The Age of Chivalry

by Hywel Williams

  CHRONICLING A TIME OF CHANGE

  The fact that both Louis VI and Louis VII survive in the documentary records as real personalities owes much to the pen of the Abbé Suger of Saint-Denis (c.1081–1151), who was a significant courtier by the late 1120s and the monarchy’s chief adviser from the mid-1130s until his death. He wrote a history of Louis VII’s reign as well as a detailed account of the governmental machinery, and these works in turn inspired the monks of Saint-Denis to embark on the chronicles that give a quasi-official account of the development of the French national monarchy during the 12th century. The challenges facing the kings remained enormous, and Louis VII’s participation in the fiasco of the Second Crusade, which had to be abandoned in 1148, undermined the royal finances. But in other respects there was a real change of gear, with the city of Paris evolving both culturally and economically. The commercial quarter known as Les Halles started to operate on the right bank of the Seine during Louis VI’s reign. The marshes on the left bank were drained, and this area became the heart of a celebrated academic quartier.

  The problem of the succession had long tormented Louis VII in a manner entirely typical of his Capetian forebears. Eleanor had born him two daughters, as did his second wife Constance of Castile. It was his third wife, Adele of Champagne, who gave him the son and heir that he craved, however. In 1179, during the last year of his father’s life, Philip II Augustus was crowned at Rheims in a ceremony whose precautionary nature would have been well understood by Hugh Capet.

  * * *

  THE EARLY CAPETIAN DYNASTY 987–1223

  HUGH CAPET

  (c.940–96)

  r. 987–96

  ROBERT II

  [“the Pious”]

  (972–1031)

  r. 996–1031

  HENRY I

  (1008–60)

  r. 1031–60

  PHILIP I

  (1052–1108)

  r. 1060–1108

  LOUIS VI

  (1081–1137)

  r. 1108–37

  LOUIS VII

  (1120–80)

  r. 1137–80

  PHILIP II AUGUSTUS

  (1165–1223)

  r. 1180–1223

  * * *

  GOTHIC FRENCH ARCHITECTURE

  The abbey of Saint-Denis was a Merovingian foundation, and it was therefore already ancient when Suger decided that the Romanesque structure had to be rebuilt. Suger was the first of the ecclesiastical statesmen who rose to greatness in the service of the French Crown.

  During the five years following his election as abbot in 1122 Suger devoted most of his time to the administration of Saint-Denis, and the extensive account he wrote of the building project also places the abbey in its historical context. As a center of learning, a royal necropolis and ceremonial setting, the abbey had reflected the policies and supported the interests of successive reges Francorum. If Saint-Denis was to remain relevant at the highest levels of government it needed to have a contemporary look, and for Suger that inevitably meant adopting the Gothic style. Suger was also a loyal servant to the monarchy and his work at Saint-Denis had aims similar to those of contemporary French kingship: in both cases the institution’s past was being repackaged in order to secure its place in the future. By this time the principles of Gothic architecture typified by soaring spires, lofty rib vaults and pointed arches were being adopted by many of northern France’s ecclesiastical foundations, and Saint-Denis would join the ranks of the Gothic masterpieces erected in Chartres, Laon, Bourges and Rheims. Gothic architecture’s realization involved complex building plans, material wealth and a well-organized labor force, and the building projects reflected the self-belief of the ecclesiastical and courtly élite who were in overall charge. The fact that 12th-century summers were also proving to be unusually long and warm was an added bonus, and as a result the masons who labored on site had more time to get the work done. The building of Notre Dame on the Île de la Cité from c.1163 onward was a particularly spectacular example of the organizational capacity and self-confidence of the French monarchy. Maurice de Sully was the bishop who oversaw the work’s initial phase and he also started the building of the Hôtel Dieu, a hospital that stood adjacent to Notre Dame.

  The Gothic clerestory of the Basilica of Saint-Denis, in Paris, founded by the Merovingian King, Dagobert I, in the seventh century, and burial place of successive French monarchs.

  THE NORMANS IN ENGLAND

  1066–1135

  The Norman conquest of the English people is an event without parallel in both the history of England and of medieval Europe as a whole. No more than 10,000 knights—perhaps even as few as 5000 of them—enforced a policy of military subjugation and wholesale expropriation of land in the former Anglo-Saxon kingdom during the generation that followed the Battle of Hastings in 1066, with the leaders of the native population being excluded from public office because of their ethnicity. Often brutal, the conquest of England by the Normans was also efficient and wide-ranging, changing forever the systems of government, social structure and culture.

  The Anglo-Saxon kingdom had been one of the glories of Europe’s Christian civilization. When the Viking ancestors of the Normans were starting to penetrate the lower Seine valley in c.900, Anglo-Saxon culture was already ancient. Its leaders could count among their ancestors royal saints and martyrs who were venerated across the continent, and whose witness testified to the sacred nature of the authority that emanated from England’s throne. Neighboring powers admired the royal house of Wessex, England’s reigning dynasty since the late ninth century, and marveled at the efficiency of the tax-collecting bureaucracy that enriched English kings. Eleventh-century Europe supplied abundant examples of native populations subjected to the cruelty and violence of a conquering invader. But they were all pagans, whereas the Anglo-Saxons shared with the Normans the Christian faith. What happened in England during the second half of the 11th century was therefore unprecedented, since it took place within Christendom. Contemporaries noted this fact, and there were also papal protests. But all to no avail. How and why, therefore, did the Normans get away with it?

