No More Learning

In Saxony the war continued
unabated. Adolf of Holstein, hearing at Tyre that his lands had been
invaded by the Welfs, had hurried home; before Christmas 1190 he was
in Germany, but barred from entry into his own territory by Henry the
Lion, who was in possession of the strong places around the mouth of
the Elbe. However, with the help of the brothers Bernard, Duke of
Saxony, and Otto, Margrave of Brandenburg, he succeeded at last in
forcing his way through, and at once set to work to recover Holstein.
Lübeck, the first object of his attack, resisted all attempts made against
it, and even when the sea-approach was blocked by a boom thrown across
the mouth of the Trave, it continued to hold out until relief came.
But the tide of events now turned in Adolf's favour; he won a decisive
victory at Boizenburg on the Elbe; he captured the town of Stade; and
Lübeck itself at last capitulated. With the fall of Lübeck, Adolf was
once more master of his country. Nevertheless, the position of the
Welfs was far from hopeless; the political situation in the Empire gave
them ample ground for encouragement. The Pope, anxious above all
things to frustrate the Emperor's Sicilian policy, was secretly abetting
the disturbances in Germany; in August 1191 he granted to Henry the
Lion a privilege protecting him and his sons against ecclesiastical
punishments. Moreover the Welfs were able to rely on the support of
powerful secular princes, of Tancred and of Tancred's ally, Richard of
England, with whom they were connected by ties of blood, and of Canute
of Denmark. Henry VI's high-handed methods had alienated not a few
of his earlier supporters; the Landgrave of Thuringia and even the Duke
of Saxony appear to have sympathised with the opposition which was
rapidly forming against the Emperor. Unhappily also, the wisest and the
most loyal of the royal supporters in that region of discontent, Wichmann,
Archbishop of Magdeburg, who had, by his moderation and skilful
management of affairs, many a time saved the Emperor and his father
C. MED. H. VOL. V. CH. XIV.
30


## p. 466 (#512) ############################################

466
Disputed election to the see of Liège
from critical situations, died in the summer of 1192. The death of old
Duke Welf VI in December 1191 was more cheerful news for the Emperor
in these months of gloom; for his rich property in Swabia and his
numerous fiefs were a substantial accession of strength to the house of
Hohenstaufen which he had made his heir,
As so often in the twelfth century, a disputed election to a bishopric
played a prominent part in the great rebellion which now broke out
against the Emperor. With regard to ecclesiastical appointments Henry
adopted the policy established and maintained with such success by his
father. He took care that candidates to his liking were chosen; occa-
sionally he would himself be present at the electoral gathering; in 1190
he even went so far as to procure the see of Würzburg for his brother
Philip, a boy of some fourteen years of age. His influence was often re-
sisted, sometimes with success: Bruno of Berg in 1191 was elected to the
see of Cologne against the imperialist candidate Lothar of Hochstadt.
In cases of dispute he himself exercised the right of nomination on
his father's principle of the devolutionsrecht, and it was on this principle
that he acted, with the express consent of the German bishops, in the
case of Liège. The electors were divided; the majority gave their votes
for Albert, brother of Henry, Duke of Brabant, the minority for Albert,
uncle of Baldwin, Count of Hainault. Both appealed to the Emperor, and
both were set aside in favour of a third, Lothar of Hochstadt (Worms,
13 January 1192). Albert of Brabant refused to submit to the decision;
he appealed to the Pope, went himself to Rome, and there obtained con-
firmation of his election. The appeal to Rome was in itself an attack on
the imperial position in regard to Church matters; still more so was the
Pope's method of executing his judgment. He ordered the Archbishop
of Cologne to consecrate Albert, but, in the event of his expected refusal,
he directed that the ceremony should be performed by the Archbishop of
Rheims; and by this prelate Albert was duly consecrated at Rheims in
September 1192.
War between the two parties was the result; Albert, it seems, was
regarded by the Emperor as guilty of high treason; the property of
certain of his supporters at Liège, we are told, was confiscated; he himself,
though vigorously backed by Celestine, who pronounced excommunication
against those who denied his claims, and by the majority of the nobles in
the district of the lower Rhine, was driven from his diocese, while his
brother, Henry of Brabant, was forced to take the oath of fealty to
his rival Lothar of Hochstadt. Prospects were brightening for Henry,
when the untoward event occurred: Albert was murdered at Rheims by
a party of German knights on 24 November 1192. The Emperor, it
was said, had a hand in the deed; the charge, thɔugh in all probability
groundless, was given countenance by the fact that Henry only inflicted
slight punishments on the perpetrators, and it had the serious effect of
uniting together the various elements of opposition.


