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ence of status was swept away. In John's reign the practice of opening the civil service to mercenaries became common. Quite apart from military considerations John trusted his mercenaries more than his barons, took a natural pleasure in ignoble vigour, and delighted to flout social and political conventions. Hence Martin Algais became seneschal of Gascony, Girard of Athée seneschal of Touraine, Brandin seneschal of La Marche, and Louvrecaire a Norman bailiff. Algais and Louvrecaire left John's service, but Girard and his kindred came to England where sheriffdoms and castles awaited them; their enormities there have been revealed to all students of English history by the publication of the Gloucestershire Plea roll of 1221, and may give us some idea of the indignation and misery caused by their rule in Touraine. It cannot be denied that if they were outcasts they were successful, much officialised outcasts, efficient soldiers and vigorous administrators.

Yet, if we think of the companions of a mercenary chief, it is clear that a prudent king would have kept the routiers at a safe distance, well outside the official circle. The company or ruta 2 of warriors with their families, or, to use the offensive phrase of the great charter, their litters (sequela), fastened upon a countryside like locusts. They spared neither churches nor monasteries; and even large towns were not safe from their attack.3 Although they were more terrible when no strong king could bind them to his interests and exercise some sort of control over them, their licence was fortunately a frequent cause of their undoing. As each band was separately organised under

1. That Lupescar was a bailiff is clear from the writs addressed to him, e.g., Rot. Norm., 103, 105; Rot. Pat., 24b, 25b, and especially 32b, but the nature and extent of his duties are not clearly defined.

2. So called in John's letter to the ruta of Martin Algais, Rot. Pat., 20b.

3. For a strange and confused tradition of an attack by the routiers upon Poitiers, see Lecointre-Dupont in Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de l'Ouest, 1845, xii, 117-119, 209-216, and the authorities discussed there.

rival chiefs who had no interests in common,' they did not form any coalition sufficiently durable to be dangerous. They roused against them, if all other restraints failed, the irresistible strength of popular desperation, such as inspired the sworn associations which were organised by the carpenter of Puy-en-Velay about 1182.2 Even if they were in the service of a great king like Richard, they were none the less regarded as feræ naturæ. For example, after the truce of 1199, when Mercadier and his troop were on their way southwards from Normandy, they were attacked by the vassals of Philip Augustus and suffered much loss.3 It is significant that King John had to bind his Norman barons with an oath to defend and maintain the hated Louvrecaire while he was in the royal service, and to insist in return that the mercenary should refrain from acts of annoyance and damage to the men and lands of his own subjects. 4

The routiers undoubtedly did much to deprive the Norman wars of any national character that they may have possessed. They were detested by barons, clergy, towns and peasants. "Do you know," asks the Marshal's biographer, "why King John was unable to keep the love of his people? It was because Louvrecaire maltreated them, and pillaged them as though he were in an enemy's country." One evil bred another, so that as the king lost the esteem of his subjects the mercenaries gradually became the mainstay of his strength. In 1204 they held the most important posts in the defence of his dominions.

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1. Mercadier was murdered in the streets of Bordeaux by a follower of Brandin, April 10th, 1200 (Howden, iv, 114; cf. Richard, Comtes de Poitou, ii, 370-1).

2. Anonymous of Laon, ed. Cartellieri, pp. 37-40; Luchaire, La Société française, pp. 13 seqq.

3. Howden, iv, 80. King Philip repudiated the act.

4. See the letter of November 7th, 1203-a critical period-in Rot. Pat., 35b. John of Préaux seems to have been the special object of Louvrecaire's attentions.

5. Guill. le Maréchal, iii, 171.

A chronicler of Limoges refers to their defeat at Noaillé in that year as a deed which first broke the power of the king of England in Aquitaine.1 John spared no effort to retain their services, and the peculiar privileges of the bands must have caused much annoyance to the decent vassal who was limited at all points by duty to his lord. Their booty was specially protected 2-and very precious booty it often was, of treasures which no good Christian would dare to take. They kept their own prisoners.3 Castles and lands were given to their leaders. Both Mercadier and Louvrecaire became, so far as lands went, barons of Aquitaine: the former received from Richard the land of Ademar of Beynac in Périgord; and Louvrecaire was put by John in the temporary possession of fiefs in Gascony. It would be tedious to collect the records of grants in land and money which were showered upon Algais, Brandin, Girard of Athée and the rest. Some gloomy satisfaction may be derived from the thought that John found pleasure in their company. There is probably much truth in the tactful letter which he wrote to the troop of Martin Algais after their leader's capture; he had, he says, never been so grieved by anything; he thought more highly of Martin's service than of the service of any other man.6

Many questions about the mercenaries remain un

1. Chronicle of Saint Martin of Limoges in Historiens de France, xviii, 239, “et sic brachium Regis Angliae in Aquitania primo confractum."

