CHAP. VIII. to join the troops which William had gathered from the loyal districts, and to share with them in a decisive encounter with the rebel forces.

VAL-ES

DUNES, 1047;

ance in the

life of

BATTLE OF The French and the loyal Normans joined their forces some miles to the east of Caen, in the neighbourhood of the memorable field of Val-ès-dunes. The spot is not one specially attractive in itself; it is not one of those spots which seem marked out by the hand of nature as specially designed to become the scene of great historical events. But we shall see that, for the purposes of the particular battle which was fought there, no ground could have been better suited. Nor, at first sight, does the fight of Valès-dunes, an engagement of cavalry between two Norman factions, seem to have any claim to a place among the its import great battles of history. But Val-ès-dunes was the first pitched battle of the Conqueror; it was the field on which William. he first won a right to that lofty title, and the lessons which he learned there stood him in good stead on a far more awful day. And, more than this, it was there that William conquered his own land and his own people, and by that earlier conquest both schooled and strengthened himself for his mightier conquest beyond the sea. Normandy had first to be firmly grasped, and her fierce Barons to be brought under the yoke, before the hand of William could be stretched forth to fix its grasp on England, and to press the yoke upon the necks of her people. In a word, the strife with Randolf and Neal and their revolted provinces was the needful forerunner of the strife with Harold and his Kingdom. The tourney of Norman horsemen upon the open slope of Val-ès-dunes was William's school of fence for the sterner clashing of axe and spear upon the palisaded heights of Senlac.

auxiliaturus perrexit." William, or Orderic, in the death-bed summary (657 B), leaves out the French aid altogether; "Tunc auxiliante Deo, qui justus judex est, inter Cadomum et Argentias hostes vici."

BATTLE OF VAL-ÈS-DUNES.

Val-èsdunes a

tween

253

and Teu

which sup

ported

William.

And there is another aspect in which the two battles CHAP. VIII. have a common feature. Val-ès-dunes, no less than Senlac, was a struggle between the Roman and the Teuton. battle beThe fact was not indeed forced in the same way upon Romanized men's minds by the outward contrast of language, of tonic Nortactics, of every badge of national difference. Still it is mandy. none the less true that, at Val-ès-dunes, the old Scandinavian blood of Normandy found its match, and more than its match, in the power of France and of the French portions of the Norman Duchy. Danish Coutances and Saxon Bayeux were brought face to face with Romanized Rouen and Evreux and with royal Paris itself. From all the District lands east of the Dive men flocked to the Ducal standard. The episcopal cities of Lisieux and Evreux, along with primatial Rouen, sent forth their loyal burghers, and the men of the surrounding districts pressed no less eagerly to the muster. They came, according to the old division, which the suppression of the peasant revolt had not wholly broken up, arranged in companies which still retained the name of communes, suggesting the freedom which they had perhaps not wholly lost.1 From beyond the Seine came the troops of Caux, and from the south of the Duchy came the men of Auge, and of Duke Robert's County of Hiesmes. And who can doubt that foremost among them all were the burghers of William's own Falaise, zealous on behalf of a Prince who was also their own immediate countryman? But the whole west of Normandy, the land where the old Norman speech and spirit had longest lingered, was arrayed on the side of the rebels. Except the contingent of his own birth-place and its neighbourhood, no part of the Duke's force seems to have come from the lands west of the Dive; all else came

1 Roman de Rou, 8997. "La s'asemblerent li cumunes." of the districts which helped William see vv. 8946 et seqq.

For the list

CHAP. VIII. from the old domain of Rolf, the oldest, but, then as now, not the most Norman Normandy.1

Descrip

tion of the field of battle.

The field of battle lies just within the hostile country. South-east of Caen, in continuation of the high ground of Allemagne3 immediately south of the town, stretches a long, broad, and slightly elevated plain, sloping gently towards the east. It hardly deserves to be called a hill, and the indentations with which its sides are broken hardly deserve to be called valleys. Several villages and churches, Secqueville, Bellengreville, Billy, Chicheboville, form the boundaries of the field, but the plain itself is open and without any remarkable feature. A ridge somewhat higher than the rest of the ground, known as Mount Saint Lawrence, is the only conspicuous point of the plain itself, and this marks the western boundary of the actual battle-ground. The little stream of the Muance, a tributary of the Orne, bounds the plain to the south-east. To

1 See Appendix O.

2 My account of the field and battle of Val-ès-dunes is drawn from an examination made on the spot in May, 1867. In company with Mr. J. R. Green, I went over the whole ground, Wace in hand. No modern description can do more than amplify Wace's few topographical touches (Roman de Rou, 8978 et seqq.), and his minute and spirited account of the battle. Every detail shows in how thoroughly honest and careful a spirit he set to work. On the topography, see De Caumont, Statistique Monumental du Calvados, ii. 84 et seqq., and Appendix 0.

3 I should greatly like to come across some explanation of this puzzling name (see De Caumont, i. 53). Nothing is more likely than a Teutonic colony anywhere in these parts, but such a colony would hardly be called Allemannia. The name is ancient, as it occurs in William's foundation charter of Saint Stephen's. See Neustria Pia, 626. The copy there is not very accurate, as I can witness from having (for once) examined an original manuscript.

DESCRIPTION OF THE FIELD.

of the

French

forces.

255

the north lies the high ground of Argences, over which CHAP. VIII. William advanced with the troops of the loyal districts. The French auxiliaries, approaching from the south by way of Mezidon, first reached the little village of Valmeray, where a ruined tower of later date marks the site of the church of Saint Brice in which King Henry heard mass before the battle.1 Meanwhile the Duke's forces crossed Junction the Muance at the ford of Berengier,2 and at once joined the Ducal and French. King and Duke now ranged their troops in the order in which it was most natural to meet an enemy advancing from the west. The Normans, who had come from the north, formed the right wing, while the French, coming from the south, naturally formed the left.3 There was pitched the royal standard, on which we are told that the presumption of the upstart house of Paris had dared to emblazon the eagle of Julius and Charles. King Henry and Duke William, each baton in hand,5 were now marshalling their troops, and the battle seemed about to begin, when, if we may trust our only detailed narrative of that day's fight, one side was cheered and the other dispirited by an unlooked for incident.

4

Ralph of Tesson was lord of the forest of Cingueleiz,

joins the Duke.

CHAP. VIII. the forest some way to the south of Caen, between the Ralph of rivers Orne and Lise, and his chief seat was at Harcourt Tesson Thury. He was a lord of great power, and his contingent is said to have mustered no less than a hundred and twenty knights with their banners and tokens.1 He had no ground of offence against the Duke; yet he had joined in the conspiracy, and had sworn on the saints at Bayeux to smite William wherever he found him.2 But his heart smote him when he found himself standing face to face against his lord in open battle. His knights too pressed around him, and reminded him of his homage and plighted faith, and how he who fought against his natural lord had no right to fief or honour. On the other hand the Viscounts Neal and Randolf pressed him to stand firmly by them, and promised great rewards as the price of his adherence. For a while he stood doubtful, keeping his

One might wish that another oath on the saints at Bayeux could have found as easy and convenient fulfilment.

The feudal scruple is stronger in the minds of the inferior tenants, a point worth noticing, whether the tale be trustworthy in detail or not. This agrees with Wace's former statement that, even in the revolted provinces, the popular feeling was on William's side. The poor gentleman might need the protection of the common sovereign no less than the peasant.