Earl William of Gloucester was about to join in another baronial rebellion, King Henry had the earl placed in royal custody and his earldom seized.56 The borough of Bristol came to Henry with all of William's other lands. Then, when Earl

49

Red Book of the Exchequer, ed. Hubert Hall, 3 vols. (London, 1896), 1: 289; William de Londres held the lordship of Ogmore of the earldom of Gloucester in Glamorgan; land which he held of the honor of Gloucester at Blackswarth he gave to St. Augustine's Abbey, Bristol: Patterson, EGC, nos. 13, 31; R.R. Davies, 'The Lordship of Ogmore,' in Glamorgan County History, 3: The Middle Ages, ed. T.B. Pugh (Cardiff, 1971), 286-91. 50 P.R.O, C.47/45/388a, no. 5; Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 1348-50, Public Record Office (London, 1905; repr. ed., 1971), 546. 51 Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, 1: 61; Radulfi de Diceto Decani Lundoniensis opera historica, ed. William Stubbs, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1876), 1: 385; Radulphi de Coggeshall Chronicon Anglicanum, ed. J. Stevenson (London, 1875), 18; Warren, Henry II, 123. 52 Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, 1: 294; Patterson, EGC, 3. 53 Patterson, EGC, 5. 54 Ibid., 9. 55 Ralph de Diceto, 1: 415; Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, 1: 124-25; Patterson, EGC, 5. 56 Supra, n. 52.

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William died in 1183, the king was presented with the delightful prospect of continued custody of Bristol and the other Gloucester lands under the wardship prerogative, if Isabel's marriage to John was postponed.57 Isabel remained unmarried in King Henry's wardship until the king's death in 1189. The reason for Henry's preventing the marriage of the Gloucester heiress' marriage to his son is obvious: custody of Bristol and of Isabel's earldom could be very valuable.58 In 1185 the king had another reason to postpone the nuptials. In that year he sent John Lackland to Ireland with a military force to assume the lordship and to thwart the creation of politically independent lordships as he had done in 1171-72. Although the main force sailed from Milford Haven, Isabel's income from 1184-85 paid for the expedition, and Bristol played a key role in it. Bristol's burgesses advanced John and the expedition a total of 200 marks, and the borough served as a staging area for supplies to be shipped to Ireland. John's victualer Robert Ruff us was sent there with 1,000 marks to buy supplies, and 2,000 crannocks of wheat were shipped from the port to Ireland. Cheese from Somerset or Dorset followed the same route. John's bakehouse, kitchen, and chamber and their supplies all were transported from Bristol to Ireland. The burgesses were repaid their loans from Isabel's demesne income and were rewarded by John's confirmation of his father's earlier grant of Dublin to them.59 Bristol re-emerged as a political issue during Richard the Lionheart's reign. Richard allowed his brother's marriage to Isabel of Gloucester to take place in 1189, so John became lord of her lands. Included in Isabel's demesne was the borough of Bristol, whose burgesses John wooed by his famous charter of liberties of 1189. However, Richard retained the castle. John attempted to take it by force but was unsuccessful; only after his own accession to the throne in 1199 was the long Angevin siege of Bristol over.60 The Angevin siege of Bristol involved four principal strategies: granting or confirming urban financial privileges; imposition of legal jurisdiction; seizure of the castle; and retention of the borough. The first two were directed at the town's burgesses; the last two against its lords, the earls of Gloucester. The four were not ingredients of a single comprehensive policy. The two involving legal jurisdiction and the recovery of Bristol castle reveal the greatest degree of royal initiative; they can be seen to be applications to Bristol of royal policies to recover 'mediatized' castles and to derive income from burgesses' legal and

57

Patterson, EGC, 5. See supra, nn. 17, 53; see for example P.R. 30 Henry II, 59, 61, 109-12, 122. 59 Expugnatio Hibernica, 226,228; Annals of Ulster, eds. W.M. Hennessy and B. MacCarthy, 4 vols. (Dublin, 1887-1901), 2: 207; Historical and Municipal Documents of Ireland, A.D. 1172-1320, ed. J.T. Gilbert (London, 1870), no. 4; P.R. 32 Henry II, 200; J.H. Round, 'Introduction,' P.R. 31 Henry II, xxv and ibid., 143, 154, 173, 217; Otway-Ruthven, 61, 64, 66-67; Warren, Henry II, 203-204 and n., 205-206 and n., 562, 596, 598-99 and n.; supra, 175-76 and nn. 26, 29. 60 Patterson, EGC, 5-7, no. 10; P.R. 7 Richard I, 179. 58

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fiscal ambitions.61 At least one of Henry II's awards of liberties, his custody of the borough and John's retention of it, were initiatives taken when particular circumstances created opportunities. In one way or another, each was aimed at restoring an aspect of Bristol's former status as terra regis. The burgesses fared well, even though not on a scale like towns such as Cambridge and Northampton to which Henry II granted responsibility for their farms.62 Yet they gained from the royal charters of liberty, were unaffected by the change in landlords, and at least won the right of pleading in their own court. They and the crown were the beneficiaries of the siege; the earls of Gloucester were the losers. University of South Carolina

61 62

Warren, Henry II, 141-42; Hemmeon, 155-56. Tait, 155-56; see also ibid., 171-77.

