No More Learning

It seems more reasonable to believe, as indeed Innocent III himself believed,
that a conspiracy actually had been formed against the Emperor, and
that the latter was acting only with justifiable prudence when he banished
the remnant of the royal house of Sicily and their adherents to Germany.
In the spring of 1195 a great diet was held at Bari to complete the
arrangements for the administration of the newly-won country. The
government was entrusted to the Empress Constance who, Norman by
blood and sentiment, was well qualified to continue the tradition of the
Norman kingdom. The German commanders who by their services during
CH. XIV.


## p. 472 (#518) ############################################

472
Extent of Henry's Empire
the campaign had earned the Emperor's gratitude were either now or
shortly before rewarded with fiefs and administrative offices: thus
Diepold of Vohburg became justiciar of the Terra di Lavoro, Conrad of
Lützelinhard became Count of Molise. The latter had previously held
the March of Ancona and the Romagna, which now with the additional
title of Duke of Ravenna was bestowed upon the man to whose enter-
prise was largely due the success of the campaign-Markward of An-
weiler; besides these tokens of Henry's favour he was granted his
freedom-he had been hitherto an unfree ministerialis—and raised to
the position of prince of the Empire. Conrad of Urslingen, who since
1183 had held the duchy of Spoleto, was made vicegerent (vicarius) of
the kingdom of Sicily, and finally Philip of Hohenstaufen, who after the
death of his brother Frederick (ob. 1191) had abandoned his ecclesiastical
career, was granted the duchy of Tuscany. The whole of southern and
central Italy therefore was dominated by a group of German officials,
and Rome was isolated.
At the same time that a large concourse of nobles was assembling
at Palermo to witness the coronation of Henry VI as King of Sicily, a
numerous gathering of distinguished persons was collecting round a tent
erected in the midst of the public square of the little town of Jesi in the
March of Ancona. The object of this gathering, which is said to have
included no less than fifteen cardinals and bishops, was to witness the
birth of the last Hohenstaufen Emperor (26 December 1194). The
number of credible witnesses seems a surprising but, as after events shewed,
a not unwise precaution; Constance was not young, and she had been
married and childless for nine years; it was only natural that enemies of
the house of Hohenstaufen should call in question the legitimacy of the
all-important child. Even such careful precautions did not prevent a
relatively honest man like Innocent III or a sinister figure like John of
Brienne from uttering their disbelief in Frederick's legitimacy, or monastic
chroniclers from weaving elaborate tales to explain Frederick's origin
froin other than royal parents.
Henry's rule now stretched from the North Sea to the coast of Africa,
for the Almohades of North Africa sent embassies and paid him tribute.
England was his vassal kingdom and he had, as we have seen, the intention
of reducing France to a similar state of dependence. He had designs also
of extending his power beyond the Pyrenees; the overlordship of the
kingdom of Aragon he had proposed to include in the grant of the
Arelate to Richard of England; when this plan failed he tried another.
The Genoese had been cheated of their promised rewards in the Sicilian
kingdom; they had already been established by Henry on the Burgundian
coast--at Monaco and elsewhere; they were now by way of compensa-
tion given authority to conquer the kingdom of Aragon? The maritime
republic however did not avail itself of Henry's offer.
1 Otobonus, MGH, Script. xviii, 112.


## p. 473 (#519) ############################################

Relations with the Eastern Empire
473
The acquisition of Sicily opened up new possibilities for the extension
of the Empire. Henry adopted the traditional policy and aspirations of
the Norman kings towards Africa and the Byzantine Empire-namely,
the establishment of a hegemony in the Mediterranean. Already he had
under his influence two outposts in the eastern Mediterranean, the
kingdoms of Little Armenia and Cyprus, whose rulers, Leo and Amaury
of Lusignan, had received their crowns from him (1194, 1195), thus
recognising their dependence no longer on the Eastern but on the
Western Empire. In pursuance of his ambitious design of extending his
influence over the Byzantine Empire, he sought to profit by the ever-
recurrent revolutions at Constantinople. Isaac Angelus, who ten years
before had deposed and tortured to death the last of the house of
Comnenus, the Emperor Andronicus, was now in his turn attacked,
mutilated, and deposed by his own brother, the Emperor Alexius III.
In his attempt to ward off the approaching danger, Isaac had turned to
Henry VI for help. Henry's demands were of the most extravagant
nature; he regarded himself, writes the Byzantine historian Nicetas, “as
though he were lord of lords, emperor of emperors. ” But Isaac was in no
position to haggle over terms. His daughter Irene, the widow of Tancred's
son Roger, had been found by Henry in the palace at Palermo and
given in marriage to Philip of Hohenstaufen. This pair the hapless
Emperor was prepared to recognise, if we may believe the evidence of
Otto of St Blaise, as heirs to the Byzantine throne; the Eastern and
Western Empires would then be united in the family of Hohenstaufen.
However the success of the revolution which gave the crown to Alexius III
prevented Henry from reaping the fruits of this project. Nevertheless,
by a skilful use of the threat of war he was able to exact from the usurper
large sums of money which helped to finance his Eastern policy. More-
over he had devised other means to obtain the same end. Already before
the fate of deposition had overtaken the hapless Isaac, on Good Friday,
31 March 1195, in the presence of but three chaplains, the Emperor had
received the cross from the hands of the Bishop of Sutri; on Easter Day
the Crusade was publicly proclaimed at the diet of Bari. The Crusade
was to serve a double purpose: besides promoting his Eastern policy, it
was to be instrumental in bringing about a reconciliation with the Pope
which Henry regarded as essential to the successful accomplishment of
his schemes.
Since the conquest of Sicily the papal and imperial courts had
become more than ever estranged. Henry might occupy the Papal States,
but he had no foothold in Rome; there the Pope was secure and
unassailable, and in no immediate need of the Emperor's help. To Henry
on the other hand the Pope's co-operation was all important; he was
strong in Italy, but his position was to some extent unauthorised; his
title to the lands of Matilda had never been admitted, and his right
to the occupied territory in central Italy was more than questionable.
CH. XIV.


