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ANARCHY OF WILLIAM'S MINORITY.

189

the young Duke both in mind and body was undoubtedly CHAP. VIII. precocious; but his early maturity was mainly owing to the stern discipline of that terrible childhood. It was in those years that he learned the arts which made Normandy, France, and England bow before him; but, at the age of seven years, William himself was no more capable than Ethelred of personally wielding the rod of rule. The child had good and faithful guardians, guardians perhaps no less well disposed to fulfil their trust towards him than Dunstan had been towards the children of Eadgar. But there was no one man in Normandy to whom every Norman could look up as every Englishman had looked up to the mighty Primate, and the bowl and the dagger soon deprived the young Prince of the support of his wisest and truest counsellors. The minority of William was truly a time when every man did that which was right in his own eyes. And what seemed right in the eyes of the nobles of Normandy was commonly rebellion against their Utter sovereign, ruthless oppression of those beneath them, and anarchy of endless deadly feuds with one another. We have already seen some specimens of their doings in the crimes of the house of Belesme. That house is indeed always spoken of as exceptionally wicked; but a state of things in which such deeds could be done, and could go unpunished, must have come very nearly to an utter break-up of society. The general pictures which we find given us of the time are fearful beyond expression. Through the withdrawal of all controlling power, every land-owner became a petty sovereign, and began to exercise all the sovereign rights of slaughter and devastation. The land soon bristled with Building of castles. The mound crowned with the square donjon rose as the defence or the terror of every lordship. This castlebuilding is now spoken of in Normandy with a condemna

x. 16. The same text is used by R. Glaber, iv. 5, with a more general application.

the time.

castles.

2

CHAP. VIII. tion nearly as strong as that with which it was spoken of in England, when, a few years after this time, the practice was introduced into England by the Norman favourites of Eadward. But there is a characteristic difference in the tone of the two complaints. The English complaint always is that the Frenchmen built castles and oppressed the poor folk, or that they did all possible evil and shame to their English neighbours.3 The Norman complaint, though not wholly silent as to the oppression of the humbler ranks,* yet dwells mainly on the castle-building as a sign of rebellion against the authority of the Prince, and as an occasion of warfare between baron and baron. And it would have been well for the reputation of the Norman nobles of that age if they had confined themselves to open warfare with one another and open rebellion against their Frequency sovereign. But they sank below the common morality of ations. their own age; private murder was as familiar to them as

of assassin

open war. The house of Belesme had a bad preeminence in this as in other crimes; but if they had a preeminence, they were far from having a monopoly. Perhaps no period of the same length in the history of Christendom contains the record of so many foul deeds of slaughter and mutilation as the early years of the reign of William. And they were constantly practised, not only against avowed and armed enemies, but against unarmed and unsuspected guests. Some of the tales may be inventions or exaggerations; but the days in which such tales could even be invented must have been days full of deeds of horror. Isolated cases of similar crimes may doubtless be found in any age; but this period is remarkable alike for the abundance of crimes, for the rank of the criminals, and for the impunity which they enjoyed. To control these men was the duty laid

1 On the building of castles see Appendix S.

2 See Chronn. Wig. 1066; Petrib. 1087, 1137; and Appendix S.
See above, p. 138.
See the story quoted in p. 184.

FREQUENCY OF CRIME.

191

William's

upon the almost infant years of William, a duty with CHAP. VIII. which nothing short of his own full and matured powers might seem fit to grapple. Yet over all these difficulties. the genius of the great Duke was at last triumphant. His Effects of hand brought order out of the chaos, and changed a land govern. wasted by rebellion and intestine warfare into one of the ment in Normandy. most prosperous regions of Europe, a land flourishing as no Norman ruler had seen it flourish before. When we think of the days in which William spent his youth, of the men against whom his early years were destined to be one continued struggle, we shall be less inclined to lift up our hands in horror at his later crimes than to dwell with admiration on that large share of higher and better qualities which, among all his evil deeds, clave to him to his dying day.

§ 2. From the Accession of William to the Battle of
Val-ès-dunes. 1035-1047.

of William.

We have seen among what kind of men the young Duke Guardians of the Normans had to pass the first years of his life and sovereignty. But his father, in leaving his one lamb among so many wolves, had at least provided him with trustworthy guardians. Alan of Britanny, a possible competitor Alan of Britanny. for the Duchy, a neighbouring prince with whom Duke Robert had so lately been at war, was disarmed when his over-lord committed his son to his faith as kinsman and vassal, and even invested him with some measure of authority in Normandy itself.2 The immediate care of the young Duke's person was given to one Thurcytel or

1 See vol. i. p. 470.

2 Roman de Rou, 8131;

"A Alain qui esteit sis huem,

Par l'Archeveske de Ruem,

Livra sa terre à cumandise,
Cum à senescal è justise."

