Chapter XII: The Later Reign of William in Normandy.159 (4)

The fame of William was no doubt widely spread by this series of successful exploits and stratagems, and his direct influence was distinctly increased by his receiving the homage of the Count of Ponthieu in one direction and [Sidenote: Extension of his frontier towards Anjou.] of the Lord of Mayenne in another. It would seem also that this was the time when William made, in conformity with the licence granted him by King Henry,[485] a further acquisition of Cenomannian territory at the cost of the Count of Anjou. It was not unimportant to him to extend his power as far as might be in the district through [Sidenote: 1049.] which he had, six years before, made his famous night-march from Domfront to Alençon.[486] At a short distance west of Alençon, and south-west of the episcopal town of Seez, the Sarthon, a small tributary of the Sarthe, was the boundary between Normandy and Maine. The Duke now took possession of a point beyond the frontier stream; a castle and town arose, which were entrusted to the care of Roger of Montgomery. It lay in the near neighbourhood of the hereditary possessions of his wife, and from her the new bulwark of Normandy was honoured or disgraced by the name of the Rock of Mabel.[487]

[Sidenote: Three years’ peace. 1055–1058.]

The strength of William’s enemies seems to have been nearly exhausted by their late efforts, or else their courage was chilled by the ill success of their arms. For three years Normandy saw neither rebellion nor foreign war. William thus had time to devote himself either to the prosecution of his vengeance, or to the vindication of ecclesiastical discipline, in the deposition of his uncle the [Sidenote: 1055.] Primate Malger.[488] This took place in the same year as the campaign of Ambrières. After that date, besides the Duke’s quarrel and reconciliation with Lanfranc,[489] there is nothing to recount till, three years later, we come to another, and the last, invasion of Normandy by the combined [Sidenote: Last French and Angevin invasion. August, 1058.] forces of France and Anjou. Geoffrey, the old enemy, was, we are told, ever ready to strike a blow at Normandy,[490] and no doubt the memory of his late losses rankled in his mind. Another great expedition was planned and carried out. In August, when the corn was on the ground,[491] the King and the Count entered Normandy in the quarter most convenient for a junction of French and Angevin forces, in William’s own County of Hiesmes.[492] Their design was a systematic plundering expedition through all Normandy west of the Seine. They were to pass through the district of Hiesmes into the land of Bayeux and Caen; then they were to cross the Dive and, after harrying Auge and the district of Lisieux, to return home with their plunder.[493] Above all things, they were to reach the sea in the districts both west and east of the Dive, and to show that the upstart Duke of the Pirates could no [Sidenote: William’s scheme of defence. He waits at Falaise till the enemy reach the Dive.] longer keep his liege lord barred up in an inland prison. The scheme was laid, and one half of it was carried out. William determined not to attack the invaders on their entrance into his Duchy. His plan was to wait for a favourable moment when he might smite them on their return, gorged with the plunder of his subjects, and no doubt with their discipline and their energy not a little relaxed. He gathered his knights, not indeed for immediate action; he gave orders for the strengthening of castles and the cleansing of their fosses; and then, leaving the open country exposed to the ravages of the enemy, he waited in his own stronghold of Falaise for the moment which [Sidenote: Advance and ravages of the French.] he knew would not fail soon to come.[494] The French and Angevin host entered Normandy, and passed through the land burning and plundering in the usual fashion. They took the town of Hiesmes, which gave its name to the County. They then marched on to Saint Peter on the Dive; they occupied the whole town, and the King was lodged at the great Abbey, then in all the freshness of its new foundation by the pious Lescelina of Eu.[495] They then struck westward, ravaging the whole Bessin; but the city itself, as well as the various castles of the district, seems to have remained untouched. The sea-coast especially, the land of William’s faithful Hubert, was harried as far as the mouth of the Seule. The enemy then marched in a [Sidenote: Caen as yet unfortified.] south-easterly direction to Caen. That town was growing in importance, but as yet it neither contained anything which could withstand the attacks of an enemy nor anything which was likely to remain to later days as a memorial of his visit. Caen was as yet undefended by walls or castle;[496] the foundations of the two great Abbeys which are its chief glory were as yet not laid. Whatever Caen then consisted of, it was certainly sacked, most likely burned. King Henry and Count Geoffrey had now successfully carried out one half of their scheme of ravage. They had now to cross the Dive, and to carry fire and sword into the other half of the doomed region.