  THE ADAPTABLE NORMANS

  It was the Franks who gave the Nordmanni their first opportunity by ceding them lands around the mouth of the Seine in c.911. From this base they extended their grip westward to “Normandy,” which soon became one of the most tightly controlled feudal states in Europe. Conversion to Christianity and adoption of cavalry warfare did not remove the piratical restlessness that formed part of the Normans’ Scandinavian inheritance. The Norman readiness to learn, adapt and assimilate gave them a swift command over conquered territories. Their evolution of the motte-and-bailey castle, a mound surrounded by a ditched enclosure, invariably marked the Normans’ implacable territorial penetration. Their championing of religious orthodoxy was typically authoritarian, but their support for Benedictine monasticism, especially the foundations at Bec and Caen, turned Normandy into a pioneering center of 11th-century scholarship.

  ABOVE A detail of the Bayeux Tapestry depicting Harold, king of England, being hit in the eye by an arrow at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

  THE INVASION’S ORIGINS

  Norman interest in England dated back to 1002, when Ethelred II married Emma, the daughter of Normandy’s Duke Richard. But contemporary Scandinavia had a longer tradition of pursuing ambitions in England. Alfred the Great, king of Wessex, had contained the Danish Viking raiders and then consolidated his authority as ruler right across the English south and west. A century later, however, the Danes resumed their offensive, and the Danish King Cnut became king of England after Ethelred’s death in 1016. English, Norman and Scandinavian positioning ensued. Cnut’s marriage to the widowed Emma solidified his power base, but their son Harthacnut died after a brief reign. Ethelred and Emma’s son Edward had spent long years in exile after joining his maternal relatives in Normandy. His accession to the English throne in 1042 restored the line of Anglo-Saxon kings, albeit with a Norman s
lant, and Edward “the Confessor” proved a good patron to the many Norman clergy, soldiers and officials who traveled with him from the duchy to the English court. This clique aroused the antagonism of Earl Godwine, England’s preeminent aristocrat, who forced the king to dismiss his Norman advisers in 1053. When Edward died without issue at the beginning of 1066 the English aristocracy chose the earl’s son and successor Harold Godwinson as king, and he was duly crowned.

  The Scandinavian dimension to English kingship had one final card to play: Harthacnut was supposed to have promised Magnus I of Norway that if either died without issue the other would rule as king in both countries. Harald III Hardrada, king of Norway, therefore pursued a claim to the throne, and Harold of England’s estranged brother Tostig Godwinson, the earl of Northumbria, supported him. Harold’s army gained a great victory over the invading Norwegian army at the Battle of Stamford Bridge near York on September 25, 1066, in the course of which Tostig and Harald Hardrada were killed. Having marched south from Yorkshire to Sussex, the English army was already exhausted when it fought the battle that was joined at Hastings on October 14 and which ended in Harold’s defeat and death. The English aristocracy immediately chose Edgar Atheling to succeed Harold, so William still had to fight his way to the Crown. He failed to take London at his first attempt from the east, after which he advanced on the capital from the northwest before eventually receiving the submission of the English aristocracy at Berkhamsted.

  ABOVE Ethelred II, the king dubbed “unraed” or “bad advice” by contemporaries, is shown holding a sword in the Chronicle of Abingdon (c.1220).

  TAKING CONTROL OF TERRITORY

  The coronation of William as England’s new king took place at Westminster Abbey on December 25, 1066. It was the prelude to a series of campaigns of subjugation. In 1067 rebels in Kent attacked Dover Castle and a revolt spread in West Mercia. In 1068 William had to negotiate the surrender of Exeter, and there were further revolts both in Mercia and in Northumbria. Harold’s sons were meanwhile raiding the West Country from their new bases in Ireland, and in 1069 a rebellion spread in Northumbria after the massacre of several hundred Norman soldiers garrisoned at Durham. William defeated the northern rebels in battle near York before pursuing the remnants into the city, many of whose inhabitants were then massacred. The arrival of a large Danish fleet off England’s eastern coast in the late summer of 1069 inspired widespread English dissidence, and an allied Northumbrian-Danish army defeated the Norman garrison at York before establishing control over Northumbria. William stopped the Danish penetration into Lincolnshire, and after retaking York he bought off the Danes, who agreed to leave England by the spring of 1070. William’s army then waged a relentless campaign of devastation across Northumbria in the winter of 1069–70 resulting in a death toll of around 150,000. The following spring saw the Conqueror established in Chester, from where he crushed remaining areas of Mercian resistance. Eastern England saw further resistance, since the Danes initially reneged on their assurances to leave. However, a further payment finally secured their departure. Deprived of Danish support the rebels—led by Hereward (“the Wake”) in the Isle of Ely—were crushed in 1071.

