How he avenged the murder of Charles, count of Flanders

I intend to relate his finest exploit[1], the noblest deed he performed from his youth to his life’s end. Although it ought to be spoken of at length, I shall recount it briefly, concentrating on what he did rather than how he did it, in order to avoid boring my readers.[2]

The famous and very powerful count Charles, son of the king of Denmark and King Louis’s aunt, succeeded by hereditary right the brave count Baldwin, son of Robert of Jerusalem, and ruled the very populous land of Flanders both forcefully and diligently, proving himself an illustrious defender of God's church, a lavish almsgiver and a notable protector of justice[3]. Discharging the duty of his honour, he sought several times legitimately to bring to the judgement of his court certain powerful men of low birth who had risen through their wealth and were arrogantly trying to free their family from his lordship although they were of servile origin.[4] They were the provost of Bruges and his relations[5], notorious criminals puffed out with pride who trapped the count most cruelly.[6]

One day Charles came to Bruges and went early in the morning into God’s church[7]. He was kneeling on the floor in prayer, holding a prayer book in his hands, when suddenly a certain Burchard[8], the provost’s nephew, a savage fellow, arrived with other members of that wickedest of families and other accomplices in his detestable crime. As Charles was praying and talking with God, Burchard quietly slipped behind him, unsheathed his sword and gently touched the neck of the prostrate count, so that when the count raised it a little he would make a better target for the unexpected sword, then with one blow he impiously killed the pious man, and thus the serf beheaded his lord.  

His accomplices in this horrifying murder who were standing around thirsting for his blood, like dogs feasting on abandoned corpses, took pleasure in hacking the innocent man to pieces, particularly rejoicing that they had been able to accomplish the evil deed they had conceived and the wickedness to which they had given birth[9]. As if blinded by their own malice, they revelled in evil and massacred all the men of the castle and nobler barons of the count they could find when they were unprepared and unshriven, either in the church or outside in the castle, putting them to the sword in the most wretched way. However, we are convinced that it is good for these unfortunates to have been killed in such circumstances because of their fidelity to their lord and to have met their deaths with the prayers of the church, for as it is written: ‘When I shall find you, I will judge you.’[10]

The assassins buried the count in the church itself, fearing that if he were brought out for mourning and burial the people who were devoted to him both for his glorious life and for his more glorious death would be aroused to seek vengeance. Then they turned the church into a brigands’ cave, fortified both it and the count’s house which was next to it, procured whatever food they could and decided with the utmost arrogance to protect themselves there and thus to take over the land.  

The Flemish barons who had not consented to this were shocked by so great and depraved a crime[11]. They wept as they attended the count’s obsequies in order to avoid being branded as traitors, and reported it to the lord king Louis, and indeed to everyone, for the news swept across the world. Love of justice and affection for his cousin inspired war against the English king and Count Theobald[12]. So he crossed courageously into Flanders[13], intent on using all his resources to punish the wickedest of men most cruelly. He established as count of Flanders William of Normandy[14], son of Duke Robert of Jerusalem, who had a claim through ties of blood. Without fear either for the barbarity of the land or for the loathsome family which had engaged in treason, he went down to Bruges, and blockaded the traitors securely in the church and the tower, preventing them from obtaining any food other than what they had, which by divine assistance now disgusted them because it was unfit for use. For a while he wore them down by hunger, disease and the sword; then they abandoned the church the church and kept only the tower, which also guarded them.  

Now they despaired of life, and their lyre was turned to mourning and their organ into the voice of those that weep[15]; the most wicked Burchard left with the agreement of his companions, hoping to flee the land but found himself unable to do so, though only his own wickedness prevented him. On his return to the castle of one of his intimate friends he was seized by the king’s command and suffered exquisite torture in death. Tied to the upper part of a high wheel, exposed naked to the greediness of crows and other birds of prey, his eyes torn out and his whole face lacerated, pierced by a thousand blows from arrows, lances and spears, he perished miserably and his body was thrown into a sewer[16].  

Bertold, the brains behind the plot, also decided to flee; but when he found he was able to wander around without restriction, he returned through sheer pride; for he asked himself, ‘Who am I and what have I done?’ So he was captured by his own men, handed over to the king’s judgement and condemned to a well-merited and wretched death. They hanged him from a gibbet with a dog and as the dog was struck it took its anger out on Bertold, chewed his whole face and, horrible to relate, covered him with excrement; so, more miserable than the most miserable of men, he ended his wretched life in perpetual death.[17]

The men the king had besieged in the tower were forced by many hardships to surrender. In front of their relations Louis had them thrown out one by one from the top of the tower to crush their skulls.[18] One of them called Isaac had been tonsured in a monastery to avoid death.[19] Louis ordered him to be defrocked and hanged on a gibbet. Thus victorious at Bruges, the king rapidly led his army to Ypres, an excellent castle, to take vengeance on William the Bastard, who had fomented the treason.[20] He sent messengers to the people of Bruges and brought them around to his side by threats and flattery. Then as William barred his way with three hundred knights, half the royal army rushed against him and the other half went off at an angle and boldly occupied the castle by way of its other gate. The king kept it, William lost all claim to Flanders, and was banished. Because he had aspired to gain Flanders through treachery, it was right that he should gain nothing whatever in Flanders.  

Flanders was washed clean and almost re-baptised by these different kinds of revenge and the great torrent of blood. So having installed William the Norman as count, the king returned to France[21], victorious by God’s help.[22]

[1] Suger appears to be exact in not only his discussion of the murder of Charles the Good but on many points of detail. The murder of Charles on consecrated ground was particularly heinous and the murder of a nobleman by someone of lower social status furnishes Suger with another reminder of the dangers posed by such people when they rise in status.

[2] Galbert de Bruges Histoire du meurtre de Charles le Bon, comte de Flandre, edited by Henri Pirenne, Paris 1891 and Le meurtre de Charles le Bon, edited by J. Gengoux, Angers, 1978 are far more detailed accounts of the events of 1127-1128 and can be compared with Suger. Ross, J.B., (ed.), The Murder of Charles the Good, Count of Flanders, by Galbert of Bruges, New York, 1959 is a useful translation. Ganshof, F.-L., ‘Le roi de France en Flandre en 1127 et 1128’, Revue historique de droit français et étranger, 4e série, vol. xxvii, (1949), pp. 204-228 is essential for Louis VI’s role. Dhondt, J., ‘Les 'solidarités' médiévales. Une société en transition: La Flandre en 1127-1128’, Annales, Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations, vol. xii, (1957), pp. 529-560 with an English version: ‘Medieval Solidarities: Flemish Society in Transition, 1127-28’, in Cheyette, F.L., (ed.), Lordship and Community in Medieval Europe, New York, 1968 pp. 268-296 provide valuable context. Murray, A.V., ‘Voices of Flanders: Orality and Constructed Orality in the Chronicle of Galbert of Bruges’, Handelingen der Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde te Gent, nieuwe reeks, vol. xlvii, (1994), pp. 103-119 and Nicholas, K.S., ‘When Feudal Ideals Failed: Conflicts between Lords and Vassals in the Low Countries, 1127-1296’, in Purdon, L.O. and Vitto, C.L., (eds.), The Rusted Hauberk: Feudal Ideals of Order and their Decline, Gainesville, 1994, pp. 201-226 look at Galbert in detail.

[3] In 1086, St. Knut II, King of Denmark and father of Charles the Good, was murdered. Charles who was only three years old, was taken by his mother Adela (1065-1111) to the court of Robert I, Count of Flanders (born 1030-died 1093), his maternal grandfather. When he grew up, he became a knight and accompanied his uncle Robert II, count of Flanders (born 1065, count 1093-1111) in a crusade to the Holy Land where he distinguished himself; on their return, Charles also fought against the English with his uncle. On Robert’s death in 1111, his son Baldwin VII succeeded him and designated Charles as the heir. At the same time, he arranged for Charles’ marriage to Margaret, daughter of the Count of Clermont. During Baldwin’s rule, Charles was closely associated with him, and the people came to have a high regard for his wise and beneficent ways as well as his personal holiness. At Baldwin’s death, in 1119, the people made his cousin their ruler.  Charles ruled his people with wisdom, diligence, and compassion; he made sure that times of truce were respected and fought against those who hoarded food and the sold it at inflated prices to the people especially by releasing grain from his own storehouses during the severe famine that hit Flanders in 1124-1125.

[4] The crisis that led to Charles’ murder came from his desire to ascertain what belonged to him in human and material resources. The increasing use of the courts to settle dispute was an important characteristic of Charles’ reign and he noticed that in important cases free men refused to answer suits from the unfree or serf who were suing in the public courts. Galbert de Bruges said that Charles, despite being in Flanders for forty years was surprised that the Erembald family were serfs and he decided to disgrace them. Their status appears to have been an open secret among the leading lords in Flanders and none were particularly concerned about it until Charles raised the issue. Charles summoned his councillors, many of whom were related to the provost, which means that there were serfs in the council and that the count knew this. While the ‘old guard’ whom the count wished to destroy were of servile origin, some of the officials of the central court were free ‘new men’ who incited Charles against the Erembalds. The assassination was an attempt to forestall the count.

[5] The two leading members of the Erembald family were: Bertold or Bertulf was appointed provost of St.-Donatian of Bruges in 1091 and had been chancellor of the count and chief financial official of the count’s lands and his brother, Didier (Desiderius) Hacket castellan of Bruges before 1115.

[6] Ibid, Molinier, Auguste, (ed.), Vie de Louis le Gros par Suger, p. 111 n° 2 suggests that Louis VI may have known about the conspirators’ plans and somewhat imprecisely that Charles the Good had been allied to England ‘for several years’. There are several problems with this argument given Charles’ involvement with Louis VI in his campaigns against Henry V in 1124 and in the Auvergne in 1126.

[7] The murder took place on 2^nd March 1127 in the church of St. Donatian which was linked to the count’s house by a gallery.

[8] Formold, surnamed Burchard was the son of the Bertold’s brother.

[9] Comparison can be made with Psalms, vii, 15: ‘He made a pit and digged it and is fallen into the ditch which he made’.

[10] This seems to draw on a lost Apocalypse.

[11] The Erembalds expected the other Flemish barons who shared their own problematic ancestry to rise in support of their action, but they were badly mistaken. The attitude of the people of Bruges was ambiguous. In addition to the castellan, Bruges had a town government that could speak for the citizenry; for while their rulers allied with Gervase of Praat, a knight who led resistance to the assassins, many of the citizens seemed to favour the Erembalds whom they considered their own lords’. The Erembalds were besieged in the count’s castle in Bruges that was stormed on 19^th April. Several escaped but to a man they were hunted down and killed.

[12] Suger uses an ambiguous phrase here that could either mean that Louis did not let a war detain him or that there was no war to detain him. He may wish to have implied to former but the latter was true. Neither Henry I nor Count Theobald was at war with Louis VI at this time.

[13] When Louis first heard of the murder, he went to Arras remaining there from 9^th March until the end of the month. He arrived in Bruges on Tuesday 5^th April and found the siege well advanced. Suger provides no explanation for Louis’ delay in moving into Flanders but perhaps he did not wish to get dragged into the internal affairs of Flanders until the eventual outcome was clear and certainly he consulted his advisers on the viability of William Clito as a desirable successor. Herman of Tournai provides additional detail on why Louis stayed so long in Arras: see Appendix II.

[14] Charles the Good died childless and there was need for the succession to be established. Suger’s account not surprisingly emphasised the importance of Louis but Galbert indicated that there was both a designation by Louis and an election ‘by all his barons and those of our land’: see Ganshof, F.L., ‘Le roi de France en Flandre en 1127 et 1128’, Revue historique de droit français et étranger, 4^th series, vol. xxvii, (1949), pp. 204-228. According to Herman of Tournai, the office of count was given by Louis to William Clito. The selection of William was an anti-English act and William had previously been used by Louis on earlier occasions against Henry (chapter 26). William Clito was born at Rouen in 1101, the son of Robert Curthose. His paternal grandmother Matilda was the sister of the Robert I, count of Flanders who was the maternal grandfather of Charles the Good. He was briefly count of Flanders from 1127 until his death at St Omer on 27^th July 1128 from a wound he received at the siege of Alost five days earlier. He was married first to Sybille, daughter of Fulk V of Anjou in 1123 when she was eleven. He later married Joan, about whom nothing is known. There were no children. William Clito’s claim to Flanders was disputed by Thierry of Alsace who succeeded as count in 1128 and ruled until 1168. His mother Gertrude (1070-1117) was also a daughter of Robert I of Flanders.

[15] Job xxx, 31

[16] Taken out the outskirts of Lille, Burchard was executed in the last days of April.

[17] Bertold was arrested on 11^th April at Ypres on the orders of his accomplice William of Ypres, no friend of Louis and immediately executed. Suger’s view that he submitted to the judgement of Louis is therefore suspect.

[18] There were twenty-eight. They surrendered on 19^th April and held in the prison in the count’s house. It was from the tower of this house that they were hurled to their deaths on 4^th May.

[19] Before the capture of the others, Isaac, son of Didier Hacket had taken refuge at Saint-Jean de Therouanne. Captured on the night of 20^th March, he was hanged on 23^rd March, according to Galbert de Bruges on the orders of William of Ypres.

[20] William of Ypres was the illegitimate son of Philip of Loo, second son of count Robert le Frison. He was cousin to both Charles the Good and Baldwin VII but his illegitimacy prevented him becoming count despite having some support from Henry I of England. In 1119, on Baldwin VII’s death his mother Clementia had supported the candidacy of William of Ypres, who though illegitimate was the last descendant in the male line of Robert the Frison. The battle at Ypres took place on 26^th April.

[21] Louis VI left Bruges on 6^th May 1127 to return to France.

[22] I intend to add contrasting accounts to Suger’s after the completion of the Vita.

How he restrained the count of Auvergne from attacking the bishop of Clermont

At about the same time, the bishop of Clermont in the Auvergne[1], a man of upright character and a distinguished defender of his church, was struck down and battered by the pride of the Auvergnats, both a modern and an ancient phenomenon, for it was said of them, ‘The men of Auvergne dare to claim themselves as brothers to the Latins.’[2] He fled to the king and explained the lamentable plight of his church, that the count of Auvergne[3] had occupied the city and, with the complicity of the dean, had tyrannically fortified the cathedral of Notre Dame. He threw himself at the king’s feet, thought the king tried to prevent him, and entreated him with supplications to free the enslaved church and to restrain this furious tyranny with the sword of the king’s majesty.  

Accustomed as he was to giving very prompt assistance to churches, Louis willingly took up the cause of God, despite the great expense involved. Because he could not reform the tyrant by words or letters under the royal seal, he hastened to do it by deed, collected his military forces and led a large French army against recalcitrant Auvergne.[4] On his arrival at Bourges[5] he met various great men of the kingdom, all owing service to the crown[6], and intent on inflicting vengeance on the Auvergnats for the injury done to the church and the King: Fulk, the bellicose count of Anjou, Conan, the very powerful count of Brittany, the noble count of Nevers and many others, making up a substantial force.[7] They ravaged the enemy territory and, as they approached the city of Clermont, the Auvergnats abandoned their castles perched high on the mountain tops and came into the city for protection, because it was very well fortified.  