The moment for which William had so long been waiting had at last come. His policy had been in some sort a cruel policy for his Duchy; but it now enabled him to strike a vigorous and decisive blow at the retreating enemy. French warfare in Normandy was destined to be successful only when the banners of King and Duke floated side by side. King Henry had shared in the triumph of Val-ès-dunes; his men had been smitten by William’s men in the ambush of Saint Aubin and in the surprise of Mortemer; he had now himself to feel the might of William’s own [Sidenote: They reach the Dive at Varaville.] hand in the second surprise of Varaville. In their march eastward the French had reached the village of that name, the point which had been chosen for their passage across the Dive into the land of Auge. Varaville, now, and probably then, only a small village, lies north-east of Caen, a little way from the left bank of the old frontier stream. It was an old battle-ground of France and Normandy. On that spot, or at least in that neighbourhood, it was that King Harold of Denmark and King Lewis of France had met face to face; [Sidenote: 945.] it was there that the Karling had found his master in the valiant heathen who came to defend the last planted outpost of his race.[497] And now another King of the French, of another line, of another speech, and another royal city, came to undergo an overthrow yet more ignominious at the hands of a Norman Duke who could now hold his own independently alike of French and of Danish help. Varaville was seemingly an usual point for crossing into the lands on the right bank [Sidenote: Description of the spot.] of the river. The contrast between the two sides of the Dive is here very striking. On the left, the side of Varaville, the land is flat, and it was in those days doubtless a mere marsh. A causeway, which still exists, and which is maintained as a modern road, leads from the village to a point where the stream has for many ages been crossed by a bridge, but which, in the eleventh century, seems to have been known only as a ford.[498] Here the French army was to pass over to the opposite side, the land of Auge. There, within the original settlement of Rolf, the country is of quite a different character. The right bank of the Dive is backed at a short distance by a range of hills of height considerable enough to form a very marked object in any country not strictly mountainous. They form in fact a bold and picturesque range, stretching right away to the seashore. Over these hills the army had to make its way into the rich land of Lisieux. [Sidenote: The French vanguard crosses the river.] The vanguard, under the command of the King, had already begun to climb the heights, when unexpected sounds from the rearward smote on their ears. From the high ground of Bastebourg,[499] commanding a view of the whole valley, King Henry turned round only to behold the [Sidenote: William’s march.] utter discomfiture of his host. The Duke of the Normans had laid his plan with all the subtlety of his wily brain, and he was now carrying it out with all the might of his irresistible arm. He had watched the spot, he had watched the hour, which the enemy seem not to have watched, and he came upon them at the very moment when he was able to strike a deadly blow with most effect, and at the same time once more to avoid the necessity of meeting his lord face to face in battle. William knew every movement of the enemy; when the right time was come, he marched forth from Falaise with such troops as he had kept around him, and summoned all the peasantry of the district to join them. They came, armed as they were able to arm themselves, with clubs, darts, anything; no sort of warrior, no sort of weapon, was unfit to bear a part in the enterprise [Sidenote: BATTLE OF VARAVILLE. August, 1058.] which William now designed. He marched in stealth up the valley by Bavent, and reached Varaville in the very nick of time.[500] The King and his vanguard were, as we have seen, far ahead; the long baggage train, rich with Norman spoil, and the whole rear-guard of the army, were still on the left bank. The tide was flowing in, and it soon became impossible to cross. The French stood in perplexity, one half of the army finding itself utterly cut off from the other half.[501] In a moment Duke William was upon them. Every weapon known to Norman warfare was at once in its fullest activity; the lance and the sword of the knight on his destrier, the club and dart of the peasant on foot, [Sidenote: First mention of the Norman archers.] were all alike plied against the unlucky Frenchmen. And along with these older arms, we now hear for the first time of another weapon, destined to be, above all others, terrible and deadly upon a more awful field. For the first time in our story, the thunder-shower of the Norman arrows[502] is heard of as carrying dismay and slaughter among the ranks of the enemy. And no enemy could well be more helpless than those on whom knights, archers, clubmen, were now called on to display their prowess. Encumbered as they were with their baggage train, huddled together on the long, narrow, neglected[503] causeway, resistance [Sidenote: The French rear-guard cut to pieces.] was almost impossible. A desperate effort carried the foremost among them to the banks of the river; but, except to skilful swimmers, the ford was impassable because of the tide. Multitudes fell into the water and were drowned; the surface of the Dive was soon covered with floating bodies and harness.[504] Others strove to escape how they might among the ditches and paths of the marshy shore. They cast away their weapons, and blundered on hopelessly through the unknown and treacherous country. The Normans, knowing the ground, followed, and cut them down without mercy. Of the whole rear-guard of the French army not a man is said to have escaped. All were slain, or taken captive, or swept away by the waters.

[Sidenote: King Henry sees the slaughter from the hills.]

It must not be forgotten that all this went on under the eye of the King of the French—and doubtless of his Angevin ally also—who was looking down from the high ground which the vanguard had already reached. Beneath him in full view lay the plain, the causeway, the stream, the marshes, where the work of death was going on. Like Xerxes, Henry beheld his subjects cut in pieces before his eyes; but unlike Xerxes, he was at least eager to go to their help. The Norman poet tells us how the King saw his men speared and shot down, some struggling in the waters, some bound and borne off as captives.[505] His limbs trembled, his face was hot with rage, he was eager and yet unable to strike a blow or take any step for the rescue of his unfortunate soldiers. In a moment of desperation he proposed to descend the hill, and to seek for some other spot where he might cross the river, and do something at least to avenge, if not to rescue, his rear-guard.[506] But he had men around him who knew the hopelessness of [Sidenote: His retreat.] such an attempt. Their counsels persuaded him to submit to a fate which he could not resist, and to march with all speed out of the Norman land with the half of his army which was still left to him.

[Sidenote: Peace with France; Tillières restored to Normandy.]