## p. 474 (#520) ############################################

474
Preparations for the crusade
Sicily added a new complication: it was a hereditary monarchy, which
hitherto had owed allegiance to the Holy See. Was Henry also to
recognise this papal overlordship? Not only its relation to the Papacy
but also its relation to the Empire presented difficulties; Sicily was
hereditary, Germany and the Empire were elective. Henry wished
Sicily to be an integral part of the Empire. This problem, with many
others which exercised the mind of Henry, would be solved in that most
chimerical of all his ideas, the plan to alter the imperial constitution with
the object of making the Empire itself hereditary in the house of
Hohenstaufen.
For all these reasons friendship with the Pope was an urgent necessity.
Negotiations had been tried, but had failed to bring about the desired
result; the offer to go on crusade was one which Celestine could hardly
refuse to accept. As an earnest of his good faith, Henry had already
issued orders for the recruiting of 1500 knights and as many squires for
the enterprise. Never was a crusade pushed forward so impetuously by
an Emperor or more tardily by a Pope. But little though he might
desire it, Celestine could not resist the friendly overtures of a man who
was prepared to render the highest service to Christendom, and at last,
on 4 August, four months after Henry himself had taken the cross,
Celestine wrote the formal letter to the German bishops bidding them
to preach the crusade.
Towards the end of June 1195 Henry returned to Germany. Here
he busied himself in actively promoting the crusade; recruits were
enlisted, the date of departure was fixed for Christmas 1196; the
enormous wealth of the Sicilian treasury which he had brought to
Germany' provided him with ample resources wherewith to finance the
expedition. But the crusade was not the only nor yet the chief project
which occupied the attention of the Emperor during his year's stay in
Germany. He was anxious above all that the great position he had won
should be retained for ever in his family. His first step was to try to
secure the election of his two-year-old son as king, but when this failed,
apparently owing to the opposition of Adolf of Altena, Archbishop of
Cologne, he brought forward a “new and unheard-of decree" at the diet
of Würzburg in April 1196. The exact nature of this extraordinary
proposal, the circumstances attending it, and the means employed by
Henry to carry it through, have all been matter of keen controversy”.
1 From the treasury at Palermo he brought also the magnificent coronation
robes of Arab workmanship used by the Norman kings since the time of Roger II.
These were deposited in the castle of Trifels, and were used at imperial coronations
for many centuries.
2 See K. Hampe, Zum Erbkaiserplan Heinrichs VI. MIOGF, XXVII, 1906 ;
M. Krammer, Der Reichsgedanke des staufischen Kaiserhauses (Untersuchungen
zur deutschen Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte, ed. Gierke, No. 95), Breslau, 1908; and
especially J. Haller, Heinrich VI und die römische Kirche. MIOGF, xxxv, 1914.


## p. 475 (#521) ############################################

Plan for making the kingship hereditary
475
The sources of our information are meagre, ambiguous, and often con-
flicting; the two principal narrative accounts were written by men
belonging to opposing political parties, the one attached to the Emperor's
court, the other to the court of the Emperor's opponent, Herman,
Landgrave of Thuringia; the one is short and tolerably reliable, the
other is full, but confused and inaccurate. The "new and unheard-of
decree" was no less than a fundamental alteration of the constitution
with the object of making the kingship hereditary. After preliminary
negotiations among the princes who composed the intimate court-circle,
Henry laid the proposal before a full diet at Würzburg, and persuaded
or, the Reinhardsbrunn Chronicle would have us believe, bullied—the
majority of princes, 52 in number, to give a reluctant consent in writing
under seal. In return they were to receive certain concessions, slender,
they seem, when weighed beside what they were asked to renounce—the
most highly valued privilege of electing the king and Emperor designate:
the secular princes were to have the unrestricted right of inheritance in
their fiefs not only in the male but in the female and collateral lines,
the ecclesiastical princes were to have the free testamentary disposal of
their movable property. The true value of these concessions is difficult to
estimate. Strong Emperors no doubt could and did deny inheritance to
other than a direct male heir; only the year before Henry had withheld
the March from the brother of the Margrave of Meissen who died without
a direct heir, absorbed it as a vacant fief, and contrary to custom did not
re-grant it after the lapse of a year and a day; moreover his action gave
rise to no protest. On the other hand some princes, the Duke of Austria
or the Margrave of Namur, for example, already had these rights of
succession by special privilege, and no doubt many others hoped to acquire
them without making so large a sacrifice in return. The Emperor's exer-
cise of the ius spolii, which he was prepared to renounce as a compensa-
tion to the ecclesiastical princes, had long been contested and regarded
as an abuse-it had been one of the grounds of dispute in Frederick
Barbarossa's quarrel with Urban III; the removal of an abuse was scarce
adequate compensation for the surrender of an important and undoubted
privilege. The minority, composed chiefly of princes of Saxony and of
the Rhine country, though inconsiderable in number, could not be ignored;
again it was headed by the Archbishop of Cologne who claimed the right,
sanctioned by long custom, of crowning the king-elect at Aix-la-Chapelle.
This ceremony, hitherto all-important, would lose much, if not all, its
It is the conclusions of this last writer which have been in the main followed in the
text. See also the bibliography of this chapter.
Annales Marbacenses, ed. Bloch, SGUS; Cronica Reinhardsbrunnensis, MGH,
Script. xxx.
2 Cf. however the case at the death of the Landgrave of Thuringia, when Henry
had to yield to the demands of the princes and to grant the vacant fief to the brother
of the late landgrave (1191). See supra, p. 462, note 1.
CH. XIV.


## p. 476 (#522) ############################################

476
Negotiations with Pope Celestine III
significance, would become in fact a mere form, if the person crowned
was inevitably the eldest son of the late monarch.
Without making any attempt to overcome the opposition in Germany,
Henry began once more to negotiate with the Pope. The correspondence
between the two courts was now of a more cordial nature, and Henry
expresses his wish to assist the Pope in the suppression of heresy and even
announces his intention of coming to Italy himself. His intention was
no sooner announced than acted upon, and by the end of June 1196 the
Emperor was on his way to Rome. Far from abandoning his scheme for
a hereditary monarchy, he hoped now to reach it by a different path—by
means of the Pope. Peace with Celestine, which, he repeatedly insists, is
the principal object of the journey, was more essential than ever. The
Emperor was accompanied by only a scanty following, which was the
cause of derision among the Italians; but it was part of his policy. His
object was not to excite alarm, not to use force, merely to seek peace.
His eagerness is remarkable; the sacrifices he was prepared to make are,
at first sight, astonishing. Indeed it required much zeal, much steadfast-
ness of purpose, to persevere in the face of the cold reception his overtures
received at Rome. For Celestine’s letters, judging by Henry's replies, had
assumed once more an antagonistic tone; he raked up a number of old
complaints mainly respecting Henry's government in Sicily and his
brother Philip's encroachments on papal territory. He had no doubt
heard of Henry's new plan and disapproved of it. Nevertheless the
Emperor did not lose heart; he pushed forward up to the very gates of
Rome, and stayed in the neighbourhood of the city for more than three
weeks (20 October-17 November).
The object of the negotiations which passed between the two courts
during these weeks was the baptism and the anointing of the young
prince Frederick as king! The natural person to perform this function
was the Archbishop of Cologne who was himself the leader of the
opposition to the design of a hereditary monarchy; this antagonism
led Henry to try the expedient of getting the Pope to do it instead,
thereby dispensing not only with the German election but with the
German coronation as well. This plan would also serve another purpose.
The union of Sicily with the Empire was an important consideration;
indeed, according to one authority, Henry had promised it to the princes
in return for their surrender of their right of election. Two coronations
would militate against a close union of the two kingdoms. The Arch-
bishop of Palermo, to whom the right of crowning the King of Sicily by
tradition belonged, would not lightly yield his claim to a German bishop,
1 Interim missis legatis suis, imperator cepit cum apostolico de concordia agere
volens, quod filium suum baptizaret,nondum enim baptizatus erat-et quod in
regem ungeret. Ann. Marbac. sub anno 1196. Bloch, Hampe, and others interpret
regem as imperatorem. But the annalist, as Haller, p. 630 points out, is singularly
accurate in his use of titles, and is not at all likely to have written “rex” when he
meant "imperator. ” Cf. also Krammer, Der Reichsgedanke, pp. 13 sqq.