The French mocked their naivety, and on reflection decided to postpone their march to the city, and thus forced them either to abandon Clermont for fear of losing their castles, or to stay there and consume their provisions. The French diverted to an excellent castle at Le Pont on the river Allier.[8] They pitched their tents round about, ravaged both the plain and the mountain sides, and as they seized the excellently fortified summits of the mountains, seeming in their boldness like giants reaching for the sky, they acquired booty in superfluity, not only of flocks but also of shepherds. They brought up siege engines to the keep of the castle, and by the force of millstones and a rain of arrows compelled them to surrender after much slaughter. When the news reached those who were holding the city, they were struck by fear, and in the expectation that a similar or worse fate would happen to them, they prepared to take flight, came out of the city and left it to the king’s pleasure. The king, victorious in everything, restored the church to God, the towers to the clergy and the city to the bishop, then made peace between them and the count, guaranteeing the treaty with oaths and many hostages.[9]

But less than five years later, the peace was broken by the light-hearted treachery of the counts of Auvergne. Further disaster struck the bishop and his church, the bishop again made his complaint to the king.[10] Scorning to plead exhaustion from his previous futile mission, Louis collected an army even larger than the last one and went back into Auvergne. His body was already heavy, weighed down by a mass of flesh.[11] Any other man be he never so poor, subjected to such a dangerous corpulence, neither would not have ridden. But despite his many friends’ objections, he was filled with marvellous courage and cheerfully bore the summer heats of June and August, which even young men hate, laughing at those who could not bear them. But when crossing the marshes on narrow paths, he often had to let himself be carried on the strong arms of his soldiers. On this expedition there were present Charles, the very powerful count of Flanders, Fulk, count of Anjou, the count of Brittany, an army from Normandy in tribute from the English king Henry[12], and enough barons and magnates of the kingdom to have conquered even Spain.

Crossing by the dangerous entry into Auvergne for there were castles that barred the way, he came to Clermont. When he turned his army against the weak castle of Montferrand[13] opposite the town, the knights who were charged with its defence were so frightened by the splendid French army so unlike their own, and so astonished at the splendour of their hauberks and helmets gleaming in the sun, that they stopped short at the mere sight, abandoned the outer defences and fled, just in time for them, into the keep and its outer bastion[14]. But when the houses in the abandoned area had been set on fire, the flames reduced to cinders everything except the keep and its defence. That day the great heat from the sudden destruction of the town obliged us to pitch our tents outside; but the next day, as the flames died down, we took them inside.  

Early that morning the king had achieved something which filled us with delight though it saddened our enemies. Because our tents were pitched very close to one side of the tower, throughout the whole night they endlessly harassed us with many attacks and a constant stream of arrows and spears so bad that, despite the protection afforded by armed men posted between us and them, we had to shelter under our shields. The king ordered the excellent knight and outstanding baron Amaury de Montfort to set men in ambush at an angle to the bastion, so that they could not return to it unharmed. Skilled in such matters, Amaury and his men armed themselves in their tents and then, with all the speed of their horses they charged at an angle against the enemy, while our men pinned them down, and took some of them by surprise; these they at once sent to the king. When they pleaded to be allowed to ransom themselves at high sums, the king ordered that each should lose a hand and that thus mutilated they should be sent back to their allies within, each carrying his fist in his other fist.

After this, terrified by this treatment, the others left us in peace. While the siege machines and engines which had been built remained in place, the whole of Auvergne lay at the will and discretion of the army. Then Duke William of Aquitaine[15] arrived at the head of a large force of Aquitanians. From the mountains where he had pitched camp he saw the French forces gleaming on the plain, was amazed by the great size of the army, in his impotence he regretted his intention to fight it, and sent messengers of peace to the king. Then he came himself, to talk with Louis as his lord. His oration ran thus: ‘Your duke of Aquitaine, my lord king, salutes you many times and wishes you all honour. Royal majesty in its eminence ought not to disdain to receive the duke of Aquitaine’s service, not to preserve his rights; for if justice requires the service of vassals, it also requires that lords be just. Because the count of Auvergne holds Auvergne from me, as I hold it from you, if he commits a crime I have the duty of making him appear at your court on your command. I have never prevented him from doing this. Indeed now I offer to make him appear, and humbly beg you to accept the offer. To remove from your highness any cause to doubt me, I can give many suitable hostages. If the barons of the kingdom judge thus, so let it be; if they judge otherwise, let it be as they judge.’[16] When the king had deliberated with the barons, at the dictate of justice he accepted fidelity, the oath and a sufficiency of hostages, and restored peace to the countryside and to the churches. Then he named a day to settle the affair at Orleans in the presence of the duke of Aquitaine, a condition they had thus far refused and collecting together his army with honour, he returned as victor to France.  

[1] Aimeri was bishop of Clermont from 1111 to 1150. He had been abbot of La Chaise-Dieu.

[2] Lucan, De bello civili, I, 427

[3] William VI, count of Auvergne 1096-1136. He was born c.1069 and married Emma de Hauteville, daughter of Roger I, count of Sicily.

[4] This expedition against William VI of the Auvergne is treated out of chronological order as it occurred in 1122: ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 318. It took Louis far from Paris, about 230 miles south to Clermont-Ferrand.

[5] He arrived at Bourges a little before 3^rd August 1122: ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 317.

[6] Actually ‘debtors of the king’.

[7] The expedition into the Auvergne included three counts: Fulk of Anjou, Conan of Brittany (count since 1112 and mentioned for the first time as helping Louis) and William of Nevers. All three were to join the host at Reims in 1124. Suger uses the expression ‘regni debitores’ for them and other members of the force implying some sort of feudal obligation.

[8] Pont-du-Chateau, Puy-de-Dome is eight miles east of Clermont-Ferrand and is the southernmost point that Suger describes Louis as having gone.

[9] The expedition to the south in 1122 came after the unsatisfactory conclusion of his most recent problems with Henry I (chapter 26). Louis had some justification to be pleased with this result and a document in 1122 refers to him in Paris with his magnates triumphant over his enemies and in possession of a glorious peace.

[10] The second expedition probably occurred in the summer of 1126 and certainly before 2^nd March 1127 when the count of Flanders who accompanied Louis was killed. If the word ‘lustrum’ is used in its precise sense of a period of five years (though it can also have the sense of ‘four years’), dating the expedition to 1126 accords well with that of 1122 for Louis’ first expedition to the south.

[11] This is the first clear reference to Louis’ weight: see chapters 31 and 33 for additional ones.

[12] This was the first and only time that Henry I sent troops to serve on a French royal campaign and relations between the two monarchs was more amicable than it had been for years. The main reason for this was that Henry I had to make his mind up about the succession, something he had delayed doing since the death of William Adelin in the White Ship in late 1120. Louis VI had long been William Clito’s most powerful supporter and, as William was a possible successor Louis did not want to make any moves against the Anglo-Norman state while the issue remained unresolved. The news that Henry had decided in favour of his daughter Matilda and that oaths were sworn to her in 1^st January 1127 led to an immediate reaction from Louis. By the end of January, Louis had married his wife’s half-sister to Clito and given him a lordship in the French Vexin. This is discussed fully in Hollister, C. Warren, ‘The Anglo-Norman Succession Debate of 1126: Prelude to Stephen’s Anarchy’, Journal of Medieval History, vol. i, (1975), pp. 19-36, reprinted in ibid, Monarchy, Magnates and Institutions in the Anglo-Norman World, pp. 145-170.

[13] The castle of Montferrand is today in the north-east of the town of Clermond-Ferrand. It was built at the end of the tenth century and dominated the area.

[14] In French, the outer bastion is called ‘la chemise du donjon’.

[15] William X, duke of Aquitaine (1126-1137) and VIII count of Poitou was the son of William IX (22^nd October 1071-10^th February 1126) and Audearde of Burgundy (1050-1104) who she married in 1068. He was born in 1099 and died at Saint-Jacques de Compostelle, in Spain on 9^th April 1137. He married Eleanor of Chatellerault in 1121. His only son, William died young. His elder daughter, Eleanor (1122-1204) married Louis VI’s son Louis in 1137. We know little of his second daughter Petronille other than she died in April 1153.

[16] The duke’s words, as reported by Suger, stated an important principle: the count of the Auverge is a vassal of the duke of Aquitaine but because the duke himself is a vassal of the king, the count is ultimately answerable to the king. The concept is important in the recovery of royal power by the Capetians in the twelfth century and such a clear acceptance of it by a major vassal so distance from Paris is significant. This statement demonstrates the existence, at the beginning of the twelfth century that genuine feudal duties limited the relationship between the regional lords and the Crown.

With what valour he repelled the Emperor Henry's attempted invasion of the kingdom

But let us return to our aim, which is to write a history of the king. The Emperor Henry long nourished a grievance against King Louis because it was in his kingdom, at the council of Reims[1] that Pope Calixtus had excommunicated him. So before Pope Calixtus’s death, he collected together an army from wherever he could of Lotharingians, Germans, Bavarians, Swabians, and even Saxons although he was facing attacks from them, and pretended to send them in the other direction. But with the counsel of King Henry of England, whose daughter was his queen[2], and who had already taken the offensive against Louis, he planned to launch an unexpected coup against Reims and destroy it as the lord pope had done to him at the session of the council.[3]

When the plan was revealed to King Louis by his intimate friends, bravely and boldly he summoned a levy for which he did not wait and then he called up his nobles and explained to them the state of affairs[4]. Since he recognised, both because he had often been told and because he had experienced it, that St. Denis was the special patron and after God the singular protector of the kingdom, he hastened to his church to implore him from the bottom of his heart, with prayers and gifts, that he would defend the kingdom, safeguard his person and repel the enemy in his customary fashion. Then since the French have the special privilege that, when their kingdom is invaded from without, they may place the saint’s and defender's relics, with those of his companions, on the altar to defend them, this was done in the king’s presence with solemnity and devotion. Then the king[5] took from the altar the banner belonging to the county of the Vexin, which he held in fief of the church, and in accordance with his vow received it as if from his lord[6]. At the head of a handful of men to protect him, he flew off against the enemy, calling on the whole of France to follow him in strength. The unusual courage of the enemy stirred up righteous anger and inspired in the French their usual bravery; moving everywhere it called out knightly levies, and produced men and forces mindful of their past courage and their past victories. 

From all sides we met together in strength at Reims. So large a force of knights and foot-soldiers turned up that they seemed to cover the surface of the earth like locusts, engulfing not only the river banks but also the mountains and the plains. The king waited for a whole week for the German incursion, and after the magnates had debated the affair, this was proposed: ‘Let us boldly cross to them, in case they should return unpunished from their proud act of audacity against France, the mistress of the lands. Their defiance should meet with its deserts not in our land but in theirs, which belongs to the French. Thus we would publicly return to them the evil that they plotted to inflict secretly on us.’ 

But others, with the gravity born of experience, persuaded them to wait longer for the enemy. When they had crossed the frontier, they could be intercepted, cut off from flight, thrown down, vanquished and slain without mercy like Saracens, their barbarous bodies left unburied, exposed to their eternal shame for the wolves and crows; such slaughter and cruelty would be justified by the need to defend the country. 

Inside the palace the magnates of the realm were organising the battle lines in the king’s presence and deciding which forces should be joined together to help which. They made one corps from the men of Reims and Chalons, comprising more than sixty thousand knights and foot-soldiers; the men of Laon and Soisson, equally numerous, formed a second; those of Orleans, Étampes and Paris, with the large force from St-Denis, devoted to the crown, formed the third[7]. In hope of help from his protector, the king joined this one, explaining: ‘I shall fight both safely and bravely in this corps because, in addition to the help of our saintly lords, these are my fellow countrymen among whom I grew up well known to them; as long as I live they will help me, and if I die they will keep my body and carry it home.’ 

Although he was engaged with his uncle the English king in making was on Louis, the count palatine Theobald with his noble uncle Hugh, count of Troyes, answered the call of France and made up a forth corps[8], while the fifth, composed of the duke of Burgundy and the count of Nevers, took the vanguard. Raoul, noble count of Vermandois, the king’s cousin, outstanding both in his birth and in his chivalry, was sent to hold the right wing, with a large force from St. Quentin and the whole neighbourhood, helmeted and armed with mail[9]. The king approved the decision that the men of Ponthieu, Amiens and Beauvais should hold the left wing[10]. The most noble count of Flanders[11] with ten thousand men eager for battle, he would have tripled his army had he known earlier, was selected as the rearguard. These barons all came from lands bordering on the king’s. But William, duke of Aquitaine[12], the noble count of Brittany[13], and the bellicose count Fulk of Anjou rivalled them in zeal to punish harshly the insult against France.[14]

It was also decided that, wherever the army engaged in battle, provided the ground was suitable, wagons and carts carrying water and wine for the weary or wounded should be placed in a circle, like a castle, so that those whose wounds obliged them to withdraw from the battle could recover their strength by drinking and by applying bandages, that they might return to the fray with renewed force.  

The emperor heard the news of the preparations for this great and terrifying expedition and of the service of so great an army of strong men.[15] Using ruse and dissimulation to hide the real reason for it, he fled secretly, and stole off in the other direction, preferring to put up with the ignominy of retreat rather than expose his empire and his person, already in danger of ruin, to the harshest reprisals of the French.[16] When the French heard this, only the prayer of the archbishops and religious could with difficulty prevent them from devastating his kingdom and oppressing its poor inhabitants.  

Having gained such a great and famous victory, as great as or greater than if they had triumphed in the field, the French went home. The joyful and grateful king came most humbly to his protectors, the saintly martyrs, and gave great thanks to them after God, and restored to them with devotion his father’s crown which he had unjustly retained[17], for by right all crowns of dead kings belong to them. He most willingly returned the external Lendit fair held in the square, the one within the burg already belonged to the saints[18] and solemnly granted, confirmed by royal precept, the whole vicaria[19] between the limits marked by the crosses and the marble columns that were set up to resist the enemy like the pillars of Hercules[20]. During the whole time in which the army was called up for war, the sacred and venerable silver caskets in which lay the relics of the saints remained on the main altar. Night and day the brothers celebrated a continuous office in their honour, and crowds of devout people and pious women came to pray for assistance for the army. The king in person carried on his own shoulders his lords and patrons, and in tears like a dutiful some he put them back in their usual place. Then he rewarded them for the assistance he had received on this and other occasions, with gifts of land and other comforts. 

But the German emperor was humbled by this episode and lost strength from day to day, then died[21] before the year was out, thus proving the truth of the ancient adage[22]: anyone, either noble or commoner, who disturbs the peace of the kingdom or the church, and causes by his claims the relics to be placed on the altar, will not survive more than a year but die without delay or before the year is out.  

The English king had been an accomplice of the German, making war against Louis with Count Theobald, and conspiring to ravage or to occupy the frontier bordering his lands while the king was absent.[23] But he was repelled by one single baron, Amaury de Montfort a man with an unfaltering appetite for war, supported by the army of the Vexin. So having gained little or nothing, Henry withdrew, his hopes frustrated.  