The battle, or rather massacre, of Varaville was the last act of the wars between William and Henry. The King was now growing old, and he might well think that he had had enough of Norman warfare. He presently brought himself to ask for peace, and to offer as its price the restoration of the famous fortress of which he had deprived William in his childhood. The terms were accepted; peace was made, and Tillières, so long lost to Normandy, became [Sidenote: Death of Henry. 1060.] once more a bulwark of the Norman frontier.[507] Henry did not long survive this happy ending of this long struggle. Two years afterwards he died. His death was attributed to poison, seemingly accidentally administered.[508] He left his Crown to an heir still under age. The mother of the new [Sidenote: His Russian marriage.] King had been brought from a distant land. Henry saw the difficulty of finding any wife among the princely houses of Western Europe who was not related to him within the forbidden degrees; he was specially warned by the troubles which his father had undergone through his first uncanonical marriage.[509] He therefore sought for a bride in a land among whose princes there was little fear of any kindred or affinity with a King of the French. He married Anne, the daughter of the Russian Duke Yaroslaf.[510] The princes of Russia boasted of a connexion with the Emperors of the East;[511] and the happy ambiguity of the Macedonian name[512] had led the great dynasty which was founded by a Slavonian groom to identify itself with the ancient Kings of Pella and Edessa. The Russian princess brought with her into France the ancient Macedonian name of Philip, and her son became the first of a long line of Kings, princes, and nobles, through whom a name hitherto unknown to Western Europe became one of [Sidenote: Coronation and accession of Philip the First. 1059–60.] the most renowned in French history. In the last year of his father’s lifetime, the young Philip was, according to several precedents, crowned at Rheims, and the ceremony was attended by most of the great vassals of his Kingdom.[513] We do not however hear whether the Duke of the Normans so far honoured his youthful overlord as to make one of the illustrious assemblage. But the ties between Normandy and France were now for a time drawn much more closely than before. Henry had chosen the nearest ally of William as the guardian of his son and as the [Sidenote: Baldwin of Flanders Regent of France.] Regent of his Kingdom. During the minority of the young King, the government of the royal domain was placed in the hands of William’s father-in-law, the “mighty Marquess”[514] of Flanders. Baldwin honourably fulfilled his trust towards France, and we need not say that he kept the peace towards Normandy.[515]

The same year which beheld the death of King Henry beheld also the death of the most inveterate enemy of Normandy among his great vassals. The Angevin chroniclers significantly cut short the Norman warfare of Geoffrey Martel, a sure sign that, however much Norman vanity may have exaggerated in detail, the general result of the struggle cannot have been greatly misrepresented. [Sidenote: Last days and death of Geoffrey Martel. 1060.] Geoffrey’s last days seem to have been clouded over by ill-success in other quarters. He indeed recovered the city of Nantes from Hoel of Britanny.[516] But we also read of his being besieged by his step-son, Peter or William of Poitiers, in the castle of Saumur, on the steep which looks down, not on the Varenne or on the Mayenne, but on the mighty Loire itself.[517] The siege was raised through the sudden death of the Aquitanian prince,[518] and we hear of no further [Sidenote: His dominions divided between his nephews, Geoffrey and Fulk Rechin.] exploit on the part of Geoffrey of the Hammer. On the day before his death he assumed the monastic habit,[519] and, as he left no sons, he divided his dominions between the two sons of his sister Hermengarde, the wife of Alberic, Count of the Gatinois. To his namesake Geoffrey, surnamed the Bearded, he left Anjou and Saintogne, while Fulk Rechin, already known to us as one of our authorities for Angevin history, received the city and county of Tours.[520] Normandy was thus delivered from both her enemies. In her next warfare we shall find her seeking, not merely to defend her borders, but to extend them.

[Sidenote: Coincidence of the Battle of Varaville with Harold’s
journey. 1058.]

It may be worth notice that the great invasion of Normandy which ended, so disastrously for the French, in the rout of Varaville, happened in the very year in which there is every reason to believe that Earl Harold made his remarkable journey to examine into the political state of Gaul.[521] His inquiries might perhaps lead him to different conclusions, according as his visit happened before or after the utter discomfiture of Henry and Geoffrey. Yet the campaign of Varaville could do little more than add one more to the many proofs that William was a foe whom no [Sidenote: Harold’s possible negotiations.] enemy could afford to neglect. I have already hinted that the mysterious words of Eadward’s Biographer[522] might perhaps be taken as implying that Harold sought the friendship, if not the actual alliance, of the King or of some of his great vassals, as a support in case of any hostile movements on the part of Normandy. If this be so, we may see in the almost contemporary deaths of so many French princes a reason why such negotiations bore [Sidenote: Changes in the aspect of Gaul by the deaths of Geoffrey Martel and King Henry.] no fruit. King Henry, Geoffrey Martel, William of Aquitaine, all died within two years after Harold’s journey. By their deaths the political state of Gaul was altogether changed, and changed in a direction altogether favourable to William of Normandy. William of Aquitaine was the only one of the three who had a successor at all likely to act as a check upon any designs of his Norman namesake. Guy, Geoffrey, or William, whichever we are to call the prince who made so hasty a flight from Moulins,[523] was not likely to cherish much love for William of Normandy, but he seems to have been mainly occupied by wars with Anjou, and by an expedition into Spain, in which last, by some means or other, he was followed by Norman warriors.[524] In any case his solitary help could be of little service. If Harold hoped to meet any attack on England on the part of William by a diversion in his rear in the form of a joint attack of his continental neighbours, the chance of organizing such a confederacy died with King Henry and Geoffrey Martel. Under the Regency of Baldwin the Court of Paris became the closest ally of Normandy, and the new Count of Anjou seems to have been fully occupied at home. We hear of him chiefly as engaged in asserting certain novel claims over the Abbey of Marmoutiers,[525] and as having, at the very crisis of the fate of England, to defend his dominions against his brother Fulk.[526] He was therefore by no means likely to bear a part in any schemes of policy which reached [Sidenote: England’s lack of continental allies.] as far as Britain.[527] The death of the Emperor Henry a few years earlier had deprived England of another friend. She had in short no continental ally left except Swend of Denmark. I merely throw out these remarks as vague hints on a very obscure subject; but it certainly is striking that the intentionally mystified language of the Biographer should admit of an interpretation which falls in so well with the state of things at the particular moment of Harold’s journey.