  Wherever they went, Norman knights wanted two things: land and titles. Those who were prominent in the English campaign were of higher birth than their compatriots who went to southern Italy, and their surnames often reflected the family fiefdoms they already held in Normandy. In an unusual move, William claimed personal possession of all English land, and this meant he could dispose of it as he saw fit. The territories of English nobles who had fought and died with Harold were redistributed among William’s supporters. The pattern of confiscations explains the persistence of major anti-Norman revolts that led in turn to even more confiscations during 1067–71. Where a landholder died without issue, William and his barons claimed the right to choose the heir, who tended to be Norman, while widows and daughters who inherited property were often made to marry Norman husbands. William distributed his land-grants so that an individual’s holdings were spread throughout the country. A noble who revolted would therefore find it difficult to defend all his territories simultaneously, and the system encouraged group solidarity by bringing the nobility into contact with each other rather than retreating into a regional power base. The loyalty of this élite group meant that William could rule England from Normandy by implementing the practice known as government “by writ,” and this was the system followed by his Norman successors on the throne. After 1072 the king returned to Normandy since his duchy faced serious external threats, and he visited England on just four further occasions.

  * * *

  THE NORMANS IN ENGLAND

  1042 Edward (“the Confessor”) is crowned king of England on returning from his exile in Normandy.

  1066 Following the launch of an invasion force led by Duke William of Normandy, Harold II (Harold Godwinson), last Anglo-Saxon king of England, is killed in battle at Hastings on October 14. William is crowned king in Westminster Abbey on December 25.

  1085 King William orders the nationwide compilation of English land holdings which becomes known as the Domesday Book.

  1089 Death of Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury, whose revenues are then seized for Crown use by William II (William Rufus).

  1100 Henry I succeeds to the English throne and issues the Charter of Liberties which confirms the nobility in its traditional freedoms.

  1105 Resumption of the armed struggle between Henry I and his brother Robert, duke of Normandy.

  1107 The Concordat of London: the papacy concedes substantial control over the Church in England to the English Crown.

  1135 Anarchy follows the death of Henry I.

  * * *

  EFFICIENT NORMAN BUREAUCRACY

  The Domesday Book, a compilation of land holdings ordered in 1085 by William, records that by this date the native English owned just five percent of their country’s territory, and hardly any of them retained public office. The shires or shares were Anglo-Saxon administrative units, and they were run by the shire reeve, or sheriff, who was accountable to the highly effective central bureaucracy with its sophisticated archival system. Henry I established the treasury. Located in Westminster, it became the heart of government, although the institution evolved out of the central accounting office which the Anglo-Saxon monarchy had run in Winchester. Having seized the governmental structure, the Normans bent it to their own will by staffing it with their own people. A few Englishmen were appointed sheriffs, but after 1075 Normans monopolized the earldoms. There was a similar purge among the senior clergy: by 1096 there was not a single English bishop, and very few abbots were English. Loyal churchmen were crucial to England’s Norman government and this form of episcopal rule represented an English application of William’s methods in Normandy where, personally presiding over synods, he had secured a Church administration notably pliant and free of corruption.

  * * *

  KINGS OF ENGLAND 1016–1154

  CNUT THE GREAT

  (c.985–1035)

  r. 1016–35

  HAROLD I

  [“Harold Harefoot”]

  (c.1015–40)

  r. 1035/37–40

  HARTHACNUT

  (1020–42)

  r. 1040–42

  EDWARD THE CONFESSOR

  (c.1003–66)

  r. 1042–66

  HAROLD II

  [Harold Godwinson]

  (c.1022–66)

  r. 1066

  WILLIAM I

  [“the Conqueror”]

  (c.1027–87)

  r. 1066–87

  WILLIAM II

  [William Rufus]

  (1056–1100)

  r. 1087–1100

  HENRY I

  (1068/9–1135)

  r. 1100–35

  STEPHEN

  (1096–1154)

  r. 1135–54

  * * *

  WILLIAM II AND ROBERT—QUARRELSOME BROTHERS

  The Conqueror’
s decision to divide his inheritance between Robert, who became Normandy’s duke, and William Rufus, who became England’s William II in 1087, also divided opinion among the Anglo-Norman nobility. Those who also held lands in Normandy thought that there should be just one ruler for both areas to counter the risk of divided loyalties, especially since the two brothers were notoriously quarrelsome. The rebellion mounted by some of them against Rufus in 1088 aimed at placing Robert on the English throne. This was swiftly suppressed, however, and in 1091 the king invaded Normandy, forcing his brother to yield some of his lands. The two were subsequently reconciled, and when the duke needed money to go on crusade in 1096 he pledged the dukedom to his brother in exchange for a sum of 10,000 marks. This huge sum amounted to about a quarter of the entire annual revenue raised by the English Crown and was paid by William’s imposition of a special tax. William then ruled as regent in Normandy during Robert’s absence which lasted until September 1100, a month after the king’s death.