Neither in this modern age or in antiquity has France ever accomplished a more heroic act or more gloriously demonstrated its power than when, joining all the forces of its members together, at one and the same moment she triumphed over the German emperor and, in Louis’s absence, the English king. After this, the pride of his enemies was snuffed out, ‘the land was silent in his sight’[24], and those of his opponents whom he could reach returned to their homes in grace, having given him their hands in friendship. ‘Who denies his just demands yields everything to the man with his arms held at the ready.’[25]

[1] The council at Reims took place in October 1119.

[2] Henry V married Henry’s daughter Matilda in January 1114. After his death, she married Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou.

[3] Ekkehard d’Aura, a German chronicler wrote that the aim of the expedition was to support Henry I in his war for control of Normandy.

[4] Henry V was in Worms on 25^th July 1124. On the subject of Louis’ meeting with his knights, the compiler of Manuscript F provides several important details: ‘Some argued that they should wait for the enemy, saying that it was easier to get the better of them in the heart of the kingdom while others maintained that they should fortify the estates and garrison the walled places. But the king, fearing the violence of the Germans, afraid that damage could not be repaired if the way into the kingdom was left unprotected and recognising that there was no time to put in place defences for the cities and towns said: ‘It is not enough that I must proceed. I must call without delay a levee of knights and place them on the frontier of the kingdom, like an unshakeable wall to await the enemy’.’

[5] This took place around 3^rd August 1124. The ceremony is related in a diploma of Louis VI that fails to mention the presence of Suger. This standard was originally the banner of the counts of Vexin, vassals of the abbey of St-Denis but was increasingly conflated with the oriflamme of Charlemagne. Spiegel, Gabrielle M., ‘The Cult of Saint Denis’, Journal of Medieval History, vol. i, (1975), printed in her The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography, London, 1997, p. 154 argues that ‘..the Oriflamme had the quality of a corporate image. In handing it over to Louis VI, Suger gave the monarchy a symbol of collective unity hithero lacking, but one which retained its distinctive association with the cult of St Denis. As the special ensign of St Denis, the Oriflamme represented his spiritual leadership, as Suger declared over ‘all France’.’ Only Manuscript F calls it the ‘auriflamma’.

[6] Louis had been made count of the Vexin in 1092: ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 4. Suger asserts that in 1124, in a full chapter of St-Denis, Louis had stated that he held the county as a fief of St-Denis and that if he had not been king he would have performed homage. According to Manuscript F, Louis declared that he would be required to make an act of homage to the church had not his royal office prevented him. These statements are stronger than the wording of the passage in Suger’s Vita but do not contradict it. It has been said that Suger forged a charter shortly after 1124 according to which Charlemagne gave all France to St-Denis: Barroux, Robert, ‘L’abbé Suger at la vassalité du Vexin en 1124’, Le moyen age, vol. lxiv, (1958), pp. 1-26 but the evidence for this position is not strong. By contrast, Van de Kieft, C., ‘Deux Diplômes faux de Charlemagne pour Saint-Denis au XII^e siecles’, Le Moyen Age, vol. xiii, (1958), p. 432 believes that it could not have been written before 1156 and sees Suger’s successor Odo de Deuil as the major force in its fabrication. Ibid, Spiegel. Gabrielle M., ‘The Cult of Saint Denis’, printed in her The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography, pp. 155-157 examines the importance of this forged charter or ‘Donation’ of Charlemagne in which he decreed that all kings, archbishops and bishops should venerate the monastery as the ‘caput omnium ecclesiarum regni’ (head of all the churches of the realm) and its abbot as Primate of France. In addition, Charlemagne declared that he himself held France in fief from God and the holy martyr and that henceforth the kings of France should be crowned at St-Denis and leave the insignia of their office at the abbey. The Donation asserted that St-Denis had a territorial right to France, a right to consecrate the French kings as against the claims of Reims, the position as treasurer of the royal insignia (ultimately achieved) and primacy over the French church. The language used in the charter is feudal in character and closely resembles Suger’s account of Louis VI’s assumption of the Oriflamme in 1124 when Louis also declared himself as a vassal of the saint calling the abbey the ‘caput regni nostri’.

[7] The compiler of Manuscript F gives the precise figures: ‘Ten thousand men’.

[8] Manuscript F says ‘with eight thousand’.

[9] Manuscript F says ‘with seven thousand’. The duke of Burgundy was Hugh II Borel (1102-1142) and the count of Nevers was William II (1100-1148).

[10] Manuscript F says ‘with similar numbers’.

[11] Charles the Good had been count of Flanders since 1119.

[12] William ‘the Young’ (1086-1126) was seventh count of Poitou and ninth duke of Aquitaine.

[13] Conan III (1112-1148) was called ‘the Fat’.

[14] Moreover, Fulk V was clearly reconciled with Henry I in May 1119 and Brittany was increasing within the English sphere of influence.

[15] The compiler of Manuscript F added here an interesting detail: ‘Already, with the king, they had marched to the frontiers of the kingdom and when the Germans approached in disorderly groups, they killed nearly ten thousand.’

[16] The retreat began on 14^th August and according to Manuscript F it was preceded by French attacks on his position. Ekkehard d’Aura gave two reasons for this: ‘The emperor only had a few of his troops with him because the Germans did not willingly attack foreign countries. Also, the people of Worms, with the help of Duke Frederick and contrary to the wishes of the emperor, had restored their bishop to his see and had fortified it in anticipation of a revolt within the walls of their town.’ Otto of Friesing stated that Henry went as far as Metz but retired when he learned that the people of Worms were already in revolt.

[17] This is an error. Louis did give the crown of his father to the abbey of St-Denis but the charter was in 1120, before 3^rd August in the presence of Conan the papal legate. The error was perhaps partly motivated by Suger wishing this event occurred in his abbacy rather than his predecessor Adam.

[18] Levillain, L., ‘Essai sur les origins du Lendit’, in Revue historique, vol. clv, (1927), pp. 241-267 argues that the fair belonging to the monks that was held inside the burg, had its origins in the feast held on 8^th June 1048 in honour of the relics received by the abbey in the previous year. The external fair, perhaps a result of the growth of the other was probably created by Louis VI between 1110 and 1112. It was held on plain of Saint-Denis, to the east of the Roman road on land by then royal. The two fairs became confused after 1213 with the profit of the Lendit of the plain. Lombard-Jourdan, Anne, ‘Les foires de Saint-Denis’, Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartres, vol. xclv, (1987), pp. 273-338 deals with Louis’ renunciation of the fair.

[19] The ‘vicariam omnimodan’ was a right of justice that Louis VI had already given to Saint-Denis in 1120. In 1124, he only confirmed this gift making clear its limitations. This error can be linked with the erroneous dating of the return of Philip’s crown. In both cases, there appears to be a manipulation of the evidence to highlight Louis’ grateful feelings towards St-Denis on his successful return from Reims.

[20] This is a further error. It was when Louis VI took the oriflamme before he left for Reims that Saint-Denis profited from his generosity. The king fixed the limits of the justice of the abbey from one side of the River Seine ‘from the mill vulgarly called ‘Baiard’’ to the other side ‘to the top of the town called Aubervilliers’, land encompassing the two parishes of Saint-Denis and La Courneuve. The marble columns are noted in several medieval acta and nearly all existed in the seventeenth century.

[21] Henry V died at Utrecht on 23^rd May 1125.

[22] The origin of this is unknown.

[23] Orderic Vitalis wrote that Henry I’s campaign preceded the German invasion by several months. On 26^th March 1124, near Bourghthéroulde he captured by surprise Galeran, count of Meulan and his two brothers-in-law who supported William Clito. As for Amaury de Montfort he took Rougemoutier in April or May 1124 and made peace abandoning the cause of William Clito.

[24] Maccabees I, 1, 3. This was a formula familiar to Suger.

[25] Lucan, De bello civili, I, 348-349

Pope Calixtus and the abbacy of St-Denis

About that time Paschal, sovereign pontiff of blessed memory, departed from this world to eternity[1]. His successor was the chancellor John of Gaeta[2], canonically elected pope under the name of Gelasius[3]. But Bourdin, deposed archbishop of Braga[4], was violently thrust on to the apostolic throne by the Emperor Henry, and with the support of the Roman people who had been bribed, he harassed Gelasius beyond bearing, and tyrannically forced him to depart from the Holy Sea. So, as popes had often done in the past, he fled to the defence and protection of his serene highness King Louis and to the compassion of the French church.  

As he was much distressed by poverty, he took to ship and landed at Maguelonne[5], a small island possessed only by one bishop, his clerks and a small household, with a small and isolated town that was extremely well-defended by a wall from the attacks of Saracen pirates. I was sent by the lord king, who had already heard of the pope’s arrival. I handed over letters, and because I offered him the first-fruits of the realm[6], I returned joyfully with his blessing and a date fixed for a colloquy between the two men at Vezelay.

As the king was preparing to meet him, it was announced to him that Gelasius, long sick with gout, had died[7], thus sparing both the French and the Romans trouble. Among the many religious men and prelates who hastened to be present at his funeral, and as venerable as any of them was Guy, archbishop of Vienne, noble in birth as a relation of both the imperial and the royal families, but nobler still in morals[8]. The night before he had had a vision that proved to be an accurate prediction, though he did not then understand it. He saw an important person giving him the moon from under his cloak. When he had been elected to the papacy by the members of the Roman church present, who feared that the church might be endangered by the vacancy, he understood more clearly the true meaning of his vision.

When raised to such a great position, he gloriously, humbly but actively justified the church’s rights and the more skillfully dealt with the church’s affairs, thanks to the goodwill and assistance of the lord King Louis and of Queen Adela[9], who was his niece. During the famous council he held at Reims[10], he postponed a session in order to meet and negotiate for peace with the Emperor Henry’s legates on the frontier at Mouzon.[11] But when he failed to achieve anything, he excommunicated the emperor, as his predecessors had done, in full council, before the French and the Lotharingians. Then, enriched by the monies vowed to him by the churches, he made his glorious way to Rome, where he was received in pomp by the clergy and people and happily administered the church with greater competence than many of his predecessors has shown.[12]

But he had not been long in the Holy See when the Romans, favourably impressed by his nobility and liberality, captured and held prisoner Bourdin, the emperor’s antipope, who had established himself at Sutri and had obliged all clerics passing by on their way to the apostolic see to bend their knees to him. They clothed him in untreated and bloodstained goat skins, then put this crooked antipope, or even antichrist, across the hump of a crooked camel, and led him on the royal highway through the middle of the city to publish his shame, so avenging the church’s ignominy. Then, on the order of the lord Pope Calixtus, they condemned him to perpetual imprisonment in the mountains of Campagna near Monte Cassino[13]. To keep alive the memory of such a striking act of vengeance, they had painted in a chamber of the palace a picture of him being ground beneath the pope’s feet.[14]

While Calixtus gloriously presided over the church[15] and tamed Italy’s and Apulia’s brigands, the light of the Holy See shone forth, not under a bushel but as if from a mountain top. The church of St. Peter sparkled and the other churches, both inside the city and roundabout, recovered their possessions, thankfully enjoying them under the patronage of so great a lord. When I was sent by King Louis to discuss some affairs of state with him, I met him at Bitonto in Apulia[16]. The pope received me honourably, out of reverence both for the king and for my monastery and by the persuasion of various companions, including the abbot of St. Germain, my colleague and former fellow student.  [17]

So after I had successfully concluded the king’s business I hastened to return home. Like any other pilgrim, I received hospitality in a certain estate. After matins, as I lay clad on my bed waiting for dawn, in my drowsy state I saw a vision of myself on the high sea, drifting around alone on a small boat with no oars, tossing dangerously up and down on the waves. Terrified by the wretched prospect of shipwreck, I was relentlessly interceding with God when suddenly, through divine pity, a gentle, pleasant breeze got up from the cloudless sky, turned the vibrating and endangered prow of my wretched craft in the right direction, and with incredible speed it reached the calm of harbour.   Awakened by daylight, I set off on my journey; as I went, I made a great effort to recall the vision and interpret it, for I was afraid that the tossing of the wave signified some grave misfortune for me. Suddenly I met one of my servant boys who recognised me and my companions. Both with pleasure and distress he took me aside on my own and told me that my predecessor, Abbot Adam of blessed memory, had died[18], and that I had been elected by common agreement in full chapter. But he added that since the election had been made without consulting the king, the wiser and more religious of the brothers and the nobler among the knights had been loaded with reproaches when they took the news of the election to the king for his approval and had been imprisoned in the castle at Orleans.[19] Out of humanity and piety I shed tears for the suffering of my spiritual father and teacher; the thought of his temporal death grieved me much and I implored God’s mercy most sincerely to save him from eternal death.  

I came to myself with the consolation of many companions and by my own common sense, tormented by a triple problem. If I accepted the election against the will of the lord king though in conformity with the Roman church’s commands and by the authority of Pope Calixtus who loved me, could I bear it that my mother church, which had fostered me so tenderly at her bosom with the milk of human kindness, should be vilified and cheated by two pillagers on my account? Should I permit my brothers and friends to be shamed and disgraced in a royal prison because they loved me? Ought I rather, on these and other grounds, to refuse the election and incur great disapprobation by my rejection? I was considering sending one of my men to the pope to take his advice, when suddenly these appeared a noble Roman cleric well-known to me, who undertook himself an oath to do what I had wished to do through my own men, though I would have incurred great expense. Along with the lad who had come to me, I sent one of my servants ahead to the king, to find out and report to me how the confused affair had ended, so that I should not expose myself carelessly to Louis’s wrath.

As I followed them, I felt as if I were tossing on the open sea without oars, troubled and deeply anxious about the uncertain outcome of the affair. But by the generous mercy of omnipotent God, a gentle breeze blew on the capsizing ship; unexpectedly the messengers returned to report that the king had given me his peace, had set free his prisoners and had confirmed the election. Taking this as proof of God’s will, for it was God’s will that what I wanted should rapidly occur, I arrived with God’s assistance at my mother church, which received its prodigal son with sweetness, maternal affection and generosity. There I had the pleasure to find waiting for me the lord king, whose face had turned from a frown to a smile, the archbishop of Bourges, the bishop of Senlis and many other notable churchmen.[20] To the delight of the assembled brothers, they received me solemnly with much respect; and the next day, the Saturday before the Passion I, though unworthy, was ordained a priest. The following Sunday, that of Isti sunt dies[21], I was undeservedly consecrated abbot before the most holy body of St. Denis. 

As God in his omnipotence is wont to do, the more He lifted me from the depths to the heights, ‘raising the poor man from the mire to set him among princes’[22], the more humble and devoted His gentle but powerful hand made me, as far as human weakness allowed. Knowing my inadequacy both of birth and of knowledge, He mercifully prospered me, insignificant though I am, in all things. As well as the recovery of former estates of the church, the acquisition of new ones, the extension of the church on all sides, and the construction or reconstruction of buildings, the sweetest and most agreeable, the supreme favour His mercy vouchsafed to me was the complete reform of the holy order of His holy church, to the honour of the saints and especially of Himself and the peaceful establishment of the holy rule by which men come to enjoy God, without scandal and without the customary trouble among the brothers.[23]

This powerful display of the divine will was followed by such an outpouring of liberty, good reputation and riches from the land that even in the present time, to encourage my fearfulness, it can be appreciated to what extent I have received even my temporal reward; for popes, kings and princes take pleasure in wishing the church joy, so that a marvellous stream of precious gems, gold and silver, mantles and other ecclesiastical ornaments flows in, giving me the right to say ‘with her (wisdom) all other good things have come to me.’[24] Having experienced the future glory of God, I adjure and implore the brothers who will succeed me through God’s mercy and His terrible judgement, not to permit adherence to that holy rule, by which God and man are united, to grow lukewarm; to repair it when broken, to restore it when lost, to enrich it when impoverished; because, just as those who fear God lack nothing, so those who do not, even if they are kings, lack everything, even control of themselves.  