§ 3. _The War of Maine. 1060–1064._

The main interest of this period of William’s reign gathers round his great conquest of the Cenomannian County and City. But before we enter on the narrative of that campaign, a few events in the internal history of his Duchy may be usefully cleared out of the way.

William was already beginning to show himself, in the words of the English Chronicler, beyond measure stark to all who withstood his will.[528] The unrestrained exercise [Sidenote: Banishment of various Norman nobles.] of power seems to have wrought its usual bad effect. We now begin to find a prince who had hitherto been distinguished for clemency to rebellious enemies meting out, to say the least, somewhat hasty sentences against some of the chief men of his dominions. We presently find him giving ground for suspicions, unfounded as they doubtless were, that he had learned to stoop to the base trade of the poisoner.[529] Several of his nobles were banished about this time, and every account seems to describe them as banished without just cause, through the false accusations of envious persons. Among these false accusers Roger of Montgomery and his wicked wife Mabel stand pre-eminent.[530] The first recorded victim was Ralph of Toesny, whom we have seen as, according to one account, the bearer of the news of the defeat of Mortemer to the French King.[531] He was banished; but he must have returned within a few years, and he had his share in the Conquest of England. We may say the same of Hugh of Grantmesnil, one of the joint founders of Saint Evroul.[532] The banishment of Arnold of Escalfoy is not wonderful, as both he and his uncle Robert seem to have ventured on open rebellion. They seem even to have taken the Angevin side against their country, either in the wars which have been already described, or in some of the border skirmishes which no doubt still continued. Robert defended his castle against [Sidenote: Mysterious death of Robert the son of Geroy. 1060.] the Duke, and he died by a strange and suspicious death in the year which carried off King Henry and Count Geoffrey. He sat one day in a merry mood by his winter fire with his wife Adelaide, a kinswoman of the Duke. She had four apples in her hand; he snatched two from her in jest; he [Sidenote: Adventures and death of Arnold of Escalfoy. 1063.] ate of them and died.[533] His nephew Arnold succeeded him, and for three years he carried on a devastating warfare in the neighbourhood of Lisieux.[534] He then made peace with the Duke, on condition of going to the wars in Apulia.[535] After a while he returned, but only to die by poison administered to him through the plots of the ruthless daughter of William Talvas.[536]

[Sidenote: Banishment of Abbot Robert of Saint Evroul. 1063.]

Another person who now fell under the Duke’s displeasure was Robert of Grantmesnil, brother of Hugh, and co-founder, and now himself Abbot, of Saint Evroul. He was now deposed and banished by William. I forbear to enter on the interminable details of the negotiations for his restoration, from which I shrank at an earlier stage of my Norman history.[537] But two points are of importance. It is made a distinct charge against William that he ventured to depose a churchman without the sentence of any ecclesiastical Synod, and seemingly without any form of trial at all.[538] One account also distinctly says that the Duke’s motive was hostility to Robert’s family.[539] It is hard to judge on such slight evidence; but it is to be noticed, on the one hand, that William’s special panegyrist is silent on the whole subject of these banishments, and on the other that William’s ecclesiastical government is the part of his character in which we should least readily look for an unworthy motive.

[Sidenote: Synod of Caen. 1061. Ordinance of the Curfew.]

The fortunes of an Abbot bring us once more within the ecclesiastical circle. In the year after King Henry’s death, in a Synod held at Caen by the Duke’s authority, and attended by Bishops, Abbots, and Barons, it was ordered that a bell should be rung every evening, at hearing of which prayer should be offered, and all people should get within their houses and shut their doors.[540] This odd mixture of piety and police seems to be the origin of the famous and misrepresented curfew. Whatever was its object, it was at least not ordained as any special hardship on William’s English subjects.

[Sidenote: The CONQUEST of MAINE. 1063.]