## p. 477 (#523) ############################################

Proposed concessions to the Papacy
477
of
whereas to the Bishop of Rome he could scarcely refuse it. Henry's plan
of a coronation of Frederick as King of the Romans by the Pope was, in
short, a simple method of evading a number of difficulties.
The Pope's co-operation was therefore all-important to Henry's
schemes. But what had Henry to offer in order to induce Celestine to
make such large sacrifices of power as these changes necessarily involved?
The Emperor's personal participation in the crusade was obviously not a
sufficient inducement? Moreover Henry himself asserts that he has
offered to the Roman Church more substantial concessions than
any
his predecessors had done; what these substantial concessions were we
are not so certainly informed. Giraldus Cambrensis, who visited Rome
on three separate occasions between the years 1199-1202 and who may
therefore be presumed to have good information on such matters, speaks
enthusiastically of Henry's good intentions towards the Church; he tells
us further how Henry proposed a plan for the secularisation of the states of
the Church which were in foreign hands (those actually in the possession
of the Church were to remain so). In place of this theoretically powerful
but practically valueless domain, Henry was ready to grant to the Pope
and to the cardinals very material financial benefits from the revenues of
the churches throughout his Empire. In view of the policy which the
Church had pursued for the last hundred years, this suggestion seems
preposterous. On the other hand the territory over which the Papacy
could exercise any real control was exceedingly small, and was indeed to
be retained under Henry's scheme; from the rest little or no revenues
were forthcoming, with the result that the Curia was reduced to con-
siderable financial straits. The Emperor's proposal, though obliging it
to abandon its ambitious claim to be an independent world-power by
becoming a pensioner-and the prospect of independence for the moment
was overshadowed—would at least establish its finances on a sound footing.
The second offer is more startling; and it is the one on which, if
Professor Haller interprets the matter aright, Celestine gave Henry to
understand his plan must stand or fall. This was no less than to concede
to the Pope what Innocent II and Hadrian IV had vainly tried to exact
from Lothar and Frederick Barbarossa, the feudal lordship over the whole
Empire. The evidence for this strange and daring proposal comes from
a no less credible witness than Pope Innocent III himself, who, after
expounding his theory of the translation of the Empire in the opening
sentences of the deliberatio on the respective claims of the rival German
kings, Philip and Otto, proceeds to declare that Henry had recognised
this feudal superiority of the Pope over the Empire and had "sought to be
invested of the Empire by the Pope through the symbol of a golden orb. ”
1 Though this is stated as the inducement in the Marbach Annals.
2 This interpretation of the words of the deliberatio is, however, not free from
difficulties and has been severely criticised by M. Tangl, Die Deliberatio Innocenz III,
SPAW, Lui, 1919. Cf. also Haller's reply in HVJS, xx, 1920.
CH. XIV.


## p. 478 (#524) ############################################

478
Failure of the negotiations with the Papacy
To such lengths was Henry, it seems, prepared to go for the attainment
of his end; on the other hand it must be borne in mind that, considered
in connexion with Henry's whole policy, the consequences of such a con-
cession need not perhaps have been very serious. If the imperial office
were hereditary and included an effectual rule of all Italy, it might be of
less consequence that it was held in vassalage of a Pope surrounded by
the imperial power; it might seem but a form, a ceremony, lowering
somewhat the prestige of the Empire but its power not at all. In fact
it would clear away many problems—the position of Sicily for example
—the solution of which meant additional strength rather than weakness
to the Empire; it meant further a corresponding weakening of the papal
position, an abandonment of the independent policy which the Curia
had hitherto pursued. And seeing it in this light, the experienced and
far-sighted statesman Celestine resisted it. Not at once, it is true; for he
allowed the negotiations to drag on for some time till the favourable
moment came. He may have heard that trouble was brewing in Sicily,
that a formidable conspiracy against German domination was in process
of formation; almost certainly he was kept informed of the march of
events in Germany, and was even fomenting resistance there to Henry's
plans. In the middle of October 1196 at the diet of Erfurt, the proposal
for setting the German kingship on an hereditary basis was again before
the princes, and this time it met with the determined opposition of
a powerful group under the leadership of the Landgrave of Thuringia.
It is not unlikely that Celestine was acting largely on the strength of
this opposition when he signified to Henry on 17 November that he
must postpone a decision till Epiphany. This virtually ended the
negotiations.
The Emperor, realising his defeat, left the neighbourhood of Rome
for the south. He also sent instructions to Germany that the letters of
the princes promising their support to his scheme should be returned to
them and that his son should be elected king in the customary manner;
this the princes readily conceded, and Frederick was unanimously chosen
king at Frankfurt (December 1196).
But that Henry did not despair of peace with the Curia is evident from
the fact that as early as February 1197, smothering his not unnatural
resentment, he addressed a letter to the Pope written in terms of due
humility and moderation. But Celestine turned a deaf ear; the letter, it
seems, remained unanswered. Nevertheless the Emperor was not at the
end of his resources. Age was on his side: Celestine was very old, and he
was in the prime of life. He was not without influence with the cardinals
which he might exert to gain a more pliant successor to Celestine.
There was also the crusade, which might serve his purpose well; it was
his hope that, having recovered Jerusalem, he could approach the Pope
once more and win, as reward for the services he had rendered to
Christendom, the much-desired peace. In such circumstances the Pope