The year after my ordination, in order to escape being accused of ingratitude, I went to visit the holy Roman church. Before my promotion, I have been very kindly received, both at Rome and elsewhere, at the many different councils I attended on business for my own church or for other churches. I had been willingly listened to, and had achieved more than I deserved. So when I hastened there, I was almost honourably received by Pope Calixtus and his whole curia. While I was staying with him, I attended a great council at the Lateran of three hundred or more bishops, convened to bring the Investiture Contest to a peaceful conclusion[25]. Then I spent six months in travelling the various holy places to pray, to St. Benedict at Monte Cassino, St. Bartholomew at Benevento, St. Matthew at Salerno, St. Nicholas at Bari, and the Holy Angels at Monte Gargano[26]. Then, with God’s help, I returned prosperous in the favour and love the pope had shown me and bearing formal letters[27].

On another occasion a few years later[28], the pope most graciously invited me back to honour me further and, as he had promised in his letters, to promote me further[29]; but when I reached Lucca, a city in Tuscany, I learned correctly that he had died[30], so I went home to avoid the ancient but always renewed avarice of the Romans. He was succeeded by the bishop of Ostia, a grave and austere man who, when he had been approved, took the name of Honorius.[31] Appreciating that my case against the nunnery of Argenteuil, dishonoured by the shocking behaviour of its young nuns, was just, as it was confirmed by the testimony of his legate Matthew, bishop of Albano[32], as well as by the bishops of Chartres[33], Paris[34], Soissons[35] and Renaud, archbishop of Reims[36], along with many others, he read the mandates brought to him by our messengers of the ancient kings Pepin, Charlemagne, Louis the Pious and others concerning St-Denis’s rights there. Then with the unanimous support of the curia, he restored the place to St-Denis, both because it was in accordance with justice and because the nuns’ conduct was appalling and he confirmed it.[37]

[1] Paschal died on 21^st January 1118.

[2] Born at Gaeta, year unknown; elected 24^th January 1118; died at Cluny, 29^th January 1119. No sooner had Paschal II died, that the cardinals, knowing that the emperor, Henry V, had already agreed with a faction of the Roman nobility to force the selection of a pliant imperial candidate, met secretly in a Benedictine monastery on the Palatine. Having dispatched a messenger to Monte Cassino, to summon the aged chancellor, Cardinal John of Gaeta (Giovanni Caetani), they turned a deaf ear to his entreaties and unanimously declared him pope. John was of a noble family, probably the Gaetani. Early in his life he entered the monastery of Monte Cassino, where he made such progress in learning and became so proficient in Latin, that, under successive pontiffs, he held the offices of chancellor and librarian of the Holy See. He was the trusted advisor of Paschal II; shared his captivity and shielded him against the zealots who charged the pope with heresy for having, under extreme pressure, signed the ‘Privilegium’, which made the emperor lord and master of papal and episcopal elections. When the news spread that the cardinals had elected a pope without consulting the emperor, the imperialist party broke down the doors of the monastery. Their leader, Cenzio Frangipani seized the new pontiff by the throat, threw him to the ground, stamped on him with spurred feet, dragged him by the hair to his neighbouring castle, and threw him, loaded with chains, into a dungeon. Indignant at this brutal deed, the Romans rose in their might; and, surrounding the robber’s den, demanded the instant liberation of the pontiff. Frangipani, intimidated, released the pope, threw himself at his feet, and begged and obtained absolution. A procession was formed, and amidst shouts of joy Gelasius II was conducted into the Lateran and enthroned.

[3] The triumph was of short duration. On 1^st March 1118, Henry V arrived in Italy. As soon as he had heard of the proceedings at Rome, he left his army at Lombardy and hastened to the capital. Gelasius immediately determined upon flight. On a stormy night, the pope and his court proceeded in two galleys down the Tiber, pelted by the imperialists with stones and arrows. After several mishaps Gelasius at length reached Gaeta, where he was favourably received by the Normans. Being only a deacon, he received successively priestly ordination and episcopal consecration on 10^th March. Meanwhile, the emperor, ignoring the action of the cardinals appointed Maurice Burdinus, Archbishop of Braga in Portugal as pope. Gelasius excommunicated both of them; and as soon as the emperor left Rome, he returned secretly; but soon decided to seek refuge in France. He went by way of Pisa, where he consecrated its splendid marble cathedral, and Genoa. He left Pisa on 2^nd October, was in Marseilles on 23^rd October and remained at Maguelonne from 15^th to 30^th November. It was at this moment that he was met by Suger who conducted him to the monastery of Cluny. Gelasius was perfecting plans for the convocation of a great council at Reims, when he succumbed to pleurisy, leaving the conclusion of the fifty years’ war for freedom to his successor, Calixtus II.

[4] Maurice Bourdin was probably from Limoges. He was a Benedictine monk who was successively arch-deacon of Toledo, bishop of Coimbra from 1098 to 1111 and archbishop of Braga from 1111 to 1114 when he was suspended because of a quarrel over precedent with the archbishop of Toledo. Coming later to Rome, he so ingratiated himself with the pope, who was also a Cluniac, that he was retained at court and employed on weighty affairs. In 1117, when Henry came to Rome to force his terms upon the pope, Paschal, safe in Benevento, sent Bourdin with some cardinals to negotiate with the emperor. This mission proved to be the downfall of Bourdin. Seduced from his Gregorian principles, he openly espoused the cause of Henry, and, to emphasise his apostasy, placed the crown upon the emperor on Easter Day 1117. He was promptly excommunicated but was marked out for promotion to the papacy by his new associates. He was elected on 8^th March and enthroned under the name of Gregory VIII. Repeatedly excommunicated and finally delivered as a prisoner into the hands of Calixtus II, he was detained in several monasteries until his death about 1137. This ended the career of a prelate ‘whom’, says William of Malmesbury in Gesta Regum Anglorum V, 434, ‘everyone would have been obliged to venerate and all to adore on account of his prodigious industry, had he not preferred to seek glory by so notorious a crime’.

[5] The island of Maguelonne is seven miles south of Montpellier and its bishop was transferred to Montpellier in 1536.

[6] In all likelihood, the money was levied to from those churches dependent on the crown.

[7] He died at Cluny on 29^th January 1119 from an attack of gout complicated by pleurisy.

[8] Date of birth c.1060; died 13^th December, 1124. His reign, beginning 1^st February, 1119, marked the end of the Investiture controversy that had raged during the last quarter of the eleventh century and the opening years of the twelfth. Guy or Guido, as he was called before his elevation to the papacy, was the son of Count William of Burgundy (c.1040-1087), and both by his father’s and mother’s side was closely connected with nearly all the royal houses of Europe. His brother Hugh had been appointed Archbishop of Besancon, and he himself was named Archbishop of Vienne in 1088, and afterwards appointed papal legate in France by Paschal II. During Guy’s tenure in this office, Paschal II, yielding to the threats of Henry V, was induced to issue the ‘Privilegium’ in 1111 by which he yielded up much of what had been claimed by Gregory VII, but these concessions were received with violent opposition and nowhere more so than in France, where the opposition was led by Guy, the papal legate. He was present at the Lateran Synod in 1112 and on his return to France convoked an assembly of the French and Burgundian bishops at Vienne in 1112, where the investiture of the clergy was denounced as heretical, and sentence of excommunication pronounced against Henry V because he had dared to extort from the pope by violence an agreement opposed to the interests of the Church. These decrees were sent to Paschal II with a request for confirmation, which they received in general terms on 20^th October, 1112. Guy was later, apparently, created cardinal by Pope Paschal, though the latter does not seem to have been too pleased with his zeal in his attacks upon Henry V. On the death of Paschal II in early 1118, Gelasius II was elected pope, but he was immediately seized by the Italian allies of Henry V, and on his liberation by the populace fled to Gaeta, where he was solemnly crowned. Henry V demanded the confirmation of the ‘Privilegium’, but, receiving no satisfactory reply, set up the Archbishop of Braga as antipope under the name of Gregory VIII. Gelasius promptly excommunicated both the antipope and the emperor, but was himself obliged to flee, and took refuge in the monastery of Cluny, where he died in late January, 1119. On the fourth day after the death of Gelasius on 1^st February, owing mainly to the exertions of Cardinal Cuno, Guido was elected pope, and assumed the title of Calixtus II. He was crowned at Vienne on 9^th February, 1119. All the sources confirm Suger’s views on the moral strength of Guy of Burgundy.

[9] One of his sisters, Gisela was married to Humbert II, count of Savoy whose daughter was Adela countess of Savoy (c.1092-18^th November 1154), wife of Louis VI. Another sister, Clemence was the widow of Robert II, count of Flanders.

[10] His election was well received everywhere. Because of his close connection with the royal families of Germany, France, England, and Denmark, it was hoped that he would be able to effect a favourable settlement of the controversy which had so long distracted the Church. Even Henry V received the papal embassy at Strasbourg, and showed clearly that he was not unwilling to sue for peace, and at the same time he withdrew his support from the antipope. It was even agreed that pope and emperor should meet at Mouzon. On 8^th June 1119, Calixtus held a synod at Toulouse mainly to promote disciplinary reforms in the French Church, and on 20^th October of the same year he opened the council at Reims (he arrived two days earlier) which had been contemplated in the preliminary arrangements made between the emperor and the papal ambassadors at Strasbourg. Louis VI and most of the barons of France attended the council that was composed of more than four hundred bishops and abbots. It had been arranged that during the council the pope and emperor were to have a personal conference at Mouzon, and in compliance with this agreement Henry V arrived at Mouzon, not alone, as had been anticipated, but with an army of over thirty thousand men. Calixtus II left Reims to attend the conference at Mouzon and was absent from 22^nd to 26^th October. However, on learning of the warlike preparations made by the emperor, and fearing that force was likely to be used to extract concessions from him, he hastily returned to Reims. Here the council dealt mainly with disciplinary regulations, especially with decrees against investiture, simony, and concubinage of the clergy. In the end, as there was no hope of a favourable compromise with Henry, it was determined that the emperor and the antipope should be solemnly excommunicated in the presence of the assembled clergy and the representatives of the secular authority on 30^th October, 1119. Before leaving France Calixtus tried to effect a settlement between Henry I of England and his brother Robert, but his efforts were without result. On the importance of the 1119 election see Chododrow, Stanley A., ‘Ecclesiastical Politics and the Ending of the Investiture Controversy: The Papal Election of 1119 and the Negotiations at Mouzon’, Speculum, vol. xlvi, (1971), pp. 613-640. Robert, U., Histoire du pape Calixte II, Paris-Besancon, 1891 remains the standard study though the recent study by Stroll, Mary, Calixtus II (1119-1123): A Pope born to rule, Brill, 2004 supersedes it in many respects.

[11] Mouzon is just south of the present French border with Belgium, about sixty miles north-east of Reims.

[12] Calixtus left France in late May 1120 and was in Rome by 3^rd June. Gregory VIII, supported by the German forces and the Italian allies of the emperor, had taken up residence in Rome, but on the approach of Calixtus, who was everywhere received with demonstrations of welcome, the antipope was obliged to flee to the fortress of Sutri, and Calixtus entered Rome amid the universal rejoicings of the populace. He went south to secure the aid of the Normans of Southern Italy in his struggle against Henry V and Gregory VIII. The negotiations were entirely satisfactory. Gregory was besieged at Sutri for eight months but was taken prisoner and escorted to Rome on 10^th April 1121, where he was with difficulty saved from the wrath of the people, and lodged in a prison near Salerno and afterwards in the fortress of Fumo. In 1121, with the help of the princes of Southern Italy, Calixtus broke the power of the Italian allies of the emperor in Italy, notably of Cencio Frangipani, who had already given so much trouble to Gelasius II and to Calixtus himself.

[13] Maurice Bourdin was first imprisoned in the Septizonium on the Palatine. In 1125, he was transferred to Janula near Monte Cassino, them to Fumo near Alatri and finally to La Cava near Salerno where he died in 1137.

[14] This picture, almost certainly seen by Suger does not exist today.

[15] Having thus established his power in Italy, he once more opened negotiations with Henry V on the question of investiture. The latter had already shown that he was anxious to put an end to a controversy which had alienated from him his best friends, and which threatened to endanger the peace of the empire. An embassy consisting of three cardinals was sent by Calixtus to Germany, and negotiations for a permanent settlement of the investiture struggle were begun at Wurzburg in October, 1121. It was agreed that a general truce should be proclaimed between the emperor and his rebellious subjects; that the Church should have free use of her possessions; that the lands of those in rebellion should be restored, and peace with the Church permanently established with the least possible delay. These decrees were communicated to Calixtus II, who despatched Cardinal Lambert of Ostia as his legate to assist at the synod that had been convoked at Worms. The synod began at Worms on 8^th September, 1122 and on 23^rd September the concordat known as the Concordat of Worms (or Pactum Calixtinum) between the pope and the emperor was agreed. The emperor abandoned his claim to investiture with ring and crosier and granted freedom of election to episcopal sees. The pope conceded that bishops should receive investiture with the sceptre, that the episcopal elections should be held in the presence of the emperor or his representatives. In case of disputed elections, the emperor should, after the decision of the metropolitan and the suffragan bishops, confirm the rightfully elected candidate. Finally, the imperial investiture of the temporalities of the sees should take place in Germany before the consecration, in Burgundy and in Italy after this ceremony, while in the Papal States the pope alone had the right of investiture, without any interference on the part of the emperor. As a result of this Concordat, the emperor still retained in his hands the controlling influence in the election of the bishops in Germany, though he had abandoned much in regard to episcopal elections in Italy and Burgundy.

[16] Calixtus II was in Bitonto in Calabria on 28^th January 1122, the date of a papal bull in which he brought the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés under his protection.

[17] Hugh IV was abbot from 1118 to 1146 and was previously a monk at St-Denis. The papal bull dated 28^th January 1122 dealt with Hugh’s demands.

[18] His death occurred on 19^th February 1122.

[19] Orleans is a considerable distance from St-Denis, about eighty-five miles to the south. Presumably the monks and knights were imprisoned there because it was there that they broke the news of Suger’s election to Louis.

[20] Bougrin (Vulgrinus) was archbishop of Bourges from 1121 to 1136 and Clairembauld bishop of Senlis from 1117 to 1133.

[21] He was consecrated abbot on Sunday 12^th March 1122 having been ordained priest the previous day.

[22] Psalm CXII, 7-8. The same terms were used by Suger in his testament in 1137: ibid, Lecoy de La Marche, A., (ed.), Suger: Oeuvres Completes de Suger, recueilles, annotées er publiées d’après les manuscrits, p. 334.