We now come to that great acquisition of William’s arms and policy which ranks in the annals of his reign next to the Conquest of England itself. The various fortunes, the takings and the retakings, of the city of Le Mans and its County, form a constantly recurring subject throughout the remaining history of William and of his sons. And the object struggled for was worthy of the [Sidenote: Old Norman claims over Maine.] struggle. The land and city over which William was now about to extend his long dormant claims was a prize which became one of the proudest jewels in his continental coronet. The Duke of the Normans, even the King of the English, thought it no scorn to add to those loftier titles a third which dated from this earlier conquest. [Sidenote: Beginning of Norman aggrandizement on the Continent.] As Prince or Count of the Cenomannians, William began the first of those stages of continental aggrandizement, which, before another century had passed, extended the sway of the sovereign of England and Normandy from the Orkneys to the Pyrenees, and made him master of the mouths of the Loire and the Garonne no less than of those of the Seine and the Thames. The work had been begun by the conquest of Domfront and Ambrières; it was now to be extended over the whole of the land which lies between [Sidenote: History of Maine.] Normandy and Anjou. A long history, princely, municipal, and episcopal, forms the annals of the Cenomannian [Sidenote: The ancient Cenomanni in Gaul and Italy.] state and city. The Cenomannian tribe[541] was illustrious in the earliest legendary history of Gaul; it shares with the Senones the credit of that ancient colonization in Italy which brought Rome so near to her downfall.[542] But it had no part in the actual beleaguering of Rome by the Senonian [Sidenote: Their close connexion with Rome.] Brennus. The Cenomanni beyond the Alps were ever found among the faithful allies of Rome, just as their mother state remains to this day proud of the relics of Roman dominion. Even during the storm of the Hannibalian War, the Cenomanni remained faithful to the Republic.[543] Their metropolis is perhaps less prominent in the pages of Cæsar than we might have looked for; still the name [Sidenote: The Cenomanni of Gaul support Vercingetorix.] of the tribe occurs among those who sent their contingents to the host of Vercingetorix.[544] Under the Roman domination, we are told that Cenomannia was among the first parts of Gaul to receive the Christian faith, and the local [Sidenote: Early preaching of Christianity.] legend traces that line of Bishops which became so famous in after days up to the very days of the Apostles. [Sidenote: Succession of Bishops of Le Mans.] In the days of Nerva and Trajan the Cenomannian Church was founded by Saint Julian, whose name still lives as the patron of the cathedral of Le Mans. Unlike most of his [Sidenote: Legend of Saint Julian.] apostolic brethren, the crown of martyrdom was not destined for him. He died in peace, having fully organized the local Church, and having been aided in all things by his convert the local Prince Defensor.[545] In this last mythical personage we of course see a personification of the _Defensores Civitatis_, the local Tribunes, under the later [Sidenote: Special ecclesiastical and popular elements in the history of Maine.] Roman and early Frankish rulers.[546] This early friendship between the Bishop and the local magistrate not inaptly prefigures a state of things with which William himself had to contend. The vast power of the local Church sometimes combined with the popular element of the city to [Sidenote: Maine under the Frankish Kings; a march against Bretons and Northmen.] withstand the more distant sovereign.[547] I pass lightly over the days of the Merwings and the early Karlings. In those times the name of Cenomannia, city and district, appears over and over again, as a post of importance, an outpost against Breton enemies and afterwards against Scandinavian invaders.[548] It was not uncommonly placed in the hands of members of the royal house.[549] But these intermediate times do less to illustrate the events with which we are immediately concerned than the history or legends of the earliest days. These last, mythical as they may be, are at least happily invented to adorn the beginnings of a state which so long remained at once so intensely Roman and so intensely ecclesiastical.

[Sidenote: Maine in the tenth century.]