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King John in his Context: A Comparison with his Contemporaries Ralph V. Turner

After so many scholars have sifted the same evidence, are any new approaches to King John possible? It occurs to me that a comparative approach to John, placing him alongside his father Henry II, his brother Richard Lionheart, and his great rival Philip Augustus, should enable us to see him more clearly and in context. H.G. Richardson and G.O. Sayles judge these contemporaries of John bad; they add,'. . . and it was in association with all this badness that John grew to manhood and in turn became a bad man.' 1 Bad or simply misunderstood, John was a loser, losing Normandy, losing his struggles with the pope and with the barons. He failed to achieve his great goal of recovering Normandy, and in pursuing it he adopted extortionate policies that provoked a baronial rebellion. Historians do not paint him as a tragic figure, however, but as a contemptible or hateful one. A key to comparing John's reputation with that of his father, his brother Richard, or his enemy Philip is to set them in their context, seeing how their contemporaries perceived them. How did the chroniclers who first fixed the portraits of these rulers view them? Churchmen first wrote the histories and established standards for judging medieval kings. Yet the barbarian tradition of the warrior king, victorious in battle against foreign foes and internal rebels, remained strong; and romance writers' praise of prowess reinforced it. Chroniclers also praised monarchs who provided royal protection for the church and its property. The papacy's quest for supremacy led to an emphasis on secular rulers' submission to its spiritual authority, assisting the popes in their programs.2

1

H.G. Richardson and G.O. Sayles, The Governance of Mediaeval England (Edinburgh, 1962), 330; hereafter cited as R & S. 2 For early twelfth-century notions of kingship, see Joan Gluckauf Haahr, The Concept of Kingship in William of Malmesbury's Gesta Re gum and Historic! Novella,' Medieval Studies 38 (1976): 351-71.

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Chroniclers distinguished hardly at all between a king's public role and his private morality, expecting him to be an exemplar of piety and virtue; 'conventionally pious' is the usual phrase. Monastic writers' verdict on a ruler was 'essentially a moral judgment upon an individual sinner.'3 Because Richard Lionheart was a Christian knight, tireless in attending religious services, generous to the church, and quick to fill ecclesiastical vacancies, his faults could be overlooked.4 Yet monarchs such as William Rufus or John, condemned for leading grossly immoral lives, were less easily forgiven; and they were likely to be accused of irreligion as well as sexual improprieties.5 Most chroniclers stressed the king as defender of the oppressed, the poor, widows and orphans. Sometimes this was expressed negatively as not oppressing his subjects, not taxing them or the church too harshly, not being too greedy. Greed, a vice that chroniclers often found in monarchs, was significant because early medieval government was predatory, living off the land, much like the government of modern Haiti. Its primary purpose was to exploit the country folk for the benefit of the royal family, the aristocracy, and their hangers-on; and government offices functioned more for efficient raising of revenues from the populace than for performance of public services. Because of this, administrative innovations to make royal government more efficient were unlikely to arouse the admiration among contemporaries that they do among historians today.6 Gerald of Wales expressed a common view when he wrote, The king is like a robber permanently on the prowl, always probing, always searching for the weak spot where there is something for him to steal,'7 Today's admiration of kings such as John for attention to matters 3

V.H. Galbraith, 'Good Kings and Bad Kings in English History,' History 30 (1945): 120, 128; reprinted in Galbraith, Kings and Chroniclers (London, 1982), 119-32. 4 Ralph of Coggeshall, Chronicon Anglicanum, ed. Joseph Stevenson, (London, 1875), 96-97. See also 'Chronicle of Tours,' cited by Alfred Richard, Histoire des Comtes de Poitou, 2 vols. (Paris, 1903), 2: 327n. 5 William of Newburgh, Historia Rerum Anglicarum, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, ed. Richard Hewlett, 4 vols. (London, 1885-90), 2: 521, story of Eustace Fitz John substituting a prostitute for his wife in the king's bed; 'Waverley Annals,' in Annales Monastici, ed. H.R. Luard, 5 vols. (London, 1864-69), 2: 282: 'uxores filiasque eorum violebat'; Histoire des dues de Normandie et rois d'Angleterre, ed. Francisque Michel (Paris, 1840), 121. For John's irreligion, see The Life of St. Hugh of Lincoln, ed. Decima L. Douie and Hugh Farmer, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1961-62), 2: 143, where he states that John had never received the sacrament 'since attaining to the years of discretion;' Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H.R. Luard, 7 vols. (London, 1872-84), 2: 559, 565; Galbraith, 'Good Kings and Bad Kings,' 125; Sidney Painter, The Reign of King John (Baltimore, 1949), 238: '[John] was as close to irreligious as it was possible for a man of his time to be.' For another view, see R & S, 331. Compare such descriptions of John with Ralph of Coggeshall's praise of Richard's participation in services, attentiveness to chanting, and concern for beauty of the fabric of his chapel, Chronicon Anglicanum, 97. 6 E.g., Galbraith, 'Good Kings and Bad Kings,' 130; J.C. Holt, 'King John,' in Holt, Magna Carta and Medieval Government (London, 1985), 95-7. 7 John Gillingham, Richard the Lionheart (New York, 1978), 133, translation of Gerald of Wales, Opera, ed. James F. Dimock et al., 8 vols. (London, 1861-91), 8: 316: Totis enim