## p. 479 (#525) ############################################

Rebellion against the Emperor: his death
479
could hardly deny him his request. Moreover everything promised
well for the success of the enterprise: the usurper Alexius III was ready
to pay an annual tribute to the Emperor of the West in return for
recognition; Irene, the daughter of the deposed Isaac, was now in 1197
the wife of the Emperor's brother Philip of Swabia. There was no fear
of interference from Constantinople. Even in Syria itself the outlook
was favourable. Since the death of Saladin in 1193, civil war had
raged among the sons of the great Sultan and their uncle Saphadin
('Adil).
So Henry pressed forward his preparations with still greater energy.
Then in the midst of his work he was interrupted by the news of the
imminent outbreak of a widespread rebellion, affecting not only Sicily
and South Italy but even Rome and Lombardy. It was the result of a
growing feeling of resentment against Henry's harsh rule. The previous
Christmas at Capua he had done to death in the foulest manner Richard
of Acerra, one of the most prominent leaders of the national party.
Such acts were not likely to win the confidence or affection of his
Norman-Italian subjects. In February a plot was formed to put Henry
to death and to raise up a new king in his stead. The Empress Constance
herself and Pope Celestine cannot be acquitted of the charge of being
privy to the conspiracy. Warned in time by an informer, Henry fled to
Messina where he was among friends, Markward of Anweiler and Henry
of Kalden, and with their help he suppressed the rising with savage and
revolting cruelty: those who were not visited by instant death were
reserved for more terrible ends, for crucifixion or torture. Even the
Sicilian barons who since 1194 had been confined in German prisons
were not spared, but were blinded by Henry's orders.
The conspiracy suppressed, the Emperor once more turned his atten-
tion to the crusade. Early in September the main body of the German
crusaders under the Chancellor Conrad, Archbishop of Mayence, embarked
for the East; Henry himself was to follow shortly, when he fell ill while
hunting on a cold night in the swampy woodlands of Linari. Never
physically strong and always subject to attacks of fever in the unhealthy
climate of his southern kingdom, he rallied only sufficiently to be
removed to the neighbouring Messina; he hoped to reach the Sicilian
capital but on 28 September death from dysentery supervened. His body
was carried to Palermo and buried in the cathedral.
Henry VI was perhaps in character the least attractive of the great
Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages; cruel, relentless, and entirely
lacking in human sympathy, he had many faults which it is difficult to
excuse. Yet there is something in the magnitude of his outlook and in
his astonishing success which commands admiration. His career exhibits
what a ruler with immense energy and remarkable diplomatic ability
could achieve in a short space of years. Under him the idea of a universal
Empire, of world-domination, came nearest to realisation during the
CH. XIV.


## p. 480 (#526) ############################################

480
Judgment of contemporaries
Middle Ages. It is useless to speculate as to what he would have
achieved had not his life been cut short before he had reached the age of
thirty-three. Contemporaries, there is no doubt, expected much; Otto
of St Blaise repeats with greater aptitude what Otto of Freising had
written of the Emperor Lothar: "nisi morte preventus foret, cuius virtute
et industria decus imperii in antique dignitatis statum refloruisset. ”


## p. 481 (#527) ############################################

481
CHAPTER XV.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DUCHY OF NORMANDY
AND THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND.
King EDWARD, son of Aethelred and grandson of Edgar, died on
5 January 1066, being the eve of the Epiphany. On 6 January he was
hurriedly buried before the high altar of his new minster-church at
Westminster, which had been consecrated just nine days earlier. On the
very same day Harold, son of Godwin, Earl of the West Saxons, alleging
that the old king on his death-bed had committed to his keeping not
only his widow but his kingdom, had himself formally elected to the
kingship by a small and probably partisan assembly of magnates. And
thereupon he was straightway hallowed King of the English people by
Ealdred, the Archbishop of York, within the very precincts and almost
at the very spot where some six hours before Edward's body had been
laid to rest.
The unprecedented haste and indecent callousness of these proceedings
speak for themselves. Whether Edward with his last breath had really
attempted, as his biographer and the Peterborough chronicle report, to
designate Harold as his successor can never be certainly known; but at
any rate, if precedent and the customs of Wessex counted for anything,
the crown of England was not his to bequeath; nor had Edward ever
brought himself to make any such recommendation when fully possessed
of his faculties. What alone is clear is that Harold had no intention of
allowing any real debate on the succession to take place among the
magnates as a whole. For it is impossible to believe that the great men
of the Midlands and of the North, or even of East Anglia or Devon, were
then gathered in London. Evidently, as soon as ever it had become apparent
that Edward's recovery was unlikely, Harold had made up his mind to
set aside Edgar the Aetheling, the sole surviving representative of the
old royal stock, who was, it seems, about sixteen years old, on the plea
of his youthfulness, and had determined to snatch the crown for himself
on the double ground that, being over forty and a statesman of many
years' experience, he was far better fitted than the Aetheling to be king,
and that he was the only man in England who could be relied on to keep
order and defend the realm from its foes.
When therefore the moment
came for action, all his plans were fully matured; and so it came about
that in the course of a single morning, without any public murmurs of
protest, the right kin of Egbert and Alfred, which could trace its ancestry
back to Cerdic and which for the last two hundred years had played the
C. MED, A, VOL. V. CH, XV.
31


## p. 482 (#528) ############################################

482
Coronation of Earl Harold
leading part in England on the whole with credit and success, was displaced
in favour of the semi-Danish house of Godwin, which had only emerged
from obscurity some half a century before, and then only as the favoured
instrument of the alien conqueror Knut. That the coup d'état of 6 January
was a gamble on Harold's part cannot be doubted; for most men, he was
aware, would regard him as a usurper, while it was plain that he could not
really count on the support of either the house of Leofric or of the thegns
north of the Humber, even if the young Earls Edwin and Morkere were
for the moment acquiescent. Looking at the question, however, from the
other side, it must be owned that England at the moment wanted a full-
grown king and a man of experience, who would be feared and respected;
and Harold was undoubtedly the foremost personage in the kingdom,
and so wealthy that his mere accession almost doubled the revenues of
the Crown and at the same time eliminated its most formidable competitor
in all the southern shires. Harold too cannot but have had before his
mind the similar change of dynasty which had been brought about in
France only eighty years before when the Carolingian line was finally set
aside by Hugh Capet. If the Duke of the Franks had been justified in
987, the Earl of the West Saxons in 1066 may well have persuaded
himself that he had an equally good case; for his material resources were
greater than those of the Capetian, and the need of England for an active
leader was patent to all. Lastly, in justification of his decision it can
always be urged that it was plain to Harold, from his personal knowledge
of Normandy and his misadventures there, that Duke William really was
set on claiming the English crown on the ground of his kinship to Edward,
by consent if possible, but by force if need be, and would leave no stone
unturned in the attempt to achieve his purpose. Year by year men had
seen the Norman Duke grow more powerful, and both Harold and his
partisans may quite honestly have argued that the sooner an experienced
and capable man was placed in Edward's seat, the more likely it would be
that William's plans would be brought to naught; whereas his chances of
succeeding in his designs would be deplorably increased, if the kingly
office were not quickly filled and Englishmen instead drifted into disputing
how best to fill it.
If this interpretation of Harold's behaviour may be adopted as the
most plausible one and the best suited to account for his inordinate
haste, it follows that we must also hold that Harold and his advisers not
only considered a struggle with the Norman Duke to be inevitable, but
also considered that the danger which threatened England from that
quarter was of the greatest urgency. Harold of course knew that he might
also have other foes to reckon with, such as his exiled brother Tostig and
his cousin Svein Estrithson, King of Denmark (1047–1075), who as
nephew of Knut had dormant claims on England which would revive
when he learnt of Harold's accession. But Tostig was not really formidable,
and might probably be placated, if compensated for his lost possessions;