The history of Maine and Le Mans with which we are immediately concerned begins in the tenth century. We have [Sidenote: Alleged grants to Rolf, 924; to Hugh the Great, 924; and to Geoffrey Grisegonelle, 978?] seen[550] that the Norman Dukes put forward some shadow of a claim to Maine by virtue of a grant in the days of King Rudolf, at the same time that Rolf obtained his second grant, that of the district of Bayeux.[551] But the chronicler who records this fact records also a grant of earlier date, but within the same year, to Hugh the Great of Paris.[552] A grant to Geoffrey Grisegonelle of Anjou is also, on no less authority than that of Count Fulk Nerra himself, attributed, by some strange confusion of chronology, to King [Sidenote: Maine part of the Duchy of France.] Robert.[553] On the whole, there can be little doubt that Maine formed a part of the great Duchy of France, and there is still less doubt as to the rivalry and hatred which reigned between the Angevin Counts and the dynasty which we find established in Maine towards the end of [Sidenote: Rivalry of the Counts and Bishops.] the tenth century. There is as little doubt as to the position of the local Bishops, always at variance, sometimes at war, with the local Counts, but keeping up a close connexion both with the King and with the [Sidenote: Count David. 922–970?] Counts of Anjou. I do not presume to decide whether the Hugh, the David, and the Hugh-David, whom we [Sidenote: 955–1015?] hear of as reigning in Maine in the course of the tenth century, and as claiming a descent from Charles the Great, were really one prince, or two, or three.[554] But there is no doubt that a Hugh, whether surnamed after the Hebrew King or not, was reigning late in the tenth and early in the eleventh century, and that he was the father of [Sidenote: Sainfred Bishop of Le Mans. 960–994.] the better known Count Herbert. He had great disputes with Bishop Sainfred of the house of Belesme, a Prelate of whom the chronicler of the Cenomanniam Bishops draws [Sidenote: Fulk Nerra overruns Maine. 987–994?] no favourable picture.[555] He is charged with wasting the revenues of his see in grants to Fulk of Anjou and to Burchard Count of Vendôme, in order to gain their help against the nearer enemy.[556] It was perhaps through the instigation of the Prelate that Fulk invaded Maine, and brought the land and its ruler into vassalage, if not into [Sidenote: Hugh escapes from Tillières. 996–1015.] actual subjection.[557] Hugh appears also as an enemy of Normandy, as an ally of Odo of Chartres in an attempt on Tillières, and as escaping only by a mean disguise from the pursuit of its valiant defenders.[558] This must have been towards the end of his days, as the foundation of Tillières [Sidenote: Herbert Wake-Dog Count 1015–1036.] comes within the reign of Richard the Good. The enmity between the temporal and spiritual chiefs of Maine went on during the reign of Hugh’s famous son Herbert, and [Sidenote: Avesgaud Bishop 994–1036.] during the long episcopate of Avesgaud, the nephew and successor of Sainfred, and like him a member of the border [Sidenote: Herbert wars with the House of Belesme.] house of Belesme.[559] With that house, a house loyal to neither of its lords and terrible to all its neighbours, Count Herbert had much warfare, and we have come across more than one incidental mention of those wars, as affording scope for the valour and faithfulness of the house of Geroy.[560] The impression given by these stories is that the mighty Lords Marchers found the Cenomannian [Sidenote: He disputes with Bishop Avesgaud.] Count at least their match. The ecclesiastical historian implies that this warfare began by William of Belesme coming to the help of his brother the Bishop. It is certain that Avesgaud had constantly to contend against Count Herbert both by temporal and by spiritual arms, and that he called in against him the help both of spiritual and of temporal allies. At one time we find him defending the stronghold of La Fertè Bernard[561] against the Count, who could dislodge him only by the help of a Breton [Sidenote: Fulbert of Chartres excommunicates Herbert.] force obtained from Count Alan.[562] At another time he called in the help of the holy Bishop Fulbert of Chartres, the great letter-writer of the age, who, on what principle of ecclesiastical law it is not easy to see, addressed an epistle of excommunication to the Count of Maine, which brought about a temporary peace.[563] But Herbert was not afraid to measure himself against a much more dangerous enemy. It was in warfare against Fulk of Anjou, whose authority he cast aside, that he won his surname of [Sidenote: His name of Wake-Dog, from his nightly raids against Anjou.] _Wake-Dog_.[564] So constant were the nightly raids of Count Herbert that, not only in the open country, in the flat land of Anjou, but in the fortified towns of the province, nay in the city itself, in Black Angers on its steep by the Mayenne, men and dogs were ever on the alert, and ventured not to slumber.[565] These exploits must belong to the later years of his reign; for, at its beginning, [Sidenote: His share in the battle of Pontlevois. 1016.] we find him acting as an ally or vassal of Anjou at the battle of Pontlevois against Odo of Chartres.[566] Indeed the Angevin writers allow that the victory on their side was in a great measure owing to the courage and conduct of [Sidenote: Fulk imprisons Herbert at Saintes. 1026–1028.] Herbert and his followers.[567] Ten years later, we find Fulk, according to the approved custom of his house, dealing with Herbert much as his son dealt with Theobald of Chartres and with William of Aquitaine.[568] He beguiled him into a visit at Saintes, and there kept him in ward two years till he agreed to the hard conditions on which liberty was offered.[569] After an active reign of twenty-one years, Herbert died. His daughter Biota became the wife of Walter of Mantes, the elder son of Drogo and [Sidenote: Hugh. (1035–1051).] Godgifu, and nephew of King Eadward of England.[570] His young son Hugh succeeded him in the County of Maine, [Sidenote: Regency of Herbert Bacco.] seemingly under the guardianship of a great uncle, Herbert Bacco.[571] Bishop Avesgaud died on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and was succeeded in the almost hereditary Bishoprick [Sidenote: Gervase Bishop. 1036–1058.] by his nephew Gervase.[572] This Prelate was the godfather of the young Count, and he is described as his defender against his faithless uncle as well as the defender [Sidenote: He commends the Bishoprick to Geoffrey of Anjou.] of the rights of his own see.[573] He took one step however than which none could be more fatal, and one which illustrates the peculiar position of the Bishoprick. It would seem that, after all the grants that had been made of the temporal sovereignty of Maine, the royal rights over the Church of Le Mans were still in the hands of the King. Whether he held them strictly as King, or as Duke of the French, was now no longer a practical question.[574] In either case the Bishop still held, not of the local Count but of his overlord at Paris. In short, throughout the territories which had formed part of the Duchy of France, the surrender of the royal rights, especially in ecclesiastical matters, was by no means so complete as it was in the great Duchies north and south of the royal dominions.[575] The Count of Anjou or of Maine did not, after all, possess the same undivided and uninterrupted sovereignty within his own states which belonged to the Duke of the Normans. Bishop Gervase, a vassal of the King, unable to defend himself against his neighbour the Count or the Count’s guardian, receiving no help from his own lord, petitioned the King to grant the royal rights over the see, the rights of advocacy and [Sidenote: Herbert Bacco driven out and Hugh restored.] patronage, to the Count of Anjou for life.[576] The grant was made; greater strife than before arose between the Bishop and the guardian uncle; a popular movement, headed by the Prelate, expelled Herbert Bacco, and restored the young Count Hugh to his lawful rights.[577] The Prelate’s next business was to seek, like Jehoiada of old, a wife for the prince whom he had taken under his [Sidenote: Marriage of Hugh.] guardianship. He found one in the sister of Count Theobald,[578] the widow of that Count Alan of Britanny whom we have seen die of poison while besieging a Norman castle.[579] The marriage was supposed to be in some way dangerous to the interests of the Count of Anjou, and Martel now poured forth his whole wrath upon the [Sidenote: Bishop Gervase imprisoned by Geoffrey Martel. 1044–1051.] Bishop who had advised it. By some of his usual tricks, he gained possession of the Bishop’s person, and kept him in prison for seven years. As was usual with the prisoners of an Angevin Count, he had the option of obtaining his liberty by the surrender of some part of his possessions. The ransom demanded by Geoffrey was the surrender of a strong castle which was valiantly defended by the [Sidenote: His liberation demanded by the Council of Rheims. 1049.] Bishop’s soldiers.[580] A demand of the Council of Rheims for the liberation of the Prelate had no effect on the obdurate mind of Geoffrey.[581] Gervase seems all this while to have looked forward to deliverance through his godson, we can hardly say his sovereign, the Count of Maine. But at last he heard that Hugh was dead, [Sidenote: Geoffrey Martel occupies Le Mans. 1051–1061.] that Geoffrey had taken possession of Le Mans, that the citizens had received him joyfully, and had driven out the widow and children of Hugh.[582] Gervase now thought it was time to yield; he gave up his castle, [Sidenote: Release of Gervase; he takes refuge in Normandy. 1061.] but even now he only obtained his freedom on condition of never setting foot in his own city during Geoffrey’s life-time.[583] Banished in this way, he sought for shelter at the court of the Duke of the Normans.[584] It does not seem that William actively interfered on his behalf, but he gave him an honourable reception, and retained him as his guest, till a prospect was opened to the homeless Prelate of obtaining at once a higher and a more peaceful position [Sidenote: Gervase Archbishop of Rheims.] among the Prelates of Gaul. While Gervase tarried in Normandy, the primatial see of Rheims became vacant by the death of its Archbishop Guy. Gervase now obtained the first place among the Prelates and Princes of the Parisian Kingdom, and it fell to his lot to pour the oil of Remigius and Hlodwig on the head of the youthful Philip.[585]