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of administration is anachronistic, applying standards of the twentieth century rather than the thirteenth.8 The best-loved Angevin king was Richard Lionheart, allegedly the least concerned with administration; yet recent studies find him a competent enough administrator in the area most essential to him, marshalling resources for war.9 A growing influence on thinking about kingship in the twelfth century was chivalry, with its definition of the perfect knight's qualities of prowess, loyalty, largess, and courtesy.10 A characteristic of great importance to laymen writing verses in the vernacular was largess, gift-giving. Contemporaries found only Richard Lionheart a sufficiently generous king; others earned condemnation for parsimony, especially Philip II. Even Gerald of Wales, harsh critic of the Angevin kings, found Richard I praiseworthy for his 'immense gift-giving and almsgiving.' Two accounts of the Third Crusade, one in French verse and another in Latin prose, praised Richard for his generosity, contrasting his magnaminity with Philip Augustus's meanness. 1 ' Two English monastic chroniclers borrowed the virtue of generosity from the romance writers; Richard of Devizes and Ralph of Coggeshall also contrasted Richard I's generosity on crusade with Philip Augustus's miserliness.12 Generosity is closely related to patronage, for young knights sought lands, wives, and other favors from the king. With growth of royal government, however, office was providing the route to influence, power, and wealth. Competition nisibus ibi rapinsis insistitur, ubi quibuscunque modis res adquiritur; et, ne defectus in aliquo reperiatur, indesinentur et exquisite praedo grassatur.' Contemporaries could not appreciate that inflation was rendering traditional sources of royal income inadequate: W.L. Warren, King John (Berkeley, 1961), 120. 8 Holt, p. 97; C. Warren Hollister, 'King John and the Historians,' Journal of British Studies 1 (1961): 5-7. 9 M.T. Clanchy, England and its Rulers, 1066-1272 (Glasgow, 1983), 138-39, 142; Holt, 'Ricardus Rex Anglorum et Dux Normannorum,' in Magna Carta and Medieval Government, 69, 82; Gillingham, Richard, 287; John Gillingham, 'Richard I and the Science of War in the Middle Ages,' in War and Government in the Middle Ages, Essay in Honour ofJ.O. Prestwich, ed. John Gillingham and J.C. Holt, (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1984), 90; John Gillingham, 'The Early Middle Ages (1066-1290),' in Oxford History of Britain, ed. Kenneth O. Morgan (Oxford, 1988), 151, points out that the larger volume of surviving records from John's reign may simply make him appear to have been busier than his predecessors. 10 Sidney Painter, French Chivalry, (Baltimore, 1940), 28-64. E.g., the plaint of a troubadour of the Limousin, Gaucelme Faidit, on Richard's death, 'Never was there a king so faithful, so preux, so hardi, so generous,' Richard, Histoire des Comtes de Poitou, 2: 327 n. 11 'De Principis Instructione,' 'largitas et dapsilitas immensa': Gerald of Wales, Opera, 8: 248. Ambroise, The Crusade of Richard Lion-Heart (Estoire de la Guerre Sainte), ed. and trans. Merton Jerome Hubert and John L. La Monte (New York, 1941), 68-69, 1. 1061: 'Richard, who knows not avarice'; Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England, c. 550-1307 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1974), 241. 12 The Chronicle of Richard of Devizes, ed. John T. Appleby (Edinburgh, 1963), 42-43; Ralph of Coggeshall, 34-35, 'Cernere itaque rex Philippus diversae nationis hominis, qui ad loca sancta confluxerant, se sub principate regis Ricardi tradere, famamque probitatis ejus de die in diem excrescere, eo quod esset in thesauris locupletior, in donativis erogandis profusior. . . .'

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arose between professionally competent 'new men' and aristocrats, who assumed superior status alone should favor them. Chroniclers mirrored the conflict with their contempt for curiales, whom they claimed the monarch was choosing from low-born, even servile-born servants.13 Such expressions of contempt for curiales' lowly origin were commonplace among chronicles of the reigns of Henry II and his sons. With John an added accusation was that his intimates were not only low-born, but also aliens. Actually chroniclers' complaints of foreigners in John's government were exaggerated, often written in Henry Ill's time under the influence of anti-foreign feelings aroused later.14 Nonetheless, any successful king had to balance his barons' expectations of reward with distribution of patronage to his curiales, satisfying both without creating any over-mighty subjects. By the later twelfth century, Henry IFs reforms had tipped the balance of power from the barons toward the king and royal government. Some notion of the 'public power' or the king's obligation to rule for the common good was taking root, with revival of the Roman law concept of utilitas reipublicae. We can see this positive view of the civil servant in the writings of Ralph Diceto and Roger of Howden in the last decades of the twelfth century, 'a golden age of historiography in England.'15 These two chroniclers, neither monks nor 'official' historians, combatted the anti-government bias of most monastic writers. Ralph Diceto, a canon of St. Paul's, wrote of Henry II, The king sought to help those of his subjects who could least help themselves, having found that the sheriffs were using the public power in their own private interests.'16 Gerald of Wales's character sketches of Henry II illustrate medieval writers' confusion, mixing private, personal vices and virtues with public qualities.

13 None was more bitterly denounced than Richard's chancellor, William de Longchamps, vilified as the grandson of a runaway serf; Ralph V. Turner, 'Changing Perceptions of the New Administrative Class in Anglo-Norman and Angevin England: The Curiales and their Conservative Critics,' Journal of British Studies 29 (1990): 93-117. 14 E.g., 'Barnwell chronicler,' Walter of Coventry, Memoriale, ed. William Stubbs, 2 vols. (London, 1872-73), 2: 232: 'plus in alienis quam in suis confideris'; 'Waverley Chronicle,' Annales Monastic!, 2: 281, on Peter des Roches; Continuation of William of Newburgh (Stanley Chronicle), in Chronicles . . . Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, 2: 518: '. . . crudelitatem alienorum perversorum hominum, quos rex amavit et constituit magistros et judices et vicecomites et custodes castrorum suorum, parvipendens omnes naturales et liberos homines terrae suae. . . .'; Gransden, Historical Writing, 343-44; J.C. Holt, Magna Carta (Cambridge, 1965), 128-29; Holt, 'King John,' in Magna Carta and Medieval Government, 106-8. 15 Gransden, Historical Writing, 219; Beryl Smalley, Historians in the Middle Ages (New York, 1974), 113. 16 Ralph Diceto, Opera Historica, ed. William Stubbs, 2 vols. (London, 1876), 1: 434-35; trans. EHD, 2: 481-82; Peter of Blois recognized that clerics in the king's service were 'occupied with the public good,' PL, 207: ep. 150, col. 4400. Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium, v: 6, too praised Henry II, 'In making laws and in ordering the affairs of government, he showed discrimination, and was clever in devising new and undiscovered legal procedures,' trans. EHD, 2: 389.