## p. 483 (#529) ############################################

Normandy and England compared
483
while Svein was of a cautious disposition, and unlikely to move at all quickly.
Harold need not, therefore, have acted with any precipitancy merely to
meet such contingencies, nor even to forestall internal opposition within
England. It can only have been William that he deemed an immediate
menace. But why should he think William so formidable? Normandy as
compared with England was only a small state. From Eu, its frontier
town in the north-east, to Rouen and thence by Lisieux and Falaise to
the river Couesnon in the south-west, where the duchy marched with
Brittany, was a journey of less than 190 miles, about the same distance
as would be covered by a horseman riding from Yarmouth through
Ipswich and London to Salisbury, while the breadth of the duchy from
north to south was nowhere more than 70 miles. A considerable portion
of the province too was covered by forest; nor was the fertility of its
fields and meadows, so far as we know, any greater than the fertility of
the fields and meadows of Wessex. Even if Normandy possessed a more
enterprising and more vigorous upper class than England, the whole
Norman territory was only equal in area to five-sixths of Wessex, and all
round its borders were other feudal lordships which had constantly harassed
its rulers in the past, and which bore no goodwill to its present duke.
Bearing all these points in mind, it would seem at first sight as if William
must be attempting an impossible task if he set out to conquer England,
and as if Harold might safely have ignored his threats. But nevertheless,
as the course of events was to shew, Harold's instinct of fear was right.
Though William's dominions were small in extent, William himself, ever
since 1047, when he had taken the conduct of affairs into his own hands,
had been giving the world proof after proof that he possessed not merely
energy and ambition but a gift for leadership and a power of compelling
others to do his will which almost amounted to genius. During the last
nineteen years he had succeeded in all his undertakings, whether as a
leader in war or as a ruler and diplomatist, so that in all northern France
there was no feudal prince who had a greater prestige, or one who had
achieved a more unquestioned mastery of his own subjects. Normandy
too was far better organised internally than were other parts of France,
and was governed under a system which really did impose restraints, both
on feudal turbulence and on ecclesiastical pretensions. If then we wish
fully to understand the risks run by Harold in challenging William, it
will be well to make a short digression before describing the struggle
between them and to study the steps by which the Norman duchy had
acquired its peculiar characteristics and its ruler his remarkable prestige.
To understand the Normandy of 1066 it is not necessary to go back
to the foundation of the duchy in 911 by the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-
Epte, or to attempt to dispel the fog that surrounds the careers of the first
three dukes. These princes, Rollo (911-931), his son William Longsword
(931-942), and his grandson Richard I surnamed the Fearless (942-996),
were all undoubtedly men of mark; but nevertheless for this period there
CH. XV.
31-2


## p. 484 (#530) ############################################

484
Normandy in the tenth century
are really very few reliable details available. Dudo, dean of Saint-Quentin,
who wrote about 1020, indeed professes to tell their story, but his work
is fundamentally untrustworthy and for the most part based on legend and
hearsay. Some important points, however, can be established about the
development of the duchy during the tenth century. The first is that by
the end of the reign of Richard I the descendants of the original Norse
settlers had become not only Christians but in all essentials Frenchmen.
They had adopted the French language, French legal ideas, and French
social customs, and had practically become merged with the Frankish or
Gallic population among whom they lived. The second is that, as in
other French districts so in Normandy, most of the important land-
owners by this date held their estates on a feudal tenure, rendering the
duke military service and doing him homage. Allodial ownership, however,
was not altogether obsolete. The third is that the land-owning class had
abandoned the old Scandinavian method of fighting on foot, and had
adopted fighting on horseback. They no longer relied, like the English
and the Danes, on the battle-axe and the shield-wall, but were renowned
for their skill and efficiency as knights or heavy cavalry.
With the accession of Richard II, in 996, we reach a somewhat less
obscure period. As the title “the Good” indicates, Richard II was much
influenced by the ideals of ecclesiastical reform which had spread from
Cluny in the tenth century, and was a much more active patron of monks
than his ancestors had been. Mainard, a monk of Ghent, had indeed
obtained permission in the tenth century from Richard the Fearless to
revive the ruined abbey of Saint-Wandrille on the Seine. Thence about
966 he had moved on into the Avranchin and re-established monks in
the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel. The third duke, however, had shewn
his zeal for religion rather by re-organising the seven bishoprics of his
duchy than by founding monasteries; and when he founded Fécamp about
990, he organised it merely as a house for canons. Richard the Good, on
the other hand, like his contemporary King Robert of France (996–1031)
with whom he was ever on the best of terms, undoubtedly believed that
monks were superior to canons. He therefore about 1001, acting under
the advice of the well-known Lombard, William of Volpiano, the Cluniac
monk who had risen in 990 to be Abbot of Saint-Bénigne at Dijon,
re-organised Fécamp and substituted monks for the canons. His wife
Judith also founded a monastery at Bernai. Richard's zeal on behalf of
monasteries further induced him to issue a number of charters in their
favour, granting them liberal endowments and privileges of many kinds.
Several interesting examples of these charters have come down to us,
especially those in favour of Fécamp, and it is chiefly from their contents
that it is possible to piece together a few facts as to the nature of the ducal
system of government in the first quarter of the eleventh century.
To begin with, if we analyse the witnesses to Richard's charters, we
find that the Norman Duke was served by certain household officers. The


