GEOFFREY MARTEL.

rebels

277

this marriage with Agnes which, we are told, gave rise in CHAP. VIII. some way to Geoffrey's rebellion against his father and to Geoffrey the discord between Fulk and his second wife Hildegardis against his the mother of Geoffrey.

father.

1033.

of Odo of

The imprisonment of William of Aquitaine evidently made a deep impression upon men's minds at the time; but it was the standing war with the house of Chartres which brought Anjou into direct collision with Normandy, and thereby, at a somewhat later time, into connexion with England. The last energies of Odo were mainly Last days directed to objects remote from Anjou, and even from Chartres. Chartres and Blois. He was one of the party which opposed the succession of King Henry, and in so doing he must have crossed the policy of Henry's great champion Duke Robert. In a war which followed with the King His war Odo was unsuccessful,' but his mind was now set greater things. Already Count of Champagne, he at restoring the great frontier state between the Eastern tempt on and the Western Franks, at reigning as King of Bur- dom of the Kinggundy, of Lotharingia, perhaps of Italy. After meeting Burgundy. for a while with some measure of success, he was at His defeat last defeated and slain by Duke Gozelo, the father of and death Godfrey of whom we have already heard,2 in a battle near 1037.

3

with King

upon Henry. aimed 1034.

His at

1033.

at Bar.

Bar in the Upper Lotharingia. His great schemes died with him. His sons were only Counts and not Kings, and their father's dominions were divided between them. The sons of both of them obtained settlements in England, His sons Stephen and a grandson of one figures largely in English history. and TheoStephen reigned in Champagne; his son Odo married bald.

a sister of the Conqueror, and was one of the objects of his brother-in-law's bounty in England. Theobald inherited Blois and Chartres. His son Stephen married

1 See the Chronicle in Duchesne, Rer. Franc. Scriptt. iv. 97. 2 See above, p. 97.

+ See Appendix N.

See Appendix P,

CHAP. VIII. William's daughter Adela, and thereby became father of Their wars a King of the English. But at present we have to deal Henry and with Count Theobald as a vassal of France at variance

with King

with Geoffrey.

with his overlord, as a neighbour of Anjou inheriting the hereditary enmity of his forefathers. Touraine, part of which was already possessed by Geoffrey,1 and, above all, the metropolitan city of Tours, were ever the great objects of Angevin ambition. It was a stroke of policy on the part of Henry, when he formally deprived the rebel Theobald of that famous city, and bestowed it by a royal grant on the Count of Anjou.2 Geoffrey was not slow to press a claim grant from at once fresh and most plausible. He advanced on the city Henry, and imprisons to assert his rights by force. Saint Martin, we are specially

Geoffrey receives

Tours as a

Theobald.

1044.

told, favoured the enterprise. The brothers resisted in vain. Stephen was put to flight; Theobald was taken prisoner, and was compelled, like William of Aquitaine, to obtain his freedom by the surrender of the city.1

Both French and Angevin writers agree in describing Geoffrey as taking possession of Tours with the full consent of King Henry. Yet, in the first glimpse of Angevin affairs given us by our Norman authorities, the relations between the King of the French and the Count of Anjou

1 Fulk (p. 233) describes the cession made by Theobald to Geoffrey, and adds, "Pars autem alia Turonici pagi sibi contigerât possessione paternâ." We have seen that the Counts of Anjou held Amboise and Loches.

2 This grant is distinctly asserted, not only by Fulk (u. s.), "Ex voluntate Regis Henrici accepit donum Turonicæ civitatis ab ipso Rege," but also by R. Glaber (v. 2), followed by Gesta Cons. 256, "Contigit ut.. Rex, ablato ab iisdem dominio Turonicæ urbis, daret illud Gozfredo cognomento Tuditi, filio scilicet Fulconis jam dicti Andegavorum comitis." The Norman writers of course know nothing of all this, and make Geoffrey an unprovoked aggressor.

3 R. Glaber (v. 2) describes Geoffrey's victory and the captivity of Theobald, and adds, "Nulli dubium est, beato Martino auxiliante, qui illum piè invocaverat, suorum inimicorum victorem exstitisse."

On the captivity of Theobald, see Fulk, p. 233. Gesta Cons. (largely after R. Glaber), 256. Chronn. Andd. a. 1044, ap. Labbe, i. 276, 287. Will. Pict. 86. Will. Gem. vii. 18. Will. Malms. iii. 231. R. Glaber is also followed by Hugo Flav. (Labbe, i. 186. Pertz, viii. 403).

WILLIAM HELPS KING HENRY AGAINST GEOFFREY.

279

William

are set forth in an exactly opposite light. Geoffrey is CHAP. VIII. engaged in a rebellious war against Henry, and the Duke helps King of the Normans appears simply to discharge his feudal Henry against duty to his lord, and to return the obligation incurred by Geoffrey. the King's prompt and effectual help at Val-ès-dunes.1 1048. These two accounts are in no way inconsistent; in the space of four years the relations between the King and so dangerous a vassal as Geoffrey may very well have changed. Henry may well have found that it was not sound policy to foster the growth of one whose blows might easily be extended from Counts to Kings. The campaign which followed is dwelt on at great length by our Norman authorities and is cut significantly short by the Angevins. In its course, we are told, William gained the highest Personal exploits of reputation. The troops of Normandy surpassed in number William. the united contingents of the King and of all his other vassals.2 The Duke's courage and conduct were preeminent, and they won him the first place in the King's counsels. But on one point Henry had to remonstrate with his valiant ally. He was forced, says the panegyrist, to warn both William himself and the chief Norman leaders against the needless exposure of so precious a life.1

3

1 Will. Pict. 82. "Vicissitudinem post hæc ipse Regi fide studiosissimâ reddidit, rogatus ab eo auxilium contra quosdam inimicissimos ei atque potentissimos ad officiendum." This writer is very confused in his chronology of the war, placing the details about Domfront and Alençon at a long distance from this passage which seems to record the beginning of hostilities.