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Gerald first wrote favorably of Henry; but later failure to gain office at the Angevin court made him more critical. He chronicled Henry's downfall, contrasting the tyrannical Angevins with the pious and law-abiding French monarchs.17 Although Gerald found Henry 'strenuous in warfare' and 'very prudent in civil life,' he condemned him for being 'an open violator of the marriage bond;' and he faulted the king for lack of religious fervor, 'devoting scarcely an hour to the divine mysteries of the sacred Host, and that very time . . . he passed more in taking counsel and in discussion than in his devotions.' He also condemned Henry for exploiting vacant churches' wealth, 'bestowing on the impious soldiery the moneys which should have been given to the priesthood.' Gerald's summation of Henry's character is that he had many good qualities, but his disobedience to God and church denied him success or happiness: 'If he had to the very end remained a chosen vessel of the Lord and had turned himself to his obedience, he would have been beyond comparison among the princes of this world for his many natural gifts.' 18 William of Newburgh, a monastic chronicler, proved more capable of objectivity than Gerald. Although he agreed that the king was 'especially inclined to lust,' had exploited vacancies, and never repented sufficiently of his severity towards Thomas Becket, surprisingly, he found Henry to have been 'the champion and defender of ecclesiastical interests and liberties, as became evident after his death.' The Newburgh chronicler, writing in the time of Richard I, recalled Henry's reign fondly, finding it preferable to his son's rule. He concluded, 'Indeed the experience of present evils has revived the memory of [Henry's] good deeds, and the man, who in his own time was hated by almost all men, is now declared to have been an excellent and profitable prince.'19 No doubt Newburgh was reacting against Richard I's endless thirst for money first to finance his crusade, then to raise his ransom. Roger of Howden, a clerk in the royal service, asserted that once Richard was crowned, 'He put up for sale everything he had - offices, lordships, earldoms, sheriffdoms, castles, towns, lands, the lot.' And Richard of Devizes, a monastic chronicler, quoted Richard as saying, 'I would have sold London itself if I could have found a buyer.'20 This

17

Robert Bartlett, Gerald of Wales, 1146-1223 (Oxford, 1982), 85, 91, 94-96; Gerald of Wales, Opera, 8: 318-22; 'De Principis instructione,' Dist. 3, chap. xxx. 18 EHD, 2: 386-88; Bartlett, 62, citing 'Expugnatio Hibernica,' in Gerard of Wales, Opera, 5: 303-5; Itinerarum Kambriae, ibid., 6: 145. Also 'De Principis instructione,' ibid., 8: 160, which condemns Henry more harshly. 19 EHD, 2: 371-3; Chronicles . . . Stephen, Henry II and Richard, 1: 280-83. In contrast, Roger of Howden compared Richard I favorably with Henry II; Chronica, ed. William Stubbs, 4 vols. (London, 1868-71), 3: 6. 20 Ibid., Chronica, 3:13; Gesta Regis Henrici secundi Benedicti Abbatis, ed. William Stubbs, 2 vols. (London, 1867), 2: 90: 'Et omnia erant ei venalia, scilicet potestates, dominationes, comitatus, vicecomitatus, castella, villae, praedia, et caetera iis similia.' William of Newburgh in Chronicles . . . Stephen, Henry II and Richard, 1: 306; and Richard of Devizes, 9, both cite Richard on selling London.

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greed is a criticism levelled against his father and his brother as well. Gerald of Wales alleged that all three turned frequently to extraordinary levies, when ordinary sources of revenues failed them.21 Most writers, however, preferred Richard to his father, finding him a perfect chivalric prince as well as a brilliant general. The author of the verse Estoire de la Guerre Sainte, wrote of Richard, 'His deeds of chivalry so great/ And such fair prowess as to stun/ and to bewilder everyone,' also 'the finest knight/ On earth, and the most skilled to fight./ Noble is he and generous.'22 The author of the Chanson de Guillaume le Marechal proclaimed that Richard, 'the courageous and the well-bred, the generous and the good giver, the enterprising and the conqueror,' would have made himself master of the whole world, both Saracen and Christian, had he lived.23 Richard of Devizes and Ralph of Coggeshall, two monastic chroniclers influenced by the poets, also treated the Lionheart as a romance hero.24 Unfortunately for King John's reputation, the golden age of medieval English historiography ended in his first years. No chronicler after Diceto and Howden took a positive view of royal government. After the end of the twelfth century, we learn of Angevin administration chiefly from its critics.25 If those years mark the end of a great age of historiography in England, in France the early thirteenth century saw the creation of official royal histories. Philip Augustus's successes contrast strongly with John's losses. Philip expelled the Angevins from Normandy, expanded the royal domain, increased his revenues, and improved the central administration; and he found two historians - Rigord and his successor Guillaume le Breton - to glorify and sanctify his image, laying the groundwork for later Capetian royal ideology. Of his Angevin opponents, Philip II is certainly more comparable to King John than to Richard I. Hardly heroic or a model of chivalry, he shared unattractive traits with John: lustful, authoritarian, cynical, suspicious, and treacherous.26 But Philip's image 21