[Sidenote: Death of Geoffrey. 1060. Herbert’s hopes revive.]

The affairs of Normandy and Maine have now become directly connected, and the connexion between the two countries becomes closer at every moment. The death of Geoffrey seemed to open to Herbert a chance of recovering the dominions which he had never possessed.[586] The years during which Le Mans was occupied by Geoffrey had been spent by the widow and children of Hugh in some part of [Sidenote: Herbert’s three sisters.] Germany.[587] Besides Herbert, Hugh had three daughters, whose marriages and betrothals are of no small moment in the history. One, Gersendis, was first married to Theobald of Chartres.[588] By him she was divorced, and this divorce [Sidenote: Gersendis, married, 1st, to Theobald of Chartres; 2nd, to Azo of Liguria.] was one of the many irregularities in that way which called down the censures of Pope Leo and the Fathers of Rheims.[589] She then made a more splendid alliance beyond the Alps. She became the second wife of the famous Azo, Marquess of Este and Liguria, renowned in his own day for his wealth, his good fortune, and for attaining, though not till long after the marriage and the death of Gersendis, the age of a hundred years.[590] By his first wife Cunegund he became the ancestor of the House of Brunswick, and the children of Gersendis of Maine produced the long line of Lords, Marquesses, and Dukes of Ferrara and Modena. How this marriage affected the history of Maine, of Normandy, and of England, we shall Another sister mother of Helias of La Flèche. [Sidenote: Another sister mother of Helias of La Flèche.] see at a later stage. Another sister married John of La Flèche, and by him became the mother of three sons. One of them bore the familiar Teutonic name of Gilbert; the two others were honoured with the patriarchal appellations of Enoch and Elijah, and the bearer of the last name, under the modified form of Helias or Helie, plays an important [Sidenote: Margaret.] part in the history of the next generation.[591] Margaret, the other daughter, who must have been many years younger than Gersendis, and of whose beauty and virtues we read rapturous descriptions, was still unmarried.[592] Herbert now [Sidenote: Herbert applies to Duke William. 1061.] addressed himself to the Duke of the Normans. William’s own days of trial and persecution were now over; he had come forth honourably out of all his difficulties; he had smitten all his enemies at home and abroad; he was now well fitted to appear either as a protector or as a conqueror. Moreover he was actually in possession of part of the Cenomannian County; all his conquests up to this time, Domfront, Ambrières, and the Rock of Mabel,[593] had been made at what might be called the expense of Herbert himself. There was no great chance of recovering them from the prince who had so vigorously clutched the straw at the moment of his birth,[594] and who in his later days as firmly refused to take off his clothes before he went to bed. But, at any rate, more might be gained by way of submission [Sidenote: He _commends_ himself to William.] than by way of aggression. Herbert therefore _commended_[595] himself to William; he became his man; he engaged to hold Maine as a fief of Normandy, according to the ancient grant which Rolf had received from King Rudolf.[596] Special terms, all favourable to the lord, were attached to the [Sidenote: Terms of the homage; William to have Maine, if Herbert died childless, and Margaret to marry Robert.] homage. If Herbert died childless, Duke William’s lordship was to be converted into immediate sovereignty; the Duke of the Normans was to become the Count of the Cenomannians.[597] But, in order that the principality might still remain to the descendants of its ancient lords, Herbert’s sister Margaret was to be given in marriage to William’s young son Robert.[598] William himself would thus be the only interloper; Robert would reign in right of his wife, and in the next generation, a descendant, if only in the female line, of Herbert Wake-Dog would again rule upon the steep of Le Mans.[599]