[23] The reform of St-Denis dated from 1127. Bernard of Clairvaux stressed Suger’s achievement in freeing the abbey from secular involvement but Suger here emphasises his reform of the religious life of St-Denis.

[24] Wisdom VII, 11

[25] To secure confirmation of the Concordat of Worms, Calixtus II called the First Lateran Council on 18^th March, 1123. Nearly three hundred bishops and six hundred abbots from every part of Catholic Europe were present. The council solemnly confirmed the agreement that had been arrived at with Henry V with regard to episcopal elections, and passed several disciplinary decrees directed against existing abuses, such as simony and concubinage among the clergy. Decrees were also passed against violators of the Truce of God, church-robbers, and forgers of ecclesiastical documents. The indulgences already granted to the crusaders were renewed, and the jurisdiction of the bishops over the clergy, both secular and regular, was more clearly defined. Ibid, Robert, U., Histoire du pape Calixte II, pp. 163-177 contains a translation of the canons.

[26] These were all frequent centres of pilgrimage in the medieval period. Monte Gargano was better known as a shrine to St Michael. It was probably not coincidental that St Benedict at Monte Cassino and St Nicholas at Bari had been sites of recent building programmes. As well as being a pious pilgrim, perhaps Suger was getting ideas for the works he was to undertake at St-Denis.

[27] Letters of a solemn nature addressed by a bishop to another bishop generally recommended or accredited a clergyman. The sense here seems to be very general but may refer to a papal bull from Calixtgus II dates 20^th May between 1121 and 1124 in which he requests the archbishops and bishops of France to help the abbey of St-Denis against attack.

[28] Calixtus died on 13^th December 1124 in Rome. Suger exaggerated the timescale here: ‘a few years later’ effectively meant from 1122 to 1124.

[29] There is a suggestion in Cartellieri, O., Abt Suger von Saint-Denis 1091-1151, Berlin, 1898, p. 18 that Calixtus perhaps promised to make Suger a bishop.

[30] In the last few years of his life, Calixtus II tried to secure for the Church the restoration of the whole of the Patrimony of St. Peter, which had been greatly diminished by the constant wars and rebellions; to break the power of the nobles in the Campagna, and restore peace and order to the city of Rome itself, which had suffered much since the time of Gregory VII. He also devoted much of his time to the interests of the Church of France and to combating the errors and abuses which made their appearance in France at that time. In the Synod of Toulouse in 1119, he condemned the teaching of Peter de Bruis and his followers. He established the Church of Vienne as the metropolitan church of the adjoining ecclesiastical provinces in 1120, thereby ending the ancient controversy between Vienne and Arles. Duchesne maintained that only the more recent of them date from the time of Guy. He settled several disputes between bishops and abbots in France, dispatched Gerard of Angouleme as papal legate to Brittany, and finally confirmed the primatial rights of Lyons over the church of Sens. He demanded that Henry I of England release his brother, Robert of Normandy, as well as acknowledging Thurstan, whom he himself had consecrated at Reims, as Archbishop of York. Henry at first refused, but on the threat of excommunication he agreed to admit Thurstan as Archbishop of York, and to acknowledge the latter see’s independence of Canterbury. In Spain, he transferred the metropolitan rights from the old see of Merida to Santiago de Compostella, a patron saint for whom Calixtus seems to have had a special devotion. He showed his attention to Germany by the canonisation of Conrad of Constance at the Lateran Synod in 1123 and by sending Otto of Bamberg as papal legate to regulate the Churches of Pomerania. In Rome, he devoted much attention to beautifying and improving the city, but especially the church of St. Peter. He suppressed the suburban see of Santa Rufina by uniting it with Porto, so that there were now only six cardinal-bishops instead of seven as had formerly been the case.

The great influence of Calixtus II on the policy of the Church is not disputed. Owing mainly to him the concessions so weakly made by Paschal II were recalled, and on his own accession to the papal throne, his firmness and strength of character secured a settlement of the controversy between Church and State which, though not entirely satisfactory, was at least sufficient to assure a much needed peace. He ended the wholesale bestowal of ecclesiastical offices by laymen; he re-established the freedom of canonical elections and secured recognition of the principle that ecclesiastical jurisdiction can come only from the Church. While on the other hand, he conceded to the secular authorities influence in the election of prelates who were at the same time the most powerful and richest subjects of the State. On the other hand, he was blamed at the time, principally by Archbishop Conrad of Salzburg, for not insisting upon the withdrawal of the oath of homage which every bishop was required to make to the emperor or his feudal lord, but Calixtus II well understood that unless something were conceded peace was impossible, and that the oath of homage, however improper the ceremony might seem, was not an unnatural demand on the part of the emperor in regard to subjects who wielded such an enormous political power as did the bishops of the German Empire.

[31] Lambert of Fagnano was born of humble parents at Fagnano near Imola at an unknown date and died at Rome, 13^th February, 1130. On account of his great learning he was called to Rome by Paschal II, became canon at the Lateran, then Cardinal-Priest of Santa Prassede, and, in 1117, Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia and Velletri. He was one of the cardinals who accompanied Gelasius II into exile. In 1119 Calistus II sent him as legate to Henry V, German Emperor, with powers to come to an understanding concerning the right of investiture. In October of the same year he was present at the synod of Reims where the emperor was excommunicated. He spent much of the following three years in Germany, trying to effect reconciliation between the pope and the emperor. It was chiefly through his efforts that the Concordat of Worms was agreed in September, 1123. Calixtus II died on 13^th December, 1124, and two days later the Cardinal of Ostia was elected pope, taking the name of Honorius II.

Party spirit between the Frangipani and the Leoni was evident during the election and there was great danger of a schism. The cardinals had already elected Cardinal Teobaldo Boccadipecora who had taken the name of Celestine II. He was clothed in the scarlet mantle of the pope, while the Te Deum was chanted in thanksgiving, when the powerful Roberto Frangipani suddenly appeared on the scene, expressed his dissatisfaction with the election of Teobaldo and proclaimed the Cardinal of Ostia as pope. The intimidated cardinals reluctantly yielded to his demand. To prevent a schism, Teobaldo resigned his right to the tiara. The Cardinal of Ostia however doubted the legality of his election under such circumstances and five days later informed the cardinals that he wished to resign. Only after all the cardinals acknowledged him as the legitimate pope could he be prevailed upon to retain the tiara. Soon after Honorius II became pope, Henry V, the German Emperor, died on 23^rd May, 1125. The pope at once sent to Germany two legates who, in conjunction with Archbishop Adalbert of Mainz, endeavoured to bring about the election of a king who would not encroach upon the rights of the Church. The subsequent election of Lothar, Count of Supplinburg, was a complete triumph for the Church. The new king acknowledged the supremacy of the pope even in temporal affairs, and soon after his election asked for the papal approbation, which was willingly granted. When Conrad of Hohenstaufen rebelled against Lothar and was crowned King of Italy at Monza, by Archbishop Anselm of Milan, Honorius II excommunicated the archbishop as well as Conrad and his adherents, thus completely frustrating Conrad’s unlawful aspirations.

Henry I had for many years encroached on the rights of the church in England and would not allow a papal legate to enter his territory on the plea that England had a permanent papal legate in the person of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Calixtus II had already experienced difficulties in that line. In 1125, Honorius II sent Cardinal John of Crema as legate to England, but the legate was detained a long time in Normandy by order of Henry I. He was finally allowed to proceed to England. He then went to Scotland and met King David at Roxburgh, where he held a synod of Scottish bishops to inquire into the controversy between them and the Archbishop of York, who claimed to have metropolitan jurisdiction over them. On 8^th September 1125 he convened a synod at Westminster at which the celibacy of the clergy was enforced and decrees were passed against simoniacal elections and contracts. On his return to Rome he was accompanied by William, Archbishop of Canterbury who obtained legatine faculties for England and Scotland from Honorius II, but was unsuccessful in his attempt to prevail upon the pope to surrender his right of sending special legates to England.

The pope was less successful in dealing with Count Roger of Sicily, who tried to gain possession of the lands which his deceased cousin William of Apulia had bequeathed to the Apostolic See. Honorius II placed him under the ban and took up arms against him in defence of the lawful property of the Church, but with little success. To put an end to a useless but costly war he made Roger feudatory Lord of Apulia in August, 1128, while Roger in his turn renounced his claims to Benevento and Capua. Shortly after his election to the papacy Honorius II excommunicated Count William of Normandy for having married a daughter of Fulco of Anjou on grounds of consanguinity. He likewise restored the disturbed discipline at the monasteries of Cluny and Monte Cassino where the excommunicated Abbots Pontius and Orderisius respectively retained possession of their abbatial office by force of arms. On 26^th February, 1126, he approved the Premonstratensian Order which St. Norbert had founded at Prémontré six years previously.

[32] Matthew was bishop of Albano from 1125 to 1134. He was French and had been prior of Saint-Martin-des-Champs.

[33] Geoffrey de Leves was bishop of Chartres from 1116 to 1149.

[34] Stephen de Senlis was bishop of Paris from 1124 to 1142.

[35] Josselin was bishop of Soissons and Suger dedicated The Life of Louis the Fat to him.

[36] Renaud de Martigné was archbishop of Reims from 1128 to 1138.

[37] It is difficult today to understand what precise rights Saint-Denis had over Argenteuil. Suger outlined the affair in Liber de rebus administratione sua gestis, chapter 3 and his research in the archives of the abbey suggested that St-Denis’ legal rights dated back to Charlemagne. He also used moral arguments about the conduct of the nuns and this may reflect a fundamental weakness in the legal case. Argenteuil was restored to St-Denis at a synod held at Saint-Germain-des-Prés under Matthew, bishop of Albano between 2^nd February and 14^th April 1129, agreed by Louis VI at Reims on 14^th April at the time of the coronation of his son Philip and confirmed by Honorius II on 23^rd April. The prioress since 1120 had been Heloise, the friend of Abelard and Suger has even been suspected of allowing this to influence his actions.

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]

[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.

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.  

[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.

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]

[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.

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]

[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.

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.

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.   

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.  

[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.

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]

[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

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]

[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.

Some commentators are drawing comparisons between events in 1832 with its ‘Days of May’ and the current crisis caused by MPs’ expenses.  Much as Lord Grey and ministers such as Lord John Russell and Lord Durham seized the political initiative in the aftermath of the 1830 general election to introduce fundamental political reform, so people are calling for politicians now to introduce fundamental constitutional change.  Purging Parliament of corrupt MPs and Lords may be a necessary first step but in the eyes of the people this is not sufficient.  Yet we must be careful is drawing too close comparisons with the ‘Great Reform Act’ that represented not a fundamental shift in constitutional practice but, as Grey always said, a broadly ‘conservative’ measure that extended the franchise to the middle classes but denied the same rights to working people and left in place the principle that the right to vote was enshrined not as a individual right but as a consequence of the possession of property.  It was not a case of ‘one person, one vote’.  It also demonstrated what has been the way in which our constitution had evolved, in a broadly piecemeal way.  Although the vote was made an individual right in the Third Reform Act, it was not until 1928 that all men and women over 21 had the vote and a further twenty years before the last vestiges of the pre-reform system were finally ended with the abolition of the university seats.  1832 marked the beginning of a process of constitutional change, not the end.

Since 1997 and arguably before then, there has been a chipping away of the British constitution in two important respects.  First, devolution of power to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has not been paralleled by similar developments in England.  We have not resolved the ‘West Lothian question’ and have seen a Labour government buttressed by MPs from Wales and Scotland who can vote on English issues while English MPs cannot vote on many Scottish issues, now the purview of the Scottish Parliament.  Secondly, under the guise of security from terrorism, there has been an erosion of individual rights and the emergence of a surveillance society of a considerable, though largely hidden capacity.  A major problem since 1997 has been that although the government quickly introduced some constitutional reform, it appears to have run out of steam by 2000 leaving a hybrid House of Lords.  In addition, having been promised a referendum on the European constitution, it was unwilling to do the same for the Lisbon Treaty (something justified in terms of the previous Maastricht Treaty) despite its being, in essence, that constitution.  This angered many people who felt that the government was making decisions that it had promised would be subject to further popular mandate.  This, combined with what is recognised as the growing, largely unaccountable power of central government and the creation of nominated quangos, the creatures of government patronage and today’s ‘nominated boroughs’ resulted in the MPs expenses scandal marking a political tipping-point.    Having a general election, something most people want, to replace a discredited and corrupt government, will not sort this out.  What is essential is real constitutional change.

This means a written constitution and a bill of rights and a move away from representative to participatory democracy.  No longer should the people effectively devolve their democratic rights to MPs, MEPs or local councillors and then take the opportunity to pass judgement on them in elections.  The people need to be involved in and contribute to the making of political decisions at all levels of government.  That is one of the aims of introducing Citizenship in schools and it is essential if we are to hold those elected to account. 

First, Parliament.  Make the House of Lords wholly elected by proportional representation every four years with 200 members.  This would give it a popular legitimacy it lacks and increase its ability to scrutinise and review legislative proposals from the Commons with the right to delay legislation for one parliamentary session as is currently the case.   The House of Commons should also be elected for a fixed four year term with the elected for the Lords two years into a Parliament.  I am inclined to retain the first-past-the-post system but consideration should be given to proportional representation for both Houses.  The number of MPs should be reduced to 400, something necessary because of devolution.  As I have written before MPs should be paid a salary that includes expenses.  There should also be primary elections in constituencies to decide who the candidates should be.  The Speaker should be elected every four years and can hold the office only for two consecutive parliaments. Parliament should work business hours (10-6); there is no need to retain the arcane system of Parliament sitting after lunch. 

Secondly, the government.  We should elect our Prime Minister by proportional representation.  This would maximise people’s participation and ensure that the individual elected has the broadest possible support.  The Prime Minister then chooses his or her cabinet and its members, some of whom might also be MPs or members of the Lords, sit in Parliament without a voting capacity but should be held accountable to it.  It is the government’s job to formulate policy that it needs to persuade Parliament to accept and legislate on.  This would strengthen Parliament’s power to hold the executive to account.  This is a move towards the separation of the executive and the legislature but does not take it as far as the American model.

Thirdly, the European Union.  Since an increasing amount of legislative originates in Europe, we need to reinvigorate support for the European project as a union of independent sovereign states.  We need to build into the constitution the need for a referendum (on the Irish model) for all significant changes to Europe including all constitutional treaties like Lisbon.  One reason why many people in Britain are reticent about the EU is the unwillingness of governments to give the people a say. 

Finally, local government.  It already has fixed term elections and has recently undergone a move towards a cabinet structure so I would be inclined not to alter this at present except for local government finance.  The current rating system needs to be abolished and replaced by local income tax.  This would mean that local government finance would be based on the individual’s ability to pay and, since it would be administered through the Inland Revenue, would make collection easier. 

What we need is radical not cosmetic change that takes account of people’s desire to have a greater say in the decisions that affect their lives, to be able to hold government at whatever level to account and to do so quickly.