Gerald of Wales, Opera, 8: 316: 'Ad quae ratio reddi poterit, quia, quod minus habebant in redditibus, totum in accidentibus, plus in accessoriis quam principalibus confidentes, supplere curebant'; he accused Richard of 'raging against the church with harsh exactions'; 'Vita S. Hugonis,' ibid. 7: 103. William of Newburgh, trans, in EHD, 2: 371: 'In financial exactions he was somewhat immoderate, but the unrestricted growth of this evil in later times justified him in this respect and was a token that he maintained due bounds . . .' Thomas K. Keefe, Feudal Assessments and the Political Community under Henry II and his Sons (Berkeley, 1983), 116-18, 140, would concur with this comparison of Henry II with his sons. 22 Ambroise, 425, lines 11649-51; 441, lines 12134-37; Gransden, Historical Writing, 241. 23 Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal, ed. Paul Meyer (Paris, 1891-1901), lines 11820-29. 24 Chronicle of Richard of Devizes, introduction, xvii, 'Richard the monk saw in Richard the king the embodiment of all knightly virtues and the crusading ideal'; Ralph of Coggeshall, Chronicon Anglicanum, 49:'rex ille bellicosus . . .' 25 Smalley, Historians in Middle Ages, 164. 26 E.g., Charles Petit-Dutaillis, La Monarchic feodale en France et en Angleterre (Paris, 1933), 290, describes Philip's politics as 'souple, peu scrupuleux'; Robert Fawtier, The Capetian Kings of France, trans. Lionel Butler and R. J. Adam (London, 1960), 24: 'a cautious, cynical, distrustful man'; Elizabeth M. Hallam, Capetian France 987-1328 (London, 1980),

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as a model monarch, shaped by his historians, took hold. Robert Fawtier's 1942 work on the Capetian monarchs describes him as 'tirelessly active, a brave and daring war leader, a prudent and skillful diplomat, reorganising his kingdom internally after a fashion that influenced the character of the French monarchy for centuries.'27 Rigord and Guillaume le Breton saw Philip's mission of enlarging and strengthening the French monarchy as justifying his evil deeds.28 Rigord's Gesta Philippi, a narrative to 1206, first depicts Philip as a protector of the church, using the phrase 'defense of the church' to justify Philip's policies.29 Later, however, Rigord had to recognise his patron's faults, especially his scandalous repudiation of his Danish bride, his bigamous marriage, and his plundering of ecclesiastical property. Nonetheless, the work of this monk of Saint-Denis can be considered a 'semi-official account of the reign.'30 Rigord's continuator, Guillaume Le Breton, enjoyed the position of official royal historian. In his Gesta Philippi, and in his verse Philippidos, he also portrayed the French king as a protector of the church, even depicting the battle of Bouvines as in the Church's defense, because of Otto of Brunswick's excommunication.31 Guillaume pictured Philip as a monarch who ruled his people peacefully and with fatherly affection. According to him, the king and his people competed to see which loved the other more.32 How does Philip II in fact compare with his Angevin enemies? He looks decidedly unheroic beside Richard Lionheart, and his awareness that he could not compete with Richard for military glory may have caused his early departure from the Holy Land.33 The French king won his victories more by diplomacy or scheming than by armed might. He proved a master at sowing dissension, as seen in his success in splitting Henry II from his sons, and in inspiring strife between Richard and his brother, earning him an unsavory reputation as

127; P.M. Powicke, Cambridge Mediaeval History, 6 (Cambridge, 1957), 285-6; Joseph R. Strayer, Western Europe in the Middle Ages, 2d ed. (New York, 1974), 123-24. 27 Fawtier, Capetian Kings, 25. 28 John W. Baldwin, The Government of Philip Augustus (Berkeley, 1986), 396-98; Hallam, Capetian France, 127. 29 Baldwin, Philip Augustus, 358-59. Rigord found praiseworthy Philip's disapproval of swearing and his refusal to give gifts to jongleurs, troubadours, and other performers. Also Gabrielle Spiegel, '"Defense of the Realm" Evolution of a Capetian Propaganda Slogan,' Journal of Medieval History 3 (1977): 117, 119-20, 124. 30 Baldwin, Philip Augustus, 365, 379, 396. 31 Spiegel, 'Defense of Realm;' Baldwin, 365, 387; Guillaume makes John excommunicate as well, failing to note that he was no longer an excommunicate in 1214. 32 Baldwin, 331,388. 33 Ibid., 77-79; Gillingham, Richard, 179-80, on Philip and the crusade. Sidney Painter in A History of the Crusades, gen. ed. Kenneth M. Setton, 2: The Later Crusades 1189-1311, ed. Robert Lee Wolff and Harry W. Hazard (Philadelphia, 1962), 54-5, 70, agrees that 'it was primarily the political situation at home that cut short Philip's stay in Palestine,' pointing out that no medieval king could remain absent from his kingdom unless he had an adult son to leave in charge.