## p. 485 (#531) ############################################

Duke Richard II. The duke's officers
485
complete household of a feudal prince does not, it is true, come before us,
but we find mention of a constable, a chamberlain, a chancellor, and a
hostiarius. More prominent, however, among the witnesses than the
household officers are the duke's local officials, styled vicecomites. As
many as thirteen vicomtes—it seems rather confusing to English ears to
call them viscounts—attested the charter for Bernai, issued in 1025. It
is permissible, however, to assume that all the vicomtes were not present at
the duke's court when that charter was granted, and from later evidence
it can be shewn that there were more than twenty vicomtés in Normandy,
each under its vicomte. It is impossible to say when the vicomtés were
originally established or how far they were based on older Frankish sub-
divisions, such as the pagi and centenae. In the tenth and eleventh
centuries vicomtés were the common units for administrative purposes in
all parts of France, and in some provinces not a few of these jurisdictions
had developed into important feudal principalities. In Normandy, on the
contrary, it is clear from their number that the vicomtés were of no great
size, nor should they be regarded as the equivalent of the shires in England.
The majority of them were probably larger than Middlesex, but few can
have been as large as Huntingdonshire. They compare best in fact with
the rapes of Sussex in area. As to the position of the vicomtes politically,
it is clear that they had not succeeded in making their offices hereditary
except in one or two instances. They were still at Richard's death public
officers, appointed by the duke and removable at his will, who acted as
his agents for all purposes of civil government. The duties laid upon them
were not only fiscal, but judicial and military, the chief being to manage
the duke's estates situated within the vicomté, to collect the duke's rents
arising from them, whether in money or in kind, to lead the local levies
in time of war, to maintain order in time of peace, and to administer
justice in the name of the duke and collect the fines imposed on delinquents.
Besides the vicomtés there also existed in Normandy under Richard II
four or five districts distinguished as comtés (comitatus). These were the
comtés of Mortain, of the Hiesmois, of Évreux, of Brionne, and of Eu.
They were clearly appanages in the hands of the duke's kinsmen; for under
Richard II the first was held by his second son, and the rest by his
brothers or nephews. In area these comtés were not more extensive than
the vicomtés, nor were their revenues greater. The difference between the
two jurisdictions lay in the fact that in the comtés the duke retained no
important estates in his own possession and left the local administration
to the counts, whereas in the vicomtés he always owned several estates of
importance, and as often as not one or more castles as well for their
protection. A vicomté indeed might easily be changed into a comté, as
was the vicomté of Arques shortly after Richard's death simply as the
result of a grant transferring the ducal interests there to William of
Arques, who was the duke's illegitimate son; and then become a vicomté
again upon the death or forfeiture of the grantee. In no instance, however,
CH, XV.


## p. 486 (#532) ############################################

486
The ducal revenue. The secular clergy
be it noted had a comté ever been set up in Normandy in favour of a baron
who was unrelated to the ducal house.
Besides telling us something about the officials of Richard's day, his
monastic charters also throw a faint light on the machinery of government.
For example, they shew fairly clearly that there was already in existence
an organised ducal treasury. They not only refer to the fiscus dominicus,
but make a distinction between the regular revenues of the fiscus and the
occasional or extraordinary revenues of the camera. For example, in 1025
the monks of Fécamp were granted the tithe of the duke's camera, and a
hundred pounds from the same source was at another time given to the
monks of Saint-Bénigne at Dijon. Special dues levied from market towns
and on the profits of the duke's mint are also mentioned. For example,
we hear of the tolls from the burgus of Caen, and also of the tolls of
Falaise, Argentan, Exmes, Arques, and Dieppe. Rights of jurisdiction, on
the other hand, and immunities are not so clearly referred to. In the
charters granted to the monks of Saint-Ouen, Jumièges, Fécamp, and
Bernai, there are clauses it is true which somewhat obscurely guarantee
to each abbey the possession of its endowments “free from disturbance
by any secular or judicial powers,” but what this implied is doubtful.
These slight hints of course do not enable us to form any clear picture
of the administrative system under Richard II, but they go some way to
form a basis from which discussion may start. The fact too that these
charters of Richard II do not deal in vague generalities, but are charac-
terised by preciseness and a good deal of detail, adds considerably to their
value. On the other hand, being solely concerned with monastic privileges
they leave us entirely in the dark as to the relations of the duke with the
bishops and secular clergy of the province, and with the mass of the
feudal vassals, both matters which are of capital importance for the
understanding of Norman conditions. To obtain any light on such
questions, we must go outside the monastic charters; but, as there are no
written laws whether secular or ecclesiastical to turn to as in England,
we have only the very scrappy and obscure information to rely on which
can be gleaned from the narratives of the few chroniclers who collected
the traditions as to Richard's reign some two or three generations later.
As regards the bishops, one point, at any rate, emerges clearly, namely,
their practical subordination to the duke. Unlike many bishops in other
parts of France or in Germany, not one of the seven bishops of Normandy
was uncontrolled master and lord of his episcopal city, still less of any
county or jurisdiction attached to it. Each bishop had a vicomte by his
side as a rival power reminding him of the duke's authority. In Rouen
itself there was a vicomte of the city, and the archbishop apparently had
no special burgus of his own exempt from the vicomte's interference.
Again, in the matter of appointing bishops the duke paid the scantiest
attention to the wishes of the cathedral clergy; for the most part he
regarded bishoprics as scarcely differing from lay fiefs, and when vacancies


## p. 487 (#533) ############################################

The lay baronies
487
occurred bestowed them, wherever it was possible, on his kinsmen. Richard
the Fearless, for example, shortly before his death appointed his younger
son Robert to the archbishopric of Rouen. Robert was already Count of
Évreux, and he held both offices for nearly fifty years. At his death in
1037 his comté descended to his son Richard, while the archbishopric was
bestowed on Malger, a bastard son of Richard the Good. Once appointed,
the bishops in theory had considerable powers over the chapters of their
cathedral churches and over the parochial clergy, and, as regards some
moral offences, over the laity as well; for we meet with references to the
Episcopales Consuetudines and to the jurisdiction exercised by arch-
deacons, and see the monks constantly endeavouring to withdraw their
lands and tenants from the bishop's jurisdiction. In the duke's view,
however, the bishops enjoyed their authority rather by his leave and
license than as an indefeasible right arising under the universal law of
the Church; and if there was any doubt or dispute as to the extent of
a bishop's powers, it was brought before the duke and settled by his
authority.
The position of the laity, whether the military classes or the peasantry,
cannot be very summarily dealt with. As to the former, three obscure
problems confront the inquirer. They may be stated as follows: firstly,
on what conditions of tenure did the substantial landowners hold their
estates? secondly, how large were the ordinary baronies, that is to say,
the baronies held by men who could claim no kinship with the duke? and
thirdly, had any precise amount of military service been already fixed for
each barony? As to tenure, we find that an estate in some cases would be
referred to as an alodus, in some cases as a beneficium, in others as a feulum.
The contrast, however, between these tenures is evidently vanishing, and
the one is no more precarious in its nature than the other. The “alod” in
particular no longer, as in earlier days, implied absolute ownership. It
was held of a lord, and the allodial owner, if he wished to dispose of it,
had to obtain the lord's consent. The lord, on the other hand, was free
to dispose of his rights over the allodial owner to a third person. We find
Richard II, for instance, giving the monks of Saint-Wandrille an "alod”
which he describes as held of himself by tenants named Osbern and
Ansfred. Again, though Richard II alludes in one of his charters for
Fécamp first to certain hereditates quas paterno iure ( fideles mei) posside-
bant, and afterwards to certain beneficia quae nostri iuris erant, there-
by seeming to imply that there was some contrast between them, it is
evident that in general the fiefs whether of the barons or their knights
were held on hereditary tenure, and were neither estates for life nor
estates at will. It seems clear too that there was no attempt as yet, on
the part of the duke, to insist that fiefs were indivisible. In the absence
of any special agreement, when a succession occurred, all the sons had
rights in the inheritance and, in default of sons, daughters might inherit
even the largest fiefs. It is not so clear what happened if the heirs were
CH. XV.