How William, his brother-in-law, committed treason against Guy at Roche-Guyon; of Guy's death and the prompt revenge taken against William

On a sharp promontory above the bank of the great river Seine there stands a frightening and looming castle called la Roche-Guyon[1], carved out of a high rock so as to make its outside invisible. The skilled hand of hand of its builder had created, by breaking the rock in the slope of the mountain, living quarters of good size entered through a small and mean hole. One would take it for a seer’s grotto in which the oracles of Apollo are produced or the cave of which Lucan spoke: ‘For although the prophet of Thessaly did violence to the fates, it is not known whether, when she looked on the shadows of the Styx, she had called them up, or had descended to find them.’[2] Perhaps it is the route to the underworld.

La Roche-Guyon

The owner of this wicked fortress, despised equally by gods and men, was Guy[3], a young man imbued with goodness, breaking the evil tradition of his ancestors, who had decided to lead an honourable life, free from their wretched hunger for rapacity. But overcome by the evil inherent in that ill-fated place, he was most wickedly betrayed by his sinful father-in-law and beheaded, thus losing through his untimely death both the place and his life. His brother-in-law[4] William, a Norman by birth, was a traitor without equal. He passed for Guy’s closest and most intimate friend, but he ‘travailed with wickedness and hath conceived mischief. [5] At dawn[6] one Sunday, he found the opportunity for his crime. He came early to the church in a crevice of the rock next to Guy’s home, with the more devout worshippers. But he was unlike them in wearing mail beneath his cloak and being accompanied by a handful of traitors. While the others were praying he pretended to do so for a little as he calculated how to get to Guy. Then he flung himself at the entrance through which Guy was hastily coming into the church, drew his sword, and with his appalling companions gave himself up to the frenzy of his hatred; Guy was careless and would have smiled at him had he not seen the sword; William struck him, slew him and left him to perish.[7]

At the sight, his noble wife was bemused, tore her cheeks and hair like a woman distracted, rushed to her husband, careless of the danger, and threw herself on his body crying: ‘Vile murderers, slay me in my misery, for I deserve death more than he did.’ Lying on her husband’s body stopping the blows and wounds aimed at him by the swordsmen, she asked, ‘O dearest husband, how did you injure these men? Were you not, as brothers-in-law, the closest of friends? What is this madness? You are consumed by fury!’ When they dragged her off by her hair, her whole body was hacked, wounded and bloody. They murdered her husband in the most appalling way and then, finding her children, they killed them by dashing their heads against the stones with wickedness worthy of Herod.  

While they revelled in frenzy here, there and everywhere, the prostrate woman raised her wretched head, saw her husband’s beheaded corpse, and seized by love, despite her weakness she dragged her blood-soaked self across the floor like a serpent to her dead body and, as best she could, kissed him as if he were alive, then broke into a mournful chant, making her grief the best possible sacrificial offering for the dead. ‘O dearest husband, what have you left me? Surely your loving behaviour towards me did not deserve this? Surely this is not the proper complement to your rejection of your father’s, grandfather’s and great grandfather’s evil ways? Is this what you get for not plundering your neighbours and the poor, even though there was want at home?’ And no-one could separate her half-dead body from her husband’s corpse, both soaked in the same blood. 

But at least, after he had exposed them to public view as if they were pigs, the wicked William, sated in human blood like a wild animal, allowed his rage to subside. He appreciated the rock’s strength, and somewhat later began to consider how he could most forcefully plunder roundabout, how he could at will strike fear into the hearts of the French and Normans. Then he put his mad head out of the window and called the inhabitants of the land, and ignorant of any good, he promised them evil if any adhered to him. Not one single man came over to him. 

But in the morning the news of such a great crime spread not only in the neighbourhood but also to remote places. The men of the Vexin, vigorous and skilled in arms, were much disturbed by it and, each according to his strength collected together an army of knights and foot-soldiers. Fearing lest Henry, the most powerful king of the English, should assist the traitors, they hastened to the rock, posted large numbers of knights and foot-soldiers around the slope to stop anyone from going in or out, and to prevent help coming, they blocked the route to Normandy with the bulk of the army. Then they sent to King Louis news of the plot and a request for orders. 

Drawing on his royal power, Louis ordered that the plotters be punished by the most long-drawn out and shameful of deaths, and promised help if they needed it[8]. As the army surrounded William for days, growing larger each day, that wicked man began to be seized by fear. Having considered what he had done at the devil’s bidding, on the devil’s advice he summoned several of the noblest among the men of the Vexin and, in order to remain at peace on the rock, he offered them an alliance, swearing to serve the king of France most faithfully, and making many other promises. They rejected this and, intent on vengeance against the traitor whose courage was already failing, they pressed him so hard that he agreed to hand over to them the fortress he had seized, on condition that they swore to allow him some land and security in which to withdraw to it. After this arrangement had been sworn to, a few or more French were received in the castle.

The question of the land delayed their departure until the next day; then in the morning some others besides those who had sworn entered, then others followed them; and those outside set up a great roar, demanding that the traitors be taken out, or that those who sheltered them be condemned to the same fate as the traitors themselves. Those who had sworn struggled against both their rashness and fear and resisted. Those who had not sworn rushed against them and attacked them at sword-point piously murdering those impious traitors mutilating some, painfully disembowelling others and tortured them with every kind of cruelty, thinking themselves too kind. There can be no doubt that the hand of God exacted this swift vengeance. Men were thrown out of the windows dead or alive, bristling with numerous arrows like hedgehogs. They waved about in the air on the points of the lances, as if the very earth had rejected them. For the unparalleled deed of William they discovered a rare vengeance for he who in life had been heartless had his heart cut out of his dead body. When they had taken it from his entrails, all swollen with fraud and iniquity, they put it on a stake and set it up for many days in a fixed place to demonstrate the punishment for crime.  

His body and those of some of his companions, were placed on hurdles tied with cords and ropes, and sent sailing down the Seine so that, if nothing stopped them floating down to Rouen, the Normans should see the punishment incurred by his crime, and also so that those who had briefly fouled France with their stink should in death continue to foul Normandy, their native soil.

[1] La Roche-Guyon was of some strategic importance as it lay on the frontier between the lands of England and France. It is on the north bank of the Seine a few miles upstream from its junction with the Epte, about forty-two miles north-west of Paris. Suger’s strong language immediately alerts the reader to the evil that is to follow.

[2] Lucan De bello civili, VI, 651-53

[3] In 1097, Guy, lord of La Roche-Guyon and Veteuil sold his castles to the English for gold. Suger suggests that this Guy could have been his son by using the term ‘adolescens’. He was descended from the counts of Meulan and was their vassal. This may account for his involvement in the Vexin wars in the late 1090s with Robert of Meulan supporting William Rufus: see ibid, Barlow, Frank, William Rufus, p. 379.

[4] Ibid, Molinier, Auguste, (ed.), Vie de Louis le Gros par Suger, p. 53 n^o 4 discussed the marital relationship between Guy and William suggesting that while it is possible that the murderer killed his own sister who was married to Guy, it is more likely that William was married to Guy’s sister. However, in the title of the chapter William is called the brother-in-law of Guy but here he is Guy’s father-in-law and then two lines later Suger uses the term ‘gener’ that can be translated as either ‘son-in-law’ or ‘brother-in-law’. The problem may be overcome if Guy’s unnamed father-in-law planned the murder while his son William, Guy’s brother-in-law carried it out. Even so, the precise nature of the story remains unclear and Suger’s lack of clarity suggests that he did not revise the chapter.

[5] Psalm VII, 14

[6] The question is whether this refers to twilight or dawn as the term can mean either. In his description of events after the murder, Suger does not make any allusion to the darkness of the night. There are a number of parallels between the events narrated in this chapter and the later murder of Charles the Good in chapter 30, which also occurred in a church, and its results.

[7] Ibid, Molinier, Auguste, (ed.), Vie de Louis le Gros par Suger, p. 53 n^o 1 argued that the drama at La Roche-Guyon took place in 1110 or 1111. Ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 72 suggests that events took place in May 1109. However, the murder took place a little time after the meeting at Les-Planches-de-Neaufles. Henry I had returned to England and did not return until 13^th June 1111.

[8] It is difficult to explain why Suger included this chapter in his narrative in the light of Louis’ failure to involve himself personally beyond this. Louis VI allowed the knights in the Vexin to deal with the murderers because he is occupied in another part of his lands, perhaps at the siege of Le Puiset or he may have been involved in preparations for an expedition to Barcelona. It is interesting to see Louis standing off, particularly in view of possible intervention by Henry.

Of the interview between King Louis and Henry, king of the English at Neaufles

At that time[1] Henry, king of the English, happened to arrive in Normandy. He was a very courageous man, excellent in peace and war, whose great reputation had spread almost throughout the world. That marvellous if rustic prophet, the visionary and reporter of England’s eternal destinies, Merlin, loudly vaunted Henry’s excellence with elegance and truth.[2] In the course of his praise, he suddenly burst forth, as prophets do[3]: ‘There shall come forth a lion of justice, at whose roar French towers and island dragons shall tremble. In his days, gold will be extracted from the lily and the nettle and silver shall trickle from the hooves of those who bellow. The acknowledged one shall be clothed with various cloaks and the outer habit shall signify his inner character. The feet of dogs shall be shortened, the wild animals shall have peace and humanity will suffer in torment. The means of exchange will be split; half will be round[4]. The rapacity of the kite shall perish and the teeth of wolves grow blunt. Lion cubs shall be transformed into fish of the sea and an eagle will build her nest on Snowdon’.[5]

All the sayings of this great and ancient prophet apply so exactly to the king's courage both of his person and of his administration of the realm, that not one word seems out of place. What is said at the end about the lion cubs clearly relates to his son and daughter, who were shipwrecked[6] and devoured by the fish of the sea. Their physical transformation proves the truth of the prophecy. 

So King Henry, succeeding by good fortune his brother William, organised the kingdom of England, on the advice of skilled and trustworthy men, in accordance with the law of ancient kings and in order to attract popularity he confirmed by oath the ancient customs of the realm.[7] Then he sailed into harbour in the duchy of Normandy and, relying on the help of the French king[8] he settled the land, revised the laws, imposed peace by force and threatened to tear out the eyes of thieves or to hang them. These and like threats, rapidly put into effect, made a deep impression, for ‘anyone can be rich in promises’[9] but ‘the land fell silent in his presence’.[10] The Normans, fierce descendants of the Danes and devoid of desire for peace, reluctantly kept the peace, so proving the correctness of the rustic prophet’s words: ‘The rapacity of the kite shall perish and the teeth of wolves grow blunt.’ Neither nobles nor common people dared presumptuously to pillage or steal. As for what Merlin said, ‘At the roar of the lion of justice the French towers and the island dragons shall tremble.’ This was fulfilled because Henry ordered almost all the towers and fortified places of Normandy, which is a part of France, to be pulled down, or he put his own men into them and paid for them himself or, if they were already ruined, he subjected them to his will. ‘The island dragons trembled’ since none of the English barons even dared to murmur during the whole of his reign.  

‘In his days gold shall be extracted from the lily’, that is, from the religious in good odour; ‘and from the nettle’, from stinging secular people. He extracted it so that all should serve him because he profited them all. For it is safer that one man should take something from all men when he defends all of them, than that all should perish because one man has nothing. ‘Silver shall trickle from the hooves of those who bellow’ because security in the countryside means full granaries, and full granaries mean plenty of silver in full coffers. 

On this occasion, he managed to wrest the castle of Gisors from Pagan of Gisors[11] as much by flattery as by threats. This very well-fortified castle is advantageously situated on the frontier between France and Normandy, on a river rich in fish called the Epte. By an old agreement and a geometrical measurement made with measuring ropes[12], it marked out the lands of the French from those of the Danes. The castle offered the Normans an easy point of access for their raids on France, but kept the French out.[13] Had he had the chance of acquiring it, the king of France, no less than the king of England, would have tried to obtain it through the law of the land, because of its site and the protection it afforded. So Henry’s annexation of this castle fomented a sudden hatred between the two kings. The king of France asked Henry either to give up the castle or to destroy it but his request failed. And so, accusing him of having broken the treaty, he fixed a day and place for negotiations on the matter.[14]

Meanwhile, as usually happens in such affairs, the hatreds of the kings were fanned by the malicious words of their rivals, rather than damped down while it was still possible. In order to present themselves at the talks looking confident and intimidating, they increased their military muscle. Louis collected together the greater number of the French barons: Count Robert of Flanders with about four thousand men, the Palatine Count Theobald, the count of Nevers[15], the duke of Burgundy[16] and a great many others, along with many archbishops and bishops. Then he marched through the land of the count of Meulan[17], ravaging and burning it because the count supported the king of England. By such benefits he paved the way favourably for the future talks. 

When each side had collected a huge army, they came to the place commonly called Les-Planches-de-Neaufles, by the ill-omened castle where the ancient tradition of the inhabitants holds that negotiations there never or hardly ever succeed. Then the armies settled down on either bank of a river[18] that prevented passage. But after reflection, a chosen group of the noblest and wisest French crossed it by a shaky bridge so aged that it seemed likely to pitch them suddenly into the river and approached the English king.

Then the skilled orator among them who had been charged with the negotiations, without greeting the king, spoke in the name of his companions: ‘When through the generous bounty of the king of France you received the duchy of Normandy as your own fief[19], held by his generous right hand, among and before other conditions, you promised on oath in relation to Gisors and Bray[20] that, by whatever means one or other of you obtained these places, neither should keep them. Rather within forty days of their acquisition the possessor should, in compliance with the treaty totally destroy these castles to their foundations. Because you have not done this, the king orders that you should do so forthwith; or, if you refuse, make due legal amends. For it is shameful for a king to break the law, since both king and law derive their authority from the same source.[21] If your men have either forgotten the promise or pretended to forget because they did not want to declare it, we are ready to prove its truth by the clear testimony of two or three barons, according to the law of duel.’

After this speech they returned to the French king; but they did not arrive in his presence before some Normans who had followed them entered, shamelessly denying anything that could compromise their stand and asking that the case should be heard in due judicial order. Their one aim was to hold up the negotiations by some kind of delay, so as to prevent the truth from being revealed to so many great men of the realm. So even nobler men were sent back with the first envoys, who boldly offered to reveal the truth through that peerless champion Robert of Jerusalem, count of Flanders, to refute all verbal exaggeration by the law of duel, and demonstrate by force of arms on which side justice lay.[22]

The Normans neither accepted nor refused the proposition plainly. Then the magnanimous king Louis, as great of heart as of body, swiftly sent messengers to Henry requiring him to choose between destroying the castle and fighting in person against the king of France on account of his breach of faith. ‘Come’, he said, ‘let the pain of this encounter be his to whom also the glory of truth and victory belongs.’ As to the place for the duel, he decided most suitably; ‘Their host should retire from the bank of the river to allow us to cross, so that the safer place may give each greater security; or, if he would prefer, let each take the noblest men of the other army as hostages to guarantee the single combat, provided that I am permitted to cross after my army has retired. Otherwise it is not possible to go across the river.’ But some people cried out in a ridiculous jest that the king ought to fight on the shaky bridge which would instantly break; and King Louis, as light-hearted as he was bold, wanted this.  