Osbern.

Gilbert.

CHAP. VIII. Thorold, names which point to a genuine Scandinavian descent in their bearer, and which would make us look to the Bessin as the probable place of his birth.1 Other guardians of high rank were the Seneschal Osbern, and Count Gilbert, both of them connected in the usual way with the ducal family. Osbern was the son of Herfast, a brother of the Duchess Gunnor; he was also married to a daughter of Rudolf of Ivry, the son of Asperleng and Sprota, the savage suppressor of the great peasant revolt.2 Gilbert's connexion was still closer. He was illustrious alike in his forefathers and in his descendants. He sprang of the ducal blood of Normandy, and of his blood sprang the great houses of Clare and Pembroke in England. His father Godfrey was one of those natural children of Richard the Fearless who did not share the promotion of the offspring of Gunnor.3 He was lord of the border fortress of Eu, renowned in Norman history as early as the days of Rolf; 4 he was lord too of the pleasant valley of the Risle, separated only by one wooded hill from the more memorable valley which is hallowed by the names of Herlwin, Lanfranc, and Anselm. All these worthy men paid the penalty of their fidelity. Count poisoned. Alan died of poison, while he was besieging the castle of Montgomery, the stronghold of a house which we shall often have again to mention. He died at Vinmoutier, and was buried in the abbey of Fécamp. Breton slander afterwards threw the guilt of this crime upon the Duke

Alan

1039-1040.

1 The "Turoldus" of William of Jumièges (vii. 2), and the "Turchetillus” of Orderic (656 C), certainly seem to be the same person.

2 See vol. i. p. 257.

3 Will. Gem viii. 37.

"Gislebertus fuerat filius Godefridi Comitis Aucensis, naturalis videlicet filii primi Richardi Ducis Normannorum.' See vol. i. p. 252

See vol. i. p. 174; iii. p. 117. Gilbert is called "Comes Ocensis" by William of Jumièges (vii. 2), and the same writer (iv. 18) also says, "Licet Comes Gislebertus filius Godefridi Comitis ipsum comitatum parumper tenuerit, antequam occideretur." But see Stapleton, i. lvi.

ALAN AND GILBERT MURDERED.

193

himself,1 the person who had least to gain by it. Norman CHAP. VIII. slander threw it on Alan's own subjects; 2 but one can hardly doubt that, if the poisoned bowl was administered at all, it was administered by some one or other of the rebellious Norman nobles.3 Count Gilbert was murdered Murder of Gilbert. by assassins employed by Ralph of Wacey, son of Archbishop Robert.4 The sons of the murdered man fled to Flanders, and took refuge with the common protector of banished men, Count Baldwin. The lands of Gilbert were divided among various claimants; the County of Eu seems to have passed into the hands of his uncle William;5 but his famous castle of Brionne fell to the lot of Guy of Burgundy, of whom, and of whose possession of the fortress, we shall hear much as we go on."

house of

Another still more criminal attempt introduces us yet Castle and more directly to one of the great Norman houses whose Montname has been more abiding than any other. I have gomery. just before mentioned Count Alan's siege of the castle of Montgomery. The name of that castle, a hill fortress in the diocese of Lisieux, enjoys a peculiar privilege above all others in Norman geography. Other spots in Normandy have given their names to Norman houses, and those Norman houses have transferred those names to

1 Will. Gem. vii. 33. "Alanum patrem meum apud Winmusterium in Normanniâ veneno peremisti." Ord. Vit. 655 C. "Alanno, dum Montem Gomerici obsidet, per fraudem Normannorum letaliter corrupto venenosâ potione." But the Breton Chronicle in Morice (Memoires pour servir de Preuves à l'histoire de Bretagne) says only, "1039. Obiit Alanus Dux Britanniæ filius Gauffredi. 3 Kal. Oct." Cf. Roman de Rou, 8139; "Murut Alains a Normandie ; A Fescamp jut en l'Abéie."

See Prevost's note, i. 403.

2 Roman de Rou, 8136.

3 Orderic (567 A) says distinctly, "Alannum Comitem Britonum suique

Ducis tutorem Normanni veneno perimere."

4 Will. Gem. vii. 2; Will. Malms. iii. 230.

"Interfecto Gisleberto a

Radulpho patruele suo, ubique cædes, ubique ignes versabantur."

5 This seems the meaning of the context of the passage from William of Jumièges quoted just above.

6 Ord. Vit. 686 D.

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