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plunderer of a crusader's property.34 Philip Augustus did not prove to be a particularly bold warrior in his conflict with Richard, 1194-99, or in his war with John, 1202-4.35 Philip's victory in Normandy is sometimes attributed more to John's shortcomings than to his own military skills. Chroniclers, seeking an explanation in personal morality, blamed John's loss on his marriage to Isabelle of Angouleme.36 Although John could lay diplomatic groundwork, plan strategy, and mobilise resources for campaigns, his execution failed in 1202-3 and in 1214.37 The battle of Bouvines enabled Capetian chroniclers to skip over Philip's earlier unimpressive military record to concentrate on his glorious victory, depicting him as a great warrior.38 Unlike John, Philip took care to cultivate good relations with the Church, although the conflict over his rejection of his Danish wife made this difficult. Philip Augustus won the French Church's support with a promise of free elections in his new province of Normandy, contrasting with previous Angevin policy there.39 He yielded to the temptation to plunder ecclesiastical property during the interdict of 1200, however, confiscating property of bishops who sought to enforce the ban on religious services.40 Later he renounced regalian rights over vacant bishoprics, but soon reverted to a policy of exploiting vacancies little different from the Angevins' exercise of that privilege.41 The fruit of his cultivation of friendly relations with the Church was his depiction in French chronicles as its defender. Philip could not entirely escape charges of greed, but lucky circumstances brought him great profit without burdening his subjects too heavily with taxes. In his first decade, two windfalls vastly increased his revenues: his savage spoliation of the Jews, 1180-82, and Richard I's relief of 24,000 marks paid following his father's death.42 The feudal incidents proved as lucrative to Philip Augustus as 34 For a contemporary's views of Philip and Richard, see Chronicle of Richard of Devizes 42, 44, 48, 75, 78; also Baldwin, Philip Augustus, 30, 88-9, 91, 335-36; cf. R & S, 327. 35 E.g., John T. Appleby, John King of England (New York, 1959), 73: '[Philip's] strategy, if one chooses to dignify cowardice with such a name, was to avoid pitched battles and to harass Richard with border raids, forays, and tentative thrusts at the weak places along the extensive frontier.' See also Gillingham, Richard, 286; Warren, John, 77. 36 Oeuvres de Rigord et de Guillaume le Breton, ed. H. -F. Delaborde, 2 vols. (Paris, 1882), 1: 152-3; for Guillaume le Breton, ibid., 2: 155; Roger of Wendover, Flores Historiarum, ed. Henry G. Hewlett, 3 vols. (London, 1886-89), 1: 316: '. . . postpositis incursionibus bellicis cum regina epulubatur quotidie splendide, somnosque matutinales usque ad prandendi horam protraxit . . .' p. 317: 'Rex Anglorum interea apud Rothomagum morabatur cum regina imbellis, ita quod ab omnibus dicebatur ipsum fore sortilegiis vel maleficiis infatuatum.' Also Histoire de dues de Normandie et rois d'Angleterre, 104-05. 37 Holt, 'King John,' 109; Warren, John, 90. 3 « Baldwin, Philip Augustus, 99-100. 39 Only twice did he interfere in episcopal elections, both times early in his reign; Baldwin, 66-67, 180, 304, 307. 40 Baldwin, 162-71, 179. 41 Baldwin, 309; Petit-Dutaillis, Monarchic feodale, 243; his regalian right to the see of Reims brought £2829 parisiensis during a vacancy of only four months. 42 He extracted 15,000 marks from the Jews, 1180-82; Baldwin, Philip Augustus, 51, 52.

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to the Angevins; he apparently shamelessly exploited his rights of wardship.43 Sums paid to him as relief are as spectacular as any paid to the English kings; John himself had paid a 20,000-mark relief in 1200 as part of the settlement at Le Goulet.44 Such enormous sums could add a quarter to a third to a year's royal revenues.45 During the years 1190-1203, Philip succeeded in increasing his revenues by 50 percent, giving him an ample war chest for his final push to oust John from Normandy.46 By 1221 his revenues had increased by 70 percent from their 1202-3 level, and he left on his death a large surplus.47 With such vast resources, he could afford to forego the aids, scutages, and percentage levies on moveable goods that John was collecting more and more frequently.48 In other ways, Philip II's policies parallel those of his Angevin rival. Like John, he sought to secure new lands by intervening in inheritances to great fiefs whenever uncertainty of succession afforded an excuse for royal acquisition.49 Philip exercised control over the marriages of heiresses of his major vassals, using them to reward familiares.™ Also like John, Philip tended to deny great men any place in his councils, restricting his counselors to a handful of new men. French chroniclers complained of the absence of magnates among his intimate advisers.51 King John, unfortunately, lacked official historians to put a good light on his failures.52 Instead, the history of his reign would be written mainly by monastic authors, sitting in strongholds of local privilege, unsympathetic to royal government, suspicious of any change that threatened social stability.53 The only contemporary treatment of John approaching objectivity is an anonymous annalist, the Barnwell Chronicler, writing c. 1202-25. The best that he could say of John, however, is that 'like Marius, he experienced the ups and downs of fortune.' He concluded that the king's own men abandoned him because he was 'a pillager of his own people.'54 43

Baldwin, 278-79, on wardship of Theobald of Troyes, 1201-22, sold to the boy's mother for £\5,QQQparisiensis. See also on Philip Augustus' feudal exactions, Petit-Dutaillis, Monarchic feodale, 292-93; J.C. Holt, The Barons and the Great Charter,' 181, in Magna Carta and Medieval Government, 179-202. 44 Baldwin, Philip Augustus, 154. 45 Baldwin, count of Hainault, offered 5000 marks for recognition as heir to Flanders. Also in 1212 Theobald, count of Blois, paid the king £5000 parisiensis. In 1219 the count of Eu's widow paid 15,000 silver marks; Baldwin, Philip Augustus, 278, table 10; p. 303; Petit-Dutaillis, Monarchic feodale, 243, 294. 46 Baldwin, 99-100, 174. For a useful summary of scholars' views on finances and the loss of Normandy, see Hallam, Capetian France 165-68, 179-82. 47 Baldwin, Philip Augustus, 247^8, 351-54. 48 Ibid., 53-54. 49 Ibid., 341-42; Petit-Dutaillis, Monarchic feodale, 294-95. 50

51

Baldwin, Philip Augustus, 272.