But the English king said, ‘The matter is too unimportant for me to lose a famous and most useful castle on details like this.’ And parrying this and other suggestions, he said ‘When I see my lord the king where I can defend myself, I shall not avoid him’; for he did not want to fight in a hostile place. 

Angered by this preposterous reply, the French ‘as if the luck of place gives rise to wars’[23] rushed to arms, as did the Normans. And while each army hurried towards the river, only the impossibility of crossing prevented the great disaster of an immense massacre. Therefore they spent the day in negotiations and that night the Normans went back to Gisors, our army to Chaumont[24]. But ‘as soon as the first rays of dawn chased the stars from the sky’[25] the French, remembering the previous day’s injuries, their martial ardour at morning high pitch, set off on their fastest horses and near Gisors rushed into battle, deploying wonderful fierceness and marvellous courage. They pushed the tired Normans through the gate, and strove to demonstrate the great superiority of those long used to war over those softened by long peace.[26]

These and similar incidents were the beginnings of a war that lasted for almost two years[27], and which harmed the king of England more because, at great expense he surrounded all the frontiers of Normandy as far as the duchy extended with great garrisons for the defence of the land.[28] The king of France relied on ancient fortifications and natural defences and the valiant assistance, given freely, of the Flemish and the men of Ponthieu, the Vexin and other frontier regions. Thus he ceaselessly attacked Normandy, pillaging and burning it. When William, the English king’s son, performed homage[29] to King Louis, by a particular act of grace Louis added that castle to his fief and restored him to his former favour on that occasion.  But before this happened, this particular conflict led to much loss of life, which was punished with reprisals. 

[1] Henry’s visit to Normandy may have been connected with the accession of Louis the previous year. Ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 72 dated Henry’s arrival in Normandy as February or early March 1109.

[2] The prophecies attributed to the poet and seer Merlin were known through the fourth book of Historia Britannum of Geoffrey of Monmouth recently written while Suger was writing his life of Louis VI. Orderic Vitalis 4: 490 reproduces the passage which he applied to Henry I but Geoffrey of Monmouth is generally regarded as its author. The original version was written not long before Henry’s death in 1135.

[3] Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae, vii, 3  

[4] Suger is here alluding to the half-penny that had recently become an important coin in circulation.

[5] It is highly probable that Suger’s ‘montem Aravium’ is Snowdon. In Welsh it is called ‘Mynydd Eryri’ of the mountain of the eagles. The correct Latin form would be ‘mons Ararium’.

[6] The wreck of the White Ship on 25^th November 1120 robbed Henry of his only legitimate heir William Adelin married to Matilda of Anjou, Richard and Mathilda, countess of Mortagne

[7] This is a reference to Henry I’s coronation oath: the text can be found in Douglas, D.C. and Greenaway, G.W., (eds.), English Historical Documents, vol. ii, 2^nd ed., London 1981, pp. 432-434. For the administrative reforms introduced in England by Henry I, see Green, Judith, The Government of England under Henry I, (Cambridge University Press), 1986.

[8] With the agreement of Prince Louis, but not of King Philip who recognised unlike his son that this would cause future problems. The conquest of Normandy was the result of the battle of Tinchebrai fought between Henry and his brother Robert Curthose on 28^th September 1106.

[9] Ovid, De Arte Amandi, I, 444

[10] Maccabees I, chapter i, 3

[11] At the age of around fifty, in 1123, Pagan with the agreement of King Louis made a futile attempt to retake his castle. Henry I stripped him of all his goods and Pagan took holy orders at the abbey of Saint-Martin de Pontoise.

[12] This is an allusion to the ropes that usually served to mark the boundaries between pieces of land. The river Epte had formed the border between the French and Norman Vexin since the tenth century. It flows into the Seine midway between Paris and Rouen. Gisors is located on the Norman side in a small bulge in of the river towards the east, about forty miles north-west of Paris.

[13] The dates of this war between Henry I and Louis VI are unclear. Suger argues that it lasted two years from 1109 to 1111 and ended when Louis gave the castle of Gisors to William Adelin. Henry of Huntingdon says the war began soon after Philip’s death in 1108 when Henry I tried to embarrass the new king by making him surrender part of the French Vexin: Henry of Huntingdon The History of the English People 1000-1154, edited by Diana Greenway, (Oxford University Press), 2002, p. 53. Only Suger mentions the conference at Neaufles-Saint-Martin which he dated to 1109. Ibid, La Chronique de Saint-Pierre-le-Vif de Sens, pp. 148-149 supports the view that the war between England and France was especially over the castle at Gisors and Henry’s failure to do homage for Normandy. In fact, the conference did result in a truce and for the next two years Henry I and Louis VI contented themselves with attending to their own affairs: in 1110-1111 Henry feared rebellion in England and banished a number of his English and Norman vassals and made an unsuccessful effort to arrest William Clito; and Louis was concerned with dealing with rebellious vassals of his own. War only resumed in 1111 and ended with the peace of Gisors in 1113.

[14] For relations between Henry and Louis, see Hollister, C. Warren ‘War and Diplomacy in the Anglo-Norman World: The Reign of Henry I’, in Brown, R. Allen, (ed.), Anglo-Norman Studies VI: Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 1983, Suffolk, 1983, pp. 72-78, reprinted in Hollister, C. Warren, Monarchy, Magnates and Institutions in the Anglo-Norman World, London, 1986, pp. 273-290.

[15] William II, count of Nevers and Auxerre from 1100 to 1148.

[16] Hugh II, duke of Burgundy ‘the Peaceful’ was born in c.1085 and died in 1143. He succeeded his father Eudes I ‘the Red’ in March 1102. He married Matilda or Maud of Turenne or Mayenne.

[17] Robert I, count of Meulan, son of Robert ‘the Beard’ castellan of Beaumont-le-Roger, had inherited the county of Meulan from his maternal uncle Hugh III in 1092. He died on 5^th June 1118. He was a veteran of the Norman Conquest of England and had fought at Hastings in 1066. He had twin sons. Robert succeeded to his English properties and the earldom of Leicester. Waleran inherited Meulan and the Norman and French estates: see Crouch, D., The Beaumont Twins, (Cambridge University Press), 1986, 2008. Henry of Huntingdon in his Historia Anglorum v 7-8 said of Robert of Meulan that ‘At his will French and English kings would at one time be peacefully allied and at another violently embattled’, in ibid, Henry of Huntingdon The History of the English People 1000-1154, p. 118.

[18] The River Epte runs a kilometre south of Les-Planches-de-Neaufles.

[19] Louis clearly regarded Normandy as a fief but homage was not done for it until 1120.

[20] Bray-et-Lu is seventeen kilometres downstream from Les-Planches-de-Neaufles and on the left bank of the River Epte.

[21] This is an important statement respecting the theory of imperial power which represented human government as an emanation from the divine. It reinforces what Suger wrote about Louis’ coronation in chapter 14: ‘After a mass of thanksgiving, the archbishop took off his sword of secular chivalry and replaced it with the church’s sword for the punishment of evil-doers, crowned him most willingly with the royal diadem, and with great devotion bestowed on him the sceptre and rod as a sign that he must defend the church and the poor…’

[22] On trial by battle see Bartlett, Robert, Trial by Fire and Water: The Medieval judicial ordeal, (Oxford University Press), 1986, pp. 103-126.

[23] Lucan, De bello civili, IV, 661-2.

[24] Chaumont-en-Vexin is about five miles east of Gisors.

[25] Suger is here imitating Vergil Aenied, v, 42.

[26] The most notable part of Louis’ offensive was the siege of Meulan. He successfully took the castle and laid waste to the surrounding area. Ibid, Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, n° 103 placed these events at the end of 1110 or beginning of 1111.

[27] Suger is misleading here. Following the interview with Louis, Henry spent the next two years in England: see Hollister, C. Warren, ‘Normandy, France and the Anglo-Norman Regnum’, Speculum, vol. 11, (1976) pp. 202-242, reprinted in ibid, Monarchy, Magnates and Institutions in the Anglo-Norman World, pp. 17-57. A truce was concluded in May 1113 but peace was not finally made until 1120.

[28] Suger is certainly exaggerating here. Henry had done well in the war and had won over Anjou by betrothing his son William Adelin to the daughter of the Angevin count. The peace terms of 1113 were also highly favourable and Louis is not reported to have raised the vexed question of Henry’s homage. Indeed, Louis conceded to Henry the right to receive homage from the count of Anjou (for Maine) and the count of Brittany. However, Henry’s position in Normandy was far from secure. William Clito had a persuasive legal claim to the duchy and remained free. As a viable pretender to Normandy and England, Clito was an obvious focus for French, Flemish, Angevin and domestic opposition to Henry I. The 1113 truce avoided any mention of the feudal bond between Louis and Henry and did not commit Louis to future support of Henry’s rule or William Adelin’s succession. Louis was therefore free to give his support to Clito whenever he chose. Re-establishing the feudal relationship with France therefore became a means for Henry to limit the actions of Clito for Louis would be morally bound to support him against all opposition or at the very least not give active support to Clito. It took four years of war for Henry to achieve this objective.

[29] This too is rather misleading. The events in this chapter began in 1109 and Suger describes the war that developed immediately out of the incident at Planches-de-Neaufles as having lasted for nearly two years whereas in fact it occurred between 1111 and 1113. He then locates William’s homage immediately after. However, in 1115, Henry I invested his son William with the duchy of Normandy and it seems likely that Louis VI only ceded Gisors to the young prince in return for an act of homage and a money payment between 30^th May and 29^th September 1120: Achille Luchaire, Louis VI le Gros, Annales de son vie et de son règne, Paris, 1890, n° 298. William’s homage is mentioned by William of Malmesbury but not by Orderic Vitalis and constituted a major breakthrough for Louis VI as William I, William II and Henry I had all apparently not rendered homage for the duchy. Henry I consciously did not use the ducal title at all and simply ruled as ‘rex Anglorum’, a practice followed with one exception by his own chancery. Even in 1120, Henry managed to win the full benefit of Louis’ lordship while escaping the responsibility and embarrassment of personal vassalage and homage done by the heir to the English throne. This was a precedent that was followed by king Stephen’s son Eustace to Louis VI in 1137 and to Louis VII in 1140.

Of the Capture of La Ferte-Baudoin and the freeing of the Count of Corbeil and Anselm of Garlande

Louis, now king of France by the grace of God, could not forget the lessons he had learned in youth of defending churches, protecting the poor and needy and working for the peace and defence of the realm. 

Guy the Red[1], mentioned above, and his son Hugh de Crécy[2], an intelligent young man of valour but made for rape and arson who was quick to disturb the whole kingdom, both persisted in detracting from the king’s dignity on account of the bitterness[3] they felt at the shameful loss of the castle of Gournay. Therefore Hugh chose not even to spare his brother Odo, Count of Corbeil[4], because he would give him no help against the king; so he ambushed him, exploiting his simplicity. One day, Count Odo decided to hunt peacefully on his own property, when the foolish man discovered what kind of realities and hopes a blood relationship can give rise to, once corrupted by envy. For he was captured by his brother Hugh, shackled and chained in the castle of La Ferté-Baudoin[5], and not allowed to escape, even if he had been able to unless he would make war on the king. 

In the face on this singular madness, large numbers of the inhabitants of Corbeil (for that castellany was rich in knights of ancient families) fled to the refuge offered to all by the crown. Kneeling at the king’s feet, with tears and sobs they told him of the count’s capture and its cause and begged and prayed Louis to set him free by force. When Louis’ promise of help gave them hope of his release, their anger cooled and their sorrow was eased. They turned to the question of the means and forces they had to recover their lord. La Ferté-Baudoin belonged to Hugh, not through hereditary right but because of his marriage with the Countess Adelaide, whom he had then repudiated while keeping the castle.[6] Some men of La Ferté therefore entered into negotiations[7] with those of Corbeil and swore to let them into the castle, though they took precautions. 

Persuaded by the men of Corbeil, the king hastened there with a handful of household troops to avoid arousing too much attention. It was late and the men in the castle were still chatting around their fires, when those who had been sent on ahead, the seneschal Anselm of Garlande[8], a very brave knight and about forty armed men, were received at the gate which had been agreed, and made vigorous efforts to capture it. But the garrison, surprised by the neighing of the horses and the inopportune noise of the knights rushed to oppose them. Because the entrance was narrow by the enemy’s gates, those who had entered could neither go forward nor back at will. This allowed the defenders, encouraged by their position, to cut down very easily those in front of the gates. The attackers, oppressed by darkening shadows and by their unfortunate position, could no longer sustain their attack and retreated to the outer gate. But the very courageous Anselm, sacrificing himself in retreat, could not beat the enemy to the gate. He was captured and imprisoned in the tower of the castle, not as its conqueror but as a captive along with the Count of Corbeil. Their misery was equal, though their fears were different; for one feared death, the other only disinheritance; so it might aptly have been said of them: ’Carthage and Marius consoled each other on their destinies.’[9]

When the shouts of the fugitives reached the ears of the hastening king, angry that he had been delayed and diverted by the difficulties of the dark night, he sprang on to a very fast horse and rushed to help his men by boldly attacking the gate. But he found the gate locked, and repulsed by a hail of arrows, spears and stones, he withdrew. The grief-stricken brothers and relatives of the captured seneschal fell at his feet, crying: ‘Have pity glorious and courageous king, for if that wicked and abandoned man Hugh de Crécy, sated with human blood, can lay his hands on our brother either by coming here or by having him taken to him, he will throw himself at his throat without the least thought for the penalty that would await him if he consigned him to sudden death. For he is more ferocious than the most ferocious of men.’[10]

Moved by their fear, the king at once surrounded the castle, blocked the roads which led to the gates, built four or five barriers around it and deployed both the kingdom’s and his own resources for the capture of the captives and the castle. Hugh was at first been delighted by the capture of Anselm, but was now terrified of the prospect of losing him and the castle. Anxiously he planned to leave the castle by any means; both on horseback and on foot he disguised himself, now as a jongleur, now as a prostitute.  

One day as he was giving his whole attention to this, he was spotted from the castle and jumped upon. Unable to fight off the murderous attack, he sought safety in flight. Suddenly William[11], brother of the captured seneschal, a knight of outstanding valour, among others in pursuit but ahead of them by the speed of his horse and his own determination, rushed at him and tried to cut off his retreat. Hugh recognised him by his great speed and brandished his lance often in his direction, but not daring to delay on account of his pursuers, he set off in flight. He was of matchless skill. Had it been possible for him to have fought in single combat, he would have displayed his great daring either in winning the trophy for the duel or in facing death. Unable to avoid all the villages in his path or the inevitable attacks of the approaching enemies except by a trick, he passed himself off as William of Garlande; he cried out that he was being pursued by Hugh and invited others, in the name of the king, to bar his pursuer’s path. By these and other tricks, thanks to quickness of tongue and courage of heart, he was successful in flight and so one man laughed at many. 

