Chapter 26

Of the resumption of war with Henry of England

Unbridled arrogance is worse than pride; for if pride will not break a superior, arrogance will not brook an equal. As the poet said, ‘Caesar could not bear to be second, Pompey to be equal first.’[1] And because ‘all power is intolerant of sharing’[2], Louis, king of the French, who enjoyed pre-eminence over Henry, intolerant king of Normandy, always treated him as if he were his vassal. But the nobility of his kingdom and his great wealth made his inferiority unbearable to the king of the English. So he relied on his nephew Theobald, Count Palatine and on many of Louis’ rivals to disturb the kingdom and attack the king in order to detract from his lordship. 

So the evil wars of earlier times were revived by mutual malice[3]. Because Normandy and Chartres lay side by side, the king of England and Count Theobald united in attacking the nearest frontier of the kingdom, while they sent Stephen, count of Mortain[4], Theobald’s brother and Henry’s nephew to Brie with an army to prevent the king from suddenly occupying that land in the count’s absence[5]. Louis spared neither the Normans nor the men of Chartres nor those of Brie. Encircled as he was by his enemies and forced by the extent of his lands to turn his attention first against one, then against the other, he nevertheless in his frequent skirmishes demonstrated all the vigour of royal majesty.  

But through the noble foresight of the English kings and the dukes of Normandy, the Norman frontier had an exceptional line of defence made up of newly built castles and of unfordable rivers. When Louis, who knew this well, decided to infiltrate Normandy, he approached the frontier with a handful of troops, intending to proceed very secretly[6]. He cautiously sent ahead spies clad as travellers, wearing mail under their cloaks and with their swords at their sides, who went down the public road to the ancient town called Gasny[7] that could offer the French free and easy access to Normandy. The river Epte flowed around it, making it safe in the middle, but preventing a crossing for a great distance either above or below. Suddenly the spies flung off their cloaks and drew their swords. The inhabitants saw them, rushed to arms and fought them fiercely but the spies resisted and with the utmost courage repelled them. Then, as they were beginning to tire, the king suddenly rushed dangerously down the mountain side, provided his men with the most appropriate help and, not without loss to himself, occupied the town’s central square and the church with its fortified tower. 

When he discovered that the English king was close by with a large army, as his custom, Louis summoned his barons and called on them to follow him. There hastened to him the young, elegant and amiable count of Flanders Baldwin[8], a true knight, Fulk, count of Anjou[9], and many other magnates of the kingdom. They broke the Norman defence line and then, while some fortified the town, others pillaged and burned the land enriched by a long peace, devastating and reducing to confusion the area around, an almost unparalleled occurrence when the English king was there. 

Meanwhile Henry very hastily set about building, encouraged the workmen, and erected a castle on the hill closest to that in which the French king had left a garrison before he departed. Henry intended that, from his new castle, with his large force of knights and using his crossbowmen and archers, he would cut off his enemy’s food supplies, distress them through their want of necessities, and bar them from his land. But the king of France played tit for tat, and returned the blow at once, like a dice player. He collected an army and suddenly came back at dawn to attack vigorously the new castle which men called Malassis[10]. With great effort, after many heavy blows had been given and received - for in this kind of market, it is that kind of tax one pays - he forced its surrender, tore it to pieces and utterly destroyed it, and to the glory of the kingdom and the shame of its enemies he valiantly put an end to all machinations against him. 

But Fortune in her power never spares anyone. As it is said, ‘If fortune wills, from rhetor you become consul; if she wills, from consul you become rhetor.’[11] The English king, after a lengthy and admirable succession of most pleasing prosperity, began to decline from the high point on the wheel of fortune and was tormented by a changing and unhappy set of events. From this side the king of France, from Ponthieu, bordering on Flanders, the count of Flanders and from Maine[12] count Fulk of Anjou employed all their powers in causing him great difficulty and attacking him with all their strength. And he was subjected to the injuries of war, not only from foreigners but also from his own men[13], from Hugh de Gournay[14], from the count of Eu[15] and the count of Aumale[16], as well as many others[17]. 

As the crowning evil, he suffered from internal malice. Fearful of the secret factions among his chamberlains and serving-men, he often changed his bed and increased the number of armed guards who kept watch over him for his nightly alarms. He ordered that his shield and sword should always be laid beside him as he slept. There was a certain close friend of the king, H[18] by name, who had been enriched by the royal liberality, and was well-known for his power, was about to be better known for his treason. When he was caught plotting, he was condemned to lose his eyes and genitals, a merciful punishment, for he deserved to be hanged. Through these and other plots the king enjoyed no security and, renowned though he was for magnanimity and courage, he became prudent in small matters. Even in his house he wore his sword and forbade his more faithful servants to leave their houses without their swords, on pain of a fine like a forfeit at play. 

At this time a man called Enguerrand de Chaumont[19], by nature vigorous and prudent, advanced boldly with a small number of troops and seized the castle of Andelys[20], after having secretly put his own men in among the garrison on the walls. Trusting in the king’s help, he fortified it with great audacity and subjected totally all the land as far as the river Andelle[21], from the river Andelle, from the river Epte to Pont-Saint-Pierre[22]. Confident of the support of many knights superior to him in rank, he met King Henry in the open countryside, irreverently pursued him as he retreated, and within the limits mentioned treated the king’s land as if it were his own. As for Maine, when King Henry, after a long delay, decided to cooperate with Count Theobald in relieving the men besieged in the castle of Alencon, he was repulsed by Count Fulk, and in this shameful affair he lost many of his men, the castle and the keep.[23]

Deeply troubled over a long period by these and other ills, he had reached the trough of misfortune when divine pity, having harshly whipped and chastised him for some time, (for although he was a liberal benefactor of churches and a rich almsgiver, he was dissolute) decided to spare him and raise him up from his pit of dejection. Unexpectedly he was raised from adversity and inferiority to the top of the wheel of fortune while, rather through the divine hand than his own, those who troubled him, once higher, were brought down to the bottom or completely ceased to exist. Thus God normally mercifully extends his hand of pity to those near despair and bereft of human help.

Count Baldwin of Flanders, whose violent attacks frequent incursions into Normandy had so troubled the king, was struck in the face by a sudden but quite light blow from a lance, while he was engaged in attacking with unbridled energy the castle of Eu[24] and its adjacent seacoast. He scorned to look after so small a wound; but Death could.[25] By Baldwin’s death, it chose to spare the English king and all his allies.

Enguerrand de Chaumont, the boldest of men and a presumptuous aggressor against Henry, was stricken by a very dangerous disease because he had not shrunk from destroying some land belonging to the Virgin Mary in the archbishopric of Rouen. After long suffering and much well-merited bodily wretchedness, he learned belatedly what was due to the queen of heaven and died.[26] Count Fulk of Anjou, although he was bound to Louis by ties of homage, by oaths and by many hostages, put avarice before fidelity and, without consulting the king, and with a treachery that made him infamous, he gave his daughter in marriage to William, son of King Henry[27] and, allied with him by this bond of friendship, unjustifiably abandoned the enmity he had promised on oath to preserve. 

Once King Louis had forced Normandy to be silent in his presence, he ravaged it as relentlessly with small forces as he had with large ones. He had become used to vexing the king and his men for so long that he despised them as so many men of straw. Then suddenly one day King Henry, having discovered the French king’s improvident audacity, collected a large army and secretly approached him with his battle lines drawn. He lit fires to shock Louis, had his armed knights’ dismount in order that they might fight more bravely as foot-soldiers, and endeavoured prudently to take all sensible precautions for war. 

Louis and his men did not deign to make any preparations for battle. He simply flew at the enemy with great courage but little sense. The men of the Vexin were in the van under Bouchard of Montmorency and Guy of Clermont[28]. They energetically cut the first Norman line to pieces, made them flee the battle-field and bravely repulsed the first line of horsemen, sending them reeling back against the armed foot-soldiers. But the French who were meant to follow them were in confusion, and pressing against extremely well organised and regulated lines, as happens in such circumstances, they could not make their charge effective and yielded.[29] The king, amazed at his army’s failure, behaved as was usual in adversity. Using only his constancy to defend himself and his own men, he retired as honourably as he could to Andelys, though with great loss to his scattered army. For some time he was cut to the quick by the unfortunate outcome of his own thoughtlessness.[30]

Then, to prevent his enemies from declaring insultingly that he no longer dared to go into Normandy, and made more than usually courageous by adversity and more steadfast, as is the way with men like him, he recalled his army, summoned the absent, invited the barons of his kingdom and informed King Henry that on a certain day he would invade his land and fight a famous battle with him. He hastened to carry out his promise, as if performing a vow made under oath. So he launched himself into Normandy at the head of a marvellous army and ravaged it, taking the well-fortified castle of Ivry[31] by assault after a sharp skirmish, which he burned down and then went on to Breteuil.[32]

Although he remained for some time in that country, he did not see the English king or meet with anyone on whom he could take sufficient revenge for the injury he had suffered. So he returned to Chartres to fall on Count Theobald and began a savage attack on the city with the intention of burning it down. But he was interrupted by a delegation of clergy and citizens, bearing before them the shift of the blessed Virgin, who begged him very devotedly, as the principal defender of their church, to spare it through love of her and not to take revenge on his own people for the wrongs that had been inflicted by others. In the face of their prayers the king bowed his royal majesty, and to prevent the destruction by fire of the city and the noble church of Notre Dame, he ordered Charles, count of Flanders[33], to recall the army and to spare the city out of love and fear for the church[34]. When they returned to their own land they continued to repay their temporary hardship with a long, continuous and very harsh revenge.[35]

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[1] Lucan, De bello civili, I, 125-6

[2] Lucan, De bello civili, I, 93-4

[3] Henry I crossed the Channel after Easter 1116: ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 207. The pretext for war lay in Louis VI seeking to restore Normandy to William Clito, son of Robert Curthose who had the support of a significant number of Normans.