Ib. "Cernebant Francigenæ, quod invidia non cerni vellet, exercitum deductum è Normanniâ solâ regio majorem, omnique collegio, quantum adduxerant vel miserant Comites plurimi."

3 Ib. 83. "Rex ei quam libenter proponebat consultanda, et maxima quæque ad ejus gerebat sententiam, anteponens in perspicientiâ consulti melioris eum omnibus."

4 Ib. "Unicum id redarguebat, quod nimiùm periculis objectabat se, ac plerumque pugnam quæritabat, decurrens palam cum denis aut paucioribus. Normannos etiam primates obsecrabat, ne committi prælium vel levissimum ante municipium aliquod paterentur; metuens videlicet

CHAP. VIII. William at no time of his life ever shrank from danger, and we may be sure that, at this time of his life especially, he thoroughly enjoyed the practice of war in all its forms. But William's impulses were already under the control of his reason. He knew, no doubt, as well as any man, that to plunge himself into needless dangers, and to run the risk of hairbreadth scapes, was no part of the real duty of a prince or a general. But he also knew that it was mainly by exploits of this kind that he must dazzle the minds of his own generation, and so obtain that influence over men which was needful for the great schemes of his life. In any other point of view, one would say that it was unworthy of William's policy to win the reputation of a knight-errant at the expense of making for himself a lasting and dangerous enemy in the Count of Anjou. Position of The undisputed dominions of the two princes nowhere touched each other. But between them lay a country Geoffrey. closely connected both with Normandy and with Anjou, and over which both William and Geoffrey asserted rights. This was the County of Maine, a district which was always said to have formed part of the later acquisitions of Rolf,2 but of which the Norman Dukes had never taken practical possession. The history of the Cenomannian city and province will be more fittingly sketched at another stage of William's career; it is enough to say here that Geoffrey was now practical sovereign of Maine, in the character of protector, guardian, or conqueror of the young Count Hugh, the son of the famous Herbert, surnamed Wake-the-dog.3 William occasurum virtutem ostentando, in quo regni sui præsidium firmissimum et ornamentum splendidissimum reponebat."

Maine under

Count

Herbert. 1015. Hugh.

1036.

1 William of Poitiers' theory of William's rashness (83) is not very clear; "Cæterum quæ velut immoderatam fortitudinis ostentationem multoperè dissuadebat Rex atque castigabat, ea nos fervidæ atque animosæ ætati aut officio adscribimus. 2 See vol. i. p. 200.

3 Gesta Dom. Ambasiens. ap. D'Achery, iii. 273. "Quidam Comes pernimium juvenis Herbertus, cognomento Evigilans Canem." See Palgrave, iii. 240.

WAR OF ALENÇON AND DOMFRONT.

281

resses of

and Alen

çon.

and Geoffrey thus became immediate neighbours, and Geof- CHAP. VIII. frey, with the craft of his house, knew how to strike a blow where William was weakest. Two chief fortresses guarded The fortthe frontier between Maine and Normandy. Each com- Domfront manded its own valley, its own approach into the heart of the Norman territory; each watched over a stream flowing from Norman into Cenomannian ground. These were Domfront towards the western, and Alençon towards the eastern, portion of the frontier. Domfront commanded the region watered by the Mayenne and its tributaries, while Alençon was the key of the valley of the Sarthe, the keeper of the path which led straight to the minster of Seez and to the donjon of Falaise. Of these two strongholds, Alençon stood on Norman, Domfront on Cenomannian soil.1 But Norman writers maintained that Domfront, no less than Alençon, was of right a Norman possession, both fortresses alike having been reared by the licence of Richard the Good.2 But even Alençon, whatever may have been its Disloyalty of Alençon. origin, was at this time far from being a sound member of the Norman body-politic. As a lordship of William Talvas, it shared in the ambiguous character, half Norman, half French, which attached to all the border possessions of the house of Belesme. And, as events presently showed, its inhabitants shared most fully in the spirit in which the

1

One might fancy from the words of William of Jumièges (vii. 18), 'Cœpit Normanniam rapinis vehementer demoliri, intra Danfrontis castrum seditiosis custodibus immissis," that Domfront was now Norman. But it is clear from William of Poitiers (86) that it was, as a town of Maine, in Geoffrey's possession at the beginning of the war ; "Willelmus . adibat cum exercitu terram Andegavensem, ut reddens talionem primo abalienaret Gaufredo Damfrontum, post reciperit Alentium." So William of Malmesbury (iii. 231), “Damfruntum, quod erat tunc comitis Andegavorum, obsidione coronavit." So also Roman de Rou, 9382;

2 Will. Pict. 89.

"Alençon ert de Normendie

E Danfronz del Maine partie."

"Perhibent homines antiquioris memoriæ, castra hæc ambo Comitis Ricardi concessu esse fundata, unum intra alterum, proximè fines Normanniæ."