2. e.g., Rot. Pat., 21b, 24a.

3. e.g., Ibid., 15. Robert of Vieuxpont to deliver to Hugh of Gournai all the French prisoners taken in war, except those taken by Algais.

4. Géraud in Bibliothèque, iii, 424, 444; Richard, Comtes de Poitou, ii, 321.

5. Rot. Pat., 30, May 27th, 1203: "delecto et fideli nostro Lupescar commisimus Riberiac et Albeterram ad sustentandum se in servicio nostro quousque ei ceteram gwarisionem assignaverimus."

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answered. We should like to know something about the size of their companies, whether they had fixed wages,1 the nature of their life in common and of its rough rules. It would be interesting to learn the composition of that army" which Mercadier boasted that he had led for King Richard. But we have to be content with the generalisations of hostile chroniclers. Of the leaders themselves much more is known. Philip Augustus depended largely upon a certain Cadoc, the rival of Mercadier in popular estimation.2 Cadoc first came into prominence in 1196, when he defended Gaillon successfully against Richard. He was afterwards constable of this fortress, which was ultimately granted to him in full ownership together with the neighbouring Norman fief of Tosny. He joined in the siege of Chateau Gaillard in 1203, and helped to take Chinon in 1205. Under the French administration of the duchy he became bailiff of Pont-Audemer, and was an imposing and much hated figure in Norman politics for many years.3 On the Angevin side the most striking adventurers were Mercadier and, in John's reign, Louvrecaire. Louvrecaire, who was in every way detestable, fought for many masters. He deserted John after surrendering Falaise in 1204. Mercadier was of a nobler type, a fit companion for the king with whose history his life is bound up. Towards the end of his life he described his relations with Richard in a charter which he issued on behalf of some monks in Périgord. He refers to himself

1. According to William the Breton, Phil., lib. vii, ll. 396-398 (Delaborde, ii, 192), Cadoc's band received £1000 a day

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but it is impossible to believe this. It is true, however, that very large grants to Cadoc, one for £4400 in Angevin money, are recorded in the accounts of Philip Augustus.

2. Cf. the anonymous French chronicle in Historiens de France, xxiv, part ii, p. 738.

3. Delisle, ibid., pp. 130*-133*; and the authorities there given.

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as the famulus of the king: "I fought for him with loyalty and strenuously, never opposed to his will, prompt in obedience to his commands; and in consequence of this service I gained his esteem and was placed in command of his army." He had been with Richard in the Holy Land, and was at this time about to enter upon the strenuous conflicts which filled the last three years of the king's reign. During this period he captured the bishop of Beauvais, invaded Brittany, shared in the victory at the bridge of Gisors, plundered Abbeville. His co-operation in the plans of Richard's new town at Andeli was commemorated by the name of the bridge Makade; his physician attended Richard at Chalus, and he is said to have shown his grief at Richard's death by the torture of the man who killed him. After a year's active service with the old Queen Eleanor he was murdered at Bordeaux on Easter Monday in the year 1200.

In the course of his faithful service, Mercadier caused great suffering and destruction. Indeed nothing shows how precarious and artificial was the unity of the Angevin empire more than the fact that such men as he was were required to hold it together, and were entrusted with important posts in the civil and military administration of its various parts. The history of these years enables us to understand still more clearly why in the century which followed, the struggle for constitutional reforms in England was bound up at every point with a hatred of all alien influences.

III.

Contemporaries were astonished that Henry II and his sons were able to bear the financial strain of their numerous

1. Géraud, in Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Chartes, iii, 444. For Mercadier's domain in Périgord, see above, p. 341.

2. This follows from Richard's letters of credit, dated Acre, August 3rd, 1191, addressed on behalf of Mercadier and others to a Pisan merchant. The letter was edited by Géraud in his article upon Philip of Dreux, the bishop of Beauvais, Bibliothèque, v, 36.

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