Whether Herbert ever obtained actual possession of his new fief does not certainly appear. If he did, his enjoyment [Sidenote: Herbert dies childless. 1063.] of it was very short. Within two years he died, and died childless. By the terms of the treaty, Maine now passed to William. According to Norman accounts, Herbert’s last breath was spent in asserting the rights of the Norman Duke, and in exhorting his friends and subjects to seek for no other as their lord. Almost forestalling the words of the English Chronicler, he warned them that the yoke of William would be light to those who accepted [Sidenote: Unwillingness of Maine to submit to William.] it willingly, but heavy indeed to those who dared to withstand him.[600] But the mass of the people of city and county were of another mind. They doubted the lightness of the Norman yoke in any case.[601] And the treaty between Herbert and William had sacrificed the rights of several members of Herbert’s family. Herbert had, as he hoped, secured the succession to the descendants of one of his sisters. But no such descendants were in being; Robert and Margaret were not married, nor seemingly even betrothed, at the time of his death. There was therefore no sort of security that, if William were once admitted, the County would ever return to the descendants of its ancient lords. Then again, though Herbert had left no male heir, he had kinsfolk in the female line whose rights were as good as those of the unborn posterity of Margaret. We read of no movements at this time on behalf either of the Marquess of Liguria or of the Lord of La Flèche, the claims of both [Sidenote: The patriotic party assert the rights of Walter and Biota.] of whom were pressed in after times. But a strong party, the patriotic party, as it would seem, throughout the province, asserted the rights of Herbert’s aunt Biota and of her husband Walter of Mantes, the nephew of Eadward of England. The city was held for them by several of the chief lords of the country, among whom we hear specially of Hubert of Saint-Susanna, and of Geoffrey of Mayenne, of whom we have already heard in the wars between Anjou and Normandy.[602] The citizens seem to have been on the same side. Of the Bishop, for once in Cenomannian history, we hear nothing. The line of Bishops of the fierce house of Belesme had come to an end, and the line of eminent Prelates appointed under [Sidenote: Bishop Vulgrin. 1058–1059.] Norman rule had not yet begun. The reigning Bishop Vulgrin was a good, prudent, and peaceful monk, whose monastic virtues had been proved by his reform of the Abbey of Saint Sergius without the walls of Angers,[603] and whose chief object at Le Mans was to rebuild the church of Saint Julian on a greater scale.[604] In this revolution then the ecclesiastical power seems to have been neutral, while nobles and citizens were united for Count Walter and against the Norman.

[Sidenote: William’s preparations for war.]

A struggle therefore could not be avoided. William was the least likely of all men tamely to give up either a real or a fancied right, or even to pass by a decent pretext for extending his power. Maine was to be conquered. But William was no more disposed to hurry in [Sidenote: His measures at home.] the business of conquest than in any other business. He began by healing a few wounds at home. It was now that he called back from banishment Hugh of Grantmesnil and Ralph of Toesny,[605] men whose offences were very doubtful, and whose services in the war were likely to be useful. It was now also that he made that agreement with Arnold of Escalfoy, by which that turbulent spirit [Sidenote: His plans for the campaign.] was sent off to the wars in Apulia.[606] The plan of the campaign was thoroughly characteristic. William saw that the prize must be his in the long run. Maine alone could not resist Normandy, and Walter’s chance of finding allies was just now not great. William’s panegyrist tells us—and we have no reason to doubt the fact—that he was anxious to win his conquest with the least possible amount of bloodshed.[607] It was a policy still more obvious to forbear to destroy or damage a noble city which he designed to be one of the chief jewels of his coronet. And it was only reasonable military foresight to avoid the risk of a rash attack on a strong fortress which might be won in [Sidenote: He determines to harry the country and to keep the attack on the city for the last.] another way.[608] The city was the main object; we see throughout that the capital was in a special manner the head of the province, that Le Mans was Maine in a sense in which Rouen certainly was not Normandy.[609] The city then was reserved by William to be the last object of attack. But the city was strongly defended by Geoffrey of Mayenne, whom Walter had made his chief adviser, and who seems to have been equally in the confidence of the citizens.[610] A hasty attack might have seriously jeoparded the success of William’s plans. His course therefore was to impoverish, and at the same time to frighten, the besiegers by a systematic harrying of the whole country. Vineyards, fields, detached houses, were everywhere [Sidenote: The country gradually subdued.] ravaged; the smaller fortified posts of the province were taken one by one; garrisons were left wherever they were called for by the scheme of the campaign;[611] the capital was left to be devoured the last. This mode of warfare gradually wore out the patience, as it weakened the resources, of the defenders of the city. At last, when well nigh every other fortress of Maine had come into [Sidenote: The city reduced to surrender.] William’s hands,[612] the citizens were reduced to submit to a surrender, and William found himself in a position to enter the city at whose possession he had been so long aiming, as a conquest won without a battle or a siege.

[Sidenote: Position and history of Le Mans.]