Loudun and Mirebeau guarded the interests of the count between Angers and Poitiers, but Châtellerault, with its semi-independent lord, lay across the road to Tours. Richard decided to fortify Saint-Remy de la Haye on the river Creuse, a tributary of the Vienne which, during part of its course, separated Poitou from Touraine to the north-east of Châtellerault. In order to carry out this plan, it was necessary to make terms with the lord of SaintRemy, the abbot of Maillezais. In 1184 Richard effected an exchange of territory, and promised to provide for a couple of monks who would continue to serve the Church and inhabit the monastic grange at Saint-Remy.1 He began to build a castle and laid out a town. A thirteenth century inquest, arising out of a dispute between Count Alphonse of Poitou, and the viscount of Châtellerault, enables us, in spite of the conflicting evidence, to follow the history of this change of ownership.2 A centenarian from Les Roches remembered the prior of Maillezais holding the pleas of Saint-Remy eighty years before; another witness had been present in the platea before the monastery when the agreement of exchange was read, and Richard and the abbot each had his part of the cyrograph'; a third, William the monk, who had perhaps been one of the two monks left at Saint-Remy, recalled how the monks had received the various rents and dues,3 and how, later, Richard and John had successively levied them through their officials.4 This witness and another, who had been janitor, told also how the castle was taken by Bartholomew Payen on King Philip's behalf and how

1. Richard, Comtes de Poitou, ii, 230.

2. Comptes et enquêtes d'Alphonse, Comte de Poitou, 1253-1269, edited by Bardonnet in Archives historiques de Poitou (1879), viii, 39. 3. "scilicet frumentagium, avenagium, molendinum et exclusam et forestam et alias res" (pp. 46-47).

4. Master Philip, Geoffrey or Hugh Achard, Girard of Athée, Geoffrey de Cella, are mentioned.

it was destroyed.1 Several others, many of them advocates of the viscount's claims, spoke of the castle and the town: one had seen the workmen at work and heard say that Richard had proclaimed a free town there at five shillings the burgage;2 another spoke of the rich burgesses whose safety Richard guaranteed against the hostility of Châtellerault the new town meant some loss for old towns; another had seen Master Philip, Richard's clerk, giving over 'plots for a rent (ad censum) to Renaud Gorron and his five sons and their heirs, and to many more, so that they might build houses.' It would be a hard task to reconcile all these memories, their chronology in particular; monk, baron, Templar, soldiers, and peasants tell very different stories; but we can see rents, dues, and forest, the mill and pond on the Creuse passing into other hands, walls and towers rising, and the busy officials laying out the town.

Another record, the roll of the Norman Exchequer for 1198, is of more direct value for the history of ChâteauGaillard than is this story of Saint-Remy. The roll confirms and adds detail to the description of Richard's work which has come down in the writings of William the Breton. We know from this chronicler that the king first fortified and built a noble house on the Isle of Andeli, the most prominent, though by no means the largest, of the islands which interrupt the river at this point. Here the archbishop of Rouen had levied toll on the shipping.

1. pp. 47, 48. For the loss of Saint-Remy, see Richard, ii, 449. 2. "et audivit quod ex parte regis fuit ibi libera villa criata ad quinque solidos" (p. 43). This reminds us of the artificial Norman and English towns on the one hand, and of the Aquitanian bastides on the other. Cf. Henry II's creation of Beauvoir in Maine: "rex Henricus fecit castrum munitissimum et burgum pergrande juxta haiam de Malaffre, quod vocatum est Bealveer" (Robert of Torigni, ed. Delisle, ii, 14). For the development of urban rents at this period, distinct from the old census or gablum, see Legras, Le Bourgage de Caen (1911), e.g., p. 149. 3. Chronicon, ed. Delaborde, i, 207-209; Philippid., vii, 29-85 (ii, 177-9).

The town of Andeli lies on the little river Gambon a mile away, beyond the cultivated land (Cultura) which breaks the line of lofty chalk cliffs on the right bank of the Seine.1 Richard proceeded to strengthen this strip of ground: a new town was laid out on the river, immediately opposite the isle, and just under the projection of cliff known as the Rock of Andeli; the two small streams by which the Gambon enters the river were diverted to enclose this town, and were checked sufficiently to allow its walls and earthworks to act as a dam; hence the lowest part of the valley, between the old and the new town, was turned into a pool, while the rest of the Cultura was occupied by the new town and a number of scattered buildings, ditches and defences (hericones). The pool was probably banked in or intersected by a causeway which connected the two towns. The island and the new town (the present Petit Andelys) must thus have been very impressive. The spectator on the Rock saw the road from Tosny on the far side of the Seine protected by ramparts;s it passed by a series of bridges over the arms of the river and the long island of Gardon to the Isle; and the Isle, with its wall, tower, and palace, was in turn bound by another bridge to the new town; beyond the town lay the valley with its wide deep pool; 'and from the pool two streams, each of which might be called a river, flowed into the Seine in front of either entrance of the bourg'; and over both streams the king had built bridges, and at the entrances and round about were 'towers of stone and wood, and in the spaces between were battlements and loopholes for the shot of the crossbows.'5

4

The whole series of defences was further protected by a stockade built across the river on the south side a work

1. Stapleton, II, xli.

2. Rot. Scacc., ii, 309.

3, Ibid.