## p. 467 (#513) ############################################

Insurrection against the Emperor
467
Frederick in his last years had been at pains to promote rivalry and
so to keep apart the two centres of danger to the Hohenstaufen power-
Saxony and the lower Rhine—the combination of which it had been the
aim of Philip of Cologne to achieve. This unlucky incident of the murder
of Albert brought about the result which Philip had struggled for in
vain: it united the Welfs with the princes of the Netherlands—a union
which was responsible for such influence as in after years the Emperor
Otto IV was able to exert. Then in December Richard of England, re-
turning from the Crusade, fell into the hands of Duke Leopold of
Austria, who agreed to surrender his prisoner to the Emperor (Würzburg,
14 February 1193). The imprisonment of a crusader was regarded almost
as an act of impiety, and the resentment against Henry was increased.
These events were the signal for a general and widespread insurrection,
in which many of the leading nobles from all parts of Germany were
ready to play a part: the Archbishop of Mayence, the Landgrave of
Thuringia, the Margrave of Meissen, the Dukes of Bohemia and Zähringen,
were to be found on the side of the malcontents; deposition and a fresh
election were freely discussed. The rebels could moreover rely on the
sympathetic encouragement, if not the active support, of Pope Celestine,
from whom Henry was now definitely estranged. For he had answered the
Pope's enfeoffment of Tancred by aggressive measures: he had prevented
the German clergy from going to Rome; he had captured and imprisoned
the papal legate, Octavian, Cardinal-bishop of Ostia; for two years
negotiations with the papal Court entirely ceased. Celestine threatened
the Emperor with excommunication, but he could do no more, for he was
weak in Italy and Henry was strong; the infirmity of old age no doubt
prevented him from promoting the rebellion in Germany by more energetic
methods. He probably realised too that the political situation required
careful handling. Henry's position in the winter and spring of 1193 was
certainly extremely critical. But Richard's capture had supplied him with
a trump card, and with skilful play the game might yet be his. It was
indeed the masterful manner in which Henry, armed with his valuable
prisoner, dealt with the situation that saved him his kingdom.
What the Emperor's enemies feared, what the Pope, the Welfs, the
princes of the lower Rhine, the regents in England, dreaded above all, was
that Richard should be handed over to Philip Augustus, an event which
seemed only too probable considering the friendly understanding which
already existed between him and the Emperor. Philip himself made over-
tures to Henry with this object; he and the treacherous Prince John offered
large sums of money for Richard's person or, failing that, for the prolonga-
tion of his captivity. It was necessary for Richard's allies to prevent this
1 Such was their anxiety to gain this end that in January 1194-a month before
Richard's final release—they were prepared themselves to pay the full amount of
the ransom, 150,000 marks, for the surrender of Richard to them or for his reten-
tion by the Emperor for the space of another year. Hoveden, 111, 229.
CH. XIV.
30-2


## p. 468 (#514) ############################################

468
Imprisonment and release of Richard I
at whatever cost. Henry could therefore impose almost any terms he chose
to dictate, holding the threat of the surrender of Richard to the French
king over the heads of his opponents. The negotiations were opened
on behalf of Richard by Savaric, Bishop of Bath, a kinsman and trusted
friend of the Emperor. But the issues were complicated; many interests
were involved; and it was not till 29 June at Worms that the terms of
release were finally settled; and even then many months had to elapse
before Richard gained his liberty on 3 February 1194 at Mayence. In
addition to the payment of an enormous ransom—100,000 marks of
silver-Richard had to yield up his kingdom and to receive it back as a
fief of the Empire; he had further to undertake the submission of the
Welfs and to throw over his former ally, Tancred. His honour, however
forbade him to comply with the condition of assisting personally in the
conquest of Sicily, and he procured his release from it by the payment of
an additional 50,000 marks.
The conditions were certainly hard, but a great advantage had been
gained: the alliance between the Hohenstaufen and the Capetian was,
temporarily at least, broken. The suddenness of the event is striking;
a meeting of the two sovereigns was arranged to be held between Toul
and Vaucouleurs on 25 June. That meeting did not take place; instead
on that very day the imperial court assembled at Worms, and after a
discussion lasting four days agreed to the terms of Richard's liberation.
The proposed meeting near Vaucouleurs was certainly meant as a threat,
and it had its effect inasmuch as Richard and his friends hastened to
bring about the much desired reconciliation between the Emperor and the
kinsmen of the murdered Bishop of Liège, and it also made them listen
more readily to the exacting terms which were pronounced at the meeting
at Worms. But welcome and important as these results were to Henry,
they do not adequately account for the complete reversal of his policy
towards the King of France; other considerations must have influenced
his mind. It was in this same summer of 1193 that Philip Augustus
sought a second wife, and he sought her in Denmark. The political motive
clearly was to detach Canute VI from alliance with the Welfs and with
England, but the alliance of France and Denmark could not but be
regarded as threatening to the security of Germany as well. Henry's
sudden abandonment of the Capetian alliance was no doubt also and
mainly due to his policy of universal empire. Richard with his extensive
dominions in France was now his vassal; through him he intended to
bring the French King himself to subjection. Innocent III writing to
Philip Augustus some years after Henry's death asserted that Henry had
declared that he would force Philip to shew fealty to him', and he was
1 Affirmans quod te de cetero ad fidelitatem sibi compelleret exhibendam. Reg.
Innocent. III de negotio Romani Imperii, No. 64 (MPL, cexvi, col. 1071). Cf.
Hoveden, 111, 301. Notum enim erat regi Angliae, quod praedictus imperator super
omnia desiderabat, ut regnum Franciae Romanorum imperio subiaceret.