Neither this nor any other reason drew the king away from the siege he had begun. He tightened the blockade and harassed the garrison. He continued attacking until he forced them to surrender to his power, after a secret assault was led by his knights and assisted by the treachery of some of the garrison. In the commotion, the knights fled into the keep. They were concerned only to save their lives, not to evade capture. For once shut up there, they could neither protect themselves adequately nor get out by any means. In the end, after some had been slain and others wounded, they gave themselves and the castle up to the king’s will, with the approval of their lord. And so ‘Both dutiful and wicked in one and the same action’[12] he restored his seneschal to himself, a brother to his brother and their count to the people of Corbeil, displaying both prudence and clemency. Of the knights who were in the castle, some he disinherited, seizing their goods and some he condemned to lengthy imprisonment. By this harsh punishment, he intended to deter others. By this great victory, won through God’s aid against the hopes of his enemies, he increased the revenues of the crown.[13]

[1] Guy, count de Rochefort, called the Red because of the colour of its hair was the brother of Miles: see a genealogical table of the families of Montlhéry and Rochefort in ibid, Fliche, A., Le reign of Philippe I^er, p. 321, n^o 2.

[2] Crécy-en-Brie is about thirty miles east of Paris on the Grand Morin.

[3] Suger puns on Guy de Rochefort’s nickname ‘the Red’ (rubeus) and his being ‘reddened with shame’ (erubescentia) when he lost the castle at Gournay.

[4] Odo, count of Corbeil (died c.1112) was the son of Adélaïde de Crécy and Bouchard II of Corbeil. Suger later tells of the death of Bouchard in the 1080s in a battle with Stephen, count of Blois in chapter 20. This creates a problem as Odo and Hugh had the same mother, Adélaïde de Crécy. Most writers accept that Adélaïde married Guy of Rochefort after Bouchard’s death that must have occurred in 1082-1083 as Hugh de Crécy was already around twenty-five by 1107.

[5] La Ferté-Baudoin is the modern La Ferté-Alais about forty miles south of Paris on the river Essone.

[6] Suger is confused between Hugh, son of Adelaide de Crécy and Guy of Rochefort, her husband, father of Hugh.

[7] Manuscript F uses the term ‘opprimebat’ at this point. All the other manuscripts use ‘opimabat’. The first suggests that there was an unwritten alliance between the burgesses of Corbeil and those of la Ferté-Baudoin, an example of the nascent hostility between lords and burgesses. The others do not suggest this was the case.

[8] Anselm de Garlande, count of Rochfort (1069?-1118) became seneschal a little before Louis became king perhaps because of the quarrel between king Philip and Louis and Guy de Rochfort in the summer of 1108 after the events at Gournay. He married [unknown] de Montlhery and their daughter Agnes de Garlande died in 1143. She was married to Amaury III de Montfort in 1120.

[9] Lucan, De bello civili, II, 91-92

[10] They were brothers-in-law; Anselm de Garlande was married a sister of Hugh de Crécy

[11] William de Garlande was seneschal between 1118 and 1120, after the death of Anselm.

[12] Ovid, Metamorphoses III, 5

[13] The siege of La Ferte-Baudoin occurred in the last months of 1108 probably in December. Ibid, La Chronique de Saint-Pierre-le-Vif de Sens, pp. 146-147 states that the siege took place ‘per nives, per grandines, in tempestates hiemales’: ‘in snow and storms, at the heart of winter’.

Most people, perhaps apart from those MPs who seem to be in denial, agree that the present system of expenses for MPs is unacceptable.  The rules governing allowances appear capable of being interpreted by MPs and by those who approved payment of allowances in ways that for most of the general public beggar belief!  ‘I was only following the rules’ like the far more serious Nuremberg defence of ‘only obeying orders’ has no ethical justification at all.  ‘Flipping’ is not only morally repugnant but potentially fraudulent.  So abolish MPs’ allowances and make them live on their salaries.  This should end the public anger evident since we actually now know about how the whole system has been abused by some less than honourable members.

We do not want to go back to a system when only the wealthy became MPs and it is essential to a vibrant democracy that we encourage the brightest and most committed people to enter Parliament.  To do this we have to recognise that MPs should be paid a reasonable salary, that they need to live in London during the parliamentary session if their constituency is a distance from London and that they need to travel to and from their constituencies for constituency business each week.  We also need to recognise that there are occasions when their work as MPs involves them in additional expenses. 

To achieve change in the existing corrupt system, the solution is to recognise that the MPs’ salaries should have three components.  The first component is their salary as an MP currently set around £64,000.  Secondly, the question of a living allowance while in London.  If you live in Inner or Outer London, this should not be paid.  Beyond that, there should be an across the board figure to cover only the cost of accommodation or the state provides accommodation itself and no living allowance is paid.  Finally, travel should be based on the cost of second-class rail travel.  If MPs want to travel first-class or use other means of transport then they would have to cover any additional cost themselves.   What we need here is a reverse of the London allowance with travel bands across the country so that MPs further away from London have a higher travel component.  The overall effect of this would be to increase an MP’s overall salary to between £85,000 and £90,000 a year but there would be no second home allowance or expenses for fixtures and fittings and renovations.  Finally, the annual increase in MPs’ total salary should be based on the Retail Price Index, so no need for an annual review.   This may seem difficult to justify in the midst of recession but it is a perfectly transparent system and would be significantly cheaper than the existing system of salary plus allowances.  The only additional allowance that I would permit is for additional expenses necessary only for their work as MPs but that this would have to be agreed with the independent auditors in advance and all receipts submitted.  This would impose a fiscal control over expenses that currently does not exist.  In addition, MPs expenses should be published quarterly as in the Scottish Parliament so that we can see what the additional money is being spent on.

One further way of reducing the cost of the House of Commons would be to reduce the number of MPs.  Devolution has made this into a justifiable proposition.  While this is particularly the case with Scotland, there is also a strong case for some reduction in Wales and Northern Ireland.    

Of his solemn elevation to the throne

Prince Louis, who had in youth earned the friendship of the church by his liberal defence of its rights, had aided the poor and the orphaned, and had subdued tyrants by his might[1], with God’s assistance was elevated to the kingdom by the vows of good men, though had it been possible, he would have been excluded by the machinations of evil and impious men.[2]

After reflection it was decided, principally on the advice of the venerable and very wise bishop of Chartres, Yvo, that there should be an immediate assembly at Orleans to foil the plot of those impious men, and to accelerate his elevation to the throne. So Daimbert, archbishop of Sens, who had been invited, came with his provincials, Galon bishop of Paris, Manasses of Meaux, John of Orleans, Yvo of Chartres, Hugh of Nevers and Humbaud of Auxerre[3]. On the feast of the invention of the holy protomartyr Stephen, the archbishop anointed Louis with the most holy oil of unction[4]. After a mass of thanksgiving, the archbishop took off his sword of secular chivalry and replaced it with the church’s sword for the punishment of evil-doers, crowned him most willingly with the royal diadem, and with great devotion bestowed on him the sceptre and rod as a sign that he must defend the church and the poor, and various other royal insignia, to the delight of the clergy and people.  

Louis had just taken off his festive ornaments after the ceremonies, when suddenly bearers of evil news arrived from the church at Reims, carrying letters of protest and had they but arrived in time would have prevented the royal unction from taking place by papal authority. For they declared that the first fruits of the royal coronations belonged totally by right to the church of Reims, and that St. Remigius had obtained this prerogative, entire and uncontested, from the first king of the Franks, Clovis, when he baptised him. Anyone who dared rashly to violate this would be struck by perpetual anathema[5]. Their archbishop, the venerable and elderly man Ralph the Green, had incurred the king’s acute and dangerous displeasure because he had been elected and enthroned without the royal assent[6]. Therefore they hoped either to make his peace with the king or to put off the coronation. Since they arrived too late, they held their peace at Orleans, though they had much to say when they returned home but what they said achieved nothing.[7]

[1] Suger pauses, at this important point in his narrative to reiterate what is by now a familiar theme, a variant of which occurs at the beginning of the next chapter. He is a firm believer in repetition.

[2] Ivo of Chartres drew up, following the practice of the pope and bishops, a written justification for the speed of the coronation away from Reims. He pointed out that there were precedents for coronations in cities other than Reims, that there was a need for haste because of the state of the kingdom and the peace of the church and suggested that a ‘disturbers of the kingdom’ sought to push aside Louis in favour of Philip de Mantes, son of Bertrade de Montfort. Although Suger’s account suggests that the succession was relatively straightforward, Louis did appear to have certain problems. Although he had been linked with his father in kingship, he had not been consecrated and this appears to have encouraged some unrest. Ibid, La Chronique de Saint-Pierre-le-Vif de Sens, pp. 148-149 said that the duke of Normandy, count of Poitiers, the duke of Burgundy and many other counts refused to do homage to the new king in an unverifiable account. Henry I of England refused to do homage for Normandy though this was less a denial of Louis’ right to the French throne than an attempt to remove himself and Normandy from a vassal relationship. The resolution of Louis’ problems appears to have come not from his consecration as king but his energetic military campaigns against those who opposed him.

[3] Daimbert, archbishop of Sens from 1098 to 1122; Galon, bishop of Paris from 1104 to 1116; Manasses, bishop of Meaux from 1103 to 1120; Jean II, bishop of Orleans 1096 to 1135; Yvo, bishop of Chartres from 1091 to 1116; Herveus (Hugh IV did not succeed him until 1110), bishop of Nevers from 1099 to 1110; Humbaud, bishop of Auxerre from 1095 to 1115.

[4] Louis was anointed crowned on Monday 3^rd August 1108, in Orleans on the feast of the discovery of the relics of St Stephen less than a week after his father’s death on 29^th July.

[5] Coronations of Capetian monarchs normally took place in Reims as in the case of Henry I in 1027, Philip I in 1059, Louis’ own sons Philip and Louis in 1129 and 1131 respectively and Philip II in 1179. Reims claimed not only the right to crown kings but the subordination of the abbot of St-Denis as well. It was believed, accurately that the baptism of Clovis occurred at Reims and when Louis’ father Philip had become king, the archbishop of Reims had claimed the right to ‘elect’ and consecrate him: see Lewis, Andrew W., Royal Succession in Capetian France, Cambridge, Mass., 1981, pp. 46, 52-54.

[6] There is a further possible reason for the coronation being held away from Reims. On the death of archbishop Manasses in 1106, Ralph the Green, treasurer or provost of the cathedral of Reims, had been elected by the majority of the cathedral chapter in 1106. However, the king and especially Louis, who had not been consulted, held this election was invalid and supported another candidate, Gervaise de Rethel, elected by some of the canons. However, Gervaise was rejected by the Council of Troyes on 23 May 1107 and ended up leaving the church to succeed his father as count de Rethel. In these circumstances, a coronation there would have been difficult for Louis. Ivo of Chartres and Lambert of Arras interceded for their episcopal colleague and at Christmas 1108 Ralph, contrary to the teachings of church reformers, swore fealty to Louis; he died in 1124.

[7] Reims comes out badly in Suger’s telling of the story though he clearly had his own agenda.

Of the death of King Philip

While the son grew daily in strength, his father King Philip[1] daily grew feebler. For after he had abducted the Countess of Anjou[2], he could achieve nothing worthy of the royal dignity; consumed by desire for the lady he had seized, he gave himself up entirely to the satisfaction of his passion. So he lost interest in the affairs of state and, relaxing too much, took no care for his body, well-made and handsome though it was. The only thing that maintained the strength of the state was the fear and love felt for his son and successor[3]. When he was almost sixty[4], he ceased to be king, breathing his last at the castle of Melun-sur-Seine[5] in the presence of the Lord Louis.

Several venerable men were present at his funeral: Galon, bishop of Paris[6], the bishops of Senlis and Orleans[7], Adam of blessed memory, abbot of St-Denis, and many other religious persons. They carried his royal body to the church of Notre Dame[8] and spent the whole night in obsequies. The next morning, his son ordered the bier to be covered with a woven pall and suitable funeral ornaments and to be borne on the shoulders of his principal servants. Then with proper filial affection, in tears he accompanied the bier, sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback, with those barons whom he had with him. He showed great nobility in that, throughout his father’s life he took great care not to offend him, either on account of his own mother’s repudiation or of his marriage with the Countess of Anjou. Unlike other young men in similar circumstances, he chose not to upset his father’s control of the kingdom by being disloyal in any way.[9]

They carried the body in a great procession to the noble monastery of St-Benoit-sur-Loire[10], where King Philip wished to be buried[11]. There are those who say they heard from his own mouth that he deliberately chose not to be buried among his royal ancestors in the church of St. Denis (which was almost by natural law the royal mausoleum), because he had not treated that church as well as they had and because among so many noble kings his own tomb would not have counted for much. So he was laid to rest as fittingly as they could before the altar in that monastery and commending his soul to God with hymns and prayers, they covered the tomb with magnificent jewels. 

[1] Suger’s portrayal of Philip I is negative in character and this makes the contrast with Louis more effective.

[2] Bertrade, daughter of Simon I de Montford and Agnes d’Evreux had become countess of Anjou in 1088 by her marriage to Fulk Rechin. Philip I abducted her on the night of 15^th May 1092.

[3] Philip I has often been viewed unfavourably by historians, in large part because of Suger’s unfavourable portrait of him. However, Philip I did make significant territorial gains during his reign and he was the first Capetian to ensure that his lands were not bequeathed to all his children as in noble families but retained for the benefit of the eldest son. At the first marriage of his eldest daughter, Constance Philip ceded the village of Attigny as dowry to her husband, who retained it after the marriage was annulled. But her second and Cecile’s first marriages were to foreign princes and required no dowry in land. His eldest son by Bertrade was ceded Mantes in 1104, land already ceded to Louis in 1092 and their younger son Florus was bequeathed nothing that is known. Given that Philip inherited his father’s and grandfather’s acquisitions of Sens, Melun and Dreux to which he added his own of the Gâtinais, the Vexin and Bourges, his provision for his younger children was slight.

[4] Philip I was almost certainly fifty-six years old. He died on 29^th July 1108.

[5] Melun is upstream on the Seine about twenty-eight miles south-east of Paris.

[6] Galon was elected bishop of Paris about July 1104. He favoured church reform and was known to Pope Pascal II, who had sent him as legate to Poland in 1102.

[7] Hubert, bishop of Senlis from 1099 to 1115; Jean II, bishop of Orleans from 1096 to 1135

[8] The Church of Notre Dame, in the L’Ile quarter in Melun can be dated to the late tenth or eleventh century.

[9] It is important not to take this statement at face value for we know that King Philip did quarrel with his son. Philip only associated Louis with the throne around 1100 after considerable hesitation. It should not be forgotten that Suger wrote a panegyric for his royal friend.

[10] The abbey of St-Benoit-sur-Loire at Fleury is upstream on the river Loire about twenty miles east of Orleans. It had strong royal connections as it was there that Helgaud wrote his account of Robert ‘the Pious’ (996-1031). The abbey claimed to possess the relics of its patron.

[11] On 20^th May 1108, Philip had been at the monastery for the translation of the saint’ relics and had offered to the monks a box of gold decorated with previous jewels: ibid, La Chronique de Saint-Pierre-le-Vif de Sens, pp. 150-153. Also after 3^rd August 1108, Louis VI gave St-Benoit-sur-Loire a gift for the soul of his father: Prou, M. and Vidier, A., (eds.), Recueil des chartes de l’ abbaye de St-Benoit-sur-Loire, Paris, 1905, vol. 1, p. 248, n^o ciii.