Ibid., 123-25, 358. 52 Antonia Grandsen, 'Propaganda in English Medieval Historiography,' Journal of Medieval History 1 (1975): 375. 53 Gransden, 'Propaganda,' 366. 54 Walter of Coventry, 2: 232: '. . . princeps quidem magnus, sed minus felix, et cum Mario

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The chroniclers most influential in creating John's bad historical reputation are the two St. Albans writers, Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris. England is unique in having its greatest medieval histories, the St. Albans chronicles, written with an antiroyalist bias. Roger of Wendover viewed John's reign in light of the struggles of his own time, Henry Ill's minority. By the time that he began writing, a 'myth' of John's wickedness apparently already had taken shape in clerical and monastic circles. Wendover did not first draw this sinister portrait, but he added shading and color.55 He handed on a pro-baronial bias to Matthew Paris who succeeded him as historian at St. Albans in 1235.56 Matthew Paris, in his borrowings from Wendover, made no change in the basic picture of Bad King John, since he viewed Henry Ill's conflict with his barons as a continuation of John's quarrel.57 He simply added darker shading to blacken the portrait further. V.H. Galbraith said, 'Paris' portrait is a creation of literature: as fictitious as Shakespeare's Falstaff; and he concluded, 'Paris' additions to Wendover for [John's] reign are not merely worthless, but very misleading . . ,'58 Not all John's wickedness was 'pleasant monastic gossip,' spread by spiteful historians. He had distasteful, even dangerous personality traits, among them pettiness or spitefulness; perhaps insecurity made him especially resentful of slights, eager to seek revenge. We cannot doubt his capacity for cruelty, which most chroniclers described, and often embellished.59 His cruelty must be put in context, however. It was a brutal age, and John did not stand alone among monarchs for acts of cruelty or even murders.60 Kings who limited their cruelty to fortunam utramque expertus: munificus et liberalis in exteros, sed suorum depraedator, plus in alienis quam in suis confidens, unde et a suis ante finem derelictus est, et in fine modicum luctus.' On this annal and possible place of composition, see Grandsen, Historical Writing, 228^4. 55 V.H. Galbraith, Roger Wendover and Matthew Paris (Glasgow, 1944), 17, 19; Gransden, Historical Writing, 368. 56 Galbraith, Roger Wendover and Matthew Paris, 20, reprinted in Kings and Chroniclers, 5-48; Holt, 'King John,' 100, 106. 57 Grandsen, Historical Writing, 368. 58 Galbraith, 'Good Kings and Bad Kings,' 35, 37. 59 The phrase is R & S, 33; see also Painter, Reign of John, 236-37. E.g., Wendover's account of Geoffrey of Norwich and the 'leaden cope,' 3: 229; Gervase of Canterbury, Historical Works, ed. William Stubbs, 2 vols. (London, 1879-89), 2: 92-3; 'Annales de Dunstaplia' in Annales Monastici, 3: 34: imprisonment and martyrdom of Geoffrey of Norwich; imprisonment and exile of Stephen Ridel; imprisonment of the prophet Peter of Pontefract; exile of Mauger, bishop of Worcester; violent extortions of abbots and other clerics. On John's hanging of Peter of Wakefield and his son, see Walter of Coventry, 2: 212. On John's treatment of the Braose family, see 'Stanley Chronicle,' Chronicles . . . Stephen, Henry II, and Richard 1, 2: 511-12; Walter of Coventry, 2: 202. See 'Annales de Margan' in Annales Monastici, 1: 27, on John's murder of Arthur: 'ebrius et daemonia plenus, propria manu interfecit.' 60 R & S, 335-36. They admit John's responsibility for three political murders: Arthur of Brittany; Matilda de Braose and her son; Peter of Wakefield and his son. Neither the Angevins nor the Capetians could match Henry VI of Hohenstaufen for monstrous cruelty; David Abullafia, Frederick II (London, 1988), 80, 85.

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non-Christians were less likely to suffer condemnation by chroniclers, however. Richard Lionheart's massacre of nearly 3,000 Muslim prisoners at Acre in 1191 aroused no complaints. Neither did Philip Augustus's savage expulsion of the Jews from his domain, 1180-82; the chronicler Rigord only complained of the king's later decision to allow their return.61 Although John had potential for success, with intelligence, administrative ability, a flair for strategy and for diplomatic intrigue, too many personality flaws limited him. One of John's faults was a lack of proportion, a propensity for pushing things too far, so that an action that should have brought success ended in failure. For example, his marriage to Isabelle of Angouleme may have been a brilliant move on the chessboard of Poitevin politics; but he lost any advantage through his stubbornness toward her former fiance, Hugh de Lusignan. Likewise, John's cruelty to his captives following his victory at Mirebeau cost him any advantage won from his military achievement.62 Also illustrating John's lack of proportion are his efforts at one moment to enhance the royal dignity, undone by his 'indecent levity' at another. He sported splendid trappings that his father and brother had neglected, celebrating feastdays with crown-wearing and chanting of the Christus Vincit; but at other times he could undermine respect with 'an offensively bawdy sense of humor.'63 This oscillating between gravity and crudity indicates an inconsistency characteristic of John. Perhaps he can be compared to a twentieth-century Texan, Lyndon B. Johnson, a clever politician, yet one who could clumsily undermine his quest for a statesman's dignity. Clearly, John lacked the likeable qualities of his two predecessors, which had enabled them to earn popularity in spite of arbitrary acts and financial extortions different from his only in degree.64 Those rulers could display on occasion, however, the chivalric courtesy that John lacked. Historians agree that John had an extremely secretive, suspicious nature, convinced that conspiracies threatened him; and administrative records document his distrust.65 William Marshal's biographer depicts King John as a resentful and suspicious ruler, whose pride