## p. 469 (#515) ############################################

Closing years and death of Henry the Lion
469
not using mere idle words. The Emperor's whole attitude to Richard
points in the same direction; he was continually urging him to fresh
activities against the King of France'. This too was the object of the
enfeoffment of Richard with the kingdom of Arles. German control over
Burgundy, never very great, had sensibly decreased since the time of
Frederick Barbarossa; the policy of strengthening it by setting up a
strong vassal-power there had been attempted with some success by the
Emperor Lothar in his grant to the Dukes of Zähringen; Henry had the
same end in view when he proposed to transfer the Burgundian crown to
Richard, who as Duke of Aquitaine had already a strong position in the
south-east of France. But the scheme never matured; it died as soon as
it was conceived.
When the King of England was finally liberated in February 1194
the Welfs were still unreconciled with the Emperor. It was a slow and
difficult business, but the marriage in 1193 between Henry, the eldest
son of Henry the Lion, and the Emperor's cousin Agnes, the daughter
of Conrad, the Count-Palatine of the Rhine, made it easier, and at last
it was accomplished in March 1194 at Tilleda near the Kyffhäuser; the
eldest son of the old duke agreed to prove his loyalty by accompanying
the Emperor on his campaign to South Italy, the other two sons, Otto
and William, were retained as hostages. Henry the Lion himself in the
absence of his sons was sufficiently powerless to be left with his liberty;
he was indeed old and worn out and well content to spend his closing
days quietly at Brunswick. There he busied himself in intellectual and
artistic pursuits; the magnificent church of St Blaise, which he had
begun on his return from Palestine in 1172, he now had leisure to com-
plete; under his direction his chaplain prepared a kind of encyclopaedia
of knowledge to which Henry gave the title Lucidarius, a book which is
not without interest as an early example of a prose work in the middle
high German dialect; he also, we are told by the annalist of Stederburg,
ordered “the ancient chronicles to be collected, transcribed, and recited
in his presence, and engaged in this occupation he would often pass the
whole night without sleep. " Poets and Minnesingers thronged his
court, where they looked upon the old duke as their enlightened patron
and made him the hero of their ballads and legends. Thus peaceably he
ended his long and stormy career; he died on 6 August 1195 and was
buried beside his second wife, the English Matilda, in his church of
St Blaise at Brunswick.
In the meanwhile, in Sicily and South Italy Tancred had been
i In 1195 he used his authority as overlord to prevent Richard from making
peace with Philip. Hoveden, mı, 302.
2 It is perhaps noteworthy in this connexion that Hoveden (iv, 30) speaks of
Savaric, Bishop of Bath, as the Emperor's Chancellor of Burgundy in the year 1196.
3 MGH, Script. xvI, p. 230. The editor, Pertz, suggests that perhaps the Anna-
lista Saxo is referred to.
CH, XIV.


## p. 470 (#516) ############################################

470
Conquest of the Sicilian kingdom
strengthening his position in every possible way. He had entered into
alliance with the Eastern Emperor, Isaac Angelus, and had married
his elder son Roger to the Emperor's daughter Irene. His armies had
constantly harassed the imperial troops left by Henry to guard the
frontier fortresses. But the German position had sensibly improved since
the disastrous winter of 1191-2, and much ground had been recovered
by the active imperial commanders, Diepold of Vohburg, Conrad of
Lützelinhard, and Berthold of Künsberg. Tancred indeed found himself
obliged to visit the mainland in person to restore his fortunes. His cam-
paign was a rapid series of successes. Berthold, the ablest of the German
commanders, died at Monte Rodone. Conrad was less capable and less
popular, and there were desertions from the German ranks; one after
another of the fortified places surrendered to Tancred. His triumphant
progress was only checked by sickness. He was compelled to return to
Palermo, where he died on 20 February 1194.
Freed from enemies at home, Henry could once more turn his attention
to the conquest of the Sicilian kingdom. The project was supported by
the princes of Germany; it was financed by English gold. No obstacle
now lay in the path of success. In the campaign of 1191 Henry had been
dogged by misfortune at every step, in the campaign of 1194 he was
favoured by fortune in an astonishing degree. His enemies, through his
diplomacy, were now isolated; they had been deprived of their former
allies, the King of England and the Welfs; they could not expect the
Lombards to put any check or hindrance in the way of Henry's advance,
for Henry had secured their loyalty by the treaty of Vercelli in the
previous January. And now with Tancred's death they were left leaderless;
the elder son, Roger, had died a few weeks before his father, and the
younger, William, was still a mere boy when he was called
upon
to
repre-
sent the interests of the national party in Sicily. Nor was this all: the
young William III was left without experienced advisers, for Matthew of
Ajello, the Chancellor, to whose skilful statesmanship was due in large
measure the transient success of Tancred, had himself died in the summer
of the previous year. His son Richard, who succeeded to his office, was
not possessed of his father's ability; certainly neither he nor the Queen-
mother were capable of handling the almost desperate situation in which
they found themselves on Tancred's death.
Henry's task was therefore an easy one. At the end of May he crossed
the Splügen pass; by Whitsuntide he was at Milan. On his way south-
ward he secured the very essential co-operation of the fleets of Genoa and
Pisa. The delicate business of getting the two rival maritime powers to
work in concert was achieved by the Steward of the Empire, Markward
of Anweiler, who was entrusted with the command of the joint fleets.
Naples, whose obstinate resistance had caused the failure of Henry's first
attempt to conquer the kingdom, surrendered at once; Salerno tried in
vain to hold out, but it was taken by storm, sacked, and in part destroyed,


## p. 471 (#517) ############################################

Conduct of the campaign
471
in revenge for its perfidious action of delivering the Empress Constance
over to the enemy. The fate of Salerno effectively crushed any inclination
to resist which the towns of Apulia and Calabria may have entertained. It
was a triumphant progress rather than a campaign; by the end of October
the Emperor had crossed the Straits to Messina, was master of South
Italy, and prepared for the conquest of the island. The only serious engage-
ment that took place was a long and bloody battle between the Pisan and
Genoese fleets. But before Henry had landed, the subjugation of Sicily
was already well advanced; Markward, with the fleet of Genoa, had re-
ceived the submission of Catania and Syracuse; when the feeble opposition
raised by the Queen Sibylla had been suppressed the road to Palermo
was open. Henry had but to enter the capital. He was met on his approach
by a delegation of citizens offering their submission; the Queen and her
family fled to Caltabellotta; the Admiral Margaritus surrendered the
castle; and on 20 November Henry entered the town. On Christmas
Day he was crowned King of Sicily in the cathedral of Palermo.
The whole campaign had been carried through with the greatest
moderation. With the exception of the destruction of Salerno, for which
there was ample justification, no scenes of violence, no acts of wanton
cruelty, no plundering or devastation, defile the history of the conquest of
the kingdom of Sicily. This fact must be borne in mind in judging the
Emperor's conduct towards the family of Tancred. They were at his
merry in the castle of Caltabellotta; he could have attacked the place,
and it would have fallen instantly. Instead, he opened negotiations and
offered generous terms: the young William was to receive his father's
county of Lecce together with the principality of Taranto. The terms
were accepted and Sibylla, her son, three daughters, her daughter-in-law
Irene, and a number of Sicilian barons, returned to Palermo to be present
at Henry's coronation. We next hear, a few days later, of the whole
party being seized and sent into exile in Germany on the pretext of
conspiracy. It is possible, and not out of keeping with Henry's character,
to conceive that the charge was trumped up as a means of clearing the
field of persons who were likely to be the source of danger and rebellion
in the future. On the other hand it would have been contrary to the
policy which Henry had hitherto pursued on the Sicilian campaign; his
object had been, not to terrorise, but to conciliate the Norman population.
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.