## p. 488 (#534) ############################################

488
A typical Norman fief
under
age. In one case Richard II seems to dispose of the hand of a
vassal's daughter; but our sources are too scanty to inform us whether
the so-called feudal incidents of later times, the right of the lord to
reliefs, wardships, and marriage, had as yet been systematically introduced.
Evidence as to the size of the baronies is also scarce; but by good
fortune we have a fairly detailed description of the barony of a certain
Géré, which seems typical of the medium-sized Norman fief. This is pre-
served in the remarkable account given of the origins of the monastery
of Saint-Évroul by Ordericus Vitalis, a monk of that house, who wrote
only a century after Richard II's death, and who piously put on record
all the traditions which he could collect about the ancestors of the men
who had founded the monastery in 1050. Géré, who was of Breton
descent, began his career as a vassal of the lords of Bellême, holding lands
on the southern frontier of Normandy and in Maine, with a castle at
Saint-Céneri on the river Sarthe near Alençon. While still a young man,
he came under the notice of Richard II, who granted him in addition the
barony of a Norman named Heugo, situated in the southern part of the
diocese of Lisieux in the district of Ouche. The demesne lands of this
barony, as described by Ordericus, consisted of about half-a-dozen detached
manors spread out over thirty miles of wooded and hilly country, the
chief being Montreuil and Échauffour, the one lying north and the other
south of the site of Saint-Évroul. Even in his own district Géré had many
formidable neighbours, of whom the chief were the Count of Brionne and
the lord of Montgomeri; but none the less he is put before us as a man
of some importance, whose daughters all married well, whose sons after
his death were able to stand up against the Count of Brionne, and who
himself was rich enough to build and endow six parish churches for the
use of his tenantry. Compared with the estates of many a king's thegn in
England, Géré's barony was clearly insignificant; but this only emphasises
the fact that Normandy was quite a small principality, in which there
was no room for really large fiefs, and in which the great majority of the
duke's vassals were men of quite moderate estate, more or less on an
equality with each other. To shew that Géré's barony really may be
regarded as a fair specimen of the medium Norman fief, we have to rely
on much later evidence, namely, the returns to the inquest ordered in
1172 to ascertain what services were then due to the Duke of Normandy
from his various barons. In these returns! we are informed that the
barony of Montreuil and Échauffour still belonged to the house of Saint-
Céneri, that the number of knights holding of it was twenty, and that its
lord owed the duke the service of five knights. If, however, we analyse
the whole of the returns collected in 1172, we find that the total number
of knights enfeoffed on the Norman baronies, after allowing for some
missing returns, was about 1800 knights; that the total service due to
the duke from all the baronies put together was about 800 knights, and
1 Red Book of the Exchequer, p. 645.


## p. 489 (#535) ############################################

The system of knight's fees
489
that, though there were some two dozen larger baronies which owed the
duke the service of ten to twenty knights each, the great mass of the
baronies were no larger than Géré's and owed the duke either a service of
five knights, like the barony of Montreuil and Échauffour, or even a
smaller service. In the period of 150 years between 1025 and 1172, we
must, of course, allow for the break-up and reconstitution of some of the
Norman baronies; but, as there is no good reason to suppose that the
majority of them were materially altered in either extent or character
during that time, this later evidence, besides testifying to the size of the
baronies, gives us a much-needed means of estimating roughly what
number of fully-armed mounted knights could take the field when
summoned for service by Richard II. And this is a matter of some
importance, if we are to have any just idea of Norman conditions; for
historians have often spoken, when describing Normandy, as if the Norman
dukes could rely on several thousands of knights, whereas in all prob-
ability in the middle of the eleventh century the number of fully-equipped
knights existing in the duchy can hardly have exceeded twelve hundred.
It is a further question how many of this total were really bound to render
the duke service on expeditions outside the limits of the duchy. As
already stated, in 1172 the duke only claimed to be entitled to the
service of some 800 knights, though by that date his barons had sub-
enfeoffed more than double that number of knights on their lands. It
seems hardly probable that any of the earlier dukes could claim the
service of a larger body; for if so, then, as the duchy grew more populous
and more organised, the liability to find knights for offensive purposes
must have been reduced. But this we can hardly believe; and it is
altogether more reasonable to assume that the obligation to provide
800 knights or thereabouts for the duke's service was an arrangement
made in quite early days and applied in the middle of the eleventh
century as well as in the middle of the twelfth. On the other hand, we
can hardly assume that the precise number of knights, twenty, fifteen, ten,
five, and so on, due in 1172 from individual baronies, had been fixed for
each by the end of Richard's reign. Such fixed quotas might indeed have
been agreed upon at any date; but in the case of the lay baronies their
continuance unaltered over a long period of years seems hardly feasible,
so long as inheritances were regarded as divisible among sons. The
maintenance of fixed quotas of service seems in fact bound up with the
adoption of primogeniture as the rule of succession to land, and with the
development of the doctrines that fiefs were indivisible and that younger
sons, to share in the succession at all, must become under-tenants of the
eldest son. Exactly when these customs were introduced, it is impossible
to say. There are indications, however, that fixed quotas of service had
been imposed on some of the ecclesiastical baronies by the middle of the
eleventh century.
Lastly, a few words may be hazarded about the peasantry and other
CH. XV,


## p. 490 (#536) ############################################

490
The peasantry. Death of Richard II
classes below the grade of knights. As in the rest of the feudal world,
the general body of the peasantry in Normandy were tied to the soil and
in return for their holdings were bound to labour on the demesnes of
their lords and render them in addition many special dues and services.
There were, however, it would seem, on Norman estates very few actual
slaves who could be treated merely as chattels; and this has been held to
differentiate Normandy from other French districts, as it certainly dis-
tinguishes it from southern England. In Norman legal documents the
ordinary term for a peasant tied to the soil is either villanus, conditionarius,
or colonus, but a considerable class, described as hospites, is also frequently
referred to. It may be presumed from their name that this latter class,
in theory at any rate, had originally not been tied to the soil in the same
way as the villani, but the evidence about them is too scanty to say to
what extent it was still possible for them to move from one lordship to
another. The real difference in Richard's day may have been that, unlike
the villani, they were not bound to regular week-work, but only rendered
the lord occasional services, like the sokemen or radmanni in England.
Finally, above the hospites came the vavassores or smaller freeholders.
These men seem to have been bound to military service, like the knights;
but most of them served in war-time on foot, not being individually
wealthy enough to provide themselves with a knight's full equipment.
Groups of vavassors, however, might in some instances be jointly liable
to provide a fully-armed knight to serve in the field for them. Lastly,
there was a small class engaged in industry and commerce, for the Normans
had inherited the trading spirit from their Norse ancestors. These men
dwelt chiefly in the seven episcopal cities and in the duke's burgus of
Caen. Outside these eight towns there were as yet, so far as we can tell,
no urban centres of any importance; such places as Lillebonne, Fécamp,
Arques, Eu, Argentan, Falaise, Mortain, and other sites of castles, indeed
had their markets, but these places still remained essentially rural in
character and their inhabitants are not referred to as “burgenses. "
Duke Richard II died in 1026, leaving two legitimate sons by his
Breton wife Judith. The elder son, Richard III, only survived his father
a year, dying, it is hinted, by poison. The younger son, Robert I, who
must have been born about 1010 and who had been made titular Count
of the Hiesmois, the district with Falaise for its centre, then succeeded
and ruled as duke from 1027 to 1035. At first he was influenced by evil
counsellors, and indulged in planning foolish schemes, such as a raid on
England in the interest of his cousin, the exiled Aetheling Edward; but
this was frustrated by a storm. Tradition also has it that he might have
married the widowed Estrith, Knut's semi-Swedish, semi-Danish half-
sister, who must have been some ten years his senior, but he neglected
Knut's overtures. He began, however, as he grew older, to shew his
family's normal ability, and he quite came to the front in French politics
in 1031, when he helped Henry I, the new King of France, to secure his