4. The bridge over the Gambon, and the bridge Makade.

5. William the Breton, i, 208-9. I have adopted Stapleton's translation. (II, xlii.)

rightly regarded, if we consider the strength and depth of the current, as one of the most marvellous features of these operations. The stockade and the battlements of the town were connected with the outlying works on the Rock; and above these rose Château-Gaillard.

By the end of 1198 the valley of the Seine from Pont de l'Arche to the forest of Andeli had become a hive of soldiers and workmen, with Château-Gaillard, clearly visible to the French from their castle of Gaillon, in the centre. Richard had bought out the monks of Jumièges at Pont de l'Arche,1 just as he had bought out the archbishop at Andeli. Between the two places the river had been bridged at Portjoie, where there was a royal residence.2 An advance work, called in consequence Boutavant 3-had been erected upon an island above the isle of Andeli, opposite Tosny. The lord of Tosny was lent £100 for the defence of his house, and on the east bank of the river, south of Château-Gaillard, Cléry and perhaps other places had been fortified. Thus the Norman Vexin, so far as it was still retained by the Normans, found a new centre in Château-Gaillard, and the outlying fortresses in the valley of the Epte were no longer isolated.

The works at Andeli had been in charge of three clerks, Sawale or Sewal son of Henry, Robert son of Hermer, and Matthew son of Enard. Little can be discovered of these men, whose names appear here and there in the

1. Continuator of Robert of Torigni in Histor. de France, xviii, 340; Stapleton, II, clxii. The manor of Conteville was granted in exchange. King John revoked the exchange.

2. Rot. Scacc., ii, 483, 485.

3. On the position of Boutavant, see Coutil, p. 79; Cartellieri, iii, 140. A place of the same name, once dominated by a castle, exists in Ireland between Charleville and Mallow, on the road from Cork to Limerick. See Lewis, Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 8. V. Butteavant.

4. Rot. Norm., 74. Ducal soldiers occupied Tosny in 1198 (Rot. Scacc., ii, 310).

5. Rot. Scacc., ii, 310, Coutil, p. 77.

records of John's reign. Sawale farmed the issues of the Vexin, and was probably chief of the three; he also seems to have held a serjeanty in Northumberland.2 Robert, son of Hermer, was afterwards in charge of works at Vaudreuil, and was one of John's bailiffs there.3 Matthew, son of Enard, had charge in 1198 of the prise of ships taken in war, and in 1202 was promised a prebend at Angers. They had been entrusted during 1197-8 with the vast sum of £48,878. 13s. 8d., of which £15,000 odd had come direct from the Norman bailiwicks, over £18,000 from the royal camera, and £5,600 from the treasury at Caen. The remainder was made up of the profits of prises and booty, ransoms, and the advances of money changers." The money had been partly spent in wages and in works at places so far afield in the Vexin as Longchamp, Dangu, Gamaches; also in local operations at Cléry and Boutavant; but by far the greater part had gone to defray the cost of labour and material at the Isle and Château-Gaillard. 7

The Isle of Andeli was a favourite residence of Richard's during the last two years of his life. It is clear that he personally directed the building operations around and upon the Rock, and if contemporary evidence did not exist,

1. Rot. Scacc., ii, 311.

2. Inquisitions of John's reign in Red Book, ii, 564: "Sewale filius Henrici, terram per serjanteriam custodiendi placita coronae."

3. Rot. Norm., 55, 75, 82. References to Robert also in Rot. de Lib., 100; Rot. Pat 35.

4. Rot. Scacc., ii, 311.

5. Rot. Pat., 7b; if the Matthew son of Everd, king's clerk, there mentioned, be the same.

6. Rot. Scacc., ii, 309.

7. I add the relevant part of this most important statement cf accounts in a note at the end of this chapter. English readers will find a good account of Château-Gaillard, based upon Deville's Histoire du Château-Gaillard (Rouen, 1829), in the second volume of Miss Norgate's Angevin Kings. Besides Deville, see also Viollet-le-Duc's Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française, and the essays mentioned in the

next note.