61

Richard of Devizes, 47, and appendix G, pp. 98-99; Painter, History of Crusades, 2: 72. For Philip II's savage treatment of the Jews of the royal domain, 1182: Baldwin, Philip Augustus, 51-52,160; Spiegel, 'Defense of Realm', 119-20, shows Rigord presenting Philip's persecution of Jews as springing from his role as defender of the church. 62 John's starving at Corfe Castle of 22 prisoners, 'nobilissimos et strenuissmos in armis' taken at Mirebeau, 'Annales de Margam' in Annales Monastici, 1:26 63 The phrase is Hollister's, 'John and Historians,' 15. Kate Norgate, John Lackland (London, 1902), 62, on John's 'indecent levity,' at his investiture as duke of Normandy; Life of St. Hugh, 2: 143. W. L. Warren, Henry II (Berkeley, 1973) 78, describes Henry as 'impatient of pomp . . . and disdaining the trappings of monarchy.' See also p. 245. 64 J.E.A. Jolliffe, Angevin Kingship (London, 1955); Hollister, 'John and Historians,' 9-10. 65 E.g., taking his barons' sons as hostages, J.C. Holt, 'The Barons and the Great Charter,' Magna Carta and Medieval Government, 181, n. 3. Also Curia Regis Rolls, ed. C.T. Flower. 14 vols. (London, 1923-), 7: 170, where he required his household to swear that they would report talk against him.

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blinded him, who would not listen to reason, and who lost his barons' affection even before the loss of Normandy.66 John's suspicion of his barons prevented his seeking their advice and turned him toward trusted intimates of his familia.61 Historians agree that one of John's most serious shortcomings was his failure to manage his magnates.68 No king could afford to alienate his great men by passing over them in distributing spoils of government in favor of alien or lowborn newcomers. Even though less powerful than earlier, the baronage was still a formidable force, capable of impeding royal exploitation of the counties, or of armed rebellion. Any monarch needed to keep them contented, if his realm was to remain peaceful. Also capable of mounting fierce opposition, although by spiritual means, was the Church. Should these two act in concert against a monarch, they could present an almost irresistible force. Although Henry II and Richard I quarrelled with individual magnates and churchmen, their personalities made possible relatively rapid healing of wounds. King John, of course, quarrelled with both of these groups; and in the period preceding Magna Carta they coalesced, with ecclesiastics providing theoretical underpinning for the barons' opposition.69 An essential test of greatness in a ruler that chroniclers, concentrating on conventional piety, overlooked is leadership, ability to inspire one's followers to achievements beyond their limits, to accept sacrifices for the common good. This was a quality present in such World War II leaders as Winston Churchill or Franklin D. Roosevelt, possibly in a postwar president, John F. Kennedy. Can we measure this quality of inspiring leadership among medieval monarchs? Richard Lionheart possessed such a quality. Very much a part of this inspirational aspect of leadership is an agenda or program that galvanizes one's followers. Henry II seems always to have had before him an image of his grandfather's forceful yet just rule. For Philip Augustus, it was restoring French monarchy to the greatness of the Carolingians, making it equal or surpass the Angevin. Others set John's agenda for him: Philip ensured John's preoccupation with recovery of his continental possessions; Innocent III forced him to defend royal rights over the English Church. In neither case did he have positive goals. In any comparison with his contemporaries, King John falls short. How can his failings as a ruler be explained? Philip Augustus had the advantage of royal chroniclers working to create a favorable historical reputation; and Richard Lionheart created his own reputation as exemplar of chivalry and the crusading

66

Lines 12501-06. Walter of Coventry (Barnwell) also comments on John's suspicion in 1212, 2: 207 67 Painter, Reign of John, 228, citing Histoire des dues de Normandie et rois d'Angleterre, 105; W.L. Warren, 'Painter's King John - Forty Years On,' ante, 1 (1989): 7-9. Chanson de Guillaume le Marechal, lines 12184-90, depicts John seeking counsel from his bachelors when his barons advice displeased him. 68 Hollister, 'John and Historians,' 15-16; Holt, 'King John,' 108; Gillmgham, Oxford History, 151; Warren, King John, 258-59. 69 Bartlett, Gerald of Wales, 69.

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ideal, but John cannot escape some personal responsibility. Although John may have shared some personality traits and policies with his father and brother, his own character contained too many flaws that set him apart. While he proved clever enough at political maneuvering, he often pressed beyond the bounds of accepted conduct, undermining any advantage initially gained. A ruler such as John who maintained power through cruelty and fear, who behaved boorishly, and who proved greedy for too large a share of his subjects' wealth, was unlikely to prove an inspiring leader. His suspicion and vindictiveness prevented him from winning the trust of his most important subjects, much less their enthusiasm for his projects. Florida State University