## p. 491 (#537) ############################################

Normandy under Robert I
491
throne in despite of the Queen-mother and the Count of Blois, who
wished to set him aside. In return for this service, King Henry is said
to have ceded to Robert the mesne feudal suzerainty over the barons of
the French Vexin, the district between the Epte and the Oise, which
ecclesiastically was part of the diocese of Rouen; but in the end this grant
remained inoperative, being always ignored by the Counts of Mantes, who
were determined to remain direct vassals of the French crown. Duke
Robert, like his father, was as a rule well disposed to the reforming party
in the Church, and is represented as placing much reliance on the counsels
of Richard, the famous Abbot of St Vannes near Verdun, while Odilo, the
fourth Abbot of Cluny, is found witnessing one of his charters. Robert
too, in spite of his short career, was a builder of monasteries, being the
founder of the abbey of St Vigor at Cerisy and also of the first Norman
nunnery, which he placed at Montevilliers near the mouth of the Seine.
Cerisy and Mont-Saint-Michel, it should be noted, were as yet the only
monasteries founded in the western half of Normandy; but whereas the
famous Mount, lying on the very confines of Brittany, hardly extended
its influence beyond the Avranchin, Cerisy, lying twelve miles west of
Bayeux, was well placed for influencing both the Bessin and the Cotentin.
Charters still in existence further shew that Robert's liberality was not
confined to his own foundations. Though they unfortunately add little
to our knowledge of Norman institutions, they attest Robert's interest in
Fécamp, Mont-Saint-Michel, Saint-Ouen, Jumièges, and Saint-Wandrille,
as well as in the cathedrals of Rouen and Avranches. More important
still, they reveal the fact that a desire to found monasteries was now
beginning to arise among the greater Norman barons, and that the move-
ment was encouraged by ducal approval. This is a most noticeable
development and led to three non-ducal monasteries being founded, La
Trinité-du-Mont at Rouen in 1030 by the vicomte of Arques, Préaux
near Pontaudemer by Humphrey de Vetulis of Beaumont in 1034, and a
third on the fief of Gilbert, Count of Brionne, by his knight Herluin.
This last was shortly afterwards moved to Bec near Brionne, and in a
very few years became one of the leading centres of piety and learning in
northern France. An equally important event, but of a different kind,
which also befell in Robert's reign, was the founding of the first Norman
principality in South Italy. Ever since 1016, bands of Normans had
been taking a part in the conflicts between the Lombards and the Greeks
and Saracens. The Greek armies, we are told, disappeared before them
“as meat before devouring lions. ” Consequently they were much prized
as allies by the Princes of Salerno and other Italian barons. About 1030,
however, they set up a petty state of their own at Aversa just north of
Naples, a small beginning, but one destined to have important conse-
quences, like the founding of Bec. In these adventures Duke Robert
took no part personally, but in 1034 he determined to follow the example
of Fulk Nerra of Anjou and see the world by making a pilgrimage to
CH. XV


## p. 492 (#538) ############################################

492
The minority of William the Bastard
Jerusalem. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land had at this date become quite
common undertakings for Frenchien; but in Robert's case it entailed a
difficulty, for being still unmarried he had no direct heir who would
automatically take his place if he did not return. He had, however, when
only Count of the Hiesmois, formed an irregular union with a low-born
maiden named Arlette, the daughter of Fulbert a tanner of Falaise, and
had by her a son named William. For this bastard son, who was now
about seven years of age, and for Arlette, Robert had a great affection,
and he was determined that the boy should be his successor, especially as
his legitimate heir, his sister's son, was a Burgundian and even younger
than William, while his own half-brothers, Malger and William, were
both illegitimate. He therefore summoned a council and proposed to his
barons that they should undertake to accept his bastard son, should
misfortune befall him on his travels. This, it appears, they consented to
do, though doubtless the proposal was distasteful to some of them. Where-
upon four guardians of the duchy were chosen to conduct the government
for the little William, should his father fail to return. The guardians
selected were Gilbert, Count of Brionne, Osbern the duke's seneschal,
Thorold of Neufmarché, probably the duke's constable, and Alan, Count
of Rennes, the duke's cousin. Approval for these arrangements was also
obtained from the King of France as overlord of Normandy. As Duke
Robert was only about 25 years old and in perfect health, it perhaps did
not seem probable that the question of the succession would become of
immediate importance. Robert's journey, however, turned out to be an
ill-fated one. He reached Jerusalem safely, but fell ill at Nicaea in Asia
Minor, on his way home, and died there on 2 July 1035.
As soon as Robert's death was reported in Normandy,feudal turbulence
broke out in most parts of the duchy. The young William was, it is true,
proclaimed duke without demur, for the barons never anticipated that in
a few years the bastard would become their unchallenged master, still
less that their children would one day acclaim Arlette's child as the
Conqueror of England. What they looked forward to was the possibility
of exploiting a long minority in their own interests. William's guardians,
it would appear, tried to do their duty to their ward; but how critical
the times were can be seen from the fact that at least three of them came to
violent ends, Osbern the seneschal being actually assassinated in William's
bed-chamber by a member of the house of Montgomery. It is by no
means clear who took charge of William's education after the deaths of
his guardians. Some writers think that he became a ward of the King of
France; but it is equally probable that he was protected by the Archbishop
of Rouen, who naturally desired to have control of the boy duke's
ecclesiastical powers and who was at the same time his most prominent
kinsman. At the date of William's accession to the dukedom the
archbishopric was still held by his great-uncle Robert, who was also
Count of Évreux.