[4] Stephen was the fourth son of Stephen II Henry, Count of Blois, and Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror and younger brother of Theobald IV. He was born in 1096. A favourite nephew of King Henry I, he received the county of Mortain (before 1115) and county of Boulogne (from 1125) and in 1125 was married to Matilda, the granddaughter of Malcolm III of Scotland and heiress of the county of Boulogne. When Stephen heard the news about the death of his uncle, he crossed at once to England to seize the crown. In disregard of the rights of King Henry’s daughter, Matilda, he was recognised as king in London and Winchester and was crowned on 22^nd December 1135. In 1137, Stephen crossed to Normandy to claim the duchy, but he failed to break the resistance of Geoffrey ‘Plantagenet’, count of Anjou, who also laid his claim to Normandy and conceded to truce. In England he was entangled in a war with rebellious barons and offended the Church by arbitrary arrests of several bishops. On 30^th September 1139, Matilda and her illegitimate half-brother, Robert earl of Gloucester, landed at Arundel and brought most of western England under their control. A battle at Lincoln on 2^nd February 1141 resulted in Stephen’s capture by Angevin forces. The church council summoned by papal legate, Henry, bishop of Winchester (Stephen’s younger brother), deposed the king by accepting Matilda as ‘Angliae Normanniaeque domina’ (8^th April 1141). On 1^st November 1141, Stephen was released in an exchange for Robert of Gloucester, who had been captured by Stephen's forces, and declared lawful sovereign of England by legatine church council (7^th December 1141). The civil war continued until February 1148, when Matilda gave up her struggle and departed for the continent. The state of anarchy engulfed the kingdom with barons becoming increasingly independent from the royal authority. Matilda’s son, Henry (later King Henry II) invaded England in 1149 and again in 1153. Stephen fought against Henry and attempted to crown his own son, Eustace, but failed to obtain the consent of pope Eugenius III. On 6^th November 1153, Stephen and Henry concluded the treaty of Winchester. Stephen retained the kingship for his lifetime and Henry was acknowledged as heir to Stephen by a charter issued at Westminster on 25^th December 1153. Stephen died on 25^th October 1154

[5] In addition to the counties of Blois and Chartres, Theobald inherited from his father the county of Meaux and several other lordships in Champagne.

[6] Orderic Vitalis states that this occurred in 1118 while ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 233 suggests it was in February and March of that year.

[7] Gasny is on the lower Epte near its confluence with the Seine about fifty miles north-west of Paris. Its strategic importance can be gauged from Patourel, John le, The Norman Empire, (Oxford University Press), 1976, map 2, p. 383 which also gives an idea of the line of castles.

[8] Baldwin VIII was the son of Robert II (born 1065) who he succeeded in 1111. He died in 1119. From the beginning of hostilities in 1116, his troops for the first time cooperated with those of Louis: ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 207.

[9] Fulk V, called ‘the Young’ count of Anjou since 1109. He was born in 1092 and died at Acre on 10^th November 1143.

[10] The name was one of ridicule as it means ‘badly located’. Orderic Vitalis reported that Henry I had also built another castle that the French called ‘trulla leporis’ or ‘the lodging of the hare’. As for the taking of Malassis by Louis VI, Orderic Vitalis said nothing.

[11] Juvenal, Satires, VII, 197-8

[12] He became count of Maine after the death of count Elias on 11^th July 1110, to whose daughter Ermengarde or Ermentrude de La Fléche (1090-1126) he was married.

[13] The three were supporters of William Clito. Hugh de Gournay and Henry, count of Eu were thrown into prison in Rouen in 1118 on Henry I’s orders.

[14] Hugh de Gournay IV was born about 1090 and died in 1155. He was the son of Gerard de Gournay and Edith de Warenne. Hugh married Beatrix de Vermandois. Beatrix was born about 1090. She died about 1144.

[15] Henry I, 5^th count of Eu, Lord of Hastings died on 12^th July 1140. He was related to Henry I through his marriage to Margaret de Sully.

[16] Stephen, count of Aumale was born in c.1070 and died in 1127/1130. He was married to Hawisse de Mortimer (c.1086-c.1189) and had two children William count of Aumale (died c.1179) and Agnes countess of Aumale (c.1103-c.1130).

[17] Hugh de Gournay, Henry I, 5^th count of Eu and Stephen, count of Aumale were supporters of William Clito. Suger ignores the association between Louis and William until his installation of count of Flanders following the murder of Charles the Good in 1127. However, Louis had been supporting William Clito’s claim to Normandy for some time.

[18] The Chronicles of St-Denis vol. III, p. 308 called the traitor ‘Hugh’ and manuscript G writes Henry. The same is reported by William of Malmesbury Gesta regum Anglorum, edited D. Hardy, vol. II, p. 641 who alone wrote that the traitor was ‘a chamberlain who was born of a plebeian father but became prominent as keeper of the royal treasures’. His lowly origin perhaps reflects in the punishment that Suger believed should have occurred. Warren Hollister identifies Henry’s attacker with Herbert the Chamberlain: ‘The Origins of the English Royal Treasury’, English Historical Review, vol. xciii, (1978), pp. 262-275.

[19] Enguerrand de Chaumont was the son of Dreux de Chaumont who, on his return from the crusade around 1101 retired to the abbey of Saint-Germer. He held the lordship of Trie, whose castle lay on the frontier of Vexin and he had poorly defined family links with Hugh le Borgne, viscount of Chaumont, constable of France from 1108 to 1138. He died in 1119.

[20] Andelys is in the Norman Vexin, about sisty-five miles north-west of Paris.

[21] The river Andelle flows into the right band of the Seine. The area between the Andelle and the Epte is the Norman Vexin and was the area where military action was concentrated in 1118 and 1119.

[22] Pont-Saint-Pierre is on the west bank of the Andelle in Normandy, just upstream from its junction with the Seine, about ten miles north-west of Andelys and a similar distance south-east of Rouen.

[23] The town of Alencon was given by Henry I to Stephen, brother of Theobald of Champagne. Helped by the townspeople who revolted against their lord Stephen de Mortain, Fulk of Anjou occupied Alencon in November 1118 and defeated a relieving force led to Henry I under the walls of the town the following month. Deprived of food, the garrison of the castle could do nothing other than surrender.

[24] Eu is about fifty-five miles north of Rouen.

[25] Baldwin VII died on 17^th June 1119, aged twenty-six from a wound he had received in September 1118 in the attack on Bures-en-Brai. Orderic Vitalis attributes the final sickness of Baldwin less to his wound but from having eaten freshly killed meat, drunk mead and slept with a women on the following night while William of Malmesbury is of the opinion that his condition was worsened by his having eaten garlic with goose and sleeping with a woman.

[26] Enguerrand de Chaumont was excommunicated by the archbishop of Rouen for taking church land. He was on Louis VI’s side at the siege of Chateauneuf-sur-Epte in 1119. At the news of the burning of Evreux, Louis ordered a retreat and set fire to his camp. Enguerrand died not long afterwards because he attacked land belonging to Mary but Orderic Vitalis attributed his death to a wound in the eyebrow.

[27] William Adelin married Matilda of Anjou in Lisieux in June 1119, peace having been agreed the previous month. William died in the wreck of the White Ship in November 1120 and his wife became a nun in the abbey of Fontevrauld. Nine years later the two houses were reunited again with the marriage of Geoffrey, Fulk’s son and Matilda, daughter of Henry I and widow of the emperor Henry V.

[28] Guy de Clermont was the son of Hugh de Clermont.

[29] The battle took place at Brémule on 20^th August 1119. Orderic Vitalis provides the most extensive account of this battle, noting how few people were killed during the fight. His account of the battle is included as Appendix 1.

[30] Suger lessened the gravity of Louis’ defeat at Brémule. 140 knights were captured. The king lost his horse and his standard and only succeeded in reaching Andelys with the help of a peasant after he had become a fugitive in the woods of Musegros.

[31] Ivry is the modern Ivry-la-Bataille about fifty miles west of Paris. Breteuil is about twenty-seven miles west of there.

[32] He reached Breteuil on 17^th September 1119. Orderic Vitalis’ account of the events following the battle at Brémule is slanted rather differently. He stated 4: 370 that Louis having come to Breteuil ‘failed to achieve anything but dishonour and loss’.

[33] Charles the Good had succeeded his young cousin Baldwin VII in 1119.

[34] Ibid, Mirot, Leon, (ed.), La Chronique de Morigny (1095-1152), p. 31 states that part of the town had already completely destroyed. Louis arrived at Chartres between the 22^nd and 25^th September 1119.

[35] Peace took place at the beginning of 1120 thanks largely to the mediation of pope Calixtus II who had an interview with Henry I at Gisors on 24^th November 1119. Suger, however, ends the chapter giving the impression of continuing hostility and this allows him to imply later in chapter 28 that the war was still going on in 1124.

Chapter 25

Of Aimon Vaire-Vache

Royal power ought not to appear confined to narrow limits in any part of its lands, ‘for we know that kings have long arms.’[1] From the frontiers of Berry there came to him Alard Guillebaud[2], a clever man with a silver tongue to plead a case of most eloquently on behalf of his son-in-law. He humbly begged the king to use his sovereign power to call before his court Aimon Vaire-Vache, lord of Bourbon[3], who refused all justice, and to punish him for the presumptuous boldness with which he had disinherited his nephew, the son of his elder brother Archambaud. He asked that Louis should determine by a judgement of Frenchmen what each of them should have.[4] The king inspired both by love of justice and by pity for churches and the poor, for if evil wars arose from this affair the wretched poor would have to pay the penalty for other men’s pride, summoned Aimon to plead his cause. But in vain. Distrusting justice, he refused to come. So, prevented neither by pleasure nor by laziness[5], Louis set out for Berry with a large army, went to Germigny[6] where Aimon had a very strong castle and began to attack it vigorously. 

When Aimon saw that he could not by any means hold out, he lost hope of keeping his freedom and his castle. Seeing only one way to safety, he threw himself at the king’s feet and, to the amazement of many, squirmed round time and again, imploring Louis to treat him mercifully. He surrendered his castle, delivered himself up totally to the royal discretion and submitted to justice with greater humility than he had earlier shown pride in refusing it. The king kept the castle and took Aimon back to France for judgement. He settled the quarrel between the uncle and the nephew most justly and piously by a judgement of the French or by a compromise and with much toil and cost to himself put an end to the oppressions suffered by many. 

He often used to accomplish deeds like this to bring peace to the churches and the poor in Berry, but I have decided not to recount the rest to avoid boring my readers. 

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[1] Ovid, Heroides, XVII, 166

[2] Alard Guillebaud was lord of Chateau Meillant and probably the builder of the castle of La-Roche-Guillebaud on the River Arnon. He was married to Lucy the widow of Archambaud V, lord of Bourbon from 1077 to 1096 whose son Archambaud VI ‘the Pupil’ was still very young.

[3] The usurpation of Aimon II Vaire-Vache, son of Archambaud IV, who ruled from 1061 to 1077, occurred in 1096 and he retained control until 1120 when Archambaud VI took over and ruled until 1126. Archambaud VII, Aimon’s son then took over and ruled since 1171.

[4] The narrative is, uncharacteristically for Suger not chronological. The royal expedition took place before 1115 and was very probably in 1109. A charter of Louis VI of between 3^rd August 1108 and 2^nd August 1109 is dated from Champignolles ‘in expeditione nostra’. Champignolles is on the most direct route from Sens to Germigny-sur-l’Aubois. Ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 90, 91 and 92 showed that the king was at Sens on 13^th June 1109. Chazaud, M.A., Etude sur la chronologie des sires de Bourbon (X^e‑XIII^e siècles), Moulins, 1936, Moulins, 1881, new edition by M. Fazy, p. 171 placed the expedition in 1108 or 1109.

[5] This expression may have been a ‘dig’ at King Philip who died the previous year.

[6] This is now Germigny-sur-l’Aubois about thirty miles south-east of Bourges and 160 miles south of Paris.

Chapter 24

How the king destroyed Thomas of Marle's castles

The hand of kings is very powerful because of the right attached to their office. They repress the impudence of tyrants each time they see them provoking wars or taking infinite pleasure in pillage, in harming the poor or in destroying the churches. Thus licence is bridled which, if it remained for every unchecked, would enflamed men to yet greater madness, like those malign spirits who prefer to slay those whom they fear to lose, relentlessly caress those whom they hope to keep and throw oil on the flames to make them burn yet more cruelly.

Thomas de Marle, the most abandoned of men, ravaged the country of Laon, Reims and Amiens while King Louis was occupied with the wars described above and many others. The devil prospered his enterprises because the prosperity of fools usually leads them to perdition. So he devastated and devoured like a furious wolf, massacring and destroying everything. He did not spare the clergy out of fear of excommunication or the people out of any humanity. He even seized from the nunnery of St. John de Laon[1] two excellent estates, and fortified with fine ramparts and high towers the two well-defended castles of Crécy-sur-Serre and Nouvion-Catillon[2], as if they were his own, transforming them into a dragon’s lair and a robbers’ cave in order to expose almost the whole of that land cold-heartedly to rapine and arson. 

Worn out by his intolerable vexations, the French church held a general synod at Beauvais, to promulgate there a preliminary sentence and condemnation against the enemies of Christ’s true bride.[3] But Conan[4], bishop of Palestrina, venerable legate of the holy Roman church, deeply grieved by the innumerable complaints of the churches and the vexation of the poor and orphans, struck at Thomas’ tyranny with the sword of St. Peter, cut him down with a general anathema, deprived him in his absence of his belt of knighthood, and in conformity with the judgement of all stripped him of all honours as an infamous criminal and enemy to the name of Christian. Yielding to the prayers and plaints of this great council, the king immediately gathered an army against Thomas. Accompanied by his clergy to whom he was always most humbly attached, he turned towards the very heavily fortified castle of Crécy, and unexpectedly seized it by the great strength of his armed forces or rather through divine help. Then he assaulted the strong keep as if it were a peasant’s hovel, confounded the criminals, piously massacred the impious and mercilessly beheaded those who had showed no mercy. You could have seen the castle consumed as if by hell fire and would have understood the meaning of the words: ‘The whole world shall fight with him against men who have no feelings.’[5]

The victorious king was promptly following up his success by marching on the castle of Nouvions, when a messenger reported thus to him: ‘Be it known to your serenity, my lord king, that in that wicked castle there live the wickedest of men; only hell is fit for them. I speak of those who, when you ordered the commune to be suppressed, burned not only the city of Laon but also the noble church of the Virgin with many other churches, martyred almost all the nobles of the city to punish them for having faithfully supported and assisted their lord the bishop, and most cruelly slew bishop Gaudry[6] himself, the venerable defender of the church, not fearing to set their hands against the lord’s anointed. They then exposed him naked to the birds and beasts in the square, having cut off the finger that bore the episcopal ring. Finally, under the influence of that most wicked Thomas, they attempted to occupy your keep to disinherit you.’

Doubly furious, the king then set out against that wicked castle and broke down those sacrilegious places worthy of all the pains of hell. In pardoning the innocent and severely punishing the guilty, this one man avenged the wrongs of many. Thirsting for justice, he condemned all the detestable murderers he found to be hanged on the gibbet and then their bodies exposed to the rapacity of kites, crows and vultures, a demonstration of the just deserts of those who did not fear to set their hands against the anointed of the lord. 

When the unlawful castles[7] had been destroyed and the estates returned to the nuns of St. John, he returned to Amiens[8] and besieged the keep of a certain tyrant Adam of that city, who had destroyed churches and the whole neighbourhood[9]. After a tight siege lasting nearly two years, he forced the defenders to surrender, took it by assault and totally destroyed it; and by razing it he re-established a most welcome peace in the country, fulfilling his duty as king, who ‘beareth not the sword in vain’.[10] Then he abolished in perpetuity the lordship of that infamous Thomas and his heirs over that city.[11]

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[1] The nunnery was founded in the seventh century. In 1130, the misconduct of the nuns led to them being replaced by monks.

[2] Crécy-sur-Serre is some eight miles north of Laon and about ninety miles north-east of Paris. Nouvion-Catillon is a few miles down the Serre from Crecy. This expedition takes Louis some distance from home.

[3] The Beauvais synod occurred in November and December 1114: ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 183. Thomas de Marle was excommunicated in 1114 because he protected the commune of Laon and the murderers of bishop Gaudry.

[4] Conan was Cardinal Bishop of Palestrina and among the most famous representatives of the Gregorian tradition. As papal legate he held four councils in France during 1114 and 1115 at Beauvais, Soissons, Reims and Châlons-sur-Marne and he would later be involved in the Council of Soissons in 1121.

[5] Wisdom of Solomon, V, 21

[6] Guibert de Nogent described in his Histoire de sa vie, edited G. Bourgin, pp. 167-168 the turbulent events in Laon. In 1110, a conspiracy organised by Gaudry, bishop of Laon since 1106 murdered crusader and convent-protector Gérard of Quierzy while he was praying in church. Believing Gaudry was guilty, King Louis VI ordered the bishop’s palace despoiled. Despite Guibert’s advice Bishop Gaudry excommunicated those who had taken goods from the fled murderers, but public pressure compelled the bishop eventually to excommunicate the murderers themselves. Guibert wrote that the word ‘commune’ was ‘a new and evil name,’ but people organised it as a way to replace all servile taxes with one lump sum paid annually. The bishop agreed to respect the rights of the commune according to the charters of Noyon and Saint-Quentin and the people bribed the king to agree to it. Bishop Gaudry next had a bailiff of the peasants, named Gérard, blinded. On Maundy Thursday in 1112, Bishop Gaudry persuaded some burghers to bribe King Louis to dissolve the commune. An angry mob protested and shouted ‘Commune’. Thiégaud dragged the bishop from his palace and killed him. In the chaos that followed other nobles were killed and many were tortured to death. Thomas of Marle defended the commune of Laon, but the next year they were suppressed by the forces of King Louis. Thiégaud was captured and hanged by Enguerrand de Boves’ knights two years after the bishop’s murder. After the destruction at Laon the people, burghers and bishop of Amiens formed a commune by ‘bribing’ (Guibert’s term) King Louis. Guibert gives a different slant on events than Suger.

[7] ‘Adulterina castella’ designated an unlawful because the castle had been built without proper authority.

[8] He was there on 11^th April 1115. As a result, it was during Lent that he attacked Thomas de Marle

[9] The siege of the castle, called Castillon began on 12^th April 1115 and did not finish for about two years. Adam as castellan of Amiens moreover was a direct vassal of the king having swore homage to him and had represented the count of Amiens who since 1085 was Enguerrand de Boves or de Courcy, Thomas de Marle’s father. Enguerrand died at the end of 1116 or the beginning of 1117. Thomas only held the title of count of Amiens for a very short time.

[10] Romans 13, 4

[11] Louis restored the lordship of Amiens to Adela de Vermandois who was the legitimate heir.

Chapters 22 and 23

Of Hugh's renewed treason

Much later in different circumstances, after he had been received back into the king’s favour by offering many hostages and oaths, Hugh resumed the path of deception. ‘Pupil of Scylla, he excelled his master in crime,’[1] Again he was besieged by the king[2], disinherited again; yet though he pierced the king’s steward Anselm de Garlande, a valiant baron, with his own lance, this was not enough to make him forget his innate and habitual treason, until he took the road to Jerusalem. This did what it has done for many wicked men: it cured his enflamed evil of all its poison by taking his life.[3]

Of the peace made the English king

The great men of the kingdom and the religious took a hand in making peace between the king of England, the king of France and Count Theobald.[4] By a just judgement those who had bound the king of England and Count Theobald to the settlement of their own grievances, thus conspiring against the kingdom, having been exhausted by war, profited nothing by peace. They now had the chance to reflect on just what they had done to obtain the sentence they deserved. Lancelin, count of Dammartin, lost without hope of recovering his claim on the escort toll of Beauvais[5]; Pagan of Montjay failed in the affair of the castle of Livry; one month he bitterly lamented the destruction of its fortifications, and the next he completely restored it to greater strength through the money of the English king. Miles of Montlhéry grieved and groaned when his very gratifying marriage to the count’s sister was annulled on grounds of consanguinity. The marriage had brought him less honour and joy than the divorce brought him shame and unhappiness. Men judged that all this was well done, in conformity with the canonical authority which states: ‘Any obligations contracted for the purpose of breaking the peace shall be entirely set at nought.’[6]

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[1] Lucan, De bello civili, I, 326

[2] Ibid, Molinier, Auguste, (ed.), Vie de Louis le Gros par Suger, p. 79, n^o 4 dated the siege to the autumn of 1117 based on the possible dates for the death of Anselm de Garlande between 3^rd August 1117 and 1^st January 1118. However, ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 231 suggested dates between 6^th January and 1^st May 1118 for the third and final siege. There is an acta in the cartulary of Saint-Pere de Chartres dated 6^th January 1118 signed by Anselm. On 1^st May 1118, the king allowed Toury to establish a market and abolished the oppressive customs established by the lords of Le Puiset. Luchaire, I think has the better of the argument.

[3] Did Hugh cause the king further problems after the third siege? Was he again in possession of Puiset in 1123 or 1128? He did not go on crusade for ten years after his defeat. In the Holy Land, he played an inconspicuous role and died in 1132 from wounds received in a quarrel. It was not him but his uncle Hugh II who linked himself to the dynasty of the counts of Jaffa.

[4] The war had resumed in August 1111 at the time of the quarrel that sprung up between Louis VI and Theobald after the first siege of Le Puiset. Peace was agreed at L’Ormeteau-Ferré, near to Gisors at the end of March 1113. The peace of Gisors rebounded against a group of barons who had caused Louis much trouble. To this extent the settlement was to his advantage but the more detailed account of Orderic Vitalis 4: 307 indicates that Henry got the better of the deal. Orderic describes the peace as having been sought by Louis and reached by the two kings at a meeting between them and states that Louis VI ceded to Henry I Bellème and the suzerainty of Maine and all Brittany: see ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 81.

[5] The issue here was the right to charge tolls for protection. These were paid by merchants in return for assured protection from a lord or the king, later replaced by the notion of safe conduct: see Huvelin, P., Essai historique sur le droit des marches et des foires, Paris, 1987, pp. 363-364 and 377-379. Lancelin II de Bulles was a vassal of the church of Beauvais.

[6] This text seems to concern canons relating to the Peace of God. Barthélemy, Dominique, L’an mil et la paix de Dieu: La France chrétienne et féodal 980-1060, (Fayard), 1999 is primarily concerned with the eleventh century but it does have some useful things at say about later attitudes.

Chapter 21

Of the attack on Toury and the restoration of Le Puiset

Very soon Hugh treated his still recent oath as a trifle, a fluid thing without shape. Maddened by his long captivity, like a dog chained up too long that, once released lets out the anger formed but contained during the long period of its imprisonment and, freed from its chains, bites and tears everything to pieces, so Hugh stirred up his long icy hatred into action and pushed it towards deception. When he had heard the king Louis had set out for Flanders on affairs of state[1], Hugh in alliance with the enemies of the realm, Theobald, the count palatine and Henry, the great king of the English[2], collected together as many knights and foot-soldiers as he could, determined to take back his castle of Le Puiset and hastened either to destroy or to subdue the country around about.   One Saturday, as he was passing the ruins of his castle on which the king had given permission for a public market[3], he undertook on oath, a singular deception and in a very loud voice to guarantee it security; at the same time he suddenly threw into prison those among them whom he had learned to be the richest. Then gnashing his teeth like a wild beast and cutting to bits anything that came in his way, he hastened with count Theobald to destroy totally Toury, a fortified estate belonging to St. Denis. The day before he had met me, and with his adroitness in trickery and evil had begged and obtained from me a promise that I would go that very day to intercede with the king on his behalf. He calculated that in my absence he could enter the estate with ease or should it resist him destroy it utterly[4].

But the tenants of God and of St. Denis entered the fortification and, protected by divine help and by the strength of the defences, resisted with strength and courage. Meanwhile I came to Corbeil, where I met the king, who had already learned the truth from Normandy[5]. He quickly asked me why I had come, laughed at my simplicity, with great indignation explained Hugh’s deception, and sent me back at once to help the estate.  While he collected an army on the road to Étampes, I went back by the straightest and shortest route to Toury, with my eyes fixed on the place from a distance, looking for the one sign that the place had not yet been captured, the three-storied tower of the fort that dominated the whole plain. For had it been captured the enemy would at once have set fire to the tower. But because the enemy was occupying the neighbourhood, ravaging and devastating everywhere, I could not, either by gifts or by promises, persuade anyone I met to come with me.

But, the fewer in number the safer. As the sun was setting the enemy relaxed a little, weary from having unsuccessfully attacked our men all day. Seeing our opportunity, we pretended to be of their number and in great danger we rushed through the middle of the estate. We gave a signal to our men on the ramparts, they opened the gate, and with God’s help we rushed in at top speed. Rejoicing in my presence they mocked the enemy’s rest, wounded them with scornful insults and, despite my reluctance, indeed my prohibition called them back to a second assault. But the divine hand protected the defenders and the defence as well in my presence as it had done in my absence. Of our small army only a few perished of wounds, while many of their large numbers shared that fate. Many of these were taken away in litters, but others were buried under a very thin covering of earth where they made meals for wolves the next day and on some days after. 

The enemy had not yet returned to Le Puiset after their expulsion when William de Garlande[6] and some of the most resolute and best armed of the king’s household hastened to help the estate, hoping to find the enemy in that neighbourhood so that they could demonstrate the courage of the king’s militia. The lord king at once joined them at dawn. When he heard that they had received hospitality in the burg, he prepared to take revenge on his enemies with joy and happiness because it had fallen to him to avenge by sudden slaughter and unexpected punishment the injury which had been unexpectedly inflicted. But the enemy, hearing of his advance, were astonished that he had discovered a plot so well hidden, had put off his journey to Flanders and had not so much come as flown to help. Not daring to do more, they pressed on with the restoration of the castle. But the king collected what army he could from the neighbourhood, for he was much stretched by war in many places. Then on Tuesday morning, he led out his troops, planned the battle lines, nominated the chiefs, set the archers and slingers in their places and, step by step, approached the unfinished castle. Because he had heard Count Theobald boasting that he would fight the king in the plain, with his customary bravery he got off his horse, ordered that the horses be removed and, as one armed man among many others, he inspired to courage those who had dismounted with him, calling on them not to flinch, but to fight with the greatest fortitude.

The enemy were frightened by seeing him coming so bravely and became too nervous to leave the castle outworks. They chose timidly but cautiously to arrange their troops behind the ancient ditch of the destroyed castle and there they waited, calculating that when the king’s army tried to go down into the ditch and fight from there, the well-organised battle lines would lose their order and in confusion they would waver, which is very largely what happened.   In the first charge of the battle, the king’s knights drove the enemy as if defeated from the ditch with great élan and slaughter, then broke their lines and pursued them impulsively. Meanwhile Raoul of Beaugency[7], a man of great wisdom and valour, fearing in advance that this would happen had hidden his troops in a part of the castle where they were concealed by the shelter of a tall church[8] and some houses nearby. When his allies fled through the gate, he unleashed his fresh troops on the weary royal knights and did much damage. They took flight on foot, impeded by the weight of their mail and armour, hardly able to resist the well-organised line of mounted warriors. After innumerable blows and much fighting on either side, they got back with the king on foot over the ditch they had seized, and belatedly realised the superiority of wisdom over rashness. For if they had awaited their enemies in due order in the plain, they would totally have subdued them to their will. 

But bewildered by the confusion of their lines, they could not find their own horses nor decide what to do. The king mounted a borrowed horse and, resisting stoutly, loudly called his men back to him, appealing to the bolder ones by name not to flee. Penned in by the enemy’s wings on either side, he wielded his sword, protected those he could, pursued the fugitives and, an outstanding knight he fought brilliantly in a knight’s, not a king’s, capacity, although this was not entirely fitting to the royal majesty. But he could not alone, with a tired horse, prevent the collapse of his army until his squire appeared with his own charger. Swiftly mounting it and carrying his standard before him, he charged the enemy with a few men, with marvellous courage he rescued many of his own men from captivity, caught some of the enemy in the ferocity of his charge and, to prevent further damage to his army, he put the enemy to flight as if the sea of Cadiz had dashed itself against the pillar of Hercules or as if they had been kept at their distance by the great Ocean itself.[9]

Before they got back to Le Puiset, they met an army of five hundred or more Norman knights who, had they had earlier while our army was in trouble, would have been to inflict graver losses on us. The king’s army dispersed all around, some to Orleans, some to Étampes and some to Pithiviers[10]. The king, exhausted, retired to Toury. ‘The bull, chased from the herd in his first fight, sharpens his horns on the tree-trunks,’[11] and, collecting his strength in his mighty chest, ‘Heedless of his great wound, he goes forth’[12] against the enemy across the iron barriers. So the king rallied his army, stiffened its courage, revived its boldness, argued that its defeat had been down to folly not imprudence, pointed out that any army inevitably meets with such setbacks on occasion, and tried both by flattery and by threats to make them fight even more ferociously and boldly, should opportunity present itself, in order to avenge their injury. Meanwhile both Normans and French devoted themselves to repairing the castle. There were with count Theobald and the Normans Miles de Montlhéry, Hugh de Crecy and his brother Guy, count of Rochefort, in all thirteen thousand men, who threatened Toury with a siege. But the king fearlessly attempted to harass them night and day, preventing them from going any distance to seek food. 

After a week of continuous labour the castle was rebuilt, and some of the Normans then left, but Count Theobald remained with a large army. The king gathered his forces, ordered the siege engines to be moved, and came back to Le Puiset in strength. When he met the enemy he ground them to powder. Taking his revenge by fighting them up to the gate, he shut them into the castle and posted soldiers to prevent them for escaping. A stone’s throw away there was an abandoned motte[13] which had belonged to his ancestors; this he occupied and erected another castle on it with much labour and pain. For although the prefabricated frame of beams offered some defence, our men had to put up with the dangerous onslaughts of the slingers, the slingers and the archers; all the worse because those who tormented them, safe behind their castle walls, threw their weapons out without any fear of reprisal for the misery they were inflicting. In their desire for victory a dangerous conflict blew up between those within and those without. Those of the king's knights who had been wounded, remembering their injuries, strove to inflict similar suffering, and would not hold back from this until they had fortified the castle almost built by magic with a large garrison and many weapons, convinced as they were that, as soon as the king had gone, they would have to defend themselves with the utmost courage against the assaults of their neighbours or perish wretchedly by the cruel swords of their enemies.

So the king returned to Toury and rallied his forces. Then, boldly risking danger, he brought food to provision the army on the motte across the enemy lines, sometimes secretly with just a few men, sometimes openly with a force. Then the men of Le Puiset, who were so near that they could put intolerable pressure on the garrison, threatened a siege. So the king raised camp, occupied Janville[14] about a mile from Le Puiset, and surrounded the central square with a stockade of stakes and osiers. While his army established their tents outside, Count Palatine Theobald at the head of an army of the best men he could find from his own and the Norman troops, rushed to attack them, hoping to catch them unawares and not yet defended, then to repel and defeat them.

The king went out to meet them in his armour. Each side fought with equal violence, heedless of lances and swords, caring more for victory than for survival, more about triumph than about death. There you would have seen an admirable feat of valour. The count's army, about three times larger than the king's, forced the king’s soldiers into the estate. Then the king with a few men, Ralph, the most noble count of Vermandois[15], his cousin, Dreux de Mouchy[16] and one or two others, scorning to retreat timidly and remembering his customary valour, chose to withstand the heaviest charges of the armed enemy and their countless blows rather than be compelled to return into the estate, thus insulting his own courage and the royal majesty.

Count Theobald, thinking himself already the victor, was rashly attempting to pull down the count of Vermandois’ tents when, with great speed, that count rushed up, declared that up till now the men of Brie had never dared to act with such presumption against those of Vermandois, charged him and with great effort repaid him for the injury he had suffered by repulsing him very vigorously. The king's knights, inspired by his valour and his cries, fell on them. Thirsting for their blood they attacked them, cut them down, put them to shame and pushed them back by force to through the gate of Le Puiset, even if it sullied their dignity. Many were captured, more slain. The outcome of battle is always doubtful. Those who had earlier thought themselves the victors were filled with filled with shame at their defeat, grieved for the captives, and lamented their dead. 

While the king in his turn prevailed against them, the count slipped downwards from the top of fortune's wheel and lost strength. For he and his men had suffered long trials and intolerable, exhausting despair, while each day the king’s strength and that of his supporters increased as the kingdom's barons grew indignant against the count and came to help. So Theobald used an old wound as an excuse to retire from the fray, and sent messengers and intermediaries to the king to beg humbly that he would allow him to retreat in safety to Chartres. In his kindness and more than human mercy, the king agreed to this request, although many counselled that he should not let his enemy, trapped by lack of provisions to go free, nor risk further repetition of his injuries. Both Hugh and the castle of Le Puiset were left to the king's discretion. Then the count withdrew to Chartres, deprived of his vain hope, and brought to a wretched conclusion the enterprise he had begun so happily.[17] The king not only disinherited Hugh de Puiset, but also ordered that the walls of his castle be pulled down, its ditches filled in and the whole place flattened as if accursed. 

---

[1] It seems likely that Louis went to Flanders to help the young count Baldwin VII and to coordinate joint action against Henry I: ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 134.

[2] Orderic Vitalis sets the events of this chapter in a different context asserting that Theobald’s warfare against Louis was designed to keep the king from attacking the Norman possessions of Henry I. Certainly the three assaults on Le Puisset occurred during hostilities with Henry I (1111, 1112 and 1118) and should be viewed in a context broader than that of an attack on Hugh.

[3] The market was held at Le Puiset on a Saturday five times a year.

[4] Suger was closely involved in these events that occurred in the spring and summer of 1112: ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 134.

[5] The king had not yet left. Moreover, he did not have any reason to go through Normandy. It is advisable to interpret the words ‘from Normandy’ as supposing that some of his Norman allies had warned him of the raising of troops in the duchy to give support to Hugh de Le Puiset: ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 134. Suger further points out that five hundred Norman knights arrived fortunately not too late.

[6] William de Garlande was the brother of the seneschal Anselm. He then became seneschal from 1118 until his death before 3^rd August 1120.

[7] See above, note 270.

[8] The ‘tall church’ was the chapel of the priory of Saint-Martin that had been a dependency of the abbey of Marmoutier since 1094.

[9] Orderic Vitalis IV, 304 dated the king’s defeat to 1112.

[10] Louis’ army had fled about twenty miles in different directions: south, north and east.

[11] Lucan, De bello civili, II, 601, 603

[12] Lucan, De bello civili, I, 212

[13] The castle at Le Puiset had probably been moved and the ‘abandoned motte’ might refer to the remains of the castle taken in the first siege. In the medieval period, the term ‘motte’ applied to a natural mound or an artificial hill on which a keep was built where there was no natural feature.

[14] Janville is about twenty-five miles south-east of Chartes.

[15] Ralph I, count of Vermandois was born in 1073 and died on 14^th October 1152. He was Louis’ cousin as the son of Hugh ‘the Great’ Crespi, brother of King Philip I and Adelaide de Vermandois. He did not really become count of Vermandois until 1117 when his mother gave him the county.

[16] Dreux IV de Mouchy was born in 1070 and died in 1120.

[17] The submission of Theobald took place towards the end of 1112 and the second siege of Puiset in the autumn of the same year. On 2^nd February 1113, Theobald was at St-Evroul with his uncle, Henry I of England. In the spring of 1112, Suger had travelled to Italy.

Corruption and the Constitution

This weekend we’ve seen what looks like a biding war between the leaders of the three major parties.  For Gordon, it’s his Presbyterian conscience that’s offended and he’s always wanted to have a new constitutional settlement.  For David, it’s a case of the need for constitutional reform but we really need a general election first.  For Nick, it a case for constitutional reform now.  While there is undoubtedly a case for constitutional reform, it seems to miss the point that what people are so annoyed about is MPs expenses and we are in danger of allowing this to become submerged in a process of constitutional change.

Before any constitutional change is introduced, it is essential that the question of MPs’ expenses is sorted out.  Although political parties have established their own mechanisms for sorting out their own MPs, this lacks transparency and may be of dubious legality…more akin to a kangaroo court than anything else.  Yes the public wants a few scalps, and quite rightly so, but it appears that most ministers with the possible exception of Hazel Blears, appear to be safe (at least at present) and the whole process may be being used by party leaders to get rid of dead-wood or vocal opponents.  If an MP has claimed expenses for something that is now seen as not being within the decidedly ill-defined ‘spirit of the rules’ and this had been agreed by the Fees Office, then presumably a criminal case for fraud would be unlikely to succeed.  There is also the problem of retrospective guilt.  Yes an MP would probably not claim for something dubious today but that was not the case in the past and appears to have been acceptable to the House of Commons authorities.  Although the ‘I was within the rules’ defence sound hollow with the public, it is still a plausible defence and anyone prosecuted would be able to show where precisely in the rules the sentences that allowed them to claim actually were.  They may well be rotten rules, but they are nonetheless the rules under which MPs operated.  A legally-binding code of conduct for MPs as suggested by Gordon does not deal with the expenses question merely how MPs do their job.  Presumably, this will soon be followed by targets as in other areas of public service!!!!!

With a general election due in the next year, it is unlikely that any significant constitutional reform will be accomplished and it may be sensible to postpone this until the next parliament.  It would be better if each party put forward its own constitutional proposals in their respective manifestos rather than rush something and make constitutional matters worse.  What can be sorted out in the next year is the question of MPs’ pay. 

1. We need to increase MPs’ pay to include their expenses for renting a property while in London.  Those MPs within 25 miles of Westminster would only get the basic pay without the expenses component.  It’s then up to MPs how they spend their money.

2. MPs will need to be paid a travel component based upon the distance of their constituency from London based upon second-class rail travel. 

3.  If an MP wishes to claim any expenses above their pay to carry out their parliamentary duties, then this has to be agreed in advance and in writing by the independent auditor.  No agreement, no expenses.

This is a relatively simple system based on pay (basic pay+living costs+travel costs), all of which are taxable, with additional agreed expenses at cost.  As the pay element would be known to the general public, only the additional expenses component would need to be published for public scrutiny.  Though this would increase MPs’ pay, it should not be subject to charges of corruption and so satisfy public anger.  In addition, MPs’ pay would increase annually based on the RPI as for pensioners. 

To remove the problem of MPs employing family members, all office staff in London should be appointed by and paid by Parliament and, in the constituencies, by the local party organisation.  No spouse, child or step-child, sister or brother, parent or other close relative can be employed by an MP though there is no reason why they should not work unpaid like any other party volunteer. 

Any MP suspected of having broken these rules should be subject to immediate suspension from Parliament while the charge is investigated and if found warranted should be expelled from the House and a by-election called.

It is only once this has been achieved that effective constitutional reform can be introduced.   

Chapter 20

How Hugh was set free

Meanwhile[1] there occurred the death of Odo, count of Corbeil, a man yet not a man for he was irrational and brutal. He was the son of Bouchard, that most arrogant of counts, tumultuous leader of brigands, of such amazing self-importance that he aspired to the throne. One day, as he took up arms against the king, he refused to accept his sword from the man holding it out to him, and said insolently to his wife who was standing by him. ‘Noble countess, confer this splendid sword on your noble count with joy, for he who receives it from you as a count will today return it to you as a king.’ But by God’s will it came about quite differently; for at the end of the day he was neither what he had been nor what he wished to be. Struck that very day by the lance of count Stephen[2], who was fighting on the king’s side, his death strengthened the peace of the kingdom and took him and his war to the lowest pit of hell where he fights to eternity.

After the death of his son count Odo, count Theobald, his mother, Miles, Hugh[3] and their allies did what they could by gifts and promises to obtain his castle, in order to discomfort the king. On the other hand, the king and his men, rebutting their claims, sweated with great ardour to obtain it for themselves. But it was quite impossible to do this without consulting Hugh, because he was Odo’s nephew.[4]

A day and place - Moissy[5], a domain of the bishop of Paris, of evident ill-omen - were appointed to settle the affair. When we[6] met together, Hugh’s decision was in part against us, and in part in our favour, for since we could not have what we wanted; we wanted what we could have. He renounced his claim to the castle of Corbeil, to which he had boasted of being the heir and he also swore to stop all harassment, taxes and exorbitant charges on all churches and monasteries. Then after hostages had been given to guarantee these arrangements and after he had sworn he would never fortify Le Puiset without the king’s consent, deceived by his treachery not his cunning, we went home. 

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[1] Odo de Corbeil died very probably in 1112: ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 128.

[2] Stephen, count of Meaux and Brie before 1081, count of Blois and Chartres from 1090 to 1102 was the father of Theobald IV. The revolt and the death of Bouchard can be dated between 1076 and 1081. Bouchard had had visions of grandeur and longed to be the King of France. Guy ‘the Red’ de Montlhery married Adelaide de Crecy who was the widow of Bouchard de Corbeil. Adelaide’s son by Bouchard was named Odo de Corbeil, so, Hugh de Crecy and Odo de Corbeil were half-brothers. There are several possibilities: that Hugh de Crecy was actually the son of Bouchard and adopted by Guy, that Hugh was born at a later date than 1070, that Adelaide the mother of Hugh was divorced from Bouchard and married to Guy prior to Bouchard’s death

[3] Hugh de Puiset was at that time imprisoned in Chateau-Landon.

[4] By his mother Alice, daughter of Bouchard and Adelaide de Crecy and as a result the sister of Odo.

[5] Moissy is the modern Moissy-Cramayel. It is about five miles east of Corbeil and about twenty-five miles south-east of Paris. Bishop Galon of Paris was an opponent of St-Denis that may account for Suger’s seeing the choice of this location as foretelling evil.

[6] The use of the plural ‘we’ suggests that Suger was involved in the interview. However, Manuscript F says that Louis alone was involved.

Chapter 19

How he captured Hugh and destroyed the castle of Le Puiset

As the pleasant fruit of a fertile tree recovers its sweet-smelling taste either by being transplanted as a twig or by the grafting of a branch, so the sucker of injustice and wickedness that ought to be rooted out passes by many wicked men to twine itself round one man, in the same way as a snake among the eels torments men with its native poison as bitter as absinthe. Like these was Hugh de Puiset, a wicked man rich only in his own and his ancestors’ tyranny, when he succeeded his uncle Guy in the honour of Le Puiset, his own father having with astonishing conceit taken arms in the first Jerusalem journey[1]. His father’s son, Hugh took after him in all wickedness, but ‘those whom his father chastised with whips, he chastised with scorpions.’[2]

Puffed-up with pride because he had most cruelly oppressed the poor, the churches and the monasteries and as yet unpunished, he reached the point where ‘the evil-doers have fallen; they have been driven forth and cannot stand.’[3] He could not triumph over the King of kings, nor over the king of the French, so he attacked the countess of Chartres[4] and her son Theobald, a handsome young man and skilled in arms. Hugh ravaged their land as far as Chartres, pillaging and burning it. The noble countess and her son sometimes attempted reprisals as best they could, though too little and too late but they never or almost never got within eight or ten miles of Le Puiset.[5] Such was Hugh’s cheek, such the force of his overbearing pride that many served him although few loved him. But if many defended him, more hoped for his destruction for he was more feared than loved.

When count Theobald realised that he was achieving little against Hugh on his own, but might achieve much with the king, he hastened to Louis with his most noble mother[6], who had always served the king faithfully, to try to move him with their prayers, claiming that they had deserved his assistance through many services, and recounting the crimes of Hugh, his father, his grandfather and his great grandfather. ‘O king, remember, as royal majesty should, the shameful affront Hugh[7] inflicted upon your father Philip when, in breach of his homage, he wickedly repulsed him from Le Puiset while Philip was attempting to punish his many crimes. Proud of his wicked relations, by criminal conspiracy he drove the king’s army back to Orleans, captured the count of Nevers, Lancelin of Beaugency[8] and about a hundred knights, and even in an unprecedented move dishonoured several bishops by keeping them in chains.’[9]

Theobald then added a lengthy explanation of how and why the castle had come to be built fairly recently by the venerable queen Constance[10] in the middle of land dedicated to the saints, to protect it, and how afterwards Hugh’s family had seized it all and left the king with nothing but injuries. But now, since the sizeable armies of Chartres, Blois and Chateaudun on which he customarily relied not only would not help him but would even fight against him, it would be easy for the king, if he wished, to destroy the castle, disinherit Hugh and avenge his father's injuries. If he did not wish to punish Hugh, either for his own or for his faithful servants’ injuries, he ought either to accept the gift for the oppression of churches and the depredations of the poor, the widows and the orphans which Hugh inflicted on the land of the saints and its inhabitants, or he ought to prevent them from occurring. The king was so moved by these and similar complaints that he named a day to take counsel on the affair. I went to Melun[11], along with many archbishops, bishops, clerks and monks, whose lands had been ravaged by Hugh, more rapacious than a wolf. They cried out and fell at Louis’ still unwilling feet, begging him to put an end to the brigand Hugh’s limitless greed, to seize back from the dragon’s jaws their prebends established by the generosity of kings in the fertile lands of Beauce for the support of God’s servants and to attempt to liberate the lands of the priests which even under the cruel authority of the Pharaohs had been unique in their freedom. They begged that as God’s vicar, bearing in his person God’s life-giving image, the king should restore the church’s goods to liberty.

He received their petition with good grace and in no way took it lightly. Then the prelates, the archbishop of Sens, the bishop of Orleans[12], and the venerable Ivo, bishop of Chartres[13], who had been imprisoned by force and held captive for many days in that castle, went home; and the king, with the approval of my predecessor abbot Adam of blessed memory sent me to Toury[14], a rich and well-provisioned though unfortified estate in the Beauce, belonging to St. Denis, of which I was in charge. He ordered that, while he summoned Hugh to answer these charges, I should provision the town and then attempt to gather as large a force as possible from his men and ours to prevent Hugh from burning it. Then the king would fortify it and, like his father, attack the castle from there.

With God’s help I was able to fill it quite quickly with a force of knights and foot-soldiers. After Hugh had absented himself from the trial and been condemned by default, the king came to me at Toury with a great army to claim from Hugh the castle he had forfeited. When Hugh refused to leave it, the king without delay hastened to attack the castle, using both his knights and his foot soldiers. You might have seen a host of catapults, bows, shields and swords; it was war[15]. And you might have admired the rain of arrows from one side then the other; the sparks which shot out from the helmets under pressure of repeated blows; the amazing suddenness with which shields were broken or holed. As the enemy were pushed through the castle gate, from the inside, high up on the ramparts, a remarkable shower fell on our men, terrifying and almost intolerable to the bravest of men. Hugh’s forces began the counter-attack by pulling down beams and throwing stakes, but they could not complete it. The royal soldiers on the other hand fought with the greatest bravery and strength of body and mind; even when their shields were broken they took cover behind planks, doors or any wooden objects they could find, as they pressed against the gate. I organised carts piled high with dry wood mixed with grease, a very inflammable mixture for the enemy were excommunicated and all given over to the devil. Our men dragged the carts to the gate both to light an inextinguishable fire and to protect themselves behind the piles of wood. 

While they were dangerously attempting some of them to light the fire, others to extinguish it, Count Theobald at the head of a large army of knights and foot-soldiers assaulted the castle on the other side, the side near Chartres. Remembering his injuries he hastened to penetrate it and encouraged his men to climb up the steep slope of the rampart, but he then grieved to see them coming, or rather falling, down even faster; those whom he had forced to creep upwards cautiously and on their stomachs he saw being thrown over on their backs and pushed down carelessly, as he tried to find out whether they had died under the weight of stones thrown after them. The knights who were riding round the keep[16] on their swiftest horses came unfortunately on those who had crawled up the palisade on their hands, struck them, cut off their heads and flung them down from the top of the ditch. 

With broken hands and paralysed knees they had almost halted the assault, when the strong, rather the omnipotent, hand of God intervened to ensure that this great and just vengeance should all be ascribed to him. Since the general levies[17] of the country were there, God excited the courage of a certain bald priest[18] and made it possible for him, contrary to human judgment, to achieve what the armed count and his men had found impossible. Covering himself with the cheapest of planks and bareheaded, he climbed rapidly upward, came to the palisade and, hiding under the overhang which was well suited to it, he gradually pulled the palisade apart. Pleased that he was working undisturbed, he made a signal to the hesitant and those standing idle in the fields that they should help him. Seeing an unarmed priest bravely throwing down the palisade, the armed men rushed in, applied to it their axes and any iron implements they could find, cut it down and completely broke it. Then, as a miraculous sign of divine judgement, as if they had brought down the walls of a second Jericho, as soon as they had broken down the barriers, the armies of the king and the count entered. Thus a good many of the enemy, unable to avoid hostile attacks on either side, were captured as they rushed in all directions and were seriously wounded. 

The rest, including Hugh himself, seeing that the interior of the castle[19] and its surrounding wall could not offer safety, withdrew into the wooden tower that was on top of the motte. Almost immediately, terrified by the menacing spears of the pursuing army, Hugh surrendered and was imprisoned in his own home with his men and, wretched in his chains he recognised how much pride goes before a fall. When the victorious king had led off the noble captives as fit booty for the royal majesty, he ordered that the entire castle’s furniture and its riches should be publicly sold and the castle itself consumed by fire.[20] The burning of the keep was delayed for several days because count Theobald, forgetful of the great good fortune which he could never have achieved on his own, was plotting to extend his boundaries[21] by erecting a castle at a place called Allaines[22] within the lordship of Le Puiset which had been held in fief of the king. When the king formally refused to allow this, the count offered to provide proof by his steward in that part, Andrew of Baudement[23]. The king said he had never agreed to anything of the sort, but offered reason and judicial combat in the person of his seneschal Anselm, wherever the champions thought safe. Since they were both valiant men they often asked that a court be convened for this battle; but they never obtained one.

When the castle had been ruined and Hugh shut up in the keep of Chateau-Landon, Count Theobald, strengthened by the help of his uncle Henry the English king started a war against King Louis with his allies. He disturbed the land, seduced the king’s barons with promises and gifts and disgracefully plotted what evil he could against the state. But the king, an excellent knight, took frequent revenge on him and harassed his lands supported by many other barons, especially his uncle Robert, count of Flanders[24], a remarkable man, famous among Christians and Saracens for his skill in arms since the first Jerusalem journey. 

One day, as the king was leading an expedition against the count, he saw him in the city of Meaux. In anger Louis attacked him and his men, fearlessly he followed the fugitive across the bridge and with count Robert and the other great men of the kingdom he threw them at sword point into the waves. When they themselves fell in you would have seen this unencumbered hero moving his arms like Hector’s, launching massive attacks on the trembling bridge, pressing forward to the perilous entrance in order to occupy the city despite its numerous defenders; and not even the great river Marne would have prevented him from doing so, if the gate across the river had not been locked. 

He enhanced his reputation for valour with an equally brilliant exploit when, leading his army out of Lagny, he met Theobald’s troops in the beautiful plain of meadows beside Pomponne[25]. He attacked them and put them to flight at once under the pressure of his repeated blows. Fearing the narrow entrance of a nearby bridge, some of them, thinking only to save their lives, were not afraid to throw themselves into the water at grave risk of death; others, treading each other under foot in their efforts to get to the bridge, threw off their arms and, more hostile to each other than were their enemies, all tried to go across at once, though only one man at a time could make the journey. And while their disorderly push plunged them in confusion, the more they hurried the more they were held up, and so it came about that ‘the first was last and the last became first.’[26] But as the approach to the bridge was surrounded by a ditch, it offered them some shelter, because the king’s knights could only follow them one by one, and even that could not be achieved without great loss since, although many pressed in, only a few could reach the bridge. Whichever way they entered, they were as often as not upset by the milling crowd of both armies, fell on their knees in spite of themselves, and as they hastily got up, pushed others down. The king in hot pursuit with his own men brought about great bloodshed. Those he struck he destroyed and flung into the river Marne, either by sword blow or by a push from his powerful horse. Those who had no arms floated on account of their lightness but those who were mailed were instantly dragged down by their own weight. Before their third soaking they were saved by their own companions, though after the shame of rebaptism, if one can talk like this[27].

By these and other injuries the king exhausted the count. He devastated all his lands, both in Brie and in Chartres, making no distinction between the times when the count was present and those when he was absent. Because the count was apprehensive over the scarcity and lack of energy of his own men, he tried to draw the king's men away from him, bribing them with gifts and promises and holding out the hope that, before he made peace with Louis, he would obtain satisfaction on their behalf for various grievances.

Among those he attached to himself were Lancelin of Bulles, lord of Dammartin[28] and Pagan of Montjay, whose lands, situated at a fork in the road, offered a secure access for the harassment of Paris[29]. For the same reason he seduced Raoul of Beaugency[30], whose wife, the daughter of Hugh the Great, was the king’s first cousin. Preferring expediency to honour and tormented by great anxiety, - need makes the old wife trot, as the proverb runs - Theobald joined his noble sister in incestuous marriage[31] with Miles de Montlhéry, to whom the king returned the castle as we have previously said. 

This done, he interrupted the lines of communication and restored in the very heart of France the old endless sequence of storms and wars. With Miles he gained his relation Hugh of Crécy, lord of Chateaufort, and Guy of Rochefort[32], thus exposing the country of Paris and Etampes to the ravages of war, had the knights not prevented it. While access across the Seine to Paris and Senlis lay open to count Theobald with the men of Brie and to his uncle Hugh[33] with the men of Troyes, Miles had access from this side of the river; thus the inhabitants lost the chance of helping each other. The same was true for the men of Orleans, whom those of Chartres, Chateaudun and Brie kept at a distance with the help of Raoul of Beaugency, and with no opposition. The king nevertheless often put them on their back feet, although the wealth of England and Normandy was poured forth unsparingly against him. For the famous King Henry attacked Louis’ lands with all his strength and all his effort. But he was no more beaten down than if ‘all the rivers together threatened to take their waters from the sea.’[34]

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[1] Hugh III, Vicomte de Chartres, Seigneur de Puiset and Comte de Corbeil was born around 1090 and died in 1132. He was the son of Everard III (born c.1060) who went to the Holy Land in 1096 and died before Antioch on 21^st August 1097. The two brothers of Everard were successively their nephew’s guardian: Hugh II married a daughter of Ebles de Roucy and went to the Holy Land with Bohemond in 1106 and Guy, canon of Chartres had married the viscountess of Etampes in 1104. Everard III, Hugh II and Guy were the sons of Hugh I known as ‘the Blue’ possibly because of the colour of his clothes. Hugh I was lord of Puiset in 1067, viscount of Chartres in 1073 and died on 23^rd December 1094. He was married to Alice de Montlhery, sister of Guy I de Montlhery.

[2] Kings, III, xii, v.11. A ‘scorpion’ was a type of small ballista.

[3] Psalm xxv,13

[4] Adela was the sister of Henry I of England and widow of Stephen, count of Blois and Chartres, who was born 1046 and died in the battle of Ramleh, in Egypt on 27^th May 1102. She acted as regent for her son until he came of age in 1107. Theobald III was born in 1090 and died on 8^th October 1152. Adela was born around 1046 and died on 8^th March 1138 and was widely regarded as an energetic and intelligent woman.

[5] Le Puiset is about twenty-five miles south-east of Chârtres and about fifty miles south of Paris.

[6] This occurred before 12^th March 1111: ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 108. The presence of Adela was important. The king had not forgotten the complicity of Theobald with Guy the Red and Hugh de Crecy in the attack on Gournay four years earlier but Theobald appears in a more favourable light presumably because he appears humbled before Louis. Suger quickly reverted to his usual negative portrayal of Theobald later in the chapter. By contrast, Adela had sent reinforcements to the young Louis against Bouchard de Montmorency.

[7] Hugh I was the brother-in-law of Miles the Great, lord of Montlhery.

[8] Lancelin I of Beaugency was lord of Beaugency and was born around 1000 and died between 1055 and 1060. His son, Lancelin II of Beaugency was lord of Beaugency (c.1045 - after 1098). His son was Raoul de Beaugency (c.1082-c.1130).

[9] It is not possible to date this event precisely but the spring of 1079 or 1080 seems most likely: ibid, Molinier, Auguste, (ed.), Vie de Louis le Gros par Suger, p. 61, n^{o 3} argued for 1080 on the basis of a charter dated to that year. Details of this expedition can be found in Certain, E. de, (ed.), Miracles de saint Benoit, Societe d’Histoire de France, Paris, 1858, pp. 315-317. The count of Nevers, William I (c.1030-c.1100) was the first cousin of King Philip by his mother Adelaide, daughter of Robert the Pious. His brother Robert, bishop of Auxerre from 1077 to 1095 accompanied him to Puiset.

[10] Constance of Arles was the second wife of Robert the Pious. She had made Puiset her stronghold in her war against her son Henry I who was obliged to retake it by force in 1032 or 1033: ibid, Miracles de saint Benoit, pp. 242-243. The importance of the possessions of the abbey of St-Denis in the Beauce is made explicit by the reference to ‘land dedicated to the saints’ and Suger was himself responsible for extending the amount of land held by the abbey in this area.

[11] The meeting at Melun about twenty-seven miles south-east of Paris occurred on 12^th March 1111. Suger used an abridged version of this passage in his Liber de rebus administratione gestis, in ibid, Lecoy de la Marche, A., (ed.), Oeuvres completes de Suger, recueilles, annotées er publiées d’après les manuscrits, pp. 170-171.

[12] Daimbert, archbishop of Sens and Jean II, bishop of Orleans.

[13] Ivo was bishop of Chartres from 1091 until 1116. He was imprisoned in 1092 by Hugh I de Le Puiset on the orders of King Philip I because he refused to approve of the king’s marriage with Bertrade and remained at Le Puiset for two years. The clergy and the faithful of Chartres had considered taking up arms to secure his release.

[14] Suger was made provost of Toury, a few miles south-east of Le Puiset and about fifty miles south of Paris on the road to Orleans. His description is that of an eyewitness.

[15] Psalms, lxxv, 4

[16] They rode around the palisade on the inside of the surrounding walls.

[17] During Louis’ reign, the bishops of France established communities of the people so that their priests would accompany the king to a siege or battle with their banners and all their parishioners. ‘Parish militias’ might be a better translation than general levies.

[18] He was the parish priest of Guilleville.

[19] From Suger’s description, we have a fairly clear idea of the nature of the castle at Le Puiset. It was constructed with a double ring of two walls (a simple palisade and a wall probably of stone) and a wooden keep on top of a motte.

[20] The date of the first siege of Le Puiset took place in the summer of 1111. In a charter, dated before 3^rd August 1111, the king recalled the destruction of the castle and confirmed the liberties of the church lands ravaged by the lords of Le Puiset: ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n°° 114 and 116. In another charter dated a few days after 3^rd August, the king attributed his victory ‘to God’s help and thanks to the decisive intervention of the saints’, an allusion perhaps to the decisive actions of the bald priest: ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 119.

[21] Theobald was seeking to push back his frontiers.

[22] Allaines is the modern Allaines-Mervilliers, a few miles south-west of Le Puisset.

[23] Andrew of Baudement was also known as his seneschal and was the father-in-law of Odo of Corbeil.

[24] Robert II had been count of Flanders since 1098.

[25] Pomponne is north of the river Marne, a few miles north-west of Lagny which is about seventeen miles east of Paris.

[26] This is the end of a phrase inspired by St Matthew, xxix, 30.

[27] Orderic Vitalis suggests, on the contrary the French were crushed under the weight of numbers and that King Louis withdrew. In was in these circumstances that Robert of Flanders, trampled by horses’ hooves received wounds from which he died on 5^th October 1111. Suger makes no reference to Robert’s fatal fall in the attack on Meaux because his account only deals with the first part of the battle when the king won. Therefore Suger’s account complements rather than contradicts Orderic Vitalis. Ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 121 dates the events between 3^rd August and 6^th October 1111.

[28] Lancelin of Bulles, count of Dammartin died without heirs in 1113. Manasses, who was killed at Bar in 1037, was younger brother of Hilduin III de Ramerupt, and son of Hilduin II (died 992). He probably was granted Dammartin as a result of his marriage to Constance of France, daughter of Robert II and Constance of Provence. He had at least two sons who followed him: Odo, who died shortly before 1071, and Hugh, Count from 1071 until his death in 1103 (he must have been quite old). He married Rohais/Roaide de Bulles. In addition to several daughters, he had son Pierre, Count, died 1107, married to Eustachie, and had a sole son and heir: Lancelin de Bulles who died without issue circa 1113. Lancelin appears to have married Clemence de Bar, (if so this is a case of infant marriage, at least for her), who later in life, as wife of Renaud de Clermont, still went by the title Countess of Dammartin. From the death of Lancelin, it becomes difficult to follow who was holding the county, but identification with Dammartin passed into the descendants of the daughters (and perhaps younger sons) of Hugh holding in England.

Odo, founder of the Middleshaw line, appears to have married Basilie, one of the daughters of Hugh, and adopted her surname. Another daughter, Aelis married first, Aubri de Mello, and had Aubri, William, Odo, and perhaps others. She married second, Lancelin de Beauvais, who is sometimes confused with her nephew. Since he was exercising a certain control over Dammartin in 1112, it would seem that Aubri de Mello had died by that time. This is important in dating the birth of Aubri's children. The eldest child of Aelis and Aubri de Mello was Aubri I, Count of Dammartin, maternal grandson of Count Hugh. He is said to have been born in 1110, but this seems too late, since his father would appear to have died by 1112, and there were younger sons. In addition, Aubri appears as a member of the French royal household 1122-1129, suggesting a birth at least twenty years earlier. He is traditionally said to have married Amice de Gloucester though this cannot be documented in contemporary sources, but is chronologically possible. If so it was late in life. He would seem to have been Count in 1166, and is said to have died c.1182.

[29] Montjay and Dammartin are about fifteen and twenty-two miles east and north-east of Paris respectively. Bulles is about five miles north-west of Clermont and about forty miles north of Paris.

[30] Raoul de Beaugency (1082-1130), the son of Lancelin II, was married to Maud or Matilda de Vermandois in 1111 and was a vassal of Theobald. Hugh ‘the Great’ Crepi (1050-1102) was her father and younger brother of King Philip I and her mother was Countess Adela of Vermandois. Beaugency is on the Loire about thirteen miles south-west of Orleans.

[31] Miles II de Montlhery was born c.1082 and died in 1118. He married Adelaide de Blois (born after 1097) in 1112.

[32] Hugh de Crecy and his brother Guy II of Rochefort, both sons of Guy ‘the Red’ were first cousins of Miles II of Montlhery.

[33] Hugh I, count of Troyes and Champagne (1075-June 1125/6) since 1093 was half brother of Stephen, count of Blois, Theobald’s father and the unfortunate husband of Constance of France in 1104.

[34] Lucan, De bello civili, V, 366-337

Chapter 18

How he seized the castles of Mantes and Montlhery from his brother Philip, despite Philip’s resistance

The rarity of good faith means that evil is more often returned for good than good for evil. To do the latter is godlike; to do the former is neither godlike nor human; but it happens. This evil characterised Philip, King Louis’ half-brother born of the countess of Anjou. At the instance of his father, whom he never opposed, and also through the seductive flattery of his most noble and beguiling step-mother, Louis had arranged that Philip should obtain the honour of Montlhéry and Mantes, in the very heart of the kingdom. Philip, ungrateful for these great benefits, and trusting in his noble birth, presumed to be rebellious. For his uncle was Amaury de Montfort[1], a brilliant knight and most powerful baron, while his brother was Fulk, count of Anjou[2], later king of Jerusalem. His mother, even more powerful, was a heroic woman, particularly skilled in all the astonishing female arts by which women boldly tread their husbands under their feet after they have tormented them with many injustices. She so appeased the count of Anjou[3], her first husband, that although he was totally excluded from her bed, he respected her as his wife, often sat on a stool at her feet, and obeyed her will in everything, as if by a sorcerer’s power.[4] One thing that united and buoyed up the mother, her sons and the whole family, was the expectation that if some chance misfortune should befall the king[5], one of these two brothers would succeed him, and thus the whole clan would with great satisfaction raise itself to the throne to take part in the royal honour and lordship.[6]

So when Philip, though frequently summoned, imperiously refused to appear at a hearing or judgement before the royal court, Louis, worn out by his depredations against the poor, his attacks on churches and the disorder he inflicted on the whole countryside, promptly though unwillingly took up arms against him. Philip and his allies, with a strong force of men, had often boasted that Louis would be repulsed; yet they timidly abandoned the castle’s outworks. The mail-clad king easily rushed into them and hastened through the middle of the castle to the keep, which he besieged with siege engines, mangonels and trebuchets, until, not immediately but after many days, he forced them to surrender because they despaired of their lives.[7]

Meanwhile Philip’s mother and his uncle Amaury de Montfort, fearing the loss of the other honour of Montlhéry, conferred it on Hugh de Crécy and married him to Amaury’s daughter[8]. Thus they hoped to put in the king’s path an insuperable obstacle. For the castles of this honour with those of Guy de Rochefort, Amaury’s brother meant that Amaury’s power stretched without interruption into Normandy.[9] This would obstruct the king’s path; and as well as the injuries they could inflict on him every day as far as Paris, they would bar his access to Dreux.[10] Immediately after his marriage Hugh rushed to Montlhéry; but the king followed him even faster; the very hour, the very minute, in which he heard the news, he most boldly flew to Châtres [11], the chief town of that honour. 

Louis was able to attract the best men of that land through the hope of his liberality and his proven mercy, which might spare them from their long-accustomed fear of cruel tyranny. Both antagonists stayed there for several days, Hugh planning to gain the lordship, the king to prevent him[12]. Then since one deception leads to another, Hugh was tricked in this way. Miles de Bray[13], son of the great Miles, deliberately turned up at once, seeking the honour on grounds of hereditary right. He threw himself at the king’s feet, weeping and lamenting, till by his many prayers he prevailed upon the king and his counsellors. He humbly begged that the royal munificence would give him back the honour and restore his paternal inheritance, on condition that Miles would be almost the king’s serf or his tenant, subject to his will. The king deigned to answer this humble prayer, called the inhabitants of the town to him and offered them Miles as their lord, consoled them for their past sufferings and inspired in them as much joy as if he had brought the moon and stars out of heaven for them. Without delay they ordered Hugh to come out and threatened that if he did not they would kill him at once, since against their natural lord promises and oaths counted for nothing; what mattered was strength or weakness.

Confused by this, Hugh took to flight, thinking that he had escaped without losing his belongings; but the brief joy of his marriage he had brought on himself the lasting shame of a divorce, along with the loss of many horses and much furniture. He learned from his shameful expulsion what it meant to take arms against the king with the king’s enemies.[14]

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[1] Amaury III de Montfort from 1101 to about 1137 after his three brothers, Amaury II, Richard and Simon II died without children. Bertrade of Anjou was his younger sister. He was married to Richilde de Hainault.

[2] Fulk V, called ‘the Young’ was the son of Fulk IV and Betrade. He was born in 1090. In September 1131, he succeeded his father in law Baldwin as king of Jerusalem and died in 1142.

[3] Fulk IV was born in 1043 and died in 1109 and was Bertrade’s fisrt husband

[4] Philip I and Bertrade were received by Fulk at Angers on 10^th October 1106.

[5] Louis had certainly brought some of these problems upon himself by failing to marry and produce legitimate heirs. Around 1109, Count Hugh de Champagne proposed marriage between Louis and his cousin, the daughter of the marquis of Montferrat. Louis then discovered that the girl had not been born of a legitimate union and it was abandoned. No more is heard of a royal marriage for four or five years and, if Ivo of Chartres’ letter in 1113 suggesting that marriage would silence Louis’ opponents he appears to have lived fairly loosely. One illegitimate daughter is known to have been born to him, probably before 1108 as the result of a prolonged liaison with the girl’s mother that continued after he became king. In 1115 (probably between 25^th March and 3^rd April), Louis married Adelaide, sister of the count of Maurienne.

[6] According to Orderic Vitalis 4: 196-98, Bertrade attempted to have Louis poisoned when he stayed in England in 1101.

[7] The attack and capture of Mantes occurred either at the end of 1109 or early in 1110. The conspiracy of Bertrade, Philip and Amaury was formed soon after the death of Philip I. It is possible that the plot did not represent a serious attempt by Philip to seize the throne but rather an effort to obtain additional properties from Louis VI. Since the recent death of his wife, Elisabeth de Montlhéry, Philip had secure title only to Mantes, a much smaller endowment than Philip I had intended his him.

[8] She was called Lucienne and was still a child.

[9] The lordship of Montfort consisted of the cantons of Montford, Rambouillet, Dourdan and several towns in the cantons of Nogent, Maintenon and Auneau.

[10] This is another example of the weakness of royal authority in the early twelfth century. Dreux is about thirty-five miles west-south-west of Paris.

[11] Châtres was, before 1720, the name of Arpajon. It is about eighteen miles south of Paris on the river Orge.

[12] Guy Trousseau, before he died on 16^th March 1108 had left Montlhéry to Louis: ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 53. His daughter, Elizabeth the wife of Philip of Mantes died without children. Philip did not have any right to inherit.

[13] Miles de Bray was the brother of Guy Trousseau and cousin of Hugh de Crecy.

[14] The taking of Châtres took place several weeks after Mantes. Hugh de Crecy never forgave his cousin Miles of Montlhery who had ousted him. Miles was treacherously captured by Hugh in the early months of 1118, thrown into prison and then strangled. Ibid, Mirot, Leon, (ed.), La Chronique de Morigny (1095-1152), p. 23 says ‘He then imprisoned Miles II in his Châteaufort tower. One night, ‘taken by folly’, Hugh strangled his cousin with his own hands, and then threw him out of the window, ‘perhaps to make it look like an accident.’ Hugh was not given a royal pardon, renounced his lands and entered a monastery. He died in 1148.