The Normans and Their World Read online

  About this time he decided to marry and picked on Matilda, daughter of Baldwin of Flanders by Adela of France. But the emperor disliked the alliance, and so Pope Leo IX, an anti-Norman supporter of the Germans, forbade the marriage at the Council of Rheims, apparently on the grounds of consanguinity, which did not exist; Adela as a child had been betrothed to William’s uncle, Richard II, but no marriage took place. William ignored the ban and married Matilda at Eu, in 1050-1, or at least before the end of 1053. A little earlier he had given his sister to Enguerrand, count of Ponthieu just over his northern frontier; he was clearly determined to strengthen his links with the regions to his north — whether or not he could as yet have envisaged an attack on England. It is more than doubtful if he had ever seen Matilda, and we can dismiss the story that he was passionately in love with her. He was not a man to be swept off his feet by any woman. What is more probable is that, once having decided on Matilda, he was too obstinate to submit to any bullying from the church. Mauger, together with Lanfranc the prior of Bec, told him that his marriage was null; and he in reply ravaged the lands of Lanfranc’s abbey and banished him from the country. The story is told that William met him riding off on a poor nag and ordered him to get out more quickly; Lanfranc answered, ‘Give me a decent horse and I’ll go at a better pace.’ William laughed and discussed the situation with him. Lanfranc agreed to urge William’s case at Rome. (Later under Pope Nicholas II a compromise was reached; a dispensation was issued on condition that William founded an abbey for monks and Matilda one for nuns.) William of Jumièges insists that Matilda was beautiful as well as gifted with great abilities; certainly her husband seems to have respected her views. He had no concubine, or we should hear of her. Probably he was not interested in women apart from needing a wife to give him heirs.[133]

  As part of his marriage-contract, says William of Poitiers, he exacted from his barons oaths of fidelity to himself and his unborn heir. He did not mean to leave any ambiguities as his father had done. In the course of sixteen years he begot four sons: Robert, Richard (who died young), William Rufus, Henry — and several daughters. Poitiers, piling up praises, says nothing of continence; William of Malmesbury tells us:

  Besides other virtues, he, especially in early youth, observed chastity; so that it was very commonly reported that he was impotent. However, marrying at the recommendation of his nobility, he behaved for many years in such a way as never to be suspected of criminal intercourse. He had many children by Matilda, whose wifely obedience and fertility in births excited in his mind the tenderest regard, though persons do not lack who chatter about his renouncing his former chastity, and say that after he acceded to the royal dignity he was connected with a certain priest’s daughter whom the queen caused to be removed by having her hamstrung by one of her servants; for which he was exiled and Matilda was scourged to death with a bridle.

  But I consider it folly to believe this of so great a king, though I decidedly assert that a slight discord arose between them, in later days, through their son Robert, whom his mother was said to supply with a military force out of her revenues. Still, he proved that his conjugal affection was not in the least lessened thereby, as on her death he buried her with great magnificence, four years before his own death; and weeping profusely for many days, he showed how keenly he felt her loss. More, from that time, if we may credit report, he refrained from every gratification.

  There was a strong homosexual streak in the Norman lords. But William seems wholly obsessed by issues of power; and with his suspicious brooding nature there may have been an element of ascetic withdrawal, a dislike of admitting any needs that disturbed his harsh self-discipline.[134]

  A minor revolt by William Busac, son of the count d’Eu, was easily put down. But Mauger was criticizing the duke’s marriage, and his brother, count of Argues, William’s uncle, joined in. William put troops into the count’s castle, but they mutinied and went over to d’Arques. All the malcontents flocked to him. William moved from Valognes by forced marches, going so fast that he had only six men with him when he arrived at Arques, where however he found three hundred knights and their men waiting for him. He managed to catch his uncle in the open, and charged at him, despite his inferior force. The count, however, managed to get back into the castle and was beseiged there. Leaving Walter Giffard to carry on with the siege, William turned to oppose a strong army moving in from France. King Henry thought he at last had a chance to deal with Normandy, putting d’Arques over it as a puppet-duke. A body of troops under a grandson of Richard II ambushed the French at St Ubin near Dieppe, and Henry failed to raise the siege of Arques. The count surrendered and was allowed to go off to Eustace of Boulogne.

  Then again in 1055 the king attacked Normandy. William now had the support of both eastern and western regions. By a dawn attack the Normans routed the French. (The Norman Roger de Mortemer took prisoner Montdidier, whose vassal he was, and then released him. William was said later, in his dying speech, to have praised Mortemer, but at the time he banished him.) There seems to have been peace till 1058, when again Henry of France, with the count of Anjou, made an attack. Western Normandy fell; but then the invaders tried to cross the Dive at Varaville. When only half the troops had crossed the tide began to flow in. William assaulted the rear and cut it to pieces. Henry decided that he had now had enough of meddling unprofitably with Normandy. He died in 1060; and his child-heir, Philip I, to whom William paid homage, had Baldwin as guardian. Geoffrey Martel, count of Anjou, had died in 1059, and was succeeded by a weak ruler who was taken up with the problems of a troublesome brother. William could now get on with subduing Maine, to which France, Anjou and Normandy all had unimpressive claims. William had worked out a story that the county had once been granted to the Norman rulers; in fact, since at least 1025, Angevin control had been effective there. William tried to buttress his claim by adding that the region had been bequeathed to him by its count Herbert II, whom, with mother and sister, he had taken in as an exile; Herbert had died in 1062. And he declared that he had married one of his daughters to Herbert before his death and his son Robert to the sister Margaret. So he now claimed Maine as Herbert’s heir and Margaret’s guardian. But Walter III of the Vexin, nephew of Edward of England, had married Biota, the dead count’s aunt, and thus was a possible rival for both Maine and England.

  By means of ferocious devastations William in 1063 took Le Mans, capital of Maine; then by firing the town he gained the fortress of Mayenns. William of Poitiers thus described the taking of Le Mans:

  He had the skill and force available to set fire to it at once, destroy the whole town, and massacre the guilty. But with his usual restraint he preferred to spare men’s blood, however culpable, and leave unharmed this strongly fortified city, the capital fortress of the land he had conquered. So he chose this way of subduing it: to sow terror by frequent assaults and by long soujourns in its neighbourhood, to devastate its vineyards, fields, and desmesnes, to capture all the castles round about, to set up garrisons wherever advisable, and finally to inflict without respite all possible hardships.

  He captured Walter of Mantes and his wife, and shut them up at Falaise, where they died — poisoned according to Orderic. As Margaret had died before her marriage with Robert could be canonically celebrated, William himself took the title count of Maine. Now he could attack Brittany where Conan II, out of tutelage, was refusing homage and raiding the frontier. He marched round and about Brittany, but had to withdraw through lack of supplies and because Anjou threatened to come to Conan’s aid. Harold, son of Godwin, was with him in this inconclusive campaign. However, William established contacts with some Bretons, notably the sons of Edo of Porhoet, who in 1066 supplied a large contingent for the attack on England.

  Thus we see that for many years William had to suffer more revolts and treacheries than any other Norman ruler. The reason no doubt lay in the fact that Normandy was now experiencing a maximum tension between the old Norse bonds and the new feudal forms. Th
e lords, with enhanced powers, wanted to show that they could achieve as much autonomy as the barons of France, Anjou, Maine and Burgundy; and against this increased assertion of the lords William had to mobilize both the old Norse ruthless initiative and those elements in the feudal forms which strengthened the hand of the prime overlord. The prolonged siege of Brionne must have involved very efficient organization of supplies, both of men and materials, the raising of funds and careful use of the available money. Many mercenaries must have been employed. It was probably round this time that William elaborated and systematized his methods of army service. He replaced the old type of barons, many of whom were related by blood to Richard I and II, with new men more willing to accept the fief-system. He allotted his two half-brothers their places. Odo became bishop of Bayeux and Robert, we saw, took over the county of Mortain. William was carrying on the policy begun by the two Richards of creating new counties, which were put into the hands of relatives whose tenures depended on their long military service and their loyal command of the ducal castles. At the same time he got his own garrisons into castles held by the magnates whom he considered to be too independent. He thus tightened up his controls and his administrative system in a way that few overlords elsewhere in France could have done in their own regions.

  Not that we must look for any rigid application of a carefully devised system. In such a feudal world he had to act tentatively, continue trying to establish just what fealties could be demanded and held, and what delegations of power produced the best balance between a centralized overlordship and local forms of order, exploitation, and management. In a smaller way he was doing what he did later in England: building and controlling castles at strategic points, cutting fiefs out of his demesne and granting them on terms as definite and stringent as circumstances permitted, attempting to get a profitable coherence out of the various resources such as tolls, dues and feudal rights, always bearing in mind both central demands and local needs. The unifying aspect lay in the effort to build up effective military control over the whole duchy so that its resources in men, money and supplies could be tapped as required, both for the steady extension of his dominion and for meeting emergencies. But once again we must beware of thinking there were clearcut schemes or applications of policy. William’s approach was based on a strong pragmatic sense of the realities of power. Thus, as part of his movement towards the greatest centralization possible in a situation with so many local and centrifugal elements, he had to avoid granting fiefs to vassals in areas where they were already too important.

  In these comments we are dealing with tendencies rather than sharp policies. William was far from ending his problems; and, as we noted, he had the good sense to be cautious and even merciful in situations full of pitfalls and perils. He came to learn that a foreign policy strongly orientated towards expansion was useful in smothering opposition at home; but he knew that if he failed, internal envies, intrigues and ambitions would increase. In his later years he entered the general political scene of western Europe, where the main factor had become the Lotharingian rebellion against the Emperor Henry III. Baldwin and Henry of France had been drawn in, and Geoffrey of Anjou and Edward of England were allied with the emperor. William had to move from the problem of feudal stability inside Normandy to that of his duchy’s role in the wider field.

  We may now look at the use William tried to make of the Truce of God, which he instituted soon after Val-ès-Dunes as an important step in his struggle to pacify and control the duchy. The movement represented by the Truce tells us a great deal about the age. It arose earlier in the eleventh century, as an expression both of the increasing feudal anarchy and the possibilities of new centralized systems. It showed also the intrusion of the church into matters of war, an intrusion which in many ways had the opposite effect to that intended. Instead of halting or humanizing war, if such a thing were possible, it tended to draw war into the church’s orbit and to lend it a Christian veil; it thus helped to build the idea of a holy war (such as William’s invasion of England with papal banner and blessing) and to bring about the whole project of the crusade against the infidel.

  Significantly the Truce had behind it a genuine popular movement, which had been aimed against the ruthless killing and looting indulged in by the warrior and knightly classes. This movement was that of the Peace of God, probably stimulated by fears that the world would end in 1000. At the council of Charroux, 989, the bishops of Aquitaine considered means of protecting the immunity of the clergy and creating guarantees that the poor would be left to live in peace. Next year at Le Puy the idea was taken up more strongly. At Poitiers in 1000 it was laid down that every dispute should be decided by recourse to justice alone; all men who refused to conform to the rule should be excommunicated. The duke of Guienne and his nobles accepted the proposals, and Robert the Pious of France followed their example. The church was mainly concerned to protect its property, and a number of councils took the matter up further. At Verdun-sur-le-Doubs in 1016 a formula was evolved whereby the nobility was to foreswear the impressing of clerics or peasants into their forces, the raiding of crops and the carrying off of beasts. The oath was widely taken through France with congregations shouting, ‘Peace, peace, peace!’ In 1038 the archbishop of Bourges ordered all Christians older than fifteen years to be ready to take up arms against the peace-breakers. Leagues of Peace were organized. The peasants, led by the lesser clergy, took the proposals seriously and attacked the castles of recalcitrant nobles. The authorities grew scared. After the League of Peace burned the village of Benecy, Count Odo of Déols attacked and destroyed its members on the banks of the Cher, killing (we are told) some seven hundred clerics.[135]

  The background of the movement lay in the fact that when in the ninth century the Carolingian state broke down, with a failure of royal authority and central organs, the local unit of administration, the pagus, functioned till the second half of the tenth century, when anarchy began with the swarms of lords building castles — a situation worst in the areas south of the Loire. The councils advocating the peace were the church’s effort of self-preservation, supported by the vulgaris plebs.

  From this crushed popular movement came the movement of the Truce, which was taken up and directed by strong rulers in the hopes of curbing internal anarchy. In 1027 a synod at Toulouse in Rousillon forbade all warfare on the Sabbath; in 1030 the bishops of Soissons and of Beauvais decided to ‘imitate the Burgundian bishops’.[136] Behind the proposals was a strong Cluniac influence; Odilon of Cluny and Richard of St Vanne with their companions had done much to propagate the idea. In Flanders abbot Richard and his disciples won over the bishop of Cambrai, who had been the only bishop in the see of Rheims to resist such novitates. The French King Robert even thought of acting with the German emperor and Pope Benedict VIII to spread the idea over all Christendom.[137] In 1041 the bishops of Provence, claiming to speak in the name of the whole church of Gaul, sent letters to the church of Italy demanding that the Truce be extended to include Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Ascension Day. Aquitaine had already taken this line; Burgundy went further and wanted the Truce to cover the whole week from Wednesday evening to Monday morning, plus the period from Advent to the first Sunday after Epiphany, and from the beginning of Lent through Holy Week to the Octave of Easter.

  The idea did not fare well for a time in Normandy though churchmen like the Italo-Burgundian William of Volpiano would certainly have favoured it; and Richard of St Vanne was known at the ducal court. Richard II asked his advice; Richard III helped the pilgrimage he organized in 1026 to Jerusalem. Robert, grappling with a plot hatched by a lord of Breton origin, Ermenoldus, invoked his assistance: the abbot hurried to Rouen with his disciple Ermenfroi, archdeacon of Verdun, calmed the rebel, and took him to become a monk at St Vanne.[138] In Flanders, about 1030, Baldwin IV introduced the Truce. But the Norman dukes ignored it.

  Perhaps they felt strong enough without it; perhaps they felt that such rules were impossible to impose
on their lords. But William must have decided that anything which might curb anarchy was to be welcomed. Hugue de Flavigny says that in the first years of his rule he was often asking abbot Richard’s advice. So in 1041-2 the idea was taken up. William probably addressed the bishops first, as he had done over the matter of monastic reform. But with the Truce, Hugue says, he met the opposition of ‘certain persons of bad will who rejected his proposition as unheard of, saying that they didn’t want to transgress the customs of their fathers by thus accepting unaccustomed novelties’. However, the gens Neustriae, who ignored the call, were struck with a cruel epidemic, ‘a fire that tortured them’, and famine made things worse. (Ignis is a term used in this period for various diseases, some attacking the skin, some the whole body, but mainly it seems to mean a gangrenous form of ergotism, caused by a mould on the damp corn. The modern drug L.S.D. is a form of ergot.)[139]

  Then some five years later the Truce was adopted after all. This must have been before March 1048 when a provincial council sat near Caen. (Richard had died in June 1046.) A few weeks before the council the parish church of Rots (given by Duke Richard to the monastery, St Ouen of Rouen) had to be consecrated; and the relics of St Ouen were to be presented there. The procession was on its way from Caen when, about halfway (some two miles), a messenger galloped up and bade it wait for the duke, who had just finished some detaining business and who wanted to bear on his own shoulders the holy body for the rest of the way.[140] Fulbert mentions that among the crowd was a priest with a piece of linen he was going to sell at the nundinae, apparently the fair of the Pré; so the council must have met some time in October 1047. It was held no doubt on the right bank of the Orne, where are still the ruins of the church Sainte-Paix, chosen on account of the abundance of provisions and ‘the opportunitas of the place’. The latter phrase seems to refer to the battlefield nearby, where the conspirators of 1046 were destroyed. (It may however mean that William had already noticed the suitability of the site for a town, or merely that the land belonged to the monastery of St Ouen.) The vast crowd included bishops and abbots of the province of Rouen; and St Ouen was kept busy miraculously